Eric would not evacuate.

Even as the first shells began screaming over Harburg, he held out against our mother’s impassioned pleas to fall back to the Esterlands capitol, Villastona. My brother, aged beyond his years by the violence of the first siege, would never abandon our homeland.

Asleep when the warning sirens first blared out, I awoke in fright to the piercing shriek and was still trying to gather my wits when mum burst into the room, barking at me to get downstairs in the townhouse we shared with my grandfather, my aunt Karen and her two young children, Oliver and Kaylee.

Even over the siren's relentless, pitching cry I could hear the city coming alive, roused into a world of new dread from the slumber of peace it would long not see again.

I leapt out of bed and felt my body constrict involuntarily from the sharp bite of frigid air. It was only late autumn, yet the entire central east-coast was in the grip of a freak cold-snap unlike anything seen this century, with temperatures plummeting far below zero at nights - something we simply weren't used to in Australia.

The corners of my window were opaque with frost and the air outside seemed to hang thick in a crystalline haze. Up and down our narrow street I could see dark windows flickering to life in response to the wretched drone of the siren; muted glows and sharp slivers of orange which bloomed as curtains and blinds were flung open by anxious residents trying to gauge the credibility of the threat before committing to panic.

Within minutes, people were spilling into the street, some already donned in combat fatigues and hauling rifles, ammo rigs and go-bags towards predetermined rally points. Others were just milling around in small herds like stunned cows, rugged up in heavy blankets and clearly waiting for confirmation this was just another false alarm.

You should understand, in the thirteen months since the government's first military offensive against the ECR had been repelled, the risk of a second attack lay ever smouldering beneath the facade of the ceasefire. Although the panic button was struck twice over the past year when anomalies showed up in early-warning intel, we'd been assured that a second offensive couldn't be launched without our intelligence services and those of our PaCC allies having no less than twenty-four hours advance warning.

Above, drones and satellites were on permanent station watching over SADR's operational bases at Triesto, Kilrossy and Tamsin Ridge to the ECR's south, Narambryn and Miniwarra to the north. No discrepancy in the movements of their troops or deviation to their commanders' general routine was disregarded.

On the ground, insurgency spies and informants were feeding constant streams of data back to their handlers, while in Neilstown-on-Sea, where the PaCC fleet lay at harbour, military intelligence units worked around the clock to ensure one of the coalition's few strategic footholds left in the Asian Pacific remained open to them.

With the ECR's borderlands some of the most surveilled terrain on the planet, PaCC analysts, working alongside our own units, could react swiftly to any discrepancy in JSAC's public manifestations of cooperation that might reveal a possible precursor to an attack.

Altogether it was a comprehensive assembly of observation, analysis and response in place to counter any perceived threat posed to the Esterlands, and Harburg’s reaction plan was quite foolishly centred entirely around a conviction in the system's reliability.

If the warning came down, Harburg's citizens were drilled to begin transitioning the city back into a state of battle readiness. With twenty-four hours forewarning, our militia fighters had enough time to group, arm themselves and man the frontlines in numbers. Up on the heights, fire-support and artillery crews with a view to the horizon would be waiting to unleash upon anything invading their pre-sighted kill ground to the west, the only feasible direction SADR could attack us from in strength given the surrounding terrain.

Behind this armoured shield, medical crews would begin prepping field surgical stations both above and below ground as transport and logistics teams shuttled necessary armaments and equipment from secure caches and storage bunkers out to the frontlines. Engineers would get to work rigging demolitions and booby-traps, arming mines and deploying barriers and anti-infantry obstacles.

Meanwhile, Harburg's ops center would initiate battle-management protocols, using minute by minute intel updates to arrange, set and shift our defensive resources as required.

All told, any SADR ground force unlucky enough to be aimed our way would find themselves first having to fight their way beneath our artillery, then through our mobile skirmisher squads whose job it was to hit hard and displace to strike again and again. Even if they reached the outer-city lines, any key-points they did seize would be blown to rubble and dust along with the soldiers trying to capture them.

Surviving all that meant still having to crash headfirst into kilotons of reinforced concrete and rammed earth fortifications bristling with firepower wielded by a heavily armed, well prepared and battle-hardened militia ready for round-two.

Crucially, to minimise civilian casualties, rally points were pre-established to evacuate all non-essential persons back to the ECR mainland. Children and the elderly took precedence of course, but city leaders also had to account for the massive volunteer force from the wider Esterlands helping to rebuild and resupply Harburg after the catastrophic damage sustained throughout the first siege.

Engineers, logisticians, heavy-construction crews and miners were among those who arrived to help not just to rebuild our homes and repair critical infrastructure, but to oversee operations such as the reinforcement of our border walls, the expansion of Harburg's sprawling system of tunnels and bunkers, and the stockpiling of enough medical stores, food rations and munitions to ensure militia fighters could hold out for several years in the event of a second offensive.

