"Operation Eastern Jade finally fully ends with the MN advancing hundreds of kilometers deep both in Kusari and Hebei. While the full recapture of the Ginzhu province fully eluded the Mandate of Nations, after hundreds of thousands of casualties, more than half of it including the city of Gaoshu has now been captured, and in Kusari, the Imperial Government has recaptured nearly half of the lost territories to the CFN. Still, much of these gains remain hard fought, with the allegedly 'autonomous units' deployed by the CFN wreaking constant havoc on MN forces."

- Geopol Press

+++

Federal Republic of Oralnd

State of Wuringen

Eirhow

April 8, 2026

"So it seems. They've been effective, but they haven't reached their full potential yet. I wonder then what it would mean for us once we fully activate Tau Core's potential alongside all of the self-producing factory units."

The small grin on Sullivan's face grew as he read the reports given to him by his ministers and high-ranking officers. Everyone in the room right now wore a mask, as was protocol because of the bioweapon tearing through the land.

Not that it mattered much. Eirhow had largely avoided all outbreaks, and the same with Wuringen, using a simple but crude tactic. Mass surveillance and mass executions. The Federal Guard had been given the task to hunt and execute any infected that they could find, which wasn't so hard due to how severe the disease was.

Then, they'd burn the bodies, disinfect and close down the buildings and neighborhoods close to it, place the people who may have had contact with the infected under severe quarantine, and in some cases, even remove them entirely by mass executions should the Federal Guard suspect that they were infected.

The result was a sharp decline in reported cases in the Federal Republic. Such draconian measures were possible because they already had the infrastructure set up for years for this reason, and they had been greasing the gears with their personnel trained at subduing the Orlish people. Even the Royalist resistance mostly stayed down right now, its members themselves fearing the disease.

So, now, his government was free to focus on what mattered, and that was what they were deliberating now: how they would win this damned war.

"I still protest this," General Heindhöff said on the side. "I tolerate the current arrangement because we still have local control over our autonomous units. Giving Tau Core full permission to control each unit will mean we give that up de facto."

"But, we will be monitoring and controlling Tau Core directly. That's the plan, isn't it?"

"Tsk. As if that'll work so easily."

"Besides," Sullivan smiled. "The infrastructure to keep the entire communication network for Tau Core only works with node units globally communicating with each other. Sever their connections one by one, and the damned machine will be forced to operate with local command again. We even know which facility holds Tau Core, so we can always destroy it if it turns rogue. Quite frankly, this fear is hard for me to understand."

"Indeed," one of the ministers bashed his fist on the long table. "We have backdoor after backdoor, security measure after security measure. It's not as if we're going to fully activate this computer willy-nilly. We'll harness its full potential, win, and have the control to shut it down afterward!"

"...You are all naive fools," General Heindhöff scoffed. "Right now, we already have the opportunity to strike with our conventional forces and autonomous forces under full command of our troops at once, while the enemy is distracted by the disease. Why risk this?"

"Because if Tau Core is given full supreme command, it will be able to use all of its training data and capabilities we poured our resources into to command the mech swarms," Sullivan replied. "You know this. I don't need to explain it to you. The substandard cores right now commanding these autonomous formations are clearly substandard. Compare that with what Tau Core did earlier at Ritsia."

General Heindhöff's eyes didn't falter. Sullivan respected that. Even with the overwhelming evidence after the brief battle of Ritsia, where a royalist armored brigade confronted a hundred enforcer drones and a hundred twenty courier drones and was forced into a brutal retreat, he still held steadfast in refusing to replicate that.

Of course, it was because he feared Tau Core would do Ritsia not just to the blasted Queen's forces, but also to Federalist forces, which were now being increasingly chewed by the attrition of the war, so it was something Sullivan understood. Indeed, it was an impressive display of one's spine, as expected with the man who pulled off this coup in the first place.

But…

"Therefore, we have to do this," Sullivan declared. "If we do this correctly, time everything well, right when a severe outbreak strikes the royalists, Tau Core will break through all of the enemy's lines, and we can collapse the damned Kingdom once and for all."

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"...You can do that with human forces augmented by the autonomous units," General Heindhöff said again.

"You have already kept advocating for that idea since we started testing these units. The data is in. Your idea is inferior."

"...I see then," General Heindhöff took his files and stood up. "Then, if that is the plan this government has resigned to, I have no more input to give. Give me the orders you formulate, and the Armed Forces shall execute them faithfully. May fate smile on us."

