The reports arriving at STAVKA always carried a similar scent.
Paper, ink, and the smell of blood that had arrived too late.
They were merely sheets of parchment, yet their weight was far from light.
I left the folders open, swallowing the files with my eyes as I turned each page.
Ivanov, the People's Commissar of Defense, turned his head toward me.
"Comrade Chairman, this is the reconnaissance report from the Eastern border. We are continuously detecting unit movements similar to the Gallic Army in western Leithanien. They have not crossed over to our side yet."
Instead of answering, I stared at the pins stuck into the map. The Southern Fortified Line had grown thick, solid, and powerful. It stood like a Maginot Line of the tundra.
The problem was that when people's gazes fixated on one point, the other side naturally fell into shadow.
Indeed.
The proverb about the area beneath the lamp being the darkest was perfectly applicable here.
Amfielice pointed toward the eastern portion of the map.
To me, her finger always seemed to point with precision, yet it was that very accuracy that often earned her the resentment of others.
I suppose it shouldn't be surprising; she was a former enemy in the Revolutionary War who started as a second lieutenant and reached this seat in just ten years. It would be stranger if she weren't loathed by the old guard.
Regardless, I focused on her words.
"If Gaul enters our East through Leithanien, simply reinforcing the Southern Fortified Line will be meaningless. Even if that possibility seems slim now, a low probability does not equate to a license for negligence."
Wrangel crossed his arms and let out a heavy breath.
"Comrade Lieutenant General, I heard those words last time as well. But the Electors of Leithanien would never simply allow Gaul to pass through. If Gaul were that much of a warmonger, their own empire would collapse first."
When he finished speaking, an old scene surfaced in my mind of its own accord.
Something no one else here knew—something only I possessed.
In the year 1940 of the Gregorian calendar, the Nazis did not strike the strongest line directly to end their war with France—a nation possessing superior military strength and the world's most formidable fortress in the Maginot Line.
Instead, they tore through the forests and hills of Belgium, terrain everyone else had overlooked as insignificant on a map, and carved through the flank.
The 'Sickle Cut' strategy.
Back then, many said the same. Surely they wouldn't be so reckless.
Surely they wouldn't move with such speed.
Surely man and machine wouldn't charge forward as a single, unified mass.
The moment they thought that, the war was over.
The Belgian and French armies became corpses in the hands of the German military, and the British had to flee in utter chaos.
I pointed again at the observation timestamps on the report with my fingertip.
This was by no means a random timing.
Someone was drawing attention to the South while swinging a blade from the East.
I composed my breathing before opening my lips.
Words are weapons.
For my argument to pierce through their common sense and enter their minds as a valid idea, it needed a path as precise as a railway track.
"Comrade Ivanov."
Ivanov nodded. He was in a posture of waiting for my decree.
"The reinforcement of the Southern Fortified Line must continue. No one can deny that. However, the issue now is that Gaul is deliberately inflating the impression that they intend to strike the South."
Frank raised an eyebrow.
"Comrade Chairman, isn't that what we already anticipated? The South is—"
I raised my hand to cut him off.
"Comrade Frank, I am not saying it isn't the South. I am saying they want us to 'know' it is the South. There is a great difference there."
Wrangel tilted his head in confusion.
"What difference does that make?"
On the map, I traced a finger from the western frontiers of Leithanien toward the eastern borders of the Union. Though no actual mark was left, a line seemed to manifest as the eyes of everyone in the room converged on it.
"Gaul has massed corps in the South and even issued a declaration of war. They've forced all of us to look South. What comes next? The Southern Fortified Line is our thickest shield. To break a shield costs too much blood. Therefore, they go around the shield. To the side, and then the rear."
Amfielice's eyes wavered minutely.
That tremor was more akin to confirmation than fear.
I read that look.
She had already made a similar suggestion, only to be met with the mockery of the generals.
But this time, no laughter came from the generals' mouths.
Wrangel spoke in a low voice.
"Vlady, that's a dangerous assumption. The moment they touch Leithanien, Gaul opens yet another front—"
I shook my head.
I could not speak of Earth's 1940 to anyone in this room.
The moment I brought up those names, I would have to explain everything, and hearing tedious, pedantic, and entirely foreign terms would only make them think I'd eaten something spoiled.
When you try to explain the inexplicable, people doubt the person, not the content.
So, instead of the Nazis, I brought up the man we had seen with our own eyes: Corsica I.
"Corsica I is a man who calculates risk. He is not a man who avoids it. He brought Victoria to its knees in nine weeks. The King fled, and the capital was breached. His next move won't be that of a warmonger, but that of a man saving time. Time is not on his side."
