A cloud of dust rose over the Somme as the Sanglier Mk VI trundled into position, its twin turrets swiveling like metal eyes scanning no-man's-land.
This was not a test run. This was war.
Emil Dufort stood behind a reinforced communications post two kilometers away, hunched over a field relay map. His voice crackled over the short-range wireless set:
"Maintain trench-skirting route. Elevation plus fifteen degrees. Look for artillery pit. They'll use plunging fire."
Inside the tank, Lieutenant Jules Armand nodded, guiding the 30-ton behemoth through deep furrows of blasted earth. The crew had been handpicked—trained in the forge under Emil's direction. They were loyal, disciplined, and terrified.
They had to be. Because ahead of them waited a new monster.
Steel Meets Steel
The German Donnerschädel emerged like a nightmare from the fog—sleek, tall, plated in riveted armor darker than night. Two dual-barreled turrets locked into position.
The battlefield froze.
Then, thunder.
The Sanglier Mk VI fired first—its high-velocity 75mm main cannon cracking like a god's hammer. The shell struck the Donnerschädel's flank, leaving a gash of scorched iron—but not breaching it.
The German response was immediate. A shell slammed into the Mk VI's frontal plate, denting but not penetrating. Emil watched from the comms post, breath caught.
"Jules, right tread pivot! Lure them toward the ridge!"
"Acknowledged!" came the reply.
The Mk VI turned, absorbing fire while counter-rotating one turret. Then the second barrel fired—an experimental armor-piercing incendiary round Emil had secretly commissioned.
The Donnerschädel staggered.
And began to burn.
Profit and Power
Back in Leclerc, the telegrams flooded in:
The Ministry of War requesting ten more Mk VIs by spring.
A private proposal from a neutral arms consortium in Switzerland offering a five million franc advance for "exclusive foreign rights."
Renault demanding a meeting. Again.
Emil sat in the lounge of his newly renovated manor—once a derelict farmhouse on the outskirts of the factory, now a stately home of lacquered oak floors, brushed brass fittings, and a growing library of engineering texts and military histories.
He didn't care about the velvet armchairs.
But he cared about what they symbolized.
"Wealth is leverage," he had once told Henriette. "And I intend to apply pressure."
With the profits from the first two military contracts, Emil had:
Rehired fifty displaced workers from bombed-out towns.
Invested in a coal mining startup in Belfort, giving Leclerc priority fuel access.
Purchased new foreign machinery smuggled from neutral Belgium.
Funded the construction of a private hospital wing for wounded veterans.
It wasn't charity. It was infrastructure.
And infrastructure was power.
The Future of Firearms
Marianne burst into Emil's office three nights later, her gloves stained with oil and gunpowder.
"It's done," she said, dropping the prototype on his desk.
The weapon gleamed: a gas-recoil automatic rifle, with a curved magazine and heat-dissipating shroud. Years ahead of its time.
"How many rounds per minute?"
"Two hundred. Maybe more if we switch to full brass casings."
Emil picked it up, inspected the bolt. "You understand what this will do to infantry doctrine?"
"Turn men into storm units," she said. "Or into targets."
"Let's hope we choose the former."
He authorized twenty pre-production units for field testing.
The world wasn't ready.
So Emil would make it ready.
The Line Between Steel and Flesh
Late that night, Henriette entered the manor's drawing room, finding Emil with a ledger in one hand and a tumbler of Armagnac in the other.
She didn't speak at first.
"You don't drink," she said finally.
"I didn't," Emil replied, staring into the fire. "But some things taste better when the stakes are higher."
She crossed the room slowly.
"You've changed."
"The war changed everything."
"No," she said. "You changed first. Before the war caught up."
He looked at her, really looked.
For the first time, he saw the wear in her shoulders, the sleeplessness in her eyes, the fire behind her anger.
She cared. And that terrified him.
"Henriette…"
"Don't say something you can't live with," she said softly.
But she didn't leave.
And he didn't look away.
The fire crackled. The air between them was heavy.
Outside, somewhere in the dark, another telegram was being drafted—an urgent message from Berlin to Vienna:
"The French engineer Dufort has breached threshold. He is now a strategic asset. Contingency Omega recommended."