However willing to help, they still had families and homes of their own to protect in the event of renewed conflict, with no desire to find themselves locked behind our walls if shells started falling. Getting them out of the city was just as important for us, as we had learned the hard way that under siege, every resource is dwindling, every bandage and bullet costly, every calorie precious. Harburg simply couldn't afford to feed that many extra mouths.

Trying to ignore the panic resolving itself as a knot twisting up my stomach, I was pulling on a set of winter clothes when, from just outside, I heard a passing vehicle brake hard, squealing as locked-up tires skidded the last few feet. It idled just long enough for doors to open and slam shut before revving and taking off down the street again. Seconds later, the front door of our house flew open and the sound of heavy footsteps pounded across the floorboards into the living room.

For a moment I genuinely thought SADR troops had just stormed our home, but then I heard Eric’s voice boom out, harsh and commanding, roaring that we had to go and now. The knot in my stomach turned to lead when I heard the urgency in his voice. That's when I knew beyond all doubt it was no false alarm.

The enemy had returned.

Grabbing my gear, I nearly tumbled down the stairs in haste to find my brother stood in the open living room of our townhouse donned in full combat armour, rifle slung over his shoulder. He and mum were engaged in a flurried exchange of hushed but urgent words and sharp pointed gestures. Karen, meanwhile, was kneeling by the sofa, pale as a sheet and wrestling Oliver and Kaylee into shoes and thick coats to protect them from the bitter cold outside.

Between the siren's ear-piercing wail and Eric towering in his battle-gear like a nightmare vision, my two young cousins looked equal parts terrified and bewildered. Safe to say, I think we all felt the same.

The front door was still wide open from when Eric had all but crashed through it. Just outside, I could see another two militia fighters nearby, anxious but alert. Their cheeks were red from the biting chill and each breath they exhaled fogged the air.

I recognised Matt Schiller and Liz Norditch at once. Two of Eric's closest friends and squad members, the three of them had been operating together long before the fighting in Harburg began, back when everyone knew blood would be spilled, yet before anyone had pulled a trigger.

As soon as I stepped into the room, Eric broke away from mum and approached me, covering the distance in a few quick strides. He'd been away training for over a month, and appeared to have grown even larger in that time. His hulking size was just one of the many traits inherited from our grandfather, and now framed in cold-weather gear and combat hardware, he appeared colossal and frightening.

Despite having not seen each other in weeks, Eric gave up no time to familial pleasantries. His normally aloof green eyes betrayed my brother's deadly mental switch to fight-mode, when all that mattered were cold hard facts and focused aggression.

"Squids got past the overwatch," he told me. "Some kind of cyber-attack took down the whole system at NoS, and now they're coming in fast and heavy from the west, a whole damn regiment it looks like." He leaned in closer, his rough voice bearing unease. "We got maybe forty-minutes before they hit the lines."

I felt my throat seize up in fear. Not the twenty-four hours we'd been promised, but forty goddamn minutes. Worse, our home being in the city's western borough meant we were directly in the path of this inbound SADR juggernaut.

I forced my body to move with purpose and ran to pull on my boots, any question of how becoming irrelevant. At that moment, probably two-thirds of the city's fighters were still scrambling out of their pyjamas, and just how many would be combat-ready when the enemy struck was anyone's guess.

Our plan under normal circumstances had been for Eric and I to stay and fight while my mum and Karen evacuated with Nell and the two kids. Ideally, we would have said our farewells at the rally point, but that was no longer an option.

I knew I had to report at once to my nearest re-supp bunker. Lacking enough vehicles, the city would need every available rush-rat on station to start hustling gear, water, rations, and messages down to the lines from our supply depots and caches.

Mum, meanwhile, had charged upstairs to fetch my sister, who at the time was recovering from a severe bout of pneumonia and still asleep in bed having barely stirred throughout all the commotion. I'd just finished doing up my laces when she returned with Nell cradled in her arms. Mum set her down gently on the couch and started rugging her up against the cold.

I was ready to go after fastening up my rush-rig, but Eric shook his head. "No," he said, clapping a big hand on my shoulder. "Re-supp can wait, you're coming with us first. I need your help."

In truth, I should have seen it then, but in that moment, the pride I felt hearing Eric say he needed my help swamped any misgivings I might have had.

My grandfather suddenly materialised, having slipped through the door from his adjoining apartment. He was combat ready, his customised PiQ assault rifle in hand - the standard weapon carried by Harburg militia forces.

He was a bear of a man, my grandfather; broad-shouldered, barrel-chested and even taller than Eric, himself pushing six-four. In his sixties, he still cut an imposing figure.

Not one to suffer fools, I recall the way his severe glare could make you squirm out of your skin if he caught you stepping out of line. A retired, eighteen-year veteran of Australia's elite Special Forces community, he'd helped train many of Harburg's militia in the finer points of insurgency warfare.

