NationStates Jolt Archive

((OOC:CLOSED RP FOR "A Modern World" Roleplaying Group Members Only))

“Ah....”

His powerful, lean muscles slowly slid into the bath tub. It had been a grueling week, trying to hold the nation together, and Mubarrak had only one thing on his mind: relaxation. His dark skin was soon drenched with bubbles, and his normally hardened face melted into a mask of calm.

He slept there for hours, until a slight pitter patter caused him to open his eyes. He rubbed his eyes, and began scanning his luxurious, wooden apartment. A shadow seemed to appear behind a couch…then behind a lamp…then passing through the kitchen…flitting closer, and closer, and closer…

Mubarrak began to sweat, as this mysterious, lightning fast figure dashed across his apartment. He lost sight of it for a moment, and then…

“Hello, Mr. Mubarrak.”
“Heh? WHA?”

Mubarrak whirled around to see a powerful, young, pale woman with long, black hair that frizzed on the bottom. Her almost chalk white skin contrasted sharply to thin black sweater and jet black jeans. At first, Mubarrak didn’t know what to say, but after observing her graceful movements, he smiled as he came to a certain conclusion. Of course, his conclusion was absolutely wrong, and he would pay for this mistake dearly.

“Hey baby. I don’t usually enlist these kind of services at home, but you do look mighty fine. How much do you want?”

His hands reached out for a box at the edge of the tub, from which he pulled out a wad of cash. Mubarrak then tried to hand it to the mysterious woman, but she simply stood there, refusing to take it.

“I don’t want your money.”
“Oh, so somebody decided to give me a little gift, eh?”

She answered, clearly puzzled.

“Well…I guess you could call it that…”

Mubarrak smiled, and leaned back in the tub.

“Well, what are you waitin’ for, baby? Hop on in. The water’s fiiine…”

The woman’s face curled first into puzzlement, and then with fury as she realized what Mubarrak’s gestures meant. Oblivious, Mubarrak tried to pull her into the tub, and she recoiled with such speed and strength that it sent Mubarrak, a professional soldier, flailing into the back of the tub with a large splash.
Immediately, she opened the bag she had been holding, and tossed it aside. She pointed the single handed, powerful Mamba 12-gauge, which could be reloaded with a one hand flipping movement, if one was skilled enough. She blasted the roof above them, terrifying Mubarrak. His hands slowly crept towards a red button that would initiate security.

“Don’t even think about it. Unless of course, you want a free sex change operation…”
“Ahh! Please! No! I need that! For important…things. Anyway, what do you want from me? Money? Fame? Power?”
“All of those things. General Mubarrak, I represent the Russian Mafia part of Red Lotus. Get your ass dressed and into the living room within five minutes.”
“And if I refuse?”

She held up a silver tube with a red button on the top.

“I will press this button, activating the Semtex I planted inside this room, and send you to an early visit to hell. And I will know if you try to escape, General. The Semtex comes with fascinating little heat signature tracking devices, which are programmed to lock onto your body heat. The second your specific body heat signature is no longer in the room, I will be notified. And trust me, I will enjoy sending your perverse carcass to Lucifer’s playground, so don’t push your luck, General.

She left the room, slammed the door, and contemplated her plans. General Mubarrak grumbled, stepped out of the tub, splashing water all over the floor, and quickly changed into his desert camo military uniform, replete with four stars on the breast. He stepped out of the room, nervously but with some regained confidence, and saw the woman sipping a cup of tea and munching on a power bar. She glanced at him casually, and Mubarrak was shocked by the uncanny normalcy of the scene. He was almost inclined to say, “Hey honey, how was work today?”, with the scene reminding him so much of his previous marriage. Managing to catch himself out of the trance, he sat down across from the woman at the glass table. She looked up at him, and smiled evilly.

“Nothing like the threat of explosives to get people motivated, eh?”
“Shut up, woman! I am sick of this bullsh*t! Stop leading me around like a donkey behind a carrot and start givin’ me some explanations! How did you get in here? Who are you?”

Not missing a beat, despite Mubarrak’s furious barrage, she replied in a sanguine manner.

“It was pathetically easy, General. Your security guards are pitifully weak. And my name is Ilona Srebrenitska. As I said before, I work for the Russian Mafia. The Red Leader and Chiisu have taken great interest in your pitiful little country, with its diamonds, drugs, and guns, and you.”

Feigning ignorance, he spoke.

“Why me? I am simply one of many generals in the Nigerian army.”
Ilona slowly set down the cup of tea, and then pierced into Mubarrak’s soul with her ice cold eyes.

“Don’t bullsh*t me, General. Our sources are very good, and they tell us that you are a major player in Nigeria. Indeed, through cunning politics and leadership, you’ve managed to become one of the two factional leaders in the army, along with General Niyanda Guikai. While most of Nigeria’s government is mired in corruption, you manage to weave through the web of power brokers and somehow keep Nigeria from completely going off the deep end. Our agents can cite three specific instances where your negotiating managed to stave off civil war, possibly four. Not only that, but you also have public support. General Niyanda Guikai isn’t a very popular figure, despite being the Supreme Military Commander, so he’s relied on your charisma and youthful and crazy image as the PR machine for the army. The unintended result is that polls show that you are very popular in Nigeria. What the Russian Mafia wants is absolute control of Russia, General Mubarrak. And you are the man who will deliver it to us, thanks to your position of power in Nigeria and your popularity. We can assassinate Guikai for you, which will leave you as the de facto chief of the Nigerian Army. Then, we can provide men, arms, money, and the largest propaganda machine ever seen in Africa, in order to pave the way for your coup.”

Mubarrak pondered over this offer, pausing to pour himself some coffee.

“Ilona…”
“ Don’t speak to me by first name. We are business partners, not friends.”
“What should I call you then?”
“Srebrenitska.”
“Fine then, Ms. Srebrenitska. What is in the plan for me? What can I gain from this? What can Nigeria gain from this? After all, won’t I be just a puppet?”
“Ah, but think of the glory, General. Your name will go down in history for establishing a new, powerful Nigeria. A Nigeria over run by criminals, yes, but a militarily and economically prosperous Nigeria that will stand as a cornerstone of a criminal, economic, and military empire. And it will all be because of you. You shall be hailed as a great warrior king, who restored the might of the Nigerian peoples.”

Mubarrak leaned back in his chair, puzzling. The dreams of military parades, cheering crowds, and infinite wealth flowed through his mind. But what if it didn’t work? What if instead of glory, he achieved only death? Well, it would probably be better than the current state of affairs, running around like a mad dog simply to stop things from falling apart. Yes, the risk was definitely worth it.

“Ms. Srebrenitska, I like your plan. I agree fully with it, and will immediately begin drilling my troops for the coup. However, your side of the bargain must be fulfilled soon, or else this plan will fail.”

“Don’t worry your shiny little head over that. The Mafia always delivers.”
“Hey! It’s not my fault I’m bald! Besides, some women find it sexy.”

He winked and emphasized at the last phrase.

“Yes, and some [I]don’t.”

Ilona’s stare rejected him a million times over. Mubarrak could not contain his grin, despite this rejection, and spoke rapidly.

“We need a name and a motive for all of this. The public needs some justification to get behind a coup.”
“Aren’t you the Nigerian here? You think of something.”
“Alright, we can just complain about the bureaucratic waste, the corruption---wait, won’t that increase if I’m working for the Mafia?”
“You can get rid of the majority of those who cause corruption. We will subjugate the state to our own means, of course, but we won’t interfere with day to day bureaucratic corruption. After all, we won’t need to bribe the government if all our actions are legal.”
“Sounds good. Ok, anti-corruption…How about anti-foreign domination, pro-morality, and with promises of a defeat of poverty through capitalism and massive investment, a strong military, revived nationalism, and an aggressive campaign against AIDs?”
“I’m not an expert on Nigerian sociopolitical sentiments. You are. So if you think this will appeal to the Nigerians, do it.”
“Now, we need a name…Hmm…How about…Black Mamba?”
“Good. The assassination begins shortly.”
“Ha! Nigeria will rise from the ashes! No more controlled by weak, senseless fools but lead by criminal masterminds and a courageous generals!”

He stood up, wildly gesticulating into the air. Ilona raised an eyebrow, and sighed. Mubarrak looked at her, curious.

“You really don’t care about any of this, do you?”
“Nope. Not at all.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
“Good question.”

Tag

Accursed AC and your ridiculous (and quite vague) schemes for Third World Development! Well, let's see how ridiculous Black Mamba deals with...umm...*looks for African allies to get to intervene*

OOC: Bah! Ridiculous? I prefer the term...creative. And with the Mafia allied with the Suunists, and they in turn being allied with Roycelandia...I do love alliances.

[President Igomo sees a Vulture spotlight in the sky, shining from Hindustan's direction, and dashes to the Vulture Cave to alert the boy wonder and the butler.]

(Looks like the sooner Lusaka is stable, again, the sooner it can send familiar African peacekeepers and special forces to West Africa, again, eh? This is the perfect excuse for abandoning Gabon, too... it'll be a martyr-like rallying-call, and we might get to shoot some Roiks.)

I'm lovin it...tag

OOC:
Superb as even AC :)

Now while Strathdonia is in no position to interfer perhaps McGhinty's employers might change the location of his third "job" after all they are a shadowy group of unidentified faceless criminals backed by Roycelandian bank accoutns full fo stolen Simbian govenrment funds...

And perhaps Morgan might resurface as a bounty hunter...

HHmmmm

[tag]

”I’m just a dreamer, I dream my life away
I’m just a dreamer, who dreams of better days”

Mubarrak (http://www.artoosnews.com/artooscustoms/imagearchive/images/characters/jedicouncil/mace_windu.jpg) rose tiredly from bed, rubbing his aching back. He was still groggy, having only gained fitful snatches of sleep the last night. Dreams of glory, of power, of a new Nigeria, and a new Mubarrak, excited him so that he would wake up in the middle of the night, and wander to where Ilona slept, (protected by an automated mobile security system of course) just to make sure this whole thing wasn’t a dream. That the plan was not some misguided figment of his imagination. That he wasn’t simply dreaming his life away with hope, nonexistent hope. But it was true. She was there. The Mafia was going to deliver him a country, an empire.

He walked into the kitchen, noting that Ilona was already alert and awake, sitting with her coffee, newspaper, donut, and TV as if she owned the place. A twang of guilt hit him.

What would Sally think? Another woman in our home? In her spot? Eating her donuts, drinking her coffee?

He shook his head.

I’ve got to stop dwelling on this. I can’t spend the rest of my life drifting like this, from woman to woman, always afraid of attaching to someone, as if I were betraying my wife by feeling emotion for another. I’ve got to move on. I mean, a man can only survive on prostitutes, one-nighters, and booze for so long…

Ilona shot him a glare as he sluggishly stumbled in. She raised an eyebrow.

“Nice, PJs, General.” She said the last word with especial ire.

Why should I even bother worrying? This is woman would be the last person for me to have a relationship with. Death threats a happy marriage do not make.

“So…What’s the first step for the plan? When are we gonna whack Niyanda Guikai?”
“Boy. Are you behind the curve, baldy.”
“Don’t call me that!”
“Whatever you say, baldy.”
“^&@#^@! And what do you mean, behind the curve?”
“Hot off the presses. Read it.”

She tossed him a newspaper, and continued to drink orange juice. Mubarrak read the headline, his eyes widening.

“Damn, you work fast!”
“We’re the Mafia. In this business, you’re either fast or you’re dead.”

The General pondered the article, munching on some cereal.

“SUPREME COMMANDER GUKAI ASSASINATED”
http://www.geocities.com/kevin20_1981/car_bomb.JPG
Sunday, March 27, 2005

In a shocking attack yesterday at 3:42 PM, General Niyanda Gukai was assassinated. He was heading for a press conference in a protected convoy when his limousine was struck by a suicide bomber truck. Before, his convoy protection was eliminated by a mob of what seemed to be highly trained terrorists armed with AK-47s and RPGs. Gukai was killed instantly in the explosion, and the capital is under high alert, as under orders by the new Supreme Commander, the ever popular General Mubarrak, who was previously known only as the military’s public relations liaison, appearing in propaganda films, military parades, and more. Mubarrak is well liked by both the public and the military, and the upper echelons of the military seem confident he can handle the pressures of military command. Mubarrak is expected to authorize a full investigation into the assassination, with likely suspects ranging from Islamic jiihadists to political rivals of the late general. President Gadhafi, http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/images/28_2_2003_Mike%20Tyson.jpg a long-time political foe of Niyanda who was forced to accept Niyanda as a compromise with the moderates of his Communist party, has commented, “Niyanda was a loyal servant of the state.” What is particularly strange about this incident is that it comes right before Niyanda was expected to use his leverage with the army to lobby for more privatization of the economy at the press conference, a move which the President has largely opposed. More information will be told as soon as possible.

“Damn…wait, I never gave that order…”

She smiled evilly.

“We didn’t want to disturb your beauty sleep.”
“But…how…Never mind. Hmmm…Clever. But he controls the media…He’s going to filter it before it gets through to the people…”
“So? We have significant publishing resources of our own.”
“So you’re going to pin it on the President and his Communist Party?
“Bingo, Sherlock. You know, what makes me wonder is this…Why did he have to compromise? I mean, Gadhafi is a hard core Stalinist, while Gukai was a moderate leftie. Isn’t Gadhafi a dictator?”
“Even in a dictatorship, you’ve got to compromise. Especially African ones. They are notoriously unstable, after all.”
“Politics. What a stupid mess.”
“Alright…What do we do next?”
“Elementary, my dear Watson. Just keep you PR profile up, start spouting some of your ideological mumbo jumbo. Our men will plant the documents in the President’s office.”
”How will you get in the Presidential Palace?”
“We have people that can do that.”
“Alright…I’m going to aggressively improve the training of the Viper unit…”
“What’s that?”
“The Viper unit is an elite, secret division in the Nigerian Army. I’ve been funneling government and private funds to them for years, and they are the only part of the Nigerian Army that is actually armed with the most modern of arms and training.”
”That’s good to hear. Well, we both have business to take care of. Let’s go.”

Could you possibly use a smaller pic or simply link to it its is really breaking the frame...

Bump For Da Lord Jesssuuuus!!!

The B.U.M.P. Corporation. For all your BUMPing needs.

BUMP, dammit!

IC:
The Russian Mafia has begun inquiring, quietly, amongst its allies, about military support.

Nigeria, abutting the former French colony of Senegal, and its events of course attracted the attention of the ODSL. And King Louis XX always was on the look to help the mafia, which invariably meant helping himself.

The question in this matter, the only relevant one really, was Roycelandias posistion in the matter. Was Royce I apathetic about a Nigerian revolution, sympathetic or abhorred by the very prospect? As the Kingdom of France and the Roycelandian Empire seemed to be working in tandem recently, Louis had no desire to rock the boat.

