“Twenty-two men’s liberation parties from various nations have united in strong condemnation to the chemical attacks conducted by the Confederacy of Larissa in Gallian soil. The party leader of the Orlish Republican Party, one of the most prominent men’s liberation parties that have rejected the ‘violent revolution’ doctrine of most men’s interest groups, has stated that these attacks are ‘nothing but perversions to human liberation’, and that ‘it will do nothing but further demonize men’.”

- Geopol Press

+++

West Orland

November Palace

There was silence in Amelie’s office.

Aside from her tapping her ballpen on her table, and Nia silently reading files on the side, Amelie just watched the clock tick. Her mind was currently clouded in…a cocktail of emotions that she couldn’t control. Those monsters. Her mind seethed at the thought. Why would they push me into this? Her planned, grand offensive…

Sure it wasn’t making the progress she imagined it would do, but it was working. There was momentum. There was a chance of a faster victory in Gallia and Poznek.

A faster victory could mean the aversion to more horrors. And she was doing it fairly. She had told her commanders and servicemembers to adhere to the rules of war. That they would be advancing with strict ROE to reduce human suffering. She even stressed so hard to each of her units that they must take prisoners, and that they would treat them well.

And that was exactly what her soldiers were doing. They advanced. They defeated the enemy. And when the enemy was surrounded and forced to surrender in many sections of the front, or even just overrun—her soldiers on the ground took them as POWs.

In good order. With the ethical goodness that men in a brutal war could realistically afford.

And this is how they pay us?

Amelie’s face turned red, and she banged her fist on her table, causing Nia to almost jump from her seat.

“Damn them!” Amelie shouted.

Suddenly, someone opened the door just as she was about to drop a second bang on her table. It was William, holding another set of files. His face scrounged into a frown, standing there, as Amelie froze.

Damn it…

Amelie took a deep breath, as she retracted her hand. This thing is getting to me.

“Sorry, get inside please,” Amelie said, as she tried to calmly pick up her tea and saucer.

“You seem pissed,” William commented, as he lightly closed the door. “I got the secondary preliminary reports from the ground, and…look, do you need air or something?”

Amelie sipped her tea, before “calmly” lowering it into the plate.

“I can breathe in this room just as nicely, William.”

“Okay…” William then went close to her table. “You know, you don’t need to hide it. Everyone’s horrified.”

“...I just…” Amelie’s voice cracked a bit before her fury overtook her. “William! I did everything! We did everything to get away from this! What could have possibly been a reason for them to do this?! Hundreds of thousands of civilians might be dead right now! Where did I go wrong?! Did I push them too hard?! Provoke them?! What logic is there to do any of this?! We were fighting fair and square. We were fighting humanely, as best as we could. And they just have to escalate and escalate and make things worse?!”

Amelie stopped her tirade as she suddenly laughed erratically.

“I’m sorry, but this is just…” she sipped her tea again, seemingly in an attempt to calm herself, but in a second, it proved ineffective when her voice raised again. “It’s just bullshit! Bullshit William! Bullshit! Screw them! They’re bastards! Maniacs! Monsters! Can I say profanities for once in my life? Here! Fuck them! Fuck them!!”

William just stood there, almost unfazed at Amelie’s complete outburst, while Nia on the side seemed pale.

“I…” Amelie shook her head, as tears streamed down her cheek. She placed her teacup and saucer down as her hand tried to wipe her tears. “It’s like every attempt I have made…it’s not doing anything…anything to just…why does it always have to get worse, William? Why? Why?”

“Amelie…” William tried.

“How will I answer Louise? How will I answer those people, and those families, and everyone who lost their people just…just because of this failure? How will I answer the billions asking me, me, the nation I rule for protection? What about our citizens? What if they’re next? How will I answer them? Am I supposed to do the same to those revolutionaries just to tell them not to do it again?!”

Amelie sobbed and sobbed.

“I don’t wanna be a monster, William,” Amelie said. “I don’t want to ever make my side use those weapons. I don’t. I don’t want it. I don’t want to sign any order that will make troops under me fire those kinds of weapons on land people live in. It’s unthinkable. I can’t…I can’t…”

“Look,” William breathed in. “We are sending those chemical weapons as deterrence.”

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“And what if they ignore that deterrence,” Amelie glared at him. “Are we going to fire it back at last? Or what, we bend over and prove that we’re spineless?”

“You’re not a monster if you merely reacted to the horrors they first committed.”

“That’s a lie,” Amelie pointed at him. “You know that. I know it. Nia knows it. Everyone knows it. They just…they forced my hand into this. Those damned…damned…cretins!”

“Amelie, what do you want?”

“I want a damned retaliation!” Amelie banged her fist on the table. “I want to send them a message, a real one. I want them to feel our wrath! I want them…to just…be scared. For once. Be scared! Can we do it, William? Can we? Without chemical weapons? Can we, for once, strike fear at those maniacs who ordered these attacks?”

William sighed.

“I’ll consult the OHC…for retaliatory options, that may be possible,” William said. “But I doubt you can ever strike fear on them. Or horrify them. Not if they don’t care. You’ll probably only please them if you act like them. It’ll be a win for them.”

