"I heard a loud boom and after that all I could see was mud." One of the few Saderan survivors of Emory hill.

Falmart. Under Emory hill. 4:29 pm. January 4th. 2 AEE.

Dagon finished placing the last explosive in the massive underground chamber he and his fellow dwarves had made under the hill.

For the past 7 hours they had been mining under the hill and setting up explosives. They had to be as quiet as possible to not alert the imperial legions just above them. He carried the last explosive box full of gun powered those things the organizations call C4s a bunch of ammunition boxes containing outdated ammo and generally any explosive material those GOC guys didn't want anymore.

"I got the last of the ammo set up, let's get out of here before the charges are blown." He yelled to the other dwarves as they nodded their heads and ran down the underground tunnel. He then heard on the radio "Can we blow the hill kingdom come or are you still down there." Asked the operator on the other side.

"Give us a minute or two. We aren't as fast as you humans give us time to get out." He said annoyed on the radio. "Got that." Said the operator.

"Common faster lads we don't want to be here when the charges blow." Dagon said as he pushed the dwarves behind him forward. By Emory his lungs were burning but after sprinting for 3 minutes he and his comrades could see the exit. They rushed out and were greeted by sunlight. It nearly blinded them

"I assume now we can blow the charges." Said an amused GOC soldier with his hands on the button that blows the charges. "G-go a-ahead." Said Dagon panting as the GOC soldier pressed the button.

He looked behind him and saw the hill in the distance erupt as it went upwards before collapsing.He then saw GOC tanks and Humvees along with men on foot beginning their advance towards the hill.

He definitely wouldn't want to be a Saderan legionary on that hill.

Falmart. Emory hill. 4:32 pm. January 4th. 666 imperial time.

Calugain poked his head out of the redoubts and saw that the sun was beginning to set. Most soldiers were covering themselves the best they could as winter nights could be brutal at times. Several sentries had frozen to death last night due to lack of winter clothing which was hard to find anyways in the empire.

The offensive being launched in the winter was to him one of the worst mistakes the emperor could make. Wars weren't fought in winter. Most armies in Falmart would have paused fighting when winter struck.

The enemy however didn't care about the seasons. He then heard a rumble underneath him and he and his surprised comrades were flung upwards. Then they came crashing down as dirt, snow, and the fortifications that had sunk into the ground or had flung upwards came crashing down on them.

He blacked out briefly before he woke up to see dirt. He tried to breathe but he couldn't. Most of his bones were broken so he couldn't dig himself out.

So this is how he would die, Calugain thought.

Then an arm shot through the dirt and pulled him out. He gasped while taking in fresh air. "Thank you." He said instinctually. "Welcome." Said the man who had pulled him out. He looked up and saw one of the men in the train.

So much for his days of glory. He would be a prisoner. He was placed inside one of the men's horseless carriages along with the few legionaries like him who had survived. Most of them were in the same condition as him, most of their bones broken or bleeding a lot though the men in blue had been nice enough to bandage his comrades up.

He heard the carriage rumble to life as he saw the hill getting further away as the carriage moved forward to some unknown location.

Falmart. Herms command dugout. 6 pm. January 4th. 666 imperial time.

Herm had just gotten the news. Emory hill had fallen.

He would have to organized a counter attack. That hill was their only hope of escaping the encirclement. He had limited men; by limited he had around 31,000 men left out of the original 45,000. 13,000 had been killed in the opening Bombardment of the first day of the hostilities and another thousand were killed either in the defense of hill Issabelle, froze to death in the night, or were picked off by enemy sharpshooters.

Out of those 31,000 men he had 2,000 in reserve.

2,000 would not be enough to retake the hill if he were to pull what all imperial legates do and launch a full forced assault. However he planned to use more unorthodox methods.

He had learned that before the hill fell there was a massive explosion that came from the ground below it causing the hill to turn into some sort of mini crater.

Their was no way he and his men could launch an assault without being spotted. He decided on a rather risky gamble.

He would have his men dig shallow tunnels towards the remains of the hill until they got just in front of it and then they'd open the tunnels and his men would form charging out.

To distract the enemies on the hill Herm would use what remained of his catapults to pepper what remained of the hill until the tunnels were in position.

This would be his last chance to save his men. If it failed well that was that and they'd fight on till they could no longer.

My Emory helped them in these hard times.

Falmart. Mountains around Dien Bien Phu. 4:39 pm. Janaury 4th. 2 AEE.

Trang stared out at the remains of the hill that had just been turned into a small crater from his binoculars. It was rather satisfying seeing the hill blow up and send hundreds of imperials to their deaths.

Doubt the camps would be better for the survivors. Now on the current topic after the fall of this hill he would have his men secure the crater before reinforcing them with an additional 300 men from the Vietnamese 9th Division which had yet to see action. So far only the 11th had seen action.

Now the 9th would get its chance to shine. He also had a meeting with a certain engineer.

"Sir he is here." Said one of his men as he heard a helicopter land on the small helipad they had built on the mountain base they had established.

"Good, good. Tell him I'll see him shortly." Trang said, waving his arm dismissively. "Yessir." Said the soldier before exiting Trangs personal observation post in the mountains. Trang was surprised the engineer had visited him personally but he didn't mind.

