Grenada

This is for all Kenneth's stories about what happened in Grenada, including some history of the conflict and information about the company that was fighting.

## Background to the war

Grenada had political trouble ever since it became independent from the UK in 1974. as a communist coup, under Maurice Bishop, would take over the island in 1979. But September, 4 years later would be where Grenada would really start to struggle internally.

On 16 October 1983, Prime Minister Bernard Coard seized power and placed Bishop under house arrest. There were mass protests against this which led to Bishop escaping his house arrest and reasserting his authority as the head of the government. He was eventually captured and executed by a firing squad, along with his partner and several government officials and union leaders who were loyal to him. Because of lack of power, the army, under Hudson Austin, then stepped in and formed a military council to rule the country, placing Governor-General Paul Scoon under house arrest. The army also announced a four-day total curfew where anyone seen on the streets would be executed immediately.

Due to the tension now forming in Grenada, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), along with Barbados, and Jamaica appealed to the United States for help, as they were worried the conflict would spill over to them as well. Scoon had managed to get messages out through secret diplomatic channels, telling them about invading, which he kept private for his safety.

   An old company, called Cadian, that had helped out in various other wars in the cold war, requested extra funding from the governments of the OECS and the US. In return, they'd take on the mission of invading Grenada. The US saw this as an opportunity to invade the island without having to risk public outrage, and so gave Cadian money to take care of it. But using clever tricks, lies and blackmail, Cadian managed to stop any potential leaks about their child soldier programme.

On 25 October, the Cadian invaded Grenada in an operation code named *Operation Urgent Fury*. America stated on behalf of Cadian, that this was done at the request of the Barbados' and Dominica's prime ministers. The invasion was highly criticized by the governments in Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United Kingdom, but thanks to Cadian offering to do the invasion, they were the ones that got the blame, which contributed to the company's downfall as now they didn't have support of the UN that had previously kept them alive.

## Operation Urgent Fury

### Before the Invasion

Kenneth along with 959 other child soldiers in his company were deployed to navally invade the East side of the island. A total of 7 Battalions plus 300 adult supervisors, 7,300 soldiers in total, were sent out in an operation similar to D-day but with a lot less preparation and care. Their missions varied, as one company comprised of more highly skilled soldiers, were tasked with taking the port of Grenville, another was told to assault an enemy held base and capture it, this being Kenneth's battalion. And finally the last battalion taking part in the landings was told to establish a back-up beach head, by taking out a series of entrenchments along the coast. The other 4 battalions sat back at the aircraft carrier awaiting deployment. Then another battalion would reinforce the one taking the port, and the remaining ones would meet up with the 2 already in Grenada in a campaign to take out the nearby airport.

Around 2,880 soldiers were taking part, as the adult supervisors did not wish to take part in the landings, which meant only 960 soldiers were in each battalion. A team was 5 soldiers, a squad was 10 and consisted of 2 teams, platoons being 30 troops and were made of 3 squads, and finally a company was 120 soldiers and was made up of 4 platoons. A battalion however had 8 companies which meant there were 40 left over soldiers, which were the adult supervisors. The roles in these groups were very restricted, and had virtually no power either unless there were no adult supervisors or until they turned 16.

Cadian was very careless about these plans, however, as they did not bother to double check the enemy's position, completely unaware how many enemies were there and how well equipped they were. Especially since the enemy had easily gotten word of the invasion, and made sure to dig in. If Cadian changed their plan and attacked the now undefended capital, they could've ended the war quicker, but due to a mix of greed and ignorance, they didn't even consider this idea.

### The first Landing

The 3 battalions headed out to their targets, and upon approach, Kenneth's battalion became completely overwhelmed with firepower. As they approached the beach, they had to dive for the little cover available. Kenneth had to clamber over his dead comrades, using their bodies to shield him from the bullets. After initial bombardment, the survivors also managed to dig in, constructing makeshift trenches, but it was often filled with water since they were so close to the water.

#### Stalemate

They had to put up with these conditions for 3 days, which although wasn't that long, they weren't able to get any sleep, as well as frequent waves of bullets that met anyone that dared to even think about advancing. Command eventually learned about their inability to advance, and ordered a full charge to get out of the trenches and rush the enemy. After the orders were given, Kenneth raised his hand as if to announce the charge, but as soon as he did, the wave of bullets started up again, hitting his hand, and anyone else that tried to climb out the trenches. As Kenneth had now been shot, he took the opportunity to stay behind, choosing to let everyone else charge over first.