Anna Harrison, the civil architect often revered as 'the mother of Harburg' is said to have engineered much of the city's defensible outlay based on input from my grandfather.

Throughout the ceasefire period after the first siege, he'd been adamant about remaining vigilant, which the city had been - at least for a while. As each month passed, the luring promises of peace became the siren song of our undoing, and with daily routines once governed by war slowly resolving to some semblance of normal life, vigilance became the first victim of our hopes.

In all the years since that awful night, I have often asked myself how Harburg, a city regarded for its fierce discipline and will to survive, could allow such an ill-fated slip into reckless complacency.

Bear in mind, however, we had been a citizen militia, not some established military force. In wartime, we left behind the lives we knew to fight a common enemy, but at siege-end, that war had moved away from cratered streets, claustrophobic bunkers, and buildings caved in by high-explosive shells.

Our borders were no longer negotiated by weary troops dug into the cold hard earth. Now, the battle for our homeland to exist lay in the hands of politicians, diplomats and lobbyists hammering out treaties and the finer details of compromise, each side employing the same-but-different strategies of attack, retreat, sacrifice and gain to achieve their objectives.

With our fight over and the ECR's statesmen taking up the mantle, we had returned to our lives as butchers and bakers, teachers and nurses, mothers and children. We cleared the streets, sowed new crops and rebuilt our homes.

We returned to school, goofed around, tackled algebra and struggled with adolescence. We fell in-and-out of love, made new friends and told our stories. We let our bodies heal from the damage suffered in war and, when the nightmares wouldn't stop, we spoke to those who would help our minds heal too.

Often, we caught ourselves staring at the ruins of homes and the empty desks in classrooms once occupied by friends and strangers no longer with us. We cried our tears and mourned our dead, engraving the names of our loved ones upon the Eagle Spire to remember their lives and sacrifice.

Now there would be more names to join them.

With our family all gathered in the same room, Eric reported that Harburg's chief militia commander, Brian Hendry, had ordered the city's western borough - the so-called 'western-wedge' - to evacuate east across the river with extreme urgency. If SADR troops broke the line, they would overrun our militia and push all the way to the Mar before they could be stopped. Anyone caught on the wrong side of the river at that point could no longer be saved.

Karen paused from lacing up Kaylee's shoe. "What about the evacuation trucks?" she asked, her voice laced with rising concern. "Will there be enough to get us all out?"

Upon hearing her question, both Matt Schiller and Liz Norditch turned to glance at Eric. Their grim expressions told me something about the evacuation wasn't going to plan.

My grandfather saw the exchange. His brow furrowed quizzically and I could see the gears in his mind turning, decoding the moment, assessing the potential complications such to adapt to whatever might have altered the playing field.

Karen saw it too. She glared at Eric, who was clearly calculating the tactical sense in telling us all that he knew. Finally, out of exasperation, she just yelled "For god's sake, Eric, what?"

Eric looked around at each of us in turn. I saw the muscles in his jaw clench, one of the few tells indicating he was unsettled.

"There's a second SADR force moving up north from Kilrossy. They're pushing into the valley as we speak," he said. I saw my grandfather's lips press into a tight grimace, already predicting the next words from my brother's mouth.

"We're about to lose the Bally-Run," said Eric darkly.

The way we all just froze might have seemed comical to an outside observer, but then came a sharp intake of breath from Karen - an awful, clutching sound as she gazed at the frightened faces of her children, realising the terrible fate to which Eric's words had just sentenced them.

For those unaware of its complex geography, Harburg sprawls over both sides of the Tennyson river and up into the foothills of the mountains which isolate it from the ECR mainland. From this detached standpoint it guards the mouth of the Ballymore Gap - a deep valley that cuts a channel through the heavily forested landscape where, further east towards the coast, it opens into the very heart of the Esterlands.

Snaking through the valley existed a single track providing Harburg a lifeline to the nearest ECR town of Rostock. This track, known as the Bally-Run, was the only passage connecting Harburg to the wider Esterlands..

During the first siege, the forging of the Bally-Run had been our salvation. Combat engineers from 4/6-Lgns, also known as the ECR's 'LEO-Legions' (Logistics, Engineers, Operations), had been tasked with finding a way through a hostile landscape carved up by an array of topographical obstacles such as creeks, gullies, thick scrub and rocky outcrops.

The engineers had rigged up bridges, felled and cleared trees, dynamited boulders and ballasted muddy stretches of soft marsh. They created their life-saving track beneath the gloomy canopy, constantly under threat of enemy ambush, taking the path of least resistance wherever possible, using muscle and machine wherever not.

When they finally broke through to Harburg's eastern flank, 4/6-Lgns' efforts allowed John Cosh to start moving large quantities of critical supplies into Harburg, swinging the balance in our favour.

In times of peril, the Bally-Run should have allowed for ECR reinforcements to quickly bolster our numbers and firepower while also providing safe passage for the city's non-combatants to escape any impending attack and avoid the horrendous civilian death toll seen during the first siege.

