War is a dirty business, but our business - General Gra Valkas Danorl Deyhan
Great Imperium Gra Valkas
June 25, 1947 G.V.C.
Dependent Territory of Leifor.
Leiforia
"What are you selling there kid?" Riddled the young boy was Lelan Lemul a rifleman from the 41st Infantry Division of the Gra Valkas Empire. A garrison division that is stationed in the capital of the former Commonwealth of Leifor.
The child, about the age of ten jumped slightly before replying in a slightly frightened tone, "Pipes please sir."
The soldier furrowed his brow "And where are your parents?" Seeing more fright he cursed in thought after Valkas and added in a very calm tone slowly in his medium knowledge of Leiforian "Don't be afraid boy, I'm just asking, a kid like you shouldn't be here selling pipes by yourself."
The boy looked at him deeply then lowered his head "My parents are dead sir."
Whereupon he surprised the soldier with his screeched, "By your fellow airborne motherfuckers who bombed our town." Then terrified, he fell to the ground and tried to apologize
"Sorry, sir, I hadn't..." he interrupted as to his amazement the soldier suddenly laughed.
"You have fortitude boy, you have it in you." He smiled at him showing his straight white teeth. He then bent his knees to equal his height. "Got anyone else?"
The boy after a long moment with a less fearful tone than a moment ago replied "Just my aunt and her daughter please." After which he bowed his head again "My aunt unfortunately is ill and cannot work as she used to, so she recommended me to her friend who has sorry had a tobacco store. He gave me the job."
The soldier nodded "And this cousin of yours can't help you?" The boy shook his head "No sir, she is only four years old."
Lelan looked at him a moment, then checked the price of the packs of cigarettes and asked so browsing, "And aren't you afraid to stand here by yourself like this?"
The boy shook his head "No sir, Mr. Byliyi where I work looks in here from time to time." Then he tilted his head slightly to the left and added more cheerfully, "Besides, this place is full of soldiers sir, no one is stupid enough to steal here."
Lelan looked around the square and had to admit the little one was right, compared to many other places this road was quite filled with military junk. And also the order was much better compared to other parts of the city, almost all the debris after the shelling of their battleship and the landing of the marines had been cleaned up.
"Alright boy, then give with five, don't wait ten of these Pryluks and five Parliaments" He pointed his finger for more certainty.
The boy nodded and packed the right amount into a commercial bag then handed it to the soldier with his right hand while he waited for the money in his left "That will be 240 Arlodes please sir."
The soldier pulled out his wallet and, after counting down, gave three hundred dollars on his hand taking the bag from the kid.
The boy quickly calculated the change needed and as he was about to hand it over the soldier stopped him "You know what boy, the change is yours alright?"
The little boy wondered "Really?"
Lelan nodded "Yes."
With a smile on his lips, the boy hid the money in his pocket. Then he waved to the departing soldier.
"The kids are cute." He muttered under his breath. "Just why do adults have to destroy them like this" He added as he moved a distance away from the boy towards his unit's barracks.
Lelan felt sorry for the kid, he himself knew what it was like to lose his parents at such a young age and be all alone because of it. His parents had ironically died in the bombing too. It was done by Cainite bombers when the Cainites struck a pretty solid blow against the Empire, turning his hometown into rubble.
Nothing was left of his home or family. Instead, he wandered the streets of the destroyed town and occasionally got something from his neighbors.
So thoughtful he did not realize when he reached the barracks of the 41st Division in the former capital of the Republic. The building itself was not very impressive, before the war there was a school here, but after the city was captured it was converted into barracks.
He nodded to the guard at the ruined gate that the marines had destroyed during the invasion by ramming it with a tank. However, he noticed Second Lieutenant Nordog Welo, the engineer section leader, looking at the gate and counting something in his notebook.
He walked past him without bothering him. He knew Welo didn't like it when he was busy.
He then quickly walked the distance to a former classroom converted into a recreation room for soldiers.
"Here you are gentlemen, as ordered" He said at the entrance throwing the bag on the table, his colleagues immediately rushed to the goods on the table.
Sam sat down at a table where three of his teammates were sitting. Seeing that there was a lively conversation going on with them he asked, lighting a cigarette and throwing the pack at one of them. "Something happened while I was gone?"
The one who caught it, shaved almost bald looked at him "You're not going to like this."
He furrowed Lelan's brow "What's not to like about Ctovir?"
"They're changing the governor of the territory." Said his other buddy Turhar who reached into a pack of stogies and lit one up.
"Well?"
"Well the guy they changed to is Major General Ained Tinwers." Finished by the third Merle with an apperance so good that the first thing you think of when you look at him is an idiot, only there is one problem, Merle is not an idiot.
"What the fuck?" He let the cigarette out of his mouth in astonishment, then started coughing. "At that retard with his moronic visions of racial superiority Gra Valkyan?"
"Louder Lelan, I'm sure they won't hear you." Added Ctovir sarcastically
"Who is there to hear me? A serial suicide? Someone is going to visit me because I'm telling the truth?" Lelan began ironically. Then he shook his head "Or maybe that asshole not diplomat Dallas has some fucking problem with me because I claim he's a brainwashed retard from the war?"
At this last the whole hall burst out laughing. There was no love for the higher command among ordinary soldiers. Not after the latter, as long as everyone understood that this insult which Paganda had shown towards the Empire required blood, but right away total war and annexation of both countries was a misunderstanding for them.
A complete fool's errand, a waste of time and money, but the hawks in this case were mostly blindfolded and couldn't see how the war against Cain had ruined the mighty economy of Gra Valkas.
Just the fact that they quickly dealt with an enemy army didn't cause much resistance in the population but if they just attacked someone who had a strong army and put up significant resistance morale would plummet to the bottom.
Lelan, meanwhile, lit a cigarette and began to reminisce about the events of a year ago.
HMS Ragre Taltastar (Grade Atlastar)
September 1, 1946 G.V.C.
West Sea
Second Zone of Civilization
13:45
Captain Luxtal Flynn watched with satisfaction as his battleship's guns annihilated the enemy ships one by one in a slow symphony of death.
"And this is supposed to be the fleet of a superpower?" Luxtal sneered.
"According to the intelligence community, yes." Said his deputy .
"That must be a very weak superpower" Luxtal replied contemptuously. And in confirmation of these the battleship's auxiliary guns had just sent another wooden and steel enemy ship to the bottom.
Not without reason, his opponent didn't stand a chance. To help you get an idea of what it all looks like, the Leiforsk fleet looks like it did in the mid-19th century, when sailing ships were replaced by steam ships.
And the Imperial Gra Valkas fleet was a late World War II/early 1950s fleet. It's hard for the Leifor to do anything about it, especially when you consider that there's an invasion fleet just beyond the horizon line of this world that isn't even in a hurry to help Ragre Taltastar.
Wait, what Ragre Taltastar? It's Grade Atlastar! Well, not exactly. In the Valkas language this battleship is called Ragre Taltastar, only the natives twisted the name somehow, then Mu did the same and so for the Poles and the Japanese it became the name, so later when they heard the original they understood that it was just a coincidence of the name with an astronomical phenomenon.
How did this happen? Don't ask, languages and their borrowing from other languages can mess up a lot, especially when you don't have the right sounds in a language and try to recreate it in a different way (Altarańskie Showg from Polish Czołg, remember?).
Coming back to the massacre, because it could not be called a battle. Luxtal was nevertheless bored with the whole massacre. Where is the attempt to fight here? Where is the testing of skills? After all, this is all different from shooting on the firing range only in that their targets are alive and they are trying to kill them.
The enemy had no way of hitting them, not when they mostly rely on side firing. The few remaining modern Leifor ships, on the other hand, were survivors from the IV Civilization War , and it was because they posed little threat to Mu because even at the very beginning of the war the Leifor were considered obsolete.
