NationStates Jolt Archive

A quartet of APCs rolled quietly down the street. It wasn't anything uncommon these days; with the rise of Imperator Cominus the Military was always on the go. At first the people of the Empire, and more acutely, those of Syracuse, cheered the clear show of power. Then they booed for a bit. Finally, they just learned to ignore the movements all together.

But this time things were different; these APCs weren't just on a random patrol or carrying a squad of troopers to another point on a map. They were moving with a purpose - and yet they still moved quietly. The sun had long since dropped behind the horizon, though it struggled valiantly to keep its head up. In the end, it would soon lose ground more rapidly every day. The streets were thus dark and rather desolate. This area of Syracuse, called the Four Flags district, had always been a hot-bed of political activity.

The four APCs stopped in front of a multiple story apartment building and the men inside the armored shells of the APCs disembarked for the quick hit and run operation. They stormed the building without hesitation, assault rifles at the ready. Up the flight of stairs they went, several teams breaking off at various floors. The lead element, a six man team under Centurion Mathias, made its way up to the fourth floor and paused for a moment. They flicked their muzzle lights on, Mathias nodded his head and one of the troopers kicked in the door. The team quickly filled the small, shanty-like apartment. A pair of frightened voices arose deeper in the apartment.

Mathias and his men followed the screams and belligerent yells. Typical mammalian behavior, Mathias told himself. When threatened, bark. His men lit up the couple, a pair of men. They raised their hands in surrender and were quickly bound at the ankles, the wrists, and then hog-tied. Mathias let his assault rifle fall across his stomach and removed his gloves. He looked around for a moment and flicked on the over-head light. Mathias took a seat and began speaking. "You are Flavius Depidus, correct?"

"That is correct." Flavius replied softly.

"President of the Communist Party of Syracuse, correct?"

"Also correct." Flavius replied as he began to formulate a make-shift defense. "I haven't violated any provisions of Mr. Aelius' resolution. I know that much for a fact."

"No, you haven't." Mathias said with a chuckle. "But you are guilty of one thing; you are a communist." His words were interupted by gunfire a story below. Flavius was rocked with a look of fear that he couldn't erase from his eyes. "As I was saying, you are a communist. My Cohort has been given the authority, in accord with Imperator Cominus' wishes, to deal with communists in any way we see fit."

"So you mean to kill me I take it?" Flavius said, mustering a bit of courage. He was scared to die; any man who claimed not to fear death was truly a liar. "But my partner is not a communist, and will never be one as far as I can tell."

"Silence him." Mathias ordered. One soldier grabbed Flavius by the hair and pulled his head back. A second soldier snapped the stock of his rifle squarely into Flavius' teeth. He barked and struggled not to swallow his front teeth. He spit the pair of teeth out and then coughed up a bit of blood.

"You cowardly bitches!" Flavius shouted, blood spurting from his mouth. Bam! A second strike caught him on the nose. Flavius began to feel dizzy and confused.

"As I was about to say," Mathias said as he fiddled with his black leather gloves. "We can dispose of anyone we see as a threat. Now I would reckon that a homosexual, a faggot if you will, is a threat. They undermine our way of life with their disgusting life styles. But the Empire is compassionate. Only one of you has to die today."

"You call that compassion, you little shit?" Flavius shouted as his lover was brought in and made to kneel beside him.

"Here are your options." Mathias began. "If you adhere to your political ideologies, we'll kill your lover and imprison you for the rest of your life. If you refute your political ideologies, you will die and he will be imprisoned for the rest of his life. Do you understand?"

"Let me get this straight," Flavius said as his head wobbled and his lover sobbed. "You want to get rid of communists, but if I say communism sucks you'll kill me anyway? That doesn't make any damned sense!"

"You have ten seconds to decide or you both die." Mathias said eagerly, quite expecting Flavius to save his own hide.

"Then I refute communism." Flavius said, resigned to his own death and tormented by the fact that, in order to save the love of his life, he had to turn away from what he believed was truth.

