Slowly, surely, the world faded back into view. Johann’s eyes fluttered open to see the white, sterile ceiling of a hospital, the black-red-yellow horizontal tricolor of Germany hanging directly above him to his relief. A chorus of pained moans and wails snapped him back to reality fully. He felt the hard mattress of a cot underneath him and the cold of an IV tube in his arm, saw two cloth curtains dividing his space from the others, and finally, his eyes landed on a man in a lab coat standing at the foot of the bed, carrying a clipboard.

Johann tried to sit up, but found that his arms and torso were strapped down with strips of elastic. At the same time, a terrible, burning pain took hold in his belly as he clenched his abdominal muscles. The pain quickly became unbearable, and he collapsed back onto his pillow.

“Hey, careful,” the doctor cautioned, “you tore just about every muscle in your upper body fighting off that exosuit.”

“Ah, God, what happened? Where am I?” Johann gasped.

“You’re in the sickbay of the Baden-Wurttemburg, Hauptmann Hess. You don’t remember the battle?” the doctor cocked his head to the side.

“No, just…” then he remembered the scream and his chest tightened with fear. “Svetlana. What happened to her?”

“Your crew said that you went into some sort of trance when you heard Lieutenant-Colonel Kuznetsova being wounded. With your corroboration, I’d say… some sort of dissociative mental state? It would explain how you managed to injure yourself so thoroughly defending her.” the doctor said, evading the question.

“Is she okay?” Johann insisted, his voice taking on a warning tone.

The doctor grimaced, trying to find the best way to put it. “The fighting… took its toll on her. If it’s any consolation, I hear that your first aid and getting her back to the shuttles certainly saved her life, at least for now.”

“For now?” Johann uttered.

A somber look fell across the doctor’s face. “I’m sorry, Hauptmann, but from what I hear, the Lieutenant-Colonel had already lost most of her blood by the time she arrived here. That only made the surgery we had to perform to extract fragments of bone from her vitals that much more dangerous.”

“Will she live?”

The doctor paused for one second, two seconds, one eternity, two. “We don’t know. Even if she does, you might need to consider the possibility that… maybe she won’t wake up.”

Johann’s world almost imploded.

“What?”

“Well, Hauptmann, when the human brain is starved for oxygen for as long as Kuznetsova’s was, it can damage it greatly. Permanently. If she survives her injuries, her brain may not be capable of sustaining what we would classify as consciousness anymore. Even if she wakes up, she might not be the same person you met.”

The thought of Svetlana being well and truly gone, even if she was still alive, crashed down on Johann hard. So many dissonant thoughts rushed through his mind at once before unifying into a single, overwhelming voice, speaking its command a thousand times a second.

“I need to see her.”

The doctor smiled, but Johann knew it as a consoling type of grin. “I’m sorry, but–”

“Let me see her.” Johann enunciated, his voice betraying the desperation behind his plea. The voice continued to repeat at its rhythmic pace.

Suddenly, any veneer of niceness disappeared from the face of the doctor. “Hauptmann, if you try to go, you’ll only hurt yourself further. You’re staying here, no exceptions.”

Youhavetoseeheryouhavetoseeheryouhavetoseeher. The voice did not stop for him.

“Please, you don’t understand…” Johann said breathlessly. He was breathing so heavily and so fast and oh, God, when did this room get so hot?

“Johann, are you feeling alright? You look pale.” the doctor said, but his voice was distorted and muffled. Johann was gasping now, but no matter how much air he took in, it was never enough. He couldn’t hold himself still, but every movement was horribly painful.

“Please, please, pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease!” Johann began to shout, even though the effort still pained him greatly.

Youhavetoseeheryouhavetoseeheryouhavetoseeher!

