Wounds That Never Heal

[Socialist Commonwealth]

Guardsman Resnik was sweating heavily as he manually tightened the screw at the side of the provisional bridge. The failure of this tiny element had cost them dear minutes and postponed the entire operation by five minutes. Had this been an actual offensive and not just an exercise, it would have been entirely unacceptable. Five minutes in war can make the difference between success and failure and Guardsman Resnik knew this. Still, even though there was room for improval, he could be very content with the progress of his group. The soldiers serving under his command were skilled and motivated, the best in the entire first pioneer brigade.

The exercise had been placed north of the city of Sisak, third biggest of Carentania and on the border to the Talemantine Empire. Recently, the Talemantines had stepped up their aggressive rhetorics and many were expecting war to break out again after more than seventy years of peace between the two countries. Object of the dispute was, once again, the Vrbas Kraj, a province just south of the river Vrbas which, as it was, marked the current border between the Talemantines and the Carentanians - a border, which the Carentanians never really accepted. The treaty ceding the province to the Talemantines had been forced through war and the Workers' Republic thus considered it not valid and the Vrbas Kraj under Talemantine occupation.

Whatever implications this had, for the Carentanians it had been purely a beuraucratic issue, so to say. It never once was attempted to drive the Talemantines out of the Vrbas Kraj, too much was the stability of the last decades of advantage to the Carentanians to dare risk it over an - admittedly ressource rich - strip of land. However, it seemed that now, after all these years, the Talemantines intend to scandalize the Carentanian refusal to acknowledge the treaty and to return to a state of war between both countries.

"I don't think the Commissars will wait for the Talemantines to come here," Guardsmen Resnik said calmly to the comrade next to him. Tanks were moving past him and crossing the bridge they had just built.

"Why? What gives you the impression?" the soldier he had spoken to inquired, but without any real interest in his voice. He was lethargically chewing on a piece of dry meat.

"Not sure, but have you never noticed that all the exercises we ever did were about crossing the Vrbas?"

 

[Socialist Commonwealth]

"Commander."

The man who had just entered the office of Commander Milena Hafner, nodded to her respectfully. He was carrying an envelope with the seal of the Commissariate for Defence, but was surely no military man himself. Glasses on top of a wrinkly nose, he was rather short and of thin built, a beuraucrat through and through. Commander Hafner looked up from her work, involving several reports about the conducts of different units within her military unit, the First Army.

"Commander, I have come to bring you your orders," the man continued without further hesitation and stepped nearer to pass on the envelope. Immediately, the Commander broke the seal and began reading the contents of the brown wrapper, while the messenger made some explanatory remarks he had been instructed to give along with the formal letter.

"This is the official plan for the operations the First Army will be tasked with in the case of a war with the Talemantine Empire. You will find that the detailed instructions contain intelligence reports, which you are expected to utilize to the fullest advantage within these operations. As you may notice, those plans are plans for an offensive against the Talemantine military and may be void under unfortunate strategical circumstances we hope to avoid by quick reaction. However, I have the orders to stress towards you the fact that we are not yet in war and that a diplomatic solution to the Talemantines aggressions may be found yet."

The Commander put down the orders, placing them upside down on the desk so no one could see its contents. "Should the day of war come, my Army will be ready for its duties," she said, paused, but then added a question: "Who will be in charge of the entire offensive?"

"Commander Cvetko Bizjak will lead the operations in place of the General Staff, as it was him who envisioned the plan," the small beuraucrat replied, causing a sneer from the female officer.

"Commander Bizjak," she noted "thinks too highly of his military and too lowly of his fiends. Surely I will find that the goals laid out for my units are highly ambitious?"

Not a single emotion crossed the face of her conversational partner. Calmly, the man merely answered: "That may well be the case."
A sense of finality hung over the discussion, but then the beuraucrat blushed as he had already turned for the door. He moved back to face the Commander, as he had forgotten one rather important detail that may be of importance to her.

"The Fourth Army has been ordered to assist in the operations and is currently on its way to your operational zone."

 

[Socialist Commonwealth]

The dampened sound of heavy breathing could be heard from the men and women running along the Vrbas river, wearing full combat gear and NBC suits. It was an early spring morning and the sun had just crept over the horizon, shining at the peaceful green of rural Carentania. Temperatures were mild, but warm enough to make running in the thick rubber suits more than a mere nuisance. Covered in sweat, the soldiers made way through a difficult part of the westernmost end of the Vrbas rivervalley, their boots causing a crunching sound every time they stepped on the gravel that made up the ground at this place.

They had been alarmed a mere ten minutes ago and been sent out by their commanding officer to investigate several columns of smoke that hung over the area. Their truck was stopped some hundred meters before their target, as this part of Carentania became increasingly mountaineous and the freshly sown wheat fields made way for the timber forests of the Haemian mountains. Under normal circumstances, a few firefighters would have sent from the nearest town to investigate the cause of the smoke, but with tensions between Carentania and the Talemantine Empire and even the threat of war, things were different, especially as some people in the area reported to have "heard shots."

Their weapons drawn, the group moved forward through the woods. The "Automat Vojenstva 4" - military assault rifle 4 - was a reliable bullpup design available only to the Revolutionary Army. Introduced in 1970, it had become the main weapon of choice for all units in the military. Cheap, sturdy and easy to maintain. Sure, it had its flaws, as the standard 5.50x40mm cartridge at times had proven to be a bit weak and the bullpup design tended to be cumbersome in close quarters. Still, it was a Carentanian design and one of those that were actually quite good. None of the soldiers would have traded it for any foreign rifle.

Nearing a stack of old branches, the group could now see that the smoke was coming from within it. The squad leader himself moved closer to take it apart and confirm, what everyone was already sure about. "Gasmasks off," he then ordered, sighing in relief as he himself was the first to follow his own order. "Seems we don't have a Talemantine gas attack, surprise," he said, looking at the dry wood that had ignited for whatever reason. "Cover it with earth and then head back to base. Let's see if I can find those idiots who said they heard shots in the area..."

 

[Socialist Commonwealth]

A large flock of people had formed a circle around the medical personnel, staring in shock at the events in the middle of the crowd. Emergency equipment lay strewn around two motionless bodies, field medics bent over each of the two who were no longer breathing on their own. The medics were pumping air into their lungs, but to no avail, their hearts refusing to beat on their own and warmth slowly leaving their bodies. Finally, the doctor signalled his assistants to stop, announcing the time of death of two young Carentanian boys and the medics covered their corpses with blankets.

They had been found by a military patrol, drifting down the Vrbas river. A few minutes before that, a post in the western part of the border reported the sound of shots coming from a location near the small village of Krazsbo. A squad dispatched from the nearest base, driving along a street at the riverside, saw the two boys by sheer coincidence and managed to bring them to the shore. Their bodies were disfigured, covered in cuts and bruises as the river had apparently dredged them over the rocky ground and thrown their bodies back and forth where the Vrbas was flowing faster.

It was already night when the medical personnel arrived, but this hadn't stopped nearby villagers from arriving at the scenery as rumours about what happened spread quickly. Shot by Talemantine forces, the most popular story said, tying the sound of shots that had been heard by a borderpost to the death of the bodies. Even though there was as of now no proof for that, the media would be quick to pick up this version, claiming that the boys had been playing near the Vrbas at dawn as triggerhappy Talemantine soldiers mistook them for Revolutionary Army members. Carentanian media had been scandalizing the Talemantine orders to shoot for too long now to not make these assumptions.

Finally, the boys already declared dead and their bodies covered from curious eyes, the soldiers pushed away the bystanders.
"Nothing to look at," they said with sadness in their voices, not believing it themselves.