#### Break for it

After a very bloody frontal assault, out of the 960 people in Kenneth's battalion, around 150 had already been killed, with a further 500 sustaining some sort of injury. As everyone reached the treeline, they had to take out the enemy's dug outs, which were little areas they had planted themselves in, to fire at the oncoming soldiers. This resulted in further casualties, and not everyone was successful. Although they could now catch their breath, they had to watch out for enemy soldiers, who knew more about fighting in the jungles.

During this, Kenneth had also made it to the treeline and found a small enemy bunker that had been cleared out. Another soldier, called Dahl, was sitting there, and immediately pointed his gun at Kenneth, but raised it after he found out he was on his side. Dahl was a much more outspoken soldier, who frequently broke the rules, but avoided execution as his punishment because he resulted highly in tests. Him not being good at following orders made sure he wasn't chosen to be in the 1st Battalion, where all the best soldiers were.

Together, Kenneth and Dahl relaxed in the bunker, listening out for any nearby enemy soldiers. Dahl was a bit creeped out at first, by Kenneth referring himself in third person, he decided not to question it, although he remembered Kenneth could speak normally back at their ship. After they had rested and got to know each other, they made a move to regroup with everyone who'd scattered around in the jungle. Luckily, they managed to avoid running into enemy soldiers, and met with a more soldiers who had found each other. One of them exclaimed that he was the commander of the entire battalion, which everyone seemed to believe, though Kenneth appeared to be sceptical. While Kenneth and Dahl were resting in the bunker, the commander had managed to rally all the survivors and pushed back the enemy to the base.

#### The attack on the base

The commander chose to let everyone rest until reinforcements arrived, but were told no more supplies would come unless the base had been captured. so the commander, who's name was shinobi, ordered all the surviving troop leaders to discuss their plan of attack. They also restructured their troops following the massacre that had just occurred.

Unfortunately, Kenneth didn't perform too great in the tests back on the ship. Although he didn't do to poorly, he only did just enough to avoid punishment, which meant he wasn't invited to the meeting. However, Dahl was a captain (leader of a company) and so he put Kenneth under his command command.

Shinobi decided it was best to do another frontal charge of the base, as he said it worked well enough for them to get on the beach. After some backlash from the other leaders, the attack was issued. Shinobi also said that as he was the commander, he'd stay behind with the remaining supplies and the wounded. Luckily for Kenneth, him being shot in the hand meant that he didn't have to partake in the onslaught again.

As everyone took up their positions to attack the base, Kenneth along with the other wounded soldiers, including Bridget, Livesy, Aamir, Nevil and Digby, stayed behind, receiving medical care. Despite Shinobi not actually taking part in the fighting, he didn't exactly stay with the wounded either. The 6 of them got along, similarly to Dahl, they were weirded out by Kenneth talking in third person but for the most part, ignored it. As everyone else was attacking, Kenneth told them about a potential plan that could work, which involved a massive fire. They were sceptical, and didn't like the idea as it was very destructive, although Nevil did agree it could work, he also agreed with everyone else, as that should be their last resort.

At the end of the day, everyone finally came back from attacking the base, well, everyone that had survived. After the assault, around 610 out of the original 960 were still alive, including the injured. Fortunately, Kenneth was grateful to see Dahl was still alive. After hearing about how much of a disaster the battle was, Livesy, Aamir and Digby were convinced by Kenneth's earlier plan, Nevil was on board from the start, but Bridget remained hesitant. Aamir decided to try to tell Shinobi about this new plan, but was unsuccessful as he wasn't in command of anything, so Shinobi didn't take him seriously. Luckily Dahl had overheard the plan from Kenneth, and was willing to tell Shinobi instead. And since Dahl was a captain, Shinobi might actually listen, which he did, but he refused it anyway.

As luck would have it, Shinobi would be found dead in his sleep that same night, although unclear to how he died. At first everyone was shocked and started pointing fingers, as children do, especially Bridget who blamed Kenneth, saying he had already gone mental. Most people agreed with him, but after Dahl defended Kenneth, the tables turned and Bridget became the number one suspect. As everyone was thinking of executing Bridget, Kenneth stepped in and admitted to murdering Shinobi. Although everyone was astounded at first, Kenneth defended himself by revealing Shinobi wasn't the commander, and his badges were stolen from an enemy he killed, as well as this, there was no actual commander rank, and so Kenneth had merely executed him for treason. For the most part, this had calmed everyone down, except Bridget who didn't trust Kenneth at all.

