Chapter 1 - Grabbing up the pieces: Expedition

The main question was how on earth we managed to mobilize more than 10 million troops in a week and a half. The answer was simple. We didn't. You can't train a soldier in a week and a half. But you can teach a civilian how to use a gun, how to fire it, and how to follow orders. And that's what we did. Against a conventional army, they would be wiped out, but against monsters combined with a new doctrine and relatively few regular units. That was more than enough to get started, and hundreds of millions more would join them as soon as we found weapons for them.

Interview with General Janusz Kowalski.

=location: Ruins of Warsaw, 12 days from the invasion=

While the fighting on the planet continued, the UEG command prepared plans for a counterattack. Early dispatched drones and robots confirmed that the other side of the portals was breathable, and even conducted tests with volunteers that confirmed the possibility of passage and studied the topography of the area.

It was so... empty.

There was almost nothing on a circular plane with a radius of 500 km, about the size of France. Apart from a few hundred structures that looked like little more than mere hills, the area was devoid of life. There was no sun there all the time, and the red sky didn't help, although it gave some light. This area was surrounded by water, a bit like a river 10 km wide and at least one deep, and connected to similar areas by giant bridges.

But the areas connected by bridges had either that, or they were dripping lava, some pink substance, floating stones, or floating toxins. There were either rising structures or ruins, destroyed by time or lava or something else. In addition, they varied in size, and a quick observation showed that the plane whose dimensions led to Earth was the largest previously seen.

The area was empty for now, but one of the drones picked up a huge army of monsters heading toward the area, presumably to attack Earth again.

Columns of tanks, IFVs, APCs, trucks, and soldiers stood in the ruins of Warsaw, waiting for the order to move. The new doctrine was to be tested by a small number of Russians with a few RT-2PM Topol.

General Janusz Kowalski was walking to one of the tanks, with a microphone to his ear, he spoke directly to each soldier who had the radio on - "United Earth Government soldiers. We are facing the greatest challenge in human history today. The enemy is the monsters who seek the total extermination of our species, with more armies coming toward the portals. But we will NOT allow any of them to pass through this portal and attack us again. We, humans, have always followed certain rules and limited our destructive potential. But now it must be released completely. So get ready because we're going to bring divine punishment to these creatures. Never threaten us again! Pro humanitatis gloria! (For the glory of mankind!)."

"Pro humanitatis gloria!" - the soldiers shouted back and repeated it many times. It is not known who first used these words or where, but the UEG military adopted it as their new/temporary/unofficial motto.

The new UEG flag adopted most of the characteristics of the old UN flag, but instead of two olive branches, it had a red shield and began to wave over dozens of vehicles, alongside the flags of Poland, Russia, and many others.

Janusz got down from the tank to his command vehicle and shouted - "Go!"

The armored columns began to pass through the portal and parked in hell. Within 30 minutes, nearly 100,000 soldiers with a huge amount of equipment and supplies had passed through the portal, with hundreds of thousands more about to move.

Within an hour, these forces had come within 100 km of the monster army. At that time, the general ordered the preparation and launch of the atomic missile. Accuracy was hopeless, but it can miss by a kilometer or two, and the effect will be the same, enemy forces annihilated.

The cloud of radioactive dust on Earth was for some reason not radioactive in this dimension, which was proven by research, i.e. blowing up some atomic weapons there, which also for some reason did not cause any damage on the ground, despite the visible leveling of some ruins on the neighboring island.

Soon after destroying most of the monster armies, the remaining ones continued their attack and quickly fell to the onslaught of holy ammo, weapons, and UEG vehicles. What was it dedicated to? As most of the soldiers came from Poland, at least for the time being, mainly through Catholic rites, but also a few Orthodox and one Muslim from a group of Tatar soldiers. The monsters couldn't even get past the firepower and fury of the UEG soldiers.

=location: Shield Fortress, 20 days after invasion=

More forces were pouring into the realm of monsters. In total, over half a million. Many more were to come as vast tracts of Earth were being recaptured at an alarming rate. At the same time, everything switched to an all-out war economy, and many new vehicle plans were developed after they reactivated all stored equipment. They weren't modern things like the K3 or Abrams-X, but they were supposed to be much cheaper to produce and kept relatively simple so that they could be mass-produced. Civilian vehicles were quickly turned into military vehicles with millions of trucks commandeered for the war effort.

