Chapter Text
The air in the NATO Joint Command Post, temporarily headquartered in a repurposed Ottoman-era bank in Istanbul, tasted of three things: strong, black Turkish coffee, stale cigarette smoke, and low-grade, simmering panic. For Major Gentiane Camus of the Pan-European Army, French Component, this was the flavour of her morning. Every morning.
Her office—a generous term for a gilded cage of marble and mahogany that had been hastily converted with the addition of clunky, beige data-terminals and a map of the Turkish-GAU border that seemed to actively lie—was a small island of attempted order in an ocean of institutional chaos. She stared at the report glowing on her tablet, a document that perfectly encapsulated the absurdity of her existence.
It was a formal complaint from the US Army contingent, alleging that their weekly ration of "Freedom Fries" had been "ideologically compromised" by being stored next to a crate of French baguettes.
This was her life now. Acting Commander of the Pan-European detachment, a rank she held by virtue of a catastrophic bureaucratic oversight. Her official title was Major, but the responsibilities were those of a Brigadier General, a fact that sat like a cold, heavy stone in the pit of her stomach. She was an imposter, a fraud, a battlefield commander who had gotten the job because she was the only conscript foolish enough to accept the commission after the G-Man’s “recruitment drive.” Every day, she waited for her luck to run out, or worse, for her actual commanding officer to finally arrive.
A knock on her door, sharp and precise, pulled her from her spiral of self-doubt. “Enter,” she called out, her voice steadier than she felt.
The heavy oak door swung open to reveal HK416, her French Foreign Legion uniform immaculate, her expression a mask of cool, professional detachment. She held a tabletin one hand. “Morning, Commander. The weekly ammunition requisitions and the latest absurdity report.”
“Thank you, 416,” Gentiane said, taking the slate. “Let me guess. The Americans again?”
“General Oliver has lodged a formal protest with EuroBabel Command in Brussels,” 416 stated, her voice flat. “He claims the Grand Arab Union is engaging in ‘meteorological warfare.’ A cloud formation over their side of the border yesterday briefly resembled the face of Admiral General Aladeen. He has requisitioned three long-range weather-modification rockets to ‘neutralize the atmospheric threat.’”
Gentiane sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “File the standard objection. Cite the Pan-European treaty on ‘preemptive atmospheric retaliation.’ And for God’s sake, make sure our own quartermaster hasn’t given them the launch codes.”
“Already done, Commander,” 416 replied.
“General Neuman counter-signed the objection because he was worried the rockets would be too loud and wake him from his nap. Also, G11 has made a nest in the main server room. She says the ambient heat from the processors is ‘optimal for deep-cycle hibernation.’ I have left her there. She is, technically, not a fire hazard.”
“Thank you for the report,” Gentiane said, a faint smile touching her lips. The familiar, absurd reliability of her two former T-Dolls was a small, stable rock in her sea of madness. After their conscription, Gentiane had pulled every string she could to get them assigned to her retinue, a desperate grasp for a sliver of familiarity. 416, ever the pragmatist, had embraced the structure of the Legion. G11, meanwhile, had embraced the structure of whatever warm, quiet surface she could find to sleep on.
As 416 turned to leave, the door to the command post burst open. General Lee Oliver of the US Army stormed in, his face a thundercloud of patriotic fury. He was a man built like a bulldog, with a magnificent grimace and an expression that suggested he was perpetually on the verge of declaring war on the concept of subtlety.
“Camus!” he barked, slamming a rolled-up map onto her desk. “We have a situation! The enemy is mocking us!”
Gentiane looked at the map. It was a satellite image of a small, insignificant GAU border outpost. Oliver jabbed a thick finger at a blurry shape near the outpost’s flagpole.
“They’re flying a new flag,” he growled. “It’s got a picture of a chicken on it. A chicken! It’s a deliberate insult to our national symbol, the eagle! They’re calling us chickens! I will not stand for it! I’m recommending an immediate, surgical airstrike to neutralize the offending poultry-based propaganda!”
Before Gentiane could formulate a diplomatic response that didn’t involve pointing out that the “chicken” was more likely a poorly rendered falcon, a second figure ambled into the room. It was General Alfred E. Neuman, Oliver’s co-commander, a man with a vacant, cheerful grin and an expression of profound, untroubled ignorance.
“Hey, what’s all the hubbub?” Neuman asked, peering at the map. “Ooh, a chicken. You think they have good fried chicken over there? I could go for some fried chicken.”
“This is an act of war, Alfred!” Oliver roared.
“Is it?” Neuman asked, scratching his ear.
“Seems like a lot of work. Can’t we just send them a strongly worded letter? Or maybe a fruit basket? Everyone likes a fruit basket.”
This was Gentiane’s daily reality. A strategic command shared by a warmonger and a fool. She was the unwilling, under-ranked mediator between a man who wanted to bomb everything and a man who wanted to know if the bombing would interrupt his lunch.
“Generals,” she began, her voice a careful, measured calm. “I will task my reconnaissance team with getting a clearer image of the flag. It may be a regional banner we are unfamiliar with. A premature military response could destabilize the region.”
Oliver grumbled but seemed momentarily placated by the promise of more reconnaissance. It was then that Gentiane’s personal terminal chimed. An encrypted, high-priority message. It was from her own superior in Paris, Monsieur Alphonse. Her heart sank.
She opened the message. It was, as always, a masterpiece of nonsensical code.
“The wine of my aunt has spilled on the trousers of the German tourist. The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies is in the cellar. You must listen very carefully, I shall say this only once: retrieve the bratwurst.”
Gentiane stared at the message, a familiar headache beginning to form behind her eyes. She had learned, through painful experience, to interpret Alphonse’s messages not as literal orders, but as abstract, impressionistic paintings of a problem. “The wine of my aunt” usually meant a diplomatic issue. “The German tourist” was code for their own allies. And “the bratwurst”… that was a new one.
“Orders from High Command?” Oliver asked, his interest piqued.
“Just a routine logistical update, General,” Gentiane lied smoothly. She knew that trying to explain the message would only result in Oliver wanting to bomb a cellar and Neuman asking if the bratwurst came with mustard.
She spent the next hour cross-referencing the message with recent intelligence, a process akin to trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube in the dark. Finally, a possible, if deeply absurd, interpretation emerged. A GAU trade official (“the bratwurst”) was making a secret, unsanctioned visit to a local bazaar (“the cellar”) known for its black-market activity. He was likely there to meet with a neutral-zone arms dealer from Denmark. The “spilled wine” was the diplomatic incident that would occur if he was caught. Her mission, she deduced, was to covertly observe and, if necessary, intervene.
It was a delicate, high-stakes intelligence operation. It required subtlety, precision, and a complete lack of loud, eagle-obsessed American generals.
Her terminal chimed again. A message from her impending, official commander, Brigadier General Musolesi. Her stomach twisted into a knot.
“Am delayed. Have accidentally boarded a train full of cheese bound for Switzerland. Will arrive as soon as the cheese situation is resolved. Do not start any wars without me. Musolesi out.”
