May 10th, 1940. 0430 hours.
The world ends with the sound of aircraft engines.
I'm in the Paris safe house basement when the first bombs fall—distant thunder that grows closer with each explosion. The building shakes. Dust rains from the ceiling. Someone screams upstairs.
Pierre bursts into the room. "Germans! They're invading! Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg—everywhere at once!"
The Phoney War is over.
Jakub is already moving, grabbing weapons, checking ammunition. MacLeod—shoulder mostly healed after two months hiding in Paris—does the same.
"How bad?" I ask.
"Bad. Luftwaffe hitting airbases, communication centers, infrastructure. Reports of paratroopers dropping behind Allied lines. Armor columns crossing the border." Pierre is pale. "This isn't a probe. This is the offensive everyone's been expecting."
"What are our orders?"
"There are no orders. Chain of command is chaos. Half the military thinks you're dead, other half thinks you're traitors." He tosses me a rifle. "You want to fight, you fight. But you do it on your own. Resistance will help where we can, but officially we can't acknowledge you exist."
"We need to reach British forces," Jakub says. "Rejoin the fight properly."
"British forces are scattered across Belgium. Good luck finding them in this chaos." Pierre heads for the stairs. "I'm evacuating the safe house. Germans will be in Paris within weeks. Maybe days if the advance is as fast as reports suggest. You want to fight, head north. You want to survive, head south."
"North," I say immediately.
"Figured." He pauses at the doorway. "Good luck. Try not to die stupidly."
Then he's gone, organizing evacuation, and we're alone with weapons and a war that's finally, violently real.
---
We leave Paris at dawn.
The roads are chaos—military convoys heading north, civilian refugees heading south, everyone moving too fast and getting in each other's way. Aircraft overhead constantly, some Allied but mostly German. Stukas diving, bombs falling, the sound of modern war replacing months of false peace.
"This is Warsaw again," Jakub says, watching a building burn ahead. "Same pattern. Same speed. Germans learned from Poland—hit fast, hit hard, don't give defenders time to organize."
"How long until Belgium falls?"
"Days. Weeks if they're lucky." He checks his rifle for the hundredth time. "We need to find British forces before the lines collapse completely."
We move north through the chaos, avoiding main roads, traveling through countryside where German bombers are less interested. The medallion burns cold against my chest—back to its normal temperature after the night it burned hot during Fletcher's ambush.
The fragments are quieter too. Like they're waiting for something.
Or warning me about what's coming.
---
We reach the Belgian border three days later.
The landscape has transformed. Fields cratered from artillery. Buildings collapsed from bombing. Bodies everywhere—soldiers and civilians, Allied and German, all equal in death.
The sound of combat is constant now. Small arms fire in every direction. Tanks rumbling. Aircraft screaming overhead. The organized retreat Pierre mentioned hasn't materialized. This isn't retreat—it's collapse.
"There!" MacLeod points to a group of soldiers in British uniforms, dug in behind a collapsed farmhouse. "Friendlies!"
We approach carefully, hands visible, shouting identification.
A lieutenant—young, maybe twenty-five, face streaked with dirt and blood—waves us in. "Who the hell are you?"
"Volunteers. Warsaw veterans. Looking to rejoin the fight."
"Warsaw? That was seven months ago." He studies us. "You've been in France all this time?"
"Long story. What's the situation here?"
"Situation is we're fucked. Germans broke through everywhere. Armor and infantry moving faster than we can retreat. Command says hold this position until reinforcements arrive." He laughs bitterly. "There are no reinforcements. We're just buying time for someone else to escape."
"How many do you have?"
"Thirty when we started. Fifteen now. Maybe ten by nightfall if the Germans push again." He checks his rifle. "You want to help hold? Or you smart enough to run while you can?"
"We'll help hold."
"Your funeral." He gestures to the defensive positions. "Find a spot. Check your ammunition. Germans usually attack at dusk. You've got maybe two hours."
---
We dig in.
The farmhouse provides decent cover—partial walls, multiple firing positions, good sight lines down the approach road. Not perfect, but nothing in war is perfect.
I take position next to a sergeant who looks old enough to have fought in the Great War. Weathered face, steady hands, the calm of someone who's seen it all before.
"You're the volunteers?" he asks.
"Yeah."
"What brings you to this particular circle of hell?"
"Bad decisions and worse timing."
He laughs. "Honest. I appreciate honest." He offers his hand. "Sergeant William Harris. Been in the army twenty-two years. This is my third war. Still haven't figured out why I keep volunteering for them."
"Rio Castellanos. First war. Still figuring out if I'm brave or stupid."
"Usually both." He checks his ammunition. "You fight in Poland?"
"Warsaw. Saw the city fall."
