June 5, 1639 – Capital Vicomté, Kingdom of Leifor, Mu continent

  The skies over Vicomté were a dull, overcast gray. The wind swept low and slow over cobbled streets, once filled with the ctter of carts, the murmur of street vendors, and the light ughter of children chasing each other between narrow alleyways. Today, the capital was silent.

  Buildings stood still, empty-eyed, as if holding their breath. Market stalls had been taken down, shops shuttered, and cafés that once spilled onto the streets with lively conversations and the scent of roasted coffee now bore only dust and boarded windows. The great marble courtyards of Vicomté's historic districts echoed not with culture, but with the click of boots and the grind of metal. National guards patrolled the avenues in formation, rifles shouldered, eyes scanning. Military trucks rattled along rail lines and newly reinforced roads, distributing supplies, ammunition, and building materials. Beaches to the south, once leisure spots for nobility and tourists alike, had been turned into defensive lines. Bunkers protruded like scars on the shoreline, steel-reinforced and hidden beneath camoufge netting. Concrete obstacles stretched in rows along the sand, while mines were discreetly buried between them.

  This wasn't readiness. It was dread made solid.

  Inside an old stone fort repurposed as a command center, tension hung heavy in the air. Maps and diagrams littered the walls. Radio chatter flickered in and out, reporting fleet formations, aerial patrols, and ground logistics. Officers moved quickly but quietly, the air too serious for unnecessary talk. In a side room off the main command floor—dimly lit, with a single fan swaying above—sat the core of Leifor's strategic mind.

  Marshal édouard Kessler, the head of the Leiforian Air Force, stood over a wide table. Beside him, Colonel Erich Moreau, commander of the 3rd Armored Division, was flipping through a stack of reports. Admiral Charles Levasseur leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, saying nothing. Their uniforms bore dust and wear. Fatigue was beginning to take root behind their composed exteriors.

  Across the table sat two men in modern digital camoufge. They didn't wear the colors of Leifor. They were advisors—sent by Mu, one of Earth's earliest allies in this world. Though Mu's own capabilities were well beyond Leifor's, they too relied heavily on intelligence and materials from the nations of Earth. And right now, they were bringing more than advice.

  Major Elias Tomihara of the Mu National Army, fnked by his aide, unrolled a rge sheet across the table. It wasn't hand-drawn or printed on linen like the Leiforian maps. It was glossy, colored in sharp detail, with yered topography, annotations, naval patrol arcs, and airbase indicators.

  "This," he said, tapping the map, "is the test intelligence on the Gra Valkan Empire's major military deployments. Sourced from US satellite imaging two weeks ago. Everything is up to date within a three-day margin."

  The room went silent.

  The Leiforians leaned in. It wasn't just the crity of the map, though that alone was stunning. It was the content. Hundreds of positions were marked. Aerial wings organized into squadrons. Entire naval formations categorized, including tonnage, armament css, and known maneuver patterns.

  "Impossible," Kessler muttered.

  "No... that's the Grade Atstar css," Levasseur said, narrowing his eyes. He pointed at a particur section beled in red. "Heavy armor, triple main battery, dispcement—what is this? Seventy thousand tons?"

  "Eighty-three," Tomihara corrected. "The Atstar is their fgship css. Based on US comparisons, it outguns the Bismarck-css battleships from Earth's WWII period and matches the Yamato-css in raw firepower. The Gra Valkans have sixty of them, at least."

  "Sixty?" Moreau said, voice rising. "You're telling me they've mass-produced something like that? That's not a battleship line—that's a fleet designed for conquest."

  Tomihara nodded grimly. "And this—" he gestured again "—is the Pegasus css. Aircraft carriers. Ten confirmed. Each can carry up to 80 fixed-wing aircraft."

  Kessler stared, hollow-eyed. Leifor had only begun to experiment with carrier doctrine. Their three light carriers were still training mixed squadrons of early monopnes and converted wyvern handlers. This... was something else entirely.

  "You mentioned this came from the United States?" Admiral Levasseur asked, breaking the momentary silence.

  Tomihara looked up. "Yes. They've shared this intelligence with Mu and all other Earth-aligned nations. They consider the Gra Valkan Empire a hostile force with global ambitions. The US Intelligence Agency has a doctrine term for powers like this: totalitarian military-industrial autocracies. The warning is clear: we are witnessing the rise of a regime that mirrors 1940s fascist states from Earth. With the industrial power to match."

  "How can they even produce that many ships?" Moreau asked.