Ergo, calls were made from Versailles to Port Royal, the questions ran: "What do you lads think about this Nigerian thing?"

If Royce I wished for the Mafia-esque version of Nigeria, there was a real possibility that the French government would consider offering at least limited naval support (supplies, limited strategic cruise missle launches) to the Mafia, as Nigeria really had no navy to speak of. However, secret channels of Versailles would tell the Mafia men to take it slow, at least until the voices who mattered (Roycelandia basically) had made their posistion known.

While the popular congress is surprised by the sudden assassination of a prominent Nigerian government official, the commander of the military at that, Nigeria is on the other side of Africa, the French side. The Spanish side. The Italian side. And you can never trust those Germans either.

"What should we do?"
"Issue a statement for starters."
"But we don't even know the situation. We must contact our allies in the region. Strathdonia, Lusaka...what are the other ones?"
"Roycelandia's not terrible, but I have a suspicion that our goals and theirs do not seamlessly mesh. The African Commonwealth is also friendly."
"The state of affairs in the former Simba looks bad. We simply can't do everything at once."
"It was a miracle that we supported a contingent in Sulawesi that large for that long. We can't force-project beyond the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea without Bedgellen aid."
"But the matter at hand isn't force projection, at least not yet. Contact Lusaka, Strathdonia...we don't know the region well enough to simply dump a load of paras over Lagos and Abuja and expect the country to stabilize by dinner time."
"We do have those commando-types."
"Too crude. We can't expect to cause long-term change with military force alone. Plus, those commandos are more advisers and scouts than anything else. We should ask the experts."
"Aye, we'll ask the experts."
"Aye."

Before lunch break, the popular congress sends some communiques to Lusaka and Strathdonia asking their leadership of their appraisal of the events in Nigeria.

BUMP for the Roiks.

Abdullah, Red Sea, United Elias

On the very western edge of the Arabian peninsular, about 100 miles from the shrine at Al Madinah, and facing out towards Egypt across the Red Sea, a great modern city stretched out beneath him. President Abdullah, the city’s namesake, would have been proud of this place, founded just before the Second World War as a centre for Elias’s embryonic oil industry. Now it was the centre of the world’s largest petroleum sector , a hive of commerce and industry, and arguably the second most influential location in the country after Baghdad. The aircraft, an ageing Air Force EA-06 turboprop regional airliner design configured for VIP transport, banked on its final approach, and the city’s entire skyline came into view out the right window. Contemporary glass skyscrapers predominated, and in a mass of expressways, slip roads, and railway lines, the city had much more in common with US cities like Houston than other places in the Middle East.

The plane touched down gently on the runway of the airbase, and the two hour flight from Baghdad had been mostly comfortable, Minister Dammar, accompanied by only one aide, had decided it would be more subtle not to take one of the Special Airlift Wing’s elegant Gulfstreams, normally assigned for Ministerial use. After all, he did not want it to look as though he was on government business.

As the turboprop came to a halt, and the engines whined down, he got up from a leather sofa, and whilst waiting for the flight attendant to drop the air stairs, went into the cockpit and thanked the pilots personally, courtesy that most Ministers were known to extend. After a minute he emerged, quickly doing up the neck tie on his grey suit, before exiting into warm, dry air. The reception committee was appropriately small, just a pair of military police and as per convention, the base’s Commanding Officer. He exchanged handshakes and pleasantries while a car pulled up. As requested it was just a low key Cadillac sedan, with no escort. He and his aide climbed in, and the car sped off into the city.

Twenty minutes later, the car was negotiating the gird patterned streets of downtown Abdullah, he was a fairly regular visitor; nevertheless the city always surprised him with its cleanliness and an almost clinical and austere lack of atmosphere. The car then swerved off the road into the carport of the tallest building in United Elias, the eighty storey ‘Burj al Jazirat’, literally meaning ‘tower of the peninsular’. Passing through a security point, the car then stopped and doormen rushed over to the vehicle. Minister Dammar got out, advancing through a set of massive glass double doors, being swept by the cool breeze of air-conditioning into a phenomenally bright atrium, which stretched the entire way to the roof. Spectacular in every aspect, it was the world headquarters of the Elias Petroleum Corporation, the largest company in UE, and one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful. In the centre of the lobby a massive artificial waterfall, flanked by sets of flaming torches, and on one side a bronze sculpture of a man standing on the top of a pyramid of oil drums, in one hand clutching a globe, and in the other, holding high an Elias flag.

Immediately the Minister was shepherded across the marble floor by an employee, past hundreds of people in suits, walking in every different direction. He was led to a glass elevator and found himself shooting up towards the fortieth floor.

Stepping off the elevator he was quickly led past office doors into a conference room. The room was equally stunning, full length windows on one side looking out onto the port, and the Red Sea, and on the other, a row of plasma screens displaying hundreds of bits of revolving data, graphs, television news, and a live feed from the trading floor upstairs. The Minister looked around the oval conference table, searching for familiar faces, until he found one sitting opposite an empty chair, “Father, they told me you would be here, how is everything?”

“Maher, I’m fine, I hear your career in politics is working out well. Now, we shall talk later over dinner, we’d better not waste any more time and get down to business.”

Minister Dammar sat down opposite Mr. Dammar, a director of Elias Petroleum, while he introduced himself to the other board members present. “Gentlemen, no doubt you are all aware of this recent assassination in Nigeria? Well, I do not need to tell you that Nigeria is one of the suppliers of oil to communist states that we are not overly friendly towards. Now, before I continue I would like confirmation, that no minutes are being taken, and there is no audio recording in progress…good, now, the possibility of Nigeria’s regime falling is increasing, and we will have little or no control as to what happens from then on, this is not high on anyone’s agenda and we have no reason to become overtly involved from a diplomatic or military perspective. From our viewpoint, the situation right now is not very favourable, Nigeria exports petroleum to unfriendly governments, however, from your viewpoint; this is a time of opportunity: As you can see on that screen over there, Nigerian Bonny Light crude is at a price that is lower than most of our crude indexes, on the other hand its not as good quality. However, what if the Nigerian prices were suddenly to spike? Your computer models no doubt tell you that this would force global oil prices up by more than a negligible amount, this obviously helps you, but it also helps us. Not only would it increase our oil revenue, but it would also seriously damage the Nigerian economy and weaken the regime further, possibly to the point of collapse.

“In order to facilitate such a sharp increase in Nigerian prices, it would be necessary to induce certain…events. This is where we make a deal, I shall worry about how to do this, and you shall pay for it. The organisation that will be tasked with this operation is not a government agency obviously, and therefore requires external finance. This transaction would be for you, completely deniable, if anything was to come to light, and mutually beneficial. Any questions? I would advise against specific ones.”

The room fell silent for a minute while the Executives pondered until one, raised a point, “we can fund this discreetly?”

“The amount we want in comparison to the company’s turnover is miniscule, most of you have expense accounts that could cover it…put it another way, it’s a very small amount of cash to lose in a very big and complex accounting network.”

“We want something else in return, it costs the government nothing: remove the oil embargo on France.”

The Minister sighed, “You know I can’t speak for foreign policy…”

“We assumed you had the ear of the President.”

“The ear yes, not the mouth, however. I can’t offer that, it’s the deal I presented, or no deal.”

The Chairman looked around at the faces of his the board members, “I suppose we are in agreement then, it’s a small amount for a potentially large return, plus, we always like to help the President, send him our good wishes.”

Minister Dammar nodded politely, he did not think it would be a good time to mention the fact that the President had neither sanctioned, nor informed of this meeting.

OOC: Fascinating...You'll spike the price of oil? Well, before I move ahead, you'll have to do it officially, and I need to talk to the Roiks about this whole affair.

((Tags away))

Port Royal, Roycelandia

His Imperial Majesty Emperor Royce I always dreaded returning to his office after taking a week off- in this case, a very productive week in Africa with his good friend King Louis XX.

Anyway, his in-box was piled with items that needed His Majesty's attention. Acts of Parliament that needed the Imperial Assent (His Majesty rejected a couple of them for being too trivial to bother legislating), requests for Imperial Pardons (all granted), and an urgent memo from Foreign Affairs suggest His Majesty pay attention to the Nigerian Situation.

Just underneath it was a note from a business contact requesting His Majesty join him for lunch the next day at one of Port Royal's finer clubs. His Majesty could never resist a good lunch, and dashed off a quick note informing his contact of his intention to attend.

OOC: AC, check your Telegrams. Imperialism is a good thing. :)

"This is no good! State-sponsored organized crime is trying to get ahold of the third world!"
"It will only lead to suffering, and very soon. It is our job to make sure that this doesn't happen somewhere else...Nigeria's oil supply could make it a tempting target for the Russians especially, and the Roycelandians are always up for territorial expansion."
"Yes, but look at Colombia. We are only now making gains against the rebels and government corruption, and that's just about the end of the teather when it comes to force projection."
"We could deploy paras..."
"They aren't equipped to fight heavy forces without air support. While the SESR might be able to supply this final capability, the bulk of the units are still not ready for operations."
"Our best hope lies in convincing regional powers to act responsibly. Perhaps the Igovians will do something about things."

Sadly, the Igovians were not decisive. Most agreed that any sort of Roik or Putinesque or Mafioso imperialism was regressive, but a great many were quite passive about the whole affair. They often felt that, well, the Beddgelens had hit upon Igovian theory, but it had taken millions of years of human development... 'why should everyone else follow within decades?' some questioned.
That said, almost all recognised that Roycelandia was a playground for the theif, and that Putin's Russia was violent in its naivety, and it got right up the noses of a good many Beddgelens. Derek Igomo had done a great deal to bring Africa into the Beddgelen popular consciousness, and Hindustan's aid efforts almost always attracted more Beddgelen volunteers than they could use. But hey, Hindustan was probably well used to volunteers.

It's just that most Igovian volunteers had been trained and indoctrinated in the Militia. Most of them were not only willing but able to use force where it seemed proper to do so. Hindustani aid efforts would usually attract a lot of hangers-on from the south: men (and sometimes women) prepared to provide muscle where it was lacking. The lack of central government in communist Beth Gellert made it inevitible. In short, Hindustani moral crusades that ran out of steam would often find Beddgelens abroad prepared to revitalise their good causes with a measure of steel...

(OOC: For the record, the Mafia's involvement is hush-hush so far. And Putin has absolutely nothing to do with this whole affair.)

"We have to do something. These maniacs are out to destroy the workd and nobody's stopping them."
"The French and Roiks are supporting them!"
"But this brings us back to the central point of our debate; how are we going to stop them?!?!"
"Monetary and humanitarian aid will not do the trick. Unless a friendly and clean government is in power, the distribution of such aid will need a military presence."
"But we are already stretched thin! Its impossible to do anything more until we consolidate what we have. Sure, the troops are there, but the logistics base is not."
"If we can get Beth Gellert to take an interest, or mabye Lusaka, we can have things all set quickly."
"Aye, we'll have Beth Gellert do it."
"Aye!"

It was another day of glorious Strathdonian weather that greeted the two men as they stepped on to the stairs leading off the Air Strathdonia Boeing 757. Making their way to the bus that would take the passengers to the terminal building the 2 men would on first glance appear to like any other pair of European businessmen who regularly passed through Lilongwe International. Perhaps the most distinctive thing about the pair was the difference in size between them. The oldest of the pair was a huge person, who would not be out of place in the forward line of any major rugby team. Apparently in his mid 30s he was built identically the proverbial brick outhouse but one could tell that the size was equally matched with a delicate grace and balance. The younger of the pair was stark contrast, small and lean with a more east European look to his face he was almost dwarfed by his companion.

On reaching the passport control desk neither of them received much in the way of attention from the official as Mr Derek Morgan and Mr Ivan Roganov were welcomed to Strathdonia and allowed to cross over the blue line.

Morgan grinned as he and Ivan made their way to the baggage collection carousel, there weren’t many countries in the world where using the name Derek Morgan didn’t set off some alarm bells and earn you a eager young counter intelligence or police officer as your constant yet “discrete” companion. Lilongwe international wasn’t the biggest air port in the world but the government made damn sure it operated with frightening efficiency; it simply wouldn’t do for Strathdonia’s premiere airport to be just another one of those 3rd world airports and so Morgan and Roganov were quickly reunited with what little luggage they had and were making their way to the taxi rank full of land rovers and rover 800s when a large suit clad African gentleman stepped in front of them.

“Mr Morgan and Mr Roganov?” the gentleman enquired (the bulge under his left arm indicating that gentle perhaps wasn’t most fitting term of description)
“Who wants to know?” replied Morgan, shi voice taking on a slightly dangerous air, this sort of thing tended to annoy him he was supposed to be left alone by the government but there was always some local Federal intel officer who thought it was fun to piss off the mercs, probably it gave him some kind of sexual kick, you never knew with intel weenies.

“Not the police or the FIS, I can assure you Mr Morgan,” replied the gentleman as he broke into a half smile. “My employer simply asked me to give you his card and this package and ask that you get in touch at your earliest convenience.” With that the gentleman handed over the items and then disappeared into crowd…


OOC:
just an opening intro, there is more to coem if i can fit it in before things more too far forward.
And Yes it is Morgan and Ivan from Lavigrania (sp?) they did manage to make it out in the end.

A few Days later Morgan stepped out of a taxi and onto the pavement outside of what was possibly the most impressive building in Strathdonia. Opportunity tower, while not exactly high up on the list of the world’s tallest buildings and simply dwarfed by the massive structures found in the likes of Abdullah or New York, was pretty unique even in Lilongwe where a bustling financial centre was beginning to emerge. The reason for Opportunity Tower’s unique nature was simple: despite the fact the economy was picking up, only one organisation in Strathdonia had the funds, political clout or vision to build such a structure as their home: Villiar Wine and Pump. A large conglomerate that had formed by the merger of most of the larger Scottish firms that had helped recover the former Malawi from darkness.

It was into the home of this latent beast that Morgan found himself heading. After checking in with the front desk he was directed to an express lift to the upper floors and then quickly nodded through into a large and almost over whelming office of dark marble and grey granite (think Greco’s office in Wall Street). If the office itself wasn’t impressive enough (not that Morgan was one to let himself be impressed) then the other 2 occupants of the room simply iced the cake. Andrew Villiar, the 60year old patriarch of the Villiar clan and one of the richest men in Sub Saharan Africa, large of frame and still in possession of his full head of flame red hair he would always be an impressive sight, but not one that would intimidate Morgan.
“Derek! How good to see you man! It’s good to see you still in one piece after all these years” greeted the Senior Villiar, his voice full of old welcome for an old friend.

