The orders came not by telegram, but by sealed dispatch, delivered by a military courier with a rifle over one shoulder and dried blood on his boots. When Emil broke the wax seal, the document inside was damp with rain and smelled of smoke.
"To: Émile Dufort, Leclerc Works
From: General Albert Arnaud, 2nd Army Group Command
Bruges has fallen under assault. Enemy divisions are advancing toward the Channel coast. Rail lines under threat. You are authorized to deploy Sanglier Mk III prototypes for direct combat trials under operational conditions. Reinforce the Belgian 2nd Line. Immediate mobilization required.**
Signed, G. Arnaud"
Emil folded the letter slowly.
War had come again—not in blueprints or rumors, but in blood and fire. And this time, it was knocking on the gates of Europe's arteries.
The Mobilization
Within hours, Leclerc Works transformed into a war camp. The echoes of machinery gave way to shouted orders, rumbling cranes, and the metallic slam of hatches locking into place.
Three Sanglier Mk IIIs had been completed over the past month—battle-tested during training exercises on French soil, but unproven in true combat. Emil had hoped to keep them another week for reinforcement upgrades. That luxury was gone.
Colonel Varin arrived at noon in a mud-caked motorcar, his uniform torn at the sleeve and his mustache singed. He leapt from the vehicle and marched straight into Emil's staging area.
"You have twelve hours," Varin snapped, slapping a fresh map onto the hood of a tank. "After that, the Belgians are cut off. The Germans are bringing up field artillery and Austro-Hungarian armored cars. If they reach the northern rail yards, we lose Bruges—and likely the entire Flemish coast."
Henriette, who had been organizing crew manifests, looked up. "We're still finalizing fuel calculations for the return journey."
Varin didn't even blink. "If you're thinking about coming back, you're thinking wrong."
Crew Selection
Emil knew exactly who he needed.
Each of the three Sangliers would be crewed by five personnel—driver, gunner, loader, engineer, and commander. Marianne claimed the first seat without argument, slipping into her tailored combat harness like it was a second skin. She'd become a near-permanent presence at Emil's side in the past weeks—not just as a pilot, but as a fighter.
Bruno insisted on manning the engine crew, barking orders as he adjusted the main rotary valve of Tank Two. "If that engine chokes mid-firefight, it'll be because you all breathed too heavy."
A dozen other names were called—veterans from the factory floor, several retired artillerymen, even one former railway engineer with one eye and a death wish.
At dusk, Emil gave the order.
"Load them."
Massive steam winches groaned under the weight of the Sangliers as they were hoisted onto flatbed rail cars reinforced with iron clamps and chain loops. The locomotives hissed impatiently, ready to run. Crates of munitions, spare treads, and field rations were stacked in the final carriage. The atmosphere buzzed like a coiled spring.
Roland approached Emil before departure.
"You sure you want to lead this one personally?"
Emil met his gaze. "If I'm not willing to bleed with them, I don't deserve to lead them."
Into the Inferno
The train rolled through the night, rattling through villages where blacked-out windows and shuttered churches whispered of coming destruction. Every hour they stopped for inspections—some from French gendarmerie, some from desperate civilians trying to flee northward.
By dawn, the skies turned an eerie brass-orange. The smoke over Bruges was visible from thirty kilometers out, rising in thick, rolling columns like stormclouds with no wind to carry them away.
When the train screeched to a halt at a rural depot five kilometers outside the city, the platform was empty—abandoned except for a single riderless bicycle and a dog gnawing on a rifle stock.
"We offload here," Emil ordered.
Varin barked to his aides. "Set up perimeter mortars! Tanks roll at 1400!"
The Forward Assault
Bruges was fire and ruin.
The city's gothic spires now stood blackened against a sky choked with ash. German field guns had turned the cobbled streets into trenches, and the central square burned with the twisted remains of a Belgian artillery battery.
Emil's column approached through the canal road—Sangliers leading, infantry flanking on both sides. He rode in the commander's seat of Tank One, headset pressed to his ears, relaying orders through the crude field intercom Roland had wired into the chassis. Sparks leapt from the junction box every ten minutes, but it worked.
"Left flank—sewer grate! Possible anti-tank position!"
Marianne spun the turret. Her shot landed dead center, erupting the old sewer grate into a storm of dirt, fire, and screams.
The Belgian infantry behind them surged forward.
The Sangliers advanced like iron gods.
The Turning Tide
By 1500 hours, they had punched through the German forward barricades. Two Sangliers took glancing hits—one to the side hull, another to a tread—but neither stopped.
The enemy had expected a traditional counter-charge—infantry, maybe cavalry. Not monsters of steel hurling six-pound shells with terrifying accuracy.
From the tower of the city hall, Emil spotted the German command vehicle retreating east. He didn't hesitate.
"All tanks! Break formation. We push to the yard. Cut off their escape!"
Tank Three surged ahead, smashing through a sandbag barricade. German machine gunners opened fire, their rounds sparking off the angled armor like rain on stone.
Then a shriek.
A direct shell hit the corner of the church tower—masonry collapsed, crushing a German emplacement below.
"Bruges is holding!" came a cry over the radio.
No. Not holding. Winning.
The Cost
Victory came at a cost.
Tank Two never made it to the final push. A landmine tore its left tread off, killing the engineer instantly and pinning Bruno beneath the controls. Emil and Marianne fought their way through collapsing rubble to drag him out. His leg was ruined—shattered bone and steel shards embedded in the muscle—but he was alive.
The crew of Tank Three lost one gunner to shrapnel. Another had a nervous breakdown in the middle of the square and had to be carried out.
But Bruges was saved.
As night fell, the cathedral bells rang again—not for mass, but for defiance.
The Germans were gone.
Aftermath
The day after the assault, Emil stood in the wreckage of the central plaza, blood still on his collar. A telegram arrived via encrypted channel.
From: High Command
Your Sanglier division has changed the course of the northern defense line. Effective immediately, the Ministry of War will authorize full-scale production of the Mk IV and subsequent iterations. British and American observers en route for joint evaluation. You are hereby appointed technical director of France's armored warfare bureau.**
Emil read it twice, then handed it to Henriette, who had just arrived with a convoy of mechanics and a replacement boiler.
"This changes everything," she said.
"No," Emil replied. "This proves everything."
But even as the bells rang in Bruges, his mind wasn't at ease.
Because he knew—somewhere, someone else had watched this battle too.
Someone who now knew what France had built.
And they would not rest.