“To be on the defense is a great peril. One cannot stay in battle without initiative. One cannot stay in a conflict while being sieged. One cannot be pushed back, and lose land without gain. The only way to fight, and win a war is through offense.”

- General Lawisc Pielodski, March 2022.

+++

Near Reilow

14th Light Mech Division ‘Wachsam’

18th Light Mech Battalion

Royalist Frontlines

Lieutenant Charles Rupkoff watched the frontlines from his LSS Mech’s turret. Through the thick, obscuring smoke generated by the wrecks ahead of him and his small squadron of five LSS Mechs, he could see the damage of war that the recent artillery barrage dealt to the land. He was in charge of said squadron, which originally had eight LSS Mechs in the formation.

Unfortunately, the recent engagements disabled one of them, and destroyed two of them. Today, he had lost seven of his brothers in the front.

Each LSS Mech was piloted by three men. One man was in the driver’s cockpit, situated in front of the mech’s chassis, where the driver was situated. Atop them, the turret was operated by him, the commander, and his gunner. Though, he didn’t really act as a loader, as the LSS Mech had an autoloader for its one-twenty-millimeter smoothbore gun.

The HUD in front of them scanned the battlefield well, its powerful sensors seeing heat emissions nearly four kilometers away. Unfortunately, the battlefield terrain, the damaged buildings, and the wreckages that littered the frontline mostly limited their vision. Still, he kept himself focused, and he scanned the battlefield with a vigilant eye.

“Seems like no hostiles, sir.” His driver, Private Jenkins Shleit said over the internal comms. He had ordered him to stay put, as he attempted to check the battlefield. There was a temporary silence at the moment, which he didn’t trust, not after that awful barrage from the Putschists.

Anything could happen at this very moment.

“Yes, but we have to be vigilant.”

He keyed his radio to contact his underlings. They were all positioned near him, all behind the cover of the broken terrain and the destroyed houses and apartments around them. He even noticed a tiny movement just beside them, as one of the LSS mechs under him subtly moved its legs.

“All units, do you see any signs of hostiles?”

“Negative, Five Actual. It’s pretty clear on my end here.”

“Negative as well, Five Actual. It’s clear here too.”

“Copy that. Maintain your positions. We will be waiting for the next wave of infantry before we push forward, over.”

“Copy.”

He placed down his radio, as he wiped off a sweat that dropped on his forehead. The earlier battle had truly taken a toll on him. Companies after companies of light mech, mechanized, and infantry were decimated in their advance. He could still remember all those bodies…

A bang took him out of his stupor. Beside him, his gunner, Corporal Hector Smith, a Lorathian, seemed extremely agitated.

“This damned battle is nonsensical.”

“Hector…”

“Sir, look at all of these. Look at all of what they did to us. They’re just sending us straight to our deaths. For nothing. We haven’t even taken one of our objectives yet. This is…this is…”

“Calm down, Hector. I understand your frustrations. It’s just…we have our orders. We have to do this.”

“We’ll die, sir. We’re practically alone here. This is all-”

“Just trust me, son, the reinforcements will soon come, and we’ll be rotated out of here. It will be alright.”

His gunner hadn’t been in the most stable of states for days already. One after another, he lost his friends and family in the front. Originally, he was the youngest of three brothers, but last week, their eldest died. Hours ago, in another battalion, his other brother also died.

Now all that was left was him.

The Lieutenant tried to understand Hector. The kid was drafted ages ago, and while he had proven himself to be a good gunner, outside of combat, he was an incessant whiner, and most of all, he was emotionally weak.

Not that he could blame him. The Lieutenant himself was also grieving for the loss of his friend, a fellow officer on another regiment. He just kept it to himself well…

This damned war…

He looked around the ruins once more. It was still silent as ever. Although he could hear the distant booms of occasional gunfire, artillery fire, and other sounds of war, his area was so far clear. For now, they were away from the fighting, it seemed.

The minutes burned itself, as the silence grew heavier. The burning wrecks in front of them kept their attention, as they remembered the crews that once piloted these broken machines of far. Their fellow brothers lost to the war.

After a little while, the Lieutenant ordered Hector to turn the turret slightly to the west, and their mech lowered itself a little closer to the ground to further hide it from the horizon. The rubble of the broken apartment they used as cover was disturbed, and little bits of broken cement dropped on their mech.

But, their movements were too little to be spotted. Or at least, the Lieutenant hoped so.

“It’s so damned silent,” Hector commented as he seemed to have recovered from his earlier outrage. Lieutenant Charles nodded in response, and he looked back at the digital map on their HUD that detailed the frontlines around them.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

He could only see a few dozen blues in the wide sector, all seemingly hiding from the enemy.

They really are taking their merry time to relieve us out of here.

He noticed a few squads run through the road beside them. It seemed that a few platoons of infantry already arrived to reinforce them, just as a transmission appeared on his comms.

“This is Zephir Five Actual, responding.”

“Zephir Five, this is Gamma Four Actual.”

“G-Company?”

“Yes, we’re taking the forward positions. My boys got some ATGM Mark-5s on hand.”

“Copy, it would be lovely working with you, over.”

“Appreciate the compliments.”

And with that, he watched as a platoon from “Gamma Company” took some positions ahead of them. They had already begun setting up their firing positions as they arrived, seemingly in a rush. Though, he had expected it completely. A counterattack could occur at any moment.

