The Layartebian Chronicles [Archive]

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:03

Part I: The Mysterious Meteoroid

The room was dark except for the ceiling light which showed dully overhead the table. Sitting there was the Emperor and two of his highest ranking officials. They were his most trusted inner circled advisors. The Emperor looked around and said "I saw the explosion. Am I to take it that the test was successful?"

The first man spoke up, "Yes sir it was. Detonation at five hundred miles. One point seven kilotons. It vaporized the target sir."

"Good, good. And who knows about this?" The Emperor asked again.

"No one that we can't trust and no one that we have any issues with. It is completely under the belt like our other top secret, black projects." The second man finished.

"Very well and what about the public?" The Emperor had a smirk on his face.

"The truth sir. A satellite exploded after colliding with something in the upper atmosphere. We suspect it to be space junk sir or a possible meteoroid that just happened to hit the satellite on its way into the atmosphere." The second man spoke again.

"Very well. Publish the story. We're done here." The Emperor went back to his desk and opened a drawer, pulling out a pen that was one he'd had long before the war. It was the only pen he used anymore and he'd replaced the ink in it so many times he lost count. It had been his fathers and unfortunately the little emblem on the clip had broken off long ago but it was still an intact pen. He pulled a file from the cabinet behind him using a key that he had gotten from the drawer. He pulled out a file and proceeded to enter some data.

BREAKING NEWS
The Layarteb News correspondent, Shepherd Smith, sat at his news table with the picture of an atmospheric explosion behind him. "It has just come into Layarteb News that a small meteoroid has collided with a weather satellite in orbit around Layarteb causing the fireball in the sky that many of you had seen just under an hour ago. The government has assured us that no debris will be falling to Earth and that the meteoroid wasn't big enough to be a threat even if it did get into the atmosphere, where it probably would be been destroyed by friction, as is usually the case. And now back to sports..."

Harry Golden turned off the TV at that time. He was thirty, employed full-time at a local steel mill. He was something of a conspiracy theorist and him and his group of theorists friends were present, having a game of Dungeons and Dragons that night. They looked at each other, "So what do you guys think?" He said.

"I think it was a top secret missile test, something that the government has to take out alien spacecraft." William Richet said. He was also employed at the steel mill but he was forty-two.

"Yeah I heard from Timmy that the government has some sort of top secret weapon to destroy space stations or alien mother ships, I don't know exactly. He thinks it has a fusion particle warhead, something un-Earthly." Harry said.

"Well shall we begin the game?" Mark Teh said, another of those present. Harry put down his digital camera and walked over to the table with the following image present.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/ASAT-N%20Test.jpg

The Dungeons and Dragons game ensued with the four men sitting at the table fighting furiously in their game. Harry, William, Mark, and Steve were just four normal guys, single, full-time employees at the Steel Mill and another at a local radio station. They were all part of the same group, the Omega Bunch. They were the usual sort of societal rejects, so to speak. They sat around talking about UFOs and top secret government projects and a few of them believed themselves to be abductees themselves. Some of them chased the lights in the skies, others took pictures. None of them had successfully gotten any pictures of anything except lights in the sky.

"So did you hear, the government got another UFO kill today. That makes a total of ten by surface-to-air missile and three now by fighters. They've gotten one with an F-15C and another with an F-16C. I don't know what the latest was but that makes thirteen in total. Do you think they are here from another planet?" Harry said.

"Of course!" Mark said.

"But what about this thing we saw. That was no meteoroid. Timmy said that there weren't any lights from the mountains. The explosion was over the mountains and there is usually a slew of lights there all the time but he says it was totally dark." William said.

"EMP?" Steve asked.

"Yes. He managed to sneak in up there you know to the test facility but not that far in before they nabbed him but he said that there were a few batteries discarded on the ground that were very warm to the touch. He tried to steal one but they searched him and took it. Then they released him, you know the usual crap." Willaim said.

"So we're looking at a new military weapon. A high altitude nuke designed for what?" Harry asked.

"I'd say as an EMP weapon or as a strike weapon against satellites or anything really in the upper atmosphere. It's probably a derivative of the ASM-135 ASAT. The F-15 can launch that but I'm thinking they designed something new. Maybe a derivative of the SR-71?" Mark said.

"Do you think the government has a purpose for any such weapon?" Harry asked.

"When do they not. I couldn't figure it out though." Mark said.

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:04

Part II: The Virus

Timmy ran down the slope of the mountain to his car, a 2004 Chevy Suburban Silverado that was already started, waiting for him to come and drive it. His remote starter had new batteries so he could turn it on immediately and from far away. He was being chased, he knew that. He had just broken into Zeta Facility. He had been lucky, pure lucky. The facility was so heavily guarded that not even mice could ingress and egress without being known. Timmy, while scowering the land for evidence of a UFO sighting, slipped and fell into an air vent, which had apparently been overlooked in the construction of the facility. He ended up inside and exploited this to his best ability.

He now had, on a disc, the secret documents about a virus that the government had supposedly engineered as a biological weapon. There was a lot of false documents in the computer system to deter hackers and other miscreants and it usually worked. Timmy didn't know if what he had was true or not but he would find out. He had a good thirty-five second lead on those that chased him and they were not carrying their night vision goggles with them as they exited the facility. Timmy was already gone by then, three miles down the road. He had no lisence plates on his car as he had installed a sort of shroud that went over them when he flicked a switch on the dashboard.

When he was safe, on the highway, he flicked the switch and his lisence plates shown again. He drove fast, doing eighty, weaving in and out of lanes down the highway, trying to get to the secret lair of the Omega Group, as they jokingly called it. Using his cell phone he called Harry and using their own code told him to go to the "lair" and start up the computer systems and bring on full intrusion protection.

His suburban screeched to a halt in front of the steel mill. It was busy, the night shift was on. The mill ran twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. There were three shifts. He ran down, the disc protected in his pocket, to the lair. The systems were already booted up and ready for him. His first thing to do was copy the disc. It was a 750MB Zip Disc and he coped it to another three discs before accessing it. One of the discs was handed to Harry, another was thrown down the "chute" a hole in the wall that led down to a bin in a small room that was full of discs and other important documents. The other copy was hidden in the safe, which was underneath the main server computer, requiring some careful moving of the server over enough to open the hatch. They had done it so many times that it was routine.

He accessed the disc and immediately clicked on the file he wanted: CAF.pdf:

Cerebral Acute Fever

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/biohazard.jpg
Cerebral Acute Fever (CAF) is a man-made virus, engineered by the biological weapons program of the Empire of Layarteb. It is the most deadly virus known to man, worse than Ebola Haemorrhagic Fever. Ebola has a mortality rate of 50% - 90% whereas CAF has a mortality rate of 98% - 100%.

The CAF virus is transmitted by direct contact with the blood, secretions, organs or semen of infected persons as well as through ingestion and inhalation. The virus is engineered to be the perfect biological weapon. The virus lies dormant until it enters the bloodstream of a living creature. It then actives from the warmth and proteins in the blood. It has an incubation period of 6 - 12 hours.

Initial symptoms are a high grade fever over 104°F (40°C), violent vomiting, diarrhea. These symptoms begin once the virus becomes activated. At approximately 4 - 6 hours after activation (A+240 - A+300) much worse symptoms appear. By now the virus has completely spread throughout the entire body and attacks every internal organ, vein, artery, etc. It takes approximately 18 - 20 hours for this process to be complete, at which case the host dies. Kidney and liver failures result immediately and the organs become mucus, liquefied by the virus. The brain and heart are last to go and usually the person dies from internal bleeding and excessive shock before this stage occurs at approximately 16 - 18 hours after activation. At that time, the brain and heart become attacked and the host experiences hallucinations as well as searing chest pain, which feels like a heart attack.

However, the virus cannot live without its host and within 2 - 6 hours after the host dies, so does the virus. It can be transmitted by any animal as none have a defense against the virus. Vaccines are developed and do work but are kept top secret as well as the virus. In testing, pain factors were so severe that subjects often went unconscious or endured seizures and other rapid bodily movements such as twitching.

CAF can be delivered any number of ways. Aersols and powder are most effective either in the air or in the water supply. Contamination will cease after 72 - 96 hours, after which the virus will die, regardless of if it has a host or not. Lethal dose is 100 spores, roughly one hundred times stronger than Anthrax. Generally, infection is meant to appear as food poisoning though it rapidly develops into more.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/cafvirus.jpg

He read it and was horrified, along with Harry. Both had yet to say anything. There was more to the file but it was mostly compound forumlas, vaccination information, etc. He didn't have time to read it all. He opened the next file, CAF-Test.pdf.

In testing of CAF the following results were shown. :: the pictures were just too graphic to look at ::

Testing subjects were males ages 18 - 79. They were all prisoners for life, eventually slated for execution of life in prison for crimes ranging from child abduction to terrorism. These test subjects were infected with CAF through food, drink, air, and direct contact. All produced symptoms within 6 - 8 hours. All were dead before hour 15 of activation. Bodies were no longer contagious after 79 hours. Disposal was undertaken by incinerator and those who administered test and disposal did not show signs of infection after 36 hours.

Vaccine testing subjects were also males ages 18 - 63. They were all prisoners for life and administered the vaccine through injection. After being introduced to CAF through food, drink, air, and direct contact none of them showed symptoms other than a severe headache and a mild fever, approximately 100.0°F - 101.8°F. Vaccine was successful.

"Timmy do you realize what this is?" Harry said, covering his mouth as he felt ill from the grotesque pictures.

"Yeah I do. This means that this s*** is real. Very real. They're going to find me eventually I know they will, they have to know it was me in there."

"In where?"

"Zeta Facility. I found it by accident, it's by the..." The lights went out and Timmy knew what was going on. "They are here for me! You must not be caught. Hide and get this disc to others, get it to as many people as possible. Take the secret escape chute please Harry. I will never forget you!" They shook hands, hugged, and Harry was off like a bat out of hell! He jumped down the escape chute, which looked more like a darkened passage for dirty laundry than anything else. It led to the outside parking lot. Timmy, on the other hand, attempted to jet upstairs, to distract them from Harry. He carried the disc with him just so that they wouldn't think anything of what was going on. He didn't get too far. Six men, dressed in black, carrying MP5SD2 submachine guns. They had six clips of ammunition on their vests and a triple clip in the magazine, giving them a total of nine magazines or two hundred and seventy rounds. They were expert shots and fought with semi-automatic mode on. Aside from this they carried pistols equipped with silencers, just like the MP5, as well as knives, rip chord, and other assorted killing, breaking and entering, and electronic devices. Those in the steel mill were curious but they were threatened by the men.

"Go back to work NOW!" The team leader yelled and they obeyed, after all they were armed. Timmy got about ninety feet before he was caught. The team leader put a bullet right through his lower leg, ripping straight through his shin and disabling him, though he did try to crawl. They picked him up, handcuffed him, and took him away in a black Suburban, giving him medical attention along the way. He was fine, it was only a flesh wound, no serious damage but he couldn't escape.

He was brought to a secret facility in the mountains where he was interrogated, given a polygraph, and watched heavily. He passed the polygraph, something he had learned to do in the early days of his conspiracy theories. According to him there was one copy of the disc, the one he had, and he hadn't had a chance to read it or anything. There was no one else that knew he had the disc, he claimed. He was thrown into a cell and that was that. The problem was done.

Meanwhile during a secret meeting of the Emperor with the head of the Zeta Facility, Charlie Rubacker, the issue was discussed. "So Charlie how bad is it?" The Emperor asked.

"Sir we've caught him. He made no duplicates, told no one, and didn't get a chance to do anything."

"You are sure of this?"

"Positive. He passed the polygraph flying colors."

"Good then this is settled correct?"

"Yes!"

"Good because if I hear of it there is going to be hell to pay!"

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:05

Part III: Timmy

The jail cell was cold and steel, allowing for no escape. Timmy sat in the eight by eight box, no bed, no sink, no toliet, no nothing. There was only a drain on the floor for him to relieve himself in and every six hours the cleaning systems came on, basically water flushed on the floor and down the drain at high velocity. Timmy had since been drenched nine times, having been in this cell for three days, given only a minimal of food and water, nothing enough for him to survive on for an indefinite amount of time.

There was a soft blue glow from around the top of the wall where it met the ceiling, the only lighting provided as there was no window. He did not know where he was nor did he seem to care. Harry had the disc, he knew that and would spread the truth somewhere. Timmy thought to himself of the wonders of the universe while he was in there, afterall, he had nothing else to do. He wondered about the space-craft sightings he had seen over the years. The images flashed through his head of one particular space-craft. It was a triangle, black, and just hovered over the mountain before it zipped away at phenominal speed.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/ufo.jpg

He had even seen one shot down once. He remembered it vividly. It was flying high, forty or fifty thousand feet in the sky, he figured from his timing plots. He was near a Patriot site, sitting around trying to get photographs of a secret ballistic missile interception test. The missile lifted off at around 2100. But he saw that it was heading for something in the sky that was flying at high speed from the looks of the lights. The missile accelerated and went straight up, impacting the craft in a giant fireball. He didn't stick around for much longer though, he begans to see fire in the forest and heard helicopters on the horizon.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/ufo_shootdown.jpg

He had certainly seen some strange things and it was a wonderful life, he thought. But it wouldn't be for long. The door was opened and the same man that captured him stood there, an MP5SD2 in his hands again. "Come on, it's time to go." The man spoke from a shadow.

"What is going to happen huh?" Anger stretched his voice, "What are you going to kill me? So what, I'm a puny man, nothing to expose your lies and your trechery. I've seen the UFOs, I've seen the tests, I know. I know."

"You know nothing!" The man chuckled, "You know what we let you!." He picked him up by the arm and forced him out. "Now it is time to see what will happen to you if you are exposed to a certain viral strain."

"CAF?"

"You better make you peace with God if you believe in him because you'll want all the help you can get from him. I could shoot you but I'd rather see you suffer for your attempts to expose that which you do not understand."

"Understand? Fine then what am I not to understand?" They turned the corridor.

"CAF exists. We made it. That you are right about. But why you ask?" It was pitch black and silent, except for the sounds of their feet. "There are enemies of the Empire both abroad and otherworldly that seek to destroy us, that seek to conquer and enslave. This virus is our only defense against these enemies. There is but no defense against it but the one we've made and that one cannot be copied, it cannot be discovered, and it cannot be altered. Those UFOs you see shot down are reconnaissance aircraft for otherworldly peoples. They are scouting us, checking our defenses, and relaying the information back. Didn't you ever watch the X-Files?"

"It's just a TV show."

"Is it?"

"You mean to tell me that it holds validity?"

"Our subtle warning to the people. Some get it, like you, some don't. But those who get it often go about having the knowledge the wrong way. You think exposing this virus, these UFOs, these weapons, these tests will make them see the truth?" They turned again.

"It will not only cause horrible distrust in the government and cause panic. That will make it so much easier for the enemies of this Empire to take control. This will ensure total annihilation. So you paranoia and conspiracy theorists are going about it all wrong. Rather than show the information to everyone you should be keeping it silent to yourselves and when the times comes you will be that much more capable."

"But what of a vaccine?"

"It shall be administered when the time is nearer. Through the water supply, standard shots, food, and so on. Everyone will recieve the vaccine and the virus will then be contaminated throughout the water, the food, the air. They will come and die, nothing shall save them."

"I copied the disc. Another saw it."

"Yes we are aware. It has been delt with. The file was encrypted in such a way that it contains a virus in it. The virus will only destroy the file and everything that pertains to it. It has already been activated and copies of the disc and file are useless. The one you speak of has been detained and will meet the same fate as you."

"The virus?"

"Yes." They stopped at another door and it was opened at the sound of the man's knocking. "It's a shame we must do this to you. You could have been helping us but you did not choose your path wisely and at that you cannot be trusted."

Timmy wept slightly, a few tears coming down his cheeks. "Very well you do what you do but I assure you it will not make a difference. Others will know, something will be done."

"Then your quest will be in vain as you will all perish."

"You think I believe you?"

"You should. I didn't get this job for nothing." The room was well lit, a doctor standing in the corner holding a needle filled with a glowing, neon, green substance. "Sit. There is no use to put up a fight."

Timmy reluctantly sat down in a chair not unlike that of a dentist's office except it had belts on it to strap down his legs, head, arms, and chest. The doctor swabbed a portion of Timmy's right arm with an alcohol swab and then injected him with the substance. "Isn't it ironic that you inject me with the most lethal virus known to man yet you swab and disinfect the area before administering it?" The doctor and the man laughed.

"Can never be too safe." The doctor said. Then he turned to the man, "Have you a vaccine?"

"Yes."

"Very well. We are done, he may be released." The doctor left and the man undid the straps.

"Good luck." The man left and Timmy was all alone, in another room with this chair and a two-way mirror was on the wall. Inside this other room was a video camera and a group of scientists, as well as three armed guards. the man who escorted Timmy to this cell returned to his post. Many hours later he was informed of the results, they were successful.

Timmy was brought back to his cell, completely confused. The man who escorted him away was present. "What the hell is going on?"

"The liquid injected into you was a vaccine. It was not a vaccine for CAF but rather for Ebola. The virus was put into the room via the airduct and you were exposed to it. The vaccine was successful, you were infected but the virus died. We hoped for this."

"So now what of me?"

The man smiled and looked at him, "You've just died. Welcome to the Force Falcon training program. You'll begin tomorrow. Until then I suggest you get some rest. You'll need it."

Timmy was bewildered and didn't know what to think. He eventually fell asleep and the sun rose the next morning. He began training for Force Falcon and underwent four months of hardcore training in spy tactics, assault tactics, and everything else Force Falcon was trained for. Harry, on the other hand, was released back to his 'Omega Group' with the news that Timmy was dead and to quit their quest or else it would affect all of them. His memory had been erased of the incident and of the virus by a special drug that was engineered to inhibit the brain from accessing stored memories. It worked well.

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:05

Part IV: The Test

An all-black, MC-130 took off from the airfield in complete darkness. The only way to see it was with night vision technology, which the Omega Bunch possessed. Harry had the binoculars now. He was hiding under a camouflaged netting on a mountain slope not more than two hundred meters away from the runway. He'd watched seven men climb into the transport, all wearing black, heavily armed, and heavily equipped. They entered, ski-masks on all of them, and the MC-130 began to roll. When it took off, it nearly blew out Harry's ear drums. It was something he had not expected.

The airfield was associated with Zeta Facility but was twenty miles away. The only way between the two facilities was a mountainous road that was highly dangerous and some "other" way, which Harry had assumed were underground tunnels. The airfield was not top secret nor was it super heavily guarded. It was heavily guarded but there were several exploits that the Omega Bunch had previously found on their own spying missions way back when.

Onboard the plane, the six men of Force Falcon Team One and their newest recruit, Timmy Abernacky, who was now known as Sandy Milton. The seven of them were going to parachute into a forest in the Layartebian Commonwealth of South Eastern Virginia and conduct intelligence work on a suspected terrorist base. There were reports that a growing insurgency was hiding in the forests of South Eastern Virginia. They were suspected of being funded and financed by the Empire of Nazi-Fox. While there was no solid evidence of that yet, this would be a fact-finding mission, so to speak. The team had orders to locate, if there was any, the insurgent base, infiltrate it, get whatever intel they could, and destroy it. However, they carried with them no explosives.

Each of them had a small canister full of white powder. The canisters were no bigger than eight ounce beer cans and barely took up any room. The white powder they were filled with was the deadly CAF virus. This would be the first of six tests conducted. One would be against this "suspected" insurgent camp, two would be against criminals on death row, two would be against captured Dnalkrad regime members, and the last would be against soldiers to see if the inoculations worked. If all were successful, a war with Nazi-Fox might see the use of this substance.

Harry opened his door to see Mark and William still on his couch reviewing footage they took the previous week of "flying saucers," which were nothing more than government hoaxes meant to deceive onlookers, in all reality. Harry had a grudge on his shoulder and threw the binoculars into the rocking chair next to the couch. "It's been five months since Timmy went missing and we haven't seen nor heard about it since. What the hell happened?"

"Don't know Harry. My guess is they killed him for what he knew." William said as he pushed pause on the VCR.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/ufo_lights.jpg

"Listen I know that Timmy was your best friend and he was all of ours too. It's just that we can only move on and try to avenge whatever happened to him and whatever it is that they did to him. I wouldn't doubt it if they used that sick virus on him as a test subject and watched as he suffered. He's buried, well a box, but still... You have to move on and finish what he started and that is exposing the government for what it is really doing!" William finished.

"Yeah I guess you're right. I'm going in the kitchen." Harry left with a shrug.

The MC-130 was at an altitude of 2,000 feet and a speed of 150 knots when the seven men jumped out. They parachuted down to a point that was ten kliks from where the "camp" was suspected. It would be a short walk and they had enough time to do it. It was only 2109 and they had until 0500 to get there and infiltrate the facility. The terrain was a forest but it was nothing that was difficult to traverse. They headed off into the night.

Timmy had been rigorously trained for the past five months and turned out to be a highly skilled and highly capable operative to Force Falcon. He was hell bent on the crusade he had attempted to destroy and wanted to save what he could and do what he could and this was how. In marksmanship and infiltration, he led his training class and was only a mere second and fourth in electronics and demolitions. All-in-all he was a pretty tough SOB!

The camp was visible at 2230. It would have been near impossible to spot to the untrained eye. A cave, carved into the side of a hill was what they were looking for and they could easily tell by the two sentry's posted outside with AK-47 assault rifles. Delaney was in the lead with his M4A1 Special Purpose Rifle. He took aim and fired, the shot being near impossible to hear throughout the echoes of the forest. It was a kill shot. Both of them were.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/sentry.jpg

They infiltrated the base next. The tunnels wound around a lot and were not well built but it was dark and dark they liked. The base was only being manned by twenty-eight soldiers including the two sentries outside. It was an easy operation. The low-light of the caves allowed them to operate much more effectively than the enemy and within twenty minutes they had the whole base secured with seven prisoners. They had been wounded in the legs, shoulders, arms, and chest in such a way that they could not fight and thus they would be the test subjects for the C.A.F. test. Intelligence was gathered and equipment was destroyed by bullets.

The white powder was spread throughout the cave and on the seven captured terrorists. Then, they got comfortable. They carefully sifted through the intelligence, having two people on guard at the front entrance at all times and the rest on the papers. If they could get as much of the deciphering work done ahead of time it would quicken their ability to get the work done back at their base. And besides, they had to wait for the virus to kick in. Initial symptoms took only thirty minutes to hit the terrorists and they were dead by 0425. It was a quick-acting strain of the CAF virus. The idea was so that it would attack faster and die faster, thus allowing for a quick response team to enter an area. The results were recorded and they called in a disposal team. The bodies were airlifted out by helicopter to the nearest airfield and then flown back to Zeta facility via C-17.

Force Falcon supervised the sealing of the base, which was pretty much standing back a mile and watching a pair of AH-64D Longbow Apache's fire AGM-114N Thermobaric warhead Hellfires into the cave. It was sealed for good and all intelligence was brought back to Zeta Facility. It confirmed that Nazi-Fox was indeed sponsoring terrorist groups throughout Layarteb, this just one of seven.

The Emperor leaned back in his chair, "So it was Nazi-Fox?"

"Yes sir!" One of the advisors said.

"Well apparently we'll have to act regardless of whether or not Nazi-Fox attacks the Monarchy of Stonyplai. Mobilize the forces in accordance to OPPLAN2." The Emperor sat back and smiled. Got you! He thought.

Nazi-Fox no longer exists and thus this branch of the RP is over.

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:06

Part V: The Interloper

Coastal patrol was usually an uneventful duty for the crew of the ILN Fury (SSN-78.) The thirty of them were the elite crew of a Shield class coastal patrol submarine. This submarine was an indigenous design of Layarteb, based off the German U-214. She was three hundred feet long, twenty-three feet wide, and twenty-three hundred and fifty-five tons submerged. A 3.20MW diesel engine drove her when she was on the surface and an air independent propulsion system with fuel cells and batteries drove her under the water. The Shield class had four torpedo tubes with a total of twenty-four weapons. For this patrol, she was carrying eight UGM-84G Harpoon missiles for anti-surface capabilities and sixteen MK-48 ADCAP torpedos. The UGM-84G Harpoon 1G was an improvement over the Harpoon 1C, better known as the UGM-84D. It featured a re-attack capability and improved ECCM. It maintained the massive range of the Harpoon 1C, estimated at one hundred and twenty nautical miles at maximum with seventy-five nautical miles fully capable under the worst sea conditions. It flew subsonic at wave-top level and did a pop-up maneuver to attack the target, allowing it to attack more effectively. The MK-48 ADCAP was a highly advanced anti-submarine and anti-surface torpedo. It had a range of twenty-seven nautical miles and a speed of fifty-five knots in acquisition mode. It also could attack submarines dived at depths of three thousand feet.

