Sovereign

“Lieplatzan remnant forces surrenders en-masse! Over the course of the weekend, Lieplatzan Army Formations that held out near the Kaltic surrendered to the OAF in record numbers. It is estimated that approximately ninety percent of the original Lieplatzan Armed Forces had now either been defeated or surrendered to the OAF (Orlish Armed Forces) or to the AFOF (Armed Forces of the Orlish Federation) in the east of the country. Orlish forces also uncovered what could possibly be the most shocking case of mass atrocities in human history, with the Lieplatzan Protection Corps allegedly conducting an attempted mass femicide against a hundred thousand or more of the Lieplatzan High Nobility. Camps in the northernmost, nearly frozen lands of Lieplatz have been found or liberated, with estimates of up to fifty to eighty thousand women and children in critical health due to abuse, mistreatment, starvation, and mass executions conducted by the Lieplatzan Junta in a ‘revenge attempt’ against women.”

- Geopol Press

“Remaining non-essential civilians in the Archduchy of Löt, especially in urban areas, are urged to evacuate immediately, as they will be relocated to West Orland Refugee Zones by the Royal Guard and other participating government ministries and agencies. The rebel air force has now bombed three major urban centers, alongside Thein for the past few days in an indiscriminate manner, utilizing thermobaric, incendiary, and even white phosphorus munitions in what is clearly an attempt to terrorize Löt’s civilian population. The OHC has also issued warnings that the entirety of the Archduchy will soon be designated as a critical frontline zone, and that citizens should not be present in ‘a possible target of rebel offensives’ once the winter lull ends in the frontlines for their safety and well-being.”

- ROCN News

+++

Northeastern Lieplatz

3rd Knights Detachment Unit

2nd Combined Arms Battalion (RGO)

H Company

Captain Henrietta Lurois shivered as she left the turret of her tank. They had just stopped in front of one of the liberated camps. The spearhead formations of the OAF had already captured it a day prior, but they had to continue their trip forward, temporarily leaving the camp almost unattended for four hours, until now.

Henrietta couldn’t have prepared herself just by reading the reports by the time she laid her eyes on the young girls who stared at her from the barbed wire.

And neither did the dismounting troops and personnel of H Company. They couldn’t believe that those men had truly done this. Henrietta tried to stop herself from violently vomiting, as an HMLV suddenly stopped right in front of her. It was from the spearhead unit, most likely, and out came two marines.

“Captain Lurois, was it?” The marine, who she assumed to be the leader of this squad, said. The second marine followed him, a corporal it seemed, judging by the rank insignia on his uniform, and both of them seemed devoid of emotions as they looked at her and the members of H Company. “I’m Sergeant Mark Higgs, we’re to liaise with you once you arrive here.”

“I…I appreciate that, Sergeant Higgs,” she looked at the other marine.

Immediately, he named himself after her. “Corporal Oakley Fried, Captain.”

“Okay…” behind Henrietta, her XO, Lieutenant Hannah Veraldine arrived, just as horrified by the scene in front of her. “Lieutenant Veraldine, can…can we do something about this?”

The woman seemed to have placed a handkerchief on her nose, but she replied. “They…we bought some medical supplies, food, and water when we were notified, but I don’t know, with this amount of civilians…”

“If we can do something, then we’ll do something,” Henrietta said. “Move everyone capable of using healing magic, which means…well, everyone, and order them to herd the civilians orderly. Get them some first aid, and everything they need. The rest of the 3rd KDU should be here in a few hours to help us, so just expend everything if need be.”

“Yes, Captain,” Hannah replied, and she immediately dashed away, just as Henrietta’s Lieutenants exited their vehicles. Many of her soldiers already made their way straight inside the camp, bringing in food and supplies to the children and the elderly. “Sergeant?”

“The thing is, Captain, we have a bit of a complication, actually,” Sergeant Higgs said. “This area is densely forested, and due to the orders of the Queen, every unit is speeding straight north without rest, leaving our rear almost unguarded. Our task here isn’t actually to help people, but to keep this camp secured until reinforcements arrive.”