Gentiane put her head in her hands. The cheese train. Of course. Her commanding officer, a man whose military career was a long, unbroken string of failures and surrenders, was currently trapped on a train full of Gruyère. The absurdity was so profound it was almost a physical weight.
She took a deep breath. The mission was clear. She had to sneak into a crowded bazaar, spy on a secret arms deal, avoid causing an international incident, and do it all while being commanded by a cast of fools.
She stood up, her resolve hardening. This was her command. Her responsibility. Her own personal, absurd hell.
“416,” she said into her comm. “Prep a civilian vehicle. We’re going shopping.”
For a fleeting, painful moment, her mind drifted back. Back to the cold, efficient briefing rooms of Griffin & Kryuger. The objectives then had been so beautifully, brutally simple. Sangvis Ferri or Paradeus unit detected at these coordinates.
Eliminate. The enemy was a machine. The goal was victory. The rules, while harsh, were at least consistent. She had a team she trusted, a command structure that, for all its flaws, operated on a recognizable military logic. She had known her job. She had been a Commander.
Now? Now she was a glorified babysitter for two American generals who shared a single, malfunctioning brain cell, awaiting the arrival of an Italian Brigadier whose last known location was a dairy-related transport crisis. Her enemies weren’t killer robots; they were diplomatic incidents, poultry-themed flags, and the ever-present threat of her own superiors. She felt like a fraud, a junior officer playing dress-up in a Brigadier's shoes, waiting for the inevitable moment when someone would notice she had no idea what she was doing.
She shook her head, forcing the nostalgia away. It was a useless indulgence. G&K was a lifetime ago, in another world. This was her reality now. And she had a bratwurst to retrieve.
“416,” she said, keying her comm, her voice crisp and decisive, a mask for the uncertainty churning within. “Change of plans. The shopping trip is off. I’ve decided it’s time for a surprise morale inspection. Find out where our people are on their day off and send me the coordinates.”
There was a pause on the other end, just long enough for Gentiane to know that 416 understood this was a lie. “Understood, Commander,” came the flat, professional reply. “They’ve congregated at the Kapalıçarşı. The Grand Bazaar. I’m sending you the location of the primary cluster now. Shall I inform them you’re en route?”
“No,” Gentiane said quickly. “Make it a surprise. I want to see them in their natural habitat.”
“Of course,” 416 said, her tone implying she knew the real mission was anything but a casual inspection. “Try not to get lost, Commander. It’s chaos in there.”
The Grand Bazaar was not just chaos; it was a living, breathing organism of commerce, a multi-sensory assault that swallowed you whole the moment you stepped under its arched, painted ceilings.
The air was a thick, heady perfume of a thousand competing scents: the sharp, earthy aroma of exotic spices, the rich, dark smell of brewing coffee and apple tea, the soft, comforting scent of worn leather, the sweet, cloying fragrance of Turkish delight, and the faint, metallic tang of polished copper and silver.
The noise was a symphony. The roar of a thousand haggling voices in a dozen languages, the rhythmic clang of a coppersmith’s hammer, the cheerful clinking of tea glasses, the distant, haunting melody of a lone musician playing a saz, all blended into a single, overwhelming wave of sound. Light streamed in from high, arched windows, cutting through the hazy, incense-filled air, illuminating a labyrinth of narrow, winding laneways, each one a treasure trove of glittering lamps, vibrant carpets, and intricate ceramics.
Gentiane, dressed in simple civilian attire, dark trousers and a plain, button-down shirt that felt more like a uniform than her actual uniform, which felt utterly, completely out of place. She was a creature of order, of quiet command centers and sterile briefing rooms. This was a world of beautiful, vibrant, and utterly unpredictable chaos. She moved through the throng, her senses on high alert, trying to appear like a casual tourist while her mind was a frantic whirlwind of tactical analysis, scanning every face, every shadow, for a GAU trade official who probably looked just as out of place as she felt.
She found her troops, predictably, at the heart of the bazaar’s culinary sector. They were not hard to spot. They had formed a small, chaotic, multinational island in the river of shoppers. A knot of US Army grunts, their uniforms traded for loud, garish “I ♥ Istanbul” t-shirts, were engaged in a heated, one-sided negotiation with a kebab vendor.
“Look, it’s simple math, pal!” one of them, a corporal with a haircut that defied gravity, was saying loudly, holding up a smart phone with a currency conversion app. “The official USD-to-Lira exchange rate is one-to-eighteen! You’re trying to charge us one-to-twenty! That’s highway robbery! That’s un-American!”
The kebab vendor, a man with a magnificent mustache and the patient eyes of someone who had dealt with a thousand clueless tourists, simply sighed and pointed to a small, hand-written sign taped to his cart. It read, in English: "TODAY'S RATE: 1-20. NO HAGGLING. SMILE."
Nearby, two figures from the Commonwealth contingent stood out. One, a stout Australian in a bush hat, was calmly sipping a tiny glass of tea, watching the American-led economic dispute with the detached amusement of a seasoned anthropologist. The other, a burly British squaddie with a shaved head and a tattoo of a bulldog on his neck, was trying to explain the rules of cricket to a very confused Turkish rug merchant using a lemon and a rolled-up newspaper.
And in the middle of it all, trying to maintain a semblance of order, was HK416. She stood with her arms crossed, her expression a thundercloud of professional exasperation. Next to her, G11 had curled up on a pile of discarded carpet remnants, fast asleep, using a large, ornate hookah pipe as a pillow.
“Commander,” 416 said as Gentiane approached, her voice a mixture of relief and resignation. “Fancy meeting you here.”
The assembled soldiers, noticing the arrival of an officer, snapped to a clumsy, off-duty version of attention.
“At ease,” Gentiane said, trying to sound casual. “Just inspecting the local… cultural exchange opportunities.”
“Boss! You gotta try the lamb!” the American corporal yelled, holding up a skewer of glistening meat. “It’s way better than the powdered eggs they give us back at base!”
“It’s a bloody madhouse, Major,” the British squaddie grunted. “But the tea’s not half bad. Want a cuppa?”
Gentiane politely declined. She was trying to conduct a covert surveillance mission while surrounded by the loudest, most conspicuous group of people in the entire bazaar. This was not an inspection; it was a liability.
“So,” she began, forcing a relaxed tone as her eyes scanned the crowded laneway.
“Everyone enjoying their leave? Finding everything to your satisfaction?”
“It’s great, ma’am!” one of the French regulars from her own unit chimed in. “We found a little café that serves real wine. Not the synth-grape stuff from the mess hall. It’s almost like being civilized again.”
As they spoke, Gentiane’s gaze swept the crowd. A flash of movement. A man in an expensive, ill-fitting suit, flanked by two large, unsubtle men with suspicious bulges under their jackets. He was trying to look casual, examining a stall selling antique-looking daggers, but his eyes were constantly darting, his posture tense. It was him. It had to be. The bratwurst.
Her heart hammered in her chest. He was here. Now what? She couldn’t just follow him. Not with her entourage of loud, drunk, multinational soldiers. She needed a distraction. She needed to get away from her own troops.
It was at that moment that the universe, in its infinite, cruel sense of humor, provided one. A commotion erupted from a nearby carpet shop. A loud, booming voice, filled with righteous fury, echoed through the bazaar.