  "Their economy is mobilized entirely for war," Tomihara expined. "No civilian sectors. No open markets. The entire state apparatus is geared to feed its military expansion. Their territories are resource-rich, with forced bor and conscripted civilian workforces driving their industrial output. Based on estimates, their GDP is nearing 2 trillion Earth dolrs. All of it focused on conquest."

  Silence again.

  Outside, in the cold stone corridors of the fort, a courier ran past, holding tightly a sealed communique. The sound of a distant explosion—an artillery drill at the training fields beyond the southern perimeter—rumbled faintly. The war hadn't begun, but its weight was already here.

  "What about their doctrine?" Levasseur asked.

  "Blitzkrieg," the Mu aide replied. "They favor speed, mechanization, and overwhelming force. Their tanks are numerous—twenty thousand. Their air force relies heavily on te-WWII-style propeller aircraft. Their mainline fighter is the Antares, a single-seat, high-speed interceptor. Twin-bded propeller, streamlined fusege, and armed with four 20mm cannons. Fast, agile, and mass-produced in the thousands."

  He unrolled a separate sheet—an aircraft profile diagram with specifications in clean Muish and Earth-standard script.

  "The Antares is designed for aggressive air superiority. No radar, no advanced avionics—just raw speed, power, and swarm tactics. Its airframe is built for durability in dogfights, with engine performance simir to Earth's P-51 Mustang. We've seen squadrons of them outmaneuvering older bipnes with ease."

  Marshal Kessler muttered, "And we still fly converted wyvern escorts and monopnes..."

  Tomihara didn't respond. Instead, he pointed to a data strip on the profile. "The Antares can hit 700 kilometers per hour in a dive. Ceiling around 12,000 meters. They're paired with long-range bombers in coordinated raids—strike first, clear the skies, then level the target."

  "If they reach Vicomté," the aide added, "they won't just bomb you. They'll own your airspace. And when they do, nothing on the ground will survive long."

  Marshal Kessler stepped back, breathing deep.

  "And you?" he asked. "Mu? Earth? What's your py?"

  Tomihara exhaled. "Mu is preparing defensive alliances. Earth nations—particurly the US, China, and NATO—are watching carefully. But direct involvement depends on what Gra Valkas does next. If they attack a nation under Earth protection... they'll retaliate. But if Leifor stands alone—" he trailed off.

  Kessler understood. "Then we hold the line until help comes. If it comes."

  Tomihara didn't answer.

  The candlelight flickered against the glossy map, casting shadows over the carefully marked red lines that led directly toward Leiforian territory. The proximity of war wasn't theoretical anymore. The enemy was mapped, analyzed, and quantified—more real in this moment than ever before.

  Levasseur straightened. "Then we start by hardening the coastlines. Mobilize the rest of the reserve fleet. Double the minefields off the western inlet. And tell the air yards: all fighters are on a 24-hour readiness cycle."

  Kessler nodded. "I'll reorganize the air wings. Pull the wyvern squadrons out of front-line deployment. They won't survive this."

  "And the civilians?" Moreau asked.

  Levasseur didn't answer Moreau right away. He gnced toward the shuttered window behind him, where faint light filtered in through sts of dust and grime. Outside, the capital remained still—eerily so. A few scattered carts rumbled down boulevards, guarded by armed escorts. Military convoys moved with precision through city gates, ferrying munitions to coastal bunkers and forward supply points.

  "There's no way to guarantee safety," Levasseur said finally, his voice hollow. "We don't know when they'll strike. Or where."

  Kessler stepped in. "Our guess is weeks. Maybe days. Maybe tomorrow."

  "No signs of movement from the Gra Valkan fleet?" Moreau asked, but even as he said it, the weight behind his question betrayed his doubt.

  Tomihara stepped forward again, his tone calm but direct. "That's the problem. Their carriers and battleships have scattered across dozens of ports. Satellite imaging caught some regrouping exercises st month, but their command structure is highly compartmentalized. The US suspects they'll unch a preemptive strike using their carrier groups. Fast. Precise. Designed to cripple your navy before it ever leaves port."

  Moreau cursed under his breath.

  Levasseur turned to the aide from Mu. "You said Earth fought enemies like this. What did they do to prepare?"

  The Mu aide—Lieutenant Sora Minami—nodded. "They decentralized. Spread their assets. Built decoys. Dug in. And most importantly—they hardened civilian morale. Earth learned that in modern war, cities aren't spared. Neither are factories. Neither is hope."

  A silence followed, deeper than before. The kind of silence that doesn't stem from a ck of words, but from the knowledge that all words might be inadequate.

  Moreau slowly sat, the weight of his armor creaking as he settled into a chair. "We should have listened sooner," he said, voice low. "We dismissed the Gra Valkans as another empire clinging to past glory. We thought we could buy time. That diplomacy would dey them."