“It’s been too long, but I doubt you asked me here for a mere dram or two.” Replied Morgan some what coldly

“Ah Derek as blunt and observant as always and yes you are right this is a business meeting, I suppose I should introduce my companion: Mr Jason Alexander, the Secretary for Mercenary affairs”

Alexander, a typically daper politician or medium height and build, stepped forward and shook Morgan’s hand, “its good to finally meet the man with the single biggest file in the ministry.”

“Its interesting to find some who thinks it’s worth while to keep a file on my various activities” replied Morgan, carefully eyeing Alexander up and down.

“Well enough of the small talk I suggest we get down to business,” interrupted Villiar as he gestured Morgan and Alexander to sit down, “Morgan I believe you have worked over in Nigeria at point?”

“Yes, a couple of years ago I served a stint as a “security advisor” for Shell. Mainly it was keeping the locals away from the pipe lines and platforms but now and then a slightly more organised group would force us to use somewhat more proactive means in our security arrangements.”

“Hhmmm Shell have never been entirely forth coming about that exact means were used to protect their investments. “ Quizzed Alexander

“That would be because generally speaking the oil companies didn’t want to know our methods, as long as the oil flowed they were happy, it made it safer for them.”

“Understandable,” agreed Villiar as he changed the subject, “now as to why you are here, allow me to explain. As you might have heard there has been a series of assassinations, most notably of the main man in the armed forces a certain General Niyanda Gukai. It is believed that this is the opening gambit of a somewhat major regime change.
As to why this bothers us, well that should be clear, as well as being dependent on the oil industry to buy most of our pipeline equipment VWP and our holding companies have accrued significant shares in a number of major oil companies including Shell and others with Nigerian assets. The current administration has been more or less accommodating to the oil industry but we fear that any new regime, especially a more African Nationalist one might not be so willing to work with us, especially if they have outside help?

“What do you mean outside help?” demanded Morgan, his curiosity now activated.

“That would be where the Strathdonian government comes in.” Explained Alexander, “you see we have been receiving a number of “hints” from our good friends in Hindustan that we should perhaps be pointing some of our intel resources in a Nigerian direction, they seem to have overstretched themselves some what in recent times and so are seeking local help. Their hints keep including mentions of the Russian mafia and some sort of South American red lotus group. Personally I think the Hindustani’s have a bit of conspiracy theory about crime gangs being behind anything and everything but in this case what local assets both the oil companies and ourselves have seems to indicate that the most recent events have occurred just too easily and gone too well for there not have been some seriously professional help involved.”

“So how does this affect me? Why don’t you just send in the FIS?”

“Its not that simple… You of all people should know how limited the FIS is in just about all of it’s operational aspects, heck the situation in Simba is straining them to breaking point. Also we have had some hints that the roiks might have some sort of relationship with the Russian mafia and we simply can not afford to piss off the roiks by some ham fisted intervention. In short we need some one who knows the area and knows what he is doing in the field. This person will be sent to Nigeria to work as a Consultant for Shell and other oil companies and be tasked with investigating what is happening in the country, first to give the oil companies a risk estimation and second to let us know what is actually happening in the area.” Explained Alexander looking some what reluctant to divulge the information.

“If agree to this what will the pay be like and what assets will I have to back me up?”

“You will be on standard oil consultancy rates, plus fifty grand sterling up front to be followed by 100 grand on conclusion of your contract, the contract will run for at least 6 months and a maximum of 3years. As for assets we would prefer that you take a small consultancy team with you who we will pay at the standard rate plus bonuses, once in country you will have full authority to hire extra personnel and purchase equipment using the security budget, we can’t make extravagant promises as to actual interventionist support but if our allies were to so desire some discreet service teams might be available.” Explained Villiar

“Sounds fair enough? When do I leave?”

“As soon as possible, a Villiar’s jet will be waiting for you at Lilongwe international, just phone my office to make arrangements.”

“Well with that settled I will bid you fair well now gentlemen, this certainly looks an interesting job, its been a while since my last decent African job.” Spoke Morgan as he rose to leave.

“Oh Derek one last thing…” called Villiar as Morgan turned to the door. ”Don’t go getting moral on us this time, you know the trouble that causes.”

OOC:
how's that? i hope you don't mind some one playing on the interests of international oil companies

"I...I won't do it!"
"Oh yes you will."
"You can't force me to do anything...er...what's your name?"
"Listen boyo, you're the only man we've got in this place. Mabye you don't 'approve' or are more interested in your 'science,' but in this matter you don't have a choice."
"I am an ecologist, not a spy!"

Alone in his truck with a SOD-1 agent, Paul Vezandlebe feels quite uncomfortable, especially considering the machine pistol pointed in his general direction.

"Your commanders won't approve!"
"Are you going to tell them?"
"Of cours...er..."
"Now here's what you are going to do, alright? You will stay in Nigeria, and you will report to us anything that happens. You will record every slight detail of everything you see and report it to us, understand?"

The SOD man fingers his machine pistol, a silenced Ingram, and looks Vezandlebe in the eye.

"Er...yes..."
"You will be compensated when this is over."
"What if I die?"
"You won't. We promise."
"But how can you..."

The SOD agent opens the Land Rover's door and briskly walks away, soon disappearing in a patch of trees.

"Hmph."

Vezandlebe is certainly a good man for the job of keeping an eye in Nigeria. He has been from Tunis to Cape Town, and has friends everywhere. An ideal intelligence officer, except for one catch; he doesn't want to be one. While he never actually finished his thesis, Vezandlebe is an authority on African ecology and has performed countless surveys at the request of various governments. He is also familiar with continental human rights figures and has played a role in malaria prevention and treatment programs in many areas. In the back of his truck, he keeps a wide array of equipment including various spotting scopes, short-wave radios, a sizeable library, and an SMLE No.4 rifle. Hopefully, he will be able to do something important.

As he watches the SOD man walk away, he pushes an Ali Farka Toure tape into the player and drives off towards the border town of Diffa.

The Roycelandians, meanwhile, haven't been sitting around doing nothing.

The IIS has drafted an Action Plan, His Majesty has approved it, and already the RBC are in Nigeria reporting on the "Deteriorating Situation"...

taggith

The grappling hooks grasped onto the brick wall, and the four darkly clad figures began their climb. They leaped over the wall, like ninjas, and silently landed in the bushes. Four guards were patrolling the area around them, accompanied by ferocious attack dogs. Gadhafi, the President, was a psychotic former boxer who only trusted the power of brute force, and thus lacked any form of high tech security around his palace. However,
he made up for this with a Palace Guard with enough thugs, tanks, rabies-ridden dogs, attack helicopters, and armored Humvees to take over a certain midsize European nation without so much as a "Sacre bleu!" . The two guards that were visible began to speak...

“So, Bob...How’re the kids?”
“Oh, they’re just swell. Though, I lost two of ‘em yesteray.”
“Really? How?”
“Well, Jimmy stuck his hand in a blender, and I was wonderin’ where all the red stuff was comin’ from. So I told him to take a closer look, and...well...My wife had to clean up the durn kitchen fer hours... And Moonbeam, well, she tried to lick this frog, see? And, she kinda went loopy, tryin’ to make out with a rock and all. She apparently got inter some kinda’ fight with da rock, and bashed her head open...”
“Ouch...when are the funerals?”
“Funerals? Nah, too expensive.”
“But...don’t y’alls care about your childun?”
“You kiddin’ me? My wife pumps ‘em out so fast, I need to kill a few every month just to feed ‘em all!”
“Wow, you and your wife must get it on really often...”
“No! Of course not! My minister, Adbul Rakeezi, says it’s a sin!”
“Two things. One, how the hell do you have kids without ‘doing it’ with your wife, and two, isn’t Rakeezi an Atheist?”
“Gosh durnit! You’re right! So I guess that explains why my kids look so much like the mailman....And Rakeezi’s an Atheist? Why, I demand he pay me back all that money I gave him! He said he was paying of a loan to Jesus! Why, I—AGHHH!”

In a split second, Bob and his companion were killed by two, precisely placed bullets. Both were such fools that they failed to notice the lasers aimed at their skulls, and had paid the ultimate price for this. One of the masked intruders whispered to the other.
“Ilona? Did you have to kill them all? Couldn’t we just sneak past them?”

The pale, dark haired woman replied curtly,”Please. That conversation they had just lowered my IQ by ten points. Their continued existence was a threat to humanity’s very survival.”

“Yeah, but they’re going to find the bodies...”
“Not if I have anything to say about it. Here, grab him by the feet...”

The four masked individuals grabbed the two corpses, and under Ilona’s directions, tossed them in the bushes. Then, she tosses two remotely activated mines onto their corpses, and began to run.

“Move it!”

As they approached the ornate entrance to the palace, still lurking in the shadows, Ilona clicked a seemingly innocent pen. An explosion about a mile away erupted, from the mines they had planted minutes before. An alarm immediately rang out, and the majority of the dolts in security simply flocked to the area of the explosion, their tanks and Humvees roaring into action and leaving only a skeleton force to guard the sleeping Gadhafi.

Ilona’s crew sniped the two remaining guards in front of the Palace, and began to creep in.

“Astounding...”

Gadhafi was no ordinary Stalinist tinpot dictator.
He was a mad one.

The entire interior, from the carpets to the walls to the tables to the chandeliers to the staircase was soaked in crimson. Various materials were used, of course, but the same shade of blood red pervaded the room. Another bizarre aspect was an indication of Gadhafi’s megalomania. While most dictators had cults of personality of some sort, ranging from the mild, such as France, where one of Louis’ main jobs was apparently PR, to Tsarist Russia, where children were indoctrinated to worship Igroij Romanov, and where his portrait was held sacred, Gadhafi had one inside his house! Portraits lined every wall, his smug, tattooed face emblazoned across the landscape. As they marched further into the house, they discovered more of Gadhafi’s mania. Artifacts from his past were set up on display, enshrined like Pagan idols. Old boxing gloves, paychecks, receipts, photos, baby shoes—even that ear he bit off from an opposing boxer! Gadhafi was a twisted individual, no doubt.

Of course, it’s not like Ilona cared. But it certainly made her job a lot easier. After all, overthrowing a manical dictator loathed by his people was far easier than toppling a beloved democratic leader. As the guards outside began to come back into the house, she and her team spotted a room with multiple TV displays. While most showed cartoons and old soap operas (“Luuuuucyyy!”), a few displayed the happenings at Gadhafi’s front gate. As the footsteps grew louder, Ilona spotted what she was looking for.

A big, red button labeled “OPEN.” Yes, Gadhafi was that stupid. He had labeled the opening gate for his Palace with the words “OPEN.” Ilona smirked, slammed the trigger, and immediately left the room.

Outside, an assault was launched. As a distraction, General Mubarrak had prepared a chunk of his Viper Unit for an assault on the Presidential Palace. As the thick, reinforced steel and concrete gate opened, the roar of M1 Abrams was unmistakable. Modern, American hardware, such as the Abrams and the Humvee, stormed into the Palace, attacking in all directions. They immediately smashed through the loose defenses in the immediate front (most of the defenders had been concentrating on entering the Palace), they split up and circled around the structure. Abrams and Humvees harrased the much slower, Soviet-era tanks, probing constantly, striking, and then pulling back, only to repeat the process.

This distraction allowed Ilona’s team to get to the outside of President’s room with minimal resistance. However, that was when the problems began. In the crimson marble room, ornately decorated with columns and portraits (of Gadhafi), stood the elite guard.

A group composed of Gadhafi’s old boxing friends, they were the only thing vaguely resembling a coherent, talented unit within the palace guard. While not intelligent in the academic manner, they were experts in the art of killing. Their muscles bulged under their blood red military uniforms. Kevlar vests protected their chests, and were emblazoned with the tattoo Gadhafi was so fond of. They bore black berets on their heads, laced with kevlar, and their blackened teeth formed into a vicious grin. Ilona noticed, to her terror, that the rifles they used were cutting edge assault rifle/grenade launcher hybrids, which had proved to be an especially deadly in the hands of professionals, which these men clearly were, judging by the manner at which they acted, from the constant scanning to the eery, calm confidence that all such veteran professionals seemed to have.

Her body, and the bodies of her teammates, slowly edged into the room, hiding behind the thick, blood red, marble pillars. She pulled a grenade off her belt, armed it, and moved her arm to hurl it around the corner when...

“FREEZE, B**CH!”

One of the soldier had snuck behind her, and his rifle was aimed directly at her head.

“Well, well, boys. What do we have here? I bet this little lady had something to do with all the problems we’ve been having. Heh, b***ch? Spill your guts or I’ll do it for you.”

Ilona’s face was a mask of barely concealed rage.

How did he do it? How did he sneak past me without me seeing or hearing him?

She looked down at his shoes, her eyes widening.

That bastard! Sound absorbent shoes! Combined with this surface...Will make him almost soundless! Still, how did I not see him? I was looking around everywhere and...f**k. You’re kidding me...

The paintings all around the room swung open, with armed men clambering out. The endless paintings of Gadhafi in the room were more than sheer egotism; they were a security system! Men hid behind them, peering out through the empty eye sockets, holding their guns at bay, and ready to strike upon any unsuspecting intruders.

“Speak up, white whore devil!”

In an action so fast that security cameras, even analyzed frame by frame, could only see as a blur, Ilona’s hand rushed up, knocking the rifle out of the man’s hands. She grabbed him by the throat, whirling behind him, and pushed her back against the wall. The other men fired, but hesitated when they saw she had taken their friend hostage. As the battlefield paused, a gigantic shadow seemed to emerge from the darkness.

As the red lights poured onto the shadow, a man began to emerge. He had thick, jet black hair with slight red streaks through it. He was taller than the tallest basketball player, and wider than a gorilla. His thick, black muscles were so large that his green combat fatigues seemed perpetually on the verge of shredding. In short, he was a gigantic beast. But that wasn’t what was really terrifying about him. What really scared everyone in the room was his face. It was grizzled beyond imagining, with multiple scars criss-crossing it. Also, half of it was literally melted, a result of the fire that had burned down one of the last isolated native villages in Africa during his childhood, which was caused during a skirmish with the Roycelandians. To add a final menacing touch, an eyepatch was slapped over his left eye.

“Mugabe.”

Robert Mugabe was an infamous killer, known simply as “The Devil Of Africa”. His thirst for blood was unquenchable, and he had worked as a mercenary all over Africa. He had no political ideology, and cared little for money. Instead, he worked for whomever could provide him with the most “fresh meat”. His record included killing both Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda, slitting the throats of AIDs infected villagers in Sierra Leone as part of an “anti-disease campaign”, the brutal execution and torture of a Roycelandian officer and his wife and children, (the Roycelandians of course, did not know he was responsible), the helicopter massacre of a Sudanese refugee camp, and much, much more. The man was horrid in every aspect, and deserved to have been executed long ago. However, he was so good at what he did that corrupt dictators and criminal organizations all over the world practically fell over themselves to hire him.