“I will not pay that price! It is an insult to my intelligence and my magnificent mustache! This rug is clearly a synthetic blend! I can feel the polyester! It feels cheap! It feels… French!”
General Lee Oliver, in a truly hideous floral-print holiday shirt, was arguing with a tiny, ancient Turkish carpet salesman.
“Sir, this is finest Anatolian wool, hand-woven by masters,” the old man sighed, having clearly had this argument before.
“Bullshit! I know my textiles, you goddamn cheapskate cocksucker! I demand a discount! A military discount! For services to… freedom!” Oliver roared.
The crowd began to turn, drawn by the spectacle of the shouting American. This was her chance.
“416,” Gentiane whispered, her voice low and urgent. “Handle that. Keep him occupied. Don’t let him cause an international incident.”
416’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second, a flicker of pure, unadulterated panic, before her professional mask slammed back into place. “Understood, Commander,” she said, her voice tight. She gave G11 a sharp kick. “Get up. We have a new mission. Babysitting.”
As 416 moved to intervene in the burgeoning textile-based diplomatic crisis, Gentiane slipped away into the crowd, her heart pounding. She was alone now, a ghost in the labyrinth, her eyes fixed on the back of a man in an expensive suit. The mission was on. And her luck, she felt with a chilling certainty, was about to be tested.
The moment Gentiane melted into the throng of the Grand Bazaar, the weight of her rank, her command, and her entourage of well-meaning disasters fell away. She was no longer Major Camus, the Accidental Commander. She was an operator. The transition was instantaneous, a switch flipped in the core of her being. Her senses, dulled by the relentless drone of bureaucracy, sharpened to a razor's edge. The cacophony of the bazaar, once an overwhelming wave of noise, resolved into a symphony of individual sounds she could track and analyze: the scrape of a chair, the clink of a glass, the specific cadence of a GAU dialect in a conversation two stalls away.
Her target, the man in the ill-fitting suit she had mentally designated ‘the bratwurst’, moved with the clumsy uncertainty of a man who was not accustomed to fieldwork. He was trying to be inconspicuous, but his constant, nervous glances and the unsubtle presence of his two hulking bodyguards made him stand out like a pulse rifle at a tea party. Gentiane shadowed him with an ease that surprised even herself, a ghost in the river of people. She used the reflections in polished copper platters to track his movements, the ebb and flow of the crowd to mask her own. This was familiar territory. This was the hunt. It felt, to her profound shame, more natural than sitting behind a desk.
The pursuit led them deeper into the bazaar's labyrinthine heart, away from the bright, tourist-heavy sections and into the shadowy, wholesale districts where the real business was done. Here, the air smelled of raw leather, sawdust, and secrets. The GAU official and his guards ducked into a narrow, unassuming alleyway that led to the back entrance of a spice shop. The air was thick with the pungent aroma of cumin and cardamom.
Gentiane paused, her heart a steady, rhythmic drum against her ribs. She couldn't follow them in directly. She scanned her surroundings, her mind a flurry of tactical calculations. Across the alley, a rickety wooden staircase led up to the second-floor balcony of a textile merchant, a vibrant tapestry hanging over the railing. It was a risk. A high one.
She took it. With a fluid grace she hadn't realized she still possessed, she slipped up the stairs, her footsteps silent on the worn wood. She crouched behind the tapestry, its thick, woollen fabric providing perfect cover. Peering through a small gap in the weave, she had a clear line of sight into the back room of the spice shop.
The scene inside was a cliché of espionage, so perfect it was almost comical. The GAU official, whose name she now knew from a snatched whisper was Fikri, stood sweating profusely despite the relative cool of the storeroom. His two bodyguards stood by the door, their hands inside their jackets. Facing them was a single, impeccably dressed man with pale skin, blond hair, and the cold, dead eyes of a man who sold secrets for a living. He was Danish, judging by the subtle cut of his suit and the faint accent she could just make out.
“The merchandise?” Fikri asked, his voice a nervous squeak.
The Danish dealer smiled, a thin, predatory slash. He placed a sleek, metallic briefcase on a crate of saffron. “The merchandise is as requested. A top-of-the-line Swiss-grade personal cloaking device, a set of untraceable data-chips, and a clean, bio-locked passport for the Argentine Republic.” He opened the case. “Everything a man needs to disappear.”
Gentiane blinked. This wasn't an arms deal. It was a defection. Fikri wasn't buying weapons; he was buying a new life. The bratwurst wasn't a threat; he was a flight risk. This changed everything. Her mission was not to intercept a transfer of illegal arms, but to potentially apprehend a high-ranking GAU official. The diplomatic fallout would be catastrophic.
“The price?” Fikri stammered, his eyes wide as he stared at the contents of the briefcase.
“As agreed,” the dealer said smoothly. “The access codes to the GAU’s southern sector drone surveillance network.”
Fikri hesitated, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. He was about to trade state secrets for a chance to escape. To escape what? The madness of Admiral General Aladeen’s regime, Gentiane guessed. She couldn't blame him.
It was at this critical moment of transaction that the universe, as it was accustomed to do, threw a wrench into the delicate machinery of covert operations. From the alley below, a familiar, booming voice echoed, filled with righteous, textile-based fury.
“I’m telling you, it’s polyester! Feel the texture! It’s got the cheap, synthetic sheen of a French surrender flag!” It was General Oliver. The carpet negotiation had apparently gone mobile.
The figures in the storeroom froze. Fikri’s eyes went wide with panic. The Danish dealer’s hand subtly moved towards a concealed weapon. The two bodyguards drew their pistols.
Gentiane’s mind raced. Oliver’s blundering was about to turn her surveillance mission into a bloodbath. She had to act. Now.
She didn’t draw her weapon. She didn’t call for backup. She did the last thing anyone would have expected. She stood up, stepped out from behind the tapestry, and cleared her throat with a polite, almost apologetic cough.
“Pardon me,” she said, her voice calm and steady, carrying across the alley. “I believe you have something that belongs to me.”
Six heads snapped in her direction. Fikri, his bodyguards, and the dealer stared up at her, their faces masks of pure, unadulterated shock.
Gentiane looked directly at the Danish dealer. “The briefcase,” she said, her tone leaving no room for argument. “It was stolen from my attache this morning. I would like it back. Now. Before I am forced to file a report with the local Turkish authorities and my… very loud American colleagues.” She nodded vaguely in the direction of General Oliver’s continuing tirade.
The dealer stared at her, his mind clearly struggling to process this new, insane variable. Who was this woman? Was she with the GAU? Was she a rival? The sheer, unmitigated confidence in her voice, the calm authority in her eyes… it was deeply unsettling. He was a professional. He knew when a situation had gone sideways. He weighed his options: a potential firefight in a crowded bazaar, or a clean escape.
He made his choice. With a thin, frustrated smile, he slowly closed the briefcase, snapped it shut, and slid it across the crate towards Fikri. “It seems, my friend,” he said, his voice a low hiss, “that your travel plans have been… complicated. My apologies.” He gave a curt nod to Gentiane, a silent acknowledgment from one professional to another, and then, with a speed that was terrifying, he simply vanished into the shadows at the back of the shop.