  Tomihara looked him in the eye. "Diplomacy only works on regimes that fear consequences. Gra Valkas doesn't. That's why Earth watches them so closely."

  Outside, thunder rolled—not from the sky, but from artillery drills echoing through the valley to the west. The coastal batteries had been running nonstop for 72 hours, training fresh crews, zeroing in range finders, rotating barrels glowing faintly red from repeated discharge. Leifor wasn't waiting for war. It was preparing to survive it.

  Back inside the room, Levasseur looked back at the map, eyes narrowing on the western seaboard. "We pull all warships from dock tonight. Move them to staggered anchor positions offshore. If they hit the harbor first, we can't afford to lose everything in a single strike."

  "And the airbases?" Kessler asked.

  "Move squadrons north," he said. "Keep them on the move. Fuel dumps and aircraft can't sit idle in neat rows like parades. Hide them in civilian zones if we must. Industrial lots. Abandoned towns. If the Valkans want to hit us, make them guess."

  Minami looked over the pns. "Your countermeasures are sound. But you should assume one thing: the first attack will be a message. They won't go after soldiers. They'll strike something symbolic."

  Kessler scowled. "Civilian infrastructure?"

  Minami nodded. "A capital. A rail hub. An energy facility. Something visible. The Gra Valkan Empire likes its conquests to be known before its boots hit the ground."

  The weight of that statement sank in. Vicomté wasn't just the capital—it was the pride of Leifor. And now, it was a target painted red on someone else's map.

  Moreau stood again, stiffly. "Then we start evacuating critical personnel. Now. Not tomorrow."

  Kessler agreed. "And we get the engineers working on field radar immediately. Even if we can't stop them, we need to see them coming."

  As the officers moved into action, a courier burst through the doorway with a sealed folder. Breathless. Pale.

  Levasseur took it without a word, slicing it open with the edge of his dagger. He skimmed the page. No dates. No signatures. Just a confirmed report.

  Valkan aircraft have been spotted in open skies. No known flight pattern. No known escort.

  They were testing responses.

  Levasseur handed the paper to Kessler. "They're baiting us. Mapping our detection net."

  Kessler's jaw tightened. "Then we respond with silence. Let them think we're deaf."

  And with that, the war room fell back into ordered chaos—staff issuing dispatches, officers calling out logistics requests, new defense sectors drawn up along the southern ridge. It was an old capital, one built on tradition. Today, tradition was buried. In its pce: doctrine, readiness, and the cold precision of a nation that understood war was no longer a possibility.

  It was a countdown. They just didn't know when it would end.

  Outside the city walls, the roads to the countryside were already swelling with evacuation columns. Families loaded their belongings into wagons or military trucks. Posters once promoting industrial pride now bore slogans of defiance: "Leifor Will Not Fall," and "Our Steel Holds the Line."

  In the skies above Vicomté, no birds flew. Only patrol pnes circled slowly, watching the horizon.

  The storm hadn't hit yet.

  But everyone knew it was coming.

  June 7, 1639 – Wellington Barracks,Capital Otaheit, Mu Republic

  The cargo truck rolled through the eastern gate of Wellington Barracks just after sunrise, its matte-green paint dulled by salt from the coastal wind. A white shipping container sat firmly on the bed, its corners rusted, paint scratched, yet its significance far outweighed its appearance. Unlike the artillery wagons and fuel tankers that normally passed through the base, this one had arrived escorted—straight from Otaheit's port.

  Two Muish soldiers fgged the driver down at the gate checkpoint. Papers were signed. Barriers lifted. And the truck rumbled forward onto the parade ground, where a group of officers and technical staff already waited.

  Colonel Arthur C. Wycliffe, the commanding officer of Wellington Barracks, stood at the edge of the group, arms crossed behind his back. He was a tall man with silver at his temples, known for being calm in the face of chaos. And for the past three weeks, he'd been navigating Mu's newest reality—Earth's technology.

  A thin rectangur object buzzed quietly in his breast pocket. Wycliffe reached in and retrieved the smartphone, a bck rectangle of gss gifted by the United States. The Americans had sent three thousand of them—one of several surprise "aid packages" that had arrived after the first diplomatic exchanges. It came along with three million dolrs in unconditional funds and access to Starlink, the global satellite communications system that now hovered invisibly above their world.

  Wycliffe unlocked the phone with a tap, slid open the message app, and reviewed a logistics update from the capital. The crity of the screen still caught him off guard. So did the responsiveness. A device thinner than a radio mic, more powerful than any Muish supercomputer—assuming Mu had one to begin with.