What was proudly called the Leifor Navy was mostly old ships that had previously been either one of the many museum ships, or training ships or reserve ships that were not removed from the fleet lists because of the requirements that HME imposed on the Leifor.
This was simply because Leifor was focused on land forces and air forces, while the navy was used mainly for coastal defense or to scare off someone weaker, and in order to fill the limit of ships needed these ships were artificially kept in reserve.
Many of them were in a really deplorable condition, and as befits a ship that was only on paper ready to return to service, in fact it was better to dismantle them and build new ones out of their metal and wood.
A big part of the reason for all of this was the tremendous development that has taken place in the last 30 years, which in a way caused the Leifor Navy to lag behind trends and to lose most of its ships in the previous era.
And everything that was modern and could be built was sent to the bottom by Mu and his allies.
Like the flagship Leifor which had just been blown up after the guns of the battleship Valkas hit its ammunition depot. The explosion was significant enough to pose the greatest threat to the Ragre Taltastar when the remains of the battlecruiser began flying in all directions.
And so right next to the side of Luxtal's ship fell one of the enemy ship's turrets.
"Well, their leftover ships have better accuracy than their artillery!" Sneered Luxtal once again. The bridge erupted in laughter for a moment then they went back to their work again.
Then he saw aircraft from aircraft carriers fly over his ship in great numbers.
"Oho, the carriers have arrived." Luxtal began contemptuously, he hated aircraft carriers and their crews, he considered them usurpers and destroyers of real naval warfare where powerful warships fought against each other and not some ships with planes as weapons.
Unfortunately he was in the minority, the main strength of the Imperial Fleet was slowly but inexorably leaning towards carriers which were more numerous than battleships, although this was in his opinion a scam involving the use of light carriers which were cheaper to build than full-fledged ones.
The planes, on the other hand, flew on despite Luxtal's complaints having their mission over Leifor to accomplish. The enemy fleet was to be sunk by the navy, well unless something was in the ports.
Which, despite appearances, is not so impossible, as the Ragre Taltastar ran into a patrol flotilla.
And so as more planes flew over the enemy flotilla stupefying the enemy, the rest of the invasion fleet emerged over the horizon.
Leifor Commowealth
September 1, 1639 C.C.Y.
Leiforia
General Staff
14:00
To say that the entire staff is acting like headless chickens is like stating the fact that water is wet and the floor is made of flooring.
Just yesterday it was reported that after a few hours of fighting Paganda fell, the last message they gave was this.
TO LEIFOR STAFF STOP
THIS IS OUR LAST MESSAGE STOP
THE ENEMY HAS JUST CAPTURED THE ALLOY CAPITAL STOP
THE KING LAID DOWN HIS ARMS STOP
MAY THE GODS PROTECT US ALL STOP
Moments later after getting the message, the signal dropped off and never returned. To make matters worse, no refugees from the country appeared. And all patrols in and sensors did not state that anything was coming from the allies.
The speed with which their protectorate fell nevertheless frightened everyone; even by the worst calculations they should have lasted at least three days.
They fell in three hours and thirty-three minutes. Paganda's last message at worst was the most consistent of anything coming from that side.
All communications quickly went from optimistic that they were mobilizing to panicky snatches of news of a sudden attack and the annihilation of most defenses.
Field Marshal Artur Jarow, on the other hand, listened to the panic in the staff as he walked to the meeting room. He was the altar of calm amidst the mess.
With his calm march through the corridors he reassured every officer in the building. Who, looking at the famous veteran of the Fourth Civilization War, the Lion of Verde, became hopeful and reassured and, of course, gave him honors, because who will defend the Leifor if not him?
"What a mess." He said at the entrance as he entered the command room. Drawing the attention of the officers in the room. "Which moron let the news of Paganda's demise spread through the headquarters?" He asked accusingly causing an uneasy silence of seriousness.
"No one?" He asked again deepening the atmosphere after a long moment. He looked around at the officers, their eyes saying everything. It wasn't me! Someone else fucked up! Don't make me the scapegoat!
Their thoughts were all too clear to the old Field Marshal.
Seeing that no one wanted to answer, he asked Colonel General Petro Savchenko, head of the Leifor Security Service, responsible for both intelligence and counterintelligence.
"General Colonel Savchenko, how did this happen?" He asked calmly pressing the word came about.
"Unfortunately the agent who was in the room was compromised. And had to be removed from the building along with that..." he interrupted seeing that Field Marshal Jarow was not getting any more cheerful at all.
"I understand. I hope you can resolve this problem." Jarow replied.
He then focused on the other officers. "Lieutenant General Nazar Korniyenko what is the status of the coastal defenses?"
The fatter officer in charge of the country's land defense jumped slightly, which would have gone unnoticed had it not been for the fact that he had a second fat chin.
In a surprisingly thin voice he said "The units responsible for the defense of the main ports are in ... mobilization constantly, we are drawing the necessary conscripts..." Seeing that Jarow was not satisfied with this he added "But the professional core is already ready to fight!"
The Field Marshal squinted. "Ready you say?" Korniyenko began nodding frantically.
"Good. Good enough, at least." Said Jarow calmly and in his mind he added the fat pig grazed. The Field Marshal didn't have a very good opinion of him, in his opinion he didn't deserve the general's epaulettes he wore on his uniform, the man had no imagination in anything. He constantly wondered how he got so high.
He suspected impure forces in this case because he could not imagine anyone being his back. He was pure mediocrity and a donkey. If he were at least a general devoid of imagination he would at least be up to something.
Or some lispy guy, that was better too. But how on earth did he get so high being so hopeless? It must have been demonic forces that helped him do it.
"Major General Artem Symochenko" The Field Marshal looked at the roaring officer of the youngest type of armed forces. The Air Force which made its debut after Mu showed the effectiveness of this tool in war.
The Leifor Air Force originally came from the Vivern Support Corps of the Land Forces, but it soon became apparent that while they were quite effective as ground support, they lost air-to-air combat to aircraft every time.
So they decided to build their own airplane, which didn't work very well, so they took the Mu machine, reverse-engineered it, and made it suitable for magic. Unfortunately, the problem was that when they introduced their own plane which was a copy of Mu's, their opponents switched to a new and better one, forcing them to repeat the process all over again.
And HME was reluctant to share technology secrets in this case for fear of leaking them to Mu.
Thus when the war ended Leifor was somewhat stuck with obsolete aircraft. And he was forced down the arduous path of developing them himself with laconic information from HME.
Mu, on the other hand, had no intention of arming his opponent.
And so after much suffering, they built their own magical-scientific aircraft using what they scavenged from the wreckage of Mu and Leifor aircraft or captured copies.
It was designed by the Antonov Brothers at their aircraft plant called Anton Aircraft Works and was named the Anton-28.
It was a wooden-framed biplane with fixed landing gear.
Powered by a Magic Rotary Engine with 9 Cylinders and 175 Horsepower, it sped up to 210 km per hour.
Armed with two machine guns one on the upper lobe, the other on the side of the fuselage.
It could reach a ceiling of 5,000 meters and its range was a modest 350 km.
It was not an entirely successful design, but compared to their opponents, the Antonov brothers built their machine from start to finish in the country with parts and raw materials produced by Leifor.
But what is it failing at? Well, in the tests it came out promising and even better than the other machines. The problem, unfortunately, is that first of all, too forcibly ignited engine and that in diving flight the upper panel tends to tear off.
But the machine was put into production and all technical problems were to be corrected as part of the elimination of childhood problems. This is slowly being accomplished, but in view of the fact that it went into production only a year ago, these and many other discovered shortcomings have not yet been corrected.
The machine has not yet had the opportunity to take part in combat, so this war will be its baptism of fire.