SADR chiefs were of course not blind to our dependency on the track for survival. Their greatest failure during the first siege had been appointing less-than-capable commanders employing strategies often far too conventional for insurgent warfare, demonstrated by their inability to keep Cosh and his militia out of the Ballymore Gap.

This time around, no such advantage would be permitted. SADR's command structure had been turned on its head, with much of the dead-weight shaken loose. Officers fast-tracked through the hierarchy by way of political connections were replaced with those possessing genuine operational experience. In turn, their analysts had worked the maps and run the simulations, probing for weak points in our defences. Already aware the valley's massive real estate was too expansive to hold by conventional force, they instead would cripple us by applying a singular point of pressure in just the right place.

In doing so, they would sever Harburg's only artery by nesting troops high above the valley in a wide recess carved into the steep rockface by nature, a position laying in defilade to the substantial power and range of our long guns.

The Goldilocks Plateau allowed SADR forces to maintain a dominating overwatch of a nearly three-kilometre span of the Bally-Run throughout the course of the siege. From Goldilocks, as it was simply called ('plateau' being a geographical misnomer initially leapt on by the media), they could decimate anything inside of that area, virtually immune from counterattack.

So lethal did this section of no-man's land prove to be, it earned for itself a macabre nickname for the fate suffered by many who tried to cross it during the war - the Raspberry Patch.

Now, with enemy troops moving fast to cut off our lifeline, Brian Hendry was going to stop all further evacuation vehicles departing the city. The eastern gate was going to be sealed, with the next convoy to be the last that would leave Harburg.

No quick mental calculation was needed to realise we'd never make it over the river in time. Besides, thousands were already massed at the evacuation points, hoping for a place among the few trucks available. All we could hope to do now was to get the kids across the Mar and into the safety of the bunkers.

It was then that Eric revealed one last hope.

"There's a small convoy assembling here on the western bank, up in the old market square," he said to Karen. "It's no guarantee, but if we have any chance of getting you and the kids out, we have to go now. The trucks won't wait."

The warning in my brother's tone was clear. If we made for the convoy and failed to reach it in time, we'd never make it back to the Mar before the enemy hit, and if they overran the defences - it didn't bear thinking about.

Mum and Karen looked at one another, before Karen just nodded. We were going to go for it, which is when Eric turned to me and said, "You need to get us there fast."

That's what he needed my help for. Harburg's interior was a labyrinth to navigate, worse so with packed streets, and we'd need take the quickest route possible to the old market square. It had been shelled to ruin during the first siege and not yet rebuilt, so was really the only logical place to harbour up a secret vehicle convoy if you didn't want it being overrun. It was a ways north-east of us, and to get there in time meant we'd have to use the scurryways.

These narrow, often concealed passages were ubiquitous throughout Harburg, a veritable spider's web of alleys and crosscuts that provided our militia forces with multiple ambush points and escape routes to employ against enemy ground troops if they got inside the lines.

They were easy enough to get lost in, unless you happened to know their ins-and-outs like the back of your hand. As a rush-rat who'd once relied upon the safety of these passages to avoid main roads and sniper alleys, few knew the scurryways of Harburg as I did.

At the time, Eric's asking me to take point made sense, but again, my pride served as a disadvantage in making me forget that he probably knew the scurryways as well as I did.

Likely not wanting to let me dwell on it, Eric scooped up my sister and went out the door, the rest of us in a huddle behind him. Even rugged up, the cold hit me like a fist, seeping instantly into my flesh wherever it was exposed to the air. The chilled wind felt like fingers of ice curling down the neck of my jacket, and even the adrenalin coursing through my system couldn't shield me from it.

Years later, Geoff Paisley, SADR's Senior Operations Officer, told how the offensive had originally been planned for the winter, but the cold-snap proved an unforeseen stroke-of-luck, and so the hammer-down call was issued four-months ahead of schedule.

Paisley was not a stupid man. He knew the Esterlands' population would be hunkered down in their homes fighting off the chill. He knew many would be sick and weakened. He knew that in the early hours of morning, when temperatures were lowest, so too would be morale.

Severe cold is as crippling a weapon as any found on the battlefield. It takes no sides, making victims of the ill-prepared whichever flag they fight beneath. With Paisley having spent two years abroad in Scandinavia as a young man, he knew all too well the extent of its detrimental effects.

Vehicles would struggle to start, muscles and minds slower to respond. In many ways, cold is like a physical barrier, as distinct as that between air and water, retarding movement, impeding progress. Thicker layers worn to deny it meant reduced range of motion and greater exertion required.

Numbed fingers would fumble to load ammunition and snatch at triggers without practiced feel. Seconds lost were seconds gained. Our PiQ rifles, meanwhile, had never been battle tested in such conditions; only one component had to fail or seize and we'd be reduced to throwing stones.