“Srebrenitska. Red Mafiya. Head of Operations. What...do...here you? Fi....fil...filthy Russian.”

Mugabe’s voice was slow, cold, and full of raw agony. Mugabe was a man of few words, as a youthful raid on a Roycelandian chemical weapons depot had ended up with a corrosive gas pouring into his throat, ripping it and his vocal cords into barely functioning shreds.

“Allahu Ackbar!”
“Don’t...p-p-play...tricks. Scum. I...recog..nized...your voice. You...ha-have...quite...criminal file...voice samp...samp...samples–Haagghh!”

He coughed viciously, clutching his throat. His eye burned with fury, as he looked back up.

“I’ll...enjoy...kill...ing...you. Russian scum...”

With speed seemingly impossible for his size, Mugabe lunged forward, his body a speeding mack truck. The guards who had been focusing their weapons on Ilona turned to her teammates. Mugabe pulled out a jagged, rusty dagger in mid air, slashing the throat of the hostage Ilona held, feeling no remorse for his ally. Ilona dropped the corpse and moved to the side, dodging the speeding Mugabe. He simply slammed the dead body against the wall, and bounced off of the fleshy mess, landing on the ground right in front of Ilona. His breath grew louder and raspier, like the belly echoes of some Satanic beast. Ilona rushed him, punching with her left hand directly at his head. He’d seen Ilona hold her gun with her right hand, and realized that no right handed person would attack with their left. So he anticipated the feint, placing his hands exactly where he knew her real punch would come from, the right, at exactly the moment she began to brake off from her feint. Her eyes widened in horror as this beast of a man locked her hand into an iron grip. She attempted to strike with her left, but he snatched it as well. Mugabe grinned, and his monstrouc face leaned in closer to Ilona, sniffing her neck like an animal.

“Haaaahhhh...Yesssss...So...delicious...young...fresh....Meat.”
“Yahhh!”

She reeled back, but he pressed on, moving his nose up and down her neck, his breathing intensifying, as his mouth watered. Ilona’s legs tensed and attempted to go for the ultimate anti-male assault, but his massive feet stepped on hers, paralyzing her instantly.

“Get THE F***K OFF OF ME, YOU F***IN’ CANNIBAL!”

With the sheer strength of rage, pushed out with her entire body, her arms snapping open, freeing of Mugabe’s grip, and her feet throwing Mugabe back. With that split second, Ilona delivered a bone shattering right hook to Mugabe’s jaw, and then another with her left. He managed to catch it, but she simply twisted it to the right, squeezing his muscles to the breaking point. She pulled back, and he rushed at her with his knife. With a smirk on her face, Ilona slid to the left ever so slightly, and with a fluid motion, pushed Mugabe gently to the right, redirecting the force of his assault at the wall. The knife stabbed into the marble, and as Mugabe attempted to pull it out, Ilona pulled a gun from the corpse, and plugged Mugabe repeatedly in the chest. It seemed like he didn’t even feel the first bullet, but as more and more fell in, his muscles began to slacken. He tried to charge her, as she fired and fired and fired, and despite the multiple wounds, he seemed unstoppable. Finally, right before he reached her, knife in hand, ready to slash her throat, he crumpled to the ground with a vicious thud, the impact shaking the very room. The guards stared on in horror, as the seemingly unstoppable beast had been defeated by a woman. The terror of the night, the stalker of Roycelandia, the killer of Strathdonia, the cannibal of Lusaka, the Devil of Africa...was dead. Defeated. By a woman.

This moment of stupor was the chance her team needed. The three other Mafiosi brought up their guns, blasting the guards directly in front of them. Blood splashed onto the walls, and an intense firefight ensued. All three of the mafiosi fell almost instantly in the upcoming barrage, but the Elite Guards were almost completely annihilated. Two remained, and as they saw Ilona standing upon piles of dead bodies, her two Mamba shotguns still smoking, her face locked into a warrior’s trance, their legs shook, their guns clacked to the ground, and they fled.

Impassive in the face of such bloodshed, Ilona kicked in the President’s door. There she found him, soundly asleep in his bed. Her face curled in disgust, she fired a shotgun blast into the air. He woke up, still groggy. He rubbed his eyes in dibelief at the site of Ilona, a female Angel of Death, smoke emanating from her weapons and blood soaking into her black stealth suit. He reached towards a button, slamming it.

“It’s no use, Mr. President. Everyone’s outside.”


He stared out of his window, to see a team of Abrams annihilate a few dilapidated Russian-built tanks.

“What about the elite guard? MUGABE!”

Ilona’s cocky smirk dissapeared as soon as she heard that horrid name. She simply gestured backwards with her thumb into the marble lobby.

“In the name of Stalin...You killed them ALL?”

She nodded.

“What do you want?”
“Sign here, Mr. President.”

She handed him a document.

“What? What is this? A document ordering the assassination of Niyanda Gukai? Hell no!”

Ilona whirled around, round house kicking Gadhafi in the head. With a disgusting crack, his head and body fell back, onto the bed.

“Ow...”

Ilona aimed both her shotguns at Gadhafi.

“Sign, @$$hole.”

Without a word, Gadhafi signed the document.

“Fingerprint.”

He hesitated.

“FINGERPRINT!”
“Alright, alright...”
“Now, I’ll just sit down at your computer, and transmit every presidential order you’ve given to every major media source in the world. I’m sure your people will appreciate your insatiable taste for purges, rape, pedophilia, and embezzlement.”
“No...”

His face was in absolute shock.

“Tell me the password.”
“Never! You know what they’ll do to me!”
“Listen punk. Do you want to worry about what they will do to you later...Or what I will do to you right now. ”

Gadhafi sweated intensely, his tiny brain working overtime to make the proper calculations.

“Fine, fine. I’ll tell you.”
“If you lie...”
“I know! I know! It’s...one...”

She typed it in.

“...two...”

Ilona stomped her foot impatiently.

“...three...”

She typed it in, and then curled her finger in the direction of the Mamba shotgun.

“...four. That’s it.”
“It’s one, two, three, four? That’s it?!? ”
“Yeah.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. That’s the kind of thing an idiot puts on his luggage.”

She quickly typed in the password, and waited through the whole Microsoft loading process. After it was done, the mouse flew through the computer’s files, sending them to a secure Mafia account. When she received confirmation that the files had been received, she then started printing the most gruesome charges, and handed them to Gadhafi, who signed them, growling under his breath. After that process was done, she initiated System Restore, setting the computer back exactly to the point it had been before she had used it, erasing her tracks. She pushed away the chair as the computer signed off, and aimed her gun at Gadhafi.

“One more order of business. Call off your dogs. Now.”
“My soldiers? I should order them to retreat? Are you mad? Communists never retreat! The prol—“
“Shut the hell up. I don’t want to hear your whiny little socialist bull. Just call off the Palace Guard.”

Gadhafi resignedly pulled up the phone, dialed his commander, and yelled.

“Commander, stop the battle! Retreat!”
“Sir? Are you sure?”
“I am absolutely sure! Call it off!”
“Yes, sir...”

Ilona watched both sides’ armies pull back, the Palace Guards disheartened and defeated, and the Viper Unit bellowing with victorious joy. Ilona decided to take one last look at the room. She spotted a cowboy display, and with a mischievous grin, pulled the black hat straight off. The hat fit neatly on her head. She then noticed an array of televisions in a little side room that branched off of Gadhafi’s room. It was an array of cameras, all designed to watch his security guards! The man was so paranoid he used security on his security guards! She snatched the tape out of the recorder, pocketed it, and strode towards the window. As she stood by the window, she tipped her newly found cowboy hat, and simply fell out backwards. Gadhafi leaned out and stared at this insane woman. What he saw was that she had caught onto the ladder stretching out from a helicopter, and his jaw swung open, and stayed open, as she casualty flew off. Then he sat down, pulled out a bottle of vodka, and simultaneously began to cry and drink.

Inside the helicopter, Ilona pulled out her cell phone and called Alexandrov.

“It’s done.”
“Excellent, Ilona. So out of curiosity, what was Gadhafi’s computer password?”
“It was a fairly hackable code, but he doesn’t have his computer plugged into the internet, I had to get a wireless network running, so this approach had to be taken. The code was...One, two, three, four.”
“Amazing! That’s the same number I have on my luggage!”



Meanwhile, out in the blood soaked lobby, a lone, bulging hand rose...

Yesss...We...wi-wi-will...meet...ag-ag-ag-ain...HA! HA! HA! HA–GHH!



NIGERIA FALLS INTO CHAOS!

AP—The nation of Nigeria has been plunged into chaos as of last night. It began with a mysterious skirmish between President Gadhafi and General Mubarrak’s forces, during which General Mubarrak managed to obtain documents that were released last night. These documents evidence President Gadhafi’s multiple crimes against humanity, including brutal purges, gulags, concentration camps, torture chambers, rape rooms, and more. While all of these were suspected by opponents of the regime, these documents offer hard proof of these brutalities. Not only that, but they directly implicate Gadhafi in the murder of General Niyanda Gukai. General Mubarrak has called for Nigerians to rise up against the corrupt regime, and has promised a powerful, nationalist, capitalist state that “follows the will of the people and is based on the principles of a very successful and efficient group.” (NOTE: We were not able to confirm exactly who this “group” is.) And risen up they have. Massive amounts if Nigerians have taken to the streets, and a bloody, chaotic civil war has emerged. The army is split in two, with Gadhafi loyalists dominating the west and Mubarrak’s men mainly controlling the east. The capital is eerily quiet, as both sides have appeared to abandoned it for safer locations, with Mubarrak making frequent public appearances, but Gadhafi apparently locking himself in an unknown, high security bunker. Mubarrak has called for international peacekeepers to aid in deposing the Stalinist dictator, “whose men are currently brutally slaughtering innocent Nigerians.” Indeed, it appears that Gadhafi is attempting a final purge, attacking those groups he has always loathed, including whites, jews, asexuals, and non-Gadhafists (Gadhafist=Someone who worships Gadhafi as an almost God, and believes in the same principles as he.) Total anarchy and riots have descended over western Nigeria. Eastern Nigeria is more peaceful, as most Nigerians support Mubarrak and gladly find themselves in his “zone.” Still, die-hard bands of Gadhafi loyalists remain, and Mubarrak’s troops are focusing on eliminating those groups before preparing for an assault on the west, while Gadhafi’s troops wrestle with full riots and their attempts at extermination.

THE O’REILLYZINSKI FACTOR

UE Role In Nigeria’s Collapse?

The recent spike in Nigerian oil prices, is beyond a doubt, a key in the collapse of the Nigerian government. The sharp rise in oil prices lead to a decreased demand, thus crippling the regime’s ability to purchase basic supplies. This lead to mass resentment and hunger, and with all of the other things occurring, broke the people’s ability to tolerate the regime. Sources indicate that the spike in Nigerian oil prices was a result of complex market manipulations, apparently initiated by a UE oil corporation.

www.BUMP.com

BUMP for the children!

OOC: Unless I've missed something somewhere, Col. Ghaddafi is actually the El Presidente of Libya, not Nigeria. I'm assuming Gadhafi is actually a different person for the purposes of this RP, however...

Imperial Petroleum & Mining Corporation Facility, Koko, Nigeria

ImPetroCo was one of Roycelandia's largest companies (in the same league as Imperial Armaments, Imperial Motors, Air Roycelandia, Imperial Airways, and Telecom Roycelandia), and as such took Asset Protection very seriously. Especially when they were operating in parts of the world that, by all rights, should be part of the Roycelandian Empire anyway.

The Koko facility employed over 1,000 locals in various capacities, paid them VERY well (even by Roycelandian Standards), and also provided free Healthcare, free Education, and other social services.

Even so, it never ceased to amaze the Roycelandian Oil Workers at the power of Supersition and fear in places like Nigeria.

All it took was some crazy witchdoctor spouting crap about the White Man bringing death to Africa and every Fuzzy-Wuzzy and his dog would get his Great-Grandfather's shield and Spear and come after any European unfortunate enough to be in the area.

What also never ceased to amaze the Roycelandians was that the Africans never seemed to be able to grasp that tanned cow hide was simply incapable of stopping a 450/577 or .303 round, or even a .455 Webley round. Hell, a .22 would go through most of them at close range. In fact, the vast majority of heirloom Tribal Shields had at least one bullet hole in them, something that the Africans seemed to overlook as well.

A very angry mob of Africans had already attacked the facility with spears, bottles, old Mauser and Lebel rifles, Shotguns, Muskets, and pretty much anything else that could be used as a weapon.

Someone had even sourced some very old German Steilhangrenate "Potato Masher" grenades, which even now the Fire Crews were attempting to quell the flames that had engulfed Silos 3 and 4 as a result of their use. Several Technicians had been killed, and empty brass shell casings covered the ground everywhere, along with countless wounded- African and European alike.

It wasnt going to get any easier, that was obvious...

Port Royal, Roycelandia

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty!" Wiggles burst into the room, carrying an urgent Telex from the Roycelandian Embassy in Lagos.

It's harder to say who was more surprised- Wiggles, having obviously chosen an incredibly awkward moment to barge in, His Majesty, who had quite literally been caught with his pants down, or the young female secretarial staff assistant who was even now realising that there is no innocent explanation for being bent over the Imperial Desk with no skirt or underwear on, especially when not engaged in a 1-on-1 "private conference" with His Majesty, so to speak.

If you were to look up Savoir-Faire in WordSmith's English Dictionary, you'd see a definition that fitted Wiggle's reaction to a T.

Wiggles completely ignored the very attractive, half naked lady, not to mention His Majesty's flustered expression, and put the telex on the desk.

"This needs your attention. Now." He turned to the secretary. "Run along and make us some coffee, there's a good girl."

Before His Majesty could protest, Wiggles stopped him. "We all know you like the ladies. Hell, if I had a dollar for every time my wife nearly caught me banging the mistress, I could own Imperial Motors with enough change left over to buy my own LearJet. Anyway, onto business. The Nigerians are revolting. And don't even THINK of cracking a pun at that."

"The merest thought" His Majesty said, putting his trousers back on, "Hadn't even begun to speculate on the merest possibility of crossing my mind."

"We've lost three Oil Facilities, two seriously damaged, and rioters have fired on the Embassy."

"Get the Imperial Guard down there now."

Wiggles turned on the TV. Oddly, it wasn't RBC 1, but the French Satellite Channel Canal Internationale, which showed Roycelandian Land Rovers (Complete with Vickers MGs), Imperial Guard, and Foreign Legionnaires in the streets of Lagos, disembarking from Aircraft at the airport, and generally quelling the riots, amongst other things.

"How the hell did..."

"We saw it coming last night and had the troops rolling this morning."

"I'm impressed."