The Shield was a highly advanced submarine, capable of traveling a maximum speed of twenty-two knots submerged, with maximum tactical silent speed at eighteen knots. It had a range of four hundred nautical miles and this patrol had only begun. Three other Shield class submarines were patrolling the coast as well but none were in this sector. The sonar was quiet, the ESM had showed nothing, and the scope was clear. But the waters weren't as quiet and calm as they seemed.

Then, out of nowhere, a contact appeared on the sonar waterfall ahead traveling away from the Fury at four knots. It was unidentified at the moment but it was marked and a radio dispatch immediately sent to central submarine command. The signal alarmed the fleet admiral and immediately a P-3C Orion was dispatched, armed with MK-50 torpedos and AGM-84G Harpoon missiles. It was carrying the maximum load to allow for a three hour loiter time. It would mainly be used to identify if there was a contact or not. The P-3C contacted the Shield class through communications as the Shield was only at a depth of sixty-feet, periscope depth. The Shield was moving at eight knots, taking on the contact at double the speed. When the P-3C arrived it showed that the contact was twelve thousand yards away and traveling at two knots, away from the Shield. The Shield closed quickly until it was about five thousand yards behind the contact, where it was identified.

The submarine, traveling at two knots ahead, five thousand yards ahead of the Fury was an Improved 688 class. It wasn't part of the Imperial Layarteb Navy and its identity was not known. The Fury questioned what it would be doing. They were four thousand yards behind the 688, contact "Sierra 2," traveling at two knots, the same speed as the 688. The 688 was towing no array and thus could not tell that a submarine was shadowing it. Surface ships were kept on the normal line and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The P-3C had been recalled and now only the Fury and the SOSUS net was tracking this submarine.

The Admiral of the Navy, the Joint Chief of Staff Chairman and highest ranking officer in the Imperial Layarteb Navy, walked into the Emperor's office at precisely 1700. He was carrying a manilla folder with intelligence that was gathered over the past twelve hours. "Emperor, we have a serious problem." Only he and the Emperor were present in the dim-lit office as the sun was largely down over the land.

"So I've heard. What is this business about a possible enemy submarine shadowing us?"

"That is right sir. We have an enemy 688 submarine travelling about one hundred feet below the surface at a speed of two knots shadowing the coast, most likely gathering intelligence. In the past twelve hours there have been no communications transmissions and the submarine has taken a rather straight line course, unknown that we know of its presence. Going back through SOSUS logs we can safely say that it has been here for two days. Its origin is unknown. We have a Shield class shadowing it now."

The Emperor sighed and looked over the folder, which gave intelligence about the submarine gathered from the SOSUS Net, which was classified and unknown to anyone other than the higher ups of the Layarteb government and military, E-6 Mercury planes, the P-3C, satellites, and the Fury. "What do you plan to do if it attempts to communicate with whoever it is that sent it here?"

"Well sir we plan to intercept the communication and ensure that it does not reach its destination."

"How?"

"We have aircraft up right now that will capture anything and everything that submarine transmits."

"Good. Very well, is there a way other than that to identify it."

"No sir. Not unless someone admits it."

"Very well. We'll wait another three hours and if it doesn't, sink the damn thing!"

"Yes sir." The Admiral left and three hours later, there was no word. The order was given and the Shield launched a MK-48 ADCAP. The torpedo completely obliterated the 688 without the Shield class ever being noticed.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/underwater_explosion.jpg

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:07

Part VI: Rebellion Part I

"This is Shepherd Smith with the Layarteb News Agency. Just an hour ago military personnel attacked a rioting group of protestors who demand less dictatorship and more democracy. The group has been protesting for well over a week now but violence led to repercussions. It is unclear just who attacked the rioting group but scores of ambulances were brought in to carry away countless casualties. We'll have more within the hour."

Force Falcon Team One worked efficiently and quickly. Of the three hundred and nine protestors, one hundred and sixty-two were dead and another eighty wounded. Delaney had taken out sixty himself with his M24 sniper rifle from the rooftop of the Layarteb National Embassy, where the protestors were throwing rocks, Molotov cocktails, and otherwise creating havoc and chaos. Other Force Falcon memebers were armed with M4 Carbines and one had an M60E3. The carnage was insane but they were warned specifically by the Emperor the day earlier that if protests got violent action would be taken against them.

Military MH-60s came in after the disaster and flew the Force Falcon members to Zeta Facility for debriefing and to get them away from the media, just in case some reporter got a little too shutter happy. However, halfway across the mountainous regions there was trouble brewing.

In a cave, somewhere in a mountain not less than two hundred miles from Zeta Facility, in a largely uninhabited portion of Layareb, the Democratic Layarteb Front was meeting for what would be the meeting of all meetings. Their leader, Mr. Jones, was addressing a congregation of roughly six thousand deep in a cavern that, during the Ancient Times, was used to address the barbarian hordes before they attacked. "Ladies and gentlemen, this has gotten out of hand!

"The Emperor proceeds to suppress democracy and to oppress us as if we were his 'play-things.' This cannot continue! His imperial wishes will not suffice the public and we will not stand for this compulsory military service any longer. He has driven our country into a nation of frightened people. You can't walk down the street and mug anyone or else they'll pull a gun and shoot you!

"You can't have an abortion, you can't find an untainted forest, they seize all the gold we find in the rivers and lakes, the gold that was there during the Ancient Times! The warriors of the past would be horrified. The Emperor refuses to acknowledge religion and cuts it no tax breaks. They torture criminals and even possible criminals. Execution is common. There are public cameras everywhere, we can't protest without fear of being killed, and welfare has been cancelled.

"This has to stop now! We demand democracy and the Emperor has ignored us so we must FIGHT!" The uproar echoed loudly. But Mr. Jones was pulled aside with an urgent message. The crowd muttered to themselves in a cacophony of voices.

"I have some bad news. The protests at the embassy have gone wrong. Secret military police opened fired killing many of our comrades. The time is here. You know of your tasks. Go fourth and let's fight this authoritarian regime!"

The crowd departed every which way. It wouldn't be another hour before the first attacks began.

The first attack was at the Central Media Agency in Layarteb City. Sixty gunman, armed with M16s, MP5s, and Micro Uzis stormed the building and took control of the broadcasting to send out videos of their messages and of their hatred for the Emperor. That was at 1849. The second attack and only other one of the day was at the local bus depot. A transportation system had been worked out with the civilian bus agency and the miltiary. The bus agency would assist in transporting military personnel at low-fares. Thirty gunmen, armed with a plethora of small arms, took control of fifteen buses all being used to ferry military personnel. That was at 1927.

However, they were not met without resistance. Minutes after both raids were initiated, members of the CIA Team Task Force Thunder, the elite counter-terrorism team that had successfully defeated IJAM, stormed the media agency, taking forty-six of the sixty terrorists alive and the rest were dead. However, the tape was broadcast. It showed their leader, Mr. Jones, giving a speech where he calls for democracy and revolution against the "oppressive" Emperor. Military personnel on the fifteen buses overwhelmed the thirty gunmen and rounded up twenty-eight of them. Two were dead. The damage was done. The broadcast and the take over of the buses gave the false notion that the government was weak in being able to stop them but that wasn't the case. The government was all but weak.

The prisoners were taken in for interrogation immediately and intelligence was being established as to where they came from. By the end of the day, of the seventy-four prisoners, only sixteen remain alive. Of the fifty-eight deceased, eight died from biological infection, ten died from gunshot wounds, twenty were beaten to death, and another twenty "stopped breathing." Those remaining alive would speak or meet the fate of the rest. The torture was brutal and they were barely holding on after the first hour. It was a shame too, the torture artists were all trained to make victims last well over thirty-six hours. There was outside involvement in the Democratic Layarteb Front. It was coming from an anti-UN nation of unknown name and origin but it would be found out immediately!

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:07

Part VII: The Armageddon Weapon

The ILN Star Searcher, a research vessel was anchored two thousand miles from the test area, two thousand miles from ground zero. The captain looked over the test chart.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/lgm175testmap.jpg

"Jacobs, is central command ready?" The Layarteb military had bought the use of this land for two months and for the past month and a half were building a mock village, a mock city, a mock airbase, and a mock ICBM base with deep, underground facilities. It was ready now and back at one of the many ICBM bases on the mainland of Layarteb, a countdown had begun. It was sixty second countdown of a missile that was massive. It was the LGM-175A Armageddon, a brand-new ICBM based off the LGM-174A Satan. However, it was more than twice the dimensions of the LGM-174. The LGM-175 weighed in at 250,000 lb. and stood 90.5 feet tall. It was set to attack targets as close as 500 miles but as far as 15,000 miles. The missile had a single warhead, a W-94 thermonuclear warhead. The W-94 itself weighed 100,000 lb. and had been the result of a ten year development of total secrecy. It used the standard boosted features that allowed for 15 - 50 mT weapons but it also added an element that was recovered from a downed UFO. It was called Magnitide and when tested was found to be able to boost a weapon nearly twenty fold. The weapon was only the initial test version and the only version built, thus far. Proposed versions would equip the LGM-175 and also there was plans for a free-fall version but that was another two to four years away from even reaching testing phase. This test was to see if it worked or not. The W-94 warhead was based off the W-92 in the LGM-174A. That was a 50 mT warhead. Now it was equipped with this Magnitide.

The crashed UFO was downed by a Layarteb F-16C that was flying CAP. All of a sudden it visually spotted something and upon clearance from CENTCOM it fired an AIM-9X which honed in on the apparent almost non-existent heat signature of the UFO and blew it up, sending its flaming wreckage into the forest below.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/ufo_downed.jpg

Now that technology was being used offensively. The countdown reached zero and off lifted the LGM-175A Armageddon, the only model thus far, a prototype that would either work or fail and setback the program $100B. If it worked however, the $500B missile would display a force so great that it would be the object of total fear.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/icbmlaunch.jpg

The launch was successful and the first stage dropped off on schedule. The missile was headed to a site of 31,400 sq. mi. that was bought by the Empire of Layarteb from the The Incorporated States of Farfetched prospect for $250B. They had been informed privately that an inbound missile would be coming to the test site so as to not alarm them. The missile flew towards the target, being tracked by the ILN Star Searcher all the way. It dropped off the second stage on time and cue as well and now was the last stage. It went terminal at exactly the precise moment and then dove down on the target, traveling 16,000 mph but slowing due to the friction in the air. That was a descent rate of 23,466 ft/sec. It was coming down from an altitude of 800 miles though.

Then, there was a flash. It was seen two-thousand miles away on the ILN Star Searcher. Sensors that were placed and video cameras recorded and transmitted everything to the ILN Star Searcher with a delay of 0. Everything was recorded. The sensors and cameras were vaporized only seconds later but they recorded what they had to. Satellites and other sensors, meant to survive the blast, were in place as well, recording as time went on. However, the blast was massive. From two thousand miles away it looked spectacular.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/lgm175test.jpg

The blast was equivalent to 1,005,700,000 tons of TNT or 1.0057 gigatons (gT). That was 5.7 mT more than the expected yield. Everything for 43 miles outward of ground zero was vaporized. Destruction continued out to 123 miles and shockwaves shook the ILN Star Searcher 2,000 miles away. Radiation fallout, which was expected to be low, was actually no more harmful than that of a kitchen microwave. The element of Magnitide had a cancellation power and absorbed all the radiation throughout the time of the explosion and wound up dispersing it harmlessly. However, there was a giant crater. Though the air burst was at a height of 3,800 ft. there was still a crater that was 3,200 feet deep at its deepest point. There was literally nothing left! The test was a success, a complete and utter success. From space the crater looked phenomenal.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/lgm175testcrater.jpg

Scientists scoured the area long after the blast and found that although it was nothing but a giant hole it was safe to inhabit. The test area was radiation free. The Magnitide was a hit and it would provide a much welcomed weapon. The Emperor was satisfied now and looked to the list of his enemies. Time was closing for them!

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:08

Global Tac System........ online
============================

It had been 24 hours since the Layarteb scientists had given the green sign...

-----Location: Prospect Military HQ

Prospect Commander

Dang....that was some big explosion, good thing we are on Layarteb's good side.

1st Luitenent

Yes sir, the blast was scanned to 1.0 Isoton...after that the detectors melted. Fall-out was extremely low. Good thing Prospect always had emergency plans incase of superlarge explosions, strange thing is that everybody expected a asteriod..

Prospect Commander

Yes....the plans.....the plans

He moved his head and looked to the tactical overlayscreen, a enormous dome structure was animated over the newly formed crater..

The Emperor of Layarteb officially extends his gratitude and thanks to you for use of your land and in addition we will fund the construction of whatever it is that you are building up to the cost of $50B.

Several months had passed since construction of Zone 17 had started...This highly classified project is a joint venture of the army and airforce to build a super-security base for recearch and development.

Prospect commander

How is progress looking Luitenent?

1st Luitenent

Sir, construction is on its way, foundations have been made, the superstructure is build for 19%, construction will be completed within 18 months, 3 years ahead of estimated time, and we have Layarteb's generous funding to thank.

http://www.members.lycos.nl/voicustyle/project.jpg

Posted from other posts...

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:09

Part VIII: Assassination Attempt

The Emperor sat at his desk. The time was nearly 0500 and he finally got some peace and quiet, about ten minutes of it. That was until something half a mile away exploded. The explosion shattered windows for a quarter mile and sent smoke billowing a few thousand feet in the air. Emergency vehicles rushed to the scene on the uncrowded streets and arrived approximately three minutes after the blast. What they came to see was horrible.

The blast had ripped through a major govnerment building. There was no doubt that it was a terrorist act. The crater and damaged signified a definite purpose. The goal was to bring down the building and it brought down a major chunk of it.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/explosion_building_koco.jpg

Over the course of the next two hours, rescue workers brought out seventeen people, eight of them alive. Of those eight only two were able to walk out under their own power. It was brutal. Luckily, it had been early enough that traffic and occupants were not around.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/Dec1JerusalemCarBomb.jpg

The blast was definitely aimed at killing someone inside the building or leveling the building. This was the Central Treasury Building in the Empire of Layarteb. It had to be the act of a newly formed terrorist group, trying to make their mark. Chances were that they were an offshoot of the Democratic Layarteb Front (DLF). Intelligence put their location somewhere in the unoccupied region to the east of Layarteb. With the fall of Dnalkrad to Layartebian forces arose another group there, the Dnalkrad Liberation Freedom Force (DLFF). Intelligence suspected that both groups had linked up and were working to the same cause. That made a serious problem.

The DLFF had ten nuclear weapons, one of which they detonated over Madrad City in Dnalkrad. Casualties were in excess of 200,000 and the city was leveled and could not be inhabited for at least three hundred years. That was only the half of it. They too were hiding in the unoccupied zone but they were mostly military soldiers and officers of the previous regime of Dnalkrad and they were well equipped. They were also being funded and supplied by another nation within the New York region and that made the Emperor very unhappy.

If this was the act of a DLF or DLFF plan than it was going to be easy to deal with. If it were a lunatic fringe group than it was singificantly harder. But all those questions were answered at 1035 when two aides burst into the office of the Emperor. "Sir I have something you need to see!"

The Emperor sighed and picked up the envelope they threw on the desk. "This better be good I am not in the mood today." He opened it and looked at documents and photographs. "What is this?"

"Sir it's the footage from our public survelliance system just before the explosion. There is the van, which we presume was packed with about six thousand pounds of explosives. That man stepping out there is none other than our favorite DLF terrorist."

"Mr. Jones. Well I didn't think he'd have the courage to do anything himself."

"It gets worse sir."

"It does?"

"Our suspicions about the DLF and the DLFF joining forces has in fact happened. They are working in conjunction with each other. Still supplied from a nation within the New York region and in addition to that, they are still in possession of nine nuclear warheads. We have yet to find any base of operations in the unoccupied zone yet."

"Could they be in another country?"

"Doubtful. Chances are whoever is supplying them doesn't want us to know for good reason. Chances are they knew we'll annihilate them."

"Right. Well get to the bottom of this and get it to me at once."

"Sir there is one more thing."

"What is it?"

"The DLF and DLFF, now just called the Freedom from Layarteb Force or FLF, had a purpose for the destruction of that building."

"And..."

"They believed you were in it. Their goal is to assassinate you."

"Well then, this just become a whole lot more personal."

"Yes sir."

"Very well get on it..." They left and the Emperor looked at his watch. When was the last time I slept? He turned to the window and looked out. The smoke was gone and the rush of everyday life had encompassed the streets in the capital city. Assassinate me? Who do they think they are. Killing me. He laughed and sat back down. It was just another day in the Empire of Layarteb and it would be the first day of an entirely new problem.

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:09

Part IX: Dr. No

Buried deep inside the Hades Mountain, the smartest man in all of Layarteb worked diligently on his latest project. His name was Dr. No, for short. He was officially, but unofficially because he didn't exist, deemed the smartest man in Layarteb and for good reason. He was the premier scientist for the military. His inventions resulted in the F-19 Ghostrider, the F-24 Knightowl, and the F-25 Firefox. He also worked on the B-4 Magnum and the U-3 Aurora. His area of expertise was everything. He had six PHDs in the field of Aerospace Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Nuclear Physics, and Computer Engineering. He had been the one who brought life to the sinister CAF virus that the Emperor sought way back when. Now he was working on the newest request of the Emperor, a new propulsion system.

For far too long, Layartebian missiles lacked significant range. Sure ICBMs could hit 10,000 miles away but that wasn't what he wanted. The Emperor wanted a small fuel system that could be used in SAMs and other SSMs to make relatively small missiles have large ranges. Coupled with advanced guidance systems, the Emperor planned to push each missile beyond its envelope. Dr. No would make that possible.

Recently he had worked on the W-94 warhead. It was a modified 50MT W-92 warhead for the LGM-175A Armageddon. The W-94 had a yield of literally 1.0057GT, 5.7MT more than the expected yield. It was possible through a substance called Magnitide. It was discovered on a downed UFO some twenty years earlier. The UFO was downed by a Patriot PAC-3 missile over the forest in Layarteb. The substance Magnitide was in solid form. It had amazing magnetic properties and was used by the UFO to maintain gravitation stability in a hover.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/magnetite.jpg

Dr. No broke down the properties and found a way to synthetically produce this otherworldly substance. However, during testing Dr. No had a strange idea that maybe this stuff would prove useful in weaponry. Its properties actually managed to increase the yield of any nuclear device by roughly twenty fold and due to its composition, when combined with massive heat, soaked up radiation and rendered it harmless. Dr. No had found something amazing and proposed it to the Emperor himself, who immediately took to the idea. It was used in the W-94 warhead and produced the largest weapon system known to man.

However, that was a while ago. Now he was working on his new compound, Centa-Argite-Ragon-Lithite-Iso-Ethernal. It was a blue gel substance that would be his new fuel system. Its properties allowed it to burn twice as hot and for twice as long as regular solid fuel systems. It had taken him five years and was finally ready for testing.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/gel.jpg

The test vehicle was a Patriot PAC-3. The MIM-104F PAC-3 was modified to the MIM-104G PAC-3 REM (Range Enhanced Model). The now 1,000 lb. missile was estimated at first to have a range of nearly ninety miles. In testing it stretched out to hit a target 85 miles away. It was a success. The fuel system was a hit! It would be used in all works of weaponry from ICBMs to IRBMs to SAMs to SSMs. Dr. No had done it again and it was all because of his hard work and intelligence. After all, this was the man who invented the top secret surgery and drug that enabled the Emperor to stay awake 24/7. He had used himself as a guinea pig first and with that he too never slept. His body just didn't need sleep and pills that could be taken once a day provided the necessary effects that sleep would induce. He was a genius, an IQ of at least 240. He had such an IQ due to a rare disease that he contracted as a kid. It was non-fatal but did enable him to use much more of his brain than the average person. However it did produce one side affect: psychosis. Drugs helped him stabilize. Otherwise, he'd be a psychotic murderer and probably have been executed by the Emperor long ago.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/erint22-s.jpg

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:10

Part X: Force Victor

"Gentlemen, I know you are aware of your duty to this Empire and its leaders. You are all privileged to be the first graduating class of Force Victor, our newest Black Operations unit. Your task will be different from other Black Operations units. Your mission is to protect the leaders, to serve as their bodyguards. You are highly trained in this task and we should expect nothing short of great from you men. This is a time of crisis. The FLF is a serious threat and we know that they would be no happier than if they were to kill one of our ambassadors or even the Emperor himself. This will not occur." The General was stiff and rigid. He was the General of the Special Forces, this included Black Operations units. However, he was addressed a graduating class today, inside an underground facility. "Men you are the first unit of Force Victor, the 4th Black Operations Unit. You will set the precedent for your fellow soldiers. Make me proud men!"

Two hundred and sixty-eight miles away, on the border town of Kristo, a lone man crouched inside a second story office building. He was equipped with a single weapon, a .270 Winchester rifle. It had a powerful 8x scope and he had six rounds loaded. The bolt action rifle had a bipod, which was deployed and he was resting it on the windowsill. It was six thirty at night and the sun was to his back, bright and over the building so as to obscure the view of all those looking at him. The building was vacant, having been an office building some six years prior but closed last year due to bankruptcy. He waited patiently for his target, the governor of this particular district.

The governor would leave his office, which was across the street and down the block from the vacant office building. From the windowsill to the front door of the governors office was about six hundred meters and the marksman had trained at ranges of up to eight to nine hundred meters. Six hundred was going to be nothing. Like clockwork, at six forty-five, the governor left his office as his car pulled up. Two bodyguards escorted him out and the marksman went to work.

His first shot ripped right through the side of the governors head. His subsequent shot hit one of the bodyguards in the neck and his third shot ripped right through the other bodyguards' ear. That was it, it was time to vacate. He threw the rifle in its back and threw that on his back. Then, with precision, he darted out of the building via the back fire escape. A car was waiting and he dove into it. The sound of screeching tires echoed as the car sped from 0 - 120 in a matter of seconds. The dust kicked up was phenomenal as they drove into the sunset, blinded on their own.

"Was it a success?" The driver asked.

"Three shots, three deaths. I yearn for the day I can kill the Emperor."

"Very well Yuri. The day will come. Until then the FLF is your guide."

"It is." Yuri, the marksman, closed his eyes and put his head back to put his eyes behind the visor. "The day will come.

The car sped off into the distance for another hour and a half, finally ending up a hideout in the unoccupied zone. The hideout was a simple cave complex with a big enough opening for a tank. Once inside, all was dark and the driver had to use his brights in order to see. He slowed down, doing only a mere 20 MPH as the tunnel wound and such. The caverns were high but narrow, not much room for agility. It was either one way or the other, no two way travel there.

But, when the car came to a stop it was in something that was a marvel unto itself. Inside the caves, some one hundred and forty feet underground was a cavern big enough for a dozen B-52s and then some. But parked here were Russian made tanks, T-80s, T-90s, APCs, IFVs, etc. There were about seventy vehicles total. The complex was vast. Throughout this particular complex there were fuel storages, ammunition storages, a hospital, and living quarters. Yuri and the driver parked and went to the nearest briefing room to watch television. It was all over the news.

"This is Shepherd Smith of the Layarteb News Agency. As we have been reporting for the past hour, the governor of the District of Kristo has been assassinated along with his two bodyguards. He was shot in the head from a sniper some five to six hundred yards away. Details are sketchy but the government tells us that most likely it was carried out by FLF terrorists. We hope to have more in the coming hour. Thank you."

The TV was turned off and Yuri smiled. I have done it. I am the man around here now. The man sitting at the television was none other than Mr. Jones. He looked pleased and he turned to Yuri. "Yuri I am pleased with you. Congratulations on your first victory over the evil imperialistic and militaristic Emperor who has enslaved our people for centuries. He will overcome and defeat him and his regime." They were both natives of South Eastern Virginia, which was annexed by Layarteb some time ago. "I must ask you to lay low for a while. Go about work, go about your normal life but you must remain inconspicuous. You understand?"

Yuri nodded. Mr. Jones smiled and walked away. It has begun.

