“Major clashes continue in the Gallia–Poznek borders. Four Pozneki towns near the former DMZ had been captured by Gallian and Lorathian forces after days of constant fighting. While no major operation has yet to occur, both sides are seemingly subjecting each other to constant heavy shelling and local assaults and counter-attacks. Most likely, these are the shaping operations underway before the next major battle, with analysts suggesting a possible push by MN forces against the currently weakened CFN forces in Poznek.”

- Geopol Press

+++

West Orland

Duchy of Rimwurz

November Palace

November 20, 2025

“So we’re going to Hebei?” Nia asked as she sliced the piece of roasted chicken on her plate. William on the other hand dunked the juice on his plate, while Amelie silently tapped on her phone. She placed it to the side of the table and resumed eating as well, as Nia continued. “And in what, two days?”

“Yep,” Amelie replied as she took a fork of the meat on her plate. She enjoyed the nice taste. It was well-roasted to perfection. The chicken’s breast was still somewhat juicy, and the skin was seasoned nicely. Courtesy of the Palace’s cooks. Amelie had greatly cut down on eating fancy stuff, but a nice chicken here and there certainly helped her morale.

Especially in between major meetings between the Heiss Cabinet and the Orlish High Command (OHC).

William placed his cup on the table, and relaxed on his seat, already finished eating.

“Gonna be a bit of a risky trip,” William warned. “Though, I believe Empress Xue has positioned a lot of air defense near Yanhai City. But…it’s a foreign expedition, and there have been…attacks of the Global Restoration League on Yanhai City itself.”

“That again…” Nia turned a bit pale. “...Ugh, I’m starting to really fear for my life here. Those people are way too damned threatening. I still feel like a dead woman that only luckily escaped death right now after Rastwurst.”

“Well, we learned a thing or two from Rastwurst anyway,” William tried. “…Somewhat. I’ve given a few of my OPM boys these LAW-82s. Some…light anti-tank recoilless weapons. Should punch into any of those fancy power armor if need be. I’ve retrained and reorganized all four platoons of Salvo Company too.”

“Hmm…” Amelie nodded. “I did see the guys from Anchor Platoon preparing those…anti-tank weapons. I think they had a dozen stashed somewhere?”

“More than a dozen, actually,” William replied. “Anyway, Anchor Platoon is the heaviest armed one, so they get the most of the LAW-82s. Effect Platoon has none, since they’re my close escort platoon with you, and they’re more public-facing. But all members of Salvo Company have been armed with the new Mk-15 grenades, designed by the OPM.”

“A new grenade?” Amelie raised her eyebrows.

“Yes. The nutheads designed it to somehow have enough explosive capacity to damage their armor, or at least, heavily disorient them,” William shook his head. “Unfortunately, it isn’t for the prissy ones. It’s basically a slightly smaller satchel charge. So if you see one throwing one of those bombs, well, eh…duck immediately low on the ground.”

“That doesn’t really help raise my confidence in living through another attack,” Nia groaned. “Now my chances of dying to friendly explosives are higher.”

“Hey, we gotta try,” William countered. “And as it stands, should the worst happen, at least we’ll have a big explosion that we can throw at ‘em. That should get them to stop shooting at us quickly. And if not, Theresa is hard at work training the HMSD with newer spells and techniques. Including Alpha Squad, which will be trailing closely behind Amelie at all times too.”

“That helps, I suppose,” Amelie said, as she returned to her food. Suddenly, an aide opened the door to the room they were dining in. She immediately reported something politely after bowing.

“Your Majesty, the cabinet meeting has finished their recess,” she reported. “They’re all returning to the conference room, alongside our military officers.”

“Okay,” Amelie replied, as she sped up eating. “Tell them we’ll be there soon.”

+++

“Regardless of what anyone says,” General Victor Albrecht grinned as he stood in the middle of the conference table. “We triumphed, ladies and gentlemen. For now, we have fully repulsed all Federalist offensives against us. Both in the Archduchy, the Free Confederation, and the Grand Duchy.”

“That’s commendable,” Defense Minister Pristina Dubois smiled. “The OAF has performed nicely once again.”

“And, the Royal Guard has been helping greatly for that,” General Albrecht admitted. “I should especially note the valiant action conducted by the 8th Knights Detachment Unit at holding out on critical positions in Southern Westlauren recently. That’s alongside the mixed-gender brigades that we’ve deployed over there. Quite frankly, it’s a beautiful sight.”

Amelie nodded.

“Finally. Our efforts have started to bear fruit. It’s lamentable that both Orlishmen and Orlishwomen would now die for the Kingdom. But at the same time, it is progress,” Amelie declared. “Now, we will have more available manpower at the front. Have we also started finally rotating out badly spent soldiers?”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Yes,” General Albrecht confirmed. “Many of the soldiers that had already been fighting for a year or more have finally received their first rotations out of the front. We already drafted approximately four hundred thousand young women and trained them heavily for frontline duties. And they’re trickling in to replace badly depleted or fatigued units.”

“That should help with our forces’ morale,” Prime Minister Jacqueline Heiss smiled. “That might significantly change things soon. If we can reach the point where our soldiers are constantly finally being given enough rest, then we’ll have more motivated forces for defense and offensive operations.”

“Are we not yet planning to do anything about the stalemate at our home?” Health and Social Welfare Minister Allison Thell suddenly asked. “It’s nice and all that we’re finally…making some progress, but it seems that all of our upcoming offensive operations won’t be to liberate our brothers and sisters, but other countries.”