  "Colonel," said Captain Charles Henley, stepping up beside him, "engineers are ready."

  Wycliffe nodded, pocketed the phone, and motioned to the crane team. They moved fast—lifting the container gently from the ftbed and setting it down with a hiss of hydraulics onto a cleared section of tarmac. A series of metallic cnks followed as they cracked the locks and swung open the doors.

  Inside: rows of neatly packed bck hardcases, stacked four high, ten across. Each one was foam-lined, beled in simplified Chinese and English: FPV Drone Unit - Racing Grade.

  Henley stepped forward and opened the first case. Inside y the Temu-purchased drone: a compact, quad-rotor model with carbon fiber arms, brushless motors, and a mounted micro-camera at the nose. Not a toy—but not a military-grade UAV either, by Earth standards. Yet in Mu, it was revolutionary.

  "Lightweight," Henley murmured, lifting it. "And quiet."

  Wycliffe walked forward, watching as the engineering corps rolled out a colpsible antenna array. A Starlink dish had already been mounted on the roof of the nearby comms shack—Earth's infrastructure silently integrating into Mu's defenses. A dedicated tablet was brought out next, already synced with one of the drones.

  "Range?" Wycliffe asked.

  "Ten kilometers, line of sight," said Lieutenant Oswald Gray, the systems officer. "Live video feed through Earth's network, encrypted. Low tency. Insane responsiveness."

  Wycliffe raised an eyebrow. "And the price?"

  Gray smirked faintly. "They're being sold for about 60 a unit. Manufactured in Guangdong, China—mass produced for hobbyists and semi-pro racers. Production cost is probably no more than 15–20, depending on the volume."

  "That's cheaper than a bicycle," Henley muttered.

  "For them, yes," Gray said. "For us? This is bck magic."

  Wycliffe looked out across the field as ten soldiers opened more cases. Within fifteen minutes, thirty drones had been assembled, battery packs slotted, and cameras calibrated. Engineers brought out rugged ptops, used only for interfacing. Pilots were briefed—most had never seen a real-time camera before.

  The unch zone was cleared.

  "Begin sequence," Wycliffe ordered.

  Rotors whirred up into a chorus of high-pitched whines. One by one, the drones lifted—smooth, stable, controlled. Their red and green signal lights blinked under the gray sky as they took flight. A soldier shouted coordinates. The swarm moved, weaving through obstacle poles, climbing to 200 meters, pivoting in formation, then diving as if attacking a moving convoy.

  Their speed was startling. Mu's anti-air corps, still accustomed to prop-driven monopnes and lookout towers, had never seen anything so small move so precisely. Each drone streamed real-time video to handheld tablets. Buildings, fences, vehicles—all appeared in crisp, wide-angle footage. Some of the drones even carried small weights to simute grenade drops or sensor payloads.

  Within minutes, a simuted strike on a mock tank column was complete. Every "hit" had been documented, repyed, and marked with virtual red zones. Zero casualties. No ammo spent. No fuel burned.

  "This is not a weapon in the conventional sense," Wycliffe said quietly. "It's a scalpel."

  Henley looked over, blinking. "You're thinking recon. Scouting. Sabotage?"

  Wycliffe nodded. "Imagine slipping ten of these across a contested border. Pnting sensors. Marking targets. Or even detonating charges on enemy trucks or ammo caches. And we could afford a hundred more."

  "Colonel, we have a hundred now," Gray said. "Paid from the U.S. discretionary fund. The remaining 2.94 million is untouched."

  Wycliffe folded his arms. The drones were still flying above, darting across the sky like a school of metal fish. The test was quiet. Controlled. No explosions. No gunfire. But in many ways, it was more dangerous than any cannon Mu had ever fired.

  He reached into his coat again and checked the smartphone. A message had come through from the Ministry of Defense: "Preliminary tests approved. US observers request a live-fire version next week. They will send a team."

  Wycliffe looked up at the sky, where the drones now hovered in silent formation. A camera panned toward him, its operator back on the ground steering it with smooth thumb movements. The screen on the tablet dispyed the Colonel's face in real time—sharp, clear, framed by morning fog and the rising sun over Otaheit.

  He turned back to Henley.

  "Send word to command," he said. "We'll prepare for Phase Two."

  The word spread within minutes. Logistics officers issued new loadouts. Engineers began wheeling out heat-dummy targets wrapped in foil and painted in Gra Valkan army tones. Each resembled either a truck, an artillery cannon, or an open-topped armored vehicle. They'd been built crudely in the base's mechanical division just for this drill.