SADR'S 109th Regiment, on the other hand, had just arrived in-country after completing their winter training rotation in Xinjiang Province. They were mentally and physically prepared for the freezing cold, giving them huge advantage against a hibernating fighting force not acclimatised to such weather. They had the numbers, and they had the surprise.

In the weeks to come, we'd hear it confirmed that a massive cyber-attack had indeed taken down the god-like Overwatch system in Neilstown-on-Sea. Later, it would be discovered that a betrayal from within our own coalition led to its compromise.

Had it not been for a few keen-eyed PaCC analysts and the cool heads of on-station watch officers dealing with the sudden blackout, the 109th Regiment would have been over our lines before the alarm was raised, and Harburg would have fallen that night.

Endowed with new strength and will to make the convoy, our troupe dashed out into the street, Schiller and Norditch folding in behind us like a protective detail. Between them, they snatched up Oliver and Kaylee, leaving Karen free to haul their go-bags and still keep pace.

We'd not gone more than ten paces when my grandfather suddenly pulled up hard, and we knew at once he wasn't coming with us. Mum's shoulders slumped.

The question as to whether my grandfather would evacuate with mum and Karen had been up in the air throughout the ceasefire. He was a born fighter, but also getting on in age. His body was damaged from a life spent in combat, and wounds taken in the first siege had still not fully healed. The city's defence strategy was in strong enough hands without his having to strap armour back on, but this surprise attack changed everything. Now mum was facing yet another familial division. She threw her arms around my grandfather, weeping, and he in turn wrapped an arm over her shoulder.

He was my paternal grandfather, and his history with mum hadn't always been smooth. Early during the troubles, she'd often blamed his influence over my dad for insisting we relocate to Harburg at a time when 'breaking east' was still considered stigmatising in Australian society. Although she eventually came to love our adopted homeland as much as anyone, they never quite saw eye-to-eye.

To be fair, my grandfather was a little rough around the edges, perhaps given his history. Mum disliked his constant talk of preparing for the imminent war coming our way, moreso the effect it had on my brother. She was downright furious when he started training Eric to shoot and fight, and I even recall her slapping him hard across the face the night my brother came home with a rifle to announce he'd joined a youth militia group.

Then came the day SADR forces arrived to occupy our city. After that, none of us were civilians anymore, and the training Eric had received almost certainly kept him alive - something I know my mum was grateful for, even if she never said it aloud.

After my dad and my Uncle Justin - Karen's husband - were slain during the first siege, mum and grandad's fragile bond came to be strengthened by grief. She had lost a husband and brother-in-law, he two sons.

"Squids took my boys," I heard my grandfather growl in his rasping baritone, glancing over at the rest of us. "They're not having my grandbabies too," he said with hard conviction. Mum broke off their embrace and nodded understandingly, palming away the tears.

As best he could, my grandfather gave Nell, Oliver and Kaylee a quick cuddle and a kiss each on the cheek. They understood then he was leaving and started to wail. It was awful. For the two of them, 'Grumps', as they called him, had been a daily constant in their lives, a surrogate father figure ever since Uncle Justin's death.

He was a tough old bastard, but he absolutely adored his grandkids, with the two youngsters having lived out of his back pocket the past year. He doted on them constantly. Every morning at dawn, they'd be up in a whirlwind of energy and mischief, invading his apartment hunting for food, stories and a co-conspirator to their games and childish banter.

Often, he bemoaned the gruelling nature of his new-found duties and how they deprived him of a good sleep-in, but don't think we didn't notice how he never once locked his door to them.

Standing on that cold street, there just wasn't time to say the goodbyes that were deserved, and so my grandfather was forced to turn his back on his little 'grubs', and start heading west to where the fight was bearing down on us. He gave me a solid clap on the arm while passing by.

"Stay safe, mate" he said with a nod. I could have sworn his eyes were wet, but he was gone too fast to be sure. I assumed we'd be seeing each other soon enough, either on the lines or in the tunnels, so didn't think to say anything in reply. I desperately wish I had, though. While I couldn't have known it at the time, I would never see my grandfather again.

Eric barked at me to keep moving, and so I began threading my way through the crowds surging east towards the Mar. More and more militia squads began to appear, fighting their way upstream to bolster the lines.

Over the street, I led my family into the first of many scurryways, heading north, then east - tracking longer paths around the alleys I knew were still blocked with debris. Occasionally we'd cross paths with other militia fighters and rush-rats going the opposite direction. The inquisitive looks some of my fellow rats shot me made me anxious about getting to the re-supp bunker to start hauling gear.

I tried slowing down to let my family keep pace, but Eric kept urging me onwards, faster. The trucks won't wait, I heard in my head. I could hear the others scrambling behind me, panting with exertion and struggling not to lose sight in the dark, narrow turns.

