"No more food. No more luxury goods. No more trading. That is our judgment for this cursed world order."

- Joint Declaration of Oliverd Shipping, Anderhall Global Lines, and Shizu Merchant Marine to disrupt global shipping into "Matriarchal Despots".

+++

Halia

November 15, 2024

Queen's Bunker

Everything was now starting to unravel. Amelie could sense that it wouldn't be too far until the Putschists launched their final assault on the city. And while she tried her best to remain steadfast in front of the officer staff…it was all starting to get to her.

I'm just…I'm…

She looked down at her mirror. She was fixing herself up for the next meeting in the War Room, yet she struggled to even finish washing her face. She took a deep breath, attempting to clear her mind, which failed.

She looked down, and for many seconds, stayed still. She washed her face afterward and got herself decent.

An Army MP saluted her. A Royal Guard Knight bowed at her. The hallways were empty in the bunker, for every personnel of any importance was probably in the War Room. Still, the reverence for the Queen was ever present, which already started to irk Amelie.

Could these people not realize who failed them? Why? Why would they still salute to her, or kneel, or bow at her? Weren't they losing because of her? She was baffled, much so, she never felt this…strange mixture of fear and rage. Of shame and personal offense. Each day that they talked of war, that they talked of offensives and counter-offensives, of casualties and logistics, she found everything growing dull and numb.

And she detested it.

The War Room stood silent upon her arrival. High-ranking OAF officers and RGO officers, all in a state of constant bickering, shut themselves as she walked to her seat. The presenters in the middle, Colonel Kleist and Major Porter cleared their throats as Amelie took her seat.

Steel yourself. You're the Queen.

Calmly, she removed her gloves and placed them on the side of the table. She opened a report file, already placed beside her microphone, and gave the title a brief read. She heaved a tiny sigh.

"Gentlemen, would you please continue your report." She said, as most officers returned their attention back to Colonel Kleist and William while the two gave her the nod and resumed, completely ignoring her once more. It had been routine to her at this point. Her arrival and her closing remarks were always the high points of attention given to her. The two moments when all these men and women of war and fighting looked up at her guidance.

"We'll fight them this way," she would sometimes say. "This plan will be our course of action," she would declare at times. At times when she knew what could be done. But as William and Kleist sank deeper in their report, she resisted the urge to bury her head.

They didn't hide anything in their words. It was grim. The enemy was building up their forces. Supplies were low. Morale was low. There were reports of desertions and mutinies. The casualties from the daily engagements were high. And most of all, the promise of relief was still but a promise.

But I cannot retreat from this. She reminded herself. I'm stuck in this predicament. There is no other way out but to fight. And fight with what? She vowed and vowed to remain and keep fighting, but who was paying the toll? Not her, certainly. She even laughed at it many times.

She moaned and whined internally about the burdens and stress of this disaster. Even now, she resisted the pull of her heavy eyelids as she kept focus on William's words about the declining state of the front. But what was it all compared to those dying in the droves?

Once more, she looked back at that crew. Their words had plagued and eaten her mind for many days now, and for good reason. They spoke their minds with honesty. They criticized her, the Queen, with factual accuracy. She could still remember herself standing there, listening to their drunken ramblings as she kept her smile, asking question after question.

And they answered. And each answer stabbed her. This…to her, more than anything else, was how the common man viewed her. Nothing hidden, without a sugarcoat to reduce its bitterness. They loathed her, the Queen. For every loss. For every brother dead.

And for the hell that awaited. The hell that she would send them in. She locked her eyes to the map on the screens. Such numbers, of many different units, were represented by mere symbols and their identifying numerical numbers. The 17th, the 19th, the 4th, the 122nd. None of which she even knew. They were right. She was going to throw them into the fields as nothing but numbers.

How callous. How uncaring. She hadn't and would never ever meet any faceless soul that was a part of these units. Yet she would proclaim plans and maneuvers for them? Was this really what leadership entailed? To treat human beings as nothing but a resource to be used as she deemed fit?

"Your Majesty…would you approve of our plans?" Kleist asked, pulling off the Queen from her internal musings. Amelie was on an empty autopilot mode. Even still, she understood the entire presentation. She gave him a grim nod. It was another request for a retreat into Halia's ever-collapsing fallback lines.

"We have no other choice, no?" She asked, and most officers were in agreement. "Then I permit that. In fact, if a retreat is needed, then please, conduct it. I would rather have our troops live to fight another day than hold on to towns already reduced to nothing but rubble."

She looked back at that conversation. When they spoke of it, she could see through their eyes how brutal…and pointless it was.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Remember Reilow?" Their gunner said, drunkenly poking their loader, who was almost dead asleep from the booze. "It was…a lovely fight. Dead bodies everywhere. Dead tanks and mechs. All for a flattened town."

It was simply a fate she would like to avoid placing them on. The fate of fighting and dying to hold a defense line that simply didn't exist anymore. A town that broke before its defenders did.

Soon, she resigned from the War Room as the meeting ended.

+++

"William…are we really going to hold?" Amelie asked as she looked up at the night sky. They were out in a logistical depot, as they inspected the current abysmal situation that plagued them.

