"As speech separates humans from apes, so morality separates civilization from the barbarians." - Emmanuel Goldstein, Nineteen Eighty-Four

--

Gim Township, Principality-Louria Border Region

War was messy, it always had been and it always would be. Confusion reigned, friendlies would fire upon one another without realizing it, troops would give into their hatred of the enemy, executing their prisoners, and civilians would be forced from their homes as basic utilities collapsed.

But those facts didn't automatically render any efforts to mitigate their proliferation futile.

For the ancient Romans war was considered nefas ("wrong, forbidden") and the Ius Gentium ("Law of Nations") was conceptualized to afford soldiers and civilians alike basic protections seen as universal to human beings in a bid to better regulate the conduct of war. Today, it is often seen as a simplistic precursor to modern international law.

Almost two thousand years later, the nations of Europe would come together to draft the first Geneva Conventions, a formalized document considered legally binding by the governments which signed it. In the year 2022, just prior to its summoning, the United Kingdom was a signatory to the first, and subsequent three other Geneva Conventions.

In this new world, however, the rules of war were winner takes all.

In this new world, the Louria Kingdom held no concerns for matters of ethics and morality.

Captain Moiji's forces would fight valiantly at Fort Mohan, managing to defend their position for over an hour in spite of the Lourians quickly establishing air supremacy, but the point remained that infantry were little more than target practice for any experienced Wyvern knight, and as a result Moiji and his men all perished that night in the Battle of Fort Mohan.

Not a single man surrendered, or even fled.

Upon the total disintegration of the defending Qua-Toynian force, the vanguard troops of the Lourian Eastern Subjugation Army set fire to what was left of the Principality's border fortifications before making their advance onto the town of Gim proper.

Though most of the town's population had been evacuated in the days prior to the invasion, and still more had been able to flee even after due to Moiji's sacrifice, Gim was a large town with a storied history, and many of its vulnerable or stubborn residents had either chosen to remain or been unable to leave until it was too late.

It was a slaughter.

To prevent anymore Qua-Toynians from eluding their grasp, and without any opposing ground forces to dissuade them, the Lourian vanguard split into two halves, with each going around opposite sides of Gim's outskirts before encircling it entirely, cutting off all avenues of escape.

General Adem, the notoriously sadistic commanding officer of the Eastern Subjugation Army had given his troops free reign to do as they wished to the town and what remained of its inhabitants, with the exception that they were to let 100 townsfolk flee in the aftermath, so that they might spread word of the atrocities committed in Gim to the rest of the Principality.

His intent was to wage a war of fear before a war of swords.

Looting, raping, arson and mass executions proliferated throughout the town as the Lourians swarmed it, anyone healthy enough to work was put in shackles to be sent to mines and farms in Louria, while any woman attractive enough was 'requisitioned' by the army's wealthier officers to either sell to their friends back home, or to keep for themselves.

Then, once their blood lust had finally been satisfied, the Lourians set fire to Gim just as they had Fort Mohan, with the thirty-thousand strong vanguard force continuing their advance eastward into Qua-Toyne, while the main force, numbering over two hundred thousand strong finally begun to cross the border behind them.

In the vanguard's wake, the town of Gim burned bright, filling the air above it with thick plumes of black smoke as centuries of history, and a once proud community were turned to ash.

Little did either side know that from far above those plumes, high in the clouds, a watchful foreign eye had been observing the chaos since the moment the Lourians had first crossed the border..

--

Cabinet Office, 70 Whitehall, London

"We predict the Principality to capitulate in under two weeks, Prime Minister." 

The mood in the room was grim as Major General McGrath relayed information from the RAF's reconnaissance over the Qua-Toynian border with Louria.

Behind the uniformed man with the Ron Swanson mustache, an assortment of still images and video recordings were being presented on television screens to Prime Minister Ferguson, his cabinet, and a collection of military officials. 

