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***

The mountain town of Al-Mahabisha, in the very southwest of the Arabian Peninsula, has seen better days than today. The main feature of the town was the mountainous terrain, rare in Arabia, which made it easy to defend.

The Liberation Army attacked suddenly. No one had expected them to attack, although there were many military forces in the region. The small garrison of the city was first subjected to artillery fire. The effectiveness of the shelling could be called about zero - the bulk of 82-mm mines lay past, but the psychological effect was rendered. Further it was only more interesting. Among the mines it was easy to hide the fire of air-to-surface missiles. Their effectiveness was orders of magnitude greater - the missiles hit all the artillery crews and D-30 howitzers installed on the mountain with great difficulty. The six vehicles were destroyed instantly, while the awakened Islamists, shouting "Allahu akbar!" began firing in all directions.

The visible enemy appeared much later - twenty minutes later, the machine gunners' positions were attacked by armoured vehicles - two APCs climbed up the mountain roads. And following them, ordinary soldiers with AKs and machine guns rode in ordinary cars. They also shouted "Allahu akbar!" and opened fire on the defenders. The government troops did not last long - after half an hour they threw up the white flag and were expelled in disgrace.

The Islamists were not happy for long - soon, trying to lead this gang Ares, began to organise the defence. And it was not easy to do it - firstly, it was necessary to bring up more howitzers to shoot all the approaches. And the terrorists dragged - with the help of a tank, six big American howitzers were dragged upstairs.

Following them were American SAMs, surface-to-surface missiles, trucks with ammunition... the soldiers hastily prepared for defence - the only thing. that was available to them was to pour sand and stones into bags and cover the positions with them. SAMs were hastily deployed - by evening, six Patriot and two Hawk surface-to-air missiles were guarding the sky. Two MLRSs allowed them to shoot at any area from which a counterattack would be prepared. The terrorists were establishing themselves in their new stronghold. The hastily trained artillerymen were no godsend, but their lack of training was compensated for by UAV targeting and guided munitions. They were preparing for a massive counterattack by government forces, so they spent a week building fortifications and hauling weapons and ammunition to the heights until Yemeni government forces decided to drive the terrorists out of the mountainous village. The result was disconcerting - the MIG-21 planes sent to bombard the village were shot down, and an attempt to move artillery and troops to the neighbouring village of Gizilan ended in a powerful artillery raid. Ten howitzers worked on them, and as soon as the attack on Gizilan was over, both MLRSs that had attacked the aul got involved. As a result, a transport helicopter was damaged and the government forces raised a real alarm.

By early December, many TV channels were already talking about unrest in western Yemen - the rebels had seriously and permanently settled in the mountains. They had the latest American weapons, as well as old German machine guns. From the sky, they were aided by reconnaissance satellites, UAVs, and UAV reconnaissance.

Encouraged by this good fortune, and frankly - after the "vertigo of success", the terrorists began to advance further, taking over the mountainous regions of Yemen one by one. However, they were quickly kicked in the teeth - holding high ground with only machine guns was unlikely, and seriously defending each of the heights was beyond their means. As a result, the rebels lost one MLRS and a quarter of their manpower, after which they returned to the initially conquered territories, regularly pulling God by the beard, shelling large population centres and hiding behind fortified positions....

Ares, if he were human, would have spat - it was completely ill-timed and inappropriate for the rebels to set themselves up. Instead of a sluggish war, they provoke a swift operation in which they will be destroyed, every last one of them. But attempts to explain this to the leader led to nothing - Allahakbar-jihadist is not a reasonable enough creature for this. The only thing left was to pour more funds and weapons into their army, and hope that they would make more noise before they were spread thin across the mountains. That's exactly what Ares did.

The Liberation Army terrorists were, to the expert eye, a perfectly typical group. Ares sent them more weapons of all kinds, and another war began in Arabia. Though it was still going on - being born in Arabia meant being cannon fodder. No such luck. After numerous interventions, internal wars, the locals proved again and again the simple truth - brainwashing gets rid of problems with unnecessary thoughts, fear, as well as any reasonable questions. The main thing is to shout "Allahu akbar!" louder and more often.....