It was also a cause for concern because it was known to be much weaker than the Mu planes. What machines the Gra Valkas had was a mystery that had not been solved, and because of Paganda's stupidity, they would only discover it when they arrived.
Therefore, General Simochenko tried his best to prepare for battle. "Field Marshal, I report that the air force is standing at the height of action and has just begun redeployment to hidden airfields leaving the least worthwhile equipment on official ones to convince the enemy that they have destroyed our air force."
"What's the status of the refit?" Asked a bemused Field Marshal.
"Our most valuable air squadrons i.e. 1,2,3,4 a total of 40 machines consisting of our Anton-28s are already set up on new field airfields and prepared to intercept enemy machines." Replied the General.
The Field Marshal nodded for him to continue on.
The general stood up and started pointing at the operations map on the table in the middle.
"The 1st Squadron along with the 2nd Squadron are stationed next to the capital and will pursue any enemy who ventures into our capital airspace. They constitute the Pursuit Group." You could see four squadrons of ten machines each scattered over eight airfields. It was a safeguard that if the enemy discovered one of them he would not destroy the whole squadron but only half.
Then he showed another eight airfields scattered along the coast so that each wing had the support of the other half of the squadron within range. The ones in the middle were best because they could count on two wings of support.
"The rest of our best forces have been deployed for coastal air cover." Symochenko added.
"I see, and the rest of the force?" Jarow asked.
"It is currently undergoing refit, mainly our older machines and a special squadron of bomber planes" Simochenko replied calmly.
This special squadron was the first of its kind in the world. It preceded Mu and HME in this respect, but was not entirely the original Leifor concept, although the idea of building an aircraft solely for bombing was already theirs.
Mu was initially not too convinced by such an idea and their regular Terrien III aircraft (Marin's predecessor) was in practice a multi-role aircraft and could do quite well as a quite effective tactical aircraft.
It was not until the news of HME's attempt to build such a machine that they began the project of their own bomber aircraft.
Leifor was the first to put such a machine into action. The machine, as befits something that was created first, had many shortcomings as well as unsuccessful technical solutions, but it was their own original design.
The bombers, named Yakov R.11, were biplanes of mixed design. Powered by two forked engines with eight cylinders of 220 horsepower each.
It accelerated to 195 kilometers per hour. It was armed with three machine guns, one doubled for the rear gunner and one on the side of the fuselage for the pilot.
It could carry bombs weighing a total of 170 kg. It reached an altitude of 6,000 metres and its range in comparison with the Anton was twice as long because it was 600 km.
So far only 15 have been produced, creating a larger squadron than the usual 10 aircraft.
"Who has priority among them?" Jarow asked
"Bombers Field Marshal." Simochenko replied.
The satisfied Field Marshal nodded and just as he was about to ask another about the status he heard an anti-aircraft siren.
"They attack so fast?" Murmured one of the generals. And without a word General Symochenko stood up and nodded to the Field Marshal. The latter understood the gesture and waved his hand to move.
As Simeochenko moved to command the anti-aircraft defenses, the Field Marshal addressed the rest of the commanders, "We have no time, all actions must be accelerated, and now!"
The officers nodded and quickly moved to their command posts while Field Marshal called one of the colonels to start quickly organizing the defense plan using the old plan.
23rd Aviation Regiment of the 8th Bombardment Division of the Imperial Air Force Gra Valkas
A mile outside of Leifornia
Lieutenant Icer Nalmcadol calmly observed the great mighty capital city visible in its glory. It almost seemed a shame to him to destroy it. Almost. But an order is an order, a command he obeys as befits a good Gra Valkas soldier.
At least it was a plus that he was only piloting the machine. The one who put his hand to destroying the buildings in the city was supposed to be someone else.
"Hey, is Icer far?" Speak of the devil. The one who spoke up was his fellow Second Lieutenant Daam Renraw bombardier.
"We'll be over the target in a few minutes, anyway, why the hell would you ask me, that's what the navigator is for!" He shouted back.
"But I prefer you because you are at the helm and can see the target." Shouted Daam again.
Icer rolled his eyes and looked at co-pilot Rewdan Wodo.
"Well? I can't do anything about it, we both know Daam is a moron." Revdan replied.
Icer sighed and focused on piloting the Thorn Ricbanme A-52 Chemitll bomber.
It was a twin-engine medium bomber, the only one of its kind the Gra Valkas could deploy from carrier decks. It had a crew of six, and thanks to its two 1900 HP star engines it could reach a speed of 523 km/h.
Its maximum ceiling was 8500 meters. Its armament consisted of 12 large-caliber machine guns with a caliber of 12.7 millimeters. We this caliber are more closely known as .50 inches.
It easily carries more than 3,000 kilograms of bombs.
The A-52s themselves are much loved by their crews, and in the Great War between Gra Valkas and Cain they showed themselves to be the best bombers of their type. And the ability to launch them from carrier decks proved to be a valuable asset although not planned.
This allowed Gra Valkas to attack Cain from a direction they did not expect with their bombers. Especially famous would be the Dotltelo counter-attack where they first used this tactic to bombard their enemy's capital city called Okio.
The machine itself was so far produced in around 80 thousand units, of which currently in line service remained about a quarter. The rest were simply shot down or lost in other situations such as accidents.
Like today, for example, a couple of bombers failed to lift off after flying off the launch deck and crashing into the surface of the water.
Some of the airmen were rescued, some were not.
Smaller, when the bomber formation began to be more or less over Leiforia harbor the Leiforian anti-aircraft artillery played its first acts of the war.
"Fuck, how much of that stuff do they have in there!" growled Icer angrily as he and many other bombers flew over the harbor heading for the government district.
The fire was sufficient to cover the entire sky in smoke and fire. It was not without reason that the Leifornians, faced with the weakness of their own air force, concentrated heavily on anti-aircraft defense to weaken the Muan's advantage in this respect.
His child was the fire cities, or cities fortified to stop even the largest Mu air attack. Particularly infamous for this was the capital city, which had huge anti-aircraft defenses sufficient to wipe out even an air armada of thousands of Mu planes.
Of course it was an exaggeration, but the whole thing was designed to last for years, hence the Leiforian anti-aircraft guns had a much longer range to hit air targets at great heights.
Officially to protect against future and current Mu aircraft. Unofficially to be able to shoot down even HME flying battleships, hence the huge number of large caliber anti-aircraft guns.
The most famous of them all is the infamous 88 millimeter caliber cannon among the Muan.
Yes, those 88 millimeter cannons. Designed by the Leiforian to destroy the large Mu airships that they used as flying command centers, transports, or sometimes as bombers, it proved to be as effective at destroying Mu mechs and tanks as anything else.
And now these guns have once again rendered tremendous service among the vast number of other anti-aircraft guns in Leifor.
The first effective hits had already been scored over the harbor when Battery No. 8, directed toward the sea to strike both sea and land targets on the hidden peninsula making it difficult to detect, struck the first batch of bombers.
Icer and his plane were among them and he was very lucky because the shot intended for his plane was intercepted by another whose pilot involuntarily panicked and broke out of formation.
The 88 millimeter caliber bullet easily penetrated the fuselage and tore the bomber in half when the shrapnel hit the bombs. Only through distance and his skill did Icer not lose control of his Chemitll.
"Easy mission they said, it will be good they said." He began to mumble sarcastically under his breath Icer fighting with himself not to break formation.
"Who the fuck said those in Leifor would be easy to bomb?" Rewdan growled. At that moment, three more Gra Valkas bombers were shot down before their eyes.
"Intelligence assholes!" Shouted their navigator Semaj Tseb who moved forward to see what was happening.
"Then they've fucked up again, on their best day they can at most say the grass is green!" Revdan replied.
