[b]Armenian-Georgian Border[/b]

	The nature of planning in a Napoleonic staff system often took days for major operations. From the minute the Georgia Plan passed its way through the legislative gears of parliament, the military staff produced their grand plans for the first foreign military action since the Artsakh War. The regular Army, currently on their way via rail and road to the Georgian border, was to march on Tbilisi while the Poti Garrison’s officers and its contingent of trained Georgian nationals would meet them there as they approached from the West. These Georgians, loyal to a new government that was already being put together by a diverse staff of government, military, and intelligence officials, would form the nucleus of the Georgian Republic’s new military. Armed resistance would be fierce in some of the urban areas, where the Army was expected to travel through to pacify warlords and militia strongmen. The plan was for them to use their fierce firepower to destroy opposition, liberating the Georgian people and bringing law and order back to the country.

	The Border Service, on the other hand, had a different approach. While the Army’s brute force tactics were supposed to scare warlords into surrendering before death, the Border Service’s job was far more subtle. Like a scalpel, they were to go through the towns and villages to recruit friendly militias, destroy hostile actors, and gain the peoples’ trust. Their cultural familiarity, large proportion of Georgian language speakers, and knowledge of the land would let them do that far better than soldiers traveling all the way from garrisons across Armenia. These plans were formulated for a few days, in echelons far above and in offices far away, as the Border Service troops waited, readying to head into the country. What their company was doing and where they were going remained a mystery to Corporal Yaglian and the rest of his platoon until they were assembled in formation in front of the blockhouse at midday after lunch. The sections fell into orderly lines, but they were far from the rigidly disciplined formations of basic training. Troops talked amongst each other, hands in their pockets or lazily behind their backs in what could only be a poor impression of parade rest.

	Yaglian’s lieutenant, jaded and cynical man in his mid-twenties from a Georgian village, looked seriously at a piece of paper in his hands as he did most days. Beside him, Platoon Sergeant Ozanian eyed the formation of troops suspiciously but remained quiet. His grizzled face bent into a frown, he crossed his arms in front of him and let the platoon leader do the talking. Nearby, a model of the countryside constructed from mounds of dirt, sticks, rocks, and other random objects had been sketched into the ground. Several towns were represented along with a circle of blue string representing their company’s area of responsibility.

	“The Georgia Plan passed through Parliament last week, so we all knew this was coming,” the lieutenant drawled in his backwoods, rural Georgian accent. “The new mission has been put out by higher. The Border Service as a whole is going to spread out into the countryside, and this is dangerous countryside. Most people here are Muslims.”

	The lieutenant gestured to the terrain model, tapping at the different villages with a stick he used as a pointer. “We’ve already had dealings with our friends, the Mountain Wolves. Great people. This is their stronghold. Patara Darbazi last month was just a little warm-up action, so we’ve already got one group of people on our shit-list.”

	A series of red icons marked where bandit camps had been scouted out by intelligence assets and reported in. The ones that had been raided remained empty, but the Muslims were bound to begin popping up as the Christian Armenian military started pushing further into their territory. The Georgian Muslims were already a minority with a checkered relationship to the former government and people. After the fall of the Ottomans, it got worse for them: persecution, discrimination, forced land redistribution, and arrests or killings rocked communities and forced them further away from the rest of the country. The Mountain Wolves formed as an insurgency against the Georgian government in the Shia parts of southeast Georgia. They had been at war with the Georgians before their government shriveled into a shell of its former self, taking refuge in Azerbaijan when they could. Now that they were pushed out of Azerbaijan by the Persian occupation army, southeast Georgia was their last stand. Armenia’s encroachment into this territory along with a new Georgian government would not go over well.

	“We’ve already found key allies for us. Basically, the plan for our company is we take over this area and split the platoons up between towns. We’re going to camp nearby, live there with the people, and help fold the Christian militias into the government while we hunt the Mountain Wolves.”

	Ostensibly, the Border Service was supposed to be more equipped for this. They received rudimentary training on law enforcement for smugglers and customs operations, and were trained to operate lighter and more unconventionally than the Army. With a heavy makeup of reservists, many platoons brought civilian skills to the table. One of Yaglian’s riflemen was an electrician: a valuable skill that could bring them closer to the average person if they were trying to build faith in an untrustworthy, unproven government. The Army, heavier and often operating with more equipment and mounted on armored vehicles, had a presence not unlike a sledgehammer’s.