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:11

Part XI: Bloody Sunday

Mr. Jones looked at the map of Layarteb and Dnalkrad. He stared at fifty-seven red dots, each signifying a target. Fifty-seven was purely symbolic, it was the number the Emperor embraced and consequently it was the factor of Layarteb. He was sweating, the temperature in his cave being at least ninety degrees. He was also nervous, never before had anything on this scale been attempted. It was Sunday and everyone throughout Layarteb was shopping and joyriding, visiting the beaches, and so on and so fourth. It was a great day for mayhem. The first attacks would being at 12:30PM and the last would end at 10:00PM. Each one would be separated by ten minutes. The first ten attacks would occur at markets from suicide bombers. Then there would be seven car bombs at key government buildings. Then twenty would involve shootings by marksmen. Then there would be ten in the subway and the final ten would be against apartment buildings with car bombs. All-in-all, the FLF was predicting 50,000 casualties and they hoped for at least that many. Most would be civilians but that was the price of terror and Mr. Jones knew it that way. All fifty-seven would occur in Layarteb City and the ultimate hope was to get the Emperor, though the chances of that were highly unlikely and Mr. Jones was aware of that. Mr. Jones put his trust in his operatives and sat by the television.

At precisely 12:30PM, the first explosion rang out in the village market, packed with hundreds of people. A homicide bomber strapped with fifty pounds of explosives detonated himself sending gore everywhere. Ten minutes later the next one went. The subsequent explosions filled the air with the sound of screaming and sirens. All hell had broken loose.

The Emperor was briefed just as the second bomb blew up. "Sir, sir. We're under massive terrorist attacks. It is definitely from the FLF." The aide rushed into his office, failing to knock or anything.

The Emperor stood up and screamed, "WHAT!" The aide cowered in fear. "Get disaster relief on this right away. What has intelligence said?"

"Nothing sir. They didn't see this coming at all! We've got major problems sir. Another one just went off."

"So what are they, car bombs?"

"No sir, homicide bombers. Two of them so far. Ten minutes apart."

"Ten minutes? S*** this is a wave. I remember from reading about Mr. Jones in previous intelligence reports. Ten was his favorite number. There's going to be a lot more I guarantee it! Get on it right away and stop however many you can. And get me the intelligence chief!" The aide darted out and the Emperor picked up the phone to immediately call the General of the Special Forces. "General. It's the Emperor. Yes sir. No time. Yes sir I know. Deploy teams to the unoccupied zone right away and get on it double time. Have Force Victor moving right away protecting our officials. Send me the Force Falcon Team One sir. And yes, do that sir. Exactly. Yes sir. No time. Very well. I trust you General, do not fail me!" He hung up the phone and turned as his intelligence chief walked in. "Sit down!"

The intelligence chief sat down and wiped his forehead of sweat. "Yes sir."

"Why was this not foreseen? After the latest debacle with the assassination and car bombing I trusted you not to screw up again. What am I to do with you now huh?" The Emperor was furious. His intercom buzzed and it was his secretary, telling him of a third bombing. "Do you hear that? A third one. I bet there's going to be a hundred of these today. Notice how they are being spread ten minutes apart? That is no coincidence. You have failed this country and your post and me. I am hereby relieving you of your duties and appointing your underchief as acting chief. You can be thankful that I am not going to execute you but you will be detained until this is over. You had better hope this does not go as bad as I think it will!" He paged his secretary to send in the two guards to detain the intelligence chief and see to it that his stay in the jail was uncomfortable.

A fourth and fifth bombing occurred by the time the General of the Special Forces called him back. "Sir. Yes they are? Very well. Deployed where? Locations one through sixty? Very well. Armor? Good. I don't want to be too obvious just yet. Very well." He hung up the phone and called the General of the Army and informed him of his plans to scavenge the unoccupied zones and to get his divisions up and ready. Three of the nine divisions were operating in Dnalkrad, four were in Layarteb, and two were in South Eastern Virginia. He wanted two to be ready to ingress into the unoccupied zone at a moments notice with their respective infantry.

The Chief of Police phoned him after the seventh bombing and feared the reaction of the Emperor though he was spared. The Emperor was not angry with him but did emphasize that he do everything in his power to help the wounded, deal with the emergencies, and catch any terrorists to thwart attacks.

The Emperor was on the phone most of the day, screaming left and right. He didn't turn on the television and replied on reports from his Minister of Information. When 10:00PM hit, he was still waiting for more. Of the fifty-seven attacks, eighteen had been stopped, three of them car bombings, ten of them assassinations, and five of them subway attacks. The final report, at the end of the day when the attacks stopped were 17,658 wounded, 5,829 killed, and 10,283 on the edge. By the next morning, of those 10,283 only 4,388 were still alive.

Mr. Jones was pleased with the work. 23,553 were killed and 22,046 were wounded, giving a total of 45,599 victims. It was not the number he wanted but it was certainly a high number. He got away with thirty-nine of the attacks, eighteen having been thwarted by the Layarteb police. But he had bigger problems and he knew it. Certainly he knew that the Emperor would have committed forces into the unoccupied zone by now, especially after these attacks. Still things got worse. The popularity towards the attacks and this "war" against Layarteb and its "oppressive" regime was not had. The majority of the population were genuinely against the FLF now. They were certainly not gaining any points.

The Emperor sat in darkness, tired from the stress of the day. He was not alone in his office. The General of the Special Forces, the new Chief of Intelligence, his Information Minister, and the General of the Army were present. Each of them had been briefed already and now it was just a matter of officially. "Gentlemen, I want to thank you for your patience. Unfortunately I had to remove the previous Chief of Intelligence due to his inability to do his job. I hope that you will do a better job," as he looked at the new chief. "With that, I have committed Special Forces to the unoccupied zone. We have 2,000 operatives from Delta Force and 3,000 operatives from the Green Berets currently working in the unoccupied zone, searching for FLF positions. In addition, there are one hundred Force Falcon operatives in the zone and all of Force Thunder is working throughout Layarteb to find and thwart future terrorist actions. Force Victor is fully working to protect officials and Force Spectre operatives are concentrating in Dnalkrad. Our plan is just to find and recon their positions. There will be no engagement just yet. Once we ascertain their positions we will bring down the full fury of our Army and Air Force. Units are being prepared now and we are at a state of war with the Freedom from Layarteb Force. I assure you that just like Islamic Jihad of Mohammad, they will not see the light of day. That is all for now. Brief me at 0600." The meeting was over and the Emperor returned to his chair and looked over his notes on the M2005A1 Boar. He was pleased with the system and it would see combat against the FLF. It was just a matter of time now.

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:12

Part XII: The Convoy

Inside the Layartebian Combat Control Center, the CCC, the Emperor sat with the Intelligence Director and the General of the Special Forces. Something had been discovered. "Sir, we have discovered fourteen FLF targets in the unoccupied zone. That isn't the half of it either sir. Senior leadership is transporting between two sites as we speak and they won't be there for at least another six hours. It gets better sir." The Intelligence Director smiled as he motioned for the General of the Special Forces to speak.

"Sir. Along this route we have a Force Falcon team deployed. They also have command of a small contingent of armored units. They are a pair of M1B1 Abrams IIs, four M2A3 Bradley IFVs, and a pair of M2005A1 Boars. They are going between sites one and five right now. In about one hour they'll come into range of our team, who are pearched up on a hill as the route goes between mountains and hills. We suspect high leadership through here sir."

"Very well," the Emperor smiled, "you have my orders, take it out! I want total destruction. In addition," he turned to the General of the Army, "send in the first. second, and third cavalry divisions and the first, second, and third infantry corps. We're going to hit these sites all at the same time. Be prepared. Get the Air Force ready too General. It's going to be a total wipe out strike. We'll start hitting them at 2200 and continue through the morning. I want to have them all under control by 1400 with prisoners. Mr. Jones and that Holliday character I want alive. With that let us begin. It is 0600 now. We'll go at 2200 not tomorrow but the day after. That gives you forty hours to get in position and get ready." They all nodded in agreement and the Emperor turned back to the chart.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/flfpoints.gif

As the sun rose at 0700, the Force Falcon team members spotted the convoy. The coordinates were given to the fire control team on the two M2005A1s and they prepared to fire. Loaded were a total of sixty missiles between them. Twenty of those were the MGM-182D, armed with a fuel-air explosive, twenty were the MGM-182A, a standard HE missile, and twenty were the MGM-182E, the extended range variant of the MGM-182A. The A and the D each had a range of between 0.2 and 3 miles, while the MGM-182 had a range of 0.2 to 15 miles. They each had a speed of 2,000 miles per hour and were inertially guided. However, the MGM-182E was guided by GPS. All-in-all they had a 2 foot circular error probability. That meant they could drop within two feet of their target.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/russian-mrl.jpg

It was all over in a few seconds. Of the sixty missiles ready, twenty were fired, the MGM-182A missiles. It was like a dream sequence for the Force Falcon soldiers spotting the artillery. The missiles accelerated instantly and and curved in their flight, coming down on their targets at nearly two thousand miles per hour. The subsequent destruction took only a few seconds. The twenty rockets had literally obliterated the entire convoy. The seven vehicles were reduced to nothing but torn, mangled wrecks of twisted metal. The people inside the convoy knew not what hit them and once the missiles rained down there wasn't anything they could do about it. The smoke, dirt, and dust cleared after a few minutes and revealed one of the people crawling out, both his legs broken. He was crawling from a twisted wreck of a Humvee.

The Force Falcon sniper saw them immediately and was prepared to take a shot when the team commander immediately stopped him. "No don't. Wait. He's a prisoner. Let's go get him." It turned out to be one of Mr. Jones' top aides. Now everything was falling into place. The eradication of the FLF would be a mere day and a half away.

The newspapers carried the story of the eradication of the FLF just after it occured. Air Force fighters and bombers blasted the targets to nothing. Armored and Cavalry divisions swept through alongside Special and Black Forces. All-in-all, twenty hours later, all fourteen sites were completely eradicated. Mr. Jones and Colonel Holliday were captured alive, wounded but alive. All-in-all, over a thousand armored units and vehicles were destroyed, sixty-four Mi-24 Hinds, eleven Su-33 Flanker-Ds, and around six thousand soldiers were also part of the casualties. Another three hundred and eighty-five were captured alive, some wounded. They were all taken to prison camps inside Layarteb. It wouldn't be long until they were all interrogated and executed.

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:12

Part XIII: A Dangerous Foe

It had been a full year since the elimination of the FLF. Layarteb had been a peaceful place. Dnalkrad came along so well that it was equal to that of South Eastern Virginia. In addition, the military expansion of Layarteb was complete. The number of forces was phenomenal. New inventions and discoveries made missile technology massively better. Their CEPs were much less and their ranges were much further. It was like the Pax Romana, but of Layarteb. That was until one fateful spring morning in the capital city.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/shbp_dem-1w7.jpg
Protestors spelling 'Democracy'

Protestors clogged the streets, the sidewalks, the train tracks, the runways, everything. At least seventy million were up in arms, carrying signs, walking, marching, demonstrating. It was a shock to police and officials. They were just not prepared for it and could do nothing to stop them, they were massively outnumbered and, for the most part, the demonstrations were peaceful. Yes they did clog major road outlets but all-in-all, they were fine. The Emperor was not a fan of protests, especially anything of this caliber, but it was just too many people to stop. Usually he'd have them arrested for twenty-four hours until they cooled off and then let them on their way. If they got violent they'd be held for their crimes. Otherwise, there was really nothing he could do. But this was ridiculous.

http://www.malaysia.net/aliran/images/kesas.jpg
Protestors clog the main freeway

"Sir, last count is sixty-eight million sir and they are growing. It is planned, coordinated, well at that! It seems like they are clogging up everything vital and the main center of everything seems to be outside the main Layarteb court. Apparently they were given a permit for this demonstration and it's perfectly legal. We've thrown about a hundred people in jail for petty crimes but nothing serious. Sir there isn't a thing we can do about this!"

"What do they want?"

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/rally1.jpg
Protestors outside the central government HQ

"Sir, they want democracy. They are calling for an end to your reign as Emperor. They want freedom, civil rights, political freedoms."

"What are do they call themselves?"

"Sir, as far as I can tell, the Democratic Layarteb group. They're pretty sizeable sir and rumor has it they have influence within the government sir. They're all being led by a man named Nicholas Caratan. He's pretty charismatic sir and he's got them under his grip pretty well."

"This is a problem. A big problem." The aide slipped a picture across the desk to the Emperor and he looked at it.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/gordoncurriebiosm.jpg

The Emperor looked at the picture and snarked. Goddamn libertarians!

Meanwhile, on the steps of the Central Layarteb Court House, where the biggest cases were tried, Nicholas Caratan spoke with charisma and fury. "We have too long been oppressed by the Emperor and his secret police squads. They treat us like spies! We are watched everywhere we go, throughout these public places by cameras. Big Brother is watching!" He slammed his fist on the podium and the crowd roared. "The Emperor and his death squads and his military and his intelligence people and his spies treat us like subjects, not citizens. We have no freedoms, no political liberties. You and I and we cannot do what we want. If a mother has a illegitimate child she cannot abort it. If a man commits a crime he is punished so severely he can never again be human. We are all human but the Emperor, he has taken that from us. We will get it back!" The crowd roared so loudly it shook the buildings. "This is our country and we support it. Without us the Emperor would have nothing to rule. But he has abused our trust with his corruption and his inhuman deeds. I tell you a story, a story of a city. In this city were seventy-three thousand people, innocent men, women, children, grandparents, uncles, aunts, mothers, fathers, and so on and so fourth. They are all dead. None of them exist anymore. This was a city in Dnalkrad, a city that will forever be marred by what happened. They were poisoned. They were killed by the Emperor. He ordered their deaths with a virus that his scientists created. It is a brutal virus, engineered to be a biological weapon of enormous potential. This is only one story. I have others. UFOs, chemical and nuclear weapons, more than you or I or we can fathom. You know of a weapon called the Armageddon missile? It has such a big warhead that God himself can see the detonation. The missile is called just that as it will literally bring about Armageddon. And of God. What of God? Does the Emperor not fear God as you or I or we? No! He is an atheist!" The crowd roared even louder. "Do you hear the roar of your fellow countrymen and women? Yes. He is an atheist. There is no religion in his cabinet, there is no official religion in Layarteb. Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddists, and so on and so fourth are not free to practice what they want. Their churches are taxed. They are given no special privileges. What is it to him? He fears nothing! He will fear us! He will fear this movement. We will enact democracy, overthrow him, and execute him for all the crimes he has committed against us and those he conquered! Do you want democracy? Do you want to live without fear? Do you want to live? Follow me, follow us, follow we! We shall all do this! We are the Democratic Layarteb group and we will not stop until there is democracy in this land, not until he is gone!" The roar burst his eardrums but he cared not.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/left3.jpg

Inside his office, the Emperor sat with two of his aides. "Atheist? He called me atheist? I'm agnostic that little twirp. Not free to practice religion. What a crock of horse crap! What have you guys got for me?"

"Well sir you know we can't execute him. He'd be a martyr." The Emperor nodded. God I want to kill him! "Well sir we can't defame him either, he's squeaky clean and nothing we could come up with would work. His strength is growing and honestly I really think that he's growing more and more powerful by the minute. There are more people joining him and his movement everyday. Honestly sir I have no options to present you."

"Fair enough. I'd rather you not lie to me. You?"

"No sir, sorry."

"Great, square one. Well he can't overthrow me, even with military support so hopefully it'll just die out. Let's ride this out and see where it goes. And how does he know about Kilomato City?"

"Sir I don't know but sir...if I may...he is right sir..." Sweat dripped down his entire face and emanated from his body like crazy. But he continued. "Sir you did kill seventy-three thousand innocent people to test out a biological weapon. These people, they know now. The s**** has really hit the fan."

"Well HOW DID HE FIND OUT? WHO LEAKED?" He was shouting.

"Not me sir." The second aide jumped instantly at the chance.

"You have a guilty conscience Harry? Why'd you answer so fast?"

"No reason sir." Now the sweat was his.

"How could you Harry? That's classified intelligence. It was a f****** experiment YOU HELPED ENGINEER. YOU PICKED OUT THE GODDAMN CITY!"

"Sir it wasn't right! Do what you may but the courts will find me in the right."

"Courts? What courts?"

"You aren't going to try me for treason?"

"You've already been tried and found guilty." He removed a Colt M1911A1 from his drawer and raised it to his aide and turned off the safety. Three shots later (two in the chest and one in the head) and the aide was dead, bleeding all over the place. "Get this mess cleaned up and get out of my sight!"

Things had gone from bad to horrible instantly and now there was nothing left to do. He couldn't assassinate Caratan, he was too popular. He couldn't arrest seventy million people. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place and he had no dynamite. Waiting it out was the only logical option.

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:13

Part XIV: Chaos

The television was on in the house of Steve Samson nearly twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. His wife, Juliet was urging for it to be on constantly. He'd only been married just two years earlier. Steve had once been a member of the Omega Bunch, a group of people who explored the secrets of the government and worked to uncover them. However, after their leader Timmy was arrested by the Emperor's secret police, the group slowly dissolved. But it was now a time of great turmoil. Of the members of the Omega Bunch, only Steve was left alive.

The channel was always on the Layarteb News Network. Shepherd Smith was the top reporter there now. In this time of great crisis, he was one of the few reporters that were there all the time, giving unbiased reports on just what was happening. Everything was going to hell in a hand basket. The Democratic Layarteb Movement peaked at nearly half a billion people and its leader, Nicholas Caratan was more popular and powerful than ever. The Emperor had obviously chosen to wait the situation out as no attempt was made on Caratan's life. He should have acted when he had the chance. The situation now was irrevocable. There was going to be a civil war, revolution, or uprising at the very least. People were going to die!

Finally, around 8:00PM one fateful Monday, chaos erupted in Layarteb City, Freedom City, and eleven other cities in Layarteb and Dnalkrad. The Democratic Layarteb Movement started a war. Gunfire, rocket fire, and explosions filled each city as military and government targets were struck. The Democratic Layarteb Movement was no longer just civilians and at least 45% of the military was involved, on their side. The Emperor's days were counting down.

Military units that were still loyal to the Emperor fought hard throughout the cities. Aircraft were called in to bomb enemy positions but they were hard to differentiate from the friendly ones. Many of the air strikes were aborted to avoid fratricide.

The Emperor was briefed shortly after the fighting started by his top advisor. "Sir, everything is going wrong! The rebels are fighting hard and have at least half of the military on their side. Their leader is one charismatic man sir. He's got at least half a billion people behind him."

The Emperor, stressed and disturbed by the recent chaos looked across his desk. "The day I have feared for years is finally upon us. We are at a state of Civil War. We're going to have to hold back as best as we can against these rebels. They are all guilty of treason and should be treated as an invading military force. How far up the military chain of command does it go..."

However, before the Emperor could finish, another aide burst into his office. This usually wasn't tolerated, but under the circumstances, it was certainly permitted. "Sir," he was out of breath, most likely having run a far distance, "sir. The Joint Chiefs have been assassinated. Most of the military is now under the control of the rebels sir. Three cities have fallen already. It's only been an hour sir!" The Emperor sighed and looked at him.

"Very well. We are at a disadvantage but I will not surrender. Keep fighting them, whoever is loyal, keep them loyal! I must get to the command bunker."

"Sir," the aide fought to catch his breath. "It's under rebel control as well. It is where the Joint Chiefs were assassinated. They were coordinating a counter-offensive."

"Very well. I shall stay here. Keep me updated men. That is all!" The aides left and he turned to a map of Layarteb, an electronic one that showed details of just what was going on. All hell was breaking loose. By morning nearly all cities had fallen except Layarteb City. Military forces there were still loyal to the Emperor and now the rebels numbered well over a billion. In twelve short hours, eleven million people were dead from the fighting. All of the fighting was concentrated in Dnalkrad and Layarteb, South Eastern Virginia being too far away to be effected. The military was mostly under the control of the rebels, a staggering 89%. The rest were those still in Layarteb. The military in South Eastern Virginia was connected to that in Layarteb and though there was no fighting there, the military was no longer under the control of the Emperor.

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:14

Reginald Thomas, Special Envoy of Undivulged Principles has requested an audience with the leader of the Democratic Layarteb Movement, Nicholas Caratan.

:)

Uller Pens, Diplomatic Atache for Foreign Affairs in Undivulged Principles has issued a declaration by the Confederacy of Undivulge Principles as Regional Delegate of New York.

The contents of this declaration are restricted but it is believed to contain a warning to the Southeastern Virginian military contingent of the Layarteb Commonwealth not to moblize and enter the region of New York. Pending NYRT authorization such an act will be construed as an invasion of New York Regional Sovereignty with appropriate repurcussions . :x

Caratan looked over the memo from his bunker inside Freedom City. He shrugged his shoulders. "What the hell does he want? Can't he see I'm fighting a war here. If I stick my head out the Emperor is going to chop it off." He turned to his aide and dictated a response. "Please accept my apology for my inability to attend. I fear for my life that the Emperor will take it if I leave the sanctity of my hideout. Perhaps we may meet after the Emperor and his opressive regime no longer exist." He turned and looked at the map. "Just one more city men! Layarteb City will be ours by tomorrow morning!" They cheered and inside Layarteb City, the fighting intensified. Loyal to the Emperor was a single division of infantry and armor. There were another two facing them with air support. It was only a matter of time!

Posted from other posts...

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:15

Part XV: Rebellion Part II

The last attempt at rebellion had failed miserably because it had no support. Mr. Jones and his ragtag army of ex-Dnalkrad soldiers and international terrorists succeeded in only destroying their own credibility and image with their massive terrorist attacks one Sunday. He and his command staff were executed only weeks later after their entire force had been devestated by the Layartebian military. But now, Caratan had support, a billion plus in support. The charismatic leader launched a full scale offensive against the Layartebian government only forty-eight hours earlier and so far had succeeded in capturing every city but the capital, Layarteb City. Soldiers were still loyal to the Emperor there. They fought fiercely and honorably, to the last man but they had no fight in them when dawn arose on the third day of the fighting. In total, up until now, thirteen point eight million people lie dead, half of those being soldiers loyal to the Emperor. The rest were innocent civilians, caught in teh crossfire. Many of the cities still had fires burning from the air strikes. The only place compltely unscathed was the Emperor's office inside Layarteb City. The flag of Layarteb still hung there, the symbol of the Grim Reaper.

http://www.nationstates.net/images/flags/uploads/layarteb.jpg

But the rebel fighters were at the doorsteps, fighting off their toughest foes, the Emperor's Black Forces, who were protecting him. They were fighting off about a hundred operatives from Force Spectre, the newest Black Operations force, this one formed to completely protect the government officials.

The doors to the Emperor's office were locked but they burst open. Eight men, dressed in full black camoflauge and a full weapon's loadout. They were members of Force Falcon Team One, the elite of the elite of the elite. They were sworn to the Emperor and would protect him at all costs. Leading them was COL. Jack Delaney, a veteran of every war Layarteb had fought. He was the utter best and the Emperor trusted him. He burst in and stared right into the Emperor's eyes. "Sir, it's time to go now!" He couldn't have been more firm if he tried.

"I will not abandon my Empire!" The Emperor stood firm and gripped his .45 under the desk.

"Sir, put down the pistol, I know you have it. You are not going to survive another hour here. They are going to come in and kill you. It is as simple as that. My orders are to protect you at all costs and if that means shooting you in the leg or the arm to incapacitate you and drag you out of here I will do it!"

"You will do nothing of the sort!" He raised the pistol. "I am not leaving!"

"Sir put down the pistol. You have to leave."

"Don't you know anything? I cannot die, I don't sleep and I don't die."

"By normal means. They're going to cut your head off and display it for the whole world to show!"

"Colonel you take orders from me..."

"But in a time of crisis if I am to protect you then my orders are my orders. You will get your ass moving now! I have three Black Hawks on the roof. They're going to fly to our last loyal airstrip. Then you will board a Learjet and get the hell out of here. We have a few F-24s waiting to escort you out sir! Do not let me say that twice."

"Who do you think..."

"There," he began to shout, "THERE ARE FOUR MILLION REBEL SOLDIERS WITHIN A MILE OF THIS BUILDING. OUTSIDE YOUR DOOR ARE SEVEN THOUSAND OF THEM AND FORCE SPECTRE CAN ONLY HOLD OUT SO LONG. ONCE THEY SEE THOSE HELICOPTERS TAKE OFF THEY WILL NO LONGER FIGHT, IF THERE ARE ANY OF THEM LEFT. GET YOUR F****** ASS MOVING NOW, THAT'S AN ORDER EMPEROR!" He raised his own rifle and so did the other seven, two protecting the doorway.

"Fine, but I will not relenquish this sidearm."