Normally the pilots would laugh, but not today and not at a time like this when they have a soul on their shoulders and are praying to God that they don't get shot down by those damn bastards.
"Customs they are, and supposedly they are savages!" Semaj said. The plane shook from the explosion near him.
"Well, don't believe what they tell you on TV because they always lie, and on the other hand the savages were those from that little island what was it like for them? Paganda? Heck, small and mean they got away with putting Gra Valkas in corners and it only took one raid and shelling from shore for them to give up after a few hours." Icer chuckled.
"Nom, but you can see they weren't lying about Leifor being strong." Semaj added.
"Well, yes," Rewdan agreed.
"Okay in a minute we'll be..." Icer interrupted when a loud sound of ripping metal from behind interrupted him.
"What the fuck waffle?" Rewdan quipped in horror
"I'll check it out!" Said Semaj after which he turned and quickly ran to the back of the plane.
He quickly came to the reason for the noise, there was a sizable hole in the hull and it was only through once again great luck that it hit away from the bombs.
Unfortunately that was the end of the good news, the noise coming from them was overwhelming and the shrapnel tore their bombardier to shreds and damaged the first bomb dropping mechanism. Fortunately the reserve one thought out for the occasion was still intact.
Rewdan looked out through the hole out of curiosity and was horrified to find that there were no allies on the right side of the plane and the closest ones were in the back covered in smoke.
"What's the fucking status!" Icer's shout came from the plane's radio. Semaj quickly stepped up to the microphone and shouted "Hopeless sir, hole in plane, mechanism damaged i... Daam is dead."
Both pilots looked at each other "Give him a rest, the idiot deserves it." Rewdan muttered. Icer merely nodded his head.
Daam, like many Valkans, was an orphan and initially hated both the Bombers, who took his family from him, and the Kainites. He later enlisted in the Air Force to become a fighter pilot, defending cities and towns from the Cain.
Unfortunately, fate in the form of wartime needs determined by an unnamed official decided otherwise and he ended up on the bombers and in the role he least wanted as a bombardier.
Malicious irony of fate, isn't it? At first he clearly hated the role, but with time he got over it and poured all his hatred for the bombers onto the Cainites, whom he wanted to take back to the Stone Age.
Not that he ever wanted to be a bombardier and so he kept requesting transfers to fighters but was always denied.
That's why he got the nickname Idiot, because only idiots flood military offices with transfer requests hoping to get where they want to go. It was very rare that someone like Daam without connections could do that.
"Alright Semaj, move your ass and open the bomb hatch and wait when we're over the target, you know which one you remember the maps the best of us!" Shouted Icer piercing the noise coming out of the hole.
"Understood." Semaj replied and started walking towards the bombardier's reserve positions. He stepped onto the pad between the bombs hanging from above with no problem. He took to the wheel and started spinning to the right to open the hatches.
When the hatches opened after a few moments he switched to the reserve sight and waited on standby trying to ignore the fact that one stray bullet and it would disappear because there would be nothing to collect from it.
"THIRTY SECONDS!" Icer shouted
"TWENTY-FIVE SECONDS!"
"TWENTY SECONDS!"
The pilot's countdown to arrival over the target plunged Semaj into a trance. Nothing but the target and the button mattered to him. A good Valkyrie follows orders... . A training slogan went through his head.
"TEN SECONDS!" The pilot's voice flashed through his head.
"FIVE SECONDS!" Semaj was ready, his finger sliding over the button responsible for releasing the bombs. Down below he could see a beautiful palace, for all he knew it was the imperial palace who despite Leifor being a de facto republic was the head of state.
"NO..." as soon as the pilot started, Sejam's finger pressed the button and the bombs went off with a sound identical to that of returning bowling balls for the player to take again.
Their clatter was reassuring to Semaj as he looked through the viewfinder.
Tap
Tap
Tap.
And bomb after bomb fell down through its hatch pulled by gravity. And Semaj couldn't tear himself away from the sight watching as the bombs released by him hit the ground again and again.
He smiled as the bombs fell on the anti-aircraft position that was trying desperately to shoot them down. His smile widened when the first bombs fell on the building.
He giggled mischievously when one of the bombs hit the vehicle plunging the courtyard into chaos as the palace servants outside tried to take cover.
The shrapnel flew to all sides below slamming into human flesh and tearing off body parts. And the shockwave threw humans, beasthumans, elves or dwarves like toys.
When the clatter ended and the last bombs fell to the ground. Semaj lifted his head from the viewfinder. He stared through it the whole time, something Daam only did under duress not wanting to see his work of destruction so before and after each raid he went to the unit chaplain to make his confession.
Semaj, on the other hand, with madness in his eyes and a frightening smile, threw forward not afraid that anyone would hear it. "A good Valkyan follows orders, for they are to him the sweetest sentence he will ever hear."
Leifor Imperial Palace
Air raid shelter.
Underneath the Imperial Palace was an air raid shelter for the imperial family and palace staff. The shelter was built on the basis of the Imperial cellars and was somewhat lower, although it had observation points which also served as shooting holes in case of emergency.
The shelter itself was well prepared in case the imperial family should come down here, so there were rooms suitable for them, food and water supplies, a toilet and a bathroom with a bathtub. And, of course, a magiradio station from which the emperor could deliver messages to the nation.
In one of the rooms that except for benches and a picture of the founder of Leifor and its first emperor there was only concrete and the young princess of Leifor sat in her seat in terror.
Despite the cries of her father, her mother, and the Imperial guards, she looked out through one of the vantage points to see what was happening outside.
It was one of the worst decisions of her fourteen year old life. Like a pillar of salt she watched what was happening. As shrapnel flew around, as people were torn apart, as they were thrown around like her dolls when she played with them as a child.
Screams of terror, rage and panic went through her ears and she couldn't tear herself away.
As much as she wanted to, she couldn't take her eyes off the hell. It started to make her sick when the raid was over, when she saw the effects of the bomb in practice. The car the Chief Butler had used was smashed to pieces, parts that had killed scores of people.
There were corpses and their remains strewn all over the courtyard. But what made her succumb to the guards who were forcibly trying to drag her away from the window was the head of the daughter of one of the maids who was terribly crying while holding the remains of her child.
For the princess it was also a blow, for this girl was her friend, her father wanting her not to live as detached as he and his siblings from the lives of ordinary people encouraged her to try to make sincere friends with her subjects of her own age rather than just her peers who were always stiff and in time few of them were sincere in their friendship towards her.
"Why?" It slipped out of her mouth, "Why did they do it?"
The mother who tried to reach her had no answer.
Unfortunately someone else had, one of the imperial guards. "This is most likely how they are trying to break our will to fight. The bastards will regret this yet."
Other guardsmen reacted to his words.
"Right, they'll get their due!"
"We're going to show them that Leifor is not to be messed with."
"Long live Leifor!"
The princess showed a rather cynical attitude. "Yeah, sure, we'll do the same thing we did before in the Fourth War, get slaughtered for other people's interests." Bunker fell silent at those words.
"But dear, it is a matter of our credibility and by extension honor if we did not support Pagan..." Her father tried to object.
But his daughter shouted. "To fuck with honor! We got into this like the Fourth War. Like prunes in shit that wasn't in our interest. This is the same thing! Why the fuck did we support a country that is known for its inferiority complex towards everyone around it! And worse than that we don't know about our enemy, we don't know how many people he has, we don't know where he even is!"
"SILENCE!" Silenced his daughter the Emperor, incidentally a character she inherited from her father. The princess murmured at the command of her father...no, the Emperor. There was not the paternal tenderness in his face as before when he tried to calm her down.
Now he was the man who had taken over power from his inept father. In fact, he agreed with his child, but he had to keep up appearances under the motto Emperor to Nation, Nation to Emperor, and submit to the will of the Parliament representing the people.