The AO raids were becoming more and more brazen, so brazen that America was already talking about sending a contingent to Yemen. However, there was no benefit from this operation, and the spontaneous group they thought had emerged posed no threat to the American presence in the region.

* * *

Eighth of October.

* * *

There was no Abstergo headquarters in Ekaterinburg as such. There were several buildings belonging to specialised departments. One of them was a building in the centre of the city occupied by CEM - the Centre of Experimental Machine Building.

The colour of engineering personnel of the city and the country worked in the division. And the tasks set before the centre were extremely interesting. Today there was a full house. Twelve people - leading engineers of CEM - gathered in the directorate room.

The director, represented by a hologram, met the engineers with his gaze. His office was more like a meeting point.

And so it began. The engineers were already used to the director's way of talking:

- You've done a good job. Tomorrow will be the premiere of our OS and business software package. The immediate effect of the business package is not expected, but the games - may well "shoot", as well as our computers ...

- I'm sorry to interrupt you, but we're still a long way away from finalising the peripherals...

- It doesn't matter, - the director slid a glance at the engineer, - you need to bring the goods to the market gradually. The production design bureau will take care of the finalisation, and for the CEM there will be a new, extremely important TOR. TOR number "A-078": The goal is to develop a universal chassis for Russian forces fighting for the interests of the homeland outside the state. The materiel complex should consist of a Tank, BMP, SAU, MLRS, MLRS, MLRS, radar, SAM, IMR, on the basis of a standard tracked chassis. At the moment, Russian enterprises are running a similar project "A", but most of the time they are redoing their own mistakes and sawing funds. We have the ABS-T1 tank already ready for production. By its basic characteristics - uninhabited turret, engine of one and a half thousand horses, gun calibre - six inches, crew - two people - it is similar to the project "A". However, our tank is much smaller and narrower, so its chassis is difficult to use as a base for a wide range of combat vehicles. It is necessary, roughly speaking, to increase the chassis of the tank, as well as to make it more versatile, without losing its combat qualities. You have designs for Project A and T1.

Engineers looked at each other. They were already accustomed to abruptly change the direction of their activities. It must be admitted that they came out of such trials with honour - Abstergo did not like those who swayed for a long time. However, the engineer from the engineering plant still asked:

- I'm sorry, but will we be assisted by specialists in the field? We will certainly do it, but we would like to have at least one person with us who has experience in the development of armoured vehicles....

- It's impossible. The equipment is secret, the project is also secret, and the experience of other developers... for now you won't need it....

- Why not?

- Because all the most complex parts have already been developed and tested on the T-1 tank. Engine, transmission, gearbox, turret control electronics, SUAO, radars, thermal imagers, virtual cockpit, gunner's system, driver's system, automatic loader, suspension... your task is only to rearrange the components ready for production and tested on the T-1 tank on the Project A chassis, and at the same time to universalise it.

The engineers murmured positively. The director, who listened to every conversation and analysed the behaviour of the organics, waited for silence. After half a minute the eyes of all present turned again to the Director. The task was as simple as chintz pants and the Director decided to increase the level of complexity:

- ToR "A-078.1" - to develop a tank turret for Project "A", taking into account Abstergo electronics. TOR "A-078.2" - to develop the turret of a double-barreled howitzer. The howitzer itself is already available. TOR "A-078.3" - Develop a HIMARS type MLRS on the basis of TOR "A-078" chassis, TOR "A-078.4" - modernise the turret of the engineering vehicle for installation on the "A" chassis.

And finally, the main thing - all this must be done before the ninth of May next year.

- That's unrealistic! - The engineers almost had a heart attack, - it's one thing to put our guts on the car, but so many developments ...

- Maybe you will be reassured by the fact that many systems have already been worked out at us and were put aside in the archive. But if you want, you can do it later, now your task is to transfer the T-1's guts to Project A.

