The forge was no longer just a place of heat and hammer. It was a heartbeat. Deep within the belly of the Laurant Foundry, molten steel poured from the crucibles into precisely engineered molds — not to cast farm tools or boiler plates, but weapons of a new war. Modular components. Articulated suspension arms. Interlocking hull plating. And something else.
Wheels.
Thousands of them.
Each built to withstand shellshock, rough terrain, and sudden adaptation.
The Libellule was not just an idea now — it was a doctrine. A light strike vehicle built to be assembled in the field and deployed without the weight of cavalry or the vulnerability of foot scouts.
Emil stood above the assembly floor, watching his team run a live field test. The first Libellule chassis — "Alpha-1" — zipped across a rough mock-up of a trench-ridden road. Its frame buzzed with purpose, bouncing over cratered gravel like a locust on caffeine.
"Hydraulic suspension holding?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the vehicle.
Fournier, clipboard in hand, grunted. "Still responsive at 48 km/h. Maneuverability acceptable. But radio clarity drops under magnetic interference."
"Then shield the coil," Emil said. "Wrap it in nickel alloy."
"Nickel's in shortage," Fournier said flatly. "Already rationed."
Emil didn't blink. "Then steal some from the Ministry's rail lines. Requisition it as 'defective rail clamps.' Use code Zeta-4."
Fournier didn't argue. Not anymore.
A week later, the first Libellule units were field-deployed in secret to the Bois de Septsarges, where French infantry divisions were preparing a counterstroke against the Bavarian 12th.
Captain Hugo Marchand, a seasoned veteran with one arm and no illusions, was put in charge of the scout unit outfitted with the prototypes.
"I don't trust things that look like beetles," he muttered to Emil during the hand-off. "Especially ones that hum like dragonflies and stink of oil."
"You'll trust them when they bring your men back alive," Emil said, and then added, "Or when they make the enemy die confused."
The operation began at 02:00, under cloud-choked skies and the eerie quiet that came before a storm of guns. Five Libellule units flanked east through forest trails too narrow for carts, bypassed a known trench line, and cut through German wire behind the second ridge.
They didn't fight. They didn't need to.
They just broadcasted.
The new radios — short-range but potent — emitted overlapping, distorted chatter. German voices mimicked. French coordinates deliberately false. Phantom orders sewn into the night like seeds of dread.
The Germans awoke into chaos.
Officers fired into the trees. Artillery bombarded friendly positions. Runners were shot by their own jumpy comrades.
And then came the real assault — infantry, timed to the panic.
Within four hours, the sector collapsed.
Marchand returned with two bullet holes in his beetle-like scout, one wounded soldier, and a captured enemy map case.
He grinned as he shook Emil's hand.
"I'll be damned. You were right. These things are ugly as sin, but smarter than saints."
But not everyone smiled.
That same week, Colonel d'Artois received an encrypted message from Army Group G.
"Ministry concerned with Emil Laurant's increasing independence. Recommend oversight. Civilian assets now embedded."
Emil was not informed. But he noticed.
The engineers began second-guessing directives. The clerks asked for three approvals instead of one. One of the supply officers — a man Emil didn't recognize — reported directly to Paris.
Fournier confronted him late one evening. "They're tightening the noose."
"Let them," Emil said, eyes on the map. "So long as they do it after I finish the bridge."
"What bridge?"
Emil pointed to a sector near the River Aire.
"Between doctrines," he said. "Between what they think is possible and what I intend to make inevitable."
Meanwhile, the Germans weren't idle.
In Metz, a division of Krupp engineers, recently recalled from the Eastern Front, were assembling something they called Projekt Höllenwagen — a response to reports of Emil's mechanized tactics.
The Hell-Wagon.
Not a tank. Not yet. But a concept. A fast, armored machine gun platform with sloped armor, heat-resistant tires, and overlapping MG belts.
It had no grace. No finesse. But it had teeth.
Its first test was scheduled for late November.
A race had begun.
And somewhere deep in the Vosges mountains, a German field agent named Wilhelm Rainer compiled a dossier on Emil Laurant.
Underlined in red were four words:
"Eliminate or replicate — fast."