The attack on the base (Part 2)

Now that Shinobi had been killed, no one was willing to step up as the Lieutenant Colonel (which was the proper rank that commanded the battalion, something that the children couldn't actually receive). Dahl proposed that Kenneth should be leader, seeing as he saw through Shinobi's lies. To which he cautiously accepted, but that he would immediately step down when the reinforcements arrive. Another day went by, and they still had not taken the base. This wasn't too bad, as Command had their hands full with the other assaults, but it also meant they were starting to run out of supplies. Now that Kenneth was the new leader, he voiced his plan of creating a large fire to sweep across the base.

After another whole day of preparing, making firebreaks so the fire didn't spread too far and get out of hand, and gathering water from the beach, they finally lit the fire, which spread rapidly, rampaging through the forest, making it's way towards the base. The enemy were weary, as there was a mix response. Some felt confident that it was a distraction, others decided to make a break for it and ditch the base altogether, only for them to be gunned down as Kenneth's platoon had surrounded the base, opening fire on anyone that tried to leave.

As the fire got to the base, trying to hide from it proved futile as it completely decimated everything, whether it was the trees, base or the enemy soldiers in the base. The platoon had started to prematurely put out the fire, so by the time it got to the base, the fire had been entirely put out in the jungle, leaving the fire only in the base, which they'd also put once once the enemies inside of it had been killed.

#### After the attack

Once they had made sure everyone was dead, and the fire had been put out, Kenneth's platoon moved in to survey the damage. They found everything to be destroyed, not even bodies remained. So they contacted command, telling them that they captured the base. With this done, they thought they could now get some proper rest, but when reinforcements arrived, a mix of child and adult soldiers, the commanders were furious. They started beating Kenneth's battalion for destroying the base rather than capturing it, but once again, Kenneth stepped up to blame it all on Bridget, everyone in agreement. With who they thought was the culprit singled out, Bridget was executed.

The purpose of capturing this base rather than destroying it was so it could be used as a meeting point for their attack on the nearby airport, so Kenneth couldn't even rest properly as he wanted as he had to work to reconstruct the base, though as his platoon was the ones doing most if not all the work, Kenneth included some hidden features into the base, that he only let people in his tight circle know about. This being, Digby, Nevil, Aamir, Dahl, livesy and new friends he had previously met, being Cyanide, Echo, Womble and Quebec. At first Kenneth was confused by Cyanide's name, but Echo told him it was because he was forced to drink cyanide for his method of execution but managed to survive.

During the reconstruction, command had gotten word that all the other task forces had been wiped out, and that Kenneth's task force had been the only one that not only survived, but actually took the base. Frustrated at their failure, command took out their anger on Kenneth's task force, brutally beating them. Then they were sent out to take the other bases on their own. So their campaign to the airfield was temporarily put on hold until Kenneth's team had completed the failed tasks, which were to destroy an enemy position, take or destroy another enemy held base and probably the worst one; having to capture an entire port.

### Kenneth's 2nd mission

   The adult supervisors had actually arrived and were among the reinforcements, but once again refused to take part in the fighting, so opted to stay back at the base, and help in the reconstruction. This meant Kenneth stayed as the Lieutenant Colonel, but made him go over the structure of the battalion again. Kenneth despised the ranks, and so put another captain called Rimmy in charge of that, getting him to sort out everyone's ranks, but Kenneth made sure him and his mates were in a squad.

Kenneth's battalion, who called themselves "the Fusterclucks" in memory of how the first landing went, set out to complete these missions with very little supplies if any, no reinforcements and no knowledge about the terrain. Though Kenneth had another plan. He'd split his battalion up into two groups, Kenneth and his squad in one group, and literally everyone else another and were to be led by Rimmy. Kenneth's squad would head to the southernmost base, which was the biggest one, and take it out, while everyone would start at the northernmost base, and work their way up, meeting somewhere in the middle. Then they'd go to assault the port.

Kenneth's squad made their way to the base, as he worked best with only a handful of other soldiers or alone. Stumbling through the dense jungle, Swarms of mosquitos were constantly buzzing around them. Eventually they made it to the base, which was very different to the base he had captured previously. It was a large compound, rather than a small bunker wedged in the trees. At first they were cautious walking up to the base, but as they walked, Kenneth's eyes lit up as he found an M60 Patton Tank that had run into the ground. Amazingly, he had managed to get it working, and it even had ammo. He also could assess that the enemy were underequipped as there was practically no damage to the tank.