Several of the room's civilian staff had been forced to leave by some of the gore that was being shown, while many more- hardened military men included- were made noticeably uncomfortable by the sheer displays of brutality they were being subjected to.

Stewart felt as if he was going to be sick.

Piles of corpses being assembled in courtyards and squares, the raping and beating of innocent women and children, the enslavement of countless families..

The Lourians were seemingly capable of acts so horrendous they would make even the worst offenders of the Rwandan genocide blush with envy.

Though the Prime Minister couldn't help but wonder if this was what his own country had been like centuries ago, he could recall a time years prior when he and his school friends would crack jokes at some of the descriptions of atrocities in their medieval history books, as if they had been reading fiction.

It had simply never seemed real.

"This must be what the ambassador was talking about when he mentioned demi-human discrimination." The Home Secretary spoke.

"Can we expect these acts to be replicated elsewhere if the Lourians continue their advance?" The Defence Minister added curiously.

"We can, Minister." General McGrath replied firmly, using a laser-pointer in his hand to indicate points on the outskirts of Gim against a pieced together map on the screen that they had managed to make through aircraft-imagery. "Their vanguard force has already pillaged several more settlements close to Gim, although they're only small villages."

Taking a breath, the General went on, "We've also seen a large naval mobilization along their northern coastline, we expect them to attempt amphibious landings throughout the country, and in-particular at the Port of Maihark."  

Stewart sighed, scratching at his forehead.

"What about the Qua-Toynians, what have they said?" He questioned no one in-particular.

"We've been receiving calls from Kanata non-stop, Prime Minister." His assistant Mia answered.

"And their embassy is demanding to meet you personally." Foreign Secretary Mills continued.

Leaning back in his chair, Stewart's gaze only momentarily lifted up to the ceiling, his thoughts trying to lose themselves in the hum of the room's lights before he forced himself back into the conversation.

He looked back at the images on the screen.

"We should stop this." He suggested calmly, in spite of his own previous reservations, and suddenly the room felt as if it'd grown a lot more silent, even if no one besides him had previously been talking.

"We should.." Christine, the Home Secretary started, before trailing off, looking across the table at Stewart with a critiquing expression on her face. 

"But?" Stewart asked, knowing the word was coming. 

"But," Christine confirmed, "We've still got problems at home to deal with. People are scared, and we need to make sure our own affairs are in-order first before we go off on a moral crusade." She stopped, though her eye contact with the Prime Minister persisted, the pair's gazes lingering on one another for a little while longer before finally breaking.

It was easy to tell that the room was divided between the two conflicting opinions.

Stewart himself was conflicted, knowing the consequences of intervention.. But those images.

"You're suggesting we allow these people to be butchered? You've seen the reports-" 

"I've seen the reports, yes. The technological gap between ourselves and the Lourians is significant, but those are just the Lourians. We know there's more advanced civilizations on this planet, we've seen the evidence to prove it." 

Christine was right, even without the use of satellites (although the Royal Air Force and British Space Agency had been working on expediating the launch of several pre-summoning satellites) tell-tale signs of pollution had been detected recently from across the oceans on both sides of the British Isles.

It wasn't a ridiculous notion either, for industrialized societies to share a planet with medieval ones, it even begged a comparison between the European colonial powers and feudal Japan in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

"Alistair?" Stewart spoke, his eyes turning to look at the Minister of Defence from where he sat, "What do you think?"

Scratching as his chin, Alistair looked at the screens at the front of the room before looking back to the Prime Minister, "Christine has a point, we need to conserve our resources for now, and the armed forces would be best put to use defending our own borders.."

For a second time, Stewart saw a pause in one of his subordinates. "But?" He asked again.

He hoped this wouldn't become a trend.

"But, our analysts have predicted from the detailed intelligence the Qua-Toynians have given us as well as our own surveillance that we could force a complete route of the Lourian Army with minimal effort, and no causalities on our side."