Fikri was left standing there, his escape route gone, his secrets still secret, facing his two very large, very angry bodyguards and a strange, calm woman on a balcony. He looked like a cornered rat.
It was then that he made his own choice. He looked at his bodyguards, men loyal not to him but to the regime he was trying to flee. He looked at the empty space where his freedom had just been. And he looked up at Gentiane, at her officer’s bearing, at the quiet competence that radiated from her like a physical force. He saw not an enemy, but an alternative. A different, and possibly better, kind of authority.
“Help me,” he whispered, his voice trembling. He took a step back from his own guards. “I surrender. I request political asylum. With… with her.” He pointed a shaky finger up at Gentiane.
The two bodyguards exchanged a look. Their mission had just changed. Their principal was now a traitor. Their new objective was to silence him. Permanently.
They raised their pistols.
Before they could fire, a voice, sharp and clear, cut through the alley. “Drop them.” It was HK416. She had emerged from the crowd, her own sidearm drawn and steady, its muzzle pointed directly at the head of the lead bodyguard. G11, miraculously awake, was behind her, her own weapon up, her sleepy eyes now wide and focused. The rest of Gentiane’s off-duty soldiers, drawn by the commotion, had formed a loose, chaotic, but undeniably intimidating perimeter, their expressions a mixture of confusion and drunken belligerence.
The standoff lasted for a heartbeat. The GAU bodyguards, faced with a dozen angry, armed, and unpredictable foreign soldiers, made the only sane choice. They dropped their weapons.
The apprehension was complete. The bratwurst was retrieved. And Major Gentiane Camus, who had set out on a simple surveillance mission, was now in possession of a high-ranking GAU defector, two prisoners of war, and a diplomatic crisis of potentially catastrophic proportions.
Her first call was not to her superiors. It was to her only reliable asset. “416,” she said into her comm, her voice a low, urgent whisper as she hustled her new, terrified charge through the back alleys of the bazaar. “We have a problem. A big, talkative, politically sensitive problem. I need a safe house. Now. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere no one would ever think to look.”
“Understood, Commander,” 416’s voice came back, blessedly calm. “I have a location in mind. It’s secure. It’s discreet. And I can guarantee no one will look for him there.”
The safe house was not a clandestine apartment or a hidden warehouse. It was the server room. The same server room where G11 had made her nest. When Gentiane arrived, hustling a terrified Fikri through a back entrance of the command post, she found 416 waiting for them. The room was warm, filled with the gentle hum of machinery and the faint smell of sleeping T-Doll.
“Here?” Gentiane whispered, looking around at the racks of humming servers.
“It’s perfect,” 416 replied, her logic impeccable. “No one comes in here except the maintenance techs, and they’re terrified of G11. They think she’s some kind of ghost in the machine. He’ll be safe here. And,” she added, a faint smirk on her lips, “the constant white noise should help him sleep.”
They settled Fikri in a small, cramped corner, gave him a bottle of water and a ration bar, and swore him to silence. He was a nervous wreck, but the sheer, bizarre reality of his hiding place, a server room guarded by a narcoleptic combat android, seemed to have shocked him into a state of quiet compliance.
Just as Gentiane felt she might have the situation under a fragile, temporary control, her personal terminal chimed with an urgent, level-one priority summons.
“Major Camus, you are requested in the main briefing room. Immediately. The President of Turkey is arriving for an unscheduled inspection of the command post. ETA: five minutes.”
Gentiane’s blood ran cold. Atatürk. Here. Now. With a GAU defector hiding in her server room.
She arrived in the main briefing room, her uniform hastily straightened, her face a carefully constructed mask of professional calm. The room was already in a state of barely controlled chaos. General Oliver was trying to arrange a squad of US Army soldiers into a "proper honor guard," a process that mostly involved him shouting, “Suck it in, Johnson! You look like a bag of wet laundry!” General Neuman was sitting at the main conference table, attempting to build a small house out of sugar cubes from the coffee station.
It was into this scene that President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk walked. He moved with a quiet, powerful grace, his sharp eyes taking in every detail. He saw the shouting, the sugar cubes, the general air of institutional panic. His expression, already severe, seemed to harden into granite.
He strode to the center of the room, his presence immediately silencing the chaos. He did not look at the American generals. His gaze fell directly on Gentiane.
“Major Camus,” he said, his voice quiet but carrying the weight of absolute authority.
“Report. What is the current strategic situation on my border?”
Gentiane opened her mouth to deliver the standard, sanitized briefing, but at that moment, her comm unit, concealed in her ear, crackled to life. It was 416’s voice, a frantic, panicked whisper.
“Commander! We have a problem! The defector… he’s allergic to dust! The ventilation kicked on and he’s started sneezing! It’s loud! And G11… she’s talking in her sleep! She’s ordering a pizza! With extra pineapple! What are your orders?!”
Gentiane froze, her mind a screaming vortex of panic. She was standing before a living legend, the leader of her host nation, trying to project an aura of competence and control, while in a server room fifty feet away, a GAU official was having an allergy attack next to a narcoleptic T-Doll who was dreaming of Hawaiian pizza.
Atatürk watched her, his piercing eyes missing nothing. He saw the flicker of panic in her expression, the way her posture had stiffened. He saw the beads of sweat on her brow. He knew this was more than just the stress of briefing a head of state.
He took a step closer, lowering his voice so only she could hear. “Major,” he said, his tone no longer that of a president demanding a report, but of a seasoned old soldier speaking to a junior officer in over her head. “In my experience, when a plan goes this completely to hell, it is usually because of one of two things: enemy action, or allied incompetence. Given the men I see in this room, I have my suspicions as to which it is.”
He held her gaze. “You are a French officer on Turkish soil, in a command structure run by Americans and overseen by a committee in Brussels. You are a Major doing a Brigadier’s job. I do not need to read your report to know that your situation is… complicated.”
He paused, a flicker of something—empathy? respect?—in his eyes. “Whatever it is you are juggling, Major, you do not have to do it alone. This is my country. And I take care of the competent officers who serve here. Now,” he said, his voice returning to a more formal tone, though the message was clear, “tell me about the weather. I hear it is a matter of great strategic importance.”
Gentiane stared at him, a wave of profound, dizzying relief washing over her. He knew. He didn’t know the details, the sheer, mind-bending absurdity of it all, but he knew she was in trouble. And he was offering her a lifeline.
The silence in the briefing room stretched, thin and taut as a tripwire. Atatürk’s words hung in the air, a lifeline thrown into the churning waters of Gentiane’s panic. This is my country. And I take care of the competent officers who serve here. It was not just an offer of help; it was a recognition. He saw her, not as the junior-grade Major she was, but as the commander she was being forced to be. In that single, quiet statement, he had given her more validation than the entire Pan-European High Command had in six months.
She took it.
“The weather, Mr. President,” she began, her voice steady, the tremor of her earlier panic now ruthlessly suppressed and replaced by a cool, professional calm, “is indeed the primary strategic concern.” She turned her back on the American generals, a subtle but deliberate act, and addressed Atatürk directly, as one professional to another. “We have received intelligence suggesting that the Grand Arab Union is attempting to leverage localized atmospheric anomalies to mask troop movements along the border. It is… unconventional. But we are adapting.”