"Very well. You'll probably need it, I hope you have ammunition." The Emperor stood and put it back on safe, then put four magazines of seven rounds each into his pocket. He slowly stood and followed the eight men to the doors. He turned around and shrugged his shoulders.

"I will return men. I will!"

"Very well but let's get out of here now!" Bullets began to ricochet off the walls. "Do you see. We have about five minutes tops!"

The Emperor and the eight men left the office and headed for the backstairwell, weapons ready and armed. They had to shoot their way out, dropping eleven men in the main hallway and another sixteen throughout the stairwell. On the roof, Black Hawks fired down into the crowd with their GAU-2 Miniguns. 34 F-15C Eagles, still loyal to the Emperor, flew top cover and actually shot down seven F-16Cs coming to bomb the helicopters. The Emperor and the eight men boarded one helicopter and eight more soldiers boarded another. They were the last survivors from Force Spectre. Together, the three Black Hawks lifted off and headed to the airstrip, a twenty-five mile journey being made at top speed, 180 miles per hour. The Emperor didn't realize it but 16 AH-64Ds and 8 RAH-66As were protecting the Black Hawks as well. The 34, now 30 F-15Cs that were protecting the skies buzzed left and right, firing at rebel fighters. It was an eight and a half minute flight and it was made with tension and fear. The Black Hawks and their crews fired down at rebel fighters holding MANPADs and RPGs. One brought down the last helicopter, the one not holding anyone. Luckily, the other two landed unscathed.

The Learjet 60 was waiting on the runway, fueled and ready to go. F-24s were in front of it, ready for takeoff and F-24s were behind it, ready for takeoff. Some were just getting airborne and some were already airborne. 8 KC-10s were flying around with F/A-22 support outside of Layarteb airspace to refuel all of the aircraft. This Learjet was specialized, reverse engineered by Layarteb scientists. It still retained most of its dimensions.

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The Learjet 60 had a crew of 2 and had a passenger capacity of 8 but they would squeeze in the 20 they had. It was powered by two turbofan engines that could give a total of eight thousand pounds of thrust. The original models put out forty-six hundred pounds. It's maximum, unrefueled range was three thousand miles. Maximum speed was five hundred fifty miles per hour and it would cruise at five hundred and twenty-five miles per hour typically but a mere five hundred for a long-range cruise. Maximum altitude was fifty-five thousand feet and it could reach that height in a mere twenty minutes. Empty, she weighed eighteen thousand pounds and she could take off at thirty-eight thousand pounds. It had a seven thousand nine hundred pound fuel capacity. With the additional jamming equipment and avionics, it added the three thousand pounds to the empty weight. The plane was fifty-eight point sixty-nine feet long, fourteen and a half feet high, and its wingspan was forty-three point eight feet. Fully loaded, it took off at roughly thirty-six thousand pounds.

The jet and its escorts lifted into the morning sky and the full force of F/A-22s, F-15Cs, and F-24As bolted out of Layarteb airspace at fifty thousand feet and five hundred and fifty miles per hour. They'd get just out of range of the Layarteb anti-stealth system and radar control before they had to refuel from the KC-10s. By the time they got there, they numbered 20 F-15Cs, 40 F/A-22s, and 20 F-24As. The 8 KC-10s were fully loaded with fuel and the 16 F/A-22s that protected them as well as 25 F-25As were ready when the flight arrived.

They flew to an undisclosed location deep into the unoccupied zone and landed. They were safe, for now. Inside Layarteb though, a new flag was raised. This was the new flag of the once Empire of Layarteb. It was now the Democratic Republic of Layarteb. The previous commonwealths were retained as such, the Layartebian Commonwealths. The new leader, Nicholas Caratan would be making speeches and concessions eventually. The world was a different place, especially the region of New York.

http://www.nationstates.net/images/flags/liberia--56.jpg

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:15

Part XVI: The Empire Returns

The fighting stopped around 1640 in Layarteb when Caratan was arrested. The Emperor and his forces seized the building and the country, with a little assistance from foreign sources. He was set to make his speech at 1700 and the entire Empire was waiting to see just what he was going to say. Inside his wrecked office he looked around at the nonsense that Caratan had displayed. One of them was the previous flag of the DROL. He ripped it off the wall and threw it on his shoulder, still wearing his gear and still holding his weapons. He turned to his Force Falcon soldiers, "Men, before I go out there I want to thank you all. You have done well and you have succeeded in your tasks. Now it is up to me and the rest of the military to make this right again. You all are heroes and you shall all recieve the Order of the Empire, our highest medal as you all know. For your services I am thankful and I offer you anything you want, just one thing though, let's not get too carried away." He smirked. "With that men no words can express my appreciation for you. I thank you all." He drew a stiff salute and they all followed. "You know your duty men!"

The Emperor wiped away a single tear and cleared himself as he was all choked up. He ascended the stairs to the roof, where a podium and a giant screen television had been raised. He would give a speech to the entire Empire and in front of him were at least forty million people, clogging the streets throughout Layarteb. Everything was stopped at that time, the stock market, the banks, the stores, the traffic, etc.

He raised his hands for silence and put his pistol down on the podium. "Ladies and gentlemen of the Empire of Layarteb. I am sorry you had to all experience what you had under Caratan. It is over now. He is in our custody and he will be given propper sentence for treason. Him and his loyalists are being rounded up as I speak by the combined efforts of the Hirgizistan and Layarteb militaries. There are not many left. Let it be known that anyone loyal to Caratan is guilty of treason!" He slammed his fist down on the podium but no one dared make a sound. "With that aside, I am pleased to announce that the Democratic Republic of Layarteb is over." He took the flag from his shoulder and ripped it in two and threw it from the roof. "This is no more!" He spit on it as it went over the edge and the flag behind him was raised, the rightful flag of Layarteb. "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Empire of Layarteb, once again in tact. Please return to your normal lives, the way they were before all this maddness. I assure you that justice will return to Layarteb. However, I am imposing just one law. THERE WILL BE NO PROTESTING. The effect it had last time will simply not be tolerated. Public demonstrations will be met with strict jail time and fines. Do not push me! Have a wonder evening and let today, May 13, be a holiday throughout all of Layarteb forever. This is the Day of the Empire." Now the crowd cheered and such it was begun, the new dawn in the Empire of Layarteb. All was well again!

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:16

Part XVII: The Tank

Dr. No had done it again. The genius behind the Emperor's military hit gold again. He had developed a series of new 120MM rounds for tanks in the Layarteb military. The old M829A3 APFSDS-T (Armor Piercing, Fin Stabilized, Discarding Sabot-Tracer) and M830A1 HEAT-MP-T (High Explosive Anti-Tank-Multi Purpose - Tracer) rounds just weren't enough to match against the newest tanks of the enemy nations out there. The Emperor, upon re-entering his office, asked Dr. No to bring to life a new series of tank rounds. He did just that with the M829A4 APFSDS-T (Armor Piercing, Fin Stabilized, Discarding Sabot-Tracer), M830A4 HEAT-MP-T (High Explosive Anti-Tank-Multi Purpose - Tracer), M1029 HEAT-ASCER-T (High-Explosive Anti-Tank, Advanced Shaped Chemical Energy Round, Tracer), and the M1030 SP-EMP-T (Special Purpose, Electro Magnetic Pulse, Tracer). These were highly sophisticated rounds and they all stacked up excellently against each other. He compiled the chart and immediately informed the Emperor. The rounds were ready!

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/LDC/tankrounds.jpg

The Emperor was pleased and inquired immediately about the status of the new MBT under development to replace the M1A2 Abrams tanks within the Layarteb Army. The new tank was a marvel!

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/LDC/m2006.jpg

It was the M2006 Emperor MBT. It was equipped with a single 120MM ETC Plasma cannon that could fire the new series of ammunition developed and had a magazine of one hundred rounds. It also employed the type of improved-DU titanium mixture coating developed by Dr. No. This was more or less a paint that went over the previous armor. It required a total of five coats, each requiring forty-eight hours to dry. The coating essentially doubled the effectiveness of the armor per five coats though any more than ten were unreasonable. Ten coats gave triple the protection. 1,200MM of armor suddenly became 2,400MM. This advancement was magnificent. It was only used on the M1B1 Abrams II and had yet to be used on anything else. It would be used on this tank. In addition to the main ETC cannon, the Emperor MBT employed two M2 Ma Duce .50 caliber machine guns from its front that could deploy upward and each had a two thousand round magazine. Another M2 was carried on by the hatch with a one thousand round magazine. In addition, two M240 7.62MM machine guns were mounted, each with fifty-four hundred rounds. Small arms were stowed on the tank as well. The usual twenty-four smoke rounds were carried. But, in addition, the tank featured two pop-out launchers, one for TOW missiles, with four rounds ready, and another for Stinger missiles with four rounds ready and twelve stowed. In addition, there were eight MANPAD launchers stowed in an external compartment for the Stingers. It had a 1,000MM DU armor but with the coating it equaled 3,000MM. Standard reactive armor could be fitted and the tank ran IR suppression systems that virtually made the engine colder than the outside air, giving no heat signature at all. The tank weighed only sixty tons fully loaded and was a whopping thirty-four feet long with the gun forward, ten feet high, and eleven and a half feet wide. It cleared the ground by two feet and had a ground pressure of 12 PSI. It could cross an obstacle four point eight feet high and had a vertical trench of nine feet. Power was provided by a single TRBE-1 engine that gave 3,000 HP for a power to weight ratio of 40 hp/ton. Its transmission was six forward and two reverse and it could obtain a top speed of sixty-two miles per hour, though the governor was set at fifty. Cross country it had a speed of fifty and up a ten degree slope it could go twenty-four miles per hour and up sixty degrees, ten miles per hour. To go from zero to twenty took only four point seven seconds and its fuel capacity of five hundred and fifty gallons gave it a range of six hundred and sixty miles. The crew of three manned the tank well and all its systems. Each one would cost six million dollars and they would have to replace a total of 2,070 M1A2s. That would give a total expenditure of $12.42B.

The tank was pure gold. It would be able to compete alongside the ST-11 NGBTs from the Armed Republic of Soviet Bloc and fight alongside the M1B1 Abrams IIs. This was definitely a tank to reckon with and it would take more than a two thousand pound bomb to destroy it. In testing, a single tank hit with a GBU-34/B JDAM from an altitude of 30,000 ft. survived the hit. However, a GBU-28/B test rendered the tank inoperable but still in one piece. Mavericks and GAU-8 rounds were useless as well as other 120MM rounds fired from M1A2s, including the new rounds. The tanks were all EMP shielded, thereby leaving the M1030s useless against them. The tank was a one-man army in itself. It was even equipped with NBC systems so that it could be used in the wake of a total nuclear, biological, and chemical strike.

The tank would hit LRIP within the next year and within two years after that would begin full-rate production. The first batch would come out with 100 tanks, the second with another 100. Then, once full-rate production began, a total of 600 per year until 2,070 were manufactured.

The Emperor was pleased and he wondered what else Dr. No was developing but he left that up to the scientist. He wanted a surprise and boy would he get it!

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:17

Part XVIII: The Price of Treason

The sentence had come down from the high judge of Layarteb himself. "Death by hanging!" Caratan and his treasonous bunch of "leaders" would have eight more hours of life in them before they were publicly hanged in the city square, in Layarteb. The Emperor, notified of the sentence from his aide smiled and looked at him.

"This is justice. Treason is not a low crime. It is a high crime. Make preparations. I shall be there when the twirp stops breathing." The aide nodded and ran off immediately to notify the Emperor's driver. The Emperor was pleased with the decision and returned to his work, papers on the recent drug trafficking. There would be high turnout at the execution. Police and military guards would have to keep order and, just in case, snipers were planted on the roofs surrounding the public square. During ancient times, this square was used by the tribal leaders to host their nightly fires and cook the meals. There were also executions there during the ancient times. One man in particular, as tribal legend stated, named Comhghall was cursed and banished here. Legend has it that he still walks the streets of Layarteb, cursed and forsaken by the gods.

When it was only a mere hour before the execution, the Emperor left his office and headed to the public square. The Emperor left in his Humvee column and arrived only minutes later. The damned where there already, being given their Last Rites by the prison chaplain. The Emperor didn't care either way and he overlooked the practice. He stood at the execution handle and overlooked the great crowd. He held the microphone and whispered "Silence." It was only minutes before the execution was to take place. He waited a few seconds for the crowd to die down and ease into place. "These men are all hereby been pronounced guilty of treason against the Empire of Layarteb and sentenced to death by hanging. They will be hanged until dead and I will personally ensure that they do. Let it be known, from this day fourth, that the Empire of Layarteb will not tolerate treason. We live for peace and harmony, justice and honesty, morality and freedom. When freedom, justice, honesty, morality, and the peace are all abused than those abusers must pay. These men are slim. They are not men at all. We will devastate them and remove them from the world! Slim like this must not be allowed to walk the streets of Layarteb. The time is now!" He nodded to the executioner to fix the nooses and with that he stepped over to the lever himself and waved off the executioner. He overlooked the crowd, silent with suspense, and then threw the lever. The doors released and the bodies dropped downward instantly and then snapped to a stop with some recoil. Necks were broken and suffocation set in. It would only be minutes before they were lifeless.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/hanging1.jpg

When it had all concluded, all went home. The Empire was once again subdued. In the background played the music of him and he smirked at the sound of it. :: Plays Imperial March in Background (http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Nation-States/Files/Music/imperial-march.mid) ::

OOC: No, I am not a Star Wars nut. I like Star Wars but I'm not like a Trekkie version of Star Wars nor am I a Trekkie. I just love this one thing, it sounds so damn awesome and for my Emperor, it fits well.

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:18

Part XIX: The Interception

The Emperor stood in his office, waiting for the report. Just an hour ago, the anti-stealth system tripped an alarm with a cluster of objects flying at high speed and high altitude. The objects were all flying at ninety-five thousand feet and coming into Layarteb airspace at roughly 12,000 ft/sec. The flight profile and the number, roughly twelve, had the same flight profile as a cluster of incoming warheads. There were no launch warnings and they weren't detected by any satellites, though one was in position, taking snap shots. The intelligence would be arriving any second now. Missile defense missiles were being targeted when, all of a sudden, the objects stopped dead and began an orbit at forty-thousand feet. At that moment, their flight profile resembled something extra-terrestrial. So far, a total of sixteen UFOs had been downed by the Layarteb military. Twelve were shot down by surface-to-air missiles, two by F-15C Eagles, one by an F-16C Falcon, and another by a F-22A Raptor. Of those sixteen, ten were able to be studied and researched, two went down in the water off the coast of South Eastern Virginia, one went down in a lake in Dnalkrad, and three were blown up so badly that nothing bigger than a cup was found. There were now twelve more over the skies along the border between Layarteb and the unoccupied zone.

Three F-25A Firefox's were sent to investigate. They took off, all of them being on alert around 1840, the sky turning dark. They were fully loaded with fuel and weapons and took off together, climbing near vertically at 70,000 ft/min. They would be at the craft altitude in only seconds, accelerating as they climbed. The craft were two hundred nautical miles away and they had a range of eighteen hundred nautical miles. Once they got to their target altitude, forty-two thousand feet, they zoomed towards the cluster, which was orbiting what appeared to be another lake, at twelve hundred miles per hour, their maximum speed without afterburners for that altitude. Each carried a pair of M61A2 cannons with a total of two thousand rounds, eight AIM-9X-2 Sidewinders, and 8 AIM-120C-6 AMRAAMs. Their air to ground bays were carrying extra fuel. Their 360° radars were in passive mode. They were searching with their FLIRs but so far there was nothing being shown. The only targeting they had was that from their anti-stealth system uplinks, newly retrofitted to all F-19s, F-24s, and F-25s in Layarteb service.

The pilots figured, since these were glowing objects, there would be some thermal radiation but as they got closer, nothing was visible. They closed to within visual range, flying supersonic still, but nothing was on any sensor except the anti-stealth system. They were even invisible on the FLIR, colder than the outside air. Their AIM-9X-2 Sidewinders would have to be used to shoot down the objects since they were guided by imaging infra-red and not radar. They could be targeted with the anti-stealth system. The AIM-9X-2 was a modified AIM-9X that enhanced guidance in that the missile could be tracked and guided from the anti-stealth system.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/ufo_cluster.jpg
F-25As proceed towards a cluster of unidentified flying objects

Visual range was obtained and they buzzed past the objects, relaying to ground control that they had made contact. The objects were unlike anything they had seen. Their orders came in, "Shoot down all invading objects." The F-25As assumed attack formation and slowed down to eight hundred miles per hour. Each locked up a target and fired a single AIM-9X-2. The missiles tracked as the objects instantly became aware of the launches and took evasive maneuvers. Only one of the AIM-9X-2s hit. Another volley was launched but all three missiles missed and the objects instantly accelerated beyond the capabilities of the F-25As and shot upward.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/ufo_intercept.jpg
AIM-9X-2 impact as seen from the ground

As the single UFO plummeted towards the ground at a descent rate of nearly seven hundred miles per hour, towards the lake. The UFO was still in one piece, the AIM-9X-2 exploding underneath the UFO disrupted the airflow in such a way that the UFO instantly became unstable. It impacted the water at eleven hundred and eight miles per hour, still in one piece as it sunk to the bottom of the lake.

The F-25As buzzed the lake but the object had sunk to the bottom of the lake. Immediately, a special team of Layarteb Black Ops descended onto the lake with salvage equipment. The operation was completed only an hour later and the F-25As returned to base for their own debriefings.

The Emperor sat back in his chair as his advisor came into the room. "Sir, the situation is good."

"What's the result?"

"Sir, twelve UFOs were spotted near this lake," he pointed to the graphical map on the wall. "F-25As intercepted them at approximately 1905, firing upon six but downing only one. Shortly after the missile launches, the UFOs accelerated back into space. Thermal and imaging scans by our satellites show no trace of them whatsoever. The one that was hit by an AIM-9X-2 was actually not impacted by the missile. The missile exploded underneath the UFO and disrupted its gravitational field, causing it to go out of control. It hit the lake at eleven hundred and eight miles per hour sir. Salvage operations commenced immediately and were successful. No damage was sustained to either the craft or its crew of two."

"CREW! You mean we have two real, live aliens?"

"Sir, yes sir."

"Protocol?"

"Sir, the directive says that any nation that has a live EBE, extraterrestrial biological entity, is tasked with its termination."

"Yes I am aware."

"Sir, we must follow that protocol."

"No we must not. Zeta Facility."

"Yes sir." The advisor left. Zeta Facility was the most secret prison inside all of Layarteb. It was deep underground. Once a person or thing was sent there, it no longer existed nor did any memory of its existence exist. It was completely secret. The most secretive tests and operations were conducted there. Now, there was a completely intact space craft and two aliens there.

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:18

Part XX: The Emperor's Jets

The Emperor and his modes of transportation were expensive. There was a fleet of aircraft so vast that only the Emperor and the government could afford them. They included three varities, a modified Learjet and two types of modified Boeing 747s. Each had it's own codename, it's own systems, and its own designation. The 600 or so Learjets were all C-21B Learjet 80s. Basically, they were heavily modified Learjet 60s. These were for his normal, run-of-the-mill delegates and diplomats. The C-21Bs were often escorted by, at minimum, four fighters. For higher level delegates and diplomats, there was the VC-25B Condor. The VC-25B was a heavily modified Boeing 747-200B with self-defenses and other advances. Finally, for the Emperor himself there was the VC-25C Condor, a heavily modified Boeing 747-400ER.

C-21B Learjet 80
http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/su-ezi.jpg

General
Cost: $88M
Inventory: 6181
Crew: 2
Passengers: 8 ; 20 [emergency configuration]
Role: Diplomatic Transport

Dimensions
Length: 64.89 ft.
Wingspan: 48.79 ft.
Height: 14.56 ft.

Weights
Empty Weight: 18,000 lb.
Maximum Take Off Weight: 40,510 lb.
Fuel Weight: 12,910 lb.
Armament Weight: 1,600 lb.

Performance
Maximum Speed at Sea Level: 590 mph
Maximum Speed at Altitude: 635 mph
Maximum Ceiling: 57,000 ft.
Range: 6,289 mi

Propulsion
Powerplant: two Pratt & Whitney PW305D turbofans
Maximum Thrust: 8,000 lb.

Self Defenses
Missiles: 8 AIM-9X Sidewinder stowed in 2 ventral bays facing forward & aft
ECM: IR suppression systems and radar jamming systems
Chaff: 240 bundles
Flare: 240 flares
EMP-Shielding: Shielding equal to 7,000mm

[b]VC-25B Condor
http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/vc25b.jpg

General
Cost: $358M
Inventory: 108
Crew: 20
Passengers: 102
Role: Diplomatic Transport

Dimensions
Length: 231.85 ft.
Wingspan: 195.67 ft.
Height: 63.42 ft.

Weights
Empty Weight: 377,000 lb.
Maximum Take Off Weight: 833,000 lb.
Fuel Weight: 345,906 lb.
Armament Weight: 4,000 lb.

Performance
Maximum Speed at Sea Level: 580 mph
Maximum Speed at Altitude: 600 mph
Maximum Ceiling: 46,000 ft.
Range: 7,561 mi

Propulsion
Powerplant: four Pratt & Whitney JT9D-7R4G2 turbofans
Maximum Thrust: 219,000 lb.

Self Defenses
Missiles: 8 AIM-9X Sidewinder stowed on a rotating weapons rack in a ventral bay
ECM: IR suppression systems and radar jamming systems
Chaff: 480 bundles
Flare: 480 flares
EMP-Shielding: Shielding equal to 10,000mm

VC-25C Condor
http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/vc25c.jpg

General
Cost: $465M
Inventory: 6
Crew: 26
Passengers: 102
Role: Diplomatic Transport

Dimensions
Length: 231.50 ft.
Wingspan: 211.42 ft.
Height: 63.67 ft.

Weights
Empty Weight: 380,000 lb.
Maximum Take Off Weight: 940,000 lb.
Fuel Weight: 420,453 lb.
Armament Weight: 8,000 lb.

Performance
Maximum Speed at Sea Level: 600 mph
Maximum Speed at Altitude: 640 mph
Maximum Ceiling: 57,000 ft.
Range: 8,827 mi

Propulsion
Powerplant: four General Electric CF6-80C2B5G turbofans
Maximum Thrust: 300,000 lb.

Self Defenses
Missiles: 4 AIM-9X Sidewinder and 4 AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-179 BVRAAM stowed on two rotating weapons racks in a ventral bay for a total of 8 AIM-9X and 8 AIM-120/AIM-179
ECM: IR suppression systems and radar jamming systems
Chaff: 960 bundles
Flare: 960 flares
EMP-Shielding: Shielding equal to 20,000mm

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:19

Part XXI: Terrorism is Never Enough

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/jlp_transport_mack.jpg

The truck departed the facility on time, at 4:57PM. It was alone and only two men occupied the cab. Each were highly trained operatives for the Layarteb military. They were armed, heavily armed, and wore the finest body armor the military could provide. This body armor was an advanced liquid design that weighed roughly the same amount as regular, advanced kevlar. Inside of the vest was a free-flowing liquid but when contacted with a bullet or any other high velocity object, the liquid instantly became hard. The result was zero penetration but nearly everything fired at them. Pistol bullets, rifle bullets, etc. were no match for the body armor. However, fifty caliber bullets in close enough range shattered the solid material.

Inside the cab, the two men each carried two pistols. For the driver, it was a .357 Magnum and a .45ACP USP. For the passenger, it was a .44 Magnum and a 9MM Beretta. Each carried a knife and within their reach were two 12 gauge shotguns, a pair of MP5K submachine guns, two baseball bats, and a small briefcase. Inside the briefcase was a single detonator, rigged to their truck.

Their cargo was highly important and highly classified. Inside the giant tanker was two thousand gallons of a new chemical agent, engineered and designed by the Special Weapons Division of the Layarteb military. The chemical agent was an advanced version of VX poison gas. VX, the most lethal chemical weapon on Earth, was lethal in doses as little as ten milligrams in inhalation and two milligrams on contact. This new gas, VX-II-A, was lethal in as little as one tenth of a milligram for inhalation and on contact, as little as on one hundredth of a milligram. However, unlike VX, it was designed not to stay in the environment for too long. Once exposed to Argon, which made up 0.934% of the air, it would begin to break down. Any more than 5% exposure to Argon and the gas would be rendered useless. It was specifically designed for this purpose. At 0.934%, VX-II-A would take forty-two hours to break down completely.