The Prime Minister felt a spark of optimism in his chest at the continuation, and saw the Home Secretary practically staring daggers at her MoD counterpart from across the table.

"How would-" Stewart had went to ask, only to be interrupted by a sudden intrusion from Christine, who almost got up from where she was sitting, but not quite.

"Sir, we can't start a war after just a week of us arriving here. Think of the public response, our last military escapade was Afghanistan for Christ's sake! You know what happened to Blair." 

At her mention of the old Labour Prime Minister, Stewart saw flashes of counter-war protests, buckets of pig's blood being thrown at government buildings, and the words of derision that had followed him not only for the rest of his political career, but his life after and to this very day.

War criminal, scum, imperialist, baby-killer.

Would that be his legacy if he pursued this path? If it all went wrong? 

"But we've seen the images, we know what's going to happen if we don't intervene." The Foreign Secretary inserted himself into the argument with, Stewart turning his attention to the slightly balding man with the dirty blond hair. 

"And the Qua-Toynians have been nothing but friendly, this isn't even mentioning the mineral deposits we've found along the border. You really think the Lourians will be anywhere near as open to us as the Principality has been?" Secretary Mills went on.

Mineral deposits..

Stewart's eyes widened, his entire figure abruptly jolting with new energy as he fixed his posture in his chair and asked, "What's the status of our expedition?" 

Shit.

--

Outskirts of Gim Township, Principality-Louria Border Region

Almost three hours had gone by without a single 'glowing rock' found, or even much of anything else, and Catherine was beginning to think she'd been led on a wild goose chase. 

Having left the expedition camp a little over five hours ago, she'd chosen a group of six other geologists to help her with the survey, along with them came twelve soldiers- though they insisted on being called airmen- and two Qua-Toynian noblemen. 

They'd taken three Land Rover Wolfs to make the bumpy, two hour long journey from the camp to a small hamlet in the forest on the outskirts of a place called Gim, but had since spent a majority of their time being led around by the two noblemen from one pile of useless rocks to another.

One of the Qua-Toynians, the larger, more finely dressed gentleman who had first spoken to her on horseback, had even suggested that they spend the night in one of the hamlet's cottages, though the airmen quickly dismissed that idea due to security concerns.

To say their trip had thus far been uneventful would have been putting it lightly, and in all honesty, Catherine wasn't sure how surveying a new world could have been made so boring.

"Did we do something wrong?" Seth, her colleague asked casually as he, Catherine and two others busied themselves with some lithology equipment.

"What do you mean?" Catherine asked, chipping away at some rocky terrain they'd extracted from a nearby boulder with her chisel. 

"Like, did someone get pissed off at us?" The man with the slightly ginger hair clarified his question, himself taking samples from porphyritic basalt to inspect them further.

She knew it was a theory driven by discontent with their situation, and was likely just him searching for someone to blame for them being made to waste their time, but she felt herself wanting to sign onto his idea all the same.

Why else would they have been sent out here? The soldiers- airmen- had been keeping in constant communication with the camp, so it wasn't some nefarious scheme to ambush them, and what other reason would the Qua-Toynians have had to lie about this? 

"Maybe." Catherine ended up muttering in response, frowning at no one as her frustration at the lack of 'glowing rocks' built. "Perhaps someone stole them before we arrived." She added, hearing Seth chuckle at that suggestion.

And things between the group were quiet as they went about their respective duties, all four of them sitting by one of the jeeps until..

"We need to go."

"They've bloody invaded!" 

"We're in serious danger of.." 

Catherine's attention was lifted from the rocks she'd been carefully studying as what sounded like an argument broke out between some of the airmen not too far from where they were. Feeling Seth's eyes on her, she knew that he'd heard the yelling as well. 

Lifting herself to her feet from where she'd been sitting on the ground, Catherine dusted her clothes off before making haste to where the soldiers-- airmen! Were standing, watching while she approached as several of the uniformed men started lifting the boxes of equipment she and her colleagues had brought from the camp.