"Excellent." Mathias said with a sparkle in his eyes. "Kill them both."

Flavius didn't get a chance to shout before his lover was shot execution style. Flavius moaned terribly, perhaps out of pain, or perhaps fear, and let his head drop. The merciful bullet entered the back of his head and brought all the suffering to an end. Not but a few moments afterwards Mathias heard gunshots coming from his other teams. He clasped his hands for a moment, slipped his gloves back on, and ordered his team back down. "That's the beauty of this new operation," He said to his second in command. "Not only do we kill the communists, we torment them before they die. Those who might survive get to go tell their friends 'So and so turned against communism'. It's the most beautiful operation I've ever taken part in."

Mathias stopped for a moment, looked back up to the aparment, and remembered something. He pulled a deck of cards from his breast pocket and opened it. He pulled out a pair of cards, the Death Cards for the VII Cohort, XII Legion. He ran back up to the apartment of Flavius and placed the cards on the still oozing bodies.

-----------------

A bright eyed, bushy tailed Field Marshal stepped up to the lectern and adjusted the microphone to his unusually tall stature. He coughed to clear his throat, then wasted no time in getting started. "At approximately 0200 Operation Talon began, with the clear purpose of removing dangerous elements from the Empire of Akilliam. Already we have rounded up about six hundred ultra-radical communists who will be taken to various facilities across the Empire.

"It should be noted that Operation Talon is more than just a military affair. Yes, we are removing dangerous elements from the Empire. But it's much more than that. It is a message to the rest of the communists and the world itself the Akilliam will no longer tolerate the vain threat communism attempts to pose. The annoyance that is communism will be wiped out, destroyed, burnt away.

"And once we are done cleansing our Empire, we will turn our sights to the world. We will soon march across the world, burning the communists that fall into our path. We shall use their bodies to light the streets at night. They shall be crucified, slaughtered, and fed to animals - for that is the fate they deserve."

OOC: My oh my. :)

Say, what happened to Aelius? I liked him.

~Siri

Aelius is the one that authored the resolution dearest. He's still alive and kicking, though much more hostile due to circumstances that never... really... happened...

:)

Even before he had risen to power, Cominus was known to be brazen, audacious, heavy handed, and at times completely irrational. His power as Imperator only magnified all those dark traits. Though he had once confided in a friend that he doubted himself, he now showed no signs of a lack of confidence; much to the contrary, he seemed arrogant and methodical at the same time. But then again, he was just a boy of nineteen years. He was tall, with short, scruffy, brown hair and unkept facial hair. Many wondered how his kindly, loving, grandfather ever spawned such a malignant soul.

Cominus paced the large briefing room slowly. His hands were clasped behind his back, right holding the left. "Why haven't they responded yet?" He asked of his Generals.

"Perhaps our blow was a little heavy-handed sir," The Field Marshal of Army Group Scipio responded. "We did kill most of their official leaders. Perhaps they haven't yet had time to organize anything."

"That is certainly possible," Cominus replied softly as he took a chair. "But still unacceptable. I can't stress this enough, gentlemen, we must get a good, solid reaction from them. We must put them all into one little place so we can kill the whole lot with one strike."

"They will gather together in time sir." The Field Marshal replied. "Until that time, we can continue the executions and shock tactics. I assure you, they will move and then we can destroy them all."

"Field Marshal, I want you to find any figure head they might have. I want you to find this man or woman, crucify the bastard, and feed the body to the dogs. Literally." Cominus replied with that scary shadow that always seemed to cover his face. "Use the rest to light Herculaneum at night."

- - - - - - -

Crucifixion Way, the nickname of the road that lead to the site of state-mandated crucifixions, had been rigged with sixteen large metal poles like street lights. They slumped over more, and were offset to each other. Where the light should have been there only hung a chain. Each had a small crank at the bottom.