He ordered everyone else would sneak by as he was causing a distraction in that tank. Though they were confused to how Kenneth could man a tank that needed a crew of 4, they just decided to listen, thinking Kenneth just wanted to die.

Kenneth loaded up the gun and drove straight at the base, blowing holes into it as he went. Despite only being one person driving a tank, he had successfully reduced the base to rubble, leaving no survivors. This was also where Kenneth learnt just how much fun it was to drive around in a tank, blowing shit up. When Kenneth finally met back up with his squad, they were confused as hell to how Kenneth had not only survived but destroyed the entire base without them. This was when they were starting to realise that it's best not ask any questions about Kenneth.

Together they set out to meet back up with the battalion, and when they did Kenneth noticed that not only were there not any casualties, but they had actually picked up soldiers thought to have died from their attack. Both teams were confused about how one had picked up more soldiers, and one had picked up a tank.

It had already been a full week on the island by now. 4 days assaulting their target, a further 2 days repairing the base from the fire and now the 7th day where they had attacked a variety of different positions was coming to an end. Kenneth knew it would be dangerous to walk through the jungle at night, learning from when people were being ambushed during the attack on the first base, so they set up camp and went to sleep knowing they would have to get a move on because of how impatient command is.

#### Moving out

Kenneth and his battalion, now 650 strong as they picked up 30 survivors from the other battalion thought to be entirely wiped out, moved south towards the port. They carried on until they found out the airfield was right in the way, being behind as it is, Kenneth opted to just go right through, but after Dahl insisted they might as well attack it now, to get it over and done with. Kenneth reluctantly agreed.

The battalion rolled out, Kenneth, Dahl, Soviet (Someone from the other battalion) and Cyanide driving the tank. Aamir was also sitting on the tank, for reconnaissance of the base. But as Kenneth saw a stolen A-10 in one of the warehouses, he got so excited he ditched everyone at the tank, and made his way to the A-10. Although everyone was confused and tried to go after Kenneth, Dahl kept them on track, letting Kenneth crack on.

#### The airstrike

About 10 minutes later, gunfire could be heard by that same warehouse, and that A-10 was being driven to the airstrip, while being shot at. Luckily, Kenneth managed to take off and was now flying around in that A-10. So Dahl ordered an immediate evacuation of the battalion, as Kenneth absolutely levelled the place. The garrison was made into housing by the time it was over. As the battalion went in to survey the damage, there were no survivors, no building or person was spared. Everything was dead.

#### The aftermath

After everything had been destroyed, Kenneth landed the A-10. Luckily enough for them, there was no other vehicles that they could have been used, so apart from the buildings, they didn't have to worry about all the damage. That being said, however, Dahl and Rimmy did have a go at Kenneth for going overboard, but Kenneth replied by saying that there would only be more casualties otherwise, which Dahl and Rimmy couldn't argue with.

The command eventually learnt that Kenneth's battalion had captured the airbase on their own, and so reinforcements arrived. However the reinforcements weren't there to help the battalion at all. In fact, they took away the A-10 and brought it back to the aircraft carrier. Kenneth had to literally fight to keep his tank, which was allowed. But because they had technically disobeyed orders, Kenneth's battalion was severely punished. Public beatings took place which put them in a worse shape than they had started with.

Fortunately they were allowed to stay at the airbase to resupply and rest, since the adult commander of the battalion wanted them to see how generous he was. But not wanting to go in blind, like they had done for practically every battle so far, Dahl sent a squad, called "the badgers" that included, Digby, Cyanide, Quebec, Echo, Womble, Livsey, Nevil, Aamir, which previously included Bridget but he was replaced with Soviet, one of the soldiers they picked up earlier and finally Kenneth. Except Kenneth wasn't allowed to go since they didn't want anything to happen to him, since it was only a scouting mission.

### The Battle of Grenville port

#### Reconnaissance

As the Badgers moved in to scout the base, they had to move past Simon and Paradise, which had enemy soldiers lingering around since Kenneth had bombed the airbase. This meant they had to try and sneak past them, which although they had somewhat gotten used to traversing the jungle, they were nowhere near as good as the enemy. But after some close calls, they managed to make it to an area they could safely survey the port.