Or, perhaps not. And then they would push forward. Though, at the very least, due to the casualties taken by their Battalion, they would be rotated away for now, and another unit would be assaulted. Still…it wasn’t ideal.

Not that anything was ever ideal on the front. This was war. Nothing was ideal.

“This is Five-Two, we are noticing some disturbances, bearing three-one-five, eight-hundred forty meters, over.”

“This is Five-Five, I’m noticing the same. Seems like foot mobiles are moving on the road ahead of us, over.”

And with that, the Lieutenant knew immediately what was going to happen. A counterattack. He ordered his gunner to train their turret in the direction of the possible hostiles. Then, he took the radio and spoke to it.

“All units, stay alert. Hold fire, until my command. Take your targets.”

And like that, one by one, the LSS mechs under his command turned their turrets at whatever they could spot. But then, something appeared on their HUD. Ahead of them, on the road approaching them, there was a massive line of armor approaching.

Almost a convoy of Pustchist LSS mechs.

Outside of the road, Löwe tanks and M8 IFVs emerged from the rubble in scattered formations, all as scores of dismounted infantry advanced alongside them.

“Goddess…they’re here!”

“There are so fucking many of them!”

“What the, how can they-”

“All units, take your damned targets now. We will not retreat yet. Fire under my command!”

“C-copy that, Five Actual.”

He turned to Hector, who already seemed to be quivering at the sight before them.

“Hector, aim at that Panther. Aim straight at its turret.”

“I will.”

While his hands shook on the controls, he turned the turret straight toward it and locked on it.

Lieutenant Charles waited, and waited, as the enemy approached the six-hundred-meter mark. After that, all hell went loose as he spoke to the comms.

“All units! Fire at will!”

+++

Amelie rushed through the halls of the Queen’s Bunker in haste. The day had been, for the most part, silent for her, as she dealt with the mountains of paperwork in her own office. There wasn’t really much for her to do at the moment as all of the organization had been done already, and she was really just waiting for the results and reports of further developments at the moment.

But, William rang her for an emergency meeting. And with the chaos inside the bunker again, as staff and military officers ran around like busy bees, she could tell clearly that yes, there was an emergency.

She arrived at the Situation Room. The Royal Guard knights that were in front of it bowed at her, before letting her in. Inside, the discussions between the gathered military and Royal Guard officers stopped as she stepped inside.

She cleared her throat.

“It appears that something serious is happening, as I was notified by Major William. Would someone please care to enlighten me of the current developments?”

A Royal Guard knight, a young woman in her twenties, replied from the crowd.

“Your Majesty, Colonel Kleist was already giving his briefing.”

"Oh."

Great, so I am late. Now this is…well, I’m the Queen anyways…alright, let’s stop the excuses.

She probably should not have taken the time to tidy herself a bit in her room before rushing here. Though, to be fair, William didn’t specify the emergency. And since he practically called her for emergency meetings in such abusive frequencies, she had grown…slightly numb to it.

But those were just her silly excuses.

“Well, no worries, Your Majesty. We shall just restart the presentation then.” Colonel Kleist said as everyone else in the room took their respective seats.

“Well, thank you very much, Colonel. I do hope that my presence wasn’t a disturbance.”

“I assure you, it isn’t, Your Majesty.”

Naturally, Amelie gravitated straight to her seat, which was in the middle of the long table that faced the presentation screens. She was a little bit embarrassed at her lateness, and the fact that a seemingly important briefing had to be restarted because she was late, but she buried that deep into her mind.

She could be embarrassed later in her room.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, and Your Majesty, I would like to inform you all, that at this very moment…we are facing what appears to be a major offensive launched by our Putshist friends.”

The presentation screens showed the reversed advances of her forces in the last few hours. She remembered that they were already near the target towns, with Royalist forces already capturing the outer parts of the town of Reilow.

But now, they were back at their positions last night, seemingly out of nowhere.

“You mean, they’re attacking us?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. They are attacking us while we are attacking them.”

“That’s…”

No! Dammit! We spent so many lives and material for those assaults. We can’t just get pushed back now! This is absurd!

The work of her Army, their efforts, and the blood and materiel spent was being reversed like it was nothing. She could not accept this. This was…no this was another disaster! She expected that this offensive would throw their offensive off-balance, and potentially kick them off from her side of the Ludendorf river.

But no, now the rascals were back on her. Hot on her. They were pushing her back!

Heindhöff, Heindhöff, you absolute rascal! Can’t you just calm down for even a moment?

Now, ignoring Amelie’s mental tirade that demanded her enemies to just…well, lie down as she fights them, Colonel Kleist’s presentation of the situation went on. And while the situation had been disappointing, and devastating to some, it was still, as far as most officers were concerned, salvageable.

“As such, while we are being pushed back, our forces are still holding out some of the forward positions that we have gained. While we would have to place more of our reserves to weather this punch and deliver our punch again, we expect that with the right response, we can get a favorable outcome from this.”

Favorable outcome? You must be messing with me.

But Amelie needed to calm herself down. She took a few deep breaths. Disaster? Yes. More lives lost? Yes. But, she needed to see things clearly here. She had seen worse defeats already. This…this could not top any of them, absolutely not. She could take this.

Alright, for now, let’s focus on what we can do. Surely, as he said, we can still salvage this. Maybe, we can do something out of those things that great generals of the past did where they won battles when the enemy attacked. Yes…yes, it can be solved.

“I see…then what will be our response?"