She was bluffing, weaving a story from the thinnest of threads—Oliver’s paranoid delusions and her own desperate need for a cover story. It sounded ridiculous, but in a world where the USA genuinely feared poultry-themed flags and her own commander was lost on a cheese train, “meteorological warfare” was just another Tuesday.
Atatürk’s expression did not change, but a flicker of understanding, of shrewd appraisal, glinted in his sharp eyes. He knew she was lying. But he also recognized the quality of the lie. It was a good one. A plausible one. It was the kind of lie a competent officer tells to protect an operation from the blundering interference of her superiors. He gave a single, almost imperceptible nod. He was playing along. He was in on the secret.
“I see,” he said, his tone grave.
“Unconventional tactics require unconventional countermeasures. I trust you have the situation under control, Major.”
“We do, Mr. President,” Gentiane confirmed, her confidence bolstered by his silent partnership.
It was at this moment that General Oliver, who had been listening to their quiet exchange with the baffled impatience of a man who had been left out of an inside joke, decided to reassert his authority. “Weather warfare!” he boomed, striding forward. “I knew it! They’re fighting dirty, the bastards! Camus, what’s your plan? I recommend an immediate retaliatory cloud-seeding operation! We’ll give them a rainstorm so patriotic it’ll wash the tyranny right off their sandals!”
Gentiane turned to face him, her mind racing. She had to give him something, a task so seemingly important it would keep him occupied, but so utterly pointless it couldn’t possibly interfere with her real mission: hiding a GAU defector in the server room. The answer came to her, inspired by the very source of her current misery.
“An excellent suggestion, General,” she said, her voice dripping with a sincerity she did not feel. “But a direct atmospheric assault could be seen as an escalation. I believe a more… subtle approach is required. A counter-intelligence operation.”
She leaned in, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “We have reason to believe the GAU is using a network of local informants to gather data on our own weather patterns. They are trying to steal our clouds.
Oliver’s eyes widened. “Steal our… clouds?”
“Precisely,” Gentiane continued, warming to her theme. “Therefore, I need you and General Neuman to spearhead a critical counter-intelligence mission. Operation: Foggy Bottom. Your objective is to identify and neutralize this network of informants. They will likely be found in places where people gather, where whispers are exchanged. Cafes, markets, public squares…”
“You mean… you want us to go hang out in the city?” General Neuman asked, his interest finally piqued. He had finished his sugar-cube house and was now trying to balance a spoon on his nose.
“It is a vital reconnaissance-in-force, General,” Gentiane said, her face a mask of grim seriousness. “You will be our eyes and ears on the ground. Blend in. Observe. Identify any suspicious individuals who seem overly interested in the barometric pressure. But you must be discreet. This is a mission of the utmost subtlety.”
Oliver’s chest puffed out. A secret mission. A spy hunt. This was the kind of war he understood. “Subtlety is my middle name!” he declared, a statement that was objectively untrue in every conceivable way.
“Don’t you worry, Camus. We’ll find these cloud-spies. We’ll root them out. Alfred, come on! We’re going undercover with the boys!”
He grabbed Neuman by the arm and began marching him towards the door. “First stop, that little place with the good baklava. I’ve had my eye on the waiter. He looks shifty.”
They stormed out of the briefing room, two agents of chaos now unleashed upon the unsuspecting civilian population of Istanbul, their minds filled with visions of a glorious, pastry-fueled spy hunt.
The moment the door closed behind them, a profound silence fell over the room.
Gentiane stood perfectly still, her heart hammering in her chest. It had worked. It was the stupidest, most insane plan she had ever concocted, and it had worked perfectly.
Atatürk turned to her, a slow, dry smile touching his lips for the first time.
“Operation: Foggy Bottom,” he said, his voice laced with a deep, weary amusement.
“Very creative, Major. You have managed to weaponize their incompetence. A rare and valuable skill.” He walked towards the door.
“You have bought yourself some time. Do not waste it.” He paused, his hand on the door handle. “And if you require any… logistical support that your own command structure is unable to provide, my office is always open. The Turkish Republic prefers to deal with professionals.”
He left. Gentiane was alone in the silent briefing room. She had just successfully bluffed the two most powerful American generals in the sector and secured a tentative alliance with a legend. The insecurity was still there, a cold knot in her stomach, but it was now joined by a new, unfamiliar feeling. A flicker of self-reliance. A dangerous spark of confidence. Maybe, just maybe, she could actually pull this off.
Her first priority was Fikri. She made her way to the server room, her mind racing. She needed to get him out of the command post, out of the city. She needed to contact her superiors, to navigate the bureaucratic nightmare of a high-level defection.
She found 416 standing guard outside the server room door, her arms crossed, her expression bored. “Situation?” Gentiane asked.
“The asset is stable,” 416 reported. “His sneezing has subsided. G11 has stopped ordering pizza and has moved on to muttering about the merits of different pillow-stuffing materials. All quiet.”
Gentiane entered the room. Fikri was huddled in the corner, looking terrified. G11 was curled up on a pile of network cables, fast asleep.
“Fikri,” Gentiane began, her voice low and calm. “We’re going to get you out of here. But I need you to trust me.”
Before he could answer, her phone chimed. It was a message. An encrypted, high-priority message. From Brigadier General Galeazzo Musolesi.
Her blood ran cold. He was early. The cheese train must have been surprisingly efficient. This was it. The end of the line. Her brief, accidental command was over.
With a sense of impending doom, she opened the message.
“To: Acting Commander Camus.
From: Brigadier General Musolesi, en route.
Subject: URGENT - Change of Plans.
My dearest Major,
Regrettably, my arrival in Istanbul has been momentarily postponed due to a minor, yet delicious, logistical complication. The cheese train, it transpires, was not bound for Switzerland, but was in fact a key component of a EuroBabel-sponsored ‘Culinary Diplomacy’ initiative destined for a cheese festival in the Netherlands. The situation is complex. I have been mistaken for a judge.
However, this unforeseen detour has presented a unique strategic opportunity! While here, I have engaged in high-level talks with the Dutch Minister of Dairy and have secured a vital new asset for our mission in Turkey. I have, with my renowned diplomatic skill, procured a platoon of their elite combat forces. They are highly trained, fiercely motivated, and specialize in amphibious operations. They are, I am assured, the best of the best.
They will be arriving at your command post within 48 hours. Their operational designation is ‘The Clog-hoppers.’ Please arrange suitable accommodation for them and their… equipment. I am told they travel with their own specialized transport.
Expect my own arrival shortly thereafter, as soon as I have finished judging the Gouda category. Do not, I repeat, do not misplace the Dutch. They are very important.
Yours in victory and cheese,
Brigadier General G. Musolesi.”
Gentiane stared at the message, her mind struggling to process the sheer, layered absurdity of it all. The cheese festival. The Dutch. The Clog-hoppers. Her incompetent, cowardly, and now apparently cheese-judging superior had just sent her a platoon of Dutch amphibious commandos. To a command post in Turkey. To fight a desert war.
