Two years had passed.
Two years had trickled away since the day the gavel struck the podium in the assembly hall of the International Communist Party's Executive Committee.
Several thin reports were laid out in neat rows across the desk.
The titles stamped on their covers were uniformly blunt and utilitarian.
[Execution Report on the All-Union Early Mobilization Order for Food Production (Final)]
[Status of Production and Distribution for the People's Commissariat of Defense Model 26 Service Rifle]
[Brief Report on the Implementation Status of International Communist Party Resolution 15-3]
Looking at the figures inscribed within those documents alone, the progress appeared magnificent.
The targets for a one-year strategic wartime reserve had been nearly achieved; over two million Model 26 service rifles and their improved variants had been produced; and distribution to the Border Guards and the Standing Army was nearing completion.
However, the numbers alone stirred nothing within me.
Instead, I visualized the faces of the people residing behind those statistics.
I believe that, at the very least, a leader must do so.
The moment you view a person as a statistic, they cease to be human; they become merely a cog in a machine.
And so, I closed the reports, pushed the charts aside, and shut my eyes.
I recalled the past two years.
Not as they were written on paper, but as they were etched onto the faces and palms of the people.
*****************************
Wilhelm met the spring of that first year in the mud.
A second-generation revolutionary immigrant from Leithanien, a student at Birmingham High School, and a member of the Communist Youth League.
All these descriptors were distilled into a single word the moment the mobilization order was issued.
[Worker]
When the train finally ground to a halt, the view outside the window was not that of a city.
It was an endless expanse of brown fields, dotted with blackened stumps, and soggy earth peeking through melting snow.
The sign at the makeshift station bore an unfamiliar name.
[Ursus Border Reclamation Zone, District 7]
Kevin rested his chin on the window frame and let out a long whistle.
"Hey, Billy. Are we really... living here for six months?"
Dorothy grumbled, clutching her rolled-up blanket tightly.
"I heard Sarkaz are coming with us. For real...? Is it true we're even sharing the dorms?"
Lida remained silent, staring blankly out at the wasteland.
As the locomotive fully stopped, figures wearing armbands of the Youth League and the Student Union appeared on the platform.
Among them were silhouettes with horns and shoulders where black crystals jutted from the skin.
"Disembark! Form up for squad assignments! Maintain the line as you exit! Move with discipline!"
The sharp blast of a whistle pierced the air.
Wilhelm shouldered his bag and stepped down.
A dry wind brushed his face. The scent of damp earth—a smell rarely found in the city—flooded his nostrils.
Directly in front of him, a Sarkaz youth tripped while unloading supplies.
Kevin took a reflexive step back.
"Whoa, Billy. You think if you get poked by those horns, you catch Oripathy?"
Wilhelm sighed, cutting him off sharply.
"Stop talking nonsense. A horn isn't the disease; the disease is the disease."
The fallen Sarkaz youth gave an awkward, sheepish smile.
"I'm fine. Thank you... You're from Leithanien, right? You've got that accent."
"Yeah. And you?"
"Karl. I'm from Leithanien too."
He offered a hand.
His palm was already marked with small, rough callouses.
Wilhelm hesitated for a brief moment before finally grasping it.
"Wilhelm. Most just call me Billy."
Kevin interjected from behind, prodding at them.
"I'm Kevin, that's Dorothy, and that's Lida. Don't get too close to this guy; he's a boring nerd who only knows how to study."
Lida poked Kevin in the ribs.
"Quiet. This is the man who's going to be digging in the dirt alongside us."
The dormitory they were assigned on the first day was, in literal terms, a 'refurbished barn.'
Rows of two-tier bunk beds replaced stalls, and a single stove sat in the center of the room.
The wind whistled through the gaps in the window frames.
"Is this... honestly a place for humans to live?"
Kevin grumbled while rolling out his bedding.
"Or do they just see us as swine?"
The Infected youth on the neighboring bed set down his bag. Lumpy black crystals were rooted deeply into his neck.
Dorothy unconsciously pulled her blanket a bit tighter.
The Infected youth chuckled.
"Don't worry. We've all been cleared by the Commissariat of Health. It's not contagious. Everyone sent here is in the same boat. Besides, if someone was contagious enough to be a risk, they'd be in a critical ward, not out here."
Lida glanced at Wilhelm.
Wilhelm sniffled, trying to hide his own discomfort.