It was hard to say how much time had passed since leaving the house. I was trying to countdown the minutes in my head without success. Running the scurryways at night was disorienting even for the experienced, and at one point I freaked out believing I'd lost my way. The trucks won't wait, the voice in my head warned again, and the panic in me started rising, but three turns later, we emerged into the old market square.

The convoy was still there.

Relief flooded my system like a drug. There were eight trucks formed up in a three-quarter circle to fit them in. All the rubble from the collapsed markets had mostly been cleared away months before, making this a perfect vehicle harbour. A large group was milling between the vehicles, but nobody else was climbing aboard, they were just there to ensure loved ones made it away.

Eric had said the trucks would not wait, and they certainly seemed ready to go. The drivers were in their cabs, arms dangling from windows, fingers drumming nervously on door panels.

Wasting no time, Eric barged past me for the last truck in the convoy. Under the hastily set-up spotlights, I could see it was mostly full. Mum, Karen and the kids would really have to squeeze in.

The small crowd backed out of the way as Eric approached, the rest of us in tow. He motioned for Schiller and Norditch to lift the two kids onto the truck bed, but they began thrashing and screaming, believing they were being taken away from us. Karen had to climb up first to allay their fears, and then mum went next, Eric passing Nell up as tenderly as he could manage.

I started to lift the tailgate, but Eric pushed it back down. I was confused, as no one else was there to climb aboard. Then I noticed how Schiller and Norditch were suddenly either side of me, penning me in for no reason. Mum was looking at me with almost the same expression she'd worn before telling me dad had been killed. A horrible feeling crept its way up my spine.

Eric laid a big hand on my shoulder. We locked eyes, and I saw exactly what was happening.

I felt I'd been gut-punched so hard the wind was driven straight from my lungs. I shook my head, attempting to shrug off his hand. His grip was firm, so I twisted and swung wildly, managing to break free, but Norditch caught me by the straps of my rush-rig and hauled me back.

Eric wrapped me up and hurled me into that truck with a strength given to man by love alone. I was screaming bloody murder at him, trying in vain to leap back out as hands reached out to grab me while Schiller hoisted up the tailgate.

I was in tears - an absolute wreck of rage, humiliation and grief. The sense of betrayal was overwhelming, the shame at my own brother denying me the chance to fight, crushing. Yet even if something could have been said to change his mind, I never got the chance.

We heard it a moment before we felt it. From the sky above, a barrage of mortar shells whined down to detonate throughout the nearby streets - a destructive chain of explosions ripping apart rooftops and sidewalks. While they missed the market square, they were still close enough for debris to rain down over the vehicles and crowd gathered.

The evacuees in the trucks cried out in fear, crammed together as we were. Those in the square began screaming for the trucks to go while seeking cover as the next barrage hammered into the city to resonate its message of impending doom.

The vehicles in our convoy rumbled to life. Eric clambered up on our truck's tow hitch, leaning in to embrace us as best he could. By then my mother was in a frantic state, pleading desperately for him to come with us. She was leant over me, clutching him tight in her arms. My poor brother had to gently fight his way out her grip as she cried, saying over and over that he was sorry and that he loved her, but he had to stay.

Our driver ground into gear and began rolling out of the square, trailing the trucks in front crawling through the arched brickwork that led out to the main road. Still balanced on the tow-hitch, Eric grasped me behind my neck and crashed our heads together in a final, desperate goodbye.

"They need you more than Harburg does, look after them," he said before jumping back to the ground. As we passed under the bricked arch and into the street, I'll not ever forget that last image of Eric just stood there, unmoved by the chaos around him, a hand raised in farewell.

The western lines suddenly went up in a great cataclysm of gunfire. Almost immediately, our undermanned fire-support crews higher up the mountains joined in the fray, sending streams of heavy machine-gun fire over our heads to strike at targets unseen to us.

All at once the air was filled with the familiar crack-thump of burning rounds streaking through the sky in both directions. It was a display of frightening power that distracted me for just a few moments, and when I looked back, Eric was gone - vanished in the shadows to seek out a fight.

With Harburg's citizens now seeking what cover they could, the streets were clear enough for our convoy to move at speed, paralleling the river south-east beneath a lightshow of terror until we reached the bridge.

The vehicles slowed as they rolled up to the Mar, and I felt our truck chunk down several gears and sway as we doglegged around the hastily assembled checkpoint, waved through by militia units needing us out of the way.

Being at the rear of the truck, I could see columns of terrified civilians pushing eastwards over the bridge under the gunfire and shelling that was intensifying by the minute. Many looked up at us in desperation, silently imploring whether more space could somehow be found to accommodate their numbers, but the drivers could not stop.

Knowing what fate awaited them, I found myself unable to hold their gaze, so I looked back out at the western bank of the river, at the rows of homes and streets that would soon be shattered or occupied to eventually serve as the enemy's frontline in their desperate battle to crush our homeland; the ruins of lives turned to violent purpose.