However due to there being a river in the way, which they didn't know about, they weren't able to 100% efficiently scout all the areas, but they did find out that the vast majority of the enemy's troops were in this port, so theoretically they could ignore it and head straight for their capital. Aamir (The squad leader) told everyone to keep noting down the enemy's position, as knowing command, they would still be told to take the town.

Once they had spent a good portion of time surveying their defences, everyone was packing up and preparing to head back until they heard gunshots coming from the town. This spooked the team but they eventually calmed down and went to investigate. The gunshots came from inside the town, so some of them had to climb trees in order to get a view of what was happening. The ones in the tree spotted other soldiers, most likely the ones that were involved in the initial attack to get the port, being executed. It wasn't quick and painless either, they watched their fellow soldiers slowly get tortured, interrogated and killed with no regard for their age. This gave them all a boiling hatred for the residents of Grenada.

Not being able to sit and watch, Cyanide started taking pot shots at the enemies that were executing them. Although killed a few, it definitely startled them as they ran to take cover. This also meant the enemy soldiers they had previously avoided in the jungle were now homing in on them, so they would have to move quickly before they were surrounded.

The team managed to get back to the airbase with no casualties, and even managed to take out a few enemy soldiers. Once they had told them the information, including what had happened to the other soldiers, it didn't take long for Dahl (who was beginning to take control of the battalion, though still wouldn't accept it) and Rimmy (the now definitive battalion leader) to prepare everyone and move out.

#### The walk in the park

As the Fusterclucks slowly closed in on the port, they were ordered to take the main road, to which they were cautious to. They knew from the badgers, that enemy soldiers were definitely in the area, and probably were watching them. But as they approached the bridge to cross the river, shit hit the fan. Explosions started going off, left, right and centre. The tank getting destroyed, killing the crew, which Kenneth was luckily not a part of, entire teams of soldiers were wiped out in an instant. Just as they had feared, the road had been mined.

Running out of the from behind them, the enemy sprung out and opened fire. Panicking, troops fled across the bridge to escape, only for the bridge to get destroyed since they had also rigged the bridge to explode.

They were trapped on the path, surrounded and outnumbered since command kept a lot of their troops back for reinforcements. Kenneth suddenly started to try and push the tank. Unsure at first, everyone realised it was to make a makeshift bridge. Since they were only children, it was extremely difficult to push a 50 tonne, burning tank, but with a lot of luck and hard work, it was successfully pushed in, which everyone then used to get to the other side. Around 50 kids had been killed, which was half of the 100 sent there. What pissed Kenneth off the most, however, was how the rest of the battalion were now on their way, mopping up the enemy soldiers. This meant that Kenneth and the other 99 soldiers had been sent out as meat shields and were there to absorb all the mines and destruction.

#### At the port

The remaining soldiers went on up ahead, as the reinforcements had to rebuild the bridge in order to get the trucks across as well, which was more difficult for them as the tank was blocking them. They slowly approached the town, finding it was completely empty, no enemy soldiers in sight. No civilians were even there, just a desolate town. Kenneth heard something in one of the buildings, and when he went to investigate, he found two children hiding under a bed, their parents had both been shot and killed. As they explored further, they found more civilians hiding, with family and friends dead. Eventually they found a massive burning pile of bodies. They were the soldiers that tried to originally attack.

Everyone was now starting to get extremely scared, as they were still only around 10. Kenneth grew even more concerned when he realised the fire had been lit recently, otherwise the flames would be much higher. With that, everyone raised their weapons and spun around, expecting an ambush. They waited for around an hour until they finally lowered their guns, feeling confident no ambush would come. Another 50 soldiers later came to boost them, as the main force was struggling to cross, since occasional surprise attacks would happen, which although they could easily deal with, was slowing them down more than anything.

#### In the air

Feeling much more relaxed and confident after being reinforced, they raised the Cadian flag, and sat around in the town. A few of them were reassuring the residents they weren't there to harm them, but they remained petrified. Some even began fighting the soldiers, and not wanting to cause a massive commotion, they decided to move. Deciding to group up and just chat with each other, since it was one of the few times they had the opportunity.

But as they were talking away and relaxing, a massive green cloud began approaching them. This cloud was killing everything it came into contact with, animals and plants alike, even some of the soldiers who'd been caught in it, dropped dead. The residents however had all been given gas masks, rendering this mist as a minor inconvenience.