  At the far end of the parade ground, a temporary command tent had been pitched. Inside, two foreign observers—Major Simmons of the United States Army and Technician Naomi Wu from Taiwan's drone R&D agency—were already seated at folding tables, their ptops open and antenna modules deployed. A third screen dispyed the live Starlink uplink status: "Online – Ping: 37ms."

  Major Simmons and Technician Naomi Wu arrived via military airlift three days prior, part of an early Earth delegation assigned to Mu under the Joint Strategic Support Pact. Their role was simple: observe, advise, and quietly prepare Mu's defenses using Earth-grade tech—starting with drones and AI.

  Simmons leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. "They ready?"

  "They're faster than expected," Naomi murmured, eyes tracking the telemetry feed.

  Outside, the drone swarm began to move.

  At exactly 0730 hours, Wycliffe's voice crackled over the radio:"Phase Two, live fire: green light."

  The change was instant.

  Ten drones peeled off in a low V-formation, accelerating toward a simuted enemy column half a kilometer downrange. Each carried a modified payload casing—lightweight, soft-release containers rigged with powdered paint, tagged to simute thermite grenades. Mu's engineers couldn't get real munitions in time, but the physics would hold.

  The first drone nosed downward in a shallow arc. Its camera feed streamed to a tablet inside the tent, viewed by Mu's General Staff through a secure channel.

  Target locked.The operator tapped twice on-screen.

  The payload released.

  A second ter, the lead dummy truck on the field bloomed with a burst of red dye. Direct hit. Two more drones followed—green on the "AA empcement," yellow on the comms truck. One pass. All targets painted. All data streamed, logged, repyed.

  In the background, Captain Henley watched the pyback loop, arms folded tight against the cool morning air.

  "This would've taken an entire ptoon, three radio men, and half a day."

  "And left two men dead, minimum," Wycliffe added. "That's what the st drill cost us."

  Another pair of drones fnked the mock armor unit. They skimmed low over the tarmac, then ascended sharply. Their video feed revealed weak points in the vehicle tops—vents, engine covers, turret gaps. The footage froze mid-frame on impact zones, annotated automatically by Naomi Wu's software.

  She tapped a key."Next run: thermal vision overy. Simuted heat signatures now active."

  Near the truck line, soldiers scrambled to attach battery packs to the dummy targets. Within seconds, the heat-mimicking panels began to glow in the infrared spectrum. What was invisible to the naked eye now bzed like a bonfire through the drone cams.

  Wycliffe took a long breath. "So that's how they see everything."

  "This is baseline," Simmons replied. "Most recon birds we use have twenty sensors. Those FPVs? They're bottom-shelf." He smiled faintly. "Still better than sending a wyvern scout into fk range."

  Wycliffe didn't smile. He was too busy thinking.

  Back on the flight field, more drones unched—this batch smaller, even cheaper. Recon-only. Light airframes, fitted with tiny 1080p cameras and long-range transmitters. They fanned out in an arc toward a hilly tree line beyond the drill field.

  Lieutenant Gray briefed his squad. "We're running mapping tests next. Same software Earth uses for disaster zones. Create a 3D model, stitch it from drone footage, and simute enemy trench lines."

  He pulled out a phone—another of the bck sbs sent by the Americans—and tapped open the app.

  DroneAI Mobile v1.6Language: EnglishSystem: ChatGPT Companion Enabled

  He raised the screen to Henley. "They loaded it with a helper AI. Name's ChatGPT. Speaks our nguage. Answers questions in seconds. You can ask it how to scan a trench, plot a flight path, even how to calibrate antenna sync in poor weather."

  Henley took the phone, brows raised. "And how accurate is it?"

  Gray shrugged. "I asked it how to cook mb stew st night. It gave me a recipe that made my wife cry."

  Wycliffe leaned over. "Does it work for combat?"

  "Sir," Gray said, pointing to the tactical overy, "half this drill was pnned with its help."

  Wycliffe stared at the interface again. The answers were instant. Terrain elevation, wind speed modeling, optimal angle of descent for a 40g drone at 15 meters. It wasn't magic. It just worked.

  He tapped the side of the smartphone, almost cautiously, then looked over at Lieutenant Gray."This thing—ChatGPT. It can calcute all this? Just from words?"

  Gray nodded. "You just ask. No code. No programming. It speaks like a human, but it thinks like a machine."

  Captain Henley stepped closer, peering at the tiny screen. The chatbot interface looked ughably simple—white background, blinking cursor. He watched as Gray typed:

  'Best way to neutralize moving convoy using FPV drones with 5km range and limited payload'

  The reply came in seconds.

