[b]West Istanbul[/b]

Greek Army trucks were old, captured Ottoman medium-load vehicles painted in a mottled green lizardstripe ostensibly to camouflage against air attack while sitting in their motor pools. They were also noisy, rattling and growling as they shifted gears on the dirt roads into an Istanbul embroiled in conflict. They kicked up the light brown Grecian dust and belched acrid smoke that so happened to drift directly back into the cabins of the trucks in the convoy following. George Yaglian kept his head down behind the truck's cabin and had wrapped a red-pattern scarf around his face to keep the fumes out. His eyes watered and he had fits of coughing whenever a particularly bad cloud rolled through. His hands were gripped over the wooden handguard on his battle rifle and his gaze diverted down to the wooden floor of the truck. Yaglian's rucksack lied directly in between his legs, entangled with everyone else's gear in the cramped troop carrier. Around him, dozens of other similar trucks carried hundreds of Armenian soldiers into battle. Motorized infantry, as they were called, were instrumental in Armenia's plan to reinforce key areas while the Greeks tried to battle the Ottomans head-on at the Bosporus Canal.

Yaglian's unit, technically assigned as a military police detachment dealing with installation security, had been deployed from its regular duties guarding airfields at Camp Sevan Lake to secure the Istanbul airport before the Ottomans had a chance to get there. Air-transported to a forward Greek base, these men were being raced to the airfield before the Ottomans had a chance to cross the bridges - which had not been bombed due to refugee considerations - over the strait. The enlisted man next to Yaglian was his barracks roommate and good friend Iain Panoutsopoulos - often shortened to Pano by the Armenians in the company -, a Greek with shaky nerves and a questionable dedication to military service. Pano's leg bounced up and down while he played with his rattling handguard. Beneath a scarf made out of a dirty white undershirt wrapped around his neck and face, Pano's eyes were squinted as if he was trying to concentrate on picking out details on the ground. Yaglian put his hand on Pano's leg and looked over at him: "Don't worry, they're still east of the canal," he said moderately confidently.

An explosion boomed from a distant fuel storage plant, punctuating the Private First Class's declaration. A raging fire sprang from the ruptured fuel tanks while secondary detonations rocked nearby buildings. A column of smoke rose in seconds, drifting heavily into the air before a trio of Turkish warplanes flew straight through it. Spotted by ground observers, an autocannon was directed to engage: 20 millimeter rounds erupted from no fewer than three ground stations. Three streams of tracers converged right ahead of the formation and quickly ripped the fighters to shreds. Machines of aluminum and steel became balls of fire hurtling into the ground.

One of the Turkish pilots had apparently bailed out and deployed his parachute. One of the gunners apparently noticed this and expertly targeted him with another burst of antiaircraft fire, leaving nothing left.

"Fuck me, fuck this shit," one of the troopers exclaimed. "Nobody's flying anything into this fucking airport."

"Shut the hell up," was the reply from the platoon leader. The middle-aged officer had one hand on the radio phone and the other over his ear as he tried to get directions from higher. A map had been taped to the top of the truck driver's cabin, which the Lieutenant stood behind. "We're taking our right here!" he shouted, banging on the top of the truck. With great effort, the driver swung the heavy, high vehicle to the right at a fork in the road and almost tipped the thing over. The scenery began changing from sparse houses to factories and industrial buildings to more built-up neighborhoods. Soon enough, the trucks were navigating through the rubble-strewn streets of Istanbul. Artillery fire raked the city blocks in a back-and-forth pattern, sometimes coming close enough to spray broken glass and shrapnel against the sides of the truck. One of these explosions came too close for comfort, rocking the truck back and forth. Yaglian flinched down, feeling the dirt land on the back of his neck: his ears rang for a few minutes after that.

The airport was a fifteen minute drive through the city. On the south end of the west side, the airport had a sophisticated L-shaped runway and a heavily expanded terminal capable of supporting passenger and cargo flights across the world. A smaller, military annex had been completely leveled in the opening blows.