She looked at the terrified defector huddled in the corner. She thought of the two American generals currently hunting for cloud-spies in a baklava shop. She thought of the living legend who thought she was a competent professional. And now, she had to prepare for the arrival of the Dutch.
The forty-eight hours following Atatürk’s impromptu inspection were the quietest Gentiane had known since her arrival in Turkey. It was a deeply unsettling, unnatural calm, the kind of dead air that precedes a hurricane. She used the time to consolidate her impossible situation. Fikri, the GAU defector, remained hidden in the server room, his dust allergy managed with a steady supply of antihistamines procured by 416 from a bewildered Turkish pharmacist.
He passed the time by nervously teaching G11 how to play gin rummy, a game she was surprisingly good at in her sleep.
Generals Oliver and Neuman were still on their glorious, city-wide hunt for “cloud-spies,” an operation that had so far resulted in the successful apprehension of three suspicious-looking pigeons and a strongly worded diplomatic complaint from a German bakery whose strudel they had declared a “potential security threat.” They were, for the moment, someone else’s problem.
Gentiane allowed herself a sliver of hope. Maybe, just maybe, the sheer, gravitational pull of incompetence that defined her command had created a stable orbit of absurdity. Maybe she could get Fikri debriefed, hand him over to the proper channels in Brussels, Rome, Paris or Bonn, and be done with this whole mess before the cheese train and its idiotic conductor finally arrived.
Hope, she should have remembered, is the first step on the road to disappointment.
The chaos arrived precisely at 1400 hours on a Wednesday, and it arrived from two directions at once.
The first sign of trouble was the sound. It was a bizarre, rhythmic symphony of sloshing water, squeaking rubber, and a chorus of cheerful, off-key sea shanties sung in Dutch. From her office window overlooking the Bosphorus, Gentiane watched in stunned disbelief as their new reinforcements made their grand entrance.
It was not a fleet of landing craft or a squadron of sleek naval vessels. It was a flotilla of twenty heavily armed, military-grade amphibious bicycles.
Each vehicle was pedaled by a single, grim-faced Dutch marine, his expression a mask of stoic professionalism. The bicycles were marvels of absurd engineering, equipped with oversized flotation tires, a small propeller at the back, and a heavy machine gun mounted on the handlebars. Behind each marine, a second soldier sat facing backwards, providing rear security and, apparently, vibes. A significant portion of these rear-gunners were visibly, profoundly stoned, their eyes red-rimmed, their movements languid, their helmets adorned with small, plastic tulips. They were the “elite”. They were the Clog-hoppers.
As this bizarre armada pedaled its way towards the command post’s private dock, a second, even more ominous sight appeared on the landward side. A convoy of three large, refrigerated trucks, flanked by two Turkish military police outriders, was rumbling up the main drive. The lead truck was painted with a massive, cheerful logo of a smiling Dutch girl holding a wheel of cheese.
Brigadier General Galeazzo Musolesi had arrived.
He did not emerge from a staff car. He was riding shotgun in the lead cheese truck, beaming like a man who had just won the lottery. He wore a crisp, new uniform that was already slightly too tight, and a Dutch farmer’s cap perched jauntily on his head. He hopped out of the truck, clutching a massive, wax-sealed wheel of aged Gouda like a beloved child.
“Camus!” he boomed, his voice a trumpet of misplaced confidence. “Behold! The spoils of diplomacy! This, my dear girl, is the taste of victory! And cheese! Mostly cheese!”
Gentiane met him on the steps of the command post, her mind a screaming vortex of panic. The Dutch were here. Her commander was here. And he had brought a convoy of dairy products.
“General Musolesi,” she said, her voice a carefully controlled monotone. “Welcome to Istanbul. Your arrival is… unexpected.”
“Nonsense! I am a master of logistics!”
Musolesi declared, patting his cheese wheel proudly. “And I have brought friends!” He gestured to the amphibious cyclists, who were now disembarking at the dock with a surprising, disciplined efficiency, their movements a stark contrast to the lazy, beatific smiles on the faces of the rear-gunners. “The Royal Dutch Marine Corps’ elite ‘Water-Fiets’ Brigade! The finest amphibious cyclists in the world! They are here to assist us in our glorious struggle!”
He then turned and introduced the man who had been driving the truck, a large, ruddy-faced man in overalls. “And this is my new primary strategic advisor, Hendrik. He is a master cheese-maker. His insights into the subtle art of fermentation will be invaluable in our campaign against the GAU.” Hendrik the cheese-maker just nodded shyly and offered Gentiane a small piece of Gouda on a cracker.
It was at this precise moment of peak absurdity that Generals Oliver and Neuman returned from their spy hunt. They screeched to a halt in their jeep, their faces flushed with triumph.
“Camus! We’ve cracked it!” Oliver roared, leaping from the vehicle. “The cloud-spy network! It’s bigger than we ever imagined!”
“Yeah!” Neuman added, holding up a small, terrified-looking cat. “This little guy was using a complex series of meows to transmit secrets! He’s a purr-petrator! Get it? Purrr-petrator?”
Oliver and Neuman froze as they took in the scene. They saw the Dutch marines. They saw the cheese trucks. They saw the Italian Brigadier General holding a wheel of Gouda and conferring with a farmer. Their minds, already primed for conspiracy, made an instant, spectacular leap of flawed logic.
“Godammit!” Oliver bellowed, pointing an accusatory finger at Musolesi. “So this is your game! A European plot! You’re not here to fight the GAU! You’re here to seize control of the region’s strategic dairy reserves! This is a cheese-based coup!”
Musolesi stared at him, his mouth agape. “A… a cheese coup? That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard! This is a gesture of goodwill! A symbol of our new alliance with our Dutch comrades!”
“A likely story!” Oliver retorted. “We will not allow our vital breakfast resources to fall into the hands of a corrupt, cheese-mongering European cabal! This is a matter of American national security!”
The situation was spiraling, a beautiful, multi-national disaster of misunderstanding. And it was about to get worse.
Musolesi, in an attempt to prove his good intentions and demonstrate his new command authority, decided to take charge.
“This is nonsense!” he declared. “Camus, your report! What is the status of our… our local outreach program? I was informed we had a cultural exchange officer from the GAU visiting the base!”
Gentiane’s blood turned to ice. He knew. A misread report, a garbled transmission… somehow, the news of Fikri’s presence had reached him.
“General,” she began, her mind racing for a plausible lie. “The situation with the… cultural exchange officer… is highly sensitive.”
“Nonsense!” Musolesi boomed, puffing out his chest. “We must show our new allies our hospitality! We will welcome him! With cheese! And a parade! Where is he? I will greet him personally!”
He began to march towards the main entrance of the command post, a man on a collision course with a diplomatic incident of epic proportions.
A frantic whisper from 416 crackled in Gentiane’s ear. “Commander, Musolesi is heading for the main lobby. Fikri is still in the server room, one floor up. But Oliver’s men are sweeping the building for ‘contraband dairy’! They’ll find him!”
Gentiane had seconds to act. She couldn’t let Musolesi find Fikri. She couldn’t let Oliver find Fikri. She had to move her asset, now.