Nearing Flight Sergeant Peters, the ranking officer took one look at her before he opened his mouth, "Dr. Wu, I'm afraid you'll have to stop what you're doing and start packing up." Unlike his subordinates, he seemed calm.

She supposed that was the whole point of him being in-charge.

"What's happened?" She asked, looking around as her fellow team members were informed by the airmen that they too had to begin packing up their things and getting into the Land Rovers.

"The Lourians invaded, and they're already making their way deeper into the country. Aerial reconnaissance is telling us there's a vanguard force not far from where we are." His tone was calm, but his expression was grim, Catherine realized.

Her own heart plummeted at the information. 

I knew this was a terrible idea!

Why had she ever listened to that curious, romantic voice? 

"I understand." The dark-haired woman agreed with no hesitance, swiftly beginning to feel a sharp rise in adrenaline as the implications of what she'd just been told started to make their impact known. They were close to what was likely an active warzone.

The Flight Sergeant gave her a firm nod and she turned back round towards the jeep she and Seth had been sat by. As much as her inner explorer would have wanted to stay and continue to search for something- anything- the reality of the situation was that there were no glowing rocks, but that there was a dangerous medieval army.

Shaking her head, Catherine tried not to think about it, it was the responsibility of the airmen to protect her and her team.

She was better off focusing herself on things she could affect, like getting her equipment into the back of that Land Rover. 

Crossing the open dirt courtyard that separated the small cottages of the hamlet they were in, the other members of their group weren't even bothering to organize what they were evacuating, instead simply chucking whatever they could find into the nearest box and haphazardly shoving said boxes into the closest vehicle. 

"What did he say?" Seth asked as Catherine approached.

"He-"

"What the hell is that?!" A woman, one of her colleagues- Jessica- yelled abruptly, cutting off what Catherine had been about to say, as in-front of her she saw Seth look up into the sky.

"Get to cover!" One of the airmen barked in response, Catherine having not even had enough time to look at whatever it was everyone had gotten so panicked about before another uniformed man had grabbed her and pulled her behind one of the dark green jeeps.

"Woah-hey!" She protested, wrestling herself from the soldier's grip but maintaining her position behind the vehicle. "What is it?!" She almost demanded to know, ordinarily respectful but in this instance understandably panicked about not knowing what was happening.

"Lourian air power." The airman replied, flicking a switch on the side of his rifle but remaining careful not to have his finger over the trigger, he was breathing heavily, though whether it was from exertion or fear, Catherine didn't know.

Similar scenes had played out across the hamlet, as the civilian geologists were hurried into hiding spots by their military escorts, with each airman readying his weapon. 

"Jesus, how close are they? Why weren't we told earlier!" Catherine demanded to know, feeling a swell of negative emotions rise within her. The airman shrugged, but with a frown.

"It's probably just reconnaissance, if their infantry were this close we'd already be on our way back to camp." He seemed confident in his assertion.

Catherine took a deep breath to calm herself following his reassurance. Thinking it through rationally, if they had their own aircraft observing from above, then there would have been no way for such a large, primitive force to sneak up on them.

"Yeah, just reconnaissance." She echoed, saying it to convince herself as opposed to agreeing with the man as she quickly nodded.

Hearing the sound of a radio nearby, she heard Flight Sergeant Peters talking to someone from behind the walls of one of the hamlet cottages, Jessica, Seth and one of the Qua-Toynian noblemen hiding with him.

Taking a small peak from around the edge of the Land Rover, she laid eyes on him.

He was both audibly and visually furious. 

"I couldn't care less how the Lourians respond. We need assistance!" He growled into the radio.

Raising her gaze up and away from where Peters was, Catherine took the opportunity to chance a peek into the air, and to lay her own eyes on whatever the Lourians called air power.

As her eyes oriented themselves on a distant dark blob in the sky, although, she swiftly begun to wish she hadn't.

"Is that a fucking dragon?" 

