Sovereign

Northeastern Gallia

MN Frontlines

“Horizon-Actual…code…requesting…medevac…”

The malfunctioning radio was turned off by a Gallian trooper. The soldier sighed as he continued checking the broken HMLV. Inside, the corpses of what once were Lorathian soldiers remained, their bodies still so fresh that the Gallian knew they must have only died yesterday before this town was retaken by his unit.

He rummaged through the HMLVs ammunition stores, taking out both bullets and rifles. He even saw one LATPM-12 launcher, which still held its ATGM load. The soldier laughed, this was a good find.

Soon, he left the vehicle, carrying multiple boxes of .50 cal ammo for his squad to use. The town was not what it once was, merely a few leftover houses that stood amongst the destroyed rubble. On the streets, ruined vehicles, IFVs, tanks, probably a few dozen of them, both of their side and of the Coalition remained.

Even the bodies of the dead Larissan, Pozneki, Lorathian, and Gallian soldiers were still in the rubble. The Gallian soldier continued straight to their parked HMLV, where his squadmates stayed. They were either cleaning up the vehicle’s .50 cal machine gun, or their rifles or smoking to pass the time. The Gallian however waited before he crossed the road to reunite with them, as two Orlish M8 IFVs advanced forward at breakneck speeds straight into the direction of the next town just up ahead of them.

Hell…from here, when he looked over there, he could still see the rising black smoke, the yellowish glow from the fires, and the distant gunfire. He looked up momentarily as well, as two Orlish attack helicopters swooped overhead, charging straight into the dark burning night.

“Hey!” He shouted as he approached them. “Found what we needed!”

“Oh, damned finally!” Their machine gunner shouted jovially, as he approached and took the boxes of ammunition himself. “Thanks, man. Always the ever-good looter that you are.”

The Gallian soldier frowned. “Shut up. I’m just reappropriating allied munitions. It came from the Lorathians by the way.”

“Paid respect to the dead at least?”

“Eh, not really.”

“As expected of ya,” the machine gunner laughed. “Found any more stuff?”

“Yeah. They got one functional MANPAT over there. Think we’d need it?”

“Obviously,” the man said. “Grab it, we still got room inside anyway. We only have two left after all.”

“Alright, mind if you come with me?”

Their machine gunner entered their HMLV and placed the boxes inside.

“Sure.”

The Gallian soldier handed the other box to his comrade, who placed it inside again. He looked behind him. An Orlish Löwe tank just passed by them, speeding straight in the same direction that the earlier vehicles had taken. He sighed. Just hours ago, it was them that had to charge forward to take this town.

Now that it was secure, they would be afforded rest, while another unit pressed on forward. Tomorrow, he knew he and his comrades would be the ones charging into the fray again, or most likely, relieve the forward Orlish detachments once the inevitable Coalition counterattack came.

That would suck. He could die. Well, who was he kidding? Half of their battalion was already dead after just seven days of fighting. He already made peace with himself that he’d be dead within the next few days. Just a matter of time until he and his brothers in their unarmored coffin were hit by something.

And one that happened, well, it would be game over, and there would be nothing that he could do about it. Their soft-skinned HMLV was practically something that would be dead when it faced any determined opposition. So far, they had only met one actual tank from the Coalition, a Pozneki one.

They got lucky that it wasn’t looking when they stopped their HMLV and dismounted to engage. They got very lucky that they fired their MANPAT first before its turret turned to kill them in one fell swoop. The Gallian soldier however didn’t believe in luck when it came to these things. He knew that eventually, someone up top would order their unit into a stupid attack, or delay a maneuver that would save them from an attack.

“Heard what happened to 3rd Platoon?” His mate asked as they continued walking. “Shit was grim, man.”

“Yeah,” the Gallian soldier replied. “I dunno, poor sods drove straight into a convoy of Pozneki DMBs. I doubt we could have saved them.”

“Yeah, me too man,” the machine gunner said. Soon, they finally reached the downed HMLV that he looted earlier. Just as immediately, the two got to work “repurposing” whatever munitions the vehicle had. In fact, when the Gallian soldier looked outside, he could see that the same was already being done by their other comrades in the Company.

Quite frankly, it wasn’t a standard procedure to do this, but supplies had been badly hampered due to the intensity of the fighting. In fact, the lord knows where the frontlines even were. For all he knew, they were deep behind enemy lines at this point, due to how quickly everything was moving and dying in the front.

Thus, looting of their downed allied units during downtime was the norm. Would be a waste of good bullets and MANPATs after all if they didn’t. Especially when they needed as many damned AT weapons as they could get.

Unfortunately, when they were done, the only thing that the two could get was extra MREs, .50 cal ammo, rifle caliber rounds, and of course, the spare MANPAT that he took.

