Shots rang out through the streets of Detroit, Michigan.
They were scattered at first, isolated cracks echoing down alleys and between brick facades.
but they carried far in the open spaces left by abandoned industry. Banners of the Midwest Republic hung from the upper stories of a tenent building overlooking the street, their fabric frayed and sun-bleached, stitched together from whatever colors could be found.
Below them, an armored column rolled forward at a steady pace, engines humming with chanical indifference.
Old Glory flew from the lead tank’s antenna, its cloth stiff with gri and exhaust. The symbol ant different things to different n now.
To so, it was continuity, to others it was a banner of occupation. To the column itself, it was little more than a marker, sothing to be raised, photographed, and replaced when torn away.
Detroit was not empty, despite appearances.
Civilians watched from behind shattered windows and cracked glass storefronts. So hid their faces the mont the armor ca into view.
Others stared openly, expressions unreadable. Laundry still hung from fire escapes. A rusted bicycle lay abandoned near a curb, its front wheel bent beyond repair. Life persisted stubbornly in the spaces war had not yet crushed outright.
Federal infantry advanced alongside the tanks, weapons low but ready. Their movents were practiced and efficient, neither hurried nor hesitant. This was not their first sweep.
The Midwest Republic had learned to fight from buildings and ruins, to bleed armored columns with whatever weapons could be scavenged or smuggled in. The Federals had learned to respond in kind.
The first burst of machine-gun fire rattled from the tenent’s upper floors, the rounds stitching sparks across the tank’s sloped armor. The sound was sharp, angry, and utterly ineffective.
The tank slowed.
Its turret began to turn.
Inside the armored hull, the heat was suffocating.
Sweat soaked through uniforms and pooled beneath helts.
The air slled of hot tal, oil, and old smoke that never quite dissipated no matter how many hatches were cracked open.
Every movent felt heavy, slowed by the weight of gear and exhaustion.
The gunner leaned forward against his optical sight, cigarette clenched between his lips.
Ash trembled at the tip with each vibration of the engine. He had stopped noticing the noise weeks ago, the constant grind of treads, the muted shouts over intercom, the distant crack of small arms fire that posed no real threat.
"Contact, upper floors," the commander said flatly. "Sa building."
The gunner adjusted the sight without comnt, aligning the reticle on the crumbling facade. He could already see movent, shadows darting between broken windows, muzzle flashes blooming briefly before vanishing.
"Loader."
The shell slid into place with a practiced thump. Muscle mory took over where thought no longer bothered to intrude.
"Up."
The commander didn’t bother with a speech. He never did.
"Fire."
The gun spoke with a deafening roar, the recoil slamming through the hull and rattling teeth.
Outside, the apartnt building’s corner disintegrated in a violent cloud of dust and debris. Concrete, glass, and human remains were hurled outward in a chaotic spray, the blast flattening everything within reach.
Inside the tank, the gunner took a long drag from his cigarette and exhaled slowly, smoke curling thickly in the already foul air.
The loader coughed, hacking violently as the fus settled.
"God dammit, Richard," he rasped. "Must you smoke in this fucking heat box?"
Richard glanced sideways at the glares turned his way, the crew struggling to breathe as sweat stread down their faces. He smirked, cigarette still in his mouth, and turned back to his sight.
That was when the world ended.
---
From the ruins of the apartnt’s third floor, the man stared down at what he had done.
The tank burned fiercely, black smoke clawing upward as ammunition cooked off inside the shattered hull.
The turret lay half-turned, frozen mid-motion, its crew already gone. The Panzerfaust launcher felt impossibly light in his hands now, as though the weapon itself were surprised by its own success.
A laugh burst out nearby, sharp, breathless, almost hysterical.
"Holy shit!" his reloader shouted, scrambling through debris as he thrust another rocket toward him. "The boys at the foundry weren’t lying. These German rockets really do get the job done!"
The words barely registered.
For a mont, just one, the AT gunner felt sothing dangerously close to triumph. Not pride, not joy, but possibility. The impossible notion that this fight could be won with enough courage, enough fire, enough will.