--

HMS Albion, Joint Expeditionary Force, South Parpaldia Sea

Running a preservative-soaked rag along the rims of his L85A3's short-stroke gas piston, Major Lewis Raeburn had been sat by his lonesome in the confines of his quarters aboard the Albion cleaning his equipment for a while now.

He'd ordered Lima Company to do the same following the sudden distribution of a stand-by order from the higher ups earlier in the day. 

Apparently the Lourians had decided to invade their neighbours to the south, something that hadn't surprised the marine in the slightest even when he'd only the relatively sparse information he'd received to analyse. 

If they were given the order, the man had little doubt the conflict would be over within days, and even then it'd only take so long due to the sheer number of Lourians they'd have to bomb first.

But, of course it wasn't the Lourians he was worried about, nor was that even his job. 

As Lima Company's commanding officer, he had the unique task of leading 'Joint Personnel Recovery' operations, that essentially being military speak for search and rescue. 

Lewis knew that he and his men had been put on stand-by because of the expedition on the mainland, he would've been dense not to. And again, he caught himself thinking back to the dispute he'd had with the Lieutenant Colonel about letting civilians go abroad in the first place.

"These decisions are above your pay-grade, Major." He recalled again.

"Shut your mouth and do your job." And it's true meaning followed.. Again.

Releasing a sigh, the marine's deep green eyes skimmed across the room to the calendar on his wall, on it the page was turned to February, and above the dates, a picture of the centuries-old church tower from his hometown..

It didn't take the Major long after that to finish cleaning his rifle

...

"You hear they're deploying the Queen Elizabeth?" Corporal Walsh asked Lewis as the pair of MTP-fatigued men made their way down one of the Albion's numerous long, claustrophobic corridors.

"I did." Major Raeburn replied briefly, giving a nod to a passing Navy mechanic, both himself and Walsh were in their Osprey body armour, with Mk7 helmets in hand, their L85A3's slung over one shoulder, and thick dark green rucksacks over the other shoulder. 

"Does that mean we're going to war?" The younger man asked, and Lewis shrugged. 

"I don't know, Corporal. Just focus on the here and now." Making their way from one end of the ship to the other, the two marines were heading towards the Albion's landing pad, where their Merlin HC4 helicopter was waiting. 

Only a few minutes ago they'd received the order to deploy to the mainland.

According to the Lieutenant Colonel, the expedition wasn't in immediate danger, but had requested assistance all the same.

Lewis wasn't sure whether or not he believed the man.

...

"Welcome aboard, Major!" The Merlin's crew chief greeted Lewis as he led his men, a single platoon of thirty men towards the angular grey helicopter that sat on the landing pad at the rear of the Albion. Though, as a Major he'd had the option of staying aboard the ship, he had always been the type to lead by example.

Besides, landing on what was essentially an alien world was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

But with the Merlin too small to evacuate the expedition on it's own, he'd been told that three MH-47 Chinooks from HMS Queen Elizabeth were being sent to join them on the mission.

Apparently those scientists had brought quite a lot of equipment with them.

"Pleasure to be flying with you." Major Raeburn responded with a smile, the men stepping aside as two rows of Royal Marine Commandos filtered by them as they embarked onto the Merlin through it's open rear door. Sometimes even he could forget how powerful a helicopter's spinning blades could feel.

Dusk had just set, and night was slowly taking the place of what was once warm sunlight. In this moment, as Lewis watched the platoon shuffle past him, he didn't know whether to think about the fact this would be a night operation, or that the moon above him was not the same one he had spent his entire life until now under.

It was hard to tell which thought made him more uncomfortable.

Once the final marine had gotten onto the Merlin, Lewis and the crew chief followed suit, the helicopter's rear door ascending behind them until it was closed fully, before finally taking off.

--

Outskirts of Gim Township, Principality-Louria Border Region

Catherine Wu had never seen a gun in-person before yesterday. She most certainly had never expected to see one being fired.

