A Battle Unseen

[Ligbruderkrieg]

Luthori - February 5700: A long night.

It wasn’t much. No, it wasn’t. Surely, it couldn’t be. But it was. His sergeant came to wake his entire barrack, at 3 am. He said it was an emergency, when they all faced him, he had a different old straight face, no smile, no warmth, nothing. It was unusual, he was normally always smiling, but now? He just looked at them as if they were looking at a wall. A cold, infliching wall.  

“The General Staff ordered us to prepare for an important mission, gentlemen. Details will not be disclosed until we’ve left Luthorian territory. Break ranks!”, the solemn, sharp and rogue tone that he used sent shivers down through their spine. He was not, no, never like that normally, except if today wasn’t something different. He felt a hand pinching his right arm, he turned, looking at his fellow comrade, Matthew. He was there for a little longer than himself and acted as the main “mentor” or “father figure” to the entire platoon – even if they were all career soldiers. He looked at him, his face perplexed, unsure what to say. Matthew just looked at him and said: “It’s the real deal.” and then promptly left. 

He thought of the words of his sergeant, he mentioned “leaving Luthorian territory”, but he was unsure of if he meant leaving Luthorian territory to go for an exercise in international waters or another thing. As he made his bag and prepared himself, what he felt wasn’t fear, neither dread, but merely incomprehension. Besides, he was woken up by his sarge at 3 am, so his head wasn’t fully with him.  

“You know where we are going?”, Oliver asked him. 

“Naw, I don’t, you?”, he asked back. 

“Likely in New Verham?” 

“New Verham? What the fuck would we be there in the first place? Isn’t this place filled with Egelians and Vanukeans?” 

“Yeah, but you know there’s been something up lately.” 

And then realisation struck him, he had heard of the siege of the Luthorian Embassy in Chukyo, but he thought that Egelian troops would be one with the great role of saving the embassy and those who are inside. Not him nor his comrades. He most likely thought of Luthori staying back in her safe “Home Territory” and not taking any risk for saving her people abroad. 

He now realises that he was wrong, so terribly wrong. 

With his mind now drifting away, thinking about how foolish he was and now thinking that he was going into an active warzone, his mind rushed, thinking of countless scenarios in which he, or his friends and comrades would either get injured or killed. He couldn’t stop the images of the mission going wrong from showing up in his head, even if he tried, he couldn’t. 

His friend noticed his drifting mind and snapped at him. 

“Oi! John, get the fuck back here.” 

“Oh...sorry...”, was all that he could mutter. 

“Don’t be, all of us have some fear, but we shouldn’t let it pass us, besides, we joined willingly don’t you remember?” 

“Fair enough” 

With that, he finished to prepare his bag, entered the military bus, there was 3 of them, each carrying around 30 people. It was a long journey to the military airport, where there was, seemingly, a celebration – or what he referred as a “goodbye funeral”, there were some higher-ups which came to greet each of them personally, for God’s reason why. Then on the plane, the Sergeant finally spoke.* 

“Some of you might still wonder where we are going. I can tell you now since we left Luthorian air space. We are going to New Verham in a secret mission aimed at breaking off the siege of the Luthorian Embassy, directly ordered by the Prime Minister.” 

Off they go, he thought. To New Verham!