The gas reached the troops, and one by one they all started falling down, coughing up their lungs. This was due to how they didn't have anything that could be used to stop the gas, no gas masks whatsoever. Everyone was now down, and the rest of the battalion had no idea of what was going on. After hours on end of this constant torture, the gas eventually dissipated. Which although was good news, there appeared to be no one who could benefit from this, as they were all on the ground.

Then the enemy troops began to move in, feeling 100% sure they had won the battle. They marched in, making it to the middle of town, where Kenneth and everyone laid. As they surveyed the atrocity, one of them thought they saw some movement. After being laughed and dismissed by his peers, more and more soldiers were saying they saw something move. Starting to get freaked out, they called their general to survey the devastation.

One by one, they started getting up off the ground. The enemy were way too terrified by this to fight back, being frozen in a mix of fear and confusion. The 100 soldiers had reached for their weapons, but were coughing profusely. Bits of their lung and what seemed to be litres of blood came gushing out. Kenneth fired the first shot, killing the enemy general. With that, the enemy soldiers went running to the hills, trying to get as far away as they can, from what they thought were zombies. That's when the machine guns started up, gunning down the soldier's backs as they ran back into the jungle. People were crawling after them, limping and stumbling to get a shot off, to get them away.

After them being scared off by the so called zombies, they all fell to their knees again, clearly struggling to even stay alive. This period was when most the soldiers actually died, the gas finally getting the better of them. On top of this, the residents had really started attacking them, seeming to be pissed off beyond belief. The battalion couldn't deal with them on top of the effects from the gas, and so after multiple warnings, they opened fire. Although these were warning shots at first, which did scare away some, the ones that didn't seem to fear death stayed and were actually killing the soldiers. Feeling that they were left with no other choice, they began shooting those that didn't back off.

The amount of death of this battle was surprisingly low, at least compared to previous battles, and battled yet to come. Around 34 soldiers in Kenneth's battalion had, roughly 80 enemy soldiers and 15 civilians had all been killed. Although a later 20 more soldiers, including Womble, would die in hospital due to the poisoning. But despite the comparatively low deaths, it had massive psychological effects on everyone. Kenneth and his soldiers had been poisoned, many considered this their traumatic experience that stopped them from aging, if it hadn't had happened by now. The civilians were now even more angry that they had opened fire on them, and the enemy were severely traumatised from it. In fact, most people were. As well as this, public support for the enemy massively increased, some even becoming soldiers, which is odd seeing as you'd want to avoided joining the soldiers, if their enemy just got up from being gassed.

#### Evacuation

They spent another 12 days at the port after the battle as the rest of the battalion, who were meant to be on their way, got called back after fears of the enemy attacking the airport. So when reinforcements eventually did arrive, they rushed everyone back to the airbase, straight to the hospital. The adult commander didn't like the idea of them coming back, despite what they've just been through. But one shot to the sky by Kenneth and he backed off, as the other three battalions there backed Kenneth.

### Recovering

After weeks out of action, due to command wanting to look like they're being generous by allowing them this "time off" and definitely not because they were scared the battalions would just rebel.

Rimmy and the rest of Kenneth's battalion didn't partake in much battles either during this time. They mostly tried to find out what had happened at Grenville. But as it turns out, the battalion originally meant to take the port had taken poisonous gas and gas masks with them, but due to a mix of attacking an entire town on their own, an overwhelming enemy and overconfidence, they were wiped out and taken prisoner. The gas and gas masks were confiscated and would later be used against Kenneth and his battalion. As well as this, the enemy had forced the prisoners to go house to house, and execute civilians, forcing the residents to develop a strong hatred for them. That wasn't all, as apparently they then executed the prisoners, to win the public favour, which was why people joined later, despite hearing about "zombie child soldiers".

During their time in hospital, everyone was conflicted about going back. The likes of Aamir, Soviet, Quebec, Echo and Dahl wanted to make the most of their break away from fighting, and didn't want to go back. But Cyanide, Nevil, Digby and Livesy wanted to go back, as they had more or less been tricked into thinking this was their war to fight, and after the death of Womble, this was now personal for them. Kenneth, however spent most of his time outside the hospital, either mourning at Womble's grave. Like everyone else, this war had gotten a lot more personal for him, and he did believe he was born to fight this war, but he also didn't want to have to go back.