  "For a moving convoy within 5 km range, prioritize disabling lead and rear vehicles to halt movement. Use terrain to mask approach. Stagger drone waves for yered strikes. If payload is light, target tires, engines, and fuel tanks. Use decoys to confuse AA response."

  Henley let out a low whistle. "Bloody hell. That's better than half our staff academy."

  Gray grinned. "It even cites U.S. Army doctrine. If you ask."

  Wycliffe raised an eyebrow. "Cites?"

  Gray pulled up another window. "Watch this." He typed:

  'Cite U.S. military doctrine on asymmetric drone warfare'

  The chatbot returned a structured answer with references—actual manuals, even the year they were published.

  "According to FM 3-24 (Counterinsurgency) and ATP 3-04.64 (Small UAS Operations), drones are force multipliers in reconnaissance, precision targeting, and psychological disruption. Their effectiveness increases when used in decentralized, agile formations..."

  Wycliffe looked stunned. "We've got officers still debating if radios should repce fg signals. And this thing's pulling doctrine out of thin air."

  The realization hit hard.

  It wasn't just that Earth's technology was advanced. It was that they had made intelligence accessible. Not hoarded in archives or locked behind academies. Not filtered through bureaucrats. But alive, responsive, fast.

  Henley frowned slightly. "If we had this during the Varneth campaign, we could've saved two regiments."

  Wycliffe didn't answer. He was still watching the AI type.

  Gray spoke again. "Sir, the Americans aren't just sending us tools. They're sending us brains. At scale. This isn't about repcing soldiers. It's about upgrading decision-making."

  Wycliffe finally nodded. "And it doesn't forget. Doesn't panic. Doesn't need sleep."

  He reached out and typed himself, slowly:

  'Suggest a yered defensive perimeter for a coastal military base with limited radar and air cover'

  The bot responded with clear bullet points, diagrams, fallback positions, and modur field suggestions based on different threat levels. It even added the line:

  "Recommendation: hide decoys in radar blind spots. Deploy thermal bait units to mislead infrared-guided systems. Incorporate low-tech redundancy—sandbag positions still work."

  Wycliffe blinked. "It thinks of everything."

  By midday, the full 100-drone test had concluded. Over 97 successful mock strikes were logged. Every unit returned intact. Battery life remained stable at 40%, and video logs were auto-archived to external SSDs carried by Naomi's team.

  Wycliffe stood quietly by the command post, looking across the field where drone pilots were eating their ration packs beneath the wings of their grounded machines.

  "I used to think air superiority meant having the loudest engine," he muttered. "Turns out it means being invisible, silent, and fast enough to hit before anyone knows you're there."

  Simmons closed his ptop. "This is how wars start now. Quiet things. Little things. By the time someone sees it—it's already done."

  At evening. The officers gathered in a quiet semicircle. A projection screen dispyed stills from the day's run—mock targets lit up with hits, terrain scanned and mapped with precision down to the shrub.

  Colonel Wycliffe faced them, hands behind his back.

  "These drones are not just weapons. They're scouts. They're eyes. They're reach. And they cost less than a soldier's rifle."

  He paused.

  "We'll begin full integration of FPV squadrons into our forward recon companies. Engineering will coordinate with Earth specialists to build a local production line using their open-source schematics."

  Someone raised a hand. "Sir, won't Gra Valkan detect this? We're escating."

  Wycliffe nodded. "Yes. And that's exactly the point."

  He stepped forward, the murmurs fading under his voice.

  "For too long, we've reacted. We waited. We second-guessed. That ends today."

  He tapped the smartphone in his hand.

  "They'll see our drones. They'll hear about this AI. They'll know that Mu isn't crawling behind Earth's shadow anymore."

  He looked across the room—at officers born into a doctrine of defensive retreats and slow, negotiated battles. At soldiers who'd grown up learning about tactics from field manuals written in the age of propellers and radio static.

  "Let them watch," Wycliffe said. "Let them worry. That's what modern warfare is, gentlemen. Visibility. Not just of our enemies—but of ourselves. Our capabilities. Our willingness."

  He held up the phone once more. The AI screen still glowed faintly, a blinking cursor ready for the next command.

  "This little thing? It's more dangerous than any cannon we've built. Because it gives us options. Speed. Vision. And vision is the one thing empires fear most—because it means their tactics are already obsolete."

  A pause. Then his voice lowered.

  "We don't need to match Gra Valkan ship for ship. We just need to out-think them. And now, we can."

  No one spoke.

  Outside, the st of the drones returned to their racks under the fading light. The skies above Otaheit were quiet, but no longer empty. Signals pulsed invisibly overhead—data, coordination, positioning. Starlink shimmered in orbit. Satellites from Earth watched from thousands of kilometers away. And at the edge of the sea, radar dishes turned just a little faster than they had the week before.

