It was strange, but it was here to fight a very different war than in the past. It had been a long time since a smaller country stood up to the aggression of a much bigger neighbor, much less with this amount of success. This was but one more step, and even relics were important.

I ran my hand along the metal flank, across the rubber wheels on the carriage. Imprinted on the side of the bore: "From death, life." So many people misunderstood. What made this a holy relic wasn't about religion. They all were just human interpretations of a broader concept anyway. I looked over at my team. A Christian, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Muslim, an Atheist. All of them were here for the same core idea that was the source of their respective beliefs. The natural order of the universe was balance, healthy growth among mild chaos, a billion pendulums of life, force, energy, resources, all swinging gently around their center. Any that were pushed too far, held out of place too long, got more pressure to return to how it should be. The most severe imbalances would produce the greatest corrections. It was the universal mandate for balance. The judgement of against those who would defy it. The justice that required sacrifice to restore.

This was an old Soviet gun, repaired, repurposed, and maintained for this battle. It was a good gun. It would help push back the advance of the invaders. It would help keep safe my mother, my sister, my wife, and my son. It wasn't one of the incredible triple 7s but I was proud of it and of what my team could do with it.

I patted the barrel again as the ready signal came over the radio, and our signal officer began punching the coordinates into the targeting computer, then called out the angle, elevation, and charge. It was a fantastic piece of fire control technology. I grinned, remembering how most of the brightest of the old way were actually Ukrainian. The enemy couldn't win this. They didn't need to start it in the first place. But no way in hell we were going to back down.

I stepped back to the safe zone just as the order came: "Fire!"

The gun lept in recoil, throwing it's shell with greater precision than the original gun could ever have managed. To my left and right, came the rippling reports of twenty nine more guns firing as nearly simultaneously as reasonable came crashing on my ears.

The fight to retake Mariupol from the Russians had begun.

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