Yaglian's truck was the fourth to exit onto the tarmac through a hole in the fencing. The trucks assumed a line formation and quickly sped across the tarmac, thundering and rumbling over the smooth asphalt. Forward observers, waiting for them, had called in quick-response artillery in the form of mortars from the other side of the Bosporus. Yaglian could hear the whistles over the roars of the engine, screaming: "Get the fuck down! Get the fuck down! Incoming!"

Blasts rang out in ten-second intervals at random spots across the airport's runway. The trucks kept driving through the barrage. Meanwhile, panicked drivers began to speed up and zigzag in hopes of avoiding blast damage. Two trucks nearly collided before being swerved back onto their original courses, which now began to diverge as the battalion assigned to cover the airport were split to defend the different locations. Yaglian's company - Affirm - was heading to the terminal, while Baker was to hit the hangers and Charlie to establish spread-out perimeter security. Affirm company punched through the litter and debris on the tarmac to swing through towards the entrance boulevard. Suleiman International Airport was fairly sizable and had kept a garden boulevard well-maintained. Now, Greek trucks flattened the meticulous tulip fields while mortar shells knocked over palm trees and statues of folk heroes. The truckers aimed to unload in a parking garage near a roundabout next to the grand gates, to minimize danger from the air. This, however, proved fruitless when it was discovered that a police barricade had been erected a hundred meters down the boulevard.

The trucks stopped, but the barrage still rained down. As the explosions began to intensify, the troopers hurried to load up their gear and dismount. Yaglian had just donned his pack and grabbed his rifle's carry handle when he felt something warm and wet splatter across his back. Almost instantly, he heard a yelp and a gurgle. Shrapnel had torn through the neck of the man sitting next to him, almost severing his head. The Armenian jumped back, exclaiming "What the fuck?!", and then tripped and fell onto the pile of rucks in the middle of the truck. He scrambled away from the corpse now dangling over the side of the truck.

"Get the fuck off the truck!" screamed the Lieutenant, before grabbing the dead man's battle gear with his right hand and pushing him off the side. The body, formerly a star barracks poker player named Ismail, landed with a thud. Yaglian, almost in shock, was picked up and thrown off the truck by someone else. "Get up! Get up! Go!" was the encouragement from a familiar voice. Yaglian whipped his head around, trying to regain his composure, before Pano yanked him to his feet with a strong, golden-skinned arm. "Get to the terminal!" the Greek shouted in his heavy accent. Another whistle: another explosion. This one landed atop the parking garage, destroying a support column and collapsing the top northwestern corner. Yaglian didn't need more of a sign than that, and picked up running after his comrades into the terminal.

Suleiman International Airport used to be a luxurious center of transit for foreign dignitaries, businessmen, and other people of note. A golden chandelier lay in shambles on the marble floor of the main hall, shattered crystal surrounding the mass of metal. Pearl white columns, the ones closest to the door stained with grime, supported a ceiling with a blown-out glass dome. Inscriptions in Ottoman, sayings from Sultans past, covered the high walls. Yaglian's company sprinted through the entrance hall, ignoring the shattered opulence in a startling juxtaposition of wealth and despair. They found shelter from the mortars underneath the airport's mezzanine, huddled together under tables in a Turkish restaurant. The explosions continued for another hour before the mortars were silenced and it was safe to move around again.

The battle reached the Bosporus by midday, and the Armenians met the Turks once again in fierce combat in the streets of Istanbul. Yaglian could watch across the bay and ships burned and airplanes fell. For now, the west was relatively secure and more elements were moving into the airport. It was slated as the new command and control center for the Armenian military if the embassy became too dangerous. Although no planes could land - indeed, the runways were cratered and at least one had the wreckage of a civilian airliner caught in the wrong place at the wrong time sitting atop the tarmac - and no formations could congregate for long, the hangars and terminals became staging places for the Armenian military in Istanbul.

For Yaglian, who had set up a marksman post atop the roof of the main terminal, the war was not ending anytime soon. He heard the sounds of battle cascade across the ruined city. Snaps, booms, rumbles, and sometimes cries. He felt every explosion and aircraft flyby. The artillery that so desperately fought to exterminate the Armenians before they reached the airport had been redirected elsewhere with only casual attempts to dislodge the dug-in forces. The battle had reached the neighborhoods near the bridges, picking up in intensity as more and more ordinance was dedicated to the fight. Yaglian and Pano, veterans of the Georgian theater, were still rattled by the ferocity of the fighting.