"General Trang Minh, we have much to discuss." Said the engineer entering his observation post.

"Why yes indeed. So I suppose you have called me to discuss our little coup with the other members of the GOIs." Trang said as he raised an eyebrow.

"Yea your men will have to finish this fight at Dien Bien Phu soon as we have decided to move the day of the Coup to the 9th since we fear Clark won't give us the best look at the Diet meeting. The JSDF has also promised to support our Coup though I doubt they'll play a major role. Diet meeting was moved to February 14th instead of January 14th." The Engineer said.

"Sounds good but what will my men's role in this be?" Trang asked inquisitively.

"Simple you'll be blocking off the entrance to Paradise city to ensure he doesn't try to escape the city by car in the small chance he does get through our guys. Also your tanks will spearhead the attack on our HQ if he is located there when the coup begins." Said the Engineer.

"Very well I think I can pull that off easily now what is to become of Clark." Asked Trang.

"Simple he will be killed off and the pentagram will be purged." Said the Engineer.

"Sounds good to me I assume that is the end of our secret meeting then" said Trang unfazed. "Yea it is. See you on the 14th. Clarks days are numbered." Said the engineer as he left and headed back to his helicopter.

Well Trang realized he would have to speed up things in Dien Bien Phu if he wanted to get his men in the proper position for the coup. Preferably he wanted to finish off the imperials by the 6th before giving his men a well deserved 1 day break before heading back to paradise to further sort out the details of the Coup.

Like the Engineer had said earlier. Clarks days were numbered.

Falmart. Hill Emory. 11:06 pm. January 4th. 2 AEE.

"Boy it's fucking cold today." Joked Captain Dung Chi as he dragged another body of a buried imperial legionary. Snow was falling once more and the valley was coated in snow filled hills, a couple of pine trees that had survived the bombardment, and the distant imperial defenses on other hills.

"It's winter, it will always be cold." Said Lt Nguyen joking as he too was dragging a dead imperial to a mass grave they had made.

"So I counted about maybe 200-500 dead but I'm sure will find more buried in this mess." Said Dung as he took out a cigarette and lit it. Since they had captured the hill well crater since the explosion had turned it into one they had been digging a mass grave for the dead imperials and then searching for buried bodies to throw in it.

It was a certainly boring and annoying task but better to do this than to be doing nothing.

Some trenches were being set up around the valley to begin a short siege of imperial positions but at this rate and with the 9th joining the fray soon the longest the imperials could out would be until the 7th.

"Hey I hear something." Said Nguyen as Dung snapped his head to him and the other men, around 23 of them since most had left to the newly formed barracks for the night, turned to Nguyen.

"Listen. It sounds like digging." He said. Dung gestures to his men to stop talking and to stay silent. "Their under-." Before he could finish what he was saying the ground gave way to hundreds of imperials screaming their war crimes as they rushed out at them.

"Oh fuck fall back." He barked as he began to open fire at point blank, swaying around 30 of them. Some of his men broke and ran while others covered the retreat.

One of the imperial mages cast a fireball spell that he sent flying at them as it hit one of his men, frying him alive as he screamed in agony. "We need backup in the crater we have an imperial counter attack underway we need support." Dung said on the radio as several imperials barely missed him with their spears that they threw.

"Sending backup, hold out for 10 more minutes." Said the operator on the other side. "We don't have ten minutes, we need backup now!" He yelled as one of his men was impaled by a spear.

"Go fall back ill by your bastards some time." Said Nguyen as he fired off the last of his ammo from his assault rifle before switching to his pistol. Dung quickly got his men to board their Humvees nearby but several didn't make it in time and were littered with spears and arrows from the ever growing hoard of imperials.

He watched as after discharging the last of his ammo Nguyen ran to a Humvee and jumped on the 50 cal laying waste to the attackers buying Dung and his remaining men time to get on the Humvees and drive off.

The last he saw of Nguyen was him taking out his second pistol when the 50 cal overheated and shooting off the heads of imperials climbing on his Humvees.

Falmart. Emory hill. 11:15 pm. January 4th. 2 AEE.

"Ah shit." Nyugen screamed as the 50 cal overheated. He quickly grabbed his second pistol and began to shoot the imperials trying to climb on the Humvee to get to him.

It kind of felt like those zombie shooter games but with fantasy romans instead of zombies. He barely dodged several spears thrown at him as he fired from into of the Humvee at the Roman's.

He soon ran out of ammo so he grappled with one of the oncoming legionaries for his sword. He Kneed the legionary but all he did was injure himself due to the legionary's armor.

As he grappled with the legionary more and more got on to try to kill him. He back kicked one and finally got the legionaries sword after kicking him off. He wildly waved it around slashing one in the head before he felt a spear to his stomach as a spear hit him.

He coughed out blood as he grabbed the spear impaled to his stomach. "He tried to pull the pin on one of his grenades he hadn't thrown but the imperials slashed off his hand before he could pull something off.

An imperial legate of sorts raised his sword and he felt it strike his head before it went dark.