The transport pods carrying the war machines came down in Budapest's 15th District, in the Bunker neighborhood.
This was an area strewn with graffiti and trash. The sudden appearance of the towering war machines sent the residents into panic, but their pilots—men trained to perfection and directly linked through synaptic interfaces—did not hesitate. At once they marched their steel behemoths down the M3 highway, trampling through residential blocks toward Heroes' Square. If any unlucky National Guard armored cars blocked their path, the walkers dealt with them in the simplest, most brutal way possible. At Heroes' Square itself, gunships retrofitted from orbital transports set down preheated armored vehicles beside the Millennium Monument. These hybrids of heavy tank and heavy APC came armed with twin laser cannons and dual heavy bolter turrets. As soon as their treads hit pavement, they rumbled into Andrássy Avenue.
Meanwhile, orbital transports fitted with quad rotary cannons released their cargo and shot back skyward, maneuvering above the city with thermal-spectrum radars to detect and destroy any heavy weapons hidden in the neo-Renaissance palaces and apartment houses lining the boulevard. For this operation, most armored vehicles had been equipped with multi-barrel smoke generators on both flanks. As the column advanced beneath the tree-lined streets of Budapest, thick clouds of chemical smoke billowed across the entire avenue. In under four minutes, the assault vehicles had blasted past the Hungarian State Opera House and driven into Erzsébet Square, then followed the Danube's bank straight toward the Hungarian Parliament.
The situation in Budapest was unfolding exactly as the War Council's staff had predicted. With Hungary's command and communications already shattered by the Immortal City's sweeping strikes, large mechanized formations not yet redeployed from the border could not fall back in time. The only armed groups left in the capital were quasi-military organizations like the National Guard Association. Four war machines, with their immense firepower, were more than enough to hold the entire city and stabilize the decapitation strike plan.
Elsewhere, gene-modified warriors in jetpacks stormed down from the sky into District I—home to the Sandor Palace and the Carmelite Monastery, in Buda Castle District. This was the residence of Hungary's President. The first wave landed near the ruins of the Zsigmond Chapel wall, quickly forming ranks and charging the Sandor Palace. Two sentries in slate-gray hussar uniforms barely had time to turn before explosive bolts blew them apart, their bodies bursting like waterlogged sacks, blood and shattered bones spraying against the wreckage of the guardhouse behind them.
Harnessing the strength of their power armor, one squad vaulted onto the second-floor balcony, smashing through windows to storm the interior, while others kicked open the green-painted doors to gun down defenders inside.
The assault was swift. Ordinary soldiers were no match for gene-modified warriors.
Like raging bulls, they smashed through all resistance. Against bolters and chain-swords, no cover could protect. Anything that blocked their path was obliterated—even indoors they did not hesitate to fire anti-tank missiles. Against their armor, ordinary weapons barely scratched the paint. With layered chestplates bearing the golden eagle crest and reinforced pauldrons, even direct grenadier fire could be deflected. In under five minutes, the tactical objective was achieved. The second wave of drop troopers sealed off fleeing officials at the escape tunnels.
One warrior, his back mounted with a signal amplifier, gave a command.
Within five seconds the room—rank with propellant fumes and the stench of torn flesh—crackled with ionized ozone as air ruptured. Surviving glass shattered with the shock of teleportation. Even the car windows outside Sandor Palace imploded. Two golden-armored titans appeared in the chamber. One, his head crowned with a spiked helm, leveled an electric-charged glaive at the kneeling soldiers. The other, a tall figure with a massive sword, was surrounded by warriors who herded the captives into submission.
"For Hungary, the war is over." Solomon lowered his bolter to the floor and fired a single round. Constantine knew his lord had learned the gesture from the Italian mafia—not elegant, but terrifyingly effective. Judging by the expressions of Orbán's ministers, the three-meter giant in golden armor hardly needed the shot to cow them. "Order Budapest's National Guard to stand down, or there will be a massacre."
"What do you want?"
"Peace. True peace."
May 15, 2016 · 5:00 PM
Hungary's capital restored external communications. At once, Hungarian users flooded social media, pushing the topic to number one. But every official Hungarian outlet went silent, ignoring condolences pouring in from abroad.