"Then you know how this goes. Germans hit hard, we hold as long as we can, then we retreat and do it again somewhere else." He lights a cigarette. "Difference is, in Poland you had distance to retreat into. Here? We're running out of France. When we hit the coast, there's nowhere left to go."
"We'll figure something out."
"Hope so. Be embarrassing to survive this long just to drown in the Channel."
---
The attack comes at 1830 hours.
Three German tanks—Panzer IIIs—rolling down the road with infantry following. Maybe forty soldiers. Professional. Coordinated. Moving like they've done this a hundred times.
Because they have.
"ARMOR!" someone shouts.
"Wait for my command!" the lieutenant yells. "Let them get close!"
The tanks advance. Fifty meters. Forty. Thirty.
"FIRE!"
Twenty rifles open up simultaneously. Infantry behind the tanks scatter, seeking cover. A few drop—impossible to tell if they're hit or just smart.
The tanks keep coming.
"Anti-tank weapons!" the lieutenant shouts.
Two soldiers with PIATs—British anti-tank launchers—fire. One rocket misses, explodes harmlessly in a field. The other hits the lead tank's treads.
The explosion immobilizes it but doesn't destroy it. The turret swivels, searching for the shooter.
"MOVE!" I shout at the PIAT operator.
He moves. Not fast enough.
The tank fires. High-explosive shell. The soldier disappears in the blast.
Fourteen left.
The other two tanks are still advancing. Infantry using them as cover, getting close enough for assault.
"Fall back to secondary positions!" the lieutenant orders. "Move! MOVE!"
We retreat through the farmhouse, fighting room to room, buying seconds with bullets. Harris covers my left flank. Jakub covers right. MacLeod provides suppressing fire from an upper window.
A German soldier bursts through a doorway. I shoot him twice. He falls.
Another comes through a window. Harris puts him down.
We're being pushed back. Slowly. Methodically. The Germans don't rush—they advance with patience and overwhelming force.
"We can't hold!" the lieutenant shouts. "Everybody out the back! Head for the forest!"
We run.
--
The retreat becomes fragments:
Running through a field while machine gun fire chases us.
Harris going down, hit in the leg, MacLeod dragging him while I provide cover.
German soldiers pursuing, shouting orders in a language I'm starting to understand from exposure.
The forest line ahead, safety measured in meters we're not sure we'll reach.
An explosion behind us—mortar round, too close. The blast wave throws me forward. Ears ringing. Vision swimming.
Jakub pulls me up. "Move, młody! We're almost there!"
Into the trees. Deeper. German fire slackening as we gain distance and cover.
Finally stopping in a clearing, gasping for breath, checking who made it.
Ten soldiers left from the original thirty. The lieutenant isn't among them. Neither are most of the others.
"Christ," someone whispers. "Christ, Christ, Christ..."
"Quiet," Harris hisses, blood soaking through his bandaged leg. "Germans will be hunting stragglers."
We huddle in silence, listening for pursuit, hoping the forest is thick enough to hide us.
It is. For now.
---
Night falls.
We're lost. Separated from any organized Allied forces. Radio destroyed in the retreat. No maps. No orders. Just ten exhausted soldiers trying to figure out which direction leads to safety.
"Northwest," Jakub says, studying the stars. "Coast is northwest. Maybe eighty kilometers. If we can reach the Channel, maybe we find evacuation."
"That's a long walk through German-held territory," Harris points out.
"You have a better plan?"
"No. Northwest it is."
We move through darkness, slow and careful, avoiding roads and open areas. The medallion burns colder with each kilometer, warning or marking distance, I can't tell which.
The fragments are quiet. Too quiet.
Like they're holding their breath.
---
We travel for three days.
Scavenging food from abandoned farms. Drinking from streams. Sleeping in ditches and under trees. Avoiding German patrols that seem to be everywhere.
We lose two more—a private who steps on a mine, and a corporal who gets shot by a sniper we never see. Eight left.
The landscape is devastation. Every town we pass is damaged or destroyed. Refugees clog the roads, fleeing the advancing Germans. The war has become total, consuming everything in its path.
"This is worse than Warsaw," Jakub says on the third night. "At least in Warsaw, we had defensive positions. Had orders. Had some illusion of organization. This? This is just chaos."
"This is modern war," Harris adds. "Fast. Mechanized. Overwhelming. The Great War was trenches and attrition. This is movement and destruction. Completely different animal."
"Can we win?" MacLeod asks.
"Don't know. But we can survive. And sometimes that's enough."
---
May 13th. We reach the outskirts of a small Belgian town.
Smoke on the horizon suggests it's under attack or recently captured. We approach carefully, watching for threats.
That's when we see them.
