[b]Dictatorship Over Democracy.[/b] A high-explosive rocket obliterated the ground behind Pyroshark’s APC. The APC flipped forwards and crushed a pack of terrified Septagonians fleeing ahead of it. Then more fell, some with warheads packed with napalm, others with improvised shrapnel of rusty nails, chunks of random metal and stones. The 3rd Foreign Volunteer Division was being ripped apart, and it couldn’t even reply the favour. Floodian artillery, unseen and nicely nestled in secure firing positions many miles back, wrought destruction upon a helpless foe. This war had raged on Septagonia for four weeks now, and already most of it’s army was trapped in various pockets, stranded and surrendering. It’s Air Force comprised of blazing, worthless wrecks, still smouldering on the runways they never managed to escape. The Navy was in a disastrous panic, the majority already resting at the bottom of the sea bed. Civilians were assaulted, stolen from, beaten, starved, r@ped and murdered in their dozens by packs of drunken soldiers. Glorious forests, which had stood for thousands of years, burned overnight, animals were slaughtered, towns razed to piles of broken rubble. Millions were made homeless in senseless acts of uncaring savagery. The Floodian Empire, with his Imperial Majesty Corbec at the helm, was expanding, and Septagonia was the victim of it’s wrath. Children would weep endlessly over the bleeding corpses of their parents, untold billions would starve and misery and brutality never before seen would be visited in terrible quantity on an innocent population. Why, you might ask? Because Corbec had decided to grow his beloved Empire. Pyroshark stumbled, bleeding a river from a deep gash along his forehead, from the burning wreck of the APC. Inside, the driver screamed as petrol flames consumed him alive. “Medic! Help!” Someone wailed in the distance. “My leg! Agh -blam!-! My Leg!” Another cried. Pyroshark’s dark blue eyes had long since glazed over to this monstrous display. Part of him had died a long time ago, that was the part that cared. It simply hurt too much to take all the pain and death in. To try and take in the full horror of war would cause madness in even the bravest of souls. He was average in height, with not a particularly muscled build. His brown hair had been cut short. In a concussed daze, he stumbled out of the burning APC and into the centre of the clearing it lay in. He could see a medic shoot a man in the face, who had been screeching with pain, his guts torn out and glistening with blood. Severed limbs, discarded weapons and dying men littered the area. Such was the Horror Of War, that ancient enemy of civilisation that devoured whole generations and spat out billions of dead. The events that sparked off the war could be traced back to Pyroshark’s homeland, the now Floodian-occupied Ireland. A force of one thousand Floodian Military Advisors had been dispatched there to help keep the peace. The reason: the capital was supposedly being used by foreign-funded Undergroundican ultra-national terrorists. MI6, Floodland’s Foreign Intelligence Department then just happened to find that this supposed band of terrorists was being funded directly by Septagonia. Over the next few weeks, the Floodian Armed forces would build up along Septagonian borders. They would attack when news of a Septagonian strike began to circulate. This attack never even happened. Two weeks into the war, the model Democracy of Septagonia was being torn apart by the Floodian war machine. Three weeks in, and the Septagonian Capital City was destroyed by a presumably Floodian Nuclear Weapon, the baroque centre of priceless culture wiped out in an instant, just like the twenty million people living there. Four weeks, and the exhausted Septagonian army, besieged and awaiting the killing blow, began to form up along the Caprican Heights, a string of high hills and rises running through the centre of the Nation. The ragged remains of the Septagonian Army would form along the Caprican Heights, then hold off the Floodians. This was really just a Staff Officer somewhere drawing a line on the map and putting symbols of units at points along it, regardless that they might be at a fraction of their strength. Pyroshark had a long and convoluted story explaining how he had come to end up in the most inhospitable place on the planet. Whilst with Corbec on the successful mission to stop a secret, evil organisation called the Grizzled Ancients, he had turned on Corbec’s people at the very end of the mission. In the heart of the Grizzled Ancient’s command centre, he triggered an EMP grenade to shut down something called the central processor, which was the key to Grizzled Ancient power. Before he could be stopped, Pyroshark had slipped away. Of course, once that was over he could not hope for peace. He alone knew of the method Corbec had taken to gain the Imperial Throne. Corbec had murdered his way to the top, and as far as Pyroshark was aware, he was the final person who knew this. Of course, he said nothing of this to those he knew and trusted. To say such things would make others think of him as a madman, and attract the attention of MI6 agents eager to make their names with Pyroshark’s blood. So, he had joined the Septagonian Army the first chance he got. He eventually wound up in the 3rd Foreign Volunteer Division, commanding a Platoon of his own. The Foreign Volunteers consisted of a mixed bunch, but all of them with some kind of grudge against the Imperial regime. They might be Floodian communists, forced from their homes by Imperial Secret Police, Undergroundican Nationalists desperate to free their homelands from the yoke of Imperial Control. They could some times be Floodian deserters from the Army, unhappy with the way their comrades behaved or Priests and clergymen, herded from their places of worship by Government forces. But they all hated the Empire for the injustice it brought and the misery it caused, both within and without Floodland. This hatred brought them together and lent them strength, leading even those untrained in combat with valour and bravery. But Pyroshark knew that even valour and bravery couldn’t stop shells and bombs. He finally broke from the daze and threw himself flat on the earth. Shells were flinging towers of dirt all around, filling the air with screams of pain and the abrasive quality of pulverised earth. “Come on! Up the hill! Keep going you apes! You wanna live forever!?” he urged, getting back up again and setting the troops with an example. If their leader braved the same danger as they did, they would gladly follow him to Hell. “Gamerz! Get over here!” He barked. People were getting up around him, making for further up the hill and the cover offered by a tree-line. His second in command was an ex-artist called Gamerz Property, Gamerz for short. She was as she put it, petite and of slight build, with light chocolate skin colour, and matching brown eyes and hair. The war had announced an end for her painting days, and she had been on the run from Corbec’s secret police for many months before. “Yeah, right here.” She panted with exertion. “See if you can’t get some estimates for casualties, and tell anyone you meet to find caves in the hillside, we try to ride this bombardment out in the open and there’ll be nothing left of us inside ten minutes.” Pyroshark clapped Gamerz on the shoulder and sent her on her way. “Up the hill! GO!” He barked. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since the clearing and being thrown from the APC, but the Floodian artillery had been firing throughout. Pyroshark led a band of survivors up the hillside through sheer force of personality, having lost radio contact with any other elements of the unit. Gamerz had joined up not long ago. She reported that the only other volunteers she found were dead. “Heads!” Someone screamed, and the rag-tag group dropped on their stomachs. Overhead, a pair of Floodian Hunter-Killer Helicopters swooped over the forest canopy the fighters cowered under. They came around again and blasted a salvo into the trees. Rockets turned ancient pines into matchwood and bullets turned men into mincemeat. But the barrage was soon over, the Helicopters hunting for new prey. “Up! Come on! Keep on at it!” Pyroshark bounced up again, grabbing as many people he could and lifting them up to their feet. “We’ve got to find a cave!” Gamerz repeated. The Caprican heights were full of caves and other little networks, finding one shouldn’t be too hard. “Look! Over there!” A lifetime Communist shouted, pointing further up the hill. A cave sat in the side of the hill, with the promise of safety. “Go! Get to the cave!” Pyroshark shouted. The group scrambled up the hill, and eventually they made it, dropping through the mouth of the cave exhausted and breathless. [i]No way could they win like this[/i] Pyroshark thought, [i]we have to bring it closer to Corbec.[/i] Already Pyroshark’s mind was running, formulating a plan to end Corbec’s tyranny once and for all…