And his will was to support Paganda albeit by a small difference of votes, or more precisely one vote decided that Leifor supported Paganda.
"You will leave the capital, along with your brother and mother and some of the staff. You and mother will be the face of the evacuation of the civilian population." The princess nodded despite her desire to continue expressing her rage.
"If there is a worst case scenario, you will flee Leifor with the rest of your family along with the rest of the government, army and civilians to seek support abroad." Here he raised a clear wagging finger "And if necessary you will even go to Mu."
The princess dilated the pupils of her blue-green eyes. "But Father they..."
Her father interrupted "I know daughter that they slaughtered millions of Leiforians in the great war but the Leifor rationale is more important than your feelings and unfortunately knowing HME they will be rather unconcerned about our demise and will just get along with the Gra Valkas, Mu more funnily enough care more about us."
The Princess nodded, of all the Imperial family, she was the most well known and liked in Mu, she was so much liked that is when she supported the veterans' organizations of the Fourth Civilization War to bridge the gap between Mu and Leifor.
One of the streets in Mu's capital, Otaheit was named after a petition by a veterans' organization in Mu. With overwhelming support from city residents and by acclamation by a resolution of the Otaheit City Council, it should be added.
The princess knew and understood why and despite her inner panic poised she nodded her head slightly "Yes Father."
The emperor calmly accepted her agreement then turned to the commander of the imperial guard "Colonel, organize their guard and prepare the equipment for me, I will be speaking to my countrymen."
"Yes, Your Imperial Highness," Colonel Semen Boychuk replied.
In turn, the emperor looked at the painting inside the bunker. There was an elderly man in the painting, the painting was more of a painterly licencia poeta based on the appearance of the current Emperor's great-grandfather.
The painting itself as mentioned earlier depicted the already legendary first Emperor of Leifor Dmitri I.
He was a legendary man, who with his cunning and sometimes cruelty, which, as he himself proclaimed, in no way equaled the cruelty of his father Ivan, united the divided principalities of the former Leifor to turn them into a future power.
Unfortunately nothing is known about his parents, as if they never existed, but every record from the time says that he always behaved like a real prince.
The only thing that is known is a single written sentence in which the prince announced that he came from far away, from holy Rus, which his father, by the will of God, tried to unite into a whole.
The prince was supposedly in hiding after an assassination attempt at the hands of his father's servant Boris for a couple of years, so on his father's orders his death was faked and the remains of a random boy were buried as his.
He was supposed to reveal himself before his father's death and take over the throne but unfortunately he didn't succeed because Boris made sure of it, and what's worse there appeared a few years after his fictitious death a certain monk who pretended to be him and who set out on his father's throne to overthrow Boris and was supported by people whose White Eagle and White Knight on Horseback is their sign.
Eventually as Prince himself proclaimed he was moved here by the will of God to unite the Leifornians so similar to his Ruthenian.
Imperator, after seeing the painting, moved with renewed vigor to maradio to lift the spirits of Leiforians.
Leifor Commowealth
September 3, 1639 C.C.Y.
Leiforia
Rurykovichi Hills (Northeastern part of the city)
8:04
Three days, three long days were marked by heavy street fighting between Army Leifor soldiers and Gra Valkas Marines.
Dawn was rising over the city, but it struggled to break through the smoke coming from the burning buildings, some already burnt out burning since the first of September.
Despite the losses, the morale among the defenders remained at a relatively good level. Although a certain melancholy ran through them.
The result was a song of unknown authorship that quickly gained popularity among the defenders of Leiforia.
For it sounded like this.
On the first of September in that memorable year,
The enemy attacked the Leifor from the country of Valkas.
He got the worst of our Leifor,
Leiforia dear, you are a bloody city.
You used to be beautiful, rich, wonderful,
Today, only a pile of rubble remains.
Hospitals demolished, houses burned,
Where should the wounded people take refuge?
Bombs are flying from the sky, people lack bread,
Not only from the bomb, you have to die of hunger.
Bombs are flying, flying from evening to day,
There is no drop of water to put out a fire.
It described very well the current state of the city. Enemy bombers were attacking by day destroying every point of resistance one by one. Blowing up buildings and sinking ships in the harbor.
And the food problem was evident, the city was cut off by bombers who bombed every, but every column going into or out of the city.
The Valkas in particular have taken a liking to attacks on refugee columns all along the coast.
And the air force was powerless against it. Although with courage and without seeing their lives they did what they could, they were too slow and the enemy always fled higher.
Fortunately, the Emperor was still alive and mobilizing defenses, and his filibusters against the Valkas were eagerly repeated by ordinary Leiforians. Though the Emperor's entourage pressured him to leave the city out of fear for his life.
The Emperor replied "I will not leave the capital as long as the last soldier is fighting for it against the enemy."
As he said so he did, though the Imperial family had left the capital along with many of the people of Leifor shortly after the first bombardment. The family itself rushed over the northern border to escape abroad if necessary.
Meanwhile, soldiers of the Leiforian National Guard sat in hiding in the ruins of buildings on Dmitry IX Street in the Rurykovich Hills.
Unfortunately, even the huge anti-aircraft fortress that was the capital could not withstand the onslaught of the huge wave of planes sent time after time.
Hundreds of bombers attacked the capital again and again, destroying the defenders' fire positions, forcing the rest to hide like rats in the daylight.
At night it was not overly better, the huge battleship Gra Valkas shelled the city destroying many famous sites and turning entire neighborhoods to rubble which among Leiforians became known as Grade Altastar twisting the name from the Valkas language.
They knew this very well because they forced the name out of the Gra Valkas Marines captured in the night fighting from September 1 to 2.
They did this out of the sheer powerlessness they had against their opponent.
"Damn the Valkas! Fuck them all in the ass. Those fucking fags!" Shouted one of the soldiers.
"Shut up Husak!" He was silenced by the commander of his company Captain Artem "Striełok" Nikolenko.
He was an old warrior. He had fought in the Fourth Civilization War when most of his subordinates were in diapers. If for HME this war was a severe defeat and a humiliation of their pride, for Leifor it was a disaster.
Millions of Leifornians died in a desperate attempt to hold the line against the Muanese. This war left a mark on everyone and, as a result, on the very national mentality of Leifor.
A young generation of Leiforians grew up listening to stories of war survivors who gave everything for their homeland only to find that HME had turned a blind eye to their sacrifice. Peace was achieved, but at the expense of Leifor, who had to pay steep reparations and cede territory.
Because of this, relations cooled considerably after the war.
The Striełok, on the other hand, didn't hold it against his government. Too many of his colleagues had died in this damned war for nothing.
And now there was another war that Leifor got himself into again because of someone else.
He refrained from reminiscing by focusing on his command. He had 100 soldiers under his command divided into 3 combat platoons, a command platoon and a heavy weapons support platoon.
The First and Second Platoons supported by heavy machine guns and two ppc guns heavily fortified their positions along Dmitri IX Street.
His men were worn out by the night skirmishes and consisted of newly organized soldiers from various companies which due to losses were disbanded and incorporated into his.
The soldiers waited in silence for the enemy to attack. It was exhausting but no one felt like talking, and anyone speaking up was quickly silenced by the fellows next to them.
It was not until about ten o'clock that the first mortar grenades began to fall on their positions.
"They're macing us." Mumbled Striełok quietly. Bullets were falling left and right but generally missed.
And during this shelling, one of the soldiers began to hear engine sounds. "Corporal, I hear an enemy tank!" He quickly said to his commander.
The latter, in turn, quickly relayed this information to Striełok.
Strielo looked at the map, the tanks as seen were going to the intersection from Nova Street.
"Put one of the 45s in the backup position" The Captain instructed.
"Yes, sir!" The soldier replied and the gun crew moved their cannon to a position in the building across from the intersection.
