Rematch - a countryhumans story

Chapter 13: The stalemate broken

30th December, 2042

Federation of Five Nations looked at the trench stretching to the horizont, to the sun starting to appear. On his left was grass, alive and beautiful. On his right was mud of the no man's land. It smelled death. That smell of burned rotten meat was a reminder that war was not an adventure to seek. You will either end up dead or watching those who you care about die.
He really was grateful that he didn't start it. He couldn't forgive himself if he was the reason people die. But he wasn't the reason, he did all he could to maintain peace, and now it was time to protect his people, the Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Belarusians and Ukrainians alike.
That was his duty. After all, if there was no need to be united all of them would form their own nation states.
But here he was, in a bulletproof vest, with a gun attached to his belt. Two days earlier he managed to find where the biggest guns of Turkish army were, and even return the plane unscratched. Now the hellhole that the trenches were was being abandoned.
A group of six tanks rolled over it. They were dark green with camouflage patterns in them, with little boxes covering the steel case. Hundreds of little explosives, big enough to slow down hitting round, small enough to not damage armor. Genius design of early twenty first century.
Question is, how much warfare has changed since then; some even claimed that the entire concept of main battle tank was obsolete.
Currently Federation was overseeing ground prepararions. He ordered one squad of mechanized infantry to move almost fifty meters from where they thought they should be, a small mistake made when drawing on map corrected, but besides that there wasn't much to do - the military acted fully professional. It was meant to be the largest campaign in the Balkans since the Second World War, and it had to go flawlessly. If they won't kick Turkey out of the war before China decides to mobilize his army, then the war will be lost. They aren't able to hold so many enemies on such a long front. It MUST succeed.
But if he wants to attack, he has to focus on here-and-now. He can't wonder what if they fail, he has to ensure they won't do it.
Following this line of thoughts, FFN redirected himself to his motorcycle, and after turning on the engine he drove straight to the nearest airfield. There wasn't much to do near the trench line, the ground attack will be lead by Czechoslovakia-Hungary, not him anyway. He will fight too, but on entire different dimension: the skies.
He parked the bike in the airfield's edge as a soldier came to him, standed at attention and saluted with two fingers.
- Dowódco, pierwsza eskadra myśliwców jest gotowa do akcji! [Sir, the first fighter squadron is ready to action!] -
- Spocznij [stand down] - Federation replied, and moved to the armory for his pilot uniform. He didn't expect soldier to continue.
- Sir, two people await you in the storage -
Huh. That wasn't something he expected. He quickly moved to the armory, looking for the "guests", which wasn't that easy when there are people caring equipment everywhere, and you had wings too large to hide them. Ultimately, he found them - both of them were countries, and the vibrant flags on their faces were far too easy to distinguish from the crowd. He marched straight towards the two, who saw and greeted him.
- Hey Fed, how you doing? - Italy asked, and seeing Five Nations's face, quickly added
- Not expecting our two, bud? -
- Hello Greece, nice to see you - FFN said, kissing small blue state in her hand while completely ignoring Italy.
- You may haven't noticed, but I spoke to you - he waved in front of winged country's eye.
- Patience Italy, there's a lady in the room - Federation said, which made Italy smile widely.
- Her? A lady? She didn't even have her own land less than two years ago! - he pointed out, and Greece's face suddenly darkened.
- Italy, we've been over this - FFN's tone was almost aggressive.
- Don't you ever dare to make her relive her memories of Turkish occupation. Never. Again. Do you understand? - by the way he standed and looked straight into Italy's eyes, taller by more than a head, with wings partially covering light from the lamp and his left hand put on his saber's handle, he was almost scary. The peninsula Kingdom took a step back.
- Hey, Five, I didn't mean it, really, you know I'm not that type of guy, I just forgot! -
- I know, and this is why I'm not taking actual measures to put an end to this -
Federation placed his hand over Greece shoulder as she was silently sobbing into his left wing.