Field Action Report: RFL-1-5555 "Fives" — Montenegro National Army, 2nd Infantry Regiment
The wind howled across the valley like a wounded beast, dragging with it the feeling of opression and imminent death.
The winter chill was well on its way even though the first snows had yet to fall in Eastern Europe.
Corporal RFL-1-5555—known to his comrades simply as Fives—stood at the crest of a muddy ridge, the dark line of the Ottoman host stretching out below.
Campfires flickered like scattered embers, too many to count.
He had been built to feel neither fear nor pity, but something inside him still tightened at the sight.
Not because of the enemy—but because of what was coming.
The trap was set.
The Prince of Montenegro's army—barely four thousand strong left at this point—had marched north in high spirits, banners snapping in the autumn wind.
They had expected glory, songs, and the embrace of history as their liege lord gained prestige on his ascent to becoming a King.
Now instead they were surrounded, cut off from the Serbian border, with over ten thousand Ottoman regulars closing in from the east and south.
Exactly as planned.
Fives crouched beside the remnants of a dry-stone wall, rifle balanced across his knees.
His men—three squads under his command—waited quietly, watching the Turkish positions through scopes.
The Montenegrin officers barked orders in the distance, their voices half-lost to the wind.
Lines were forming, cannons being dragged into muddy emplacements.
The Prince himself, brave and foolish, had chosen to remain on the field.
He wanted to be seen by his men—to inspire them before the fight.
Fives could almost admire him for that.
Almost.
But orders were orders.
"Status?" Fives murmured, his voice barely a whisper.
"Signal confirmed, Corporal," replied Sergeant Mikel—another of Elias's constructs, though he wore his humanity like a second skin. "Our flank elements are already disengaging. Within the hour, the national troops will realize we're gone."
Fives nodded slowly, watching his breath mist in the cold. "And the Ottoman lines?"
"Steady. They think we're trapped."
"Good," Fives said. "Let them."
The first cannon roared just after dawn.
The world exploded into sound—muskets cracking, men shouting, the shriek of shot tearing through air.
The ground trembled beneath the weight of advancing Ottoman infantry, a tide of brown and green surging across the snow.
Fives's men opened fire in disciplined volleys, their rifles spitting flame in perfect rhythm.
Pulling off the ability to load and fire across the line in under a minute with near perfect accuracy.
A truly elite force.
For a moment, it almost looked like they might hold.
The first Ottoman line buckled, leaving dark heaps across the frozen field.
The Prince rode along the front, sword drawn, shouting encouragements that no one could hear over the din.
Then the second wave came.
And the third.
And the fourth.
By midday, the Montenegrin flank had crumbled. Artillery was lost, the field choked with bodies.
And yet, the Prince refused to retreat.
"Hold your ground!" he shouted, his voice ragged. "For God and Montenegro!"
He was not doing this due to courage but worry.
His generals had already informed him that they were surrounded.
The only option left was to fight for the slim chance of victory lest he fall into the hands of the enemy leading to his humiliation and ransom being paid to free him, or be kept locked away in captivity.
He had no idea that his own men were already slipping away behind him.
~
Fives gave the order quietly.
"Delta groups—disengage."
Within minutes, the disciplined formations of the elites began to slowly retreat.
No shouting, no panic.
Just precise, deliberate motion.
The true Montenegrin soldiers saw them withdraw and mistook it for rout, while the regular officers tried to instead state it was a strategy.
But Fear spread like wildfire.
Officers tried to rally the line, but discipline shattered.
What had been a battle became a massacre as the remaining Montenegrins were cut down like cattle.
~
Fives paused at the ridge, watching through the smoke.
The Prince still fought near the center, his white horse rearing as Ottoman cavalry crashed into the last of his guards.
But the retreating RA soldiers didnt look back, in their hearts some of them felt bad for their suborinates within the general army but, good soldiers follow orders.
And the Supreme Commanders orders were clear: the Prince must die heroically, not captured, not humiliated.
A martyr's death to unify Montenegro behind Elias's coming rise.
The survivors within the army could be liberated upon the coming tide of battle waged by their commander, the waking dragon having been provoked by the foolish Ottomans.
Across the field, embedded deep within the Ottoman ranks, several rifles turned subtly—not toward the Montenegrins, but toward their ruler.
Three separate cracks rang out in quick succession.
The Prince fell from his horse.
The Ottomans cheered, thinking they had managed to capture the enemy commander.
While seeing this occur the rest of the Montenegrins cast down their weapons in surrender seeing escape impossible.
~
By nightfall, the field was quiet save for the moans of the dying who'd not yet been collected by the medical corp.
Fires burned where the Ottoman camp had overrun the Montenegrin tents.
The Prince's body was gone—claimed by the victors, soon to be paraded as a trophy.
But before the Ottoman commander could begin his victory march the papers within Montenegro began churning out the news of their beloved leaders demise.
Prince Nikola I Slain In Battle, Body Desecrated.
The news when seens and heard by paperboy hawkers quickly enraged the Montenegrin peoples.
From within the Royal Suite, news came that the new Prince Danilo having taken over the mantle from his now deceased father called for a reckoning.
A crusade by Montenegro to seek revenge for their fallen against the Ottomans with the express goal of reclaiming their fallen soverigns body for proper burial.
All of this was just a clever narrative.
Danilo after all had been groomed and trained to be a puppet for Elias and his forces.
His entire court was formed with intellectual spies summoned by Elias's system.
Having been enraged so, the people did not refuse their new princes call for blood.
However the impressionable youths found mere hours later that enlistment into the army was not possible a this time due to aready having reached the maximum possible.
But this was just a move to keep the army within Elias's grasp.
With the main army removed, all that remained now was the local garrisons that could be converted into professionl police forces while the Red Alert summons would take over the actual positionas the national army.
For Elias the time was now right, his 50,000 summons would be marching out within the week.
Wielding percussion fire rifles rather than muskets, breech load artillery, while his ironclad fleet would now be able to act openly as they began proper operations within the mediterranean agains the ottoman's.