"Well, even if the disease is contagious... we're all going to be covered in the same dirt anyway. Might as well be covered in it together, right?"
The Infected youth smirked.
"I like you, scholar boy."
The labor was far more grueling than anticipated.
By day, they cleared forests, hauled out stumps, and picked stones from the soil.
By evening, they paved roads for the tractors and dug drainage ditches around the reclamation plots.
Their palms were flayed within the first day.
By the second, blood had soaked through the insides of their gloves.
"Hey, Billy... revolution or not, this is just backbreaking drudgery..."
Kevin gasped for air between shovel strikes.
Dorothy complained for the first two days, but by the third, she shoveled in grim silence.
Lida said nothing at all; during every break, she simply reread the proclamations posted in the hallway.
[Participants shall have their service recognized as equivalent to active military duty...]
One evening, while standing in line for rations after work, a commotion broke out at the front.
The ration officer spoke coldly.
"Comrade, if you don't have a ration card, go to the end of the line. You haven't undergone your Oripathy screening."
A young Sarkaz worker flushed with embarrassment.
"I went to get the screening, but the line was too long... I couldn't get it today. I'll get it tomorrow. Please, just for today, some rations..."
The officer shook his head.
"Rules are rules. We must mitigate the risk of Oripathy spread. Come back after your screening tomorrow."
Someone from behind cursed under their breath.
"Always the Sarkaz. Always causing trouble."
Lida scowled.
Kevin simply looked away.
That was when Wilhelm stepped forward.
"Wait a moment."
The ration officer glared at him.
"Why the noise? Back in line."
"Please, use my ration entitlement for this Comrade's dinner tonight. He can get screened tomorrow. If he starves today... he won't be able to work tomorrow."
The surrounding area fell silent.
The officer looked Wilhelm up and down.
"Leithanien accent. ...Your name?"
"Wilhelm."
"Fine. I'll deduct it from your portion for today."
The young Sarkaz looked distraught and grateful.
"Thank you... I don't know what to say..."
"Just strike the earth one more time for me."
Wilhelm gave a bashful smile.
"Why else are we here? We eat well so we can plow well."
Lida muttered quietly from the back of the line.
"...You even play the busybody out here."
Yet her tone was not quite as abrasive as it once was.
After six months, the fields had transformed into a landscape vastly different from the brown sea they had first encountered.
The sprouts planted in early spring had grown to waist height.
Whenever the wind blew, the furrows undulated like green waves.
When People's Commissar Kalashin arrived for an inspection, he patted the youth volunteers on their shoulders with soil-stained hands.
"Well done, Comrades. Half of the grain from these fields will go to the military grain elevators. The other half stays with this village and the reclamation zone. When the war begins, someone at the front will eat the grain you sowed and hold their rifle steady."
By the second year, the reclamation zone had progressed to the point of being cited in reports as the 'All-Union Standard Model for Land Reclamation.'
The land that had once been a weed-choked waste was awaiting its third harvest, and many youths who had arrived under mobilization orders decided to stay permanently.
Wilhelm was presented with choices.
First: Return to the city and continue his studies.
Second: Enroll in agricultural school and follow the technician course for the State Farms.
Third: Remain in the reclamation zone as a full-time Youth League instructor.
The supervisor spoke to him.
"A young man like you staying here would be a great strength to the peasants. But the city needs talent like you as well. An exemplary Party member such as yourself... would be needed anywhere."
Kevin and Dorothy had already decided to return to the city.
Lida seemed to have set her heart on agricultural school.
"What about you?" Lida asked.
Wilhelm looked down at the fields, where the earth was cracked like a spiderweb from the dry heat.
Somewhere in those fields lay buried the memories of his shovel strikes, his seed-carrying, and his curses at the rain.
"I..."
He searched for the words, then smiled.
"I don't know yet. But there's one thing I'm sure of."
"Which is?"
"Even if war breaks out, someone has to stay here and plant the food. Whether that's me... I haven't quite decided."
In the distance, the red flag fluttered atop the roof of the grain elevator.
***********************
Harold was becoming accustomed to a different scent, one that had replaced the smog of Yorkshire.
On the day the first industrial module was docked to the flank of the nomadic city, he thought it looked like a city devouring another city.
Iron masses and steel structures moved slowly through the air, bolts were fastened, and welding sparks rained down like stars.
The moment the module locked into place, the entire city seemed to shudder.