“I know,” Henrietta said. “They already told me.”

“Your soldiers are breaking combat protocols. We’re vulnerable.”

Henrietta looked around. Indeed, her tanks were the only ones that seemed to be driving to surround the perimeter. Well, her vehicles were, the IFVs included. But the rest, her infantry, all of them, seemed to have forgone even looking out at the perimeter. Many just rushed to aid the civilians. Still, Henrietta refused to order them otherwise.

“Our armor should be sufficient at guarding the perimeter,” Henrietta retorted. “And these people need help, Sergeant. Please understand that.”

“If that’s how you’d like it then,” the Sergeant said. He looked back at his Corporal. “Corporal Fried, get back on the HMLV, we’ll continue patrolling the perimeter. Captain, can we get your frequencies?”

“Of course, sure.”

“Yeah, we’d keep our eyes peeled. Maybe you should also send some of your squads to get some eyes around the woods. We can’t be too sure. Those tanks are blind as a bat against camouflaged guerillas.”

“I understand,” Henrietta replied. Just then, her eyes turned to the walls of one of the watchtowers. On it were lines of dead men, soldiers, she could tell. Possibly, the corpses were of PC troopers. “What…happened to them?”

The Sergeant however only blinked, before looking back at the mass of bodies. The corporal, named Oakley, she remembered, gave a monotonous reply. “They resisted.”

“What?”

There was nothing on his face that elicited even a tinge of hesitation at discharging his words. Words that confirmed the crime their unit committed.

“They resisted. Our battalion took care of it, that’s all there is to it.”

“This…this is a war crime!”

“And this isn’t?” The Sergeant subtly pointed his hands at the girls still being given aid by Henrietta’s soldiers. “Live by the rifle, die by the rifle. It’s the truth for us men. We only gunned down our rabid brothers. That’s our mission here, isn’t it? That's why you sent us here. That’s our forever mission, from the Great War, to here.”

“That—”

“Is the truth,” the corporal said with finality. “Sarge, I think we should resume patrol duties. Get our job done.”

“Right,” the Sergeant turned around. “Let’s just finish this bullshit. Get back to the HMLV, son.”

“Aye, sarge.”

“Wait, you can’t just—”

“Just a part of our job, lady,” the corporal said. It seemed that these men truly had no care for rank in the Royal Guard. For a lowly enlisted man to treat her, an officer, this way, Henrietta was slightly offended. Still, she could understand. It was clear that no one in the OAF viewed them with any sort of respect. “Welcome to the frontlines.”

Not that we aren’t the same. They returned to their HMLV and drove off. Behind her, Lieutenant Veraldine was already speaking badly about how disrespectful “those war criminal savages” were. Especially when more and more of her underlings checked the massacre site, already horrified at what those marines did. We really aren’t.

+++

West Orland

Amelie struggled to face the three men in front of her.

All of them were PC officers that the OAF and the Royal Guard apprehended. One of them led a corps-sized formation of the PC and was arrested by Orlish Marines after being surrounded. One of them was a commandant of an extermination camp. And the last one was an administrative officer that was said to be responsible for finding and rounding up the arrested (and many, executed) women that the Protection Corps targeted.

All in all, she was facing three, bloodthirsty, war criminals. She tried searching for any sort of remorse in their eyes, but there was none. The camp commandant even held a sadistic smirk as he leered at her, and Amelie almost felt violated by it.

Ugh, why am I even doing this?

She should have just left it to the RIU, or to the interrogators of the NID and the AFI, but, well, technically, these men had already been on their fair share of “enhanced interrogation techniques” before they reached this place. Those bruises, wounds, and…well, one of them was even half-conscious due to his injuries, which showed that her intelligence agencies weren’t particularly keen on being kind to these men.

Yet they didn’t spill any answers.

Not that these men seemed to care. No…it was as if physical pain was nothing to them. They truly seemed like dead, sadistic, monsters that walked. Amelie wondered if General Richstoff was no different.