At the exit of the prison that opened up to Crucifixion Way, there stood two Centurions. One carried only long staff, about fifteen feet long. The other had a flame-thrower strapped to his back. A quartet of Imperial Marines led a group of sixteen prisoners out of the prison and brought them before the Centurions. The man with the flame thrower held the trigger, but never ignited the stream. The prisoners were quickly covered in the sticky, hostile mixture of napalm. They shouted in horror and tried to break free.

The Imperial Marines beat them towards the make-shift light poles. They detached one from the chain-gang, while the Centurion with the staff lowered the chain from the pole down. He hooked it onto the chain that girded the lowly communist's waist. With all his power, the Centurion began to crank away and the man was lifted off the ground and high up into the air. One by one all sixteen men and women were so attached to the light poles, shrieking and flailing as they ascended.

The Centurion with the staff pulled out a lighter and lit the tip. "Now you die!" He shouted with a sadistic pleasure hard to match. Carefully, he let the flame kiss the first man's clothes and the napalm ignited. All that could be heard for the first few minutes were the shrieks of absolute pain and the occasional pop of flesh burning, cracking, and bursting.

One by one the Centurions took turns igniting the Communists. It was a sparse light, but it was enough to illuminate Crucifixion Way until the wee hours of the morning.

"The communists and a few other factions are now in open revolt sir," said the Supreme Commander of the Air Force. "We have a number of squadrons in the air to execute the second phase of Operation Talon."

"You have my blessing Commander." Cominus said as he popped a grape into his mouth. He held it between his teeth and gums, then spoke again. "Make sure that none survive."

--------

XXXII Squadron was formed up into a nice 'V' formation, its four flights spread out to have good fields of fire over most of the urban areas of the city. They banked in long, lazy loops and watched with wonder at the burgeoning crowds that rumbled in the streets below. Buildings were being set alight as well as they could see, and most in the squadron were sure that other buildings were being sacked relentlessly. It was indeed another prole-revolt.

"XXXII Squadron," the comm squawked. "Proceed with Operation Talon, command code epsilon, delta, gamma, phi, lambda."

"Roger," the squadron commander said painfully. "XXXII Squadron, execute the operation."

The four flights broke apart and headed, in a matter of seconds, for their seperate targets. They each armed their various missiles and waited patiently for the helicopters to rumble in about a thousand feet beneath their altitude. The little black dots appeared on the horizon like the horsemen of the apocalypse, small at first but growing more clear and dealdy with each moment.

Soon the helicopters had filled the sky, but before those that had taken to protest could realize their fate, the streaks and plumes of missiles poured into the mass of flesh and bone, blasts of shrapnel filled their ranks. The sudden balooning effect of the explosions, followed rapidly by a rapid implosion of air, debris, and flesh smashed the crowds. As the chain guns poured white phosphorous shells into the crowds, the poor, lost souls watched almost helplessly as the Empire sprung the ultimate trap on them.

The survivors of a crowd, a mob, once numbering thousands had been reduced to a quarter of their number by the initial missile and rocket bursts. Then the chain guns all but finished them off before a scant handful could find cover - only to be met with precision guided munitions of the aircraft overhead. The streets were filled with broken glass, bits of human flesh, and that color of red the communists so loved.

The helicopters hovered menacingly over the rubble and debris, waiting to be relieved by the more nimble line of close air support helicopters. Their relief was near, they realized, when the column of tanks rolled up the street. A few shell shocked people marched through the morass of broken bodies, eviscerated limbs, and blood only to be decimated by the click of machine gun fire.

When Operation Talon was finished it was learned, by those who took the lead role, that the operation was more than just Syracuse; it covered the Empire. The phrase 'fear the eagles' rang all more clearly in everyone's ears after that dark day. The Empire had forced the proletariat revolt for no other purpose than to gather them together for slaughter.

A popular line of posters arose, thanks in part to the ideas of Cominus. A the great Iron Eagle of Akilliam stood ominously with its talons grasping the lifeless body of a man draped in the communist banner. There were variations, but the theme remained the same; the Iron Eagle over the subdued communist.