"So you should be. Now, I think we need some aircraft down there. Spitfires ought to suffice, but a couple of Harriers and a Puff The Magic Dragon should go as well, just in case someone decides to be difficult..."

"Its over! I told you it was no good! Now look what you've gone and done!"
"Listen Paul, its not over yet! We can still save this operation..."
"You are out of your mind, that's what! Save this operation? Us? We? There is a me and there is a you. There is no we here! And how do you suppose me and you go about reversing the takeover of Nigeria?"

Paul Vezandlebe and the SOD agent argue over short-wave radio, both very unhappy with recent events. Paul is no longer in Nigeria, but near the border in Niger, hopefully safe from the insanity not far distant.

OOC:
I hope that Isn't THE Robert Mugabe as in SSA/AMW terms he is still firmly in control of zimbabwe...
As to this character beign in Strathdonia at some point it is plausible that he was there during the troubles.


Oh and ncie Spaceballs references ;)

More Morgan stuff to come.

OOC: No, this isn't THE Mugabe and it's not THE Ghaddafi. I just thought the names were appropriate. But Gadhafi doesn't even look like his Libyan counterpart. He actually bears more resemblance to Mike Tyson...Anyway, more coming soon.

OOC: thats cool, i've just been in a picky mood the apst few days :)

IC:
Morgan Stodd amind the gentley smouldering wreckage of a small vehicle Garage, the latest stop on his tour of Shell's locations that had been affected by the previous night's disorder.
His employers had gotten off relatively lightly compared to the roiks and other local concerns, an on going effort to shift much of the infrastructure off shore kept most of the trouble at arms length but even still they had mainland bases like this former biulding supply and distribution that were soem what vunerable.
Still things weren't too bad, the previous night's events had only really cost the Oil company a few trucks and diggers and a small number of native security personel.

Despite this turn of luck Morgan was still uncomfortable with how wide open certain vital areas were. The off shore stuff was locked down tight, under the watchful gaze of his freind Commander David Smith of Her Majesty's Royal Navy (retired), a naval intelligence officer whose first taste of combat had been as a naval observer sent in with the SBS to talk naval gun fire onto port Stanley during the Falklands, from there his links with the SBS had been retained as he rose to the become the navy's foremost expert on securing the North Sea rigs. of course then he discovered how lucrative consulting was and after takign early retirment he made a small fortune advising BP in the gulf of mexico before comming to nigeria during Morgan's previous term of epmloyment. The land ward side of operations some what less well protected, particularly the pipelines that criss crossed the remote regions. Currently Morgan Had but 1 elderly BO 105 and couple of Fennecs to keep an eye on things, he had persaded his employers to pay for a couple of Robinson R44s and a Strathdonian Aviation Seaker to help out but he needed more if things were to get any worse, time to call in a favour from home...

IC:

"Okay, okay. I'll go back."
"Good...now, we need you to meet a certain Mr. Morgan first of all. We'll start from there. He's from Strathdonia."
"All right. I'll see you next month then?"
"Yes. Good luck."

Paul Vezandlebe drives back into Nigeria, headed to see Mr. Morgan from Strathdonia. If his old rover remained in one piece, god willing, he might make it to wherever Morgan was in a few days or so.

OCC: I hope this is ok, Strath. I know Morgan was in Lavrageria, and perhaps he made some friends among Hindustani advisors...I really need some way to get Paul's story moving if I'm going to participate in this RP very concieveably.

Gadhafi was a powerful man, both in the realm of politics and physical mass. In the political realm, his followers became increasingly and increasingly fanatical. While their numbers waned, their dedication did not. As he stood in a bunker somewhere around Warri, crowds chanted his name from outside. The man, despite his many idiocies, knew how to manipulate a crowd. So he slowly, slowly, slowly exited, thrusting the already frenzied crowd into an even greater furor.

“GADHAFI! GADHAFI!”
“MY PEOPLE!”

Cheers erupted from the ragtag group outside of his compound. Gadhafi emerged smiling, his facial tattoo soaked in sweat, his red army uniform ripped, but his arrogance untouched.

“Foreign invaders and traitors threaten our revolution! They threaten everything we have ever worked for, everything we have ever strived for! We cannot allow this to continue! We are the people that will lead the worker’s revolution around the world! But first, we must win this battle, to prove the ability and strength of the proletariat! My plan must be followed! Firstly, we must seize the oil fields of our nation! The foreign Roycelandian scum now march onto our Eastern borders! The evil triangle of foreign corporations, foreign armies, and native traitors must be stopped! So here is my plan. Firstly, the major oil producing cities of Ikeja, Lagos, and Port Harcourt must be seized and purged of foreigners! Secondly, we must round up all undesirables, including whites, Jews, and Christians, and bring them to Warri! The Final Solution can be then implemented. Finally, we must control the Niger Delta. We can use it to hold the entire nation hostage, for without it…those traitors will starve! MWA! HA! HA! HA!”

Gadhai’s maniacal laughter echoed into the deadly, bloody night…

-Ikeja-

Roycelandian soldiers marched in front of Ikeja, which oddly enough, was silent. It was sure to puzzle the soldiers, as the city seemed entirely dead. Closer and closer they marched, until most of the regiment entered the city’s main blocks. The soldiers entered the city, approaching the office of Shell. In front, several office workers sat.

“Bloody hell! They’re tied up and gagged!”

The Roycelandians tried to unwrap the ductape on their mouths, but then heard these ominous words…

“IT’S A TRAP!”

The entire building exploded, and car bombs raced onto the streets, accompanied by suicide bombers. It seemed like everything around the soldiers was set to explode, from cars to men to pieces of trash.

After the massive self destruct occurred, Nigerian mobs swarmed into Ikeja and Lagos, attempting to establish control over two of Nigeria’s main oil production facilities.

BUMPadelic, man!

Meanwhile, four new shilouettes become visible from the coastline of Nigeria. A pair of sharp eyes would identify them as relatively old designs, and really sharp eyes would tag them as Type 12 frigates and a Type 42 destroyer. With the aid of a good pair binoculars and from atop a reasonably high structure, a knowledgeable observer would probably be able to identify the radar antennae as distinctly Hindustani, and might observe an Alouette III puttering around as well.

The three Type 12s (Leanders) are part of the Goa's task group. (The Goa being a Sheffield class destroyer). Armed fairly heavily and equipped with a NAVLAR rocket launcher, giving the vessels singularly potent land attack capability in comparison to their peers, the Russian mafiosi might think of the incursion into Lyongian waters, where two Type 12 frigates fought against the Kirovs. They might even be a little bit worried, knowing that the NAVLARs could engage coastal targets, and that a contingent of Paras resides aboard the Goa.

But for now, the ships remain outside Nigerian territorial waters.

OOC: What exactly are the Hindustanis planning to do, anyway?

OCC: I hope this is ok, Strath. I know Morgan was in Lavrageria, and perhaps he made some friends among Hindustani advisors...I really need some way to get Paul's story moving if I'm going to participate in this RP very concieveably.
OOC: that is perfectly acceptable, i kind of assumed that Morgan moved around Lavrageria quite a bit before ending up on the southern front when the invasion hit.

If Paul has a cess to a phone and knows thr right people then i'm sure he coudl contact Morgan and arrange a meeting.

IC:
To the outside observer the small airport didn't look like much, better than most local airfeilds in africa it actually had a proper concrete runway and apron area but beyond that the actual terminal biulding was rahter small and there were maybe 5 hangers of reasonable size. Shell had literally hacked the air feild out of the jungle a few years ago to make it easier to fly in contruction material for the construction of the main pipelines linking the interior and the coast. Now the airfeild was largely redundant playing host to a few cessna transports belogning to charities and local pilots contracted to support oil operations plus the limited number of helos and patrol aircraft used the keep an eye on the pipe line.
But now they had 4 new visitors courtesy of Morgan's backers. The 2 heclicopters and 2 Andover transports were quickly wheeled into the largest of the hangers where Morgan greated the crew's with delight. He'd hoped for soemthign special but this was more than that, he grinned as he inspected the artfully placed paneels that covered the gun ports of the Andover gunships, the various FLIR and EO sensors were easily explained away as pipeline inspection equipment meaning that hopefully the newly arrived fire power would coem as a serious surpise to anyone who trod on the wrong feet.

(OOC: maybe stretchign thigns but the Strathdonian government has just sent 2 andover gunships and 2 bell 212s (heuys) of GHOST squadron in additon to 16 memebers of the Ghost battalion (Strathdonian spec ops). The aircraft all carry full civilian registrations and officially belong to a couple of contractors in Strathdonia).

OOC: Strath, Shell is being directly attacked and all foreign oil companies' infrastructure is being seized by Gadhafists. Should I wait to allow you a response before I continue?

OOC:
I hadn't realised you were going all out, all i could read was soem sort of attack on a small regional office used as bait for the roiks in some city ic an't find on the CIA map
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/maps/ni-map.gif
(likely more to do with my unfimiliarity with the country than anythign else so please enlighten me as to where Ikeja is).
Also a rallyign cry tends not to bring instant action in africa..


IC:
Morgan's good mood quickly disapaited as his sat and cell phones went crazy as reports began filtering of a large number of attacks on land based infrastructure. With the emerging picture of soemthign resembling an organised sustained attack Morgan acted quickly and ordered a general evacuation of all facilities, all personell were to be evacuated off shore, across the border or to the airfeild (about half way along a line between jos and Yola).
It was time for the ghosts and the mercs to earn thier pay and soon the air was filled with the whine of jet turbines as the various aircraft made preperations to evacuate as many personel as possible. If the Arseholes wanted to try playing mean Morgan would show them mean...

Paul Vezandlebe had never used a cell phone in his life. He had only seen one once, but attempting to contact Morgan on the short-wave proves more difficult than he imagined.

Finally, he manages to raise the Shell airfield.

"Hello? Hello? This is Paul Vezandlebe. I need to speak to Mr. Morgan."

OCC: AC, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

OOC: Haven't got time for a very long thing but just to give you the idea.

Niger Delta

The Board of the Elias Petroleum Corporation could not have been happier with the downward progression of the Nigerian Hydrocarbon industry. Whilst the Roiks were allies of UE, ImPetroCo was nonetheless a competitor, a fairly minor one, as were all when compared against EPC. However, Bonny crude had skyrocketed in value, crude exports were virtually nil, and in the medium term at least it looked as though it would continue. The best part, is that thus far EPC had had to do virtually nothing, the Nigerians had imploded it on their own.

Just to be certain, Minister Dammar had arranged for a completely unofficial team, denaibly funded by EPC, from Echelon Ventures to proceed with a plan to once again embroil the critical oil region of Nigeria into tribal warfare. Although Port Harcourt might be the centre of the fuel economy of West Africa, it was still a city of slums and poverty, which provoked anger not only against the oil companies but against the government. However, the key to instability lay with the centuries old rift between the Ijaw and the Itsekiri tribes. With the discovery of large oil reserves in the Niger Delta region in the early 1960s, a new bone of contention was introduced, as the ability to claim ownership of a given piece of land now promised to yield immense benefits in terms of jobs and infrastuctural benefits. Now with the prospect in the change of order in Nigeria, it would be an opportunity for the tribesman to restate their territorial claims and try and increase the amount of oil land each other controlled. The only thing that was needed to set off this civil war between the few million tribesman on each side was an event...

Using the usual combination of ex-Elias Special Forces and African Mercenaries, a plan was devised, a particulaly simple one. In the tcity of Warri, a church with an almost entirely Ijaw congregation, was attacked with incendiary mortars, fired from a few pickup trucks several kilometres away. The fire would kill many and horribly burn more, and when the local elders and militia found the mortars, they would happen to find symbols and icons of the Itsekiri. Now Echelon Venutres would slip quietly back into the shadows, waiting for the Ijaw to retaliate, and would only step in again to arm the underdog in the guerilla conflict that would no doubt follow, perpetuating it while the country defaulted on its loans.

The Roycelandians were not happy. Nigeria had collapsed into Civil War, and despite the arrival of the IRNS Tanner at Port Harcourt, things were not looking at improving.

The Imperial Guard found themselves being both attacked by Natives and lauded by other Natives for trying to sort this sorry mess out, but so far most of the facilities had been saved/salvaged, and now the Imperial Guard found themselves securing the nearby towns as well...

((OOC: I'll respond in a bit, more fully, but could someone educate me more on the ethnic conflict UE is referring to?))

Captain Jalal Musharraf surveys the Nigerian coastline from the bridge of the Goa, his command. The shilouettes of buildings are visible through the fairly high quality spotting scope mounted on the bridge, as is the IRNS Tanner. On the rear helipad, the ship's band bashes on its steel drums and churns out something that sounds more or less like the Edinburgh military tattoo, with bagpipes, trumpets, saxophones, and a wide variety of other instruments typical of Hindustani military bands.

An Alouette III from one of the Leanders putters around overhead, armed with a homing torpedo on one fairing and a quad AT. 43 mount on the other, enabling it to attack submarines, other helicopters, boats, tanks, and stationary targets. On paper at least.

Word had reached Musharraf's ears of trouble in the Niger delta, and he wouldn't have any of it. So therefore, after lunch, he plans to fly inland to meet up with Daniel Morgan and Paul Vezandlebe and give them both a piece of his mind. Or something to that effect.

OOC: LRR sorry for the delay in replying.
Your naval units will of course be able to observe the stepping up of activity on the various off shore platforms, amred zodiacs puttering abouts, the platfrom support puma's suddenly sprouting GPMGS and 20mm guns in the door ways etc...
The airfeild is likely difficult to reach i suddenly realised last night that in the event of the Nigerian airforce getting involved the off shore bases and airfeild will be completely cut off, so i would need to make contact with the roiks to get some sort of fighter cover...

IC:
It took soem doing but eventually the message concerning a call for Mr Morgan eventually got through and Derek finally picked up his radio.

"good to hear from you paul, would I be correct in assuming this is as professional call?"
(he might not have known for sure that Paul was a spook but he certainly wasn't a proper tourist...)

With most of the personel evacuated from more vunerable locations, the tempo of helicopter flights drops suddenly. Both off shore and at the airfeild a seige mentality has set in as the employees and Mercs await what ever the next move will be.

OOC: LRR sorry for the delay in replying.
Your naval units will of course be able to observe the stepping up of activity on the various off shore platforms, amred zodiacs puttering abouts, the platfrom support puma's suddenly sprouting GPMGS and 20mm guns in the door ways etc...
The airfeild is likely difficult to reach i suddenly realised last night that in the event of the Nigerian airforce getting involved the off shore bases and airfeild will be completely cut off, so i would need to make contact with the roiks to get some sort of fighter cover...

IC:
It took soem doing but eventually the message concerning a call for Mr Morgan eventually got through and Derek finally picked up his radio.