“416,” she whispered into her comm, her back to the arguing generals. “Plan B. Get him out of the building. Use the west-side maintenance exit. I’ll create a distraction.”
“What’s Plan B, Commander?” 416 asked.
“I don’t know,” Gentiane hissed back. “I’m making it up right now!”
She turned, her face a mask of calm authority. “Sirs!” she called out, her voice cutting through the argument. “A moment of your time. We have a development.” She strode over to the tactical map of the border.
“General Oliver, your concerns about the GAU’s poultry-themed propaganda were not unfounded. We have just received new intelligence.” She tapped a random spot on the map. “This location. We believe it to be the primary breeding ground for their elite… attack chickens.”
Oliver’s eyes lit up with a feral gleam.
“Attack chickens…”
“And General Musolesi,” she continued, turning to the Italian. “This breeding ground is located adjacent to what our intelligence suggests is a massive, underground cavern of… naturally aged, strategically significant goat cheese. A prize worthy of a great commander.”
It was a stupid, desperate, and utterly transparent lie. And they bought it. Completely.
“Goat cheese…” Musolesi whispered, his eyes glazing over.
“Attack chickens…” Oliver breathed, his hand instinctively going to his sidearm.
“I believe a joint Euro-American operation is required to secure the cheese and neutralize the chickens,” Gentiane stated, her face perfectly straight. “A mission of the utmost importance. I will coordinate from here. Your men await your orders.”
The two generals, their petty squabble forgotten in the face of a new, glorious, and entirely fictional objective, began barking orders at their respective aides. The distraction was working.
But as Gentiane was directing the chaos, a new message flashed on her phone. It was from Atatürk’s office.
“Major Camus. The President has been monitoring the unscheduled arrival of foreign troops and dairy products at your command post. He is… concerned. He is dispatching a liaison from his personal staff to ‘observe and facilitate inter-alliance harmony.’ The liaison’s name is Colonel Hakan. He is ex-Turkish Special Forces. He does not have a sense of humor. He will be there in one hour.”
Gentiane felt a wave of dizziness. She was now juggling a defector, two idiot American generals, an incompetent Italian commander, a platoon of stoned Dutch marines, and now, a humorless Turkish Special Forces colonel who was coming to see what all the noise was about.
It was at this precise moment of maximum pressure that the universe decided to finally, irrevocably, call her bluff. A series of sharp cracks echoed from the direction of the western maintenance exit. Gunfire.
416’s voice, tight with panic, screamed in her ear. “Commander, we’re compromised! GAU special forces! They’re here! They found us!”
The GAU, tired of waiting for their missing official, had sent a team to get him back.
The firefight erupted with shocking speed.
The GAU team, a squad of six elite soldiers in desert camouflage, burst from the alleyway, their weapons firing. They had clearly tracked Fikri to the exit.
General Oliver, seeing the GAU soldiers, let out a roar of pure, triumphant fury. “Aha! The chicken-herders reveal themselves! They’ve come for the cheese! To arms! To arms!” He began firing his pistol wildly in the air.
The Dutch marines, who had been calmly setting up their amphibious bicycles in neat rows, reacted with a surprising, professional speed. Their training kicked in. The half of them who weren’t high formed a disciplined firing line, their machine guns chattering.
The other half, their eyes wide with a mixture of confusion and delight, also opened fire, though their targets seemed to be chosen at random. One of them, with a beatific smile on his face, began shooting at a particularly aggressive-looking garden gnome on the command post lawn.
Brigadier General Musolesi, at the first sound of gunfire, did what he did best. He shrieked, dropped his prize-winning wheel of Gouda, and dove behind one of his cheese trucks.
The command post had devolved into a three-way firefight. The GAU fought the Dutch. The Dutch fought the GAU. And the Americans, under the impression that this was all part of a complex battle for dairy supremacy, fought everyone.
Gentiane stood in the middle of it all, a silent, stationary point in a hurricane of bullets, cheese, and profound stupidity. Her luck had not just run out. It had packed its bags, moved to another continent, and changed its name.
The world had dissolved into a fever dream of gunpowder and dairy. The air, thick with the salty tang of the Bosphorus, was now laced with the acrid smoke of pulse rifles, the sharp crack of conventional firearms, and the rich, nutty aroma of high-quality Gouda. Bullets whizzed past marble columns. A wheel of cheese, dislodged from its truck by a stray burst of machine-gun fire, rolled majestically across the courtyard before crashing into a fountain. The Dutch marines, half of them fighting with the grim professionalism of seasoned soldiers and the other half with the cheerful, uncoordinated glee of men who had just discovered a new and exciting video game, had turned the command post lawn into a chaotic free-fire zone.
In the center of this maelstrom, Major Gentiane Camus stood perfectly still. The imposter syndrome, the gnawing self-doubt that had been her constant companion for months, had been vaporized in the heat of the firefight. It was a baptism by fire, a violent and profoundly stupid exorcism. The part of her brain that worried about her rank, about protocol, about the impending arrival of her idiot commander, had gone silent. All that remained was the cold, clear, and terrifyingly calm mind of a G&K field commander.
This was not a diplomatic incident. This was a tactical problem. A very, very messy one.
“416,” she said into her comm, her voice a blade of ice that cut through the din. “Talk to me.”
“Pinned down at the west gate, Commander!” 416’s reply was tight, punctuated by the sharp crack of her rifle.
“GAU team is trying to flank us. They’re good. Professional. Not like these clowns.” A burst of automatic fire underscored her point. “Fikri is attempting to curl into a ball and die of fright. G11 is awake and complaining that the gunfire is interfering with her nap schedule.”
“Understood,” Gentiane said. “I’m creating a path. Be ready to move in sixty seconds.”
She surveyed the battlefield, her mind processing the chaos, breaking it down into a series of exploitable variables.
Variable 1: The Americans. General Oliver was leading a squad of US Army grunts in a valiant, if deeply misguided, assault on the cheese trucks, which he believed to be the command center of the “EuroBabel Cheese Cabal.” They were providing excellent, if unintentional, suppressing fire on the GAU team’s left flank.
Variable 2: The Dutch. The Clog-hoppers were a wildcard. The sober half was laying down disciplined fire from the dock. The stoned half was… creative. One of them was currently trying to use his amphibious bicycle’s propeller to generate a “tactical smokescreen” of water, which was mostly just getting everyone wet.
Variable 3: Musolesi. The Brigadier General was still hiding behind a truck full of Edam, occasionally peeking out to shout encouraging, unhelpful things in Italian. He was not an asset. He was cover.
The plan formed in her mind, a desperate, beautiful, and utterly insane piece of tactical improvisation.
“General Musolesi!” she yelled, her voice ringing with a newfound, unquestionable authority. The Brigadier General peeked out from behind his truck, his eyes wide with terror.
“Sir, I need a diversion! A grand gesture! Something to rally the troops and confuse the enemy!”
Musolesi blinked. A grand gesture? He was good at those! “A… a speech?” he stammered.
“Bigger!” Gentiane commanded. “Think bigger! Think… cheese!”