May 15, 2016 · 5:15 PM
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán appeared before the Parliament at Kossuth Square to deliver a televised address.
He declared that Hungary would withdraw from both the EU and NATO. For too long, the EU had economically plundered Hungary, using military leverage to coerce "democratic reforms" dictated by the West. Foreign foundations had funded NGOs under banners of environmentalism, human rights, animal protection, and feminism—disrupting society and inflaming ethnic conflict.
He proclaimed Hungary would permit no "new liberalization" movement. The opposition, led by the Socialist Party and its free-market allies, was nothing but the voice of Western oligarchs. These traitors had already been arrested. Hungary's security services held proof of their collusion with European capitalists, selling national interests for profit. They would be judged as betrayers of the homeland.
Simultaneously, Hungary's security apparatus would cooperate with Latovinia to seize illicit foreign assets in-country and forcibly repatriate wealth moved overseas. Latovinia would be Hungary's steadfast ally, supplying advanced technology to build domestic industry and partnering on cyber defense to block Western infiltration. Security laws would be revised. No one remained who could oppose Orbán's total reform.
Yet more striking than his words were the armored carriers crowding Kossuth Square and the two towering war machines flanking it. When Orbán concluded, a black-haired man in golden armor, crowned with laurels, strode through a corridor of warriors onto the dais. At his appearance, the war machines roared deafening salutes, chain-swords whirring, barrels bowing low. Gene warriors chanted their battle cries.
The man's eyes glowed with golden light as he turned to the citizens of Budapest. Amid fear, doubt, and awe, he spoke. Though brief, his address—delivered in fluent Hungarian, English, and Latin, with commanding voice and striking presence—soon won the crowd's reluctant fascination. He began by apologizing sincerely to all who had endured the war, promising compensation with genuine humility.
"From this day forward, you will no longer be slaves of Western oligarchs. You will work for your own lives, not for the yachts and jets of the powerful. Your labor will bring you its due. Even if you resist or do not yet understand, I will still guarantee your basic rights of life."
His speech denounced Western hegemony and NATO's "military terrorism," condemning neoliberal economics for letting financiers plunder Hungary's industries. He called capitalism itself a dragon of greed, willing even to sell the rope for its own hanging. Without checks, free capital would devour all, bending governments to oligarchs' will, betraying nations and even humanity.
Latovinia's liberation, he declared, was only the first step in freeing mankind from the endless greed of the few. He thundered that the Battle of New York had only been a beginning, a prelude to alien invasion. Latovinia had recorded irrefutable evidence of alien fleets approaching the solar system. With extinction looming, humanity could not depend on Western oligarchs' toys like the Avengers, meaningless idols of individual heroism crafted by Jewish-owned media to peddle false safety. Addicts and hypocrites might delude themselves, but they would not take responsibility for mankind.
He called upon humanity to unite against the alien fleets no single nation could withstand.
He claimed that after New York he had voyaged the galaxy aboard a pirate craft, his endless lifespan carrying him across the ages to witness firsthand the brutal competition of civilizations. He declared that he had seen humanity stumble, survive, and grow, and that it was destined to leave Earth and rule the stars. Humanity, he said, was no slave of aliens. The oligarchs who bartered away others' lives for profit would surrender to invaders at the first threat. Such fools, who saw only money, must be purged. Only then could mankind direct its strength to technologies that advanced the species rather than the greed of the few.
He told them NATO's war on Latovinia was, at its core, nothing but the indulgence of oligarchic greed. Western promises of freedom and democracy were a colossal lie. Every nation NATO had invaded lay in ruins, sunk into poverty and narcotics, while only the CIA and American politicians profited.
If NATO, led by the United States, did not abandon its campaign or surrender, then Latovinia would obliterate its satellites, dragging Europe and America back to World War II conditions, and would conduct targeted strikes with weapons of mass destruction against their governments. In past decades, the U.S. government's hands had been drenched in blood. Now, that blood debt would be repaid in his hands. Every profiteer of the military-industrial complex would pay the price.
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