Upon reaching the far side of the bridge, our convoy weaved between an overlapping gap in the ten-foot high concrete blast-barriers and sand-bagged gun emplacements that ran left and right far along the banks of the river. Known as 'the Breakers', they were an ugly but necessary shield whose required effort and resources to construct had enraged some Esterlands leaders.

Its massive form, however, would take so much punishment over the coming years and still remain (mostly) standing, none would ever again question the value of the Breakers to Harburg's survival.

During the ceasefire, when the Esterlands was pinning hopes on the success of a negotiated independence treaty, its leaders were already turning their minds to reconstruction and growth. Cosh, like my grandfather, was one of many who believed peace with Tammy Li's JSAC government was a delusion and would remain so until she - and Beijing itself - officially recognised the ECR nation-state as a sovereign entity.

So convinced was Cosh that no such treaty would ever be signed, he diverted significant resources away from the ECR's planned expansion project, earmarked for transport infrastructure, schools, hospitals and sports parks. Instead, he threw much of it into bolstering defences across the ECR's borders, with Harburg - considered his most vulnerable city - receiving the lion's share.

Cosh's undermining of the expansion project earned him severe criticism from those in the leadership who believed the war was over, to the point that serious efforts were made to remove him as Commander of the Legions - a title that, in wartime, gave him authority to commandeer resources as he saw fit.

These efforts would fail, not just because Cosh wielded the loyalty of the legions and much of the Esterlands citizenry, but because until independence was granted, with the ink dry on the paper, wartime was the ECR's default position. On this night, his overly precautious nature would pay dividends and silence his harshest critics.

With our convoy having cleared the Mar, we rolled straight eastwards against the clock, passing through Harburg's central boroughs and bringing us closer to the city's fortified eastern gate and the road leading to the Bally-Run. Ours was the last truck that would make it through, those still trapped inside the city's walls now ill-fated partakers in what would soon become one of history's most infamous sieges.

The convoy picked up speed, making a sprint across open ground to where the road turned to roughshod earth before plunging into the heavy wall of forest. Above us in the mountains, peals of heavy shelling fire continued to ring out from the battery of artillery pieces we'd captured during the enemy collapse of the first siege and now turned to strike at their former masters, albeit too late to cause enough damage.

The hours it took to forge our way through the Bally-Run were some of the most nerve-wracking of my life. We couldn't know whether SADR had already occupied the plateau and were lying in wait, meaning there was a constant, terrifying suspense that at any given second, hails of gunfire would suddenly shred apart the convoy and its human cargo.

Accompanying us the entire time was the dull thudding of heavy fire, muted by the dense foliage. Because the track was so narrow, branches would constantly scrape down the side of the trucks, and some of these would catch in the vehicle frame, bending back to crack loudly and send jolts of fear through us all.

Making matters worse, it soon became apparent that most of our drivers had little experience in navigating the Bally-Run, less so at night. Already stressed, they kept turning their lights up bright to pick out the trail, often slowing to a crawl to manoeuvre through the more difficult sections.

The journey was rough. Every drop and bounce as the vehicles crawled over debris and climbed up boulder strewn rises sent us crashing into one another. At one point, the lead truck crept too wide of the path, causing its tires to lose traction on loose shale and nearly roll over down a steep drop-away before its cab struck a tree and it stalled out.

The whole convoy was forced to halt for nearly twenty minutes as the second vehicle set up a winch to try and haul it back on track without success. They ended up having to ram it off the track to clear the way, letting it tumble and crash into the gully below. Its occupants were dispersed between the remaining trucks, although to fit them in we had people stacked across our laps for the rest of the journey.

I can only imagine what it must have looked like to SADR forces up on Goldilocks, at just how easy it must have been even through the sprawling canopy to track the path of our desperate little convoy down the sights of heavy calibre weapons. To this day, I believe they had already occupied their position, but had been ordered only to fire on inbound reinforcements and ignore outgoing convoys, which they must have known would be carrying mostly women, children and elderly.

Finally, we arrived at the Bastion Checkpoint at Rostock. In the darkness, out beyond the full reach of spotlights illuminating the trucks, I could just make out shadows ghosting us through the trees on both sides - heavily armed 3-Lgn fighters tracking our arrival, no doubt ready to wipe us out if our convoy was a SADR trojan-horse.

We were stopped long enough for each truck to be inspected for any potential tracking, jamming or explosive devices. A 3-Lgn captain scrutinised our faces, ordering those of us by the tailgate to crouch down so that every one of us could be identified.

Satisfied, he waved us past. Our convoy drove straight on and through the centre of Rostock. Armed legion fighters were on the streets in numbers, the whole town on a war footing and ready to do battle. I wondered anxiously if our lines in Harburg had stood up to the onslaught. Perhaps, at that very moment, Eric and my grandfather were fighting for their lives to fall back over the Mar.

What if one more set of hands had made the difference, I remember asking myself. What if the efforts of one rush-rat had been able to turn the tide? Such questions and doubts and fears spun through my mind. Why did Eric betray me? Did he think me a coward?

