Shina Forge World
Sector Seven
48th Army Frontline Command
The so-called command post was nothing more than the basement of a concrete building whose roof had been blown off by heavy artillery.
Twisted rebar and scorched bullet scars lay exposed along the walls. The only light came from a few swaying emergency lamps and a crackling military data terminal.
The air was thick with dust, sweat, blood, and the distinctive musty smell of stagnant water underground.
Doram stood behind an observation slit built from sandbags and broken prefabricated slabs, holding a pair of binoculars with chipped edges as he squinted at the Smoke-shrouded ruins in the distance.
His mouse-gray uniform was filthy, but the newly sewn silver stars on his shoulders, marking his rank as major general, stood out glaringly in the dim light.
This rank was no badge of honor, but the latest number on a death list.
The senior officers of the 48th Army of Colchis fell like wheat at harvest, cut down in swathes by the enemy's precise, ruthless decapitation strikes and the ferocious attrition at the front.
Apart from Lieutenant General William Stimmerman, who still barely held on at army headquarters thanks to a little luck and tighter security, the brigade, regiment, and battalion commanders had almost all been replaced.
Appointment orders could not keep pace with the casualty reports.
At the very edge of this inferno, the rules of promotion had been reduced to the cruelest contest of survival.
Survive an hour, and you qualified to replace the major who had just died.
Survive a day, and you might pick up the insignia of a fallen colonel, or even the stars left behind by a major general.
Doram had heard that in some of the most brutal meat-grinder sectors, no one even lived long enough