“Johann, you’re having a panic attack. Listen to me; listen to me! Breathe.” the doctor ordered, but Johann couldn’t. He was panting like there was no tomorrow, and soon he was struggling madly against his bindings like a rabid animal, ignoring the red-hot irons dancing through his muscles. Sighing, the doctor hit a button on Johann’s drip and something cold ran down through the tube. Instantly, he began to feel dizzy, his anxiety dulled by the sweet numbness of the sedative. Slowly, he laid back in the cot, closing his eyes just for a moment…

—

Georgy was roused from what little sleep he was getting nowadays by a knock at the door of his quarters. “Eh, come in.” he grumbled, sitting up in bed. The door creaked open, shining a sliver of light directly in Georgy’s face. Standing in the radiance was the silhouette of the Nikitovna’s comms officer.

“Admiral, we’ve just received word from the German fleet regarding your niece.” he announced. His somber tone sent spikes of dread shooting up Georgy’s spine.

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“Did Svetlana make it out? Is she okay?” Georgy interrogated the officer, instantly awake.

“She’s been evacuated, but she was hurt during the process.”

“How badly? Will she survive?” Georgy’s eyes were wide and his face was pale.

The officer paused for a few heartbreaking moments. “The communique says that you should stop by whenever you can, to… say your goodbyes. They don’t think she’ll make it.”

A long pause.

“I… I need to be alone.” Georgy said breathlessly.

“Yes, sir. Take as much time as you need.” the officer nodded, closing the door behind him gently and leaving Georgy with his thoughts.

Everything he had done, he had done for Svetlana. She was barely a legal adult when the horrors of war claimed her parents, as they did to so many of the mothers and fathers of Generation Theta. She still needed someone to guide her through it all, and he stepped in wherever he could, paying for her college tuition, helping her find a nice place to live, treating her as the daughter he never had the chance to have. She was the only family he had left, and he loved her like nothing else, but the aliens had done what they did best once again and ruined everything, robbing him of the one thing he had to anchor himself.

Suddenly, as though he was possessed, he began to pound at the walls of his quarters with his bare fists, howling with rage. Smashing furniture, breaking fingers, ignorant to pain, his rampage through the room continued for half an hour. When his anger had finally subsided to a point where he was capable of rational thought, something deep within him had come undone, and his fury refined itself into something cold and sharp in his belly.

He had to make a few calls.

—

Ring.

B-r-r-r-r-ring.

“Interim President Leonov, who is this?”

The voice that came over the line was methodical and emotionless, but still recognizable. “Admiral Kuznetsov.”

“Oh, God, what do you want?” Leonov sighed.

“I am requesting clearance to deploy nuclear–”

“No. Absolutely not. Never. I don’t know who you think you are, but you’re not starting an atomic holocaust just because you think it’ll end the war faster.” Leonov spat.

“As expected, sir. Have you considered my proposal regarding expungement of compromised elements in the government?” Kuznetsov possessed a calm demeanor normally, but the near-coldness with which he handled these heavy subjects put Leonov on edge.

“Kuznetsov,” Leonov began, his voice heavy with annoyance, “we have already spoken about this. No, no, no. I won’t be the president that goes down in history for erasing the Russian democratic experiment on your behalf!”

—

In the streets of Moscow, something was afoot, and everyone knew it. Servicemen rose from their beds in the middle of the night, kissed their spouses goodbye, and then disappeared to join their units. APC engines came to life and mechanized columns collected themselves at rally points. Circling high over the capital was a flight of Mi-19 Hindsight helicopters, watching the city in silence. Considering that the surface-to-air missile batteries surrounding Moscow hadn’t lit up the sky like a Christmas tree, they were Russian.

One of these transports diverged from its path, buzzing out to the north of the city, where the Yuli Khariton Nuclear Fusion Generating Station was located. As the helicopter crossed over the power plant’s security perimeter, a low, wailing siren activated. Tiny black shapes rushed from the great reactor dome, bearing rifles. Before they could do anything, however, a speaker mounted on the helicopter began to play a message.

“This is a VDV platoon operating under the sanctioned orders of the Russian Armed Forces. You are ordered to stand down and be disarmed or we will bomb this facility into the ground.”