  June 13, 1639 – Hubert Forest, Parpaldian Empire

  Corporal Marven Lesthal was waist-deep in the trench mud, rifle across his knees, eyes fixed on the jagged skyline of Hubert Forest. It was morning again, though the sun had barely made it through the thick smoke curling over the tree line. The air reeked of cordite, diesel, and something worse—wet blood, turned sour under the June heat.

  His hands were wrapped around the stock of his Rhen Mark-10 rifle, the bolt-action old beast they all carried. Five-round clip. Wood furniture stained dark. Metal cold no matter the weather. It wasn't elegant, but it was dependable—as dependable as anything Parpaldia had left after a month of holding the line.

  "Wake up, Corporal," came a voice next to him. Private Henr slid down into the dugout beside him, face streaked with soot, gas mask dangling from his neck.

  "I didn't sleep," Marven muttered. "Not since the drones came back."

  From above, the distant whine of small engines rose—just on the edge of hearing. The men called them "buzzers." Earth-born machines, armed with cameras or worse. Sometimes they dropped explosives. Sometimes they didn't. Sometimes they just watched, hovering above like silent executioners, calling in artillery within seconds.

  Marven tapped the side of his helmet—a curved steel bowl, painted gray-green, designed in imitation of old Muish designs. Most of the 74th was wearing the same: reinforced wool uniforms with stiff colrs, leather webbing across the chest, and trench boots ced to the shin. Once, these uniforms had made them proud. Now they were soaked through, burned at the sleeves, patched with foreign cloth. One officer walked past with a modern Kevr vest thrown over his antique greatcoat. He looked like a ghost from three different wars.

  A low rumble rolled across the trench, distant but distinct. Not thunder—never thunder. Everyone froze. "Mortars?" someone asked. But Marven shook his head.

  "Worse."

  Seconds ter, the tree line exploded. A shell nded deep—an ISIS 120mm, maybe guided by drone. A high-pitched scream tore through the trench as the percussion wave hit. Chunks of bark and bodies shot into the air. Men ducked instinctively, but shrapnel didn't care for instincts. One man staggered back from the parapet, missing half his leg, red mist spraying from the stump.

  "MEDIC!" someone shouted. But the medics were already busy. Always busy.

  "Artillery! Return fire!" a sergeant bellowed.

  Across the trench line, the Parpaldian howitzers opened up. Their cannons were ancient things—field guns drawn by truck or mule, some as old as the Mu campaigns. But they worked. Gun crews fed shell after shell down their throats, and the whole forest shook as they barked back.

  "Run the line!" someone screamed.

  Marven hauled himself up and sprinted down the trench, mud sucking at his boots. Behind him, teams readied the Type-19 Muish mortars, squatting in the mud like angry toads. The tubes banged one after another, unching their charges into the green-bck hell ahead. Trees splintered. Screams echoed. Somewhere in the din, he heard the unmistakable howl of a wyvern diving.

  Above the battlefield, the 3rd Wyvern Squadron danced between smoke trails and burning drones. Their mounts were sleek, scaled beasts, armored with leather and pte. The riders wore flight suits and goggles, loosing iron javelins and crossbow bolts in furious, curving charges. Marven caught a glimpse of one wyvern pulling out of a dive with a burning quadcopter in its wake, smoke spiraling behind.

  But even they were struggling. The enemy's rifles cracked at full auto, the muzzle fshes brighter than anything Marven had seen in training. He remembered what the advisors from Arabia had told them: ISIS fights fast. They fight smart. They fight dirty. And now he understood what they meant.

  The 74th had adapted. They no longer bunched up. They didn't build bonfires at night. They dug their trines deeper, rotated watches more frequently, stopped wearing insignia that stood out through drone optics. Small tricks. Hard lessons. Learned at a cost.

  Marven reached his fireteam's position—a forward sally trench, carved barely ten meters from no-man's-nd. Two of his men crouched there with RM-10s, sights fixed forward. In the woods ahead, figures darted between trees. Their outlines were erratic—jerky, crouched low, cd in a mix of civilian and combat gear. AKs barked from the darkness.

  "Three o'clock!" he shouted.

  Henr pulled up beside him and loosed a shot. The bolt cycled with a satisfying click-chunk. "Think that was one?"

  "Don't care," Marven growled. "Keep their heads down."

  Then came the low thud-thud-thud of a Humvee-mounted heavy machine gun. Rounds chewed into the forward parapet. Wood exploded. Marven hit the deck, rolled, and shouted, "Mortar team! Shift grid east! Grid mark one-eight-nine!"