Tanya, standing beside him, remarked,
"The sound of this city is about to become twice as loud."
Harold chuckled.
"I heard that if the heart grows too large, it's bad for the health."
"Then we'll just have to make the body grow to match. Don't worry."
The factory sang a different song every day.
The first few months were filled with the shrieks of grinding metal.
Countless minor accidents occurred while the workers from Yorkshire familiarized themselves with the new assembly lines.
Fingers were occasionally torn, and sometimes entire batches of improperly machined barrels were tossed onto the scrap heap.
Every time such a setback occurred, Tanya descended to the factory floor.
"Is someone injured?"
"It's not a major injury, Comrade Director. He didn't close the guard cover properly..."
"Then make the warning signs on the guards larger. And slow the night shift down by ten percent today. A worker's finger is worth more than a defect rate."
The factory manager would occasionally grumble.
"We won't meet the quota that way, Comrade Director."
"Better to miss the quota slightly today and have them working with both hands tomorrow."
Tanya was resolute.
The numbers on the tally board rose slowly, yet inexorably.
The digit '0' that had initially graced the board climbed past the hundreds. After a month, four-digit figures became the norm. After half a year, five-digit numbers were pressed into the board with pride.
[Daily Production: 10,342 units]
[Cumulative Production: 2,791,876 units]
After every shift, Harold would tap the board with grease-stained hands.
"I hope one day this number is so long we can't fit it on this board."
A colleague scoffed.
"Our arms will fall off before then."
Harold shrugged.
"Still, these are arms that make rifles. Better than the life I had before, fixing the wheels of Casimirian noble carriages."
During breaks, the workers shared newspapers.
The local papers once published in Yorkshire had followed the demand all the way to this nomadic city.
There, every day, were articles reeking of impending war.
[Lingones Court Activates Additional Divisions for Border Defense Zones]
[Corsica I Mentions 'Excising the Heart Disease of Terra' in Recent Speech]
[Gaul Empire Nullifies Trade Agreements with Victoria]
Harold always searched for the short snippets buried on the second or third pages.
[People's Commissar of Defense Ivanov Discloses Model 26 Rifle Production Figures... 'Target for Equipping Entire Standing Army Achievable Within Two Years']
[Expected Deployments: 8th Corps, 11th Corps, Yorkshire Regional Defense Force]
Harold felt a strange sensation looking at those words.
'Yorkshire...'
The city where the uprising had exploded. The alleys where his friends had died. The bridge where the police had swarmed over them.
The rifles he helped forge were going to that city.
"I wonder who will hold them," he whispered.
"Who will hold them, and at whom will they fire?"
A coworker eating lunch beside him replied,
"They'll fire at the enemy. If not, what the hell are we doing here?"
Instead of answering, Harold tore a piece of bread and stuffed it into his mouth.
The bread was harder and saltier than what he remembered from Yorkshire.
Somehow, even the flavor of the bread seemed infused with the preparations for war.
Feeling a pang of melancholy, he stood at the back of the factory and smoked a cigarette, watching the outskirts of the nomadic city.
Somewhere beyond, supply trains heading for the border rumbled back and forth through the night.
Tanya came to stand beside him.
"The smell of your tobacco hasn't changed. It reminds me of when you first arrived."
"...Is the smell a nuisance, Comrade Director?"
"I didn't say that. I smoke occasionally as well."
She smiled.
"We're almost there, Harold. 3.5 million units. A little more, and we hit the number the Chairman promised."
"I'd prefer it if we reached that number and the war never happened."
Tanya tilted her head at Harold's words.
"It would be better if war didn't come. ...But as long as the other side is drawing their sword, we cannot spend our lives merely polishing the scabbard."
Her gaze drifted to the horizon.
"It was the same in Birmingham. Whether we were ready or not, the Empire was going to pull the trigger eventually. The only difference was whether we were prepared for it."
Harold crushed his cigarette under his boot.
"Still, I occasionally imagine a world where not a single rifle we made is ever fired."
Tanya smiled sadly.
"Well, even if that dream proves false, at the very least we can make sure these rifles guard someone's back."
Inside the factory, the machinery groaned back to life.
******************************
Just as the second winter was beginning to fade, I was once again holding a report filled with dense columns of figures.
Frank read through the numbers with a long sigh.
"Wartime reserve goals for one year have been achieved. It was a tight squeeze, but we managed."