The cannon was waiting on standby, it was one of the few things capable of piercing enemy armored vehicles. The first of its kind were created during the Fourth War against Mu mechs and their tanks.
Leifor itself, unfortunately, did not have tanks, but instead had armored trains that supported the defenders during the defense. One of the trains fought an artillery duel with the battleship Gra Valkas on September 1.
A duel which the Ragre Taltastar won easily by blowing up the tracks on either side of the train restricting its movement and then a salvo of main guns blew up the train which was stuck in the hills.
Meanwhile, the whirring sound of the engine grew stronger, and a tank crashed into the front of Valkas' position.
This tank looked relatively boxy and was quite tall. More specifically, the tank looked like a combination of square and rectangular boxes with round sides and front of the vehicle.
The tank was followed by supported infantry armed with self-repeating rifles and backed by a single-service universal belt-fed machine gun of frightening rapidity that quickly earned it the nickname Sawtooth among Leiforians.
The fighting style of the Valkas infantry was not overly sophisticated, the main axis of every attack and defense was the machine gun.
They were dressed in olive green uniforms, their equipment was suspended from trailers that were easy to put on and take off. In turn their helmets were like bullets cut in such a way that the helmet ended on the line of ears and eyebrows. At the same time each helmet was covered with a cover of the same color as the uniform.
To an outsider Japanese if he saw them he would recognize them as American infantry, with German MG3s and British Mark 3 helmets replacing their famous plates.
The tank, on the other hand, looked like someone decided to combine the Japanese Type 5 Chi-Ri with the American M4 Sherman.
Their rifles, on the other hand, were something very close to the Soviet SKS.
The anti-tank gun commander was just waiting for the enemy to get close enough to be able to put a shell into his weak spot.
The enemy tank although solidly armored on the front, sides and rear of the vehicle was rather thin. That's why it had anti-tank screens superimposed on the sides. An annoying obstacle but nothing that cannot be destroyed.
The tank stopped and the enemy infantry began to scatter for cover. As soon as they ran away from the tank a "OGON!" came out of the Captain's mouth.
And a salvo of bolt action rifles fired from the Leifor side. And then machine guns rang out and mortars began exchanging fire with the enemy.
Many Valkyans fell to the ground either to hide from enemy fire or dead and their red blood stained the asphalt.
It didn't take long for the Valkas to respond, the machine gun tank under fire fired a shot from its cannon silencing one of the Leifor's MGs.
And his two machine guns began to play their ghostly clattering tune toward the enemy position.
Behind them single Valkes rifles began to sound. With more vigor the infantry MG began to cut down the Leiforians.
The Leiforians were not indebted, the machine gun crew on the third floor of the townhouse diagonally across from the intersection began injecting magic into their rifle switching it from anti-personnel to anti-tank mode.
They then aimed at the position of the stubborn MG that had taken many of the leiforians and began firing as much as they could before the cooling spell put the weapon back into standard fire mode.
41st Infantry Division Gra Valkas
Intersection of Novaya Street and Dmitry IX Street
Bullets flew towards the MG operator tearing up the asphalt around Lelan and a few other soldiers around him lying flat. He quickly scrambled up and began looking for better cover.
"Fuck Ctovir cover me!" He shouted loudly. Then as Ctovir and the others laid down covering fire from behind the wall towards the MG Leifor ran off with those lucky enough not to get hit by the MG.
Those who were unlucky just lay torn into pieces of meat.
"Tough bastards huh?" Said Ctovir when Lelan reached him.
"Very fucking funny." Lelan breathed then welded himself to the wall and began firing shots from his SAR at the enemy. After firing 10 rounds he loaded a new magazine.
"Well there is no fuck in the village" muttered Merle who had just reloaded his machine gun then resumed firing.
"Lelan, Merle, Ctovir, move your asses, we're supposed to flank those suckers on the right." Suddenly Corporal Lark Leco called out to them.
The soldiers quickly broke away from the wall and ran with the rest of their squad led by Corporal Leco.
They quickly dashed through the small park between the trees avoiding shots fired in their direction although a couple of soldiers did get hit and either had to be dragged away to safety where a medic could attend to them or dropped dead when a limb was somehow severed from their body.
"What kind of bullets do they have that create such wounds?" A soldier chuckled, maybe Merle. Lelan didn't know.
They quickly made their way through a ruined tenement whose first floor was apparently a café. Then the corporal ordered one of the soldiers to check if it was possible to pass through.
This one quickly leaned out the broken window and began probing. He had to take cover right away when some leiforian spotted him.
"No can do sir." He replied.
"Okay, Merle, throw the smoke but so sharp to the left, then we all run from cover to cover." Said the Corporal. "Understood?" He asked sternly seeing no response.
"Understood Corporal!" In chorus, the soldiers replied.
"Well then Merle get to work!"
"Yes sir!" Replied Merle after which he positioned himself at the rest of the window and then threw a smoke grenade far hen.
The grenade fell and in a few seconds covered the entire street area with gray smoke.
"Go!" Corporal Lark said
The soldiers moved quickly and, taking advantage of the smashed cars and derailed streetcar, ran across and burst into the building opposite. Lelan who rushed in first was taken by surprise.
The civilians were in the stairwell, about to be shot. Six women, one wounded man, a couple of old men and four kids of both sexes were sitting in the hallway.
"Corporal, civilians!" He reported quickly.
"Get past them! And if they block the road use force and smash them!" Instructed without hesitation the corporal who had no time for a date with civilians.
Fortunately there was no need to use force, civilians seeing the enemy soldiers quickly stepped aside.
They watched frightened as the foreign soldiers went to leave from the other side of the tenement.
Then they walked out into the ruined courtyard of all those tenements along the street.
"To the left!" Again the corporal ordered. And the soldiers darted to the left, bursting into yet another hole-in-the-wall building this time.
As soon as the soldier in front of Lelan opened the door a shot was fired which killed him on the spot. The Valkyries then quickly stopped and automatically broke into the apartments on the first floor.
They then began exchanging fire with the enemy infantry.
"Fuck, they're here too!" A soldier shouted.
"It doesn't fucking matter, we'll get through them!" The corporal said.
He then reached out for an earpiece attached to a huge backpack that one of his men was carrying.
He began relaying status information to their sergeant commanding the entire assault. A quick and fierce conversation accompanied by gunfire, challenges and many other interesting sounds was ended with a smile from the corporal.
When he finished he threw the good news of the gospel of doom to his men, "Okay gentlemen, you're in luck, the naval aviation was just looking for new targets and we handed them to them on a silver platter."
The soldiers contentedly began to slow down with frantic gunfire. After a few minutes both sides heard airplanes.
These were the navy's famous P-15 Antares fighter planes, an older type in Valkas aviation but all too sufficient here.
Lelan watched from the loft through the hole as the planes approached. A signal flare fired by one of his comrades clearly marked where the enemy was and where the ally was.
The planes threw themselves into a diving flight and began firing rockets at the entire area where the enemy was located.
Machine guns were cutting like crazy across the open field.
And some of the machines had bombs that started to fall and Lelan heard a distant voice shouting .
Great Imperium Gra Valkas
June 25, 1947 G.V.C.
Barracks of 41st Infantry Division
"LELAN!" A loud female voice roused him. Lelan was waking up from his memories.
"What happened?" He asked not yet making contact with reality.
His buddies looked at him with a look of Still asking?
He turned around and there stood the Major of his unit Mae Bleka. Dressed in the standard uniform of a Gra Valkas officer, she looked at him disdainfully, a dark blonde woman in her mid-thirties who was tapping her right foot.
"Well finally the princess is back on earth." She sarcastically stated. "You have letters from home and more importantly I have a case for you."
Lelan quickly stood up saluted, which made his buddies laugh mischievously and then added "Understood ma'am!"
