Editing City Series:Volume6e Chapter4 (section)

===Part 5===

The battle started to the east.

The Spree river ran east to west through Germania and violent sounds came from along that river in the Treptow borough located outside of Germania.

The muffled, repeated sounds came from the fog.

They were technically inside Germania, but still outside the dome.

Germania’s eastern defensive line could best hear the sounds of combat.

That line was set up at the confluence of the Spree on the eastern end of Tiergarten.

Above the fog hanging over the river, they could see Tristan’s hazy silhouette in the sky and a giant figure standing on the ground.

That figure was Karl Schmitt, a Grösse Panzer with a pair of Drache Kanone on his back.

He stood on some elevated ground looking up at the edge of Berlin’s protective umbrella.

He was near the end of the bridge on the eastern end of Tiergarten.

The dome shined above him, with its edge covering the city beyond the bridge.

The Spree flowed north to south in front of him.

The river was over 200 yards wide at this point and the bridge spanning it was large enough for a four lane road.

At his end of the bridge, they had set up a pair of 75mm field guns and four 20mm machineguns aiming vertically out from Germania.

Karl turned his head to view the roads stretching left and right from the bridge.

The soldiers manning the machineguns and field guns were generally from the military. They were dressed differently from the Geheimnis Agents, wearing ordinary uniforms. The black of the Geheimnis Agency Army Division was nowhere to be found here.

Karl silently faced forward again.

Five layers of low fence barricades had been set up along the bridge.

They were simple metal fences that would let bullets through but not people.

After one or two fence layers, the bridge faded away into the fog.

The other end of the bridge could only be seen as a pale brightness with two large silhouettes standing in it.

When Karl’s vision focused on those silhouettes, a woman’s voice rang in his ear.

“Neue Blau and Neue Zinnobar are itching to fight.”

Karl used the compound eye device installed on the side of his face to view the slim person standing on his right shoulder.

It was Jeanne. She fixed the collar of her combat uniform as she continued.

“How far do you think they will get? It’s been 20 minutes since an unusually small group broke through the MPs in east Treptow. Are the AIF’s elites really as powerful as we are?”

“Let us pray those soldiers are unharmed. Remember, those men were civilians just a few years ago. They don’t have as strong a motive to fight as we or the AIF do.”

“This isn’t looking good. The end of the war is only just beginning, but a ground unit has already made it into our capital. Tactics change with every new war. The previous war primarily came down to group battles that questioned the need for the Panzers building our foundation, but this war is more focused on aerial bombings and blitzkrieg.”

“Yes, and if the AIF manages to take Tristan tonight, they will have proven the effectiveness of a new tactic – assault warfare using individuals with outstanding skills and using high-speed Grösse Panzers.”

“In a way, that’s how we fight. Those are the tactics of Neue Kavaliers, not of ordinary soldiers.”

Meanwhile, sounds like shattering stone reached them from the fog.

The enemy was close.

So Karl and Jeanne both looked to the other end of the bridge.

Several people were rushing in from the foggy roads to the left and right of that end of the bridge.

The people fled behind the legs of the two Panzers standing there and then ran along the river bank.

“Pretending to flee while actually fortifying the sides of the bridge and directing the enemy along a single route?”

“Excited to be fighting again, Jeanne? You are smiling.”

“So are you.” Jeanne reached out and slapped Karl’s face armor a few times. “It isn’t just the military out there in the fog. One of our Grösse Panzer units is there too.”

“To break through that, the enemy must include a Neue Kavalier of equal or greater skill. And since Treptow is full of rivers, it would also require a weapon well suited for breaking through fortified bridges. They couldn’t have gotten any tanks in here, so my guess is a flight-capable Panzer. Either a French one or…”

“Dog Berger in Schwarz Löwe. The world’s second best Panzer Kavalier who survived two run-ins with Kaiser and even fought Silber Löwe.”

“If only the military had sent Rot Löwe to the east.”

The wind blew and the fog across the river began to shift.

The rippling fog showed a change beginning in Neue Blau and Neue Zinnobar.

They were activating their Ober Emblems.

“Incredible that the Eisen Ritter Project allows a Sein Frau to activate an Ober Emblem by linking his mind directly to a Panzer,” said Jeanne.

“We need to join the fight soon,” said Karl.

Jeanne nodded and turned toward the large secondary cockpit on his back. The cockpit contained weapon controls and two female aides poked their heads out.

They looked worried, so she gave them a reassuring nod and looked behind her just once.

The two Panzers were no longer visible in the fog across the river.

But the metallic noises of combat could be heard through the fog.