British soldiers. Maybe two hundred, dug in around the town's southern edge, preparing defensive positions. Organized. Professional. Actual military presence instead of scattered stragglers.
"Friendlies!" Harris shouts, waving. "British soldiers requesting permission to join!"
A captain approaches—older than most officers we've seen, steady and competent-looking.
"Who are you?" he demands.
"Sergeant Harris, volunteers Castellanos and Kowalski, and what's left of Lieutenant Morrison's unit. We were holding the farmhouse at Saint-Michel until Germans overran our position."
"Morrison's dead?"
"Didn't make it out, sir."
The captain nods grimly. "Join the third platoon. We're holding this position until tomorrow, then falling back toward Dunkirk. Command is organizing evacuation from the beaches."
"Evacuation?" I ask. "We're abandoning Belgium?"
"Belgium is lost. France is losing. The goal now is saving as many soldiers as possible. Get them to England, regroup, figure out how to keep fighting from there." He looks us over—exhausted, bloody, barely armed. "Rest while you can. Tomorrow we march toward the coast. It's going to be hell."
---
We integrate with the third platoon.
Real soldiers. Real equipment. Real command structure. After days of chaos, the organization feels almost comforting.
Almost.
Because the reality is clear: The Allies are losing. Badly. The Blitzkrieg has shattered defensive lines, broken organized resistance, reduced proud armies to desperate groups fleeing toward the sea.
And Dunkirk—wherever that is—is apparently our last hope.
"You think we'll make it?" Jakub asks that night.
"To Dunkirk?"
"To England. To safety. To anywhere that isn't occupied France."
"I don't know." The medallion burns cold. The fragments whisper warnings I can't quite hear. "But we've survived this long. That has to count for something."
"Or it just means our luck is running out."
"Optimist."
"Realist." He checks his rifle—the ritual he performs whenever he's worried. "Rio, if we don't make it out—if something happens at Dunkirk—"
"Don't."
"If something happens, the evidence about Monarch is still out there. Pierre has copies. Élise has copies. Even if we die, the truth survives."
"We're not going to die."
"Everyone dies, młody. Question is whether it means something." He looks at me. "Exposing Monarch means something. Making sure people know what's happening in those facilities, what Fletcher tried to do, what the Allies are stealing from Nazi research—that matters. So if I don't make it—"
"You're making it. We both are. We're walking out of France together, sailing to England together, and finishing this fight together." I meet his eyes. "I'm not losing anyone else. Not you. Not anyone."
He's quiet for a moment. Then: "You can't save everyone, Rio. War doesn't work that way."
"I know."
"But you're going to try anyway."
"Yeah."
"Good." He smiles slightly. "That's why we're friends. You're stupid in exactly the right ways."
---
May 14th. We march toward Dunkirk.
The column is massive now—hundreds of soldiers from scattered units, all heading the same direction, all hoping for the same impossible rescue. The roads are clogged. The pace is slow. And German aircraft harass us constantly, strafing runs that force us to scatter and dive for cover every few kilometers.
We lose three soldiers from our platoon to air attacks. Five to exhaustion and injuries. The column shrinks with every hour.
But we keep moving.
Because stopping means capture or death, and neither is acceptable.
The medallion grows colder. The fragments grow louder. And somewhere ahead, the coast waits with whatever salvation or damnation it offers.
"How far?" I ask the captain.
"Maybe two days' march if the Germans don't block us. Maybe never if they do." He checks his map. "Reports say Dunkirk is chaos. Thousands of soldiers, limited evacuation capacity, constant German attacks. Getting there is hard. Getting out might be impossible."
"Then we'll make it possible."
"That's the spirit." But he doesn't sound convinced. "Just keep moving. One foot in front of the other. That's all any of us can do."
---
We march through the night.
Past abandoned villages. Past burning fields. Past equipment left behind by armies that collapsed before we arrived.
The signs are everywhere: The Allies aren't just retreating. They're disintegrating.
And we're part of that disintegration, flowing toward Dunkirk like water toward a drain, hoping there's something at the end besides drowning.
Harris limps beside me, leg wound never properly healed. MacLeod carries his weapon with difficulty, shoulder still weak. Jakub looks older than when we left Warsaw—not just in months but in weight, in weariness, in the accumulation of too much death.
And I'm carrying a medallion that might explain why I remember dying in wars I never fought, and documents that might expose a conspiracy reaching the highest levels of Allied command.
All of it meaningless if we don't survive Dunkirk.
"There," someone says, pointing ahead.
On the horizon, visible in pre-dawn light: the sea.
And on the beaches, thousands of soldiers waiting for ships that might not come.
We've reached Dunkirk.
Now we just have to get out alive.