"good to hear from you paul, would I be correct in assuming this is as professional call?"

"It is, Mr. Morgan, although I think you might find its nature somewhat more, shall we say, pious, than other jobs. Would it be possible to meet you somewhere?"

OCC: True...I forgot about the Nigerian AF but then again what would its status in this whole affair be? Would it be divided factionally or would it be under more or less central command? Furthermore, would it have any fairly modern types or well-trained pilots? Mabye Musharraf should visit one of the platforms instead.

“Itsekiri...”, he growled, in a low, menacing, and raspy voice.

Smoke poured through the air, emanating from the still raging fires. A thin, tall man wearing only a straw skirt stood in the middle of the annihilated Ijaw Church. He’d been dressed in traditional tribal garb for the Mass, but had been lucky enough to have overslept. Well, lucky in a sense. Jira had to live with the consequences that were to come. As leader of the Ijaw, it was upon him to decide the fate of his people, and to protect them.

And he had failed.

Corpses of men, women, and children were splayed across the floor. Innocents were butchered, killed during their prayers. Bibles still in their hands, they appeared to be only asleep, caught I an eternal slumber. But it was an illusion. They were dead, gone, wiped out. They were guilty only of wanting to practice their faith, and worship their Lord.

Rage and sorrow flowed through Jira’s veins. Tears mixed in with the traditional paint on his face, and he howled at the wind. He stomped out towards his car, where a change of clothes and a cell phone set to call the Itesekiri leadership.

_____________________________________________________________________________

A limousine rolled into the rainy center of the ramshackle city of Warri. It was yet another stunning example of Gadhafi’s corruption. On the outside, the buildings were adorned with gigantic panels of glass, enormous billboards proclaiming the “technological revolution of the proletariat”, and of course, the ubiquitous photos of a grinning Gadhafi. Inside, was a different story.

The buildings were all made of the cheapest, most rotten wood. The insides were hollow decrepit shacks lined to the brim with poverty stricken refugees, human waste, and narcotics. The extreme poverty had exasperated the deep conflicts that simmered between the Itsekiri and the Ijaw for thousands of years. Gadhafi’s incompetence had destroyed all but one source of wealth: oil. This oil was the single item the entire nation swirled around, battled for. The Ijaw and the Itsekiri conflict now had a new focus, a focus that had turned the city into a tinderbox.

And the attack on the church had lit the match.

Jira stepped out of the limousine, wearing a sharp black suit and sunglasses. He approached the leader of the Itsekiri, a wily old man leaning back in his lawn chair “throne”.

“Kumqa.”
“Jira. What brings you here?”
“I demand an explanation, Kumqa.”
“For what?”
“This!”

Jira threw down a twisted, melted machine gun bearing Itsekiri symbols. Kumqa stroked hi cat, and squinted to see the scraps Jira threw down.

“It appears to be one of our weapons.”
“We found it at the scene of the crime.”
“What crime?”

Jira ran forward with a fury, grabbing Kumqa by the scruff of the shirt while Kumqa’s bodyguards aimed their guns at him.

“YOU KNOW DAMN WELL WHAT CRIME I’M TALKING ABOUT! YOUR BRUTAL THUGS BOMBEC OUR CHURCH! WHY DID YOU DO IT?!? WHY DID YOU KILL OUR BABIES?!? WHY?!?”

Kumqa was a nasty, bitter old man. It wasn’t his fault, really. But his grizzled life had worn away any bit of a soul he had ever had. So instead of empathising with Jira’s rage, and trying to comfort him, the man simply laughed.

“You arrogant Ijaw dog! You would kill your own children just to get our oil rich lands? To blame us for this butchery, so you can take our wealth as ‘compensation’?!?”

Jira dropped the man, backing away, completely shocked.

“Wha? You accuse us of killing our own children to take the oil! You sick beast! Recant now, godless heathen!”
“I don’t need your God to see you are a filthy liar. The gods are powerful and clever warriors, Jira. They are not weak, sandal wearing, long-haired hippies! That is why you putrid Ijaw have stooped so low as to murder your own children to gain our oil! You follow the guidance of an anexoric White devil!”

A calmer, wiser, and older man would have allowed Kumqa to simply rant on. After all, although he was a tribal leader, it was a matter of descent, not representation. While most of the Itsekiri were pagan, few were as brazenly stupid and anti-Christian as Kumqa. But Jira was young, brash, and full of rage, and did not think of the further consequences.

“YOU INFIDELIC DOG! I SHALL SMITE YOU WHERE YOU STAND!”

Jira attempted to pull out his handgun and rip apart the toothless grin of Kumqa, but a team of Itsekiri gaurds armed with AK-47s stomped in between the two feuding leaders. Jira grimaced, and began to walk away.

“This isn’t over old man...”

And the ancient war of the Itsekiri and the Ijaw had begun anew....
____________________________________________________________

It only took hours. Within moments, both sides had been riled up with ever exaggerated tales of barbarity, and the largely Christian Ijaw and largely Pagan Itsekiri had used the Church incident to bring back their ethnic and religious hatred. Warri city was completely seized by rioting, and what little governmental authority was there collapsed. For now, however, the conflict seemed to be contained within the city...
_______________________________________________________________

Meanwhile, Gadhafi’s forces began to take a general focus. He had managed to take control of about thirty thousand soldiers, along with his bloodthirsty civilian fanatics, whose ranks were loosely filled with about one hundred thousand men and women. These were all those who remained loyal to the Stalinist dictator, and all those who listened to his “rallying cries”. The other major factions were the followers of Mubarrak, the Itsekiri and Ijaw, and of course, the normal citizenry that was scared sh**less of the whole affair.

Gadhafi strode into his ramshackle control room, maps strewn around the dirty table. His generals, who were really nothing more than fanatical loyalists, sweated in the tropical heat.

“My men! What is this foolishness! The city is falling apart!”

Gadhaffi snarled, his spiky tatoo stretching out across his face. Bad teeth gnashed in frustration, as he saw his “Proletarian Warriors” fall apart in panic and chaos. Real combat was something they had never faced, and it showed.

“YOU INCOMPETENT FOOLS! MUST I DO EVERYTHING? Arg. Here is my plan. To win this war, we need money. The greatest source of money in this country is oil, and the single largest source of it is Port Harcourt. If we seize Port Harcourt, we will effectively control Nigeria’s oil and food supply, starving Mubarrak’s puny rebels of food and money. Once his forces are crushed, we will become sole suppliers of Nigerian oil, and foreign powers will fall in line. The second part of the plan is a little...different. If we want to prevent these scumbags from rebelling again, we must take out the force behind these threats, those unclean elements that pollute our society. The whites, the Jews, and the Christians. All they do is conspire against my glory and the Communist Revolution! That is why I have initiated Operation: Swiffer Picker-Upper!”
“Sir, isn’t that the name of a cleaning device used by American housewives?”
“Shut up! It’s brilliant! It’s the perfect name for genocide!”
“Not really.”
“Oh, what would you suggest then, colonel Sanders? And it better be good, or else...”

Colonel Sanders sweated nervously, regretting instantly that he had spoken. Gadhafi’s plans were insane, but he was still in charge. That meant his old habits of “shoot ‘em for even thinking you are not a god” were still in play.

“C’mon Colonel Sanders, what’s your idea? Or are you chicken, Colonel Sanders?!?”
“How about...Operation: Clean Sweep?”
“BRILLIANT! Operation: Clean Sweep is both simple and deadly. We have begun rounding up all of Nigeria’s Christians, Jews, and whites. We hope to get about one million of these scum into the city of Warri, and lock them out. Then, we shall burn it to the ground....”

_________________________________________________________________________

“Amazing...”

Ilona leaned back on a large black rock, her trademark brown trench coat once again whistling in the wind. With a slight smirk on her face, she watched Mubarrak deliver a rousing speech to his troops. Although her original impression of the man had been that he was a stupid, annoying, womanizing, and naive fool who was only useful as a pawn. But even in her eyes, he had visibly redeemed himself. It seemed that the thrill of battle, the responsibility of command, and the hope for a better Nigeria had completely changed him. Almost as if a spark inside him that had long gone dormant had reignited, tunring him into a brilliant tactician, charismatic warrior, and geniunely decent person.

Of course, Ilona didn’t give a damn. Her job was to make sure Mubarrak managed to take over Nigeria, so the Mafia could reap the enormous benefits. Nothing but the matter at hand mattered. She had no family, no friends, nothing but the Mafia. It was her whole life, and she didn’t intend to fail it. Still, at least the fact that Mubarrak had improved as a person made sure that the chances of the mission succeeding had improved as well.

As he walked away from the podium, sweaty from the passionate speech and tropical weather, Mubarrak walked over to Ilona.

“Hey baby...”

Ilona’s smirk turned to a vicious scowl as her hands reached for the twin Uzis loosely hanging off her belt.

“How many times do I have to threaten to kill you to get you to stop calling me that?”

Mubarrak backed away, nervously smiling as he raised his palms.

“Hey, hey. I was just kidding. No worries. Ilona, I’ve got a job for you.”
“And what job would that be?”
“The war has come to a turning point, Ilona. We could seize the day! We could prevail! Nigeria could rise again!”
“What we? I have no stake in this, remember? I’m simply doing my job. There is now we.”

Mubarrak rolled his eyes.

“Fine. The Nigerian people could prevail. That better? Good. Now listen. About thirty miles from here is the city of Port Harcourt.”
“Largest source of food, oil, and drugs in Nigeria.”
“Correct. Damn, how do you know so much?”
“It’s what they pay me for. Continue on.”
“Currently, a Roycelandian Fleet is attempting to gain control of that city, as are the foreign oil corporations, the Gadhafists, and some reports indicate that we may even have a few Hindustani vessels offshore, although that is unconfirmed. The fact is, everyone knows that whoever controls Port Harcourt, controls Nigeria. We have sent information out to the Roycelandians and the oil companies that we plan to assault Port Harcourt in two days. The Roycelandians already have a deal with us to control 10% of Nigeria, mainly the Eastern border zone. I’ve also informed the oil companies—especially Shell— that they have no reason to be opposed to us, and that if they cooperate, we can guarantee them extremely favorable contracts in the future.”
“And where do I fit into this jigsaw puzzle of yours?”
“You? Using metaphors? I see you’ve taken up poetry...Is this some secret sensitive side of Ilona that has yet to reveal itself?”
“Your wit astounds me, asshole. Really. Now shut up and explain.”
“I want you to lead an inside assault.”
“Which means...?”
“You and one thousand men will paradrop into the center of Port Harcourt, and secure the oil wells. Timing is critical, as this will trick the Gadhafists into rushing in and attacking. We have to wait until my armies are close enough to strike. You will work with the oil mercenaries, if we get their cooperation, lead by a fellow named Morgan, to protect the oil production facilities. Once the enemy rushes in, and they will most likely use their infamous “suicide squads” first, our armies will encircle the city. With you at the center, the Roycelandians in the harbour, and my men around them, Gadhafi’s men will be annihilated.”
“So let me get this straight...You want me to be bait for a horde of thirty thousand fanatical gun toting maniacs, hundreds of whom are so deranged they’re willing to blow themselves up? WITH ONE THOUSAND MEN?!?”
“Yes...”

Ilona stared incredulously at Mubarrak for several minutes.

“Sounds fun. Where do I sign up?”

She smiled, loaded her submachine gun, and strode off into the sunset.

“Damn woman’s craaazy... ”

Not at all like Sally...Goddamn it, stop thinking about her! But I can’t...So many years ago...But it was just like yesterday...Why does Ilona keep reminding me of Sally? She’s so gung-ho, so deranged, so brave, cold, in short...everything Sally was not. But still...
_____________________________________________________________________________
Nigeria About Ten Years Ago...

Images flashed through his brain, images of the past, images of a life he had once had. A young Mubarrak, sporting an obnoxious Afro was walking down the street with a white woman, who had chocolate brown hair and smile so genuine that it looked fake. Sally. Their marriage was incredibly improbable, them being from different races, nations, social classes, and yet incredibly probable at the same time. They’d been married for only days, still in their honeymoon, happily basking in the moment. Everything seemed so perfect when compared to his days now...The sun was shining, her face was glowing, the birds were chirping, and indeed, it seemed as if the Heavens themselves sung that day.

But then it happened.

It was a moment of carelessness, of indecision, that would shatter Mubarrak’s life. A simple walk across the street. Mubarrak, the essential gentleman at the time, bowed to allow Sally to walk across. And in that instant, a car slammed into her chest, shattering her bones and butchering her instantly. The car was an armored limousine, and the speed at which it traveled had been more than enough to kill the small woman. A young man, wearing sunglasses and a suit walked out, purveying the damage cooly. He then walked over to Mubarrak, who was tearfully holding Sally.

“Here. This check should cover it.”

The man tossed a check at Mubarrak, and walked back into the car. Mubarrak clutched the check angrily, and screamed.

“WHO ARE YOU?!? HOW DARE YOU!?!”
“Quit sobbing. It was just some white whore.”
“You...you...Sally...nooooo...”
“Here’s my business card. I’ll get you a job or something to make up for it.”

The man tossed down the card, and drove off.
A shocked Mubarrak tried to chase off after the car, but only slipped and fell in the muddy streets. He picked up the card, and read the words on it with an inhuman rage.

“Gadhafi...”
______________________________________________________________________

“SALLY!”
“Wha?”

Mubarrak yelled out the name of his beloved. Suddenly, he realized that he had been dreaming, and that Sally’s death had occurred years ago. Ilona turned around after hearing Mubarrak scream out that name, and began walking back towards him.

“Listen pal....”

SMACK!

Ilona delivered a bone crunching right hook to Mubarrak’s face. He held his hand to his jaw, and spoke.

“What was that for?”
“Mubarrak, you’ve got to snap out of it. You’ve been constantly mumbling about some Sally girl, so I asked some of your subordinates about her. I know the whole story now, and frankly, it sickens me. What kind of friggin’ whiny little asshole are you?!?”
“What? What did I do?”
“YOU’VE SPENT TEN YEARS MOPING ABOUT HER DEATH! If you cared so much about her, then avenge her goddamn death, and get on with it. Whining about it like some two bit crack whore b****ing about herpes is not going to get anything done. Kill whoever did the deed, and move on.”

Mubarrak stared only at the ground, observing the random scatterings and movements of bugs and plants, of nature’s calm tranquility. Time froze, as he waited nervously to decide. Finally, he rose his head up and said,

“Thanks...”

But she was gone.

_____________________________________________________________________________

“Hello, Mr. Morgan? How do I have this number? That is unimportant. What is important that my name is General Mubarrak, and I command the Nigerian Free Army. We require your cooperation for a plan...Tell your employers that if they agree, our post war government will treat them very, very, very well.”