Perhaps he really isn’t.

“Do the three of you really not know where General Richstoff is?” Amelie cautiously asked. No answers came until one of them responded. He styled himself as “Group Leader Herwinn Seidel”, and was the same guy who commanded the corps-sized formation of the PC.

“That man,” he laughed. “Is not someone you’ll find. In fact, why even find him?”

“You’re all war criminals,” Amelie replied. “And all of you must be found and put into justice.”

“I say all women are war criminals,” he retorted with a laugh. “The only difference is, none of you do it yourself. You’d rather use us. Your armies are nothing but your puppets to commit crimes you cannot do.”

“I have not, and have never ordered a mass killing of civilians,” Amelie said. “But what am I even doing? Reasoning with lunatics is impossible.”

“Oh, you women do it a lot,” he said. “You just conscript them first. Then they’re no longer civilians. Makes washing off the blood from your pristine hands all the easier, doesn’t it?”

Amelie’s blood fumed. “Tell me, where he is now.”

“This Queen is a funny woman,” the commandant said. “She thinks she can make us answer herself. I wonder if she feels all-powerful right now that our hands are tied and we’re beaten.”

“Did you feel powerful when you killed those defenseless women, Commandant?” Amelie couldn’t help but say his rank with nothing but poison. It sounded so disgusting for her to even utter.

“Defenseless? Ha! They resisted. With their wands. Twenty-thousand PC volunteers have died since the start of the internal war at the hands of resistance groups. If you think about it, can women even count as civilians when all of you are walking biological weapons?”

“Biological weapons?!” Amelie was astounded by the sheer lunacy of this man. How could he even refer to them that way? “Is that how you view us?”

“We men require a weapon to kill. You require only your imagination, to weave the fabric of reality, and command it to kill us,” the commandant said. “Dangerous biological weapons. In a way, monsters. Look at our world since your magic appeared. It corrupted it, and as a consequence, only we suffered. It’s clear that to end it, we must cleanse magic in its entirety, and it can only be done in one way.”

“You’re mad,” Amelie stood up, almost retreating from them. “You three are mad.”

The administrative officer stared at her with nothing but a clinical gaze. “Look at her, all bothered by men in handcuffs. Fascinating.”

“What are you even—”

“It’s fascinating. That’s all I can say. Even your halo is glowing ever so slightly. Our experiments led to a lot of fascinating discoveries, did you know? You women and your powers are fascinating. Shame, we cannot learn more, now that our operations have ended.”

“A lamentable end state for science,” the commandant added. “Truly lamentable.”

“It’s a shame they’re shooting our researchers,” the Administrative officer replied. “Truly, they’ll do everything to frustrate our efforts.”

“Your scientists conducted unethical experiments on innocent women!” Amelie was already almost crying as she ran out of responses to these madmen. “I don’t blame any of my soldiers for doing it!”

“I think this is enough,” William said in a detached tone when he caught her as she backed away. “I still don’t understand why you would want to even converse with these kinds of people. You really are a strange person.”

“I…”

“Men, get them back to their cells,” William ordered, as the armed agents of the OPM (Office of Preventative Measures), mostly members of William’s 16th Armored Battalion, who all continued to act as her personal guard under the OPM, rounded up the three lunatics. Amelie looked back at William, as they left the interrogation room, and returned to the white-lit, almost clinical halls of the OPM’s headquarters.

“William, those people…they really are wrong in the head,” she said. “How can someone even…be that way?”

“That’s not a problem of my agency. Regardless of their mental insanity, we’d eventually extract what we need,” William replied. “Hopefully, they aren’t dead by the time we’re done. We’re already interrogating hundreds. If none of them cracks, then I hope the AFI, NID, or RIU’s field agents up north can find him.”

“William…is this really right? We’re basically…torturing them. We’re almost doing the same thing that they did.”

“Probably not,” William said. “Do you want me to stop it?”

Amelie looked back at the interrogation room. She couldn’t give him an answer.