Ivanov adjusted the collar of his uniform and spoke.
"As for the Model 26 Service Rifle and its variants, production has reached 3,128,000 units. Starting today, we will divert capacity toward the Reserves and City Militias. In terms of the Standing Army, the quota is fulfilled."
Wrangel chuckled as he leafed through the documents.
"I remember exactly two years ago, when we looked at these targets and called them 'greedy' or 'insane.' In the end, humanity truly can achieve anything."
I closed the report.
"Not because of us, but because of those who believed in us."
Countless nameless faces flashed through my mind.
The snow-covered reclamation zones, the soot-choked nomadic cities, the desolate trenches.
"Now all that remains..."
Ivanov finished the thought.
"...is waiting for the other side to draw first blood."
******************************
The Gaul Empire. The Capital, Lingones. Emperor Corsica I.
He was a sovereign hailed as the God of War.
Not some immature brat squandering the nation on a whim of ambition, but a man many called a philosopher-king.
He was a veteran of politics and conflict, one who had wielded the empire with absolute ambition for years.
Thus, he was the primary object of our Union's scrutiny.
"Has the latest intelligence arrived?"
At my question, Feliksa produced a thin folder.
"There was a speech in Lingones yesterday. The content... is quite significant."
She read aloud a few lines.
"'The Gaul Empire has the duty to rewrite the destiny of Terra. The old order and cowardly compromises have sickened our motherland. We must shatter the chains that bind us and march once more toward the seas and the continents.'"
Wrangel snorted dismissively.
"Doesn't that rhetoric sound familiar? 'Ask not what your country can do for you,' and all that..."
Feliksa continued reading.
"'Today, I swear as Emperor of this Great Empire: I shall unsheathe the Spear of Gaul once more. However, our first enemy lies not to the North.'"
Ivanov leaned forward.
"...The East?"
Feliksa replied without looking away from the document.
"The Victorian Empire. In his speech, the Gaul Emperor accused Victoria of surrounding Gaul for decades and persecuting its people. He stated that he would 'not repeat the folly of grinding the populace in an obvious meat grinder.'"
I unfurled the map within my mind.
Our southwestern border with the Union was already densely packed with fortification lines.
A shield we had forged over the years with sweat, blood, and treasury reserves.
But to the south of that, in the plains bordering Victoria, no such shield existed.
"The Gauls are going to strike Victoria," I said decisively.
"They'll crush Victoria and use that land as a springboard to wheel around into our southern border, bypassing our main lines. They'll shatter the fragile Victorian military first."
Ivanov clenched his jaw.
"So Corsica won't explicitly name us as the first target. But ultimately, the blade is meant for our throats."
Wrangel leaned back in his chair.
"Isn't this exactly what we read in the history books? Strike the weaker foe first, bypass the fortification lines, and strike from the rear. That strategy is likely underlined in red on the first page of every military academy textbook."
Frank added quietly,
"They likely know we are the only nation utilizing gunpowder, an unknown weapon to them. While they fight Victoria, they can observe and study the characteristics of our artillery and infantry without engaging us directly, buying themselves time."
Feliksa turned to the final page.
"There is also news from the Comintern network. Our Comrades in the Gaul Popular Front are still only in the stages of preparing for a full-scale uprising. Once the Victorian front opens, internal movements within Gaul will begin at some point. However, there is no guarantee that this will play out in our favor."
I stared out the window.
"The war is about to escalate."
The People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs knocked and entered the room.
"Comrade Chairman."
His face bore a look of shock even greater than usual.
"A telegram from our station in the Victorian Empire. An official communiqué was sent from Lingones to Victoria. It is a formal declaration of war against the Victorian Empire by Emperor Corsica I of Gaul."
Time seemed to freeze within the room.
Frank inhaled so sharply he broke into a cough.
Ivanov's hands clenched and unclenched into fists.
I leaned back against the chair, then slowly leaned forward once more.
"Read it."
The Commissar of Foreign Affairs read a portion of the text.
"'The Gaul Empire shall no longer tolerate the chains of Victoria. From this day forward, we draw our sword against the Victorian Empire. The seas and lands of Terra shall once again be blanketed by the march of Gaulish soldiers.'"
Wrangel spoke in a low, gravelly tone.
"A match has been struck by a child holding a powder keg."
Feliksa offered a faint, dangerous smile.
"And from here on, it will be a battle of who can handle that child."