As if she could sense my shame and anger, mum reached out and took my hand. Her eyes were wet, but she gave me a sad smile, making me realise that, if nothing else, my being in that truck was giving mum some comfort to offset her anguish.

The road out of Rostock soon turned to a flat, hard-earth surface for several kilometres before finally we hit blacktop. I actually fell asleep for a bit, the lolling of the trucks and mental exhaustion putting me out. When I woke, our convoy was stopping at a second checkpoint in Villastona.

A 4-Lgn logistics officer informed us that all evacuees intending to remain in the ECR should disembark. They would be temporarily accommodated in Villastona until other arrangements could be made. Those wishing to leave the country all together were to stay on the trucks and carry on to Neilstown-on-Sea (NoS).

From the PaCC base there, naval convoys would evacuate us across the Tasman to New Zealand, from where we could seek asylum in those countries willing to take ECR citizens.

Around three-quarters of our convoy chose to disembark, but mum and Karen held us back to stay on the trucks, which surprised me. We'd had close friends who'd relocated to Amsbury and Balron after the first siege, and I assumed we'd be remaining in the Esterlands until this second offensive was turned back.

Mum, however, had decided that she would reach out to distant relatives in Canada, as far away from war as she could take us. By then I had no spirit left to argue, just an empty shell of misery and defeat. Soon we were on our way again to make the short run down to NoS.

We crossed the demarcation line thirty minutes later. You could sense there was a visceral, high voltage charge in the air. With JSAC breaking the armistice and engaging its forces against the ECR, the whole place was a hive of focused activity.

Floodlights lit the whole area up like day. Battle-ready soldiers from the PaCC-Taskforce were maintaining a watchful eye out beyond the wire. Rows of armoured vehicles were lined up in formation with crews nearby, ready to move out if ordered.

The trucks pushed straight past all of it and came to a stop not far from the harbour. Our sad little group finally disembarked clutching our few belongings. We were led to tents where kind but efficient military officers took details and handed each of us a bottle of water and a small carboard box containing a sandwich, crackers and a fruit-juice. There were questions and queues and more queues and questions that mum and Karen were forced to bear the brunt of.

Finally, at the cusp of dawn, we were led down a path towards the flight-line near the harbour. The ships of the last naval convoy had already departed, but they planned to send us out on chase helicopters.

Heads down, sombre, we plodded to the long tarmac strip where five choppers were lined up beneath the glare of powerful spotlights, rotors already spun up and turbines whining on idle. Hot exhaust plumes shimmered the air as rotor-wash and fumes of jet-fuel spilled over us.

Marine escorts separated us into smaller groups still, helping Karen by holding Oliver and Kaylee, the two of whom at least seemed distracted temporarily by the awesome sight and noise of the helicopters. We were each given a pair of ear-protectors that stifled the clamour of the turbines and chop of the blades while allowing us to still talk normally and be heard.

I could make out the pilots going through pre-flight checks as a crew chief from the second chopper hustled over and gave a short safety brief none of us listened to. He then arranged our group into single file to guide us out across the tarmac and beneath the whipping rotors.

After clambering aboard, the marines helped strap us into our seats with clinical efficiency. They then took their own places while the crew chief began speaking into the microphone on his helmet. A minute later, the turbines spooled up into a frenzied roar as the pilots began unleashing their power. We lurched and swayed as the wheels lifted from the ground. To think about it now, I would not set foot upon my native soil for another seven years.

The tarmac fell away as we gained height quickly, revealing to us the eastern horizon from where, just hours before, we'd been asleep at home in our beds.

Even over the terrific backdrop of the rotors and turbines, the horrified gasp from all of us in that chopper was audible. In that moment, one of the most heart-breaking memories of my life was burned into my mind.

In the distance, the mountains beyond which Harburg lay seemed ablaze as though caught in the eye of a lightning storm - a false sunrise against the dark horizon. Mum's hand clutched at her chest; mouth open, aghast in a silent wail as tears streamed down her cheeks.

For all of us, it was an act of small mercy when the pilot finally banked towards the ocean, pulling much of the terrible scene away from sight. The choppers tore over the black sea, chasing down the ships that would take us the rest of the way to New Zealand, and from where would seek asylum in the U.K after mum's plans for Canada went awry.

That, however, was a life not yet known to me as we fled our homeland. The shadow of the coastline was soon lost, swallowed by darkness and distance. Behind us, the western skyline was still burning - a man-made storm of violence that would rage for another six long years.

Before the choppers even reached the ships, SADR forces would begin to hammer on the lines at Cambria, Balron and Ashton Gate, engaging the ECR's legion defences there to prevent any attempt at reinforcement.

The second siege of Harburg had begun; those we loved now stood alone against the carnage. To that end, there was no relief to be found in our own salvation.

None of us spoke. All of us wept.

We were ashen faces and broken souls.