Only minutes after she'd caught a glimpse of the dragon above them, it had turned its long, scale-coated neck in their direction and had begun to rapidly descend towards them.

Before the airman next to her had pushed her back behind the Land Rover, she'd even been able to roughly make out what looked to be a person on it's back, presumably it's rider or owner.

It had been a remarkable- and terrifying- sight. 

"Fire!" She could recall hearing Flight Sergeant Peters yell, and not a second later her ears were nearly popped by the sound of gunfire, the chemical chain reaction sparked by gunpowder and a gas piston feeling as if it'd deafen her if it'd went on for any longer than it had. 

Fortunately for both the group and Catherine's ears, it hadn't gone on for long.

After a wailing screech emitted from directly above them, a thunderous crash into one of the hamlet's cottages had caused it's roof to collapse in on itself, sending pieces of wooden shrapnel and dust everywhere.

The dragon, though later she would hear one of the airmen describe it as a 'Wyvern' had been killed by the barrage of semi-automatic weapons Peters had unleashed.

Around her, the airmen all cheered in the aftermath, with a few even skirting around the now ruined cottage to take pictures of the fallen beast with their phones, the once powerful creature now mangled and riddled with holes as it laid flailed in a grave of building materials.

Catherine had never felt such an adrenaline rush in her life. 

Only being allowed a momentary reprieve from the fear the Wyvern had caused, she and her team were quickly back to gathering their equipment and loading it onto the jeeps before they finally departed.

...

But that had been an hour ago, and now, as she sat in the rear of one of the convoy's three speeding Land Rover Wolfs, she could only think about the wasted opportunity of all this.

War always did tend to stick its nose in the pursuit of progress.

Dusk had turned to night, yet to their southwest, the horizon was illuminated by a bright orange, the Flight Sergeant had told her it was from a town called Gim, after the Lourians had set it ablaze.

Across from her, Seth and Jessica were sitting, both looking slightly despondent from the harsh realities of this new world, and at the front of the jeep was Peters and another airman, the one who shielded her from the Wyvern's appearance. 

Peters had been on the radio for almost the entirety of their trip thus far, being kept up to date with any progress the Lourian's vanguard units were making.

"We'll come back soon, I'm sure of it." Catherine said to her two colleagues, attempting in vain to lift their spirits, though she hardly believed it herself. Theoretically, it would be easy to stop the Lourians, after all she'd just seen simple rifles slay what she had been told was one of Louria's most powerful weapons.

Theory and reality were often two very different things however, and she was not naïve enough to believe that war was quite so simple. 

Like war itself, politics had it's own way of sticking it's nose into progress.

She shuddered to think what might happen to the people of the land she was now fleeing from, knowing full well that a society with the technological and seemingly cultural level of Louria's would not make war a polite business.

"When we get back to camp, be ready to start moving your stuff, again. There'll be a few Chinooks and some Royal Marines waiting for us when we get there." Flight Sergeant Peters announced from the front passenger seat.

Catherine let out a breath before closing her eyes, knowing that she wouldn't be able to sleep given how rough the dirt and stone path they were driving on was, but wanting to relax all the same.

At least she'd never have to see a Wyvern again.

--

Author's Notes: 

Louria is invading Qua-Toyne, and their navy is now mobilizing. Lewis and Catherine are about to meet at the camp (yet their evacuation may not go so smoothly).

The Cabinet is split on how to respond to the massacre at Gim, yet HMS Queen Elizabeth has been deployed as a precaution, while the first informal engagement between the British and Lourians has occurred, much to the dismay of that poor Wyvern.

An exciting set up for next chapter which will explore the expedition's evacuation, the Lourian fleet's deployment, and the British decision on what to do about the invasion. 

(Spoiler: it may involve F-35s) 

Like always, thank you all for reading and if you could favourite & comment to show your support, it genuinely helps in encouraging me to continue, as I know people are actually reading and enjoying it.

Thanks!