	“Do I have any questions from you all?” asked the lieutenant, looking back up at the platoon. He scanned the blank faces and waited a few moments. He looked over to Platoon Sergeant Ozanian, passing the briefing to him. The NCO curtly ran through the details of supply and logistics, routes and packing lists for rucksacks. The platoon radioman’s frequencies and procedures capped off the brief, and he sent them all back to the barracks to prepare their equipment. Yaglian’s bed, in the back, was already covered in his things. A green, threadbare load-bearing vest in a crumpled pile sat next to his [i]taraz[/i] cap and scarf. A rucksack, worn down with sweat stains underneath the shoulder straps and on the waistpad, lay at the foot of the bed, top unbuckled and open with a few spare uniforms and sleeping bag all the way at the bottom. Like so many patrols before, he menially loaded equipment and ammunition into his kit. Bullets snapped into the metal magazine, which was then fit snugly into a pouch on the harness. He worked in exhausted silence, eyes closed like it was a substitute for sleep: the last few days had not been kind to him. Guard shifts, patrols, and increased readiness had dropped all their sleep hours. And the invasion hadn’t even started yet.

	The next few days were spent waiting. Word came down that the operation was to be postponed for another few days. Something about a train derailment delaying some supply lines. More troops came to the border, offloading from a railhead or the main road at the local town. Tanks, old landships manned by Reservists, formed up in neat rows in cleared dirt motor pools. One of the stipulations was that the heavy armor would remain on the border with Turkey, leaving just older equipment to fill in the combined arms gap in Georgia. After all, antitank weapons would be less advanced if they even existed in significant numbers at all. Trucks with boxes of supplies lined up behind them. Regular soldiers stood and smoked, did their calisthenics in the fields, and drank at the bars in town while the force assembled. Yaglian kept his distance if he was on pass, but otherwise saw nothing more at his border outpost. They ran drills and practiced combat rehearsals, waiting for the order to move out. Boredom quickly set in as it always did, but after all: what else was new? But after all the waiting, the company commander finally received his orders. It was time to go.

	Yaglian and his team heard it first from the platoon leader, who roused them up and out of bed at sundown of a late summer’s day. Excitement in his young voice, Yaglian shouted for his troops and got them dressed in a hurry. He shouldered his ruck and almost sprinted to the waiting jeeps outside, hopping into the side seat while a rifleman turned the keys on the ignition. “Are you ready?” he asked, a wide grin on his face. “Let’s go!”

	The jeep’s engine roared up and the car hurtled forward out of its parking space under a metal awning. It turned into the dirt clearing in front of the barracks where the company was assembling in the dusk. Men were whooping and hollering to each other, racking their weapons and shouting towards the border. Flags waved from the back of the truck beds, others were draped over the hoods. The drivers lined their vehicles up by section and platoon, in ordered lines awaiting the arrival of the commander. Yaglian’s team took up a position behind his platoon leader, who sat with goggles and scarf on underneath a helmet: an uncommon issue for the Border Service. The commander drove past, rallying his men with cheers and shouts. The platoons fell in behind him, one by one, in a long line of jeeps heading down the road to the border. A guardsman had opened the gate, cheering them on as they drove through. The jeeps crossed in to Georgia yet again, loaded down with men and equipment, ready to stay. In over dozen other crossings all across the north, other companies crossed over at the same time.

	The night was quiet across the country as the Border Service moved into their camp sites. The company’s vehicles circled up at the camp site like wagons in the desert, and troops immediately began working from the outside in establishing their fortifications. Fighting positions were dug, weapons were emplaced in a circular security screen with interlocking sectors of fire. The mounts of excavated dirt were used to further reinforce covered positions. These initial positions were all that would be slept in until the camp would be fortified over the next few days and replaced with tents, sandbag walls with wire perimeters, and other amenities. When the sun rose in the morning, Georgian farmers out in their fields would discover a new army of foreigners on their soil. Yaglian and his team had barely gotten three hours of sleep before the daily patrols were to begin. First up on the list: the lieutenant had announced that their platoon had gotten the village they knew well already. It was time to return to Patara Darbazi.