  A fre went up—red—and seconds ter, a fresh set of mortar rounds whistled overhead. Their impact was brutal. One shell nded directly on the Humvee, engulfing it in fire. A cheer rippled down the trench.

  "Bastards know how to die," someone muttered.

  Marven leaned back against the wall. His face was streaked with grime, and his ears rang. He looked down at his rifle again. The wood was chipped, the metal warm. But it still worked.

  He remembered the advisors again. One of them had fought in Mosul, decades ago. The man had said, "Your war isn't like ours. It's worse. Because you're stuck with what we threw away."

  The words haunted Marven. But they were right.

  Parpaldia had always fought wars of pride—expansion, dominance, imperial banners and parades. But this was survival. The Empire hadn't fought a modern enemy in over a century. And now here they were—trapped in trenches, facing drones and RPGs, while their wyverns fought birds of carbon and pstic.

  Another boom. Then another. ISIS was regrouping.

  "Rally point two's been hit," someone said down the line.

  "Rebels too?" Marven asked.

  "No word. Saint-Boyeux might be fnked."

  He looked east. Smoke curled up behind the trees. The line might buckle there. But no orders came, so he stayed.

  He reached into his coat and pulled out a canteen. The water inside was warm and tasted of metal. He drank anyway.

  Henr lit a cigarette. "Think we'll be rotated out?"

  "Hope not," Marven said. "I wouldn't know how to sleep anymore."

  Silence stretched between them.

  Then: tap tap tap tap — that awful buzzing again. Marven turned his eyes to the sky. Another drone, low, barely visible against the gray.

  He raised his rifle, led the target, fired. Missed. Fired again.

  The drone spun away, still alive.

  And then came the crack of guided artillery, falling toward them.

  "DOWN!"

  The trench rocked. A shell hit just behind the line. Smoke. Dirt. Screaming. Marven smmed face-first into the mud, ears ringing again. Blood was in his mouth.

  When he came to, Henr was gone. Just his boot stuck out from a mound of earth, twitching once.

  Marven didn't call for medics. He just stared.

  He couldn't remember why he was still alive. Or what day it was. Only that the war was still going.

  More gunfire echoed ahead. The 74th was still fighting.

  He pulled back the bolt, chambered another round, and took his pce at the parapet.

  Marven heard the footsteps before he saw the boy.

  Small. Limping. Covered in dust. His tunic was torn, blood staining one sleeve. Probably ten, maybe eleven. Brown eyes wide with terror—or something close to it. No weapon. No shoes. Just a child walking toward a battlefield like it wasn't swallowing men alive.

  Marven blinked, lowered his rifle a hair. "Hey! Kid!" he called, standing up from the trench lip. "What are you doing out here?"

  The boy didn't answer. Just kept walking, arms half raised, shaking.

  Marven vaulted over the trench wall. "Hold fire! HOLD FIRE!" he shouted behind him. The gunners didn't shoot. The kid looked too pitiful to be a threat.

  He jogged forward, boots squelching in churned-up mud, rifle slung over his shoulder. As he got closer, he could see the kid's lips moving. Whispering something. Prayer, maybe. His hands trembled.

  "Hey, hey, you're alright now," Marven said softly, kneeling. "Come on, we'll get you safe. Water. Food. You're alright—"

  Then the kid reached up and pulled at his tunic colr.

  Marven's eyes dropped. And froze.

  Wires. Tape. A vest.

  His gut turned to stone.

  The kid looked him dead in the eye, mouth barely open.

  "Alhu Akbar."

  Marven moved. Fast. He grabbed the boy, shoved him backward with all the force he had, twisting his own body the opposite way. He tried to dive, to scream, to warn—

  —Too te.

  The bst tore the air apart.

  There was no fire. Just light. A pressure that crushed. Sound turned inside-out. Mud shot skyward. Shrapnel sliced through bark and bone.

  When the smoke cleared, the trench was gone in one pce. Just gone. A gouge in the earth.

  Marven y facedown, bleeding from his ears, his helmet somewhere far away. He could taste iron. Dirt. Something was wet inside his chest. He coughed and it came out red.

  His left leg wasn't working. Neither was his right hand. He didn't move. He couldn't.

  The boy—what was left—was a smear on the crater's edge.

  Marven stared at him. Or at what used to be him.

  Not out of hatred.

  Not even shock.

  Just numb recognition.

  This war had rules once. Even their empire had rules, ugly as they were. But now? Now it was children with bombs. Drones with cameras. Men who spoke in tongues and prayed into radios before walking into fire.

  There was nothing left to say.

  Somewhere behind him, the mortars kept firing.