"Did we take any more wounded?" the Greek asked slowly, carefully. His green eyes looked down at the concrete roof of the terminal while his hand tightened around the grip of his marksman rifle. It was a standard issue K19, equipped with a scope that couldn't really see far enough for what they were doing while totally destroying any semblance of effectiveness in close quarters battle.

"Us in particular, or?" was Yaglian's response.

"Of course," said Pano softly. A machinegun burst from a guard position down by the tarmac was sent across the strait. The guards on the roof peeked over the hasty sandbag cover before dipping back down. "Other than Ismael," the Greek added with a pained frown.

"You were close, weren't you?" asked Yaglian. Cheesy, but he didn't know what else to say.

"The fucker conned me out of two months of pay," Pano lamented, referencing the seedy barracks poker games. "But he was good for a Muslim."

"We've got to get the body," the Armenian told the Greek. He cast a quick glance back towards the roundabout.

"Lieutenant got it. I saw. He was covered with a poncho in the lobby."

"The Lieutenant did that?"

"Ran out in the barrage," said Pano with an approving nod. Yaglian slumped down a little, wondering if he should feel surprised at the heroism or disapproval for the carelessness of going out under fire. He settled on feeling both, but this was underpinned by a swelling of pride in his leader. Sometimes officers did make good people.

"I thought he was a dick but now I kinda like the guy, man."

In the hours ahead, that Lieutenant would be shot by a sniper from across the canal as he fought a fire on the tarmac caused by an incendiary round. His head would be splattered over the Suleiman International Airport's runway for four hours until his body could be collected and sent back with the rest of the casualties as night fell and the Turks couldn't shoot as effectively. The Platoon Sergeant took command and assumed the Lieutenant's duties by morning. The operation would continue as planned.

[b]East Istanbul[/b]

"Shit! Fuck me! Fuck this shit! Fuck!"

A young Muslim soldier lay in the rubble of a collapsed room clutching his abdomen. A rifle round had torn through his body armor and fatigues before tumbling through his stomach and tearing a ragged exit wound in his back. The platoon medic was frantically stuffing cloth in the wound to soak up the blood.

"It's not serious! It's not serious! Shut the fuck up!"

Abbasian fired off the last of his rifle magazine at a shadowy figure moving in the smoke of the battlefield. He didn't hear any sort of scream so he loaded another one and popped off another pair. He shouted a contact report, catching the attention of a grenadier who launched a rifle grenade at the facade of the light-blue-painted building. The Lieutenant crawled away from the window he was shooting from and turned around to inspect his men. They had been lined up in the office building's windows shooting across a courtyard at the horde of Turkish soldiers streaming in from the east. Istanbul militias had taken up positions to the north, and the street was littered with their bodies and burned out vehicles. A stench of gunpowder and iron - from the blood - lingered in the air, complemented by smoke and faint scents of burned flesh. Someone had started a fire in the southeast quarters of Istanbul, in the slums, that was threatening to spread north towards the Foreign Legion's forward positions. The fighting in that particular industrial park had stopped for now.

It was like Erzurum, except Abbasian was now in charge of the fighting. He felt himself lose touch with reality as the brutality of the fighting was prolonged. He remembered the trenches and the boredom, the drug abuse, and the itching for war. He remembered the fear of fighting the first time, rethinking his decision as he felt the pressure of explosions wash over him and heard the bullets whiz by his head. This was not the first time he was convinced he was going to die: the fear of mortality in that building in East Istanbul was old hat for Lieutenant Haroud Abbasian. As Abbasian checked off his squad leaders in a calm, collected fashion like an automaton, he remembered missing war when he logged the woods of the Nagorno Karabakh. Walking along the woodland trails in the Black Garden reminded him of DMZ patrols and combat reconnaissance with the artillery observers. He missed the little things, like the cargo pockets on his pants that weren't there on his woodsman jeans and flannel. And now he was back in the fight, fearing for his life again. It would be funny if it weren't happening to him. Everywhere he went, he wanted to be somewhere else.

