"All Hail Vela!!" ×N.
...
Thunder roared, explosions deafened.
Relentless shellfire tore the sky, leveled the earth, and ravaged every trace of human effort.
A dense barrage of Sakuradite warheads, metal fragments, and high-energy thermobaric explosives rolled forward like a massive carpet, blanketing the E.U. Joint Army's core positions across the Narva–Tallinn sector.
The creeping barrage pressed deeper into enemy defenses. When the smoke lifted over the forward lines, Estonia's lush green plains had been turned into a lunar landscape.
KMF hangars, forward airstrips, navigation towers, lookout posts, trenches, relay stations, outposts… all reduced to ruins.
Wherever the artillery had marked and concentrated fire, the forward positions were gutted of their blocking power, leaving only scattered, uncoordinated counterattacks. Landspinners screeched as they rolled over severed limbs, corpses buried in mud, bloodied wreckage of vehicles and parts.
Toward Narva, atop a limestone hill, stood Command Sequence G-1: a fully armed, massive ground battleship anchoring the Britannian Northern Army Group's field headquarters.
Vela stood with one hand resting on the railing of the embedded balcony atop the command tower of this land-borne mothership.
Her hawk-like gaze swept westward, the entire battlefield spread before her eyes.
Estonia was flat country, average elevation barely fifty meters, with forests covering half the land—trees more numerous than people. Practically a super wetland park, a grassland reserve, a giant zoo. From her height, the view was boundless.
In every direction, flames and smoke erupted across the plains.
From shattered targets rose pillars of black smoke, stretched by the wind into slanted columns, merging with the rain of shells falling steadily into the enemy's depth, like sparks of a great earthbound storm.
On the horizon, Britannian Knightmares surged like a metal tide—hundreds, thousands—pouring across the battered E.U. lines, breaking into their rear and core zones.
E.U. counterfire lashed back, tearing explosions into the formations, red-pink smoke clouds marking hits.
Some unfortunates were struck directly by anti-armor missiles, chained shaped-charge warheads igniting and shattering their frames, combat signals blinking out. Others, while clearing positions, were ambushed by hidden KMFs, their machines crippled, Sakuradite engines overloading—some ejecting safely, others not. Still others, less lucky, took aerial bombs head-on, disintegrating into blood mist, beyond even cybernetic salvage.
Attack helicopters and assault boats spat fire as they skimmed low over the Knightmares' heads, weaving across lumbering KMFs, dropping curtains of flame. The already muddy terrain was gouged deeper into cratered marshes, burning wreckage strewn everywhere.
Higher above, the domain of guided munitions and anti-air fire was chaos—contrails and flare trails scribbled wildly across blue skies and white clouds.
Fighters tangled in the flak web, their wakes etching ghostly arcs into the atmosphere. Shot down, they shattered instantly, wreckage scattering like burning petals.
Some were E.U. planes. Some were Britannian.
Such was war. Not everyone would live to see tomorrow.
Years of upbringing, the toil of mastering skills, learning knowledge, being loved by family—all could vanish in a moment: a stray bullet, a bomb, a trigger pulled, a button pressed.
This was the grandest competition humanity could endure.
It spared no one, selecting ruthlessly for the exceptional, cutting away the mediocre, even the unlucky. Everyone knew fear in battle. Cowards were simply those who let fear overcome their duty.
And Vela—she was the one who would awaken their sense of duty to its fullest, grant them honor, and safeguard their legacy after death.
Just like the noisy blare of frontline loudspeakers and comms channels—
Battle cries mixed with the static of rapid movement and weapons fire. Though the rumble of artillery muffled and distorted the sound as it reached Vela's ears, she still heard it clearly.
"Vela."
A sudden smile.
She pressed down her headset. Beep, beep. Supreme commander override seized control of all comms.
In an instant, the clamor across the channels fell silent. Her cold, distinct voice resounded through the entire army:
"All Hail Britannia!!"
Whoo—
With that, she paid little heed to the echoing war cries. Turning, she descended the gangway into the command center of the land-borne mothership.
The nickname was no misnomer. Entering inside was like stepping onto the bridge of a massive aircraft carrier—tactical displays towering above, advanced augur consoles, panels, sand tables, sensors. No—"like" was too weak. It truly was a carrier.
Only not at sea, but on land.
On the holo-screen monitoring its status, the internal schematics resembled a giant spider sprawled across the ground. It could house, maintain, and deploy dozens of Knightmares simultaneously. One of Britannia's military symbols—a mobile fortress, a ship sailing the dry earth.
To Vela, it seemed a bit thin-skinned and overstuffed, a metal shell crammed too tightly. But with [Electromagnetic Armor], [Energy Light Shields], and the [Absolute Defense Field System] activated, there was no real issue.
It could even be built bigger, heavier, stronger.
Already, the first two technologies had been applied to her personal flagship beneath her feet.
Tap, tap.
Her finely crafted high-heeled boots rang crisply against the climate-controlled floor. Officers and analysts saluted. She lifted her hand lightly to excuse them, ascended the steps, and seated herself in the throne-like command chair, back to the imperial crest. One arm leaned against the rest, her chin in her other hand, legs crossed, posture tilted slightly to the side.
From the tactical holo-projector on the armrest, her indigo eyes shifted between live streams of immense data readouts and the main control screen's display of battlefield progress.
Secondary displays cycled through real-time combat recordings from changing perspectives.
Battle data updated without pause.
Following the operational objectives set by Vela and the General Staff, officers monitored the field, issuing commands to coordinate inter-branch cooperation, prevent friendly fire, and track the land, sea, and air movements of E.U. Joint Forces across the Baltic region.