After which he took the letters from her hand. Major, in turn, added, "Today at 4 o'clock in my office is that clear?"
Lelan nodded and the lady major left.
"Uhu, our Lelan has a weakness." Ctovir began to sneer.
"Shut up" Lelan replied. He then opened the letter and began to read...
Mu State
Otaheit
Parliament Mu
25th June 1898 M.C
The young Princess Leifor smoothed out her gown of blue. She then checked her makeup in the handy mirror, then the style of her blonde hair.
Unfortunately just as she thought Leifor had lost. Her father died true to his word to Leifor not that he could have changed anything had he lived.
The enemy overwhelmed them technologically, in command style and worst of all in numbers. Even in the worst predictions the enemy was not supposed to have that many soldiers, planes, ships, tanks and so on.
Although the Leifor soldiers gave it their all, it took Gra Valkas only a month to annihilate all resistance from the regural forces.
The navy performed the worst and was sent to the bottom with almost no real fight. The army performed much better but that in view of the number of places IGV hit.
The Air Force, on the other hand, fought as hard as it could, but its losses were 4 Leifor machines shot down on 1 Gra Valkas. Although the idea of reassigning planes saved them from sudden destruction at airfields, such as the Special Bomb Squadron, which was captured when it took off.
A few planes managed to break out, but they were lost after the first air raid.
This could not work, all the divisions were tied up fighting and when they tried to support them the Gra Valkas aviation simply bombed them. Making it difficult to march forward.
Worst of all, when they broke through, Valkas sent their own fresh reserves to break through their reserve and frontline divisions. They sealed in dozens of cauldrons and pushed forward destroying everything they needed to fight in a frantic armored raid.
The cauldrons, on the other hand, were devastated one by one by the infantry of Gra Valkas.
And so in one blow half the country fell at once. What was left tried to put up a resistance but it was of no use.
She fled with her mother and brother all the time on suitcases from the front to avoid being caught by Gra Valkas. Along with them, a mass of refugees and remnants of the beaten Leifor divisions fled across the border.
Of course she was close to being caught over the border, but thanks to the sacrifice of the remnants of the Imperial Guard who undertook to hold the line for three hours, enough time for her to escape. After that they were to surrender or disperse and thus support the nascent resistance.
But instead the Guardsmen defended themselves for three days in a siege before the last of them fell in a final bayonet charge when they ran out of ammunition. They managed to drive a solid wedge into the besiegers and cut down a mass of enemy soldiers. And Colonel Semen Boychuk reportedly had a whole mountain of corpses around him.
Their sacrifice has already passed into legend and they have become a myth supporting the final resistance against the invaders.
As she was making the final adjustments an old warrior, one of the last living defenders of Leforia, entered the room. Captain Artem "Striełok" Nikolenko. His uniform may not have been the gala version, but in his field uniform he was more representative of what he was about to accomplish.
"Your Imperial Majesty, are you ready? The Mu Parliament is waiting for you." He asked in a calm tone, accustomed to giving orders. He was the one who brought her the news of her Father's death.
"Yes Captain." She replied unusually calmly, as the little princess disappeared. And in her place stepped the ever ready to act proud young Empress. She knew what was required of her. She knew what had to be done.
She saw the flaws of her country but it was her home. And she would defend it like all Leifornians to the last drop of blood even if it took an alliance with an age-old enemy.
When she crossed the border she made a vow to herself that she would do anything to reclaim her homeland.
And this speech before Mu is to be the first of many. She was already planning her next moves in her mind.
As she stood up and moved toward the door she stopped abruptly next to the Captain.
"Captain?" She asked lightly with her already serious eyes not looking at him.
"Yes, your imperial majesty?" Strielof replied, standing at attention.
"When should we go to HME?"
Striełok's brow furrowed "Next week your Imperial Majesty."
"I'm changing it, we're going to this one..." She leaned forward slightly then added, "First we go to Poland, then we go to Japan."
"I understand but may I know why?" He asked puzzled.
In turn, the Princess took the chain in her hand; on the chain was a small locket depicting the Queen. "I felt that the Queen was speaking to me and giving such advice," she said.
"And what if I may know your Imperial Majesty?" The Captain became serious at once, with advice from the Gods there is nothing to joke about, especially if they give it themselves.
"She said, sail to the land of the white eagle, to my beloved subjects who are my children, seek a husband in black garb and a purple sash on his belt. He will help you conquer a great nation that knows how you feel. Then go east to the land of the rising sun, the descendants of the Hiromanians who must once again be taught how to pick up arms." Said the Empress calmly.
"And where does the Empress mean by whom?" Strielo was puzzled.
"Well, remember that party in April?" She asked.
"Yes."
"And the papers they both gave?" She asked rhetorically and the Captain glared.
Mu
April 14, 1898 M.C.
Banquet Hall at the former Leifor Embassy
"Your Imperial Majesty?" Foreign Minister Mu Aimar Sevil asked.
"Yes Minister?" She said still unaccustomed to her title, for it was only today that she was crowned the new ruler of Leifor, though she was recognized as the new empress by the guardsmen who had gone to certain death in her name.
"I wanted to introduce you to two newcomers from newly arrived countries to the east." Aimar replied.
She furrowed her brow. "What do you mean newcomers?"
"Do you know Mu legends and myths about how we came from another world to this one?" He asked curiously to her.
"Yes, you came and here and then fought for your lives." She replied calmly smoothly avoiding the fact and topic that her homeland was established on territory originally belonging to Mu and which her ancestors had carved out with magic and steel.
"That turned out to be true, and the two countries are from two different eras but as it turned out from our old world they came to this one." Aimar replied
"I see." She replied uncertainly and looked at the two envoys.
Both were men in their prime dressed in suits, the older of the two in navy blue and the younger in black.
The one in the navy blue suit would have fit in perfectly among the Leifor staff because he did not stand out in any way. Well, except for a small pin on his vest in the shape of a red and white flag.
He was quite pale, but his hands, she noticed, looked like those of a man who worked physically when he was young. His dark brown hair showed the first signs of gray at the temples.
He wore a wide mustache under his nose. His eyes were blue though as she noticed there were patches of green in his eyes. His head was rather square and his eyebrows distinct. He had the kind though proud but not arrogant look of a confident man.
He was the first to speak and in correct but stiff muanese without accent he said.
"Hello New Empress, I am Tadeusz Zawadzki representing the Polish People's Republic on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I would like, in addition to paying my respects, to offer your Imperial Highness my condolences on behalf of my nation, we Poles know very well what it is like to lose our homeland to the occupiers."
Slightly surprised, she hid these surprisingly sincere condolences. She noticed that he spoke as if from his own experience. She stretched out her hand towards Zawadzki to kiss it.
He quickly understood what was going on and made a gesture that has been somewhat forgotten in Europe, a gesture that is still alive in Poland despite the prevailing political system, although it is slowly being abandoned.
Then a second diplomat entered after him. This one was immediately different, his skin rather looked yellow but without exaggeration. He had distinctly foreign slanted eyes covered by glasses, although she had heard that in the Kingdom of Topa and Fenn it was not something strange.
His outfit seemed to be made of newer material than Polak's. And he was shorter than him by half a head. He had black hair with brown eyes. Unlike Polak, his hands were smooth, and it was obvious that he was from a higher class.
Where Polak gave off the aura of a somewhat simple man and made himself likeable. This one seemed serious to the extreme. His gaze was stern and appraising but not so much as to cause deeper discomfort. He seemed to be an intellectual with a strong character.
Where the Pole was a bit rounded and showed beer muscles, the Japanese was skinny and thus seemed younger. And where the Pole had short hair with clearly visible curves, he had luxuriant long hair nicely trimmed.
In short, the Pole seemed kind of familiar but the Japanese was very exotic.