Like VX, however, VX-II-A would not be consumed by standard Napalm. It required Thermite, which burned at a temperature of fifty-four hundred degrees to consume and destroy it. In addition, it resembled mercury, a glowing, silvery substance.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/chemagent.jpg

The truck departed with two cars trailing it at a very safe distance. They were each filled with four men, members of Layarteb's Force Falcon Black Operations Unit. They were in plain clothes themselves, body armor underneath their clothes. Inside their cars were weapons as well, many of them. The truck and their escorts would travel down Interstate 454 for approximately six hundred miles before turning off and going down a forest road to another top secret EOL facility.

The highway went through the most rural parts of Layarteb and rarely saw much traffic. State troopers and such guarded the highway and caught speeders daily. The speed limit was sixty-five but often people were caught doing ninety plus. The truck and its escorts kept up sixty-five, avoiding attention. For the first four hours, they made normal time. A thunderstorm dawned on them around ten thirty, but they still had another four hours to go. They were in the most rural part of the highway when it happened. Two suburbans, black, sped alongside the convoy at over eighty-five miles per hour and then all of a sudden slowed down to sixty-five, when they were alongside the two escort cars. The escort cars, which had radar warning recievers for cops, saw their warning lights blink. There was a cop ahead. It made it unusual that the cars alongside had slowed down.

Then, the tinted windows went down and two rockets let loose from the suburbans from two lanes away. The escort cars never knew what hit them. The modified RPGs that were used had long tubes that went out the other window so all back blast was funneled out of the car. The modified warheads were shaped charges, to allow the explosions to be centered on the cars.

Inside the cab of the tanker truck, the two men saw the explosions in their mirrors and immediately floored the vehicle. The truck slowly lurched forward, passing through ninety miles per hour by the time the suburbans began their final chase. The road was flat here, no hills, and barely any turns. Only the rain was a hindrance. Their GPS inside the cab showed them a clear route along the whole highway and they immediately activated the tracking systems on their vehicle and the emergency alarm.

At a small command center not more than a hundred miles from the location of the truck and its destroyed escorts, the emergency light flashed and alarm klaxons echoed through the bunker. The commander immediately sent a communique to central command and per standard operating procedures, dispatched a pair of AH-66A Commanche helicopters to intercept the truck. They were armed with four AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and two FIM-92D Stinger missiles each, along with a full load from their cannons.

As the Suburbans gained on the truck, the driver and passenger readied their weapons. The driver pulled fourth the MP5K and the passenger armed himself with the 12 gauge. There were small openings in their doors that could be used to put a rifle or gun barrel out of to shoot a vehicle on the side or a person trying to climb in through the door. The 12 gauge was a sawed off and two rounds were loaded in the two barrels.

The Suburbans drew alongside the truck and once they got to the cab, on either side, the gunfire began. The driver unleashed the spray of 9MM ammunition from the MP5K against the side of the Suburban but it appeared to be armored. The passenger, with his 12 gauge, put the two shells throughout the driver's window. He was the lucky one as the Suburban careened out of control into a tree, the resulting explosion shook the truck. But it was not over, the other Suburban was taking the fire from the MP5K and was surviving. The passenger of the cab immediately got up and left his seat, going to the dormer portion of the cab where he went to a window and broke it to fire at the Suburban. However, the men inside the Suburban were marksman and as soon as they saw his face at the window, three bullets shattered his skull.

Now it was only the driver and he was running out of rounds. He had to keep his head down to avoid fire from the Suburban. Bullets ricocheted throughout the cab. It wasn't long before he ran out of ammunition for his MP5K. He picked up the sawed off from the back and let loose, firing down onto the Suburban with minimal success. He tried every weapon he had until he too took a bullet to the head, an unlucky ricochet that nailed him through the eye.

The truck slowed quickly as his foot fell from the accelerator. The Suburban was no longer drivable though and three of the six men inside were dead themselves. Only the driver and those on his side were still alive. Once the truck was halted to a stop, the Suburban stopped as well and was joined by four police cars from the sides of the road. All assembled around the truck and the three men inside the Suburban disembarked and entered the cab of the truck, where they cleaned out the bodies and the useless weapons. The weapons and ammunition from their truck were placed into the cab and they drove off, escorted by the four police cars.

At that time, the signal from the truck vanished and so did all communications. The self-destruct system was deactivated with forty-eight seconds on the timer and the Suburban was blown up via RPG to hide the evidence. By the time the Commanche's got to the highway and the last reported position, there was nothing for them to do. Investigations and reconnaissance of the area showed nothing worthwhile. Two MH-60 Black Hawks, escorted by the Commanche's, landed and two teams of eight men departed each one to survey the area. Something was wrong, terribly wrong.

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:20

Part XXII: Demands

The Emperor was in the emergency control center approximately four hours after the hijacking of the tanker truck on Interstate 454. He had been briefed several times over on the situation. Reconnaissance and tracking had yet to find the truck and they were certain it was somewhere. Given it's fuel status and maximum speed, it was likely to be in an area so big that it was doubtful they'd find it. Given the bad weather, air operations with U-2, SR-71, and U-3 spy planes revealed close to nothing except cloud cover.

Special Forces and Black Forces were combining every intelligence channel available. Throughout all of Layarteb, military and police forces were on high alert for anything at all suspicious, a lot more than usual. All flights in and out of Layarteb as well as vehicles and ships were carefully screened instantly. Layarteb forces were tasked with the instant arrest of anything without proper ID and in the event of an attempted escape, to shoot the individual to incapacitate them. They were NOT messing around this time.

The tape came twenty hours later. "More terrorists sir..." The Director of Intelligence said to the Emperor.

The Emperor nodded and the tape was played. It was filmed in a heavily fortified garage with at least forty, heavily armed men around the truck. "Recently, the Emperor of Layarteb imposed draconian sanctions and punishments regarding narcotics and other substances made legal during the Caratan presidency, during a time when Layarteb was more free than ever. Now there is a time when the Emperor leads his totalitarian regime. This will not stand. Twenty years in prison with torture and no rights for a simple dime bag of Marijuana? This is not justice, this is oppression. The city and tribe of Urbh Yueh stands now with the threat of attack by the Layartebian military. President Caratan offered us prosperity and protection for our drug market. Just two months ago, the Emperor threatened military action on us, imposed sanctions on us, with the demand that we cease all production of drugs and destroy our market within Layarteb. Since this, many of our citizens have become prisoners in the Emperors torture prisons, denied basic human rights, and denied any trial. The city and tribe of Urbh Yueh now sits destitute. We cannot feed our children and our children have no health coverage.

"This is intolerable. We are our independant, sovreign nation and tribe. We have no ties to Layarteb except only our markets. The Empire of Layarteb has no domain over us and they have no authority to tell us what to do. We will not obey, we will not suffer the wrath of the Emperor and his totalitarian, fascist regime. The tribe and city of Urbh Yueh has its own threat to make to those of the Emperor and his military. If any attack is made on the tribe or city of Urbh Yueh and its citizens, both inside and outside of Layarteb, we will not hesitate to counter-attack. We have seized two thousand gallons of your new chemical agent, VX-II-A. All Urbh Yueh citizens in Layarteb captivity will be immediately released. Our demands are set and they will not be altered. You will not find us and you will not, under any circumstances, strike the tribe or city of Urbh Yueh. You have heard from us and now we await our response from you. We are not joking here. We are serious and if matters do not improve then matters will not be good for you either." The tape shut off. The men were hooded, their voices altered, and their location relatively unknown.

The Emperor turned and looked towards the Director of Intelligence. "What's the deal with this? Give me everything you know."

"Well sir they are not bluffing, they have the poison and I am sure they know how to use it. That location over there, that you can see is completely unknown to us. It looks like a fortified military bunker, possibly an abandonded one. It is definitely within Layarteb and it is definitely a Layarteb bunker, as you could see the etchings in the wall behind the truck cab. We have thousands of bunkers though and it would take us forever to search each one of them. Given the time of the tape and such, they could be anywhere within four thousand miles of where we last had contact with the truck."

"How did they know of this?"

"A traitor sir. But we affirmed his identity and he was one of the men killed in the heist of the truck. Several other traitors have been identified by us but we know not of their whereabouts. We believe they are the ones who led these terrorists from Urbh Yueh to this bunker site. We suspect that they were plants by the Caratan administration that somehow snuck past our screenings. After all, we're talking millions of people so things like this are not uncommon."

"Very well, I am casting no blame on anyone yet. I understand the near impossibility to predict against something of this nature. We must isolate and complete now. We have to identify that bunker and any possible ones that they might use in the future if their location were to be discovered."

"Yes sir. We'll be right on it..."

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:20

Part XXIII: A Response

"Just this morning, a terrorist cell from the Urbh Yueh tribe in the unoccupied zone, seized a shippment of hazardous toxic waste being transported from a chemical plant to a burial site in the mountains. They plan to use the toxic waste against military targets as a demonstration of their unwillingness to commit to our new drug policies. It is my directive now that martial law be imposed throughout the Empire of Layarteb. Law and order will be of the utmost concern and a curfew imposed at nine o'clock PM to six o'clock AM. This will go for adults and children, male and female. Any citizen caught outside during curfew will be arrested and detained until it is deemed safe to release them. In addition, military patrols conducted through neighborhoods and cities should be taken with the utmost seriousness. PLEASE do not hinder their duties or they will be forced to act in their own self-defense and in the self-defense of the Empire of Layarteb. Conditions are hereby imposed as of this broadcast, July 20, 2004, six o'clock PM. Thank you and be responsible. If you see any suspicious activity do not hesitate to flag down a patrol or call the local authorities. Soldiers will be posting information on homes and apartment complexes for further information. Thank you." The Emperor leaned back as the camera switched off and out went the news crew. The Joint Chiefs stayed.

"So, give me a status on our capabilities generals?" The Emperor asked.

"Well sir, our military will be operating at high alert levels. We will have some sixty-two percent of our soldiers deployed on these patrols leaving us only thirty-eight for combat operations. Special forces will be utilized for snatch and grab raids, not for patrols. In addition, black ops will be used extensively to gather intelligence and so on and so fourth. Air Force fighters and bombers will be on alert with penetration munitions and thermite plasma to be dropped at a moment's notice if we find that truck. Our plan of action is to first attempt a raid with black forces. If that fails we will use aircraft. In the event that this option fails we will be forced to use tactical nuclear devices.

"Secondly, with concern to martial law. Camps fourteen through eight hundred are ready leaving some two hundred and forty still inactive but maintained. Each camp will be able to hold approximately ten thousand people and though we activated such a large number we don't anticipate using any of them to their full capacity. Their remote locations and secrecy warrant such a large number. Secondly, we want to be sure that we don't underestimate such problems that might arise.

"Currently, with our navy, coastal patrol submarines and ships are patrolling the waters and all incoming shipments via water will be inspected on arrival as usual. Air traffic is being restricted to only necessary commerical flights. Tourism at the moment is suspended and any citizens currently abroad are being urged to stay there by just going to an embassy or finding extra lodging. The less people we have in this country right now the better." The Joint Chief of Staff said.

"Very well. And of intelligence?"

"Well sir, here is what we have right now. Activity in the city of Urbh Yueh is at a major heightened state. Anti-aircraft defenses are strategically emplaced to defend the city against air attack. Air operations under fifteen thousand feet will most likely be suicide runs. Air defense missile systems have the city covered and overlapped some fifty times. They are employing Improved HAWK sites, Gecko and Gainful mobile SAMs, Guideline and Ganef fixed sites, some Grizzly sites, and two Grumble sites. Patriot capabilities seem present and at best would be PAC-1 capable but we cannot confirm either its activity or capability. Their airport is buzzing with activity. We have confirmed the presence of eighty-four MiG-29 fighters, sixteen Tu-22M bombers, fifty F-15 fighters, twenty-five F-16 fighters, and twenty-five F-111 bombers. Armor strength is hefty for the city with some eight hundred main battle tanks, consisting of T-62s, T-72s, and T-80s. Most of their ground equipment is of Russian nature except for Humvees, M113s, M2s, and some M1A1s, though very few of these.

"Troop strength is roughly one hundred thousand active troops and officers with roughly two hundred thousand reserves. However, there is no telling how many citizens are armed and ready to fight. The population of the city and its surrounding villages, all-in-all, is seventeen million. We could be fighting a million plus if we go into that city." The Minister of Intelligence said, sweating from the figures he had just read.

"All right. Gentlemen I thank you and I ask only one more thing. What are our options?"

"Well sir we have several possible scenarios. Worst case is they use that stuff on our cities and kill millions if we cannot stop them. Their conditions for using the chemical is as follows. If we attack their city, harm any of their citizens, fail to release all Urbh Yueh prisoners, or fail to repeal our 'Draconian drug laws' they will use the chemical. We can safely say that the warriors holding that truck are operating independent of the city. Naturally they are in constant communication but they have their orders most likely.

"Before we can do anything, we have to find that truck and the chemical. Without that any action we take is utterly useless. We currently have three hundred and forty-seven of their citizens in our captivity. However, in their demands they only listed three hundred and eight names, presuming the others are dead. We will use this to our advantage.

"What we are proposing is to send those three hundred and eight home to the city to buy some time while we interrogate the others. We have developed the CAF virus to fit in a small intra-body capsule. The capsule takes two weeks to fully dissolve at which time just enough of the virus will be released into the bloodstream to kill the victim. We propose placing these capsules into each one of the three hundred and eight prisoners to ensure that they do not escape our wrath. By that time we will have the truck and be acting against the city and its villages. We hope.

"Once we find the truck and neutralize it and/or regain its cargo, we will be attacking in retaliation as we do not succumb to terrorists! Our plan of action is four days of non-stop bombardment with air and sea assets against command, air defenses, and their fighting capabilities. By that time we will have two full divisions cavalry divisions and their respective infantry corps alongside them ready for operations against the city. That is, of course sir, if we want to even use the resources. We could double the length of the bombardment and colonize afterwards. The use of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons is not recommended but justified considering what they threaten. The best types would be delivered by fighters or bombers in the form of free-fall bombs and short-range missiles, both land, sea, and air based. We estimate that a single ten megaton bomb will reduce the entire city to rubble and ensure that nobody goes within one hundred miles of it for five thousand years. We wish to use a dirty version of the ten megaton bomb as to fully eradicate their drug crop and do the most damage to the surrounding villages."

"Very well," The Emperor nodded. "I like these options and I will give my final decision once we find that truck. It is of the utmost priority as you have said. Get that truck and we'll be able to act. I like the plan with the prisoners and do it to appease them for the time being to buy some time and hopefully intercept some communications. How are they communicating anyway?"

"It has to be either runners or ultra-encrypted messages sir."

"Very well. Do your best at intercepting some of them. Thank you all for this attention and it is a shame we are once again at this problem! Keep up the good work men!"

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:21

Part XXIV: Reiteration of Pain

The forty soldiers of the Urbh Yueh tribe were huddled around the television, watching the announcement from the Emperor. They were all sitting in one place, all forty of them from the bunker. It was foolish of them, no guards were at the truck and none were at the main door, something that was just about to go very wrong for them. Outside, eight men, dressed in black and heavily armed, were waiting for the right moment. One was working on getting the air vent cover off and the others were standing guard.

Finally, after ten minutes, the air vent cover was removed and the eight men entered, crawling on their hands and knees through the confined, dusty, aluminum vents. This was a bunker that had been built before the War for Independence and Force Falcon members had used it several times during the war to store weapons. They knew this place inside out and they were certainly not going to screw up. They would crawl one hundred and forty-five feet inward to the main room and then drop in and begin their assault.

It took only a minute or two to get to the drop vent, which they removed quickly. The main room was empty and they immediately digressed inward, through the open blast doors. Once inside they were in a corridor and they could hear voices down the hall as well as a television. There were plenty of rooms between them and the one they were hearing the noises from but they swept through the corridor quickly and efficiently. All of the rooms were empty, except for the one that they were hearing the noises from. A quick peek showed the presence of a lot of men, their backs all to the door. Immediately, two flash bangs were thrown in, three seconds later they went off and the talking was replaced with screams of pain. Upon entering, the eight men saw all forty of the Urbh Yueh soldiers on the ground, writhing in pain. They worked quickly to disarm the men and pushed the soldiers against the wall so that when they came to, they were no longer a threat.

Eventually, the screams stopped, the writhing ceased, and the soldiers came to, only to see their situation as a loss. They had screwed up and the looks of failure on their face were enough to completely demoralize them. A pair of Pave Low helicopters were already inbound to transport the soldiers to a prison camp. In addition, three UV-22s were inbound with special cargos, primarily for the extraction of the chemical.

When the Emperor heard, he was relieved and pleased. Now came action. "Sir, what is the plan?" The Minister of Intelligence asked with the presence of the major cabinets of Joint Chiefs and other associated personnel.

"Release the prisoners mentioned with the device mentioned. Let them think they have been appeased. Now we will attempt to devestate them. We shall commence aerial bombardment tomorrow night, giving you the proper time to distinguish targets. Get the army on the move and be prepared for total, all out war with them. We're going to treat this like the situation in Dnalkrad. Swift, powerful, and brutal. We'll use stealth first and then step up to non-stealth attacks. Chances are they will send a division against ours. CAS and armored units will be able to handle them. Gentlemen, you know what to do!"

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:22

Part XXV: The Means to an End

The Emperor looked at the latest figures. The city of Urbh Yueh was prepared for an invasion, well prepared. Air operations were to commence inside of two days and the Urbh Yueh knew this. They also knew that their master-plan had been destroyed. They had nothing now as leverage. Delta Force units were deployed on the outskirts of the city for the subsequent attacks. As a preliminary strike, a single ILAF F-19A Ghostrider was to fly to the city and bomb a pair of targets, two "stealth" radar masts. The Urbh Yueh tribe just erected them and it was how they were going to see the numerous stealth planes coming into their territory to bomb the city.

The F-19A Ghostrider was fully fueled and being armed inside one of the many hardened hangars at Airbase #642. So far only the internal cannon had been loaded, all four hundred and eighty rounds. Techs were loading the air-to-air bay with a pair of AIM-9X Sidewinders and a pair of AIM-120C-6 AMRAAMs. In the air-to-ground bay was being loaded four two thousand pound JDAMs with BLU-109 warheads, to be dropped from eighty thousand feet over the city of Urbh Yueh. At 2045, the F-19A was ready and at the base of the runway, under the cover of complete darkness. It had a two thousand nautical mile range and it would fly at twelve hundred miles per hour the whole way, on military power. The runway was empty, the airbase pitch black, even the tower. It's windows were tinted so the red glow of the lights inside did not eminate outward and give out its position. The F-19 had its lights turned off as well, a black spot in a sea of black.

At 2052, the tower gave the F-19 clearance. "Devil 501, you are cleared for take off. Good luck!" The tower communicated to the F-19.

"Roger that. Thanks!" The pilot, MAJ. Carl Switchblade, responded as he unlocked the breaks on the F-19 and pushed the throttle to maximum power. The aircraft emanated a high-pitched whine as it accelerated down the runway. Ten, twenty, forty, eighty, one hundred and sixty miles per hour in just six hundred feet. The pilot eased back on the stick as the aircraft entered into a ten degree climb, accelerating past one hundred and eighty miles per hour. The pilot retracted the landing gear and stowed the flaps. He pulled the stick back further and entered a steep fifty degree climb as the aircraft accelerated past two hundred and forty miles per hour. At twenty-four thousand feet, the F-19 eased back to a thirty degree climb, traveling upwards and forward at a speed of six hundred and fifty-five miles per hour. Yet, it continued to accelerate. At fifty-eight thousand feet, the aircraft leveled off and accelerated to eight hundred miles per hour, where it stopped accelerating and turned to a refueling waypoint.

The total distance from the airbase to the city of Urbh Yueh was two thousand and eighty-five miles. The F-19A was going to refuel at a distance of one thousand miles from the target. An awaiting KC-10A Extender would be doing the refueling. Flying at now one thousand miles per hour, the F-19 reached the refuel waypoint in just over an hour. The pilot made contact with the tanker and slowed down immediately as well as dropped to an altitude of thirty-six thousand feet, now traveling at four hundred miles per hour. MAJ. Switchblade was a pro at aerial refueling, he had over five hundred successful attempts at aerial refueling and he trained every week at keeping his aerial refueling skills honed to their max.

He was down to a mere four thousand pounds of fuel, enough for about three hundred more miles. He would take on a full load from the tanker, which would loiter over the refueling area until the F-19 made its way back. It had enough fuel to loiter for hours, certainly what the mission required. After refueling, the F-19 climbed up to eighty thousand feet and commenced its acceleration to twelve hundred miles per hour. The fighter whizzed through the thin, night air without any noise or any radar signature.

The pilot placed the fighter on autopilot and set his watch for a thirty minute alarm. He wanted to have a short nap before he came onto the target. The coordinates of the target were already programmed into the bombs, all he had to do was fly over the city and release them. The nap was a quick one and he woke up alert and ready. He took the fighter off autopilot and turned to the next waypoint, the initial point, fifty-two miles outside of the targets. It was roughly two and a half minutes from that waypoint to the target at his current speed.

At two minutes he could see the faint lights from the target below. He pushed the bomb doors button. Inside of 1/4 of a second, the doors were open. He had the pickle selected already and he pushed the thumb trigger on his flight stick. The two bombs dropped from the bay within another 1/4 of a second. Then he pushed the bomb doors button again and inside of 1/2 of a second, the doors were closed. The whole process took a mere five seconds, had it been automatic it would have taken one second.

The bombs fell to the target, accelerating as they fell from their altitude. The RWR on the F-19 showed countless search radars of fighters and ground radars. The flight recorder would record the contacts, the amount of contacts, the location of the contacts, and all of the information on the contacts. The pilot turned the F-19 around in a long bank that put it back on course with the tanker.

The F-19 was at the tanker in no time and refueled again, with three thousand pounds of fuel remaining. The KC-10 fueled the F-19 and turned back for base as well. The F-19 returned to base another hour later and its almost five hour mission was over. The time was now 0140. The fighter taxied back to the hangar and the pilot deboarded the cockpit. The pilot immediately made his way to the debriefing room. The mission had been a success.

"Major, it is good of you to join us." COL. Anderson, the briefing colonel said. "We were just going over the pictures from your strike."

"I hit it sir." The major stood at attention still and saluted.

"At ease, have a seat." The major sat down and looked over the photographs.

"Impressive I like these results."

"Me too sir. Those bombs hit the masts right on target. And in addition, the blasts destroyed the main processing bunker. Excellent."

"Indeed. We will eagerly await the message from the leader of the Urbh Yueh tribe and the Emperor."

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:22

Part XXVI: An End to a Conflict

The Emperor was up late, again, as usual. He was overlooking the information on the F-19 strike against the two stealth radar towers in the city of Urbh Yueh. Layartebian forces were poised and ready to go, all they needed were the go-codes and they could begin their assault through the unoccupied zones towards Urbh Yueh. But, tonight was a forgiving night. As the Emperor overlooked the assessments and the reconnaissance photographs of the before and after, he could clearly tell the strike was an overwhelming success. Then his secretary buzzed him, "Sir, there is an urgent phone call for you on line 4."

"Who is it?" The Emperor responded back.

"Sir, I am not sure but he says he is a representative from the tribe of Urbh Yueh?"

"Very well. I will take it." The Emperor picked up the phone. "Who am I speaking to? Tribal leader? Go on. Yes we did. No I will not say. Yes we are. Perhaps. That you cease all activities inside Layarteb with the nature of illegal substances. That is all. Yes I am well aware. No I was not. Yes. Unharmed. Very well. Perhaps a meeting to finalize? I will give the order but rest assured that it is not an order I give without proof that the intentions are honest. Very well."[/i]

The Emperor hung up the phone and immediately buzzed his secretary back. "Call the Joint Chiefs immediately and have them meet me here."

"Very well sir." She went to work and within twenty minutes the Joint Chiefs, the Minister of Intelligence, and a few aides were in his office. He filled them in on the news and the phone call he had just recieved.

"Gentlemen, I can give you good news, in a way. I just recieved a phonecall from the leader of the Urbh Yueh tribe asking us not to go to war. My conditions were the cessation of drug trafficking in our land and he agreed. But I cannot be fully sure it was their leader. Perhaps it is a prank but we shall see. I have senior intelligence officials right now tracking down information on the leader of their city and tribe and doing voiceprint analysts to confirm or deny if it was the leader whom I did speak with. We shall now by the end of the hour." The time was arduous and boring. The men discussed possible repricussions and so on and so fourth. However, in the end, analysts claimed a 94.56% possibility that it was in fact authentic. The sign a mere fourteen hours later, when the sun came up, proved it was authentic. Citizens in the streets and on buildings spelled out, "We Agree EOL 57." The war that never began was over and hopefully so was the trafficking of illegal drugs inside Layarteb from the tribe and city of Urbh Yueh, at least on the whole. There would be those who oppossed and went their own but they were easier to deal with.

