Commander, I can't reach high command... View Translation

The T-46 "Ironheart" tank rumbled through the dense smoke screen, treads grinding against muddy soil as Commander Filip Kovač peered anxiously through his viewport. The defensive exercises along the western border of Ruvania had gone according to plan until the unexpected fog bank rolled in, severing visual contact with the rest of their battalion. "Radio status, Tomas?" Filip called down to his communications officer. Inside the cramped steel compartment, Communications Specialist Tomas Novak frantically adjusted dials on his equipment, sweat beading on his forehead despite the autumn chill. The usual crackle of static had given way to complete silence. "Nothing, sir! Complete blackout on all frequencies. I've never seen interference like this—it's as if headquarters doesn't exist anymore!" His voice cracked slightly as he switched between channels, finding only dead air where military chatter should have been. "Keep trying," Filip ordered. "Driver, maintain course. We'll break through this smoke eventually." Corporal Mirko Petrović, hunched at the controls, nodded grimly. "Yes, Commander. Though something feels wrong with the terrain. It's... different." The tank pushed forward, and suddenly the smoke thinned. Light flooded through the viewports, not the filtered gray of a autumn military exercise, but bright, clear sunshine. The grinding of the treads changed pitch as they moved from what should have been a packed dirt road onto uneven, undeveloped ground. "What in God's name..." muttered Filip as the landscape revealed itself. From the turret, Gunner Anton Kovačić and Spotter Lukas Horvat stared in stunned silence. Instead of the familiar military testing grounds with their concrete bunkers and barbed wire, rolling green hills stretched before them. And those hills were covered with men—hundreds of them—locked in battle. "Commander," Anton called down, his voice barely audible over the tank's engine. "You need to see this." But Filip was already seeing it. Men in chainmail and plate armor swinging swords and axes. Mounted knights with lances and shields bearing unfamiliar heraldry. Rows of archers in leather jerkins. Two medieval armies clashing in a scene that belonged in a history book, not outside their viewports. "Tomas," Filip said, his professional calm belying his inner turmoil, "are you certain the radio is functioning?" "Completely operational, sir," Tomas replied, face pale in the glow of his instruments.