The Japanese diplomat bowed to her and with a slightly more rigid manner began, "Hello Dear Empress, I am Taiji Asada and I represent the Empire of Japan on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, my respects and condolences for your father and your homeland. I hope we can support you in this difficult time."
Although his muanish was marked by an audible accent and a few mistakes, his speaking style was quite polite. He seemed to represent a solid company.
She nodded and did the same to the Pole, the Japanese man bowed and somewhat awkwardly kissed her hand.
They then moved on to a short conversation in which both men briefly introduced their countries and what she noticed was that in inviting people to their homelands, both men were trying to compete with each other.
And there was much to fight for, despite her conorations and the considerable education that had been put into her she did not know everything and was frantically looking for allies, the one who would invite her would have a great influence on Leifor.
As for the throne of Leifor it was always inherited by the eldest child capable of leading independent of whether it was a son or daughter, although in the case of the heir to the throne her husband was always wedded to the imperial family so that she would always last as one of the symbols of Leifor.
"Thank you honourable gentlemen, for your kind welcome, I will consider your invitations on behalf of your countries." She said her goodbyes, and both men saluted. And in the hands of Captain "Strielok" were papers depicting both countries including their coats of arms and common nicknames.
Parliament Mu
"Right, it was in their documents what they gave us." Strielo spoke up after a brief mention.
"See the dyadʹka?" She smiled warmly at the Captain. The constable had no children, and this no longer young girl needed a paternal role model at this age at the most difficult time for her, and so the poor old wiry man became dyad'ko which means from Leiforian uncle.
The Strawman was nevertheless constantly surprised by her intelligence and her memory. What she learnt even for a moment she could more or less recall later, that is if you said a sentence to her and a few weeks later you asked her to say what you said to her she would say the general meaning of the sentence although it was possible that she would say the whole sentence as you said it.
"Very well Anastasia. Now it's time to go, parliament is waiting for you." Said the Captain slightly amused.
Anastasia nodded and put the mask on her face again. The mask of a young Empress forced to rule what was left of her homeland almost single-handedly. Looking at her like that, Strawn could not help but see her father in her.
Like him, she pushed forward to protect her people from the enemy. Though on her rests the greatest burden of all the Emperors of Leifor except perhaps Dmitri I himself.
The young Empress walked out of the room located at the back of the parliament hall followed by her loyal captain.
And the Speaker of the House of Parliament announced, "Please stand, Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Leifor, Tzarovitsa Lechi of the Yellow and Red, Grand Duchess of Chernorusvieck, Galinsky, and et cetera, et cetera Anastasia I Rurichkovich."
The Muanian parliamentarians, on the other hand, stood up out of respect for her, well almost all of them, the far left Labour Party ostentatiously sat on their chairs.
Anastasia ignored this obvious affront and began to speak, "Distinguished members of the chamber...
April 16, 1975 P.C
People's Republic of Poland
Warsaw, Belweder (Seat of the President of the State Council)
A very unusual meeting took place in one of the halls, the Pompeii Hall to be precise, which is where the young Fryderyk Chopin often performed before his emigration.
Unusual because not typical, but hospitality was very typical for both sides. That is, in the old Polish way with a table full of typically Polish food and alcohol. It should be noted that both sides drank in Polish, which means drunk but with taste, not to get high as foreigners do.
That's why both Poles and Russians are the only nations in the world that have not lost the battle with alcohol, but tied it. Of course, it is known that vodka and beer are for smart people, for rams there is only water from the trough. Or sour milk, at the most they will get a solid lesson.
The Pompey Room was chosen not without reason, as it is the most representative room in the Belvedere. The meeting was chaired by Henryk Jabłoński, nomen omen an old pre-war socialist, not a communist, and more surprisingly a former soldier of the Polish Armed Forces in the West.
Why him and not Gierek? Well, here I must allow myself another digression in this long story. You see, dear readers, communist countries like Poland are a pure mess in terms of representation and responsibility in the country.
Theoretically, the power is held by the Prime Minister elected by the Sejm, while the Council of State is the collective head of state (i.e. the president in communist style) and it performs its function and the Chairman, in accordance with the agreement uniting the Polish Socialist Party with the Polish Workers' Party (Communists but under a different name), is to come from the ranks of the PPS.
In practice, everyone knows that the country is ruled by the First Secretary of the Polish United Communist Party and all the rest follow his orders.
Although they could stand up to Gierek, Jabłoński, for example, tried to prevent the creation of the office of President, which was increasingly rumored to be filled by Gierek.
They don't want to lose their stool doing everything they can in their power.
And here we come to the guests from what they called the New Poland Commandery. They were, to put it mildly, strange for communists.
They came from far away. As soon as Polish planes flew over their land, they immediately organized an expedition to the east, wanting to see if the country of their distant ancestors also appeared like they did centuries ago.
Their political system is a de facto reworking of the naval structure for their needs. Hence, the ruler of their land is called Grand Commander.
He rules from New Gdynia over a couple of towns by Polish standards.
And to make matters worse, some of the delegation is not even fully human!
Let us perhaps start with the MP, or more precisely with Mrs Karolina Griin. She was undoubtedly a pretty woman in an outfit that was undoubtedly a Polish naval officer's uniform redesigned in a woman's style.
Everything is beautiful only that it has cat ears and a tail at the back. These quite exotic additions unintentionally make the Polish communists, despite the good atmosphere, constantly remind themselves that their guests are not the Poles they know.
Even though they did everything a real Pole would do.
And next to her was Commander Karon Pichota. Who had the features of another animal, a wolf.
Although the atmosphere was good, Jablonski slowly but inexorably drank the entire flask of vodka himself while listening to their stories.
What's even better next to him was the already full Admiral Janczyszyn who was invited to the affair to learn some interesting information for the Navy.
"So, you mean to say that the ORP Orzeł that disappeared thirty-five years ago was dumped here after prayers to the Virgin Mary?" Asked the already slightly drunk Janczyszyn wanting to be sure he hadn't misheard.
"Yes Mr. Admiral." Griin replied.
"And here they encountered the so-called Hiromanians who came as emissaries of the Sun God? After which they supported them in the battle against the so-called Demon Lord after which they stayed here with some of those envoys?" He inquired.
"That's correct Mr. Admiral." She repeated again with the same unbroken calm.
"Thank you I have no further questions." The Admiral replied, then took his flask, assessed the contents, then poured the rest into a glass and drank it in one long draught. He took a bite of his chicken leg.
Jablonski looked at him with despair in his eyes. "Ludwik dunce don't do this to me! I need you now."
The already drunk Admiral turned his head and replied in a drunken voice not caring about conventions, "We've just been told what the hell happened to our ship and why no one found it and the Brits kept it secret for 50 years. I'm going to drink because I'm not a cactus and, what's worse, it's impossible to accept this sober."
"You heard yourself what requests they have, I need you to send..." Jablonski tried to object.
"I don't give a damn, New Poland is not a hare and will not escape us. We'll send some patrol boat with these here and the matter will be settled. What can happen?" Replied a somewhat angry Janczyszyn.
"I thought they'd be a little more smoothed out. " He muttered in New Polish to Griin, Commander Karon.
"Relax Commander, you have to look at it from their side, it's a story that's hard to believe." Replied Griin in
Suddenly, they were surprised by a colonel of the SB in civilian clothes, Colonel Karol Majewski. "I'm sorry to interrupt but I want to apologize for my employers, it's a bit of an amazing story, but anyway, let's have a drink!"
He spoke the whole thing in a pleasant tone and friendly. The two envoys, seeing no obstacle, followed the suggestion as for them of a member of the National Council without realizing who they were really talking to.
If they knew, they probably wouldn't drink so readily as they did.
Unfortunately, life is full of disappointments.