With a stiff salute, the Defense Minister left the meeting room. Other ministers groaned or talked with great annoyance behind General Heindhöff's back, clearly outraged by his actions. Sullivan of course wasn't outraged as he watched him leave at the door.

No, all Sullivan felt was both coldness and excitement. His idea was winning right now, and he was now perhaps extremely close to his ultimate dream. Victory for all men.

But at the same time, General Heindhöff's words gnawed at the back of his mind.

What if said victory truly became so short-lived?

+++

West Orland

Niedelheize Industrial Zone

April 12, 2026

Niedelheize. It was one of the most important production centers for the Orlish war machine. Amelie remembered visiting this place back when she approved exorbitant funding for this 'Industrial Zone' early in the war, right after the Battle of Halia.

By now, the zone had transformed itself fully into a city, with plants denoted as Plants A1, A2, A3, A4, and A5 fully open and operational, each manned by at least twenty thousand workers, to say nothing of the smaller establishments and facilities in the factory city.

"How many people live here now?" Amelie asked. Behind her, Countess Anne Wittfield, the Minister of Economy, replied grimly.

"Approximately four hundred thousand already, Your Majesty. Most of them are male workers, obviously, but at least twenty-five percent are women who now work in the factories as well."

"I see. And how many cases have been reported here?"

"Four hundred and eighty. Plant A3 has already been fully closed and quarantined yesterday. The rest are still shaken, and we are instituting strict measures on the workers."

Amelie stopped by one of the plants, a massive six-storey building that stretched for kilometers. It was a part of Plant A5, and right now, at its gate, she could see dozens of heavy trucks coming in and out with containers on them. Even the nearby train station was active, with trains carrying input items for manufacturing and assembly coming by groups of two every five minutes.

"So you're telling me, that we have to close down the entire city for at least two weeks," Amelie frowned.

"Yes. We'll be keeping a small skeleton crew of forty thousand workers to keep some critical facilities running for a while, but we need to fully isolate each worker before locking them down here."

That was the big plan that Countess Wittfield was suggesting to Amelie. She wanted to send each worker in the major industrial plants of Orland into temporary quarantine to clear their statuses, before forcibly sending them back into the factories for indefinite stay until the pandemic ended.

In essence, she wanted to turn Orland's factories into isolated clean facilities, where the virus would absolutely not touch anyone working in there. The downside of course was that it was extremely draconian, and it would mean that for the first month or two, there would be problems with lowered production rates.

But afterward, Countess Wittfield was expecting great returns when Orland effectively isolates its industrial hubs from the Red Flu crisis. That way, no matter what happened outside, Orland's industrial cities would be working full-time doing their job for the war effort, unabated.

"But what if someone manages to get in and spread the virus anyway," Amelie asked, skeptical. "And what if the cleanup window doesn't fully sterilize our facilities beforehand. Besides, workers transporting materials still move between cities and factories so it's not like they'd ever be fully isolated."

"That may be so but in that case, infection incidents will be more easily managed as they'd be smaller in scope. Compare it to the situation right now, and it will be a marked improvement. If our intel about the Federalists' measures to keep their population off the virus's effects is true, then this is the only way to catch up. I don't need to tell you how disastrous it would be if we do nothing and a zone like Niedelheize is struck with a severe outbreak. All those workers and their skills aren't so easily replaceable…"

Amelie sighed.

"What about the workers. Would they agree about this?"

"Everything is for the greater good, Your Majesty. We will explain the situation to each one of them, and they must follow it."

"It's just unfair that we have to follow the example of the CFN just because they're getting their house in order faster," Amelie gritted her teeth. "The way I see this, we're essentially just doing softer tyranny to respond to this crisis."

"Indeed."

"I really just wish the vaccine would come out sooner, but even I know that producing and deploying it to everyone will still take months," she sighed. "I guess, it is what it is then. If this is the only choice we have, then I will give the green light for it."

Indeed, if I don't do this now, it will only get worse as this disease spreads.

There were already at least a hundred thousand cases in royalist Orland after all, with twenty-five thousand dead. And the number was only growing, even if it was mostly contained right now in cities under heavy quarantine.

She looked at William behind him, her right-hand man simply watching with a grim look on his face. He seemed quite pleased that she agreed to the plan that he and the Economic Minister cooked up.

I guess you win and I lose, William.

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