A flicker of understanding, of pure, patriotic inspiration, dawned on Musolesi’s face. He looked at the massive refrigerated truck he was hiding behind. He looked at the firefight. He looked at the ramp leading up to the command post’s main plaza. He understood.
“Hendrik!” he roared at the terrified cheese-maker, who was hiding behind a different truck. “Start the engine! For the glory of Italy! And for the glory of dairy!”
With a groan of protesting gears, the massive cheese truck began to roll forward. Musolesi, his fear momentarily forgotten in a blaze of performative heroism, ran alongside it, waving a small Italian flag he had produced from his pocket.
“General Oliver!” Gentiane barked into the American comm channel. “The cheese-mongers are making a break for it! They’re moving their primary asset! Do not let it escape!”
“They’re what?!” Oliver roared back. “Not on my watch! All units, concentrate fire on the lead truck! Stop that cheese!”
The American soldiers, with a unified cry of patriotic fury, swiveled their weapons and unleashed a torrent of fire on Musolesi’s truck. The bullets sparked harmlessly against the refrigerated armor. The truck, now a moving wall of steel, lumbered directly into the GAU team’s line of fire, blocking their advance on 416’s position.
“416, now!” Gentiane commanded. “Move! Head for the docks! The Dutch are your exit!”
“On our way, Commander!”
Gentiane saw them break cover, a blur of motion. 416 in the lead, laying down precise covering fire. Fikri, half-dragged, half-carried between her and a now-fully-awake and deeply annoyed G11, who was firing her rifle from the hip with surprising accuracy, her eyes still half-closed.
The GAU team, their flank blocked by a bullet-proof cheese truck and their front line suppressed by the Americans, were momentarily thrown into chaos. But they were professionals. Their commander, seeing his primary target escaping, redirected his team. They abandoned their fight with the Americans and began a disciplined, bounding retreat towards the docks, trying to cut off Gentiane’s team.
The firefight shifted, a rolling, chaotic battle moving through the manicured lawns and statues of the command post. The Dutch marines on the dock, seeing the GAU soldiers advancing on their position, redoubled their fire. One of the stoned marines, with a cry of “For the tulips!”, managed to get his amphibious bicycle’s propeller spinning fast enough to launch a volley of water-logged garden gnomes (which he had apparently been using as ballast) towards the enemy. The attack was tactically useless, but profoundly confusing.
Gentiane ran, her pistol drawn, providing her own covering fire. She was no longer thinking. She was moving, reacting, her body and mind a single, focused instrument of combat. The years at G&K, the endless simulations, the real-world firefights… it all came flooding back, not as memory, but as pure, instinctual competence.
They reached the docks just as the GAU team was closing in. Fikri was bundled onto one of the amphibious bicycles, its sober Dutch pilot looking deeply confused but following orders.
“Go!” Gentiane yelled, shoving the bicycle away from the dock. “Get him to the Turkish coast guard! Tell them he’s a diplomatic asset!”
The GAU commander, seeing his prize escaping, let out a furious roar and raised his rifle for a final, desperate shot at the pedaling Dutchman.
He never fired.
A single, sharp crack echoed from the rooftop of the command post. The GAU commander’s rifle flew from his hands, shattered by a perfect, impossible shot.
Everyone froze, looking up.
Perched on the edge of the roof, silhouetted against the grey Istanbul sky, was General Alfred E. Neuman. He was holding a high-powered sniper rifle, a thin curl of smoke rising from its barrel. The cat he had “apprehended” was sitting calmly on his shoulder.
“What, me worry?” Neuman said to himself, a lazy, untroubled grin on his face. He then lowered the rifle and took a large bite of a donut.
The surviving GAU soldiers stared at their disarmed commander, then at the strange, grinning man on the roof, then at the flotilla of armed, water-biking Dutchmen. They were outgunned, outmaneuvered, and profoundly out-crazed. Their mission was a failure. With a final, disciplined volley of covering fire, they retreated, melting back into the alleys of the city.
Silence descended upon the command post, broken only by the gentle lapping of the Bosphorus, the distant sound of a cheese truck crashing into a statue of a forgotten Ottoman admiral, and the quiet, contented purring of the cat on General Neuman’s shoulder.
The aftermath was a scene of breathtaking, surreal carnage. The lawn was littered with shell casings, discarded cheese rinds, and several deeply confused-looking garden gnomes. The Dutch were securing the perimeter, their movements now uniformly professional, somewhat, the battle having apparently sobered them up. General Oliver was trying to claim the crashed cheese truck as a war prize. And Brigadier General Musolesi was tearfully trying to scrape what was left of his prize-winning Gouda off the base of the statue.
It was into this scene that a sleek, black military vehicle rolled to a silent halt. The doors opened, and a man in the crisp, severe uniform of a Turkish colonel stepped out. He was tall, lean, and his face was a granite mask of controlled discipline. His eyes, cold and sharp, took in the entire chaotic tableau in a single, sweeping glance. This was Colonel Hakan. The humorless observer.
He walked through the debris, his boots making no sound. He did not look at the arguing generals or the weeping Italian. His gaze fell only on Gentiane, who stood by the dock, her pistol still warm in her hand, her face smudged with grime, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
He stopped before her. He surveyed the scene one last time: the neutralized GAU threat, the secured defector, the contained chaos. He then looked at her, and for the first time, a flicker of something that wasn't cold, hard discipline appeared in his eyes. It was a look of profound, professional respect.
“Major Camus,” he said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. “My president sends his regards. He informed me that the weather on the border was… unpredictable today.” He gave a single, sharp nod. “You have handled the storm with admirable skill. Turkey is in your debt.”
He then turned, without another word, got back into his vehicle, and drove away, leaving Gentiane standing in the quiet aftermath of her own impossible victory.
Later that evening, in the quiet of her office, Gentiane sat at her desk. The command post was slowly returning to a state of semi-normalcy. Fikri was safely in the hands of Turkish intelligence. The Dutch had been given new, dry uniforms. And the Americans had been placated with the promise of a delivery from the city’s only deep-dish pizza restaurant.
A formal commendation sat on her desk. It was from Brigadier General Musolesi. It praised her “bold and decisive leadership during the attempted hostile takeover of strategic dairy assets” and recommended her for the “Pan-European Cross of Courage.” It was the single most idiotic document she had ever read.
She leaned back in her chair, the exhaustion hitting her like a physical blow. She had done it. She had survived. She had won.
The imposter, the fraud, the accidental commander… had held the line.
Her terminal chimed. A new message had arrived. It was from EuroBabel High Command in Brussels. The subject line was simple: “RE: YOUR COMMAND IN ISTANBUL.”
She stared at the message, her heart a slow, heavy drum. This was it. The verdict. Her reward, or her punishment. Would they promote her, trapping her here forever in this gilded asylum? Would they dismiss her for the sheer, catastrophic level of property damage she had overseen? Or would Musolesi, in a final act of cowardly self-preservation, blame the entire cheese-and-gunfire fiasco on her and have her reassigned to a weather station in the Canary Islands?
Her hand hovered over the phone, trembling slightly. For the first time in a long time, Major Gentiane Camus had no idea what was coming next. And she wasn’t sure if that was terrifying, or if it was just another Tuesday.