But being a leader meant that he had to put that behind him. Like when he checked off his squad leaders for ammo and casualties, Abbasian was supposed to be cool. That's what they taught at OCS. If anything else, they had to keep a level head even if their minds were racing like his was. Whatever emotions were running through Abbasian's head had to be kept away from his men. So when a seventeen-year-old Private was dying in what used to be a break room for a financial consulting firm, he was focused and collected. And thus, the detachment set in. He and reality no longer seemed to exist in the same place. Abbasian wanted to step back from it all and evaluate what he was thinking, process the complicated emotions that raced through his head. In reality, he was emotionless. He didn't show that he felt. If he showed anything, it could be weakness: weakness that could endanger his men. He couldn't break down, lest his men see the set example and break down as well. So as soon as Abbasian checked off his troopers and ensured that they could fight through another round of Turkish aggression, he settled back into his position by the Platoon Sergeant, medic, and radio/telephone operator, and readied his rifle.

He was the boss, he was the man. In the symphony of destruction, he was the conductor.

[b]Stepanakert, Armenia[/b]

Maya Abbasian toddled behind her mother with a paper bag full of bread in her arms. She protested to her mother that she could hold it while her mom fumbled with three other bags of groceries. They walked down the sidewalk of a Muslim neighborhood in West Stepanakert, across the highway, which had not been very well attended to by the government. The paint peeled off of the walls, faded advertisements for products lined the brick alleys. West Yerevan was, by and large, an immigrant sector largely divided into self-segregated ghettoes. There was one for the Muslims, one for the Yazidis, one for the Russians, and one for the other Caucasians. The Muslims lived where the Turkish middle-class used to back during the occupation, mostly because the religious infrastructure already existed. As such, they were probably the most well-off of the minorities. Away from the shining government buildings in Yerevan, the glorious public works projects in Artashat - a city so brutally decimated that they were basically starting from scratch to showcase a "new Armenia" -, the Polish-funded factories of Hrazdan, and the neon-lit casinos and nightlife of Sevan were the simple, lowly neighborhoods of West Stepanakert.

There was some subtle tension between the Armenians and the Muslims of Stepanakert. The Turkish occupation had put a bad taste in the mouth of the mostly Christian nation for Islam, especially during some of the more hardliner years when mosques were built out of razed churches. These were, in turn, burned down by the Armenian Revolutionary Front in the 1940s and '50s and then again by the Armenian Separatist Front from 1977 to 1979. The Nagorno-Karabakh Crisis, when Ottoman Azerbaijan acted on its own to try and retake the Artsakh region was quickly put down by the Armenian military over the course of a four week war. The Abbasian family remembered the rocket attacks on Stepanakert, all while Haroud was away at the Erzurum DMZ. It was in 1979 where Fatima Abbasian's husband, Sirwan, had died in one of those attacks. He was getting gasoline for the family truck when an Azerbaijani rocket hit the gas station and killed two dozen civilians. A retaliatory attack on an Azeri school the next day was proudly reported by local media, but offered no condolences for the mourning family. These tit-for-tat attacks reassured the Christian Armenians, like it was a Crusade to vanquish the invading Muslim Turks and their lackeys from the fatherland. For the Abbasians, it was just more violence.

But that still didn't stop the tensions from creating a problem in the Nagorno-Karabakh. They had been refused service by Christian shopowners and restaurants a few times, and the police were always "too busy" to respond. It didn't really bother Fatima or Maya. She held out hope that her son's military service would assuage the community's fears about Muslim Armenians. For now, Maya had almost tripped over the concrete step leading to the front of their house and had dropped the bag of bread onto the porch. Her mother reprimanded her softly: "Don't run so fast! You'll hurt yourself!"

Across the street, a neighbor planting her vegetables leaned on her shovel and chuckled. "Keeping track of the kids, Fatima?"

Fatima turned her head and smiled while simultaneously scooping up the paper bag. "Sure, she's a rowdy one."