“It’s a necessary strategy,” Deputy Prime Minister Walter Plock firmly said. “The Queen and the OHC are correct in the idea of fighting overseas while containing and whittling down the Federalists. Besides, even with this progress, we’re still not going to be capable of actually pushing them back in any significant manner.”

“Unfortunate,” Allison turned more somber. “Orland itself keeps bleeding. I don’t know, I’m starting to feel…not good about the length of the war in our home. Too many people are dying and getting injured. And my Ministry has to deal with them.”

“Hmm, what’s our updated tally anyway on military and civilian casualties?” Amelie suddenly asked.

Everyone looked at Allison. After all, while the OAF technically kept the most up-to-date tally of military casualties, it was the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare that tracked both civilian and military casualties in accurate weekly counts that she would routinely publish.

Allison breathed in softly, as she pulled out a folder. Then, she read out loud its contents.

“Currently, our civilian deaths have reached…four hundred twenty-two thousand killed. There are also eight hundred fifty-eight thousand that have been wounded, or sick,” Allison frowned. “And…and as of now, nearly half of that figure is still at our hospitals, clinics, and treatment centers.”

“...So it rose by nearly, what, around a tenth of the previous figure?” Amelie asked. “How did that even happen?”

“Mostly because of the offensive in the Free Confederation,” Allison said. “They’re using a lot of deep air strikes and missile strikes against our densely populated cities there. And while the military’s air defense is successfully keeping them off from military assets and critical infrastructure, the enemy is being petty by targeting residential areas.”

“It’s the same in the Archduchy,” Pristina fumed. “Those bastards have been at it for the last two months. I guess it’s not enough that they completely demolished Thein, my crown jewel. They also have to demolish every other smaller city in the Archduchy. And for what? Revenge? It’s sickening.”

“Well, we’re trying to cover our population centers as best as we can,” General Albrecht said. “But it’s a bit difficult when the enemy goes on a full SEAD and air offensive. They start breaking things in our defense networks when that happens. Then we have to de-prioritize cities close to the frontline in favor of defending critical areas. Military HQs, supply depots, railway and rail stations, and power plants.”

“I understand,” Amelie replied. “But I think because of this, we should start seriously considering the full evacuation of all settlements…at what is the maximum distance of most of their long-range fires?”

General Abrecht took a while to respond, checking the tablet he was holding.

“Most of their tactical missiles, which they spam in the high thousands each month, are capable of reaching three hundred kilometers on average. It’s a bit of a growing trend. Last month, they fired around one thousand two hundred various tactical missiles. This month, they’ve already reached one thousand four hundred missiles fired on the twentieth day.”

“Which means their capabilities are only growing,” Economic Minister Anne Wittfield crossed her arms. “Does this mean that we need at least two thousand interceptors each month?”

“Yes, roughly,” General Albrecht nodded. “Alongside a thousand tactical and cruise missiles monthly to sustain our counter-fires missions.”

“What are we mostly targeting anyway?” Amelie asked.

“Most of our attacks are directed at their supply lines and communication lines, alongside tactical applications on the frontline itself,” General Albrecht replied. “But the Federalists are…a different breed. They seem to dedicate a good portion of their attacks on our civilian centers no matter what.”

“They want to sow terror and retribution,” Amelie concluded. “That’s all that I can gather from this.”

“Most of our sophisticated air defense equipment is being placed in West Orland,” Jacqueline sighed. “The rest of the country is still somewhat aching. I’m already getting under pressure from members of parliament who represent our eastern principalities. They want more air defense coverage for their people.”

“Well, we can’t do that,” Anne shook her head. “West Orland is where our new and online production bases are. And where most of our population now lives, even if temporary. A massive portion of the air defense budget should always be spent on West Orland because this place is what’ll win us this war.”

“And thus, we’re treating the east as a frontline to be sacrificed,” Amelie said. “I can’t say I agree with this. But…yeah, realistically, most of our air defense will be focused in the West.”

“Well, to be fair, most of our medium-range and tactical surface-to-air missile systems are defending the east, they just get consumed faster,” General Albrecht said. “In the West, the problems we face aren’t cruise missiles or SRBMs and MRBMs. It’s IRBMs and maybe ICBMs one day. The long-range ballistic missile types. Usually, they fire it on us with conventional MIRV payloads.”

“And how are we faring against that?” Amelie asked.

“So far, they’ve fired four hundred IRBMs on our western cities,” General Albrecht said. “That’s…over the course of the war. And we’ve had a ninety-eight percent intercept rate so far. The few that managed to land, well, we allowed them to land in uninhabited areas.”

“We’re getting our anti-nuclear defense capabilities tested at least, no?” Amelie asked.

“Yes. Quite frankly, what they’re doing is practically the equivalent of tossing nukes at us. If this was any other war, it would have escalated to nuclear warfare at this point,” General Albrecht sighed. “There’s no way for us to know if the IRBMs they’re throwing at us are nuclear-tipped or not. Except for the fact that the AFI and NID are in constant contact with the OIA on underground channels. The general agreement between us is that once they fire IRBMs and we detect them, we will contact them, and they’ll say ‘no nukes there’.”

“Weird,” Adelaide frowned. “The only diplomatic contact we have with the CFN since the start of this stupid war is backchannels that are only used to say, ‘We’re not firing nukes yet’.”

“Well, at least it’s something,” Amelie said. “It’s something that’ll keep this Kingdom living on another day. And while I’d like to open more official communications with them, we should maintain this one at all costs. We can’t go lower than this.”