It was pitiful. The shipments from Rebenslof were dwindling by the day. Railroads were being bombed, truck convoys were targeted by air strikes, all while the sea remained as empty as always. So much so that even Amelie had felt the effects of the shortage of everything. No more proper food – she was eating what was being rationed in the bunker.

As for William, he let off a sigh as he too looked up at the night sky. The pink moon was high above them, letting off a faint light over the broken skyline of downtown Halia in the far distance.

"What answer do you want? The answer you want to hear, or the answer you don't want to hear?" He replied, shaking his head. "Because at this point, I can tell you're tired."

"I am not."

"You are."

She fell silent. No point in denying it. Quite frankly, she was sure of herself that she wanted to run from it all. But that would be a crime she refused to commit. The fight was here – not there. A leader that fled was a leader that should be hanged.

"Please, the answer that I won't want to hear," Amelie said with finality. She braced herself mentally for it.

William sighed. It was getting cold already, winter wasn't far off.

"No, we won't. The front will buckle and collapse. We'll be cut off from Rebenslof if they send an armored pincer up north. Then it will be a grueling three-month siege before we raise the white flag." His answer was blunt and to the point. As if he knew what would really happen. Amelie refused to believe it, but one look in his eye confirmed it. "In fact, if they encircle us by late November, we won't be lasting till January next year. I don't think you can starve and freeze while fighting. We'd be forced to surrender."

He laughed to himself. "Sure, it will be bloody. Extremely bloody for them. They'd have to assault this city with upwards of a hundred thousand casualties. But also for those trapped inside. Hell, would they even have mercy once we inflict that much?"

"William…why didn't you tell me."

"Because I'm also trying to hold on to hope, Amelie." For once, she saw his eyes crack. "Maybe the Air Force will swoop in. Maybe NORTHCOMM will stop a northern pincer. Maybe the Navy will finally open sea-based supply lines. Maybe General Albrecht will break through from the south. Maybe…maybe even you women and the RGO will do a miracle."

"...Why?"

"Because you said it yourself, didn't you? You vowed that you would do anything for the good of Orland. I…I believe in that."

"You believed in me?" She could not believe him. All this time, he was even more deluded than her. He was in the front. He knew everything! If she who was kept in the dark hardly believed her own sweet words didn't believe, why would he? "In…me? You believed in me? Are you serious?!"

"Tell me this, Amelie. Why the hell would I join you, or serve under you if I didn't believe in you?"

"You're delusional–"

"I am! Do you think I would be executing those brutal operations that left countless of my brothers dead if I didn't delude myself into believing you? I would have pulled all of our forces since day one if I didn't. But no, you already proclaimed that you would hold them, that you would die before they captured the Royal Capital since day one on national TV. You turned it into a political and symbolic objective."

"But you said it yourself…" She paused, horrified at what her words caused. "It's militarily impossible."

"But losing it is strategically impossible too. I don't believe in your propaganda words that we will surely hold on. I believed in your reforms and rule. Halia is your symbol, Amelie. Your stand here is the Royalist cause! Why would anyone in the OAF fight for you if you lost here? You would be nothing. No man is loyal to the Kingdom, to the Royalist cause – they are loyal to your promises. If you retreat here, then those promises are void."

She looked at the soldiers and men in the distance. They were all hard at work stacking supplies at trucks or loading ammo into their parked tanks. Her political promises…they weren't fighting for her or the Kingdom, but those promises made by her. If she ran away, then she would be a coward, a spineless monarch whose promises meant nothing.

Someone unworthy to fight for.

"So…you're gambling?"

"I love gambling, Amelie. It's a game of uncertainties and chances. Back in the Great War, we used that as a morbid joke before and after our trench assaults. But the lesson was there. The chances are low, but better than surrender. To survive in war, you must take risks, opportunities, and initiative. Or you will lose."

"And so you are hoping that Halia will stand because if it doesn't, it would be all for nothing."

He nodded.

"The chances aren't favorable, and the odds are stacked against us, but it is the only choice. I don't believe in the Goddess, but this sure as hell would be the best time for a miracle, because if it doesn't–"

He pointed his finger at Amelie.

"It will be your last stand. Because I'll be honest with you, had you retreated early and you were kicked off your throne, you wouldn't have escaped. Not even now. You're a marked woman, Amelie. Lose this battle – and you and Alice are dead."

Amelie looked down. So that was how it all was all this time. She had no choice, not even in the beginning. Either she won here, or she died.

I guess this is the fate of a monarch facing a violent revolution.

"So that's the answer I wouldn't want to hear."

"Should have picked the answer you wanted to hear."

Amelie looked up, but this time, she smiled at him. So that's how it is. It was all a void inside her now. Perhaps, something died inside of her. But…if this was how it all was…if even Alice would be in harm's way. It was time, Amelie thought.

"No, it's alright. I'm glad you said it to me at last. Say, William, can you promise something to me this time?"

"What is it?"

"Don't hold me back. I'll win this battle. I'm not dying in this desolate city. And neither would Alice, is that acceptable?"

William smirked. Her words sounded sweet and soft, yet he knew that she wasn't playing this time.

"I see, so is 'General' Amelie Ludendorf born now? Heh…well, so be it then, Your Majesty."

"I won't let them touch Alice. At all costs." For now, that would be her only vow.