If the oil companies agreed, Mubarrak would tell them the plan for attacking the city of Port Harcourt. In two days, Ilona and a team of one thousand paratroopers would land in the center of the city and work with the mercenaries to secure all oil production facilities and mount a defense in the center of the city. This would occur a few hours before the Gadhafist forces were predicted to arrive, and most likely provoke an assault. Once Gadhafi’s army was tricked into going in, Mubarrak’s army would encircle the city.

Of course, all of this hinged on Mr. Morgan’s answer.
______________________________________________________________________________

The ground shuddered under his massive weight.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

Birds flew away shrieking, plants wilted, boars fled, and even the ground itself seemed to turn a bit grayer with his every step. The gigantic feet reached into the air, and fell back down, moving forward at an earthshaking, yet incredibly slow pace. Melted flesh on his face somehow managed to form a truly menacing smile that crept up to touch his eyepatch

“Yess...K-k-ki-kill...her...My...rev–rev–revenge...”

A roaring laugh burst out of the jungle, hoarse and raw, full of pain and sheer evil.

OOC: I know rallying cries don’t work in Africa, Strath. Gadhafi is speakin to a loyal corps of fanatics. And I’ll just give a summary of events, since the story is bit convoluted. Gadhafi and Mubarrak’s armies are racing towards Port Harcourt, the Itsekiri and Ijaw are duking it out in Warri, and all of Gadhafi’s fanatics are busy conducting genocide in Warri, (which means most current resistance against the foreign oil/Roycelandians has subsided).

"This is it! This is it! We are not about to let this country fall to pieces!"

Jalal Musharraf sits in the passenger's seat of Paul Vezandlebe's old Land Rover as they drive towards the Shell jungle airfield. Jalal, a young Sindhi fisherman turned destroyer captain, had landed on the Nigerian coast late the previous night and found Paul by midday. Armed with a Sterling SMG to compliment Paul's old Lee-Enfield No4, they are more or less ready to confront any possible ambush, although its not considered likely that they would be a target of any priority.

Traveling at a considerabe speed, the Rover hopes to reach the Shell compound and get the oilmen on their side before it becomes too late.

Offshore, the Hindustani flotilla enters Nigerian territorial waters. Overhead, Alouette IIIs from the Leanders and the Goa's Sea King patrol for underwater and land-based threats, and sections of marines assemble on the helipads. The flotilla makes for the Niger Delta. Two Leanders take up position off of Delta, and the rest of the ships head towards Port Harcourt.

Their NAVLAR batteries swing landward as SAM systems search the skies, and the warring tribes are informed-by helicopter-that any further violence could very well be answered by Land Eagle missiles or 160mm artillery rockets.

OOC: The Itsekiri and Ijaw are fighting in Warri, for now.

IC:

General Mubarrak smiled, his bald head shining in the sunlight. He picked up his cell phone, calling the Hindustani embassy.

"Yes? This is General Mubarrak, leader of the Nigerian Free Forces. I need to talk to an ambassador of some sort. Hello? Yes. Sir, I have a proposition. I don't want to make an enemy of Hindustan, and want to know exactly whose side you guysare on. I would propose you back me, as while your naval deployment is quite impressive, I doubt it would stand much of a chance against a Roycelandian fleet... Now, don't worry about my intentions. I'm not going to turn Nigeria into a utopian hippy paradise like BG, but I'm not going to have it be a craphole Stalinist dictatorship like Gadhafi. It'll be pretty much like Al-Ahzad; a democracy with a very strong executive. Now, I and my Roik friends would like an answer."

A letter from Gadhafi's forces also arrived at the Hindustani embassy, exalting the virtues of socialism and beseeching the Hindustanis to "slaughter the traitors of the proletariat."

IC:
Paul and Captain Musharraf receive a hearty greeting From Morgan who Quickly tells them about the message he has received from general Mubarrak.

Morgans priority is to keep the company's employees afe and keep what oil he possibly could flowing, but he descreetly mentions that he has had certain adivce to cooperate with the Hindi's as far as possible.
he explains that while he doesn't have a huge amount of assets maybe a whole 250 decent combat experienced men and a bout 7 or 8 light and medium helicopters that could be used in some sort of vague gunship fashion (say 4 fennecs, 2 Bo-105s and a BK117) plus maybe 2 pumas that could be spared from the rigs. As for the Ghosts well they do have the capability to amke mroe of an impact so at the evry least they will be provided as the hindi's require.

His Majesty was privately very pleased that he'd ordered the expansion of the Dreadnought Fleet. Aircraft were all well and good, Soldiers were vital, but nothing persuaded a wavering Foreign Government quite like a fleet of horribly beweaponed Dreadnoughts sitting just off the coast of a major city- Gunboat Diplomacy at it's finest.

Many of Gen. Mubarrak's troops were being supplied and armed by Roycelandia, and there seemed to be rather more Imperial Guard around than were strictly necessary to protect Roycelandian Oil installations and the like...

OOC: Is there anyone in Africa that doesn't have a Roycelandian-made SMLE Mk III rifle, Bren Light Machine Gun, or Webley Mk VI revolver? :D

OOC:
yes the majority of the SDF, now that our FALs, FALOs and HS2000s are finally in full production...

IC:
Paul and Captain Musharraf receive a hearty greeting From Morgan who Quickly tells them about the message he has received from general Mubarrak.

Morgans priority is to keep the company's employees afe and keep what oil he possibly could flowing, but he descreetly mentions that he has had certain adivce to cooperate with the Hindi's as far as possible.
he explains that while he doesn't have a huge amount of assets maybe a whole 250 decent combat experienced men and a bout 7 or 8 light and medium helicopters that could be used in some sort of vague gunship fashion (say 4 fennecs, 2 Bo-105s and a BK117) plus maybe 2 pumas that could be spared from the rigs. As for the Ghosts well they do have the capability to amke mroe of an impact so at the evry least they will be provided as the hindi's require.

OOC: From what I know, I believe the oil fields are mainly within the city.
IC:
"So the plan is, Morgan's men and Ilona's paratroopers will work as bait, while defending the oil employees and production facilities. Gadhafi's men will try to attack the city, and my main force will encircle it, thus trapping the Gadhafist force between my encirclement and the defense force in the center."

OOC: I'll wait for LRR to chime in, and then I'll write up the big battle of Port Harcourt.

OOC:
Actually morgan pulled all the personel out of the city to the Rigs, chad or further inland (he's one of these odd mercs-with-a-heart type people) but i'm sure he knows how to get it back

OOC:
Actually morgan pulled all the personel out of the city to the Rigs, chad or further inland (he's one of these odd mercs-with-a-heart type people) but i'm sure he knows how to get it back
OOC: Mmm..But that leaves the refineries and many wells undefended. Will he pull the fighting men back into the center for the attack?

And a mercenary? With a heart? That's simply not possible... ;)

With every coming day, it looks as though Hindustan will have to support Mubarrak's forces, even under suspicion of connections with some kind of organized crime. The Hindustani fleet pulls back to its original station, displeased with the lack of favorable elements in the country and by their inability to contribute to the nation's stabilization and prosperity.

Meanwhile, at the jungle airfield, Jalal and Paul realize that there isn't really anything they can do on the human rights front. While not terribly agreeable, Mubarrak's regime looks like it does have a significant advantage over Gadaffi in this category. Due to such circumstances, Paul and Jalal break open a bottle of fine wine and start to drink (they are sure to offer some to Morgan and whoever happens to be nearby), using Paul's very old wine glasses, swiped off some victorian's table by Paul's grandfather. They also ask Morgan if he ever heard of the Polisario Front.

OOC: Mmm..But that leaves the refineries and many wells undefended. Will he pull the fighting men back into the center for the attack?

And a mercenary? With a heart? That's simply not possible... ;)

Well trained engineers are far more expesnive than mere metal and concrete.
I'll assume there are a few groups left in the various refianry command centres (i'll assume that the command/control centres are similar to one at grangemouth and can withstand just about anything possibly including nukes...) and that there are various tunnel acess and maintainance tunnels etc that only the employees (and thus morgan) woudl knwo about so he can proabably get the core of his say 300men into the complexs without too much bother and use the rest as airbrone support.
IICR i think in RL major oil comapnies tend to avoid doing much refining a tthe source of the oil, they tend to preffer to pump the oil from off shore rigs and coastal drilling directly onto tankers and then refine it at home as that avoid the various taxs and levies on importing refined material

yes a merc with a heart, you really need to read The Dogs of War (or see the movie, just ignore the movie's wanking over the MM-1 grenade launcher) or just about any of the abttletech books about mercs to see where Morgan comes from.

Well trained engineers are far more expesnive than mere metal and concrete.
I'll assume there are a few groups left in the various refianry command centres (i'll assume that the command/control centres are similar to one at grangemouth and can withstand just about anything possibly including nukes...) and that there are various tunnel acess and maintainance tunnels etc that only the employees (and thus morgan) woudl knwo about so he can proabably get the core of his say 300men into the complexs without too much bother and use the rest as airbrone support.
IICR i think in RL major oil comapnies tend to avoid doing much refining a tthe source of the oil, they tend to preffer to pump the oil from off shore rigs and coastal drilling directly onto tankers and then refine it at home as that avoid the various taxs and levies on importing refined material

yes a merc with a heart, you really need to read The Dogs of War (or see the movie, just ignore the movie's wanking over the MM-1 grenade launcher) or just about any of the abttletech books about mercs to see where Morgan comes from.
OOC: Yeah, I need to find more information on oil production. I don't know how the whole operation is run, so had to fudge a few things. But hey, Gadhafi runs a Stalinist regime (that hypocritically exports oil to capitalists), and those tend to concencrate factories and such in one location.

About the merc, you know I was only kidding. Even soldiers-for-hire can have souls.

I heartily approve of your choice of books, Strath... Frederick Forsyth is probably my favourite author (It's a tie between him and Bill Bryson), and The Dogs of War is one of my favourite books.

I'm guessing you've read The Day of The Jackal? I also heartily recommend The Fourth Protocol, as well as his two collections of Short Stories- No Comebacks, and The Avenger.

In fact, anyone who's been paying attention will notice that the Roycelandian Government and the Roycelandian Armed Forces wouldn't be out of place in a Frederick Forsyth novel.

Semi-back on topic, you can assume that a lot of the refineries are being protected by Roycelandian soldiers, as well. Attempting to storm a refinery whilst being subjected to semi-automatic volley fire is tantamount to suicide, regardless of your political beliefs or faith in magic talismans...

(OOC: Sorry this is so long, but it’s the dramatic climax!)

According to the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, there are nine layers of hell. At the very last one, in the very nether regions of the blazing inferno, awaits the Prince Of Darkness, the King Of Sin, Overlord Of Evil, Emperor Of Temptation, Satan himself. There, he orchestrates his worldwide campaign of evil, pitting his forces of evil against God’s armies of good, and there, he exacts the ultimate punishment for the ultimate crimes.

Eerily enough, Lucifer does not simply torture them outright. Instead, the Beast will wait, giving a glimmer of hope, falsely holding out a nugget of salvation. When the damned reach for that nugget, after what eons of peaceful waiting, they are unaware of the horrific fate that awaits them, unaware that their waiting had only been the calm before the storm, that all they were going to feel for the rest of eternity was pain.

Such was the situation in Port Harcourt. The boisterous stirrings of a bustling port city continued despite the presence of Hindustani soldiers, Oil Mercenaries, and Roycelandian soldiers. (actually, the Roycelandians probably only made it more “boisterous”, especially for the ladies...) Oil was pumped continuously to feed the world’s insatiable appetite, fisherman hawked truckloads of fresh tuna, farmers toiled in the Delta, women giggled and winked at the foreign looking Roycelandians, children played soccer in the streets, and toothless old men grinned as they swapped tales of their youth. Some of the townspeople had gotten a hold of an old boom box and a few CDs, organizing a Saturday Night Fever Disco Contest, (which was won by a large, black man with a mohawk and extremely large gold chains who kept on calling everyone a “Foo” and who topped off his victory with a cool glass of milk...) and in general, the city was untouched by the conflict that had consumed Nigeria.

Like all good things, it had to come to an end.

The peace was shattered by the low rumble of old Soviet era transport planes, which slowly reared above the horizon. Life seemed to stop in Port Harcourt, as everyone dropped what they were doing to look up. Some went racing for their guns, but Mubarrak’s Free Nigerian Army (Also known informally as “The Black Mambas”) and Gadhafi’s Revolutionary Guard had seized control most of Nigeria’s military apparatus, and the Port Harcourt Regiment had split at the beginning of the war, with both sides rushing to join their respective commanders. Thus, no anti-air defenses were really available, and the townspeople were forced to simply stare at the armada of hulking transport planes that blackened the blue skies of Port Harcourt.

Pfoof!

Hundreds of black parachutes unfurled in the air, as a mix of elite Nigerian Paratroops from the Viper Unit and the cream of the Mafia crop began their descent. One of these Mafiosi thought to herself about the last time she had seen a black parachute unfurl above a city...Much had changed since that fateful event, years ago...

Putting aside such thoughts, Ilona Srebrenitska braced for impact. Her boots slid on the graveled city square, where the majority of the parachutists had landed, and she slowly ground to a halt. She brushed the gravel off her trenchcoat and frizzy black hair, and then snatched the handheld the radio off her belt.

“Team alpha? Status report, over.”
“Team alpha fully in position, Commander. Over.”

She did this with every team, and soon had confirmation that the streets of Port Harcourt were being prowled by one thousand of Mubarrak’s forces. They began to converge around the city’s oil facilities, and especially around the underground bunker hub of the Oil Corporations. Ilona, flanked by five black suited Mafiosi, strode into the compound, which was located underneath the city, heading to meet Derek Morgan.

“Hello, Mr. Morgan I presume? My name is Ilona Srebrenitska, and I’m the commander of this force. According to Mubarrak, you’ve already been briefed on this operation and have agreed to it. So, shall we begin? I see you’ve managed quite a formidable defense for these structures, so my men will simply reinforce it. We’ve got an old surveillance bird up in the air, and they tell us Gadhafi’s taken the bait, and he’s movin’ in. So...”

Ilona’s hands loaded a Russian-made anti-tank missile launcher.

“...let’s get this party started.”

________________________________________________________________________
-Hours Later-

“Today, my brothers, we fight for the survival of the revolution! Today, we slaughter our enemies! Have no mercy on these foreign puppets and treacherous devils! The Proletariat will rise above these challenges, these traitors! We shall pave the road to a worker’s paradise with the blood of the Black Mambas!”
“YEEEAAAHHH!”

Gadhafi smiled, his missing teeth making it all the more so grotesque. His muscled, former boxer physique had been restored over the previous days of conflict, in preparation for this moment. He stood upon a massive Russian made tank, his varied scars were clearly visible as he pounded his chest in savage fury, as he cleverly manipulated the feelings of the army before him.

