Chapter 150:

Words : 1037 Updated : Sep 17th, 2025

Chapter 150: "We’ve never seen this kind of war.”The sun was hard over the Aragonese hills. In the early morning haze, armored trucks rose dust into the air Major Étienne Moreau stood beside the turret of a Renault AMC-34, binoculars in hand, watching the terrain. The land was dry, fractured like the way Republic fought. Renaud approached with a rolled map and two steaming cups of bitter black coffee. "Barbastro’s militia units are dug in around the southern ridgeline. The Nationalists are expected to move in from the Monzón road by nightfall. Intel says two thousand at most mostly Falangist volunteers and elements of the Spanish Legion." Moreau sipped from the tin cup. "And we ready?" "Yes. Two thousand eight hundred. One hundred ten light armor. Thirty-six mountain infantry teams, twenty-four PAP recon squads. Six batteries of mobile artillery. And three companies from the 5th Night Company rotating in behind the main line." Moreau nodded. "Good ground for maneuver." "No trenches?" Renaud asked, knowing the answer. "None," Moreau said. "We don’t bury men in Spain. We move." Far off, the faint noise of diesel engines hinted at the approaching enemy. Forty kilometers west, in a commandeered farmhouse-turned-field HQ, General Heinz Guderian examined aerial photographs tacked to a canvas wall. Gruppe Dornen his unofficial battlegroup consisted of two thousand men, sixty Panzer I tanks, mobile artillery, and a skeleton logistics crew flown in under the guise of humanitarian aid. "These aren’t Soviet deployments," he murmured, tapping a finger against blurred lines. "It’s too fast. Too clean." A young lieutenant leaned in. "Spanish units?" "No. Something else." "What’s our next move, Herr General?" Guderian gave a thin smile. "We’re not ready to play our hand. Let’s watch their first." By 09:30, near the dusty outskirts of Barbastro, French forward observers gave the message. "Column spotted. 12 trucks. Three armored cars. Movement cautious. Unaware." From a concealed rock hollow, a PAP recon officer whispered to his side who took the message back to Moreau "Eyes on. Marking lead vehicle now." "Confirmed," Moreau replied. "Let them pass the grove. Wait for second wave. Then strike." At 10:03, the air trembled. Two PAP-35s hidden under netting sprang to life, their muzzles igniting with precision. The lead truck exploded into a cloud of steel and limbs. Behind it, the Renaults burst from wheat groves like wolves from a thicket, armor shining under the harsh sun. "Vanguard engage! Cut the tail!" barked a tank commander over comms. The French tanks hit the column like a cleaver. One turned sharply, ramming a truck off the dirt path, flipping it into a ditch. Flames erupted. The Nationalist rear guard scrambled, confused and scattered. One shouted into his field phone. "Ambush! North quadrant! Too fast can’t fix them!" "Get the Maxim set....GET....." The voice was cut short by the burst of a high-velocity cannon. On a hillock, a team from the 5th Night Company crouched with scoped rifles, eliminating runners and radio teams. Their lieutenant gave hand signals in silence no words, only death. Within 12 minutes, half the Nationalist convoy was in flames. Screams rang from the lowland. In the center of the Nationalist line, Captain Ignacio Villa tried to regroup. "On me! Form up behind the ridge!" His voice cracked as tracer rounds licked the rocks above. Searᴄh the novel(F~)ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. "They’re flanking! GODDAMN IT, FLANKING...." He turned to his second-in-command. "What the hell are we fighting?" "I don’t know, Captain. They’re ghosts." Back at Moreau’s field post, a junior officer brought the news. "Enemy retreating south, scattered. Remaining armor forming a defensive arc." Moreau nodded. "Now send in the firewalkers." Ten minutes later, a French flamethrower unit moved through a burned olive grove. One soldier paused to wipe blood from eyes. "Clear the southern arc," their sergeant ordered. "Anyone firing dies. Anyone hiding burns." And they did. A group of Falangists attempted to regroup behind a crumbled farmhouse. They didn’t expect French had mined the rear wall. One click, one detonation and the building folded like paper. The Spanish militia fighters watching from afar stared wide-eyed. "Madre de Dios... they don’t fight like us," whispered one man. "No," his comrade replied. "They fight like they’ve already seen this war." By 10:40, the valley was still. Nationalist forces either dead, captured or in full retreat. In a forward dugout, a Catalan militia leader approached Moreau. "You turned them inside out," he said in awe. "We’ve never seen this kind of war." Moreau replied, "You will. Get used to it." At noon, a radio report reached Guderian’s HQ. "Confirmed losses: 1,100 men. 21 vehicles. South column annihilated. French mechanized force confirmed in sector." He set the report aside and rubbed his eyes. "They’re practising a doctrine," he muttered. "And we weren’t invited." His aide asked quietly, "Should we respond?" "No," Guderian said. "Not yet. Not without air superiority." He turned to his strategy board, moved a red marker closer to Zaragoza. "But soon." That night, Moreau sat beside his truck, still in full gear, helmet in his lap. The heat because more worse. Renaud arrived with a battered crate of bread and wine. He tossed the flask at Moreau. "Cheers to confusing the hell out of them." Moreau took a long pull. "What do the locals say?" "They’re calling us lightning men." "I like it," Moreau said. "Lightning leaves scars." In the next field over, French troops huddled with Republicans, passing bread, swapping names and cigarettes. There was laughter, nervous, unsurity. "They didn’t expect us to come," one soldier murmured. "And now?" his comrade asked. "Now they know." A young girl, barely sixteen and wearing a red bandana, leaned against a stone, staring at the quiet tanks parked under the stars. "Do you think he’ll stay?" she asked. Another woman, loading rifles, nodded. "Moreau? If he’s who they say he is...he’s only just begun." And somewhere across the plains. Heinz Guderian looked over his reports and wondered how far the French were willing to take this. And whether the books of war they both studied still had room for the old rules.

Chapter 150:

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