William paused.

“You’re scared, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am!” Amelie shouted, more tears streaking down her cheeks, further ruining her light makeup. “Why is it only me that becomes afraid? Why not them? Are they so devoid of fear that they don’t even consider the horror of destroying the world—”

“Yes,” William crossed his arms. “The male-rights movement has long been consumed by factions that espoused ultra-militarism. And both the Federalists and the Confederacy subscribe to this brand of ideology. The deaths of the civilian population, the ‘ingrates’ who have no balls to fight like the ‘respectable’ military men, don’t matter to the eyes of an ultra-militarist. Especially civilians of another country. So what if the world burns? Our military wins.”

Amelie’s eyes widened at that confirmation before she weakly shook her head.

“I can’t…believe…why…why would they believe any of that?”

“You’ve heard them right?” William reminded. “It’s either victory—or ashes. That’s why I applaud your decision to build all those defensive measures for our people. These madmen are not above pressing the nuclear button once we’re close to defeating them. They see this as a war of annihilation.”

“Then…how will we even defeat them eventually?”

“I don’t know,” William sighed. “You’re fighting quite possibly the ugliest war in human history to date, Amelie. And you’re the Queen of the most powerful state standing in this era. You better start crafting ideas from now on, about how we’ll face that reality.”

He turned around after leaving the files on her desk.

“I’ll consult the OHC about your request,” William said. “Everyone in the Armed Forces is still in high-profile discussion right now on how we’ll deal with this. More than half are already requesting that we deploy chemical weapons on military targets at once.”

“I refuse.”

“I know, and they know. But I’ll tell you now, when we crafted the deterrence idea, it was only designed to meet your requirement of stopping them from a second attack temporarily. It will never deter them from doing it again this year. Most importantly, we in the Armed Forces cannot do things magically like you.”

He continued to the door, opening it.

“Unlike you women, we cannot bend reality to our whims. We cannot strike fear on them without being brutal, which you refuse to permit.”

He closed it and left.

+++

Site-07A

OHC High-Security Command Center

“Everyone! Her Majesty is here!”

Amelie crossed her arms, as she entered the gathering of the leaders of her Armed Forces, the aide behind her closing the door to the meeting room. Inside was the staff of the three services and their respective chiefs of staff.

General Victor Albrech of the Royal Orlish Army.

Chief Air Marshall Lewis Zimmerman of the Royal Orlish Air Force.

And Admiral George Halberd of the Royal Orlish Navy.

Collectively, the Orlish Armed Forces themselves.

And they all stared at her with stone-faced silence.

“Gentlemen,” Amelie greeted, her frown evident on her face. “As you well know, the enemy has committed a grave attack against humanity earlier. I went straight here because I wanted to ask you directly about our options.”

General Albrecht looked at the surprised William on the side.

“We know,” General Albrecht nodded. “It seems that this attack has displeased Her Majesty greatly, huh?”

“I am not in the mood, General.”

“Apologies…” General Albrecht said as Admiral Halberd sighed.

“Your Majesty,” Admiral Halberd started. “I know this is a bit of an unacceptable thing to say to a monarch whose blood is boiling, but I’ll echo the sentiments shared by all leaders of the OAF. We can’t. Retaliation of any form to show our strength, cannot be done by conventional means.”

“I asked about our ballistic missiles,” Amelie said, as she removed her gloves and went for a seat at the end of the table. The officers remained standing, looking at her. “What about that?”

“Too dangerous, Your Majesty. The enemy might mistake it for WMD-tipped weaponry.”

“Yet they were able to fire those things at us?”

“Only because you expressly ordered that until any city of the MN is nuked, we shall not respond with our nuclear triad,” General Albrecht said. “And that’s generally how all civilized nations act. Unless a nuclear attack is assured, it cannot be a precedent to strike with our nukes. We also operate under a no-strike-first policy that you have set up since you were crowned.”

“And the enemy?”

“They don’t. And we don’t know how they will react to conventional SRBM or ICBM attacks. Even if it isn’t nuclear-tipped, we cannot be sure that they won’t see it as such, and escalate into an open exchange.”

Amelie shook her head.

“So what retaliation options do we have available?”

“Giving our troops permission to fire back chemical munitions at them,” General Albrecht said. “If they get to use those weapons, then we’ll probably strike some fear in them by doing the same.”

“There’s a downside though,” Chief Air Marshall Zimmerman said, frowning. “That’ll only normalize the usage of chemical munitions on moving frontlines. Remember, we’re not in the Great War, with civilian populations close to the unmoving frontlines long evacuated. We’re fighting with very mobile frontlines. And people are in the settlements where these lines move.”

“That’s how the death toll reached this much…” Amelie said, as she shook her head. “Damn it…all of my options are ugly. I can’t just roll over and accept this.”

“I said it already back then and I’ll say it again,” William said on the side, as Amelie turned up to look at his face. “This is war. All of your options will always be ugly.”

Amelie looked down at the desk, then at her gloves, as she came to an awful conclusion.

“Then…we’ll be sticking to the measured response plan,” she took her gloves and wore them back. “For now.”

The aides opened the door again, as Amelie made her way out of the room, still pissed as ever.