Over a week ago, when Vela had returned to St. Petersburg, preparations for Britannia's new European offensive were already underway.
Freshly trained recruits inducted last autumn, veterans healed and rejoined, stockpiles of materiel, drills for new weapon systems, counter-intelligence, intelligence gathering, reconnaissance skirmishes, strategic deception—basic operations, all long in motion.
Years of war had forged Britannia's system into maturity.
Perhaps lacking Ukraine's fertile black soil, Euro Britannia's agriculture and light industry were thin compared to its heavy industry, military industry, and high-tech sectors. But Vela's resources extended far beyond Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. She had lifeblood shipments from the Americas as well.
Naturally, with North, Central, and South Army Groups all in motion, this did not mean Vela would draft some grandiose scheme—like rolling the entire thousand-plus kilometers of the Eastern Front forward in one colossal push.
Britannia and the E.U. had been bitter enemies for years. They knew each other's core strengths too well. Every move was countered, every plan anticipated. No such thing as signing a non-aggression pact only to betray it later.
The E.U. knew precisely where Euro Britannia's weak points lay. That was why the Southern Army Group had struggled so bitterly to grind down Ukraine. The E.U.'s heaviest concentrations of force along the Eastern Front were entrenched there.
Back to the main point—Vela's changes lay chiefly in technological innovation, and in the shifts of certain combat units and strategic development.
Intelligence and reconnaissance warfare were the most immediately transformed fields under these new units.
In simple terms, reconnaissance war meant: planting eyes and probes, hunting down enemy scouts.
In the past, high-altitude balloons, AWACS/airships, radar stations, military satellites, listening posts, or flesh-and-blood scouts and spies were the main tools of both sides.
Britannia had always held a slight edge.
For now, Vela could not do everything. Beyond advancing existing technologies, refining integration systems, she had merely "developed" some new gadgets for frontline use.
Drones were one of them.
For recon—these things were invaluable!
The effect was nothing short of revolutionary.
Amphibious special forces along the Baltic coast deployed micro- and mini-drones equipped with sensors and reconnaissance gear. Within a week, Britannian forces had mapped most of the Baltic region, including the E.U. war zone in Estonia: command nodes, armories, fuel depots, and field headquarters.
War is fought not only by logistics, but also by intelligence.
Securing information for oneself, denying it to the enemy—this was an art.
For the latter, Vela ordered the capture or elimination of enemy scouts.
Drones were the universal answer.
At the same time, their comms were encrypted and upgraded in iterations. New electronic listening gear and jammers were deployed to trace and disrupt enemy networks.
On the borders, cybernetic veterans recovered from injuries were reorganized into hunter units stationed along the frontier. As capacity grew, more Fifth-Generation [Sutherland] patrols were assigned. First-generation combat robots and crude anti-personnel deceiver units were mass-deployed regardless of their imperfections.
In major cities, where espionage thrived, internal security detachments were carefully crafted. Vela herself even instructed them personally, bringing with her the refined counter-intelligence expertise she had inherited from Arasaka of [Cyberpunk].
It was still impossible to seal the battlefield completely—the vastness of Eastern Europe ensured some leaks. But compressing enemy range of action, blinding them for longer, forcing their reports to be partial, mixed with truths and lies—this tilted initiative into Britannian hands.
Once initiative was firmly seized, Vela's first order was for the Southern Army Group under Fifth Knight Moltke to launch fierce assaults on the Sumy–Kharkov sector in central Ukraine.
In the north, she staged continuous artillery barrages—on and off for a week—screening reconnaissance operations.
Slowly. The hawk-taming tactic.
Accustom them to the rhythm of shelling, to sudden small clashes.
Half a month might not slacken the vigilance of the E.U. elite, but it would fray their nerves and exhaust their spirits. Even if the effect was slight, it was worth it.
Her style loved killing two birds with one stone—weakening the enemy was strengthening oneself. Reducing casualties by every effort.
When reconnaissance was nearly complete, Vela recalled the lessons of countless predecessors—waiting too long for one's own strength to ripen could cost the decisive moment.
She would not wait!
The E.U. was no fool. However decadent Paris might be, however inefficient, the catastrophic losses of their frontline recon units and intelligence operatives would reveal the truth. A week of drone incursions had left too many sightings, too many reports.
She would not let the E.U. adjust.
Seizing the moment—calculating that if Britannia was not ready, the E.U. was even less so—Vela struck first.
And her effort was rewarded. The opening wave of long-range artillery obliterated the E.U.'s field depot at Kiviõli, with far greater effect than she had hoped.
Some E.U. units were wary, swiftly shifting munitions and fuel, swatting drones from their skies. But most remained sluggish, failing to share intelligence in time.
From Estonia to Latvia, over 500 kilometers of the Northern Army Group's line, with Vela's order, the sky split with deafening guns. Along the Baltic coast, alarms blared across all E.U. military facilities.
Watching the tactical map as Britannia's markers advanced like a tidal surge, Vela nodded in satisfaction.
At the consoles, her staff officers exchanged nods of their own.
The Royal Guard, the Archangel-named elite Michael Knights, the standing knightly regiments of the Northern Army Group, and the Britannian Legions—they had expected such performance.
But the Eleven Expeditionary Corps—those were the dark horse.
Especially that white-gold frame, designation Z-01. Its feats outstripped even the aces of the Michael Knights.
An hour and twenty minutes later, Lieutenant General Ludendorff, Vela's military aide and Euro Britannia's Chief of Logistics, bowed and reported:
"Your Highness, Phase One complete. The gateway to Tallinn is open. The E.U.'s transport hub at Tapa lies within reach."
"Good. Begin Phase Two. Notify Alexei. The autonomous corps he has hoarded so long—time to unveil them…"