Then the second tank began to turn its turret.
Training reasserted itself brutally. He took the spare rocket, hands steadying despite the tremor in his chest, and seated it with practiced efficiency.
The world narrowed to angles and distance, to the weight of the launcher against his shoulder.
"Backblast clear!" he shouted, voice hoarse.
The rocket leapt from the tube with a thunderous crack, streaking downward into the street.
It struck the second tank squarely, the shaped charge cutting through armor with surgical violence. Fire erupted instantly, the vehicle collapsing inward as flas poured from its hatches.
The laughter died.
Machine guns opened up from below, their fire ripping into the ruined structure with deafening force.
Plaster and brick exploded around them. The AT gunner dropped low as a shell scread past the position he’d occupied seconds earlier, punching through the adjacent building and detonating in a concussive roar.
Sothing struck his helt hard enough to ring his skull. He tasted blood.
He crawled forward through the debris, lungs burning, and reached his reloader just as the man collapsed face-first into the rubble.
The gunner dropped beside him, fingers fumbling at the man’s neck, relief flooding him as he felt a frantic pulse.
He hauled the man onto his shoulders.
Pain tore through his leg like fire.
He collapsed instantly, the strength vanishing from him as his body hit the ground. For a second, confusion drowned out sensation, then his hand ca away slick and red, the warmth spreading far too quickly.
"dic!" he shouted, panic breaking through. "dic!"
No answer ca.
The reloader lay still now, chest unmoving.
The first artillery shell landed monts later.
Fire and pressure consud the ruins, and everything within them vanished beneath the storm.
---
Miles from the ruins, the artillery battery worked in steady rhythm.
The guns were emplaced along a scarred stretch of cracked pavent and packed dirt, their trails dug in and leveled with care.
Crews moved with practiced efficiency, bodies slick with sweat, uniforms darkened by soot and gri.
A spent brass casing clanged dully as it was ejected, still radiating heat, rolling to a stop among dozens of others scattered across the ground.
"Up."
A fresh shell was slamd ho. The breech closed with a heavy, final sound.
A gunner checked the elevation, another confird the bearing, neither looking up from their instrunts.
Coordinates were read aloud from a clipboard, cross-checked, then repeated back without comnt. There was no sightline to the target. No visual confirmation. Only numbers and distance.
"Fire."
The lanyard was pulled.
The gun recoiled violently, its concussion rippling through the line as the shell arced skyward, vanishing into the haze. Seconds later, another followed. Then another. The cadence was precise, unhurried, almost calm.
None of the n spoke of what lay at the other end.
They did not know if they were collapsing empty buildings or burying n alive beneath concrete and fla.
Nor did they did ask. The distinction had no bearing on the task at hand. Ammunition was counted. Barrels were cooled. The schedule was maintained.
The battery commander marked the fire mission complete, initialed the report, and passed it along.
The guns fell silent, already awaiting the next set of coordinates.
The city burned sowhere beyond the horizon.
And the crews wiped their hands clean, drank from their canteens, and prepared to fire again when ordered.
Across the United States of Arica, outside of the rump state that Roosevelt had ford in the Northeast. Similar scenes occurred across those States that had dared to declare sucession.
While the German fatherland enjoyed the Christmas holiday in a ti of relative peace, and prosperity, far away from the burning crucible of war. Across the Atlantic the second Arican Civil War had begun.
And few truly knew who they were fighting for, or why. They only knew that their particular color of cloth was worth killing for. And that anyone who flew another banner deserved to die.
None of them could ever know, that by the end of spring in the following year, an invasion force would cross the Atlantic and park itself right on their doorstep.
The war would not be decided by conviction, or righteousness, or even victory on any single front. It would be decided by endurance, by which system could continue killing longer without collapsing under its own weight.
And while Arica tore itself apart over ghosts and banners, others watched patiently from across the ocean, asuring factories, shipyards, and titables.
History had not forgotten how to cross the sea.
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