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:23

Part XXVII: The Science of the Apocalypse

The Emperor was in his office, awaiting the weather report for the next day, it being 2200. It was calm and peaceful in the Layarteb capital city of Layarteb City. The nightlife was beginning and the day life was done. Teenagers were going out, businessmen were coming home from a day of celebration, and somewhere, someone was having a baby. Someone was also dying. The city, of one hundred and twenty-five million, was gigantic, larger than some countries. He was just about to pour himself another glass of water when his red phone rang, the all important phone that meant something was amiss. He immediately reached for it and held it to his ear, "The Emperor. Yes. He did what! Get a helicopter here in two minutes, I want to see this!" He hung up the phone and darted out of his office, his bodyguards following him all the way up to the roof where an MH-60L Black Hawk landed, two more aloft. The Emperor immediately got on and the bodyguards remained, a new set already on the helicopter in full camo and gear.

He said nothing as the three helicopters left the city. He looked out the window to see the illuminescence of the city erupt into the night sky and then fade away to black as they entered the forests around the city and its suburbs.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/layartebcitynight_01.jpg

As they progressed over the forest and into the mountains at one hundred and fifty miles per hour, the three helicopters maintained a tight yet staggered formation. Awaiting in the air was a KC-130 to refuel them on their journey. It wasn't far but they were running low on gas, dangerously low as they had been diverted from a previous mission.

They were on the ground at the target location not long after the refueling. The target location was a bunker in the middle of nowhere, buried deep in a mountain and heavily fortified. A small patch of grass outside served as a landing zone for all helicopters. The site was made to look like a mine and was hidden well.

Once on the ground, the Emperor and the Force Spectre team onboard, unbuckled and left the confines of the Black Hawk cabin. The helicopters were stopped and shut down, there was no sense keeping the rotors running for this mission. The now nine men, entered the compound through the Emperor's authorization and immediately were in a well protected blast room, empty and looking as if it hadn't been used in fifty years. But, there was a door at the end, a giant blast door. The Emperor went up to the door and surveyed the lock. He blew off the dust from the keypad and immediately entered his authorization, from a card carried in his pocket. Then he placed his eyes to the retinal scan, his hand in the hand scanner, and repeated a phrase for the voiceprint. The door opened slowly with a fury of dust.

They were in another blast protected room but this one only had an elevator sitting on top of what appeared to be a closed missile silo. The nine men entered the elevator and one pushed the button for down, there being only one place this elevator went aside from the surface. With more dust and creaky noises, the elevator descended as the doors opened and then closed. It was an abandoned missile silo, deep inside of a mountain, darkness surrounding them.

This silo had once been used to house a LGM-30B Minuteman IB nuclear missile way back when. Thirty of them were in this mountain, all of the silos abandoned now. They descended sixty foot below the surface and entered a long hallway, reinforced concrete all around them. They walked for about two hundred feet before they came to another elevator, this one required more authorization. The Emperor input the necessary information and down they went again, traveling another one hundred and eighty feet underground before they were finally where they had to be.

Two guards at the front of a giant blast door stood vigilant. The Emperor signed in, showed his identification, and went through another retinal, hand, and voiceprint scan. The guards saluted and the door was opened to reveal a laboratory of bustling fervor. Scientists worked left and right, too busy with their work to notice that the Emperor of their country had walked into the main lab. He went back, towards the main office, where he was to meet with Dr. No and the Joint Chiefs.

They were there, ready and waiting, discussing to themselves the ramifications of just what had been produced, three hundred feet benefit the surface of the Earth, another sixty feet below where they were. In the main conference room, a sound-proof, air-tight room, figures, charts, analysis, and other documents were sprawn out across the table, waiting for the Emperor, the Joint Chiefs, and Dr. No.

"Gentlemen, I have called you here because what I have produced is too important and too catastrophic to discuss over a phone, no matter how secure." Dr. No wiped a bit of sweat from his brow. "We have a weapon that can literally remove this entire planet from existence. It is most unconventional and most unstable. It is so unstable that this material must be kept suspended in a vacuum, not touching a single thing."

Immediately, the Emperor's eyes lit up. "You're talking about anti-matter aren't you?"

"Sir I am. But herein lies the problem. It is very dangerous and unstable. Our samples are microscopic and have enough potential to wipe out this entire complex. Moreover, we believe we can harness and create enough to build a weapon that, if needed, could remove this entire planet from the universe, along with everything on it. It's a doomsday weapon far worse than any nuclear, chemical, or biological weapon ever conceived." The Joint Chiefs remained stunned in silence. Even this was a weapon they'd never contemplate using. "I would like to test a sample in a weaponized form. Currently we have a sample in the size of one gram, equal to about twenty kilotons of TNT. This makes our best and most boosted nuclear weapons look like toys with batteries."

The Emperor, uneasy looked at him, "And if this gram is used as a weapon what will happen?"

"A big flash of light and complete vaporization, nothing remaining for about two miles. Nothing remaining and I mean nothing. Antimatter, once it touches actual matter, rock, trees, air, and such, immediately has a chain reaction and good bye!"

"And will this chain reaction stop?"

"Yes, it will not go on so much as to eradicate the human race and Earth. For that, I am proposing we build a weapon that contains one million tonnes of antimatter, a giant device. That would give a yield of..."

"A yield of twenty quadrillion tons of TNT." The General of the Air Force said, shaking. "The potential of such a weapon to be held has so many risks it is not even perceivable. What happens if there is a mistake, if something goes wrong. This is ludicrous to think about even possessing."

"The General is right," The Emperor interjected. "That much material has too much potential to be cataclysmic. If one simple mistake goes wrong everything is gone, poof! Besides, how long would it take to procure that much?"

"Sir, it'd take about a year. The containment device has already been built, a giant chamber to hold the material in a vacuum, dead-center through the use of magnets and electromagnetic fields."

"And if one of these magnets fail?" Dr. No pointed to a graphic on the table.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/computergraphic_0001.jpg

"Sir, I understand the risk but think of the possibility of such a weapon."

"I am. This is madness even for me. A weapon must be treated dangerous. In an instant it could backfire and something like this is just too much of a gamble to have backfire. That is all."

"Sir, I understand. May we proceed the with test at least."

The Emperor looked at the quiet Joint Chiefs, all of them sweating and certainly thinking about the limitless possibilities of disaster. "No. We must keep this secret, unknown and such."

"Very well sir." The meeting was over and the Emperor left with his bodyguards to board the Black Hawk to head back to his office. What has he done! This is madness. If just one...no...this must not be allowed...the program is dead!

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:24

Part XXVIII: OP PLAN ZETA

"Gentlemen, I have called you all here today for the explicit purpose of OP PLAN ZETA. As you are all aware, since the end of the conflict with the tribe and city of Urbh Yueh, martial law has been suspended in Layarteb. However, such is not the end. Intelligence reports from various sources have identified a growing, yet still insignificant, group of citizens numbering anywhere from four hundred to sixteen thousand, who are spread out throughout this vast land. They have no name but intend on inciting possible revolution through terror or some other method. They are your general liberal miscreants, you know the usual hippies and lazy-good-for-nothings that think the government should create, and I dare say it, 'Social Equality.'" Laughter erupted in the room. "So as Emperor of this great land it is my job and duty to protect it from all enemies, foreign and domestic and these constitute a domestic threat. OP PLAN ZETA calls for the creation of a false disaster in Layarteb. The target site is a city along the Dnalkrad-Layarteb line. It is a city of six million. The operation will have several stages. The first stage will be the complete and utter removal of that city from the world. We're going to make it disappear but not literally. We're going to seal off the city, cut all communications, and all transportation in and out of the city. Inside the city we will tell the residents that martial law is being declared because a major biological catastrophe has taken place outside the city limits and to protect the city we must isolate them. Outside the city we will tell the citizens that martial law is being declared because the city of Delphi has been overtaken by a major biological catastrophe and in order to prevent said contagion from spreading, we must isolate the city. Stage two will be the rounding up of all those we 'believe' are infected, all four hundred to sixteen thousand of these liberal good-for-nothings. Stage three will be the slow and gradual reinstatement of harsh law and punishment throughout the lands, in response to this crisis. Stage four will be the slow and gradual removal of martial law but not of our laws and ideals reimposed. Are there any questions?"

"Sir, when will the operation commence?" The Minister of Intelligence asked.

"Thirty-eight hours from now."

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:24

Part XXIX: Marnina City

The cold, night air settled over Marnina City, eight hundred and seven miles east of the capital, Layarteb City. Marnina City was one of the ancient cities, formed after a full-fledged war in the 1200s. It was the place of the final battle, afterwhich the soldiers, too horrified and too ashamed to return home, founded. The city had grown to a mega-city with suburbs stretching out for eighteen miles around the city. It was home to some seventy-two million people, most of which lived inside the city limits. It was surrounded by the vast forest.

It was fall and the temperature this night was 38°F, expecting to go down to 36°F as the low. It was a cold night, certainly too cold for October. A slight, gentle breeze came in from the west at seven knots. The sky was clear, a crimson moon looming over the horizon, bright and big. The doomsday prophets were all out on the streets, claiming it was the sign of the Lord. Air traffic was at a minimum as the airport here shut down at 0100. It was 0145 when all took aim.

Overhead there was an aircraft flying, a military C-17A Globemaster III. It was high up, thirty-six thousand feet to be exact. Escorted by two F-15C Eagles, the cargo plane trotted along at five hundred knots, making its journey quickly. The lack of lights made it invisible from the ground, that was until 0210. Air traffic control reported another aircraft in the vacinity, travelling at a speed of eighteen hundred knots. The anti-stealth system was tracking it but IR and radar scanners were empty. Marnina City was known for strange "night lights" and UFO sightings, making it the nutcase capital of Layarteb. But it was not false. UFOs were routinely intercepted here. Two were, in the history of Layarteb, shot down over the city, both crashing into the forest nearby, causing quite a spectacle. But tonight it would be a point for the UFOs. The UFO buzzed the fighters and the C-17, shaking them loose. The shockwave carried with it an electronic disruption field, which was essentially like EMP. Electronics in both the F-15s and the C-17 went haywire. The F-15s were the first to lose control and crashed into the city moments later, impacting at almost fifteen hundred knots. The C-17, on the other hand, lumbered around but was in bad shape. A second buzz by the UFO came with weaponry. A projectile of some sort slammed into the hull of the C-17 and immediately turned it into a fireball over the city.

From the ground, the doomsday prophets walking the street that night began to praise Jesus. They had recieved their sign. What they didn't know was that the cargo of the C-17 was deadly, very deadly. It was transporting sixty tons of Ebola Haemorrhagic Fever. However, it was a dangerous sort. It was a new strain of it, that was discovered by accident inside one of the few biochemical research labs inside Layarteb. The doctor incharge accidentally mixed the virus with a sample of meningitis. It had created a very dangerous strain of it, more dangerous than Ebola-Zaire. The primary difference was the incubation and kill period. The incubation for normal Ebola was two to twenty-one days. Now it was a mere eight to twelve. In addition, Ebola would kill a person inside of a week to a week and a half. Now symptons could go on for as much as two weeks. It was now spread in the air and over Marnina City.

The whole population was infected and they didn't even know it. The miltiary knew though, knew instantly. When the call went back to the Intelligence Ministry about the downed aircraft and the UFO, all hell broke loose. They were mainly concentrating on the situation in Callisdrun and they did not need this on the docket either. But the situation was dire. The Emperor was immediately notified.

"What happened?" He was on the phone. "A UFO. No. Yes. You have my directive. Yes. I do. Very well." The directive was in order. By morning the entire city would be quarantined and by mid-afternoon the entire population would be cut off from the rest of Layarteb and the rest of the world. It was certainly not what they were planning but it had to be done. OP PLAN ZETA had been scrapped and plans ignored. But there were forces going far beyond what was going on. Things were definitely fouled up!

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:25

Part XXX: Containment

The Emperor was immediately notified of the situation. Marnina City was a plague infested rot. They had to act fast and the Emperor immediately phoned the Joint Chiefs. "Get the QRBT out there immediately." He didn't have to say much, they knew the situation. They had to contain a population of seventy-two million. It was going to be a task and a half.

The QRBT was an elite unit, the Quick Response Biological Team. It was formed shortly after the biological weapons program was restarted after independance from Tnemrot. The QRBT consisted of, in total, 200,000 highly trained specialists, all military, and doctors. They had practiced on cities twice as large but it was still no easy task. Regular military units would be used to close off all routes of escape from the city and the suburbs. Mostly there were tank units and helicopters patrolling aside the armed soldiers. The QRBT was on the move immediately, armed to the teeth, wearing biological containment uniforms. They certainly didn't want to be infected and even though they were innoculated with the vaccine they were not taking any chances. Virus' often tended to mutate once they entered hosts, especially engineered ones. They didn't need to wind up with a killer disease on their hands.

The city was still asleep when the wreckages came down. Military units based within the city immediately responded, containing the wreckage and whatever was left of the cargo, certainly not much. By the time the sun was up, the QRBT was there and the entire 9th Cavalry Division. The 9th Infantry Corps was there as well. It had been their turn to provide watch over the land of Layarteb and they were ready when the call came out. Luckily, they were based a mere sixty-six miles away from the edge of the suburbs, close enough to get there immediately. They had trained for such a situation as well.

When the Emperor notified the mayor it was one of the most difficult calls he had to make. "Mayor. Yes it is the Emperor. Certainly. Thank you. There is a situation in your domain. Grave. Yes I am aware of the downed aircraft. Military. Yes. A biological weapon, engineered by accident. We are on the way. No. Classified. Most certainly. I understand. We are on the way. Very well. Initiate SOPs for biological hazard level 1. Yes. Immediately. Thank you." He turned to his advisors. "Well that didn't go over well. Seventy-two million people are probably going to die unless we can get there and administer vaccines within the next ninety-six hours or at least before incubation ends." The advisors were worried and it was obvious why. If the virus spread, Layarteb City was the next closest city.

Completely cut off from the rest of Layarteb, Marnina City came to a grinding halt. People were sent back home from work, told to go back to their families, and told to watch the news. A broadcast would be made at 1100 by the mayor to the entirity of the city. They knew something was up, afterall, there were military personnel walking around in biological containment units. They knew something was up, just not what.

1100 rolled around and everyone throughout the entire city was tuned into either a radio or a television. The mayor came on as scheduled, in his office behind his desk, two military guards behind him wearing the biological containment suits. "Citizens of Marnina City. There is much to discuss. First let me get this out of the way. The reason that these two gentlemen are standing behind me and why there are similiar ones walking through our streets is an event happened last night that has placed each and every one of us in danger. A military transport was transporting a precious cargo of captured biological weapons. These weapons were from a foiled terrorist plot to kill the greater part of Layarteb. This will not occur. However, it seems that the terrorists were also from within. The transport was flown over our gracious city and detonated mid-air by use of explosives. This has placed all of us within the exposure zone of this virus. Before panic sets in I must make this clear.

"The virus is a flu-like derivative. I am told that it will not be a fatal virus. However, to be on the safe side, vaccinations will be given to each and every citizen of this city. You will recieve them at your homes by military personnel coming door to door. They will be working around the clock so please answer your door if they do appear. Schedules for each block are being given out now.

"Additionally, our city is under quarantine for the next five weeks. The incubation period of this virus is eight to twelve days. If any flu-like symptoms appear you are to notify the military control team immediately at this number." A number flashed onto the bottom of the screen and remained there. "666-127 will be the phone number. They are here to help and there are steps to take to prevent this virus from harming anyone seriously. Please notify them immediately to avoid spreading the virus.

"Lastly I am required by law to impose martial law. There will be a curfew at 2000 and any citizen caught outside after such time will be detained immediately. Any crimes committed during this time will not be met with a trial. I am sorry to say that this totalitarian rule over Marnina City is necessary in order to protect teh safety of all seventy-two million of you.

"Thank you and have a wonderful day. Remember if you need us, we're here!" The television cut out and went to regularly scheduled programming. The situation was dire! The virus had already begun to mutate!

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:26

Part XXXI: The Armageddon Weapon II

For only the second time in Layarteb history, the council met. It was deep inside of a military bunker locked away inside Dnalkrad. There were few people present, the Emperor, the Joint Chiefs, the Minister of Intelligence, the cabinet, and several prominent scientists. Refreshments were served and the blank, empty room was locked. Standing outside was Force Falcon Team One. For this meeting, Force Falcon was protecting the bunker along with the usual Force Tornado operatives. Force Tornado, the 6th Black Operations Unit, numbered 68,000 and was tasked with the primary responsibility of protecting all of Layarteb's most secret military installations. These were mostly bunkers, labs, factories, and bases that were inside mountains, underneath the ground, and in several cases, underneath the water. But the gravity of the meeting warranted the presence of Force Falcon.

"Gentlemen, I have asked to convene this council for grave matters." One of the scientists asked. He had been the one to call the meeting and he was the top level official at a secret space research facility. "The last time we met it was to discuss the applications of Magnitide following the crash of several UFOs, which have been identified. Additionally, we discussed the findings of those UFO crashes. Unfortunately, we have received new information from another UFO crash. Just six days ago, a UFO flying near Layarteb was intercepted and downed by a MIM-104I Patriot PAC-4 missile while it was flying at an altitude of thirty-six kilometers and a speed of close to one kilometer per second. The UFO was at a range of eighty point six kilometers from the city." The council members were all familiar with the Metric System and it was accepted that since the scientific world used the Metric System, they would be given that respect during every meeting they were in attendance of. "Furthermore I would like to state that from the UFO, which was the largest and most powerful of all of those we have downed thus far, we have secured enough Magnitide to build at least one hundred gigatons worth of nuclear weaponry. However, there is significantly more to add. This UFO was a reconnaissance craft." The silence in the room was filled with murmurs and mutterings, frightened ones. The Emperor raised his hand to hush everyone and allowed the scientist to continue. He sat in his chair, reclined, his right arm on the armrest with his chin resting in his hand, his thumb, ring, and pinky fingers under his chin, and his other two on his cheek. The scientist continued. Luckily for them the temperature of the room was controlled and maintained to be 65°F at all times. The heat level rose as they sat sweating. "We recovered a slew of documents, which we have loosely translated though we know that what we have translated is one hundred percent on target. This craft is from a planet some six light years away. We're talking very far away but very close. This is a planet that we previously suspected contained life but not until the most recent crash before this one did we know for sure. The life forms from this planet resemble what science fiction nuts have been speculating for a long time now." He held up a picture from the autopsy of one of the "aliens."

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/alien.jpg

"As you can see they are what we were expecting actually. This is a photo from the crash."

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/ufo_downed-2.jpg

"Now let me address the information which has led me to call this meeting." He took a gulp of water and a long drag from his cigarette. "You know these things will kill you." He chuckled, trying to bring himself to restate what it was that scared him so much six days ago that not only did he call this council meeting but he invested in a .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson 686 Plus revolver. He didn't believe in firearms and though he worked for the Layartebian military, he did what he did to better science and mankind. He hated the weapons that he helped produce and loathed their applications but he was a strict realist and he knew that there was nothing that he could do about weaponry, especially these.

"Doctor, please go on. We know how difficult this may be but we are all in the same boat." The Emperor interjected.

"Yes sir. In approximately forty-two years it is the aim of these 'aliens' to colonize Earth and make the human race their own personal slaves. They plan on milking this planet dry of all of its natural resources so that it may be a barren and disgusting world. Once they are done, they plan on obliterating it and moving onto the next one. Apparently they have been doing this for thousands of years. We can be assured that they are, at minimum, five thousand to eight thousand years ahead of us."

The Emperor opened his eyes wide. "Can we stop them?"

"From the way their UFOs have thus eluded our detection and engagement systems, it is highly doubtful that any of us would survive. Resistance fighters might be effective mildly but certainly not to the extent that would repel the invaders. There is only one alternative and that is Project 57."

The room looked oddly around. "Project 57?" The mutterings asked.

"Yes Project 57 is actually a project known only myself and the Emperor. Sir do you want to explain it?"

The Emperor writhed in his chair. "I suppose I have no other choice. Project 57 was conceived after the first UFO was downed. It calls for a warship to be floating throughout the worlds' oceans. It will be the most state-of-the-art warship out there with stealth characteristics that hide it from radar, sonar, thermal and infrared scans, and even visual scans, primarily satellites and aircraft. We cannot make it invisible but we can make it invisible to cameras. An electronic disruption field that is like a bubble around the ship absorbs all sounds, radar, and light emissions in such a way that a camera cannot see the ship. The naked eye, however, can see the ship. We can't fool that. However, it will take into account the positions of all surface, submerged, and airborne contacts to avoid them completely.

"The ship is armed for self-defense measures only. It has eight Phalanx guns with fifteen thousand and five hundred rounds each, four RIM-116 mounts with twenty-one missiles each, eight quadruple Harpoon launchers with thirty-two missiles, four torpedo tubes with twenty-four torpedoes, and a ninety-six cell vertical launch system with Standard SM-4MR and SM-4ER missiles, RUM-139 ASROC missiles, and RGM-176 Tomahawk II anti-ship missiles.

"The ship is some six hundred and ninety-two point nine feet long, ninety point two feet wide, and drafts forty-two point two feet. Powered by two SNR-3 nuclear reactors, she generates two hundred and seventy thousand shaft horsepower, enough to push the eighty thousand ton ship to thirty-five knots. Every ten years she will need refueling, an operation that while it must be done at port can be done in total discretion. A helicopter deck is allotted for two HH-60H Seahawk helicopters, for transporting VIP and supplies and so on and so fourth. The ship has one hundred and eighty days worth of supplies and can be resupplied at sea indefinitely. The crew will consist of ten officers and one hundred and eighty enlisted personnel. All will be handpicked and screened for their job through a rigorous process."

"Process for what? It's just a ship." The Admiral of the Navy interjected. The Emperor chuckled. It's just a goddamn ship what is he talking about!

"The ship has a secondary characteristic aside from having the most state-of-the-art surveillance systems. She will carry a neutron emission warhead in her hull. The warhead has the equivalence of one hundred gigatons, exactly the amount of material taken from and found from the latest downed UFO. Previously we had plans to artificially manufacture the stuff, somehow, but now we have the real thing. In the event of this 'alien' invasion, the ship will be detonated. Fuel from the reactors will assist the explosion, which will instantly vaporize the ship. The fallout will be enough to kill all forms of life on this planet inside of thirty-eight days including plant life and yes even cockroaches. We will render this planet a wasteland rather than allow the 'aliens' to do it themselves. However, the ship can only be detonated by me and three other individuals, all of whom will remain anonymous to only I. All four of us will be required to 'turn the key' for this device. We will had two crews for this ship and they will serve for six months on and six months off. Whilst this ship is a giant thermonuclear bomb, it emits no radiation due to a carefully designed series of cores. It will cost us twenty billion dollars!"

"For Christ's sake that's mad sir!" The Admiral of the Navy shot out. "And what if this ship is sunk? What will then happen?"

The Emperor knew this question was coming. "If the ship is sunk it will not go critical but rather sink to the bottom of the ocean where it can be recovered, repaired, and reused. The neutron emission warhead will remain intact regardless of what hits the ship short of a nuclear blast, which will rupture its chamber and detonate it. And of the fail safes, as I said it requires four keys to turn at once aside from three codes required per person, each code being unique containing alphanumeric combinations and between twelve and twenty-seven characters in length. Communication to the ship will be conducted by a single satellite that is in orbit as we speak and is disguised as a telecommunications satellite for a civilian company. The secure uplink can transfer data at a speed of six point seven petabytes per second. It's sort of like a burst transmitter but far more powerful. The satellite is powered by a Plutonium core and uses the nuclear energy to transmit at such speeds, as the ship, and as our transmitter. It is a two-way uplink that is secure from the station to the satellite to the ship. In order to hack the uplink one would need to be able to break into two thousand and fifty-six bit encryption, impossible for even our hackers. This is what the ship will look like."

He held up a picture of a ship that looked civilian almost but at the same time military.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/doomsday-ship.jpg

"Are there any questions?" The Emperor was sweating. He too was nervous and for a fearless man it was most unnerving. "Just before you ask might I assert that it is not my choice to have to do commission such a vessel." He was serious. Without such a necessity would there not be the requirement.