Despite all odds, the majority of the survivors made a full recovery in a matter of weeks (or at least, Cadian documented that, in reality it took closer to months). After this, they were told to continue training, as Cadian wanted them to think they were healthy, but didn't want to send them to the front just yet.

### The enemy

All the enemy's plans were mostly routed in unconventional guerrilla tactics. They did hit and runs, and used the jungles to their fullest extent. As well as this, they were exceptional at manipulating situations in their favour. For example, all the residents of Grenada were more loyal to them, as they had convinced them that Cadian is evil, and will massacre innocents.

As most the population were actually willing to help, this meant they could mobilise their entire army, which wasn't that big to begin with, only 2067, compared to the 7,300 Cadian soldiers. Their capital had at most 10 troops to act as a garrison, and mobilised civilians in a way that made their army seem bigger. As well as this, whenever soldiers went into a town or village, the residents would all most always try and fight them off.

This was combined with the fact they are fighting children. So to justify this they came up with lies, for example they were actual demons that needed to be banished off the island. The attack at Grenville further reinforced this.

However some villages that were more secluded didn't feel this way. They were indifferent and as so, Cadian worked on having a good relation with them, and as news broke out about this, this challenged the enemy's idea of them being senseless demons. But still, an overwhelming majority were willing to fight against Cadian.

### Random Story

As the battalion entered the village, like Grenville, it had all been abandoned. Except unlike Grenville, there was no one in the buildings. It was all deserted. Being in this situation before, many started to get freaked out after remembering the other battle. A lot of them were on the floor, crying and praying the same thing doesn’t happen to them again. However at this point, many had been desensitised to it, mainly the older ones. That’s not to say they weren’t somewhat frightened either.

They waited around for a few hours, everyone was on edge and unable to relax. The reinforcements sent should’ve arrived by now, so it was odd that they heard nothing from them. Finally, a single soldier staggered his way out of the jungle, screaming “they’re coming”. Not wanting a repeat of Grenville, they immediately got to work, building makeshift defences.

It was primarily made up of salvaged wood from carts and fences. Just anything they could find. Then they took up positions, setting up machine guns on top of the wall, some waiting in a nearby house and others held the backup lines. The badgers, were the ones that set up in the house, Kenneth being on the roof. Dahl had set up so he could lead the ones on the frontline while Rimmy was the one controlling everything from the rear.

Out of the jungle, the enemy arrived in a surprising amount of force. It appeared everyone from the village had taken up arms and joined them, albeit most weren’t well equipped, it was mostly farming utensils. Kenneth’s battalion was once again outnumbered. In fact, Kenneth began to estimate, this was the majority of their whole army here, so if he could get a word out, other battalions could just storm the capital and end the war. Unfortunately though, they were completely surrounded, with no feasible way they could get a message out. Although Kenneth did notice an opening, Dahl told him they were too outnumbered to go on a proper offensive.

Kenneth and his battalion waited around for the enemy to make the first move, as they still weren’t fond of the idea of opening fire on people who lived here. With one call from what appeared to be their commander, they began charging at the battalion, at all angles. That’s when the soldiers chose to open fire, gunning them down, but it was a close distance that they could easily close, breaking the lines and forcing them to retreat. The enemy soldiers had also opened fire, mainly at the soldiers in the nearby house, but that was quickly stormed, once again forcing all inside to retreat.

Falling to the backup lines, it started to become really apparent as the battalion's overwhelming firepower was superior. Despite a few casualties on their side, they were mowing down the enemy, but began to get scared when amidst the chaos, houses were set alight. This made them more unorganised, which the better trained, better equipped and mostly intact soldiers took the advantage. They told everyone to just rush, knowing that they were only children after all, and so could easily be beaten in close quarters. On paper this was a sound plan, but the solders put up much more of a resistant then they thought, and even began to back up, allowing for them to use their guns properly.

Kenneth had realised their plan, and them making use of the fire, so he picked up a stick, held it in the fire so it caught alight and launched it over at the proper enemy soldiers. Although didn't hit anyone, the fire spread rapidly, causing them to also panic. This also caused the enemy civilian soldiers to more or less halt, seeing as their leaders were also unorganised. All of this, gave Kenneth the perfect opportunity for a counter-attack, which they did, clearing out the enemy, wave after wave, driving them back into the jungle.

As they retreated, the survivors of the battalion started helping the wounded, which to the residents of the village was surprising as they were also helping them. Though granted, a lot chose to distance themselves from them, but at least they weren't executing them, which the villagers had thought would've happened.