For a moment, the guards on the ground did not falter and it seemed they would have to make good on their threat, but then one of them barked an order. One by one, they laid their arms on the ground and fell to their knees. The alarm halted a moment later. The helicopter’s side doors opened and men in black uniforms and gas masks descended upon the complex. Each man took his position, awaiting one pivotal order.

—

Captain Pyotr Kerensky was on air patrol that day. The scream of the Su-77’s two engines was muted to a comfortable volume by the jet’s intelligent systems. All in all, homeland air defense was a cushy assignment. Of course, if things went bad with AHINT and World War IV started, he would be first in the line of fire, but that risk was a hell of a lot better than what was going on in Polegate. Besides, with his two wingmen with him, he was all but invincible.

Kerensky was given a jolt as the radio bleeped twice.

“This is Jupiter Actual, send message.” he acknowledged.

“Jupiter Actual, this is CENTCOM. New orders coming in, enact plan one-two-Alfa, over.” the harsh, sterile voice said.

Kerensky sighed. Ever since the war started, this had been a possibility he had anticipated, even if he wasn’t excited.

“Roger. Fire at will, over?”

“Fire on command. We don’t want this to get bloody if it doesn’t need to be, over.”

“Affirm, out.”

The three jets made a slow 180-degree turn and headed back towards Moscow.

—

“We cannot take the risk of allowing the enemy into our political system; the damage they could deal is too great.”

“And the damage you would deal by acting on your own paranoia and hunger for power is just as bad! I swear, if you weren’t so popular, I would’ve had you scrubbing down ship hulls from the outside for the rest of your life!”

“It’s not my fault the commander-in-chief of our great nation hasn’t the balls to do what’s necessary.” the first hint of emotion in Georgy’s voice took the form of sarcasm.

The room fell silent. “Insulting your national leader?” Leonov asked, about to disregard the commander’s popularity altogether and demote him anyways.

“Not for long,” Georgy said, suppressing a chuckle.

The hairs on the back of the president’s neck stood on end. “What?”

Far away, a garbled order played through the headset of the lead man at the fusion plant. “Roger. Throw the switch.”

The master breaker was switched off, and the city fell into darkness.

The lights in the Kremlin flickered, then came back on. Looking out the window, Leonov saw only darkness outside. Then, he realized what was happening.

“Oh.” he gasped gutturally. Then, one of the guards burst into his room, panting and scared.

“Sir, the military’s on the move! They’re going to converge here!”

At the same time, a trio of jets howled over the Kremlin, so close to the ground that the building shook.

“You have approximately ten minutes before the first units reach the Kremlin to sign your notice of resignation. I suggest that you consider the lives of the men in the palace with you.”

Leonov sighed; there really was no way out of this, was there? “Fine; I’ll resign and you can have your little warrior kingdom in Russia. Men, stand down; no one needs to get hurt. However, the Russian people are accustomed to their democracy, and if you think you can overturn that in a day–”

The call fell silent as the first jammers came online around Moscow.

—

“Hello, Admiral Belorusov? It’s Admiral Kuznetsov.” Georgy asked.

“Yes, this is he. Is the job done?” a voice, high and alert, said.

“Yes. Report to the Nikitovna as soon as possible for your new command.”

“Thank you, sir.” Belorusov acknowledged, as Georgy hung up.

About an hour later, it was confirmed that the Interim President had indeed stepped down and the Military Committee for State Security was firmly in control of the Russian Commission. Loyalist units around the country had been disarmed, the transfer of power was already underway, and the best part was that the public reaction was actually quite apathetic; it was just one oligarch replacing another, after all.

Three hours after that, what was expected to happen happened. The Committee voted overwhelmingly for Georgy to take up his position at the head of the organization and thus the head of state.

Four hours ago, Admiral Kuznetsov led a fleet.

Now, Marshal Kuznetsov led a nation.