Published at 23rd of December 2025 8:18 am

Chapter 795: Amigo

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Gunfire echoed through the jungle as cannons and mortars roared overhead, each blast rolling through the canopy like thunder trapped beneath the leaves.

Luzon, Palawan, and the Visayas had all fallen in a year-long campaign of excessive brutality.

Erich had seen war before, whether it was in the Catalonian Plains, or the ruins of Dunkirk. He was a man well versed in combat. But this campaign... was different.

The battlefields of Europe had been clear, decisive, civilized in their own grim way.

Here, in the jungles of the Philippines, war bled into every shadow and every doorway.

He had learned to fear not just the crack of rounds whipping past his skull or the rumble of engines in the distance, but the twitch of a branch, the shifting of brush, the subtle creak of a bamboo wall. Here, anything could kill you, and often did.

In truth, the Central Powers weren’t fighting one enemy. They were fighting three.

The first: conventional U.S. forces, what remained of the Pacific Expeditionary Corps.

The second: loyalist militias of the Filipino Transitional Council, partisans in the jungle, fanatics who fought like ghosts.

The third: villagers who saw themselves as their own faction, treating every outsider as a threat.

Not all villages were hostile, but the ones that were, were better left untouched unless one enjoyed dying to a spear, a machete or some rifle that was older than most of the men fighting in this damn war.

The humidity rotted uniforms. Boots fell apart in weeks. Rifles rusted overnight.

Men went mad from the heat, the insects, the constant ambushes at arm’s length.

And worst of all were the traps, bamboo pits, wire snares, explosives hidden in toys or beneath the corpses of yesterday’s dead.

By comparison, Europe’s wars killed a man cleanly. Which was about the best end a man could ask for in a war.

Today, however, the gunfire was different.

It was overwhelmingly German, Marines, Airborne, and even Thai and Japanese expeditionary troops had converged on the last Allied bastion on Mindanao.

Erich’s brigade pressed the outskirts, testing the defenses of men desperately trying to retreat to their final port.

The return fire was thin. Sporadic.

Every American volley was answered with a hundred shells in reply.

This wasn’t a battle, it wasn’t even a siege, it was a death rattle. the final convulsion of a dying army.

Most of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and its merchant-marine support ships now rested at the bottom of the ocean.

Wespen and Falke jets screamed overhead uncontested. Even the flak guns, once thunderous, now only muttered weakly into the void.

Erich could feel it, victory now sang through the air. A symphony of brutality, a swan song of Democracy.

When the last shot was fired, America would lose its final foothold in the world outside its own borders. And then it would be forced to contend with its own failures.

Perhaps it was because the outcome felt so inevitable that Erich did not bother participating in the slaughter.

Instead, he stood in the muddy street of a jungle village, smoking a cigarette, the bright ember daring any hostile sniper to take the shot.

None did.

By the time the ember reached the filter, the gunfire had faded into scattered whimpers of wounded men bleeding out beneath the canopy, the moon and stars blotted out by the thick veil of foliage overhead.

Erich flicked the cigarette away just as two of his men dragged a prisoner toward him.

Judging by the insignia, the man was a Lieutenant Colonel, likely the officer who had led the battalion Erich’s brigade had fought for the last two hours.

The two troopers kicked him into the mud and saluted.

"Sir," one said, breathless, "he’s the last one. The only bastard with enough sense to surrender after the rest got wiped. I... I don’t recognize the flag on his sleeve. Any idea where he’s from?"

Erich crouched slightly, gripping the man by the chin, forcing him to look up. He spoke in perfect Spanish, smooth, fluent, and aristocratic.

"You’re a long way from Havana, amigo. Where are the Americans? You can’t be the only ones left defending this godforsaken spit of land."

The shame in the Cuban’s eyes answered for him, he didn’t need to speak.

Erich scoffed, drew his sidearm, and put a round through the man’s skull without ceremony. His head snapped back, body collapsing into the mud.

His men didn’t flinch, they’d seen too many such executions. Some had carried out a few themselves.

Erich holstered his pistol without looking at the corpse and turned to the troopers.

"Send word to high command: we have reason to believe the Americans have already evacuated the island. They left their dogs behind to hold the line. I want ISR to confirm before we advance another kilometer. Understood?"

The soldiers saluted sharply and sprinted off toward their comms unit.

Erich stood alone again, staring toward the distant glow of the city, a lure in the darkness, attracting moths to their deaths.

He reached into his coat and fetched another cigarette. His hands trembled only slightly until the first drag hit, the smoke cooling his nerves as it seeped into his lungs and drifted out through his nostrils.

"Unbelievable," he muttered. "With satellites watching every inch of this jungle, they still didn’t bother telling us the Americans had already bailed."

He exhaled a long stream of smoke, watching it swirl into the night like a ghost ascending.

"We’re out here putting down strays... not fighting soldiers."

He looked toward the burning horizon, where the city shook beneath bombardment. Smoke curled skyward like a funeral pyre for an empire that had spread itself too thin.

For a moment, just a moment, Erich felt something unfamiliar. Not pity, not remorse, just recognition.

"The Americans ran," he thought, exhaling smoke through his nose. "Left their allies to die in their place. Maybe they’re smarter than we give them credit for. Or maybe..."

He watched another explosion ripple through the skyline.

"...maybe they’re finally learning fear."

Erich flicked ash into the mud and took another long drag. The jungle sizzled under falling embers.

Behind him lay the bodies of men who never understood the war they’d been abandoned to fight.

Ahead of him lay the end of an era.

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