An armored tide never before seen surged across Latovinia. Mixed mechanized columns rolled out from the ruined royal city toward the northern frontier, and even the slowest neighbors scrambled to deploy to their borders. Hungary, for example, flew soldiers from the Hungarian Defence Forces and Border Guard to the frontier on two Antonov An-26s, and diverted five Mi-17 utility helicopters plus two JAS 39 Gripen fighters from Szolnok Air Base to reconnoiter Latovinia—only for every aircraft to be shot down by mobile air-defense sites and missile trucks that Victor von Doom had hidden in the mountains along the Latovinian border.
All Hungarian hails vanished into the ether. Fire-breathers among the right-populist Fidesz government even shouted "This is an act of war!" and egged Budapest on to invade the agrarian Latovinia and occupy it outright. With roughly a hundred thousand troops, the Hungarian Defence Forces ought, in theory, to crush the Latovinian resistance. But when frontline reconnaissance came back, even the most hotheaded Hungarian generals folded. Latovinia made no effort to hide that it possessed nuclear weapons and ICBMs. They even let U.S. spy sats image their air-defense belts—and then sent void fighters to swat the satellites down. NATO's nuclear-sharing policy might grant warheads to member states that don't build their own, but those are still someone else's WMDs, while the neighbor next door already had a knife at Hungary's throat. All they could do was rush SAM systems to the border, beg the U.S. base on their soil for help, and wait for Latovinia's move.
Compared to Hungary, Serbia's posture was ambiguous.
A Piper PA-34 Seneca slated to overfly Latovinia's airspace abruptly turned aside, and a Soko Gazelle H-42 reconnaissance helicopter halted at the border. Perhaps Hungary's misstep served as a lesson; the Serbian Air Defense Command in Zemun sent two An-26s with troops to the line, and arrayed M-84AS main battle tanks, SAMs, and other assets for a defensive posture. As for Symkaria, another neighbor touching Latovinia, they were too busy to fret: their house was on fire.
That country fields a very particular force—the Wild Pack. Originally formed to fight Nazis, it was led by a man named Sablinova; his daughter, Silver Sablinova—Silver Sable—now commands it. After WWII ended and government funding dried up, the Wild Pack drifted into mercenary work, stopped hunting Nazis, and absorbed large numbers of ex-Soviet veterans.
Half a year ago, when Victor von Doom decided to light this rebellion, he'd already reached out to Silver Sable. The Undying City would bankroll the Wild Pack with weapons and cash to pull a military putsch. In return, Symkaria would merge with Latovinia, and the Wild Pack would no longer need to sell its guns to survive—the two would become one. The Undying City's aim is to smash the very concept of nation and reforge it into a human common destiny. You don't achieve that solely with force. America's "exporting freedom" is the negative case study, a trove of technical lessons for Doom's peaceful evolution.
He knows his role: do the dirty work that can't be seen by daylight, plot the schemes that would stain his lord's name, and eat the blame. Another neighbor on the first-phase annexation schedule is Transylvania—Wanda Maximoff's motherland and Dracula's storied home. Doom has already put in place measures to peacefully absorb Transylvania to secure population, minerals, and above all uranium for the next stage of war industry.
For the Interior Ministry still in the royal city handling reconstruction, stability and massive inputs of resources are everything. The Undying City is on a tightrope. Every war asset is committed; only a chain of victories and the resources they yield will keep them moving. To stop is to die.
The assault transport eased down and landed among the border mountains. Konstantin strode up to wait as the ramp came down and his lord walked out. Behind him were the Bio-Gen Lab's half-finished products—now fully kitted with Undying City power armor and vehicle hulls scaled to their frames. Victor von Doom disembarked beside Solomon, and with the Honor Guard at their backs, they inspected the run of mass-produced gene-augmented soldiers. Doom had no idea when Solomon started this line; these troops were obviously a side stream of the Honor Guard program. Even so, the Undying City had turned them into a ready contingency—now pressed into service to carve Latovinia a path.
On the Balkan chessboard, problems had to be solved fast and hard—even if it meant lighting another Kosovo War.
"Objective: Symkaria."
"This is insane!" Ramesh Díaz stared, slack-jawed, as a void fighter sliced past the armored glass of the arced jetway. A seasoned defense reporter shouldn't freeze up, yet he wasn't the only one. The fighter's lines made no aerodynamic sense in air; engine and fuselage were tech none of them had ever seen.
Luis Salvador had walked the freshly showered, re-clothed press pool through the space station's permitted ringways and now brought them to a curved gallery with armored viewing panes. As they stood bathed in the abyssal beauty of space, he cheerfully (and with a streak of malice) informed them they were about to witness a fight between void fighters and U.S. Space Force military reconnaissance satellites, and that the station's telescopes were theirs to watch the whole thing, live.
"You're going to war with the entire world," Ramesh warned. "That's your master's ambition—world domination? Have you studied any history at all? Do you know how this ends?"
"Don't be so trite, Ramesh." Luis had removed his mask; beneath it was a Latin face mapped by scars. "Where are your people from—Mexico? Honduras? Costa Rica? Your parents ran from United Fruit's banana lines only for you to leap into another vampire's arms. That tidy middle-class tract you live in now—calmer than the neighborhood you grew up in, no guns or drugs flowing in the gutters—does that make you nobler than the Latinos still trapped there?"
"How do you even—"
"Oh, we know. We know everything." Luis smiled in a way that made the skin crawl. "If humankind had the strength right now to meet what's coming, this organization wouldn't exist. Come—let me show you, the ones who've never once truly looked up at the night sky. You. And you." He led them into a room marked 131. A massive holo-table sat at its heart. Luis pointed, and a crisp image sprang up. "This was shot in the Ursa Major Moving Group, at UMa 37. It's still noisy, but by the signatures we can make a strong call: this is a branch of the Chitauri biomech fleet."
"The Battle of New York!" a reporter blurted. "Didn't the Avengers beat the Chitauri?"
"I think you're better suited to kindergarten than a war desk. That task force was a scout element that came through a portal. The branch it belonged to is making a vacuum transit toward our system. They're still formed up in the Local Bubble, waiting on their follow-ons." Luis used the soft tone reserved for children. "And note: that's just a branch. What's coming is a great expeditionary armada—thousands of starships. The distance? Eighty light-years. In cosmic terms, thumb to pinky."
"We have to alert the U.N.!"
"Our lord warned the P5. You saw the response." Luis sighed. "Back during the HYDRA uprising, he warned their ambassadors, and not one produced a real plan. Everything you're seeing dates from 2012—our lord's preparations against an extinction-level event for our species. After he personally fought the Chitauri in New York, he began building this architecture. To field enough force to meet an alien fleet, you have to consolidate Earth's resources. For the survival and independence of humankind, to win the war for the solar system, any price is worth paying."
"Your master fought the Chitauri in New York?" Ramesh blinked, a puzzle piece clicking into place. "That nameless knight! Your master is King Arthur?"
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