And as they walked back to their vehicle, the Gallian soldier could only sigh.

A damned war we are in.

+++

Northeastern Gallia

CFN Frontlines

A Larissan tanker opened his eyes.

He was underneath their downed T-18 “Orel” MBT, hiding in the only spot that he could after last night’s ambush. He didn’t realize that he had fallen asleep underneath.

I hear nothing…

Last night was a great terror, the Larissan tanker remembered. He was just the lowly driver of the team, the lowest ranked guy of the three strong crew of the T-18 MBT, the premier modern fighting tank that the Empire of Larissa—and now his new nation, the Confederacy, employed. Naturally, he got lucky that he managed to escape in time when their tank was struck and immobilized.

He remembered that their commander and driver remained inside their vehicle out of honor, telling him that they’d “hold them off” until he escaped. Well, he was unable to do that. Instead, when he got out of their turret’s hatch, the sudden machine gun fire forced him down on the side of the road, hiding like a rat until the battle ended.

Then, unable to find anywhere else to go, and unable to hide, he decided to return to their destroyed tank and hide underneath the dirt, hoping that the advancing enemy forces wouldn’t notice him.

He fell asleep.

He breathed out. Perhaps he should just bite the bitter pill and decide now to get out and surrender to them. Surely, they would accept that, right? The Queen of Orland had been kind to surrenderees. It was her entire thing. The men they fought last night were Orlish. He knew it, because he saw LSS Mechs in his gunsights, firing at them from the forests in the hills just on the side of the highway they were ambushed in.

The Larissan soldier however wasn’t sure. Their leaders told them all that surrender to the enemy was impossible. That each man would be better off fighting until their last death than be tortured by behind-the-line mages that would, “use heinous spells to extract information” from them.

It was…a scary thing.

Rumors said that because he and so many men rebelled, women were now creating new brutal spells that would turn them into animals, or suck away their souls to be analyzed for everything that they knew. It was almost like ghost stories, but magic was magic. He watched it do everything from heal a broken man, to freeze a hundred soldiers, to set fire to so many homes.

Battlemages had been said to be the angels that were the terror of warfare before the age of industrialization. With the revolution now in full swing…what if they were back? Would those Gallian mage soldiers freeze him painfully limb by limb if they captured him for interrogation?

I can’t…I just…

Slowly, even with fear in the back of his mind, the Larissan soldier tried crawling out of his hole. By the time he was outside, the morning light almost blinded him, as he laid his eyes to the disaster that happened last night. All around him was their entire company. Seemingly wiped to the last man.

DMB-5As, T-18 MBTs, more than a dozen of them, all reduced to wrecks in the fields. Seven of them were still on the highway too. One of the T-18s—which he remembered was the command tank of their company commander, also had its circular turret detached from its body, now lying on the field upside down.

He walked slowly until his feet mistakenly stepped on a corpse, and he slipped face down on the earth.

“Damn it!” He shouted as he rolled around. “Damn it!”

At last, as he lay down on the broken earth, he broke down, screaming profanities at the sky. Why had he been fated to be in this hell? Why was he alone here? Why had no one shot him dead and ended his misery? Why did he run when he could have died with his team together? Why couldn’t even do something as simple as surviving?

Why? Why? Why?

Why were they invading this nation? Why were they all dying again and again in these same damned fields where his grandfather and father died? Change, what change? There was no such change. Every different Empress. Every different leader. Even under their new “revolutionary” nation.

There was no change for men like him.

It was the same. Always the same for him and his brothers. Whether it was women on top or men on top, they’d always find themselves in these same fields, doing the most dehumanizing dirty jobs that men had toiled under for centuries. Hell…no…for millennia even. Just worsened now.

To be cannon fodder.

He gave up. His life was so cheap. So were the lives of his team. So was the life of the comrade that he had just mistakenly stepped on. What was even the point of going on now? All of it. All of their struggles were truly meaningless in this world. It didn’t matter if a young man was Gallian, Orlish, Lorathian, Pozneki, or him, a Larissan. It didn’t matter if a young man chose to side with the revolution or the counter-revolution. None of it mattered.

Their lives were as cheap as a mass-produced rifle round. They were all cannon fodder regardless of which side they chose.

“Change…” he laughed, mocking himself. “Why did I believe those madmen? They just want us to do the fighting for their revolution.”

It seemed that way after all. For all causes. For all wars that were fought. Everyone, men or women.

It always seemed like all they would want was to make him, and his fellow young men of his now battered generation kill each other in their forever wars.

Fight to “liberate them”, both sides would say. Yet…the ones doing the fighting would never be liberated from their misery.

It wouldn’t matter if he stood up again.

Perhaps, they had always lost since they one.

Never even had a chance.