The room was eerily silent. The Emperor nodded as he sat back down and the General of the Space Division stood. "Gentlemen it is certainly not my wish either to commission such a vessel but there is the need. My forces cannot intercept everything that comes this way and most certainly will they be able to defeat our anti-stealth system, which is thus far the only way we have tracked them. We can only track them because we can monitor the air currents and the air disturbances but I am sure that they can defeat that with due time."

He sat down and the Admiral of the Navy looked across the table. "Sir. This is madness! Even for us there is something we can do otherwise?"

"Admiral I understand your concern and let me assure you that it is the concern of each and every one of us at this table. But I cannot allow an 'alien race' to conquer this planet. Destruction will be imminent once they are here so why not speed up the process."

"Sir I do not want this ship under the Imperial Layartebian Navy."

"And it shall not be. Admiral there is no need to worry."

At that point in time, the General of the Air Force slammed his fist on the table. "Sir there is more to worry about with this system than 'alien invaders.' What happens if special forces from another nation capture the damn ship!"

"All of the men who man this ship will be highly trained black operatives from Force Tornado. The duty will be voluntary so as to assure that they will want to be there. There will be an armory on board with small arms for them to use at their disposal and if you have faith in the soldiers of our Black Operations units than there should be no problem."

"And what of overwhelming force?"

"There is a fail safe for that too. In the event that the ship is not under our control it will be sunk via internal means. The ship must report a signal to the satellite every two hours and that signal is returned to the station which then affirms the ship is under Layartebian control. If the signal does not report in on time then it shall be assumed that the ship is not under our control. We have a four hour window at that point of time to act. The weapon system takes eight hours to arm and is not armed until I and the four others begin the arming process. If the ship fails to report in at 1400 and it did at 1200 we can assume that at the very least we will have until 2000 before the weapon system is armed. We have only a four hour window to operate. At that point we will try for two hours to establish communication with the ship. If such fails we will deactivate the stealth systems from the ground station. A thermal scan will then send data on the ship to our station. We will have ninety minutes from that point to act with another ninety minute buffer time. Additionally, all soldiers will be encoded with a special chip that will monitor their vital signs. The implant will be placed underneath the skin of each crew member. We monitor this in real-time at the station as well. Our options are the following.

"If the ship has come under enemy control we can open a series of under hull doors to flood enough of the compartments necessary to sink the ship, thereby drowning everyone onboard. We can also, using a series of charges, release the neutron emission warhead into the water and also sink the ship. That option would be difficult to repair but it is doable. Lastly, if all is necessary, we can release the neutron emission warhead and cause the tow reactors to go critical and detonate. The explosion would be some ten kilotons and vaporize the ship but leave the warhead in tact so that we might use it in the future. All crew members will be trained in operating all of the ship's systems, including the radio. If a distress signal is emitted from the ship we can act accordingly. Additionally, it may be possible to deploy our own team of black operatives to the ship. This is merely a plan proposal but we have been developing man gliders for use from aircraft. These gliders will be small enough to hold a single human being but can be deployed out of an aircraft at high altitude and allow that person to travel faster than their own terminal velocity. The glider can be slowed down rapidly enough for the man on it to safely parachute down. We will have a quick response team from Force Falcon trained to do this task. Using a C-17A Globemaster III we can, if necessary, get to the ship in time, if it is within range. We will, at all times, know the location of the ship throughout the world."

The council was convinced, though hardly. "Sir. I am not sure if I can agree with such a system but I am not sure I can disagree either." One of the scientists said as he hardly looked away from the table top. "But I can be sure that I would rather see the world a wasteland than a colony of slaves."

"Very well. We are done here?" There were no objections. "We shall adjourn and hopefully we shall not have to meet again. But we said that last time." The room emptied and the Emperor exited the room. Force Falcon Team One escorted him to the helipad where he boarded a UV-22 Osprey that would take him to the nearest airfield where he could fly back to Layarteb City. Death is not such a horrible thing...

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:26

Part XXXII: Decontamination

Marnina City was under decontamination. The population had a severe awakening when their entire city was under complete martial law. Of the seventy-two million in the city, some forty-eight percent had shown symptoms. Another eighteen percent had been whisked away in violation of martial law statutes. The nearly thirteen million people had been carted away to seven camps within a two hundred mile radius of the city. The QRBT had done an excellent job containing the virus just to Marnina City.

But thirty four and a half million people had to be administered vaccines and fast. But was it helping? The large majority of these people were still dying and not improving. The vaccine appeared to be less effective than it should have been and it seriously worried the QRBT and the full force on the ground. Had the virus mutated? It was already a mutation and thus particular attention had to be paid to the environment.

The vaccines were helping those who weren't infected from becoming infected. But that was the ultimate extent of it. Of these thirty four and a half million people infected some twenty two million were still infected and of the remaining, they were slowly getting better but a relapse could still occur, especially if they were exposed to those who were not improving.

The QRBT had turned every hospital and seventeen apartment complexes into biological containment centers. People were grouped off according to their status. The worst off were kept in one of the complexes, all clean areas, completely disinfected and isolated from the outside world. The city looked as if it had been invaded by a foreign army. Lights at night were a rare sight and the seventeen apartment complexes were covered with tarps and plastic that kept them independent of the outside world. Additionally, helicopters and military units moved throughout the airspace and along the empty roads, traffic lights changing still. All civilian air traffic had been diverted around the city and it was as if the city no longer existed.

The city was isolated from the rest of the Empire. All traffic in and out of the city was stopped by the numerous checkpoints along the way. The entire military force inside the city numbered some four hundred thousand. Daily convoys to the numerous prisoner camps were being conducted once every eight hours. All were non-infected personnel, who were given a rigorous interrogation and a blood test just prior to being trucked out. If they were infected they went to a secure zone otherwise it was off to a camp, a hood over their hand, plastic tie-wraps on their hands, and everyone was tied to everyone else. Anyone who tried to run was shot and usually killed with that shot. The military was not joking around, this was a most serious matter.

It was the night on the thirtieth day after contamination. The night was colder than the first. It was a mere 29°F with winds gusting up to six miles per hour, which dropped the temperature to 22.7°F with the wind chill. The military units patrolling the streets had already arrested some sixteen thousand civilians that day.

For Arnold, Alex, Mike, and Russel, it was the night that they were going to sneak out and finally see what was inside building 5839. That building had been off-limits for the entirety of the siege thus far. They had all been vaccinated so they worried not. As the four of them darted from alley to alley, they neared the elusive building.

http://homepage.mac.com/andrewvardeman/photos/artish/artish-Images/16.jpg

They were all in college, ranging from nineteen to twenty-two in age and they had been holed up in their apartment for the past thirty days, prohibited from leaving. However, each night, some half a mile away, was building 5839. It was a government building and prior to the siege it had been used for census purposes as it was the HQ for the census bureau. However, it had been taken over and was being used as a top secret facility. Helicopters landed and took off all night long and armed guards stood outside and on the roof. Snipers were definitely on the roof as well.

As the four of them neared the building, they saw their point of entry. It was the garbage chute and it was unguarded but definitely disgusting. A trip up the chute was definitely a trip through hell but it was their only way. They had heard from their neighbor who had heard from her sister who dated a military tech that said that inside the building, on the fourth floor, was a top secret lab that was working to reinfect citizens. It was a long shot but they wanted the proof, especially since they were all in control of their campus newspaper, which was, inside Marnina City, a well respected one. Proof of this was certainly something that would boost their paper sales and have very catastrophic results for the government, the government which they despised.

Up the chute they went and they wound up just short of the incinerator, lucky for them. As they dusted themselves off and peeled the garbage from their pockets and skin, they assembled inside the room. "Okay," Alex said, "we're going out of this door, down the hall, and at the end is the staircase. We'll take that to the floor and then it's door number 18. It should be empty at this time. Any questions?" They all nodded "No." "Alright let's go." As soon as they opened the door they came face to face with two armed guards, both totting M30A1 assault rifles. Instantly each one of them swallowed their tongues and peed their pants.

"Going somewhere son?" One of the guards asked. He laughed as he picked up his radio. "We have the intruders at the incinerator. Ready the transport." The guarded turned back to the four intruders and smiled. "Time to come with us." He motioned with his rifle for them to move and move immediately. They did, their hands being restrained by plastic tie-wraps. "Could you boys have chosen a less smelly place to enter?" The guards laughed, the four of them scared beyond their wildest dreams.

They exited the front of the building and climbed inside of a M2008A1 Dingo APV along with the two guards. The Dingo APV accelerated down the street to forty miles per hour as it neared a major intersection. The truck slowed down as a pair of M113A3 APCs flew down the street. The Dingo began driving again and drove for another fifteen minutes before it reached the main processing compound. This was the main area that all violators were taken to for interrogation, disinfecting, testing, and so on and so fourth.

The four captives and the two guards climbed out and entered the huge building, which had previously been a police station. Now it was in military hands. They were ushered inside, past dozens of military personnel running left and right. There were forty violators here at this present time, excluding the most recent four. They were all taken to different rooms and interrogated separately. One of them cracked after twenty minutes and it took another a whole hour but in the end every one of them cracked and said the same story, which was that they broke into the building to steal the secrets of that lab and to get access into the lab. They also all gave up the name of the soldier who had led them there. He wasn't given much of a trial or an interrogation but rather ushered off to be a test subject for the vaccination process. He was never to be seen again.

Early the next morning, just after 0600, all forty-four people were loaded onto two M813A1 5-ton trucks, escorted by a pair of Dingo APVs. They were driven out of the city some one hundred and sixty-five miles to one of the camps. There they would stay for the duration of the siege. It was definitely no picnic as it had begun to snow that afternoon.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/40acre.jpg

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:27

Part XXXIII: Detention Camp #666

Arnold Haus woke up groggy and sore. He opened his eyes with difficulty, the darkness of the room keeping him from seeing clearly. He groaned and propped himself up on his elbows. Where am I? He thought to himself as he looked around, adjusting slowly to the darkness. "Mike? Alex? Russel? Anybody?" He asked though it was hard for him to talk very loudly. "Anybody?" He was scared and it could be heard in his voice.

"Be quiet. Go to sleep!" He heared whispered from a bed not so far away. "It's just a friggin dream!"

Arnold drifted back into sleep and returned to his completely distanced state of unconscious necessity. But when the sun dawned on the horizon the next morning, he awoke suddenly and to a most unagreeable noise. The noise was a loud buggle call. He had heard it on movies. It was reveille! He shot out of his bed, along with at least another one hundred and twenty other men. This is no dream! Next to him an older man, at least forty to fifty, put on his shoes. "Come on. You'll miss breakfast."

"Where am I?"

"I'll explain on the way. Hurry up we only have forty-five minutes."

"For what?"

"Breakfast. Now hurry."

"Okay." Arnold put on a pair of shoes at his bed. They were just his size and they were new. He noticed, at that point, that he was wearing a prisoners uniform with his PIN (what each citizen in the Empire of Layarteb was given as an identification number). He groggily moved in line with the rest of the people, outside the barracks, and into a giant courtyard. The number of men and women was staggering and the high walls of the courtyard and the barracks told him immediately that he was in a prison camp. But where? As he moved along the line, the slow moving line, towards a main point, to where it looked like it split into four more lines towards four separate buildigns, he turned behind him and saw the man who was in the bed next to him. "Where am I?"

"You are in one of the prison camps. As far as I can decipher, it is camp number six hundred and sixty-six. Mark of the devil huh?" He chuckled. "How old are you?"

"Nineteen. And yourself?"

"Forty-eight, I think. I've been in here so long that I don't remember anymore."

"How long have you been in here?"

"I've estimated between five years and eight years. I came in here when I was forty-two and I am more likely believing that I am in here six and a half years. I can't be sure though. I used to keep track but I just can't anymore, I'm too tired and too old."

"What's your name? Mine is Arnold Haus." He held out his hand and shook the man's.

"Steven. Steven Bilkins."

"The Empire of Layarteb has many camps I have come to learn, throughout the vastness of it. They are here for only one reason, to be detention centers for those who the state determines to be hazardous criminals not worthy of being in a simple jail. When you come here, you leave society. When you come here you die."

"I'm not keen on dying yet. And all I could be busted for was a simple trespassing violation."

"Government building?"

"Yes."

"Not so simple. You're the sixtieth guy I've met thus far for that type of charge. All of the fifty-nine others died in here. Eighteen of them committed suicide, twelve were killed by the guards, and the rest just gave up and died."

He was scared beyond any measure he had ever been before. He was dead? He couldn't believe it and didn't want to believe it, nor did he want to even think about dying in this place, especially not at the ripe age of nineteen. The line moved quicker as it split into four new lines, each going into a separate barracks. "Follow me. You're going to barracks eight-forty-six."

"How many buildings are here?"

"I don't know but a lot of them. We're in barracks fifty-seven, just one of the many prisoner barracks inside this vast complex, which I believe stretches at least eight square miles, maybe more. It is a virtual city and do you see that guard up there?" Arnold nodded. "He's one of at least sixteen hundred."

"Sixteen hundred?"

"I think. You see once you come here, you lose all association of time, all association of memory, and all association of reality. It's one, great, big, giant mess. Here we go, stay quiet and follow me." They entered the building, two armed guards standing at the door eyed both of them as they walked in. They followed another curling line and grabbed a metal tray along the way. Breakfast today was glorified slop and orange juice. When they sat down, the man spoke again. "Glorified slop and real orange juice. Makes sense huh? Whatever this is, it tastes like shit but it is probably the healthiest thing in existence. You'll never be hungry for at least eight hours nor will you be deprived of nutrients or anything else. And the orange juice is real because we tend to lose a lot of strength in this place, a lot. It helps keep us in shape for the work they make us do. I think this phase is working on munitions, bullets if I recall. We have to keep our troops shooting, don't we!" He made an amusing, little chuckle. "Mark, Cindy, Alan. I want you to meet Arnold. He's a rook!" The two men and one woman who had just sat down across from them nodded and joked.

"A rook. What was your crime?" Cindy asked.

"Tresspassing. Government facility."

"Well you'll be here a while. You'd better get comfy. Cigarettes are worth more than you'll ever know."

"Cigarettes? I don't smoke."

"You'll start soon."

"Don't you know they cause cancer?"

"Cancer? If it'll get me out of here I'll take it."

"What'd you do?"

"I was involved in a protest rally after the Emperor banned protesting. Apparently my crime was severe enough to keep me here for at least six years now. I think six years."

"I'm not getting out am I?" He entered into a nervous breakdown. But luckily, because Bilkins was a veteran of this place, he knew how to handle it.

"Calm down boy, getting excited won't do anything but get you thrown in the hole and then it's a month long beating that you'll wish you never got. And you won't be killed either. Trust me! I've been there. Take a breath and eat, you won't get any food for another eight hours." Arnold nodded.

"I had three friends with me when I was arrested last night.

"Chances are," Mark finally opened his mouth, "Chances are you won't find them any time soon. This place is huge. There's at least a half million people here."

"A half million?"

"Yes. At least."

"Jesus."

"He'll save you in the end but until then guess what, you're here on your own. God doesn't see this place. If He did, He'd do something. This place is worse than hell." A bell rang. "That means we have five more minutes. Better gobble that down, you'll need it." Arnold winced as he gulped down the slop. It was disgusting but it was the best thing for him.

"Where are we going after this?"

"Assignments. We go back to our barracks and the commander hands them out. Each barracks has a commander and he is in charge of the one hundred and fifty people in barracks fifty-seven. We do as he says. Sometimes we get to lounge around and do what we want, sometimes we have to work. It goes in phases. As far as I can tell it's eight months working and four months lounging. Though I can't be sure. Like I said, I have no concept of time. Perhaps you'll be able to solve the mystery for us. We gave up."

"How can I find out what day today is?"

"Do you know what day it was when you were interrogated?"

"Yes."

"Add two days. That is today."

"Two days. Okay. How will I keep a record?"

"I have some paper and a pencil I can lend you. Normally I wouldn't, paper and a pencil is a very valuable item in this camp but for this purpose it is necessary and I'm feeling generous."

"Thank you. I'll do my best."

"You'll do more than your best boy!" They laughed. Another bell rang and that signalled that it was time to return to the barracks. "Leave your tray. It'll get cleaned up. Some barracks is going to be doing that today. I don't know which one though."

"Service huh?"

"All the commodities of home but none of the comforts. Maybe in the future we'll get the task. You know it's really a priviledge."

"Extra food?"

"In copious amounts."

"Copious? What'd you do before you got here?"

"I was an English professor at ULFC."

"Falcon City?"

"Yes."

"My brother went there."

"Haus huh? I don't recall the name."

"Oh well." They filed out and returned to the barracks where they stood, at attention, at the foot of their beds. The barracks commander walked down the row and eyed everyone, searching them over with his eyes. If he thought he saw contraband he investigated. If he didn't like the attitude or if a prisoner eyeballed him, he turned out every possession they had, threw it on the floor, and took whatever he wanted. He usually took their journals and cigarettes. No one had kept their journals in their lockers or under their pillows. They usually found a nice place to hide them. But when the assignment was handed out it was another month of lounging. Another thirty days of unknown...

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 01:28

Part XXXIV: Setting Sail

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/doomsday-ship.jpg

The ILS Netherland (ABS-1) was docked in the the port of Bangor. It was exceptionally dark, it being the new moon phase. The ship was finally finished, the first of the Doomsday-class. The massive ship was sitting in port, docked at pier 80. It was the culmination of Project 57. The two SNR-3 nuclear reactors were operating at 15% as the ship idled in port, her giant propellars sitting static as the waves lashed the sides. The crew was assembled, hand picked out of countless others. The one hundred and eighty enlisted men stood at attention with the ten officers facing them. The captain and the XO were standing at attention as well, prepared to give their ceremonial speech. "Gentlemen of the ILS Netherland. It is my honor and my duty to welcome all of you to the ceremonial, first patrol of our glorious warship. Our mission is of the utmost importance. We are here to protect the sanctity of our planet. You are all aware of the mission that all of you are about to embark upon so I need not clutter it with garbage." The captain was non-traditional. He was, largely, a hotrod. He had previously been the captain of an attack submarine and was responsible for two kills, one of an enemy submarine and the other of an enemy destroyer. He was handpicked as well and was definitely a showboat but for the mission that he was going to embark upon, he was certainly the best man for the task. For the next six months, he was in charge of the boat.

"Now let us get to what we need to be doing. Gentlemen, board the boat!" The crew shuffled off, up the three gangplanks onto the eighty thousand ton ship. Within minutes the one hundred and ninety crew members were ready with the captain and the XO on the bridge. The giant cables holding the ship to the dock were thrown free and the giant ship backed out of the dock at two knots, its giant propellars churning slowly beneath the waterline. Once it was free of the dock, completely, the ship came around so that it was to head out of the harbor bow first. The giant ship moved out of the harbor at six knots, the harbor speed limit.

Given its massive size and the wake it produced, it was hard not to notice. However, there weren't any crewed ships in the harbor. The coast guard had made sure of that. The ship left the harbor without any lights and without much noise. It was quiet and it was powerful. The massive ship, when it left the harbor immediately sped up to eight knots and began its patrol. It headed into the Atlantic slowly and with resolution.

The Emperor was notified of the ship setting sail. He was at his desk at the time, sifting through paperwork for the plans of Ynoga. "Sir, the Netherland is at sea and on patrol." One of his aides came in to say.

"Thank you. Short of a major war, I'd like to be undisturbed for the next hour."

"Yes sir." The aide rushed out and the Emperor looked at the folder now on his desk. He picked it up and put down the paperwork he was holding. And thus it has begun. Time is of the utmost importance now. He looked at the pictures of the Netherland, which were completely blank, untouched, unaltered with negatives. They weren't touched up, altered digital images. The proof was in the pictures. Information on the ship's systems and how it was running were in the reports. The ship was running better than originally expected. The ship was more than desired. For the Emperor, the ship was a dream and a nightmare...

Layarteb

28-12-2004, 05:56

Part XXXV: A Cold Day in Hell

Arnold awoke that morning and put another mark on the paper after breakfast. "Twenty-two days thus far Steven."

"I lost count around fifteen hundred so it's nothing to be glorified about."

"Yeah well." Arnold had become mostly accustomed to the prison and the way things went. He made his bed and looked out the window to the frigid winter ground. A new group of prisoners were walking in. "New guys."

"Yeah they bring them in every week."

"I wonder what they did."

"Breathed wrong." They shared a laugh and one of the new prisoners entered the barracks and walked to the only open bunk, right next to Arnold and Steven. Steven and Arnold made it their duty to welcome him to the barracks, barracks 57. "Steven Bilkins and this here is Arnold Haus. Pleasure to meet you?"

"Yeah, real pleasure."

"Get used to it kid. You're going to be here a while. What'd you do?" Steven asked.

"Trespassing. I broke into an old government bunker, well decommissioned ICBM site. Before I knew it, there were soldiers all over the place and they arrested me and my friend but they shot him."

"Sorry to hear about that. What's your name?" Arnold offered his hand.

"Jack Delaney."

"Nice to meet you Jack. How old are you?"

"Twenty-one." He sighed and sat down. "I guess I'll see forty in here?"

"Probably. I'm in for the same thing. We just up and disappear."

"You're telling me." The three of them talked until lunch. Those in the barracks did much of the same, some talking to themselves, some talking to others from different barracks, some writing, some sleeping, some plotting, and some crying. It was a cold day, 25°F with a wind chill of 19°F from the 5 mph breeze.

When lunch time rolled around it was snowing. The flakes came down so fast, in such volume, and with such force that it stung your eyes when you walked. Walking from the barracks to the mess hall took twice as long and was colder. The 20 mph wind gusts put the wind chill temperature to 7°F whereas, without the wind, it was 22°F. The layers of clothing that the inmates had was barely enough to keep them warm in the ill-heated barracks, let alone the outside. Jack, Arnold, and Steven sat with the usual group, Jack being the new addition. As they ate their slop, they drilled Jack for information as to what was going on on the outside. They craved current events. Unfortunately, Jack couldn't tell them much.

As they walked back to the barracks, Jack motioned to Steven and Arnold to look up at the dense snow fall. "It's a cold day in hell men."

"If hell were this cold." Steven joked.

"Haven't you ever read Dante's Inferno ?"

"No I can't say I have." Steven wondered what that was, as he trudged towards the barracks. "But let's say we discuss it back in the barracks rather than out here?"

"Yeah, I'm for that." Arnold said as he made his way back towards the barracks. "It's too f****** cold out here!"

They made their way into the barracks and shut the door behind them, the guards outside giving them a dirty look as they were, by far, the last ones into the barracks from lunch. "Taking your time guys?" One of the guards asked. "I hope you aren't up to anything." He shook his rifle and they nodded. "Get inside."

"Yes sir." Steven said as they entered. "F****** pigs!"

"Yeah that's how I describe them too." Jack laughed and turned to his bed, sat down, and pulled out a pen and a fresh notebook.

"Where'd you get that?" Arnold asked.

"I asked the cook. I recognized him from high school."

"You went to high school with the cook?"

"No. I remembered that he was arrested for trying to steal from the science lab. I figured that he'd have plenty of supplies."

"And what'd you pay him with?" Jack laughed and nodded.

"He owes me from that incident. I gave him fair warning that the cops were coming. Stupid ass didn't take my advice."

"Wow you got lucky?" Arnold said, as Jack began to write.

"Very lucky." He smirked as he continued writing. The title of the page was A Cold Day in Hell.

Layarteb

03-01-2005, 23:11

Part XXXVI: The Inevitable Winter

"This isn't your first time here is it?" Arnold asked Jack. But Jack didn't respond, just read his latest entry in his book. "Hear me Jack?"

"I heard you. Call me Greg. Everyone does. And no this isn't my first time here."

"Second?"

"Sixth."

"Sixth? But you said you were twenty-one."

"I am. I was arrested first when I was sixteen for aiding in a democratic protest. So I was sent here for a year. I escaped, well attempted to. That made my second time here. I left at eighteen. But I didn't get much further because seventeen days later they arrested me for plotting to assassinate the Emperor. That was number three. I escaped twice more, four and five. Now this is six."

"Escape again?"

"Killed a guard."

"So then how are you still alive?"

"Because they can't kill me. I've been shot twice, stabbed four times, and electrocuted six times. For some reason nothing kills me."

"This is madness."

"Tell me about it. You think I want to be here?"

"No. So tell me how you escaped?"

"I played dead twice and tried to tunnel out the other time. By far, the tunneling idea is the worst one possible. They collapsed the tunnel on purpose on us. Seven men lie buried in that tunnel, most starved to death in there."

"So they stuck you in here?"

"They moved me to another barracks. What else is new? This is my fifth one."