Several more monster attacks were quickly annihilated with UEG's new Mass Destruction Doctrine (MDD). It's mostly a simple WMD attack followed by a standard ground force strike.

However, not everything was beautiful. The enemy quickly began to adapt, turning a single attack of millions of soldiers into hundreds of attacks of thousands. The use of WMD on such groups was mostly wasteful, so ground and air forces had to carry out the attacks themselves. For the most part, this was with minimal casualties, but logistical preparation had to be greatly extended to ensure that the troops didn't run out of ammunition. Additionally, everyone was now expected to carry some light melee weapon. These were mainly quick-made spears. They weren't expertly built, but a quick combination of a good quality knife and a broomstick or some sort of gardening tool.

"General Kowalski." - said one of the soldiers entering his personal tent - "Generals Carlos Matsinhe and Andry Rakotoarisoa have arrived."

"All right. Let them in and then go back to your post." - said, General Kowalski. The soldier saluted and left. Seconds later, two generals entered his tent and saluted, while General Kowalski responded with a Polish salute.

The South African campaign began as soon as numerous WMDs arrived. They then quickly organized the remaining forces in the countries of Mozambique, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa, carrying out a campaign that nearly annihilated the remaining monster forces in these Region, and mustering a quarter of a million soldiers together. Most of these troops continued north, but a contingent of 50,000 was sent to support the campaign in that dimension. Generals Matsinhe and Rakotoarisoa were among the most important commanders in this type of endeavor, and for this reason, General Kowalski specifically asked for these two to come to this new front.

General Kowalski gestured for both generals to sit down, then did the same and said - "Gentlemen, it's good to see that the transport went without too much trouble. But let's get to the point. I've read the stories of the two of you serving in this war and you impressed me."

"No exaggeration, sir." - replied General Matsinhe - "There are certainly hundreds of commanders with our abilities."

"Most were killed in the initial attack, so the selection was severely limited." - replied General Kowalski - "And the others are currently campaigning on Earth or are already in this dimension. But to the point. Both of you are instantly promoted. General Andry Rakotoarisoa."

"Yes, sir." - Andre replied.

"You are given command of the 50,000 African troops who have come with you. According to the information provided, most of them are fresh recruits and due to the campaigns in Central Africa, you have no tanks and practically no APCs and IFVs. That is why I am transferring 4 K2PL battalions from your command, together with all the equipment needed to replenish and repair them. In addition, over 3,000 confiscated trucks and cars were. Be careful with the tanks, we can't produce too many at the moment."

"Yes, sir. What will be our first goal?"

"South, umm, the south we set is the passage to the nearest island to you. It has a diameter of 150 km and there are a lot of toxic rivers and such, but drone flights indicate that there are roads and areas free of these poisons. You have 72 hours to prepare your base, regroup and plan your attack based on the information provided. That's all."

"Sir, yes sir. I won't let you down. Pro humanitatis gloria!"

"General Carlos Matsinhe."

"Yes, sir." - Carlos said.

"You are immediately transferred to my command staff as commander of the logistics division. You have 24 hours to check in, review all information about your position, get acquainted with other officers, and all your details. Any questions?"

"Well, sir."

"That's it then. You may return to your duties."

=location: Gamma Island, 22 days after invasion=

A group of around 200,000 monsters tried to attack UEG positions on a newly conquered island. One nuclear bomb and that number dropped to 32,000 which kept attacking. The Nix faction, because they were the ones attacking, quickly began to take damage from artillery shells from UEG units. On this side of the island were 2 Argentine brigades, 1 Uruguayan brigade, and 1 Chinese brigade.

The newly promoted Major Dong Du commanded one of the battalions. His number was 600 soldiers with 4 ZTZ-96A/B in support of his 16 ZBL-08 IFV version and another 20 converted civilian vehicles and his personal ZBD-03 Command Post.