The operation room fell silent. Someone's pencil stopped moving. Feliksa reopened the report, her eyes absorbing my words.
I finally swallowed the image of the sickle that rose only within me.
I had to translate that image into speech.
"They are testing the East right now. The western frontier of Leithanien will try to hold with armies hastily gathered by the Electors. There will be too many crests and far too many lines of command. Too many cooks spoil the broth. Gaul will tear through that gap once and keep running. If we leave nothing in the East then, the Southern Fortified Line won't matter, even if it stays intact. When a knife is driven into the flank next to the heart, the shield falls even if it remains standing."
Ivanov exhaled slowly.
"Comrade Chairman, specifically, what is it you want?"
I pulled out the sentence I had prepared.
"We must immediately dispatch the International Brigades and the Internal Affairs Forces to the Eastern border. Even if it isn't a full redeployment of the regular army, we need mobile units to at least guard the Eastern industrial zones and railway bottlenecks. And if those units move after the front is breached, it will be too late. They must move now."
Wrangel looked up at the ceiling.
"If we divert even the International Brigades to the East, we'll have no reserves until the conscription offices are fully operational."
I nodded.
"Even without reserves, the South will hold, so it doesn't matter. The Southern Fortified Line is a fortress, and fortresses are sustained by engineered positions and artillery rather than raw manpower. Conversely, the East has vast spaces and many paths. Once it is breached, it will become irreversible."
With that, the meeting concluded.
As the session ended, the operations room sprang into action.
Flags representing units were moved to the East, and numbers were scribbled beside railway lines.
Officers of the Internal Affairs Forces checked communication lines, and staff members tore up old timetables to paste new ones.
Amfielice stood beside me.
She looked toward the map as she spoke.
"Comrade Chairman, thank you. Had that decision been any later, we would have bled far more in the East."
I looked at her and said, "When you first said those words, everyone laughed. Now, no one is laughing. Should I have made the decision sooner?"
Amfielice did not answer.
We began our preparations, and preparations were always quieter than war. Trains made noise when they departed, but people were at their quietest before they left.
The movement of troops toward the East could not be hidden.
There was no need to hide it.
Rather, it had to be made visible.
At every station stood guides wearing red armbands, and the platforms were a mix of the International Brigades' new uniforms and the neat tunics of the Internal Affairs Forces.
The clatter of helmets and the rhythmic metallic snap of charging handles being pulled back echoed like low waves.
I went out for a brief on-site inspection.
The position of Chairman was one that frequently required leaving one's room to demonstrate that I was alive and well, and to constantly reassure them of my support.
Sigh... the burdens of being a popular leader...
A commander of the International Brigades saluted me.
"Comrade Chairman, we are ready for departure."
I nodded.
"Return safely."
He bit his lip for a fleeting moment.
"I will bring as many of them back alive as I possibly can."
Those words made my heart sink slightly.
An officer of the Internal Affairs Forces approached and reported quietly.
"Comrade, we are picking up unidentified radio waves from the Eastern border. It appears to be a Gallic-style cryptographic system."
********************************
"Caw! Caw!"
"Ugh... those noisy crows."
"Stop eating our rations and go eat the corpses over there!"
Corpses were strewn across a hill on the western plains of Leithanien.
The Gallic Imperial Army had secured another victory.
In the place where the banners of the Elector's forces had vanished, the Golden Eagle was planted. Corsica I did not stop there. He knew better than anyone that the moment he stopped, his opponent would find their breath.
Holding his field binoculars, he gazed toward the East.
Across the long, flat lands of Leithanien lay the eastern border of the Red Republic.
That border was not as thick as the southern fortress line of those Communists. Not yet.
The wind blew. The grasses of the plain lay down in one direction, pointing East like an arrow.
His Chief of Staff asked cautiously, "Your Majesty, shall we clear the path to the East?"
Corsica I neither nodded nor shook his head.
He simply traced the line beyond his binoculars with his mind's eye. The faint trench lines in the distance, the railways behind them, and the shadows of troops that would move along those rails were already marching in his head.
He laughed lowly. It was a laugh of conviction, not joy.
Corsica I lowered his binoculars. Before his eyes, there were no longer the fields of Leithanien or the burnt villages. There was only one line. The eastern border of the Union.
He stared at that line with his naked eyes. As if he could touch it with his hand, as if it were so very close.
And very quietly, he rolled the next command inside his mouth. Though he had not yet uttered it, tens of thousands of footsteps were already prepared to move in accordance with those words.
"Advance."