The neighbor, an older woman in her sixties named Karina, chuckled again. She also wore a hijab and a conservative blue dress, a crescent star on a gold necklace hanging from her neck. On her wrist was a golden bracelet from her family's history in Syria. Despite her worn face, her smile was somehow impeccably bright white. She was the elder woman of the neighborhood, having a long and industrious history in the city of Stepanakert doing who-knows-what. "Have you heard from Haroud lately?"

"Not since a phone call from the train station, no," Fatima admitted. She brushed her hijab's loose end over her shoulder and smoothed out a wrinkle in her dress. Maya had gone off inside with one of the bags to put the groceries away.

"I wouldn't be surprised if that were the last time in a while," Karina said. "I remember when Hassan went out with the Ottoman forces in... Well, I'll have to ask him again but I think it was Greece way back during the forties. He was gone for a good half a year and we only had a letter from him once or twice."

"We've already had him away for nine whole months," Fatima lamented. She gave the rest of the bags to Maya one at a time so she could put them on the table. "He managed to call every week or so. They had a payphone made at the firebase he was at. And he wrote all the time. Mailed his little sister all of these mementos like bullets and coins and everything else."

"They invaded Istanbul, mind you," Karina replied soothingly. "He might not have a chance to write anything for a while."

The mother nodded as Maya came running out of the green wooden-paneled house with the dog. He bounded over the steps and ran out onto the yard where he spun around in circles, clutching his bone. Maya went down to play with him for a few minutes as her mother checked the mail. Karina went back to planting her vegetables across the street.

Inside was a letter from Haroud, posted on a plain beige envelope bearing military post office stamps. It was crinkled, and a suspicious mind might have thought they saw evidence of it being opened and resealed by intelligence agencies. It had been dropped off that morning while Fatima had been running errands. The postman, as was typical in rural mountain communities, rode his horse through every morning with satchels pinned to its side. He was always happy to deliver letters from sons and husbands at the front, being somewhat of an overbearing patriot. Fatima, smile on her face, excitedly grabbed the letter from her son and opened it there at the mailbox. Maya played with the dog still, throwing a stick and chasing it with childish joy. Her laughter filled the humid summer air.

Haroud's handwriting seemed rushed, scrawled on the Army-marked papers in black pen. Contrary to the usual neatness, the letter had been folded into thirds unevenly.

[i]Mother,

My unit has been undergoing training for two weeks for a new operation. Two weeks! It's been fast-paced, learning how to operate in and around our new helicopters. These things are huge, loud, heavy, and they rattle like nothing other. I have about forty guys under my command, none of them speak any sort of Armenian except maybe my radio operator (who knows broken phrases.) I've been giving them a crash course in everything but these men are mostly immigrants who need more time. That's what we all need: time. We're getting rushed from one place to the other, hurrying through everywhere. I can't tell you what's going on, but I'm sure you'll find out shortly.

I'll be alright, however. Even without much time to prepare, I trust this to be over quickly. For now, we have received life jackets from supply. For what, I have no idea. I'm no sailor. I can't even swim (I remember when dad tried to take me down to the pond when I was little, I've never touched water since) and you know how I get nervous being over water. If we're flying our helicopters over the ocean... I expected to fight on land.

Let Maya know that I said hello and have some little trinkets for her. I know how much she liked patches and flags so I've got a box being sent that will get home maybe next week. I found some dog treats at this shop in Sevan on pass, maybe Tsaghik will like them! You know how she's picky. Give her a pat or two for me, too. I should be home soon.

Much love,
Haroud[/i]

That was it. Fatima knew that Haroud had to be purposefully vague before the censors got to it. That didn't stop an inkling of worrying from appearing in her mind. What was her son doing? She heard the rumors of a new war with Turkey over Istanbul, was he going there? Maybe Karina would know, she had connections into the military that offered the neighborhood some relief when their husbands and sons went to war. She could figure out what they were doing. It was only a matter of time until they knew for sure. As she thought about the concept of yet another war, Fatima felt another unpleasant feeling rise from within. The image of an official Army telegram in the mailbox appeared in her mind's eye. She banished it immediately.

She had lost Sirwan. She wasn't losing Haroud.