"To all, we are withdrawing. Tanks and IFVs are to cover the retreat." - Dong shouted into the radio when he saw that the enemy monsters had approached within 100 meters. The constant fire would slow them down considerably, but at least 2,000 would reach his position and massacre his men in hand-to-hand combat. He then addressed one of his officers directly - "Huang, send a message to nearby troops about our retreat."

"Yes, sir." - Huang replied and quickly got to work.

Meanwhile, the soldiers quickly boarded their vehicles as the tanks and IFVs continued to fire. They managed to get away literally seconds before the monsters reached their lane.

"Sir, a message from command!" - Huang said suddenly - "They're sending a TAM tank battalion from the Argentine forces. 20 trucks with infantry are traveling with them. We should meet them in two minutes at G03. There we are to regroup and repel this attack."

"Lihua, what's the condition of our ammunition?"

"Not the best." - replied Lihua, another officer in Major Du's HQ - "Infantry should have an average of 2 magazines. Tanks and IFVs each have 20% ammo. If our allies don't bring extra ammo, we'll run out of it in a matter of minutes."

"They didn't report any logistics vehicles." - Huang said.

"Do we have any general news on the situation at the front?"

"Downloaded, but it looks like most of the attackers have been destroyed and only a few dozen wounded and killed in one of the brigades. The enemy had some form of monster firing some ice projectiles. They were quickly destroyed by tank fire."

"Sir!" - shouted the driver suddenly - "We are approaching the line of tanks of the Argentines. There is a hole between them through which several tanks can fit."

"Tell everyone to move through this hole to the rear of their formation. We'll regroup there."

Immediately the vehicles lined up in two columns and headed toward the allied formations. The tanks that were in the rear joined the formation of over half a hundred medium tanks and waited for the signal to fire. As soon as enemy forces were within range, UEG forces opened fire.

In minutes, a formation of several thousand monsters was ground down to several hundred with HE shells. Then the machine guns joined in and destroyed the remaining monsters. Then a group of 100 soldiers went to the corpses and made sure they were dead.

At this point, the remaining monster forces were completely annihilated and all that was left was to collect these bodies into a heap and burn them. An unpleasant task, but someone had to do it.

"I want a meeting with the officer in charge." - said an officer approaching Major Du's command car as he checked casualties from his staff. The major quickly walked over to the senior officer and saluted - "Sir, Major Dong Du reporting on orders, sir."

"At ease, soldier." - replied the officer - "I am Lieutenant Colonel Niguel Boni and I command the forces present here. I want to know why you backed out before you got permission."

Dong internally cursed. It is true that he withdrew without prior permission, and had no support troops been available, this force might have attacked another group of troops from the rear.

"Sir." - Dong began - "If I had continued holding this position, an estimated 2,000 enemy monsters would have reached my men's position and annihilated them in hand-to-hand combat. Additionally, I was aware that our reserves had not yet been deployed, so retreating to a tactically superior position was the optimal solution."

"You're right." - replied Niguel - "However, the enemy uses magic, how could you know that this information about the availability of reinforcements was not somehow drowned out? I've read all the officers' CVs, and I know you've only recently been promoted to the position, but you must be aware of the dangers that making such a decision without first informing the senior officers could lead to the annihilation of the entire division. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very good. Besides, I have no more grudges against your leadership. Now you have 4 hours to rest and rearm your men. After that, we'll move on to the next offensive. Is that understandable?"

"Yes, sir. My battalion will be ready in 4 hours."

"Very good, now-"

"Look!" one of the soldiers shouted suddenly, pointing to a pillar of light that appeared on the neighboring island. As quickly as he appeared, he disappeared as quickly.

"What was that?" - one of the soldiers asked.

"It didn't look like a nuclear weapon." - replied another soldier.

"Don't stare at the horizon, just get back to work!" - Lieutenant Colonel Boni shouted suddenly, calling the army to order - "Send a message to the command. We most likely have the 'Primum' protocol. They probably got it from the rest of the units, but it's better to be sure than sorry."

"Sir." - Dong suddenly said to Niguel - "What is the 'Primus' protocol?"

"We recently introduced it to the UEG armed forces. We are to use it when we encounter another intelligent civilization. You can say this will be our First Contact."