* * *

Ares was satisfied, because the project of creating a new generation tank was in full swing. Abstergo's engineers had completed the project "A" tank in a fortnight. That was the amount of time it took for two hundred engineers and one hundred and fifty thousand specialists to pull the Project A out of the pit by chasing the UVZ design bureau. Six prototypes were produced in a fortnight, and it was on them that the tank was first rolled out without a turret, and then the turret of the native Project "A" was installed, and it was fitted with the latest electronics and optics. However, that the tank was not a chimera, it had to be raced, and more often and more strongly than the others. And they raced all the trial vehicles on the range, raced them until they broke down - the test for endurance, fault tolerance and durability continued until the first days of November, when inconsistencies and defects were already identified and eliminated. The finalisation of the technical part consisted in the fact that the crew armoured capsule, engine and turret with automatic loader, already mounted with electronics, were brought to UVZ from Abstergo. UVZ only mounted them on their chassis.

Naturally, behind all these successes was not the genius of individual engineers, but the competent coordination of the CEM work, as well as the use of other people's developments or, in some cases, ideas. How, let's say, does the introduction of some design element take place, if we are talking about a traditional team? An engineer comes up with an idea, he nurtures it for a month, cautiously consults with his colleagues. Then he writes a lengthy report to his superiors. The report is considered for a week or maybe two, then there is another month of approvals on GOSTs and other units before the design detail is included in the machine drawing. And this is the fastest option - a good idea could be held up for personal reasons, for reasons unrelated to engineering, for years, as happened, for example, with active tank defence. In CEM it happened like this - a good idea came to mind - give it to the public, Ares analysed the idea and gave a ready solution - to include it in the drawing, to refine it, or to reject it. All this takes no more than five minutes of time, mostly spent on formulating the idea by the engineer. There was no paperwork, decisions were made instantly, the bureaucracy worked according to a simplified scheme, and experimental samples were produced and tested day and night, non-stop.

Neither Ares nor the Director told the engineers what the tanks were for, and the engineers were under a non-disclosure agreement, but vaguely guessed. All equipment was tested in conditions close to the desert, especially carefully - tested for dustiness and operation at extremely high temperatures, up to eighty degrees, the requirements for air conditioning and air filters were made from the calculations for sandstorms and a day of work in the centre of the Sahara. In any case, by the sixteenth of December, the Project A tank was officially delivered, provided that the crew armoured capsule with all workstation equipment, radar, computer, radio station, RAS, air conditioning, thermal imaging, NVR, satellite communication and navigation system, engine, cab parts, would be manufactured by Abstergo. It will take at least three years for dozens of Russian enterprises to set up production of similar components, but the tank is needed now.

On the seventeenth of December, the Malvina 122-mm MLRS missile block underwent static tests. On the base of the tank, with twenty-four guides from the Grad, the Malvina missiles were concealed in a fifty-millimetre thick steel box - invulnerable even to large-calibre armour-piercing bullets and serious shrapnel. The platform itself, having experience in the development of heavy industrial robots, was not difficult to make - by the twentieth of December "Malvina" showed an exceptionally fast transition from the hiking position to the combat position and was installed on the tank. It turned out to be similar to the TOS, but the characteristics were quite different... and the length of the installation was quite different.

On the tenth of January a group of two hundred engineers working on the self-propelled vehicle finished their work. The turret passed static tests on the range - with the new ballistic computer and cannon it confidently hit at forty-one kilometres, and after modification by file and Ares the range of fire decreased to forty kilometres, but the accuracy increased to jewel-like. When using the Geos UAV-correcting UAV with SNC in combination with the howitzer, the accuracy of the projectile hit reaches one metre, and when using the corrected ammunition with pre-entered target coordinates - up to ten centimetres.

The automatic loader was fully provided by Ares, as it was inhumane for humans to redesign what the engineers had done there. It could take years even at CEM....

But instead of a missile system it was decided to develop a powerful laser system - that would blind the enemy's optical sensors. Work in the USSR had already been carried out in this direction - CEM engineers picked up all the documents on laser self-propelled vehicles and began to create. However, Ares did not believe that they would be able to do something within the specified period of time - he did not give them any information on lasers, and development almost from scratch could take several years...