The tanks rolled into the city borders, faced with an eery calm. The soldiers scanned around with their assault rifles, as people fled in fear. Huge clouds of dust were kicked up by the onrush of armored vehicles, which continued to press on relentlessly. Gadhafi screamed at his men while inside a tank.

“Deeper! We must push deeper! Slaughter the enemy within!”
“But sir, if we go much farther inside, our outside flanks will be...”
“SILENCE! VICTORY IS OURS! SEIZE IT!”
“Sir...”

Gadhafi snarled, whipping a pistol off his belt. He shot the man straight in the face, sneering.

“NO ONE DEFIES ME! NO ONE!”
____________________________________________________________________

“Alright men, this is it..They have breached the line of departure. All operations are go. Fire at will.”

Ilona barked these orders into a radio, and then clipped it back into her belt. She was in the center of the town square, where a large, stone cathedral had been built long ago. She and a few of her men had perched on the roof, using the gargoyle statues as cover.

“C’mon, c’mon...There!”

An old, rumbling T-series tank drove out of an alley and straight out of a small side alley.

“Ready...”

A Mafiosi carrying a Russian made anti-tank gun leaned over from behind one of the thick gargoyle statues. Another one loaded a round into it, and the gunner aimed at the tank’s path.

“FIRE!”

The missile streaked out of the launcher, striking a direct hit upon the tank, which exploded in a sheet of flame.

“There’s plenty more where that came from, men. The Vipers and Mafia are reporting full contact. The Mercenary airforce will come in real handy now...”
___________________________________________________________________________
-ImPetCo Facility-

Jira sweated profusely, the pounding heat of battle weighing heavily on the young Gadhafist. In all honesty, he had no idea why he was here, or why he was fighting. He’d been shoved into the army just recently, and simply did what they told him. Still, while the young man’s motivation was shaky, he lead a five man team into the refinery. A dark hallway was all they saw as they nervously walked through. No sound could be heard but the steady clank of their boots against the metal floor, and the whistling of the wind. Finally, they reached the end of the hall, and entered a large chamber. Jira felt around for a light switch, hoping to make some sense of his surroundings.

A deep, gurgling noise boomed out across the room.

“What the?”
“Ahhh!”
“Jira!”
“Men! Don’t panic!”

Grumble...

The men began to panic, nervously scanning around with their guns. Jira tried to calm them down, but the noise simply grew and grew, and he became terrified as well. Like the snap of a gunshot, a particularly loud snort cracked out.

“AAAHHHHH! DEMONS!”
“Men...CALM DOWN!”

SNOOOOOOORTTTT!

“Aiiieee!”

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

The soldiers, having completely panicked, began firing randomly.

“Bloody hell, what’s goin’ on ‘ere?!?”

The lights immediately snapped on, to reveal a particularly fat Roycelandian man who didn’t seem too pleased to have his nap interrupted.

“Can’t a man fall asleep in a pool of booze and his own vomit without having some Tiki worshiping savages rushing in on ‘em?!? Bloody hell, what’s this world coming to...”
“Stop! In the name of the Revolutionary Gadhafist—“
“Oh, I’m soooo scared, you bloody savages. What’re you going to do, charge me with some sticks with rocks on the end of ‘em?!? Nobody, but nobody, interrupts Col. Blubberworth’s booze induced states of unconsciousness! C’mon get some, you bastards!”

Jira snarled, and leveled his gun at the fat, mustachioed man’s red jacket. Blubberworth simply smiled, snatched the gun out of and smashed him over the head with it. The others immediately began to fire, and the mustachioed sack of blubber that was the Colonel quickly rolled under the steel table. He crawled on all fours as bullets pinged off around and above him. Grumbling, he reached for a beer bottle and chucked it out at his attackers. It smashed directly into one’s head, knocking him to the ground. Furious, the three remaining men ducked down to get a direct shot at the Colonel, only to be greeted with a splash of Roycelandian ales to the face. As they sputtered and backed away, Blubberworth leapt out from underneath the steel table like a mutated flying squirrel, his arms and legs spread out.

“YAAAHHHH!”

Wielding only a half filled bottle of beer, the mustachioed Roik attacked the three gunmen. He unleashed a drunken war cry, and with a downward thrust, smashed the first gunman’s weapon out of his hands. The others aimed their weapons at the Colonel. He then ducked, and the other two riddled their ally with lead. The wily Roik then used his trusty beer bottle to deliver a devastating swing to the second gunman’s family jewels, all the while splashing beer all over the place. The man howled in pain, and dropped his weapon. The remaining Nigerian leveled the gun at the Roik’s head, but the fat Colonel thrust forward his beer bottle as the Nigerian fired, thus encasing the barrel of the gun in the bottle. The bullets still flew out, and the bottle exploded in a hail of glass, which the fat man had largely avoided by dashing under the table as soon as the barrel had been blocked. The various gunmen had not been so lucky, and the shards left only three alive, with all of them nursing either head or genital wounds. The snarling Roik emerged from under the table, wielding two kegs of vodka as if they were Japanese katanas. The three Nigerians looked at the Roik, each other, and the Roik again.

“Well...it appears...”
“...that we can do...”
“...only one thing...”
“...which is to...”
“RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY! RUUUUN AWAAAAY!”
“Running away already? But ‘tis merely a flesh wound! Come back here! I’m not done yet! Damn savages...”

Colonel Blubberworth sat down, took a swig of vodka, and resumed snoring loudly....

___________________________________________________________________

The Gadhafist force was truly massive, and it simply flooded through the narrow city streets. Tanks and jeeps rushed through the streets, assaulting the ring of Mubarrak’s men. Tank charges and infantry rushes were used to take refineries, and the Gadhafists seemed to be gaining a foothold. Bit by bit, they whittled away at the oil facilities, seizing more and more production centers. Roycelandian machine guns and Mercenary helicopters were met with tanks and mobile anti-air ZSU platforms. The Roiks proved adept at repelling infantry charges, so heavy machinery and tear gas was brought in. Bullets and blood flowed in the streets of Port Harcourt.

“Dammit, Mubarrak! GET YOUR MEN IN HERE NOW! We’re not going to last much longer with a handful of men!”
“Have they penetrated deeply enough?”
“I’m in the middle of the city, on a cathedral overlooking the biggest well in the city, and above the central headquarter bunker of the oil companies. AND I HAVE A TANK UP MY—“
Mubarrak heard a loud explosion through the cell phone.

“Ilona! Ilona!”
“Would having twenty tanks in the middle of town square be deep enough?”
“Sh*t! They’re goin’ too fast! We’ve got to move!”

The aforementioned twenty tanks reared their turrets at the roof of the church, slamming it with shells. Ilona’s team blasted away with anti-tank rounds, and the glare of rockets lit up the town. But while many of the missiles hit their targets, the enemy simply kept on coming. The roof of the church barely held, and several smoking holes lined it.

“Incoming!”

She unleashed a missile, then ducked behind a cracked gargoyle.

That was her mistake.

The gargoyle erupted into millions of pieces as a tank round struck it, and sent Ilona flying backwards. She clutched her chest in pain, and noticed a dark red streak emerge on her black shirt.

“Arg...”

She tried to get up, but her shrapnel inflicted leg wound was ripe with agony.

“Dammit....Lorenzo...Call...Mubarrak...tell ‘em to get HIS ASS OVER—AUUUGHH!”

The Church’s thick stone roof finally buckled under the pressure. It was a miracle that it had held on so long anyway, and the poor structure finally gave way to a direct shell hit. Fissures raced across the roof, as pieces began to fall. More and more pieces tumbled at a faster and faster rate, until the whole thing simply rushed down. Mafiosi tumbled to the earth, screeching and clawing at the air.

“SHIIIIIII—Oof...”

Ilona’s body lay limply upon the stone altar. The church was in flames, with hunks of the roof everywhere, with the pews smashed, and the with bodies of Mafiosi strewn about. Her body lay on the center of the altar, leaving her head to be suspended upside down. The only good thing about the situation, it seemed, was that the fall had dislodged the chunk of shrapnel stuck in Ilona’s leg. Ilona’s vision began to clear, and out of the blur a wooden carving of Jesus on the cross appeared.

“Ha...I...I’ve managed to live my whole life avoiding you...Running away from my father taught me, fleeing...WHY WON’T YOU F*CKING LEAVE ME ALONE?!?”

“.....”
“What the hell am I doing? I’m talking to a f***ing wood carving of some guy who died 2000 years ago...”
“ Maybe...if...you do-do-don’t...like...God...you pref-pref-errrr...the DEVIL! ”
“No...”

Ilona’s head lurched up to see where the voice was coming from. All she could see was a dark blur, moving at inhuman speeds towards her. She slowly began to roll to the side, but her body felt as if it was weighted with lead. She couldn’t move, with a combination of fatigue, wounds, and fear paralyzing her. The shadow now had a face, which she saw to be that of Mugabe when it raced into the air. The few scraps of hair he had left whistled in the air, joining his drool and the smoke to form a blend of sounds and smells so horrible that one could almost think that the end times had come. Time slowed down at that moment, causing Mugabe to fall through the air as if it was molasses, his massive fists reaching to crush Ilona’s chest.

“Diiiiiiiiieeeee....”
“Not today, asshole!”

Ilona’s leg shot up, striking Mugabe straight in the chest and sending him flying backwards and straight into a confessional stand. Both combatants rose up quickly, and stood at opposite ends of the aisle.

“Exc-cccc-ccc-lent...That’s why I like you, Ilona...such a fierce fighter...fighting against...everything...”
“What are you talking about?”
“I...knew your fa–ghhh—ther...Remember...you...so young...always...always...rejecting what you...were...told.”
“You liar! Stop trying to mess with my head!”
“Liar...? Ilona...I know everything...about every man...that I kill.”
“What?”

Mugabe smiled wickedly, and pulled out from his thick green military jacket’s inner pockets...a shrunken head.

“Sayyyy...hel–hel–hello...to daddy...”
“You sick bastard!”

There on the floor lay the aged, shrunken, distorted, disgusting, yet still recognizable, head of Mr. Srebrenitska.

“My father...What the...?!?”
“Used...to be...good friend...both...hitmen...working for...Sov-sov-sovietssss...But he went and...got himself a consshhhhh–conshhhhh—conscience...So...had.... eliminated...[/I}

Ilona simply stood, shocked and stunned, as the fires of hell raged around, and the sounds of tanks clashing emerged from outside.
“I...DON’T F****ING CARE! All my father did was either run around for his stupid causes, or try to indoctrinate me into ‘em! Get that disgusting piece of garbage out of my face, and get the hell out of here, you cannibalistic @$$hole!”
“Ahhh...Finally...a [I] challenge! Not since...your father...have I met som—som—someone! Someone...who had...nothing but...their warrior spirit...their thirst for...warrrrr...I thought...I thought...that when he lost it....for...his...idealism...it would...be lost...forever...but here...here you...carry on...Do not...DISAPPOINT ME!”

With a vicious, raspy cry that ravaged his scarred throat, Mugabe’s massive legs rushed forward. Ilona smiled bitterly, and sprinted forth. His massive right fist was hurled in a hook, which Ilona attempted to block with her right arm. He lowered it in the last moment, however, and struck her directly in the chest. She stumbled back, and he took the opporunity to smack her jaw with a left handed jab. She winced at the blow, but then struck Mugabe in the stomach with a roundhouse kick which sent him reeling back. His scorched flesh formed into an evil smile.

“Yesss...challenge...I feel...so alive...”

Mugabe delivered a flurry of lightning quick blows, of which Ilona managed to intercept only the first half. A particularly fast chop to the neck had gotten through Ilona’s defenses, and the pain that shot up through her body slowed her down enough to give Mugabe an ideal opening. Her body was battered by the man’s giant fists, each blow smashing her bones.

“YAAR!”

The snarling beast pulled back a bit, then sprung forth with his right elbow. The elbow stabbed into Ilona’s left leg, the one already wounded by the shrapnel, and the incredible pain combined with the force of the blow caused her to crumple to the ground. Her vision began to blur again, and Mugabe loomed menacingly over her...

((OOC: Mr. Morgan, your cue ;) ))

Bump!

Things that go BUMP in the night...

BUMPzorz to da maxorz! Ahem.

Anyone who was silly enough to attack an ImPetroCo facility would find themselves being fired on by the Imperial Guard, and Col. Blubberworth's heroic single-handed defence of a Vital Facility would garner him a Peerage when he was rotated back to Roycelandia proper.

In the meantime the Dreadnought offshore had targetted the secessionist Hindustani ship and opened fire on it with a massive Broadside from all four of her turrets...

OCC: Sorry for that guys. Idea aborted.

OOC: sorry for the delay and while i ahd soemthign a bit different for morgan arriving in the city this will do.

IC:
Morgan grimaced as shards and splinters eurpted from bullet impacts around the window he had been using as a firing position.
"F***! F***! F***!" he swore as he scrambled for his radio

"Dragonfly Dragonfly! Where the hell is that air cover you are supposed to have been giving me"

"We're trying boss but the fecking shilkas have already lit up dragonflys 3 and 4. We can't get close enough."

"Did someone say Skilkas? oh those are fun!"

"Who the feck is this?"

"Why it us the big black birds o doom, aka ghost talon 1 and ghost talon 2, here to save the day as usual."

With that the 2 balck shapes of the gunships seemed to drift almost lazily over the city, tripple A fire began to reach up towards them, birhgt flashes easily visible even in daylight. But it was far from one sided as sheets of laser giuded rocket fire errupted from pods under the converted transport aircraft's wings. The dark shapes of the rockets hammered in on the heaviest AA postions, a Shilka may have been armoured but it wasn't armored agaisnt a direct rocket hit. With the msot direct threats dealt with, the gunships began to cirlce and their side mounted guns opened up raining a storm of death upon Ghadfi's forces. Like hail the .50cal and 30mm rounds lashed the streets, finally buying the mercs and paratroops some time.

With the Situation A bit more stable Moragn left Ivan in charge and went to try and tie up with that weird russian bird and see what news she had of Murbarak.

The noise of the battle was till intense and made even louder by the roaring of the gunships above and he coudl barely hear as the officers in Ilona's former command positon merely gestured over towards the smokign catherdral, F***!
"Ivan, listen we've got a bunch of freindlies trapped just out side the line in what is left of the catherdral, they appear to be holding but won't last much longer, i'm goignt o round up a bunch and see if i can't get them out of there, i want you to tell the talons to hold fire for 20seconds to allow us to make a run and avoid getting yankeed".

After gahtering a small team Morgan crouched behind a barracade and lsitened to the roar of the gunships, suddenly it cut off and witha yell Morgan Lept over the barracade with his G3 blazing copper jacketed death at the soem what surpirsed revolutionaries. Dashing across the street, roudns