"Fifth?"

"Yes fifth, do I studder?"

"It's just shocking. How many barracks are there here?"

"I'm not sure. A friend of mine was in four seventeen. That's about as high as I can figure."

"Quite a lot. How many people do you think are here?"

"Five, six hundred thousand maybe more. I don't know."

"Jesus Christ..."

"He can't save you now. Nobody can." Jack finally looked up from his work and put it underneath his mattress. "If you think God can save you then you are looking to the wrong place."

"But Cath..."

"To hell with Catholicism. It's bull. Remember that the Bible was written by men, that the Church was founded by men, that it is run by men, that men are humans, and humans are not perfect. The Church is nothing more than a good business. It's hokey, all hokey."

"What are you an atheist?"

"Agnostic."

"What's that?"

"It means that there isn't sufficient evidence to either support or deny the existence of God therein I cannot make an accurate decision as to belief of God or not. I don't believe what I don't see or what science hasn't already proven. Science can't prove or deny God so I'm not one for it."

"But that's..."

"That's nothing. It's only heresy because that's what your Church calls it because I don't worship your Church. You do realize that of the four Gospels, only one was written by a person who actually met Jesus. That's not really a good record."

"Yes so..."

"What of the Gospel of Jesus that they believe exists. Why won't it be translated?"

"The Dead Sea Scrolls?"

"It's among them. Why? Because it's rumored that the Gospel of Jesus states that the Church of God is in everyone. Guess what that means? A 2,000 year old organization loses legitimacy and all its wealth. You know how much wealth the Church has?"

"Not really."

"It's unimaginable. So now do you see."

"Well I still believe in Jesus and Catholicism."

"And best of luck to you just know I don't. So don't try any of that conversion crap on me because you'd be about the seventeenth person trying it and the last two got their faces busted in."

"Noted."

"Very well. I do believe it's dinner time."

"So the clock says." They went to dinner and it was as usual, the standard mess. But when it was over, and they returned to the barracks, things began to change. The sky became instantly gray and began to dump tons of snow onto the camp. Those forced to do work that month were out in 17°F weather, the wind blowing the temperature down to -2°F. Inside the barracks it was cold as well. The guards outside were well warm, protected from the elements. But inside it was a different story.

Layarteb

12-01-2005, 08:45

Part XXXVII: A Looking Glass of Time

"Look at that outside. A foot of snow and we're in here. Good thing right. Make those guards suffer."

"Yeah Jack well when they suffer we suffer."

"Arnold it isn't that bad. By the way have you seen Bilkins?"

"No. Do you know anything?"

"No. I wonder what happened."

"Me too."

"Give me a few minutes." Jack got off the bed as Arnold looked over the day sheet. He had been there for fifty-seven days and he barely remembered any of them. Jack wandered off throughout the barracks and finally came back to his bunk. "Nobody knows what happened."

"Figures. What about lunch time?"

"Half hour. We have to trek through that snow and that's going to suck."

"They didn't clear a path for us today."

"No they did. But the snow decided it wasn't good enough and repacked it."

"Figures..." Half an hour later the bell rang and they were off to lunch. The noon sky was gray and the snow had momentarily stopped, though it would start again very soon. Inside the mess hall, Jack asked around but nobody had seen Bilkins either nor knew what happened to him. Jack acquired another carton of smokes and some more paper and ink but nothing he really needed. As they were walking back to the barracks, the snow began to fall again, turning the air frigid once again. When they got back to the barracks, Jack found a note lying on his pillow.

Cease your inquiries. It benefits you not. He is no longer with us here. He wondered just what the hell was going on. He showed the note to Arnold who looked curiously at it for minutes. "What the hell is going on here!"

"Beats me but I think we ought to follow directions for once."

"I don't."

"It's a fool's inquiry."

"You believe that. I won't." Arnold left the area of his bunk and stormed off.

That boy is going to get himself killed if he doesn't lighten the hell up. He'll learn his lesson the hard way, that's for damn sure... Arnold moved his way towards the door and opened it. "What happened to Steven Bilkins!" He demanded from the guards. They ignored him at first, the wind gust blowing in snow, sending everyone in the barracks to the door to shut it. They yelled at him to shut the door as well but he ignored them, demanding again the same information from the guards. This time they gave him a look.

He demanded a third and a fourth time, the last time being pushed right back into the barracks. "This is b*******!" He returned to the door and demanded the answer a fifth time. But this time, one of the guards grabbed him and threw him into the snow.

"You don't learn your lesson numbskull. Now you'll have to pay." Another guard passed. "Hey you! Take this one to the warden. Class Six-A."

"Yes sir." The passing guard saluted and Arnold was taken immediately to the warden, where he was placed in the waiting room, handcuffed and threatened several times with death.

When he was finally called in, the warden offered him a seat. His office was grand and overlooked the main courtyard of the prison. "So you are inquiring about the fate of your friend, Mr. Bilkins."

"That is correct."

"You did not take heed to the note we had placed did you?"

"No. I have to know."

"You need to know to suit your own needs. You don't have to know s***" The warden was a large man, a colonel in the military and he had definitely seen combat, it was obvious from the scar on his face and the way he limped. "Now I ask you why you must know?"

"Because it was he who made me comfortable here."

"That's impossible. So tell me..."

"Tell you what?"

"The why."

"Because I want to know..."

"Very well. Mr. Bilkins has been released."

"Released?"

"Released. He served his time here."

"But all of his stuff..."

"I never said he was released freely."

"But you..."

"I said nothing to that effect..."

"But you..."

"Mr. Bilkins' sentence was carried out."

"You killed him!"

"It was his sentence. Twenty-years of hard labor and then death by electrocution. Do you want to meet the same fate?"

"What is my sentence?"

"You'll find out when it's up. If it's up."

"What's that supposed to mean..." The warden motioned for the prisoner to be taken away and he was, taken to solitary confinement for a week. Little did he know that it would be a single week that he wouldn't be able to see ever again...

Layarteb

29-01-2005, 02:26

:: Bump ::

Cotland

06-02-2005, 15:28

tag

Will this be updated?

Layarteb

07-02-2005, 02:11

tag

Will this be updated?

Yes it will be and soon, I'm working on the next part now. Earth II sorta drained my resources for the time being so.

Cotland

07-02-2005, 02:37

Yes it will be and soon, I'm working on the next part now. Earth II sorta drained my resources for the time being so.

Ok. Keep up the good work. :D

Layarteb

17-08-2005, 20:36

.:. Bump .:.

New part tonight. Excited?

Layarteb

17-08-2005, 23:04

Part XXXVIII: Darwin's Hell

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Layartebian%20Chronicles/galapagos_islands_map.gif

The sun would rise at 6:00 A.M. and it was only 4:00 A.M. Only eight weeks earlier, the islands had been annexed by the Layartebian Empire. The Empire of Duke Barol had almost gone to massive war with the Layartebian Empire after initial concerns were expressed for annexation. However, this time, the annexation was done willingly, at the urgence of the Empire of Duke Barol. Officially, the 13 islands archipelago was to be a republic of the Empire, or at least that is what was told to the citizens there.

Upon the transfer of sovereignty to Layarteb, the new, acting governor, had this to say, "Citizens of the Galapagos Islands. I speak to you with intention and with resolve. Today you are all becomming citizens of the greatest Empire and country on the planet. The Empire of Layarteb shalt be the country your allegiance comes to. However, such is not all. These thirteen islands will not be annexed to a province nor a colony. You shall enjoy status as a republic, allowed to self-govern. All of you will be considered citizens of the Empire and all of you will be given the same protection we give to those citizens in Layarteb City. But your destiny lies within yourself. You will choose you own leaders, your own government, and your own desires, we will only guide you and make these happen." He concluded his speech in front of some 500 people, all of whom had come out to see the public announcement.

Some 30,000 people lived on the islands. Though some of the islands were used as military bases and research centers were placed on nearly every one of them, population density was a surprising, 8 people per square mile, not very dense by any standard of the Empire. They lived mostly on the island of Isabela, the largest of the thirteen, with an area of 1,771 square miles. The island was home only 2,488 people. On Santa Cruz, however, some 14,000 people lived in the city of Puerto Ayora and another 2,000 dispersed around the island. Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, the capital of the islands, was on San Cristobal and had about 6,000 people in it and another 1,500 throughout the island. The remainder of the islands played host to about 4,000 more people, scattered around. A large military base was placed on Baltra, which was a mere 10 square miles. The abandoned base was a large airfield, dating back decades. On Pinzón, which was between Isabela and Santa Cruz, there was a large naval base, the island being just shy of 7 square miles. A nuclear research facility was on the island of Genovesa, which was almost 5.5 square miles. Military assets dotted the other islands but the largest of them were on the three aforementioned islands.

Unfortunately, for the citizens of the Galapagos, these military targets had long since been abandoned by the Duke Barolian government. Since the bases were abandoned more than eight weeks earlier, they had been looted and invaded by drifters, drug addicts, bums, and curious civilians. Any hope the Layartebians had for finding anything of use or significance from the facilities was completely eradicated and they would find nothing. Teams of Black Forces, scientists, and officials had flooded each naval base only a day after the annexation was announced to find nothing. It was apparent that the bases had been abandoned long before the annexation was complete. The nuclear research facility was hard hit. In the rush, the scientists had left a single atomic bomb at the facility, with a yield of 28 kilotons. Upon examination of the facility, Layartebian scientists found only the casing, not the inner guts of the bomb, which were probably on the black market, being sold for millions.

One of the "curious citizens" that raided the nuclear facility lived in Puerto Ayora. He was a cocaine addict and currently sitting inside his room, shaking back and fourth, craving more and more. His friend was supposed to be bringing the stash of a lifetime but something was wrong, he was due over six hours ago. They had been the ones that stole the bomb, knowing what it was, knowing what they could get for it, knowing exactly what they wanted to get for it. That answer was drugs, plain and simple, more than either of them could ever take in a single lifetime.

"Come on Miguel, where are you?" He said to himself in Spanish, hoping for his buddy to come through the door. He was running low on cigarettes too, having been smoking non-stop for the past five hours. They had, between the two of them, about four thousand cigarettes in 200 packs that they had stashed. In the last five hours, Pablo, as it were his name, had smoked five packs and was running a serious nicotine high. All one hundred cigarettes had enough stimulation to get him going even worse than not being able to get high.

The hallway outside was quiet and he sat, in the fetal position, in the corner of a dark and hazy room inside his apartment living room, not more than six feet from the front door. The whole building was quiet and as he sat there, smoke rising from a filled up ashtray, his last cigarette burning steadily. That was when he heard a crash and footsteps in the hallway outside. The footsteps were moving fast, in his direction and the door slammed open before Pablo could stand up. "Come on, get your stuff, we have to leave." Miguel said, panting, out of breath, his hands empty. "We have no time. Hurry!"

"Where is the stuff? Where is the bomb? What...What..."

"Hurry. I'll explain later."

"Later?" He began shaking. "Do you know how long I've been waiting!"

"Wait more. The army is coming, there are tanks in the city, people being pulled from their homes. Hurry!"

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED MIGUEL!"

"I went to the warehouse, traded the bomb for the drugs, and began my way back. But, before I could get here two army officials, I guess secret soldiers or something, arrested me, took my drugs, and were questioning me. That is where the blood is from."

"Blood?" Pablo had been so concerned with getting high he didn't see the blood coming from Miguel's eye, ear, and on his arms. "Did they?"

"Yes they tortured me a little. I escaped. Barely. Hurry, we have no time. The army is coming!"

"What are they doing?"

"I overheard," Miguel began throwing items into duffle bags. Their apartment was a disaster and whatever was important was ready to go. They were just taking some other, necessary items. "I overhead them talking. This whole archipelago, all islands, are going to be evacuated. Something about a radiation leak or something. I don't know. They're only one block away!"

"OH SHIT!" Pablo began packing immediately but before either of them were finished, two soldiers busted down the door and pointed a pair of assault rifles at them, M30A1 Carbines. Pablo reached for his pistol, a 9 millimeter Beretta.

"PUT THE GUN DOWN! PUT IT DOWN NOW!" One of the soldiers screamed. "PUT DOWN THE GUN!" Pablo just looked at him, the gun pointing at the far wall. "PUT IT DOWN OR WE'LL SHOOT!"

"F*** YOU." As he turned, both soldiers squeezed the trigger, sending 6 rounds into Pablo, all of them going right through his chest, right through his heart. He dropped to the ground lifeless, the gun pointing harmlessly away from anyone. "GET DOWN!" They screamed at Miguel. "GET DOWN NOW!"

He did so and they looked at him. "That's the guy from earlier. Get him." They restrained him and as they brought him through the hallway, towards the elevator, his hands restrained with plastic zip ties, he saw the army tossing every apartment. Everyone was being rounded up, told only to take one suitcase worth of items each, whatever was most valuable. Women were allowed to bring a purse in addition to their single suitcase, men opting to carry as much as they could inside their wives' purses, particularly their identification and money. As Miguel was brought downstairs, to the street, he could see lights on in every building for as far as he could see, the army tossing each and every apartment.

Miguel was led to an awaiting Dingo APV, manned by a single soldier on the turret machine gun, which was an M50A1 Heavy Machine Gun, armed with 250 rounds at the ready and they had another 750 in the vehicle. The two men escorting Miguel were the driver and another soldier, who would sit in the back and keep guard over Miguel throughout the duration of the journey.

"Invasion of your own land?" Miguel said, climbing into the vehicle. "I mean my land."

"Be quiet drug dealer. You will not speak until you get to where we are going!"

"Back to the interrogation chamber?"

"Wherever it is we must bring you in order to have you tell us why you were carrying all of those drugs."

"I like to party."

"So do we." He said it with a smirk and laughed as he knew the fate that Miguel was about to face. "So do we..." They arrived at the main police station about eight minutes later, driving past at least forty buildings, all being evacuated. Outside each one were bus or trucks, ready to load the people of the building.

"Come Miguel, let's have a seat, shall we. I know you are eager to begin another round of interrogation." This was Dr. Riddick speaking. Dr. Riddick had been with the Layartebian military for 34 years, serving as a chief interrogations expert for 18. He had never failed to get information out of a victim and he never let anyone die until he was either done with them or until he was ordered. "You and I have plenty of time here and I have plenty of patience." Dr. Riddick was calm, alarmingly calm, and rarely raised his voice. He was skilled in the art of torture and liked to display his instruments for his victims, scaring them before he even began. Pain and the unknown was what he thrived on. Often he would use pictures of their family, videoes too, usually faked, to scare his victims. Slowly, he would extract information, bits and pieces, putting them together at the end of the session.

He started off slow with Miguel, taking his dignity, taking blood, taking pride, taking everything else that Miguel held about himself. When he was all done, eighteen hours later, he had what he wanted. The drug deal came to the light, the what was paid, what was gained, who was paid, and who gained. The drugs came from the Yucatán, from a group of rebel fighters. Miguel knew not who they represented or what their intentions were but he had only sold them parts of the bomb. He had given them a half-working bomb, which they could not have managed to get working wihtout serious work and parts. However, they had enough plutonium to make a small level bomb, 28 kilotons in devestation power.

Shortly thereafter, the briefing report (which is top secret IC) was presented to the Joint Chiefs.

Galapagos Islands Relocation

Goal: Evacuate Galapagos Islands of all civilians
Status: Underway

Initial relocation figures put some 42% of the population currently en route to relocation centers. Civilians will be documented and prepared for evacuation. Complete totals are 31,273 civilians. All civilians will be placed on 35 Liberty II Class merchant ships and set for Ynoga. Phase II will begin 200 nautical miles north of Isabela. Expected time to 100% status completion is 72 hours.

Cotland

17-08-2005, 23:43

Interesting and well written, as always. I like the touch with the drugs and involving the Yucatan uprising into all this. I also always wondered what happened with the Galapagos islands. Will there be more of this storyline coming?

Layarteb

19-08-2005, 15:01

Duke Barol

21-08-2005, 04:07

ooc:count me as d13 for now, im at a friends house, my internet is down. by the way, i wouldnt be that careless with a nuke. but hey, this is a great story, and for storys sake, keep going! :)

Layarteb

21-08-2005, 14:43

ooc:count me as d13 for now, im at a friends house, my internet is down. by the way, i wouldnt be that careless with a nuke. but hey, this is a great story, and for storys sake, keep going! :)

Yeah the idea is that single nuke is going to the Yucatán where, as you are aware, I am engaged in a serious insurrection. Trust me, if you knew what the overall goal was, you wouldn't mind :).

Layarteb

21-08-2005, 20:18

Part XXXIX: The Cyclonic Effect

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"Mr. Carpenter, how are the evacuations going?" The two men were standing in a dimly lit room inside the main Galapagos Islands military HQ. The HQ was located on the island of Isla Santa Cruz. It was an abandoned Duke Barolian military center, probably their main operations center of the island chain. It was well built, buried underground, about sixteen miles north of Puerto Ayora. The complex was made up of about four dozen separate structures, all connected to each other. The deepest of these was placed about 120 feet underground and the shallowest at about 40 feet. From recovered documents and investigations, it was evident that the complex was still under construction at the time of its abandonment and was probably could to be the site of another weapons factory, possibly biological. The complex was, currently, split into several sections: communications, control, logistics, barracks, and intelligence. Each section had its own subdivisions, such as satellite, radar, sonar, and the like. It was currently being tied into the main Layartebian Defense Network, the LDN, as it was called. This network tied every Layartebian base, throughout the Empire, together. The mainframe, located in a secret complex inside the Province of Layarteb, contained well over a hundred thousand individual mainframes, five super computers, and at least a million or more employees. The shallowest point of the complex, excluding access tunnels, sat 125 feet below the surface.

Where the two men were standing was about 84 feet below the surface. The office they were in had quickly become the director's office, home to Colonel Jefferson Carver. He had been appointed director of all military operations in the Galapagos. His past was just as shaddy as Colonel Delaney. Colonel Carver had worked throughout his entire career in the Space Division, mostly working in the space control. This put him in charge of satellites, orbital weapons platforms, and other covert operations that nobody knew about. Now, he was in charge of another covert operation, the Galapagos Islands.

"Colonel Carver." The man had a slow, measured, and raspy manner to the way he spoke. Occassionally, he would place unusual stress on syllables and awkwardly change the pitch of his voice. He often elongated "S" sounds. "It is currently going asss planned. Perhapsss you should review your documentsss."

"I've read enough. I just don't know what the full plan is." He grew irate.

"The plan is not for you to know." Mr. Carpenter remained calm. "You have your ordersss. Follow them and you shall not have fear."

"You know I don't know who you are but I know who you work for."

"You do..."

"The Emperor sent you."

"The Emperor sent you..."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Keep your eyes from what you should not see. Take care Colonel Carver. I shall visit you soon." With that he began slowly walking to the door. Just before he opened it though, Colonel Carver muttered something. "What is that Colonel?"

"You creep me out." Mr. Carpenter smirked only slightly and left quietly. He was a scary man to look at, from any point of view. He was slender, had a military crew cut, and he was very pale. Emaciated, his vividly green eyes usually were not seen from behind dark Oakley glasses that he only removed when the light was barely enough to show his face. He always wore a perfectly ironed, trimmed, and tailored suit, buttoned at the bottom, hiding a tie. He was also never seen without a briefcase, something so secure he never let it leave his touch. Whatever was in it was something of high importance.

Across the way, at the docks of Puerto Ayora, 35 Liberty II Class ships sat docked. They were being filled up. The islands had been searched three times already, the last search netting no one hiding. It had been 4 days since the evacuations began and all 31,273 civilians were accounted for, whether they were dead or alive. They were all being shuffled onto the thirty-five ships, carrying what personnel effects they chose to take with them. The slight breeze that came off the water and flowed through the city revealed a ghost town. Lights were left on, doors open, windows open, papers and debris flying with the currents, and everything else one would expect of a ghost town. Traffic lights ominously flicked between red, yellow, and green, no cars on the road to obey them.

Overhead, the sky was dark, night having fallen hours earlier. Sunset was at 1804 and it was currently 0300. With sunrise in another 3 hours, more or less, the operation had to be completed. Prying spy satellites were sure to pass overhead as the sun came up, to see what was going on with the islands. Three speed boats of reporters had already been turned away, all of them having come from somewhere. Civilian aircraft were re-routed away from any overflight of the islands and there were unfounded reports of several people having skydived onto the islands in the midst of the night. Nothing had been discovered, yet...

The operation may have been a secret and may not have been public but citizens of the islands had certainly phoned the media and foreign groups. The Empire was sure that people knew the entire island chain was being evacuated. The Empire was definitely sure though that the "why" was definitely unknown to anyone except those running the operation and, at that, only the officials of the operation. The "why" was definitely unknown, it had to be. The classification level of the Galapagos Islands operation was of the utmost importance. Mr. Carpenter knew the "why," he knew every in and out of the operation, especially the next phase.

At 0330, the first ships began to leave the harbor. They would head south and then take an easterly course around the islands to go north, to Ynoga. There, they would pass through the canal and head up to Florida, where they would enter a procession station and be given the choice to live anywhere they wanted. The government would even pay for their relocation expenses, based on what they previously had and based on what they previous earned.

The ships headed northward at 20 knots, making best speed through calm seas. Ten hours later, they were 200 nautical miles north of the Galapagos, where their escorts would meet them. A pair of Twin Towers Flight IIA frigates would escort them all the way to Florida. The only problem was that the frigates weren't there. They had been tied up coming through the canal by engine problems and were currently 8 hours behind schedule. The convoy would have to sit and wait. The passengers were allowed to walk around, stretch out on the decks, and get comfortable. They tried their best to make it like a cruise, offering swimming off the side of the ship, giant net ladders hung over the sides for easy access. Some people jumped off the deck, some just swam calmly. Music, television from satellite feeds, and even some games were played on the decks and inside the hull. It was calm and peaceful and they were all about to start a new life, somewhere else, at the expense of the government, if they ever made it...

At 2000, as they were resting calmly in the night air, things seemed almost too peaceful. They were. Suddenly, six ships exploded into massive fireballs. Klaxons rang throughout the remaining ships, as well as orders to help rescue. Distress calls were sent but they never got to where they should have gone. The twenty-nine remaining ships immediately began moving, all those in the water being called in or left behind. This was a matter of the utmost importance. 2 minutes later, another six ships burst into flames, sending debris and bodies throughout the water. With twelve ships now sinking, the crews onboard immediately began to activate their anti-submarine defenses, fearing the very worst. Two minutes passed and a third set of 6 ships exploded. Then, for the next six minutes, every two minutes, six ships would explode. After twelve minutes all were either sunk or sinking, their cargo with them. Whoever survived the main explosions would surely drown or die in the water.

By the time the two frigates arrived, bodies were all they found, too many to pull out, too many to sift through. They were left to the sea life, to the ocean. Burials would have been impossible as identification was not feasible. The media spoke the story all day long, calling the sinkings a terrorist act. Governmental officials had no guilty party, yet. Yucatán rebels were feared at first, as well as rogue Yelmish submarines, Duke Barolian submarines, or even Carthigian or Elephanti vessels but nothing could be proven yet. SOSUS tapes played the sound of thirty-five, individual shots, each one a high-speed, super-cavitation rocket. The Imperial Layartebian Navy employed no such weapon, classified or unclassified, ruling out the possibility of governmental sabotage, even though the conspiracy theorists compensated.

When it was over, all 31,273 civilians were declared missing or dead, the bodies that washed up on shore were burned, the lack of grave space being a problem for so many bodies.

Sitting onboard a C-21B Learjet 80, bound for somewhere in the Province of Layarteb, Mr. Carpenter sat quietly, as usual. His briefcase was by his left leg and his phone vibrated in his pocket. It was always on vibrate. He preferred to keep his incoming calls a matter of only his own attention. "Mr. Carpenter." He said in his usual voice, pressing a button on the phone. His earpiece was connected to it, underneath his collar.

"Phase Two Complete. Requesting Orders."

"Proceed to port. Phase Three is underway."

"Understood sir." The phone line went dead and Mr. Carpenter shut off his phone.

He looked around the cabin. He was the only person there, aside from the pilot and co-pilot, hidden behind the closed cabin door. "Major?" He said into the intercom. The door was opened immediately, it being soundproof.

"Yes sir?"

"Change course to West Virginia. Site A."

"Yes sir." The cockpit door was shut and the plane banked heavily. The site they were going to was one of the most secret sites in all of Layarteb, a complex inside the mountains of West Virginia that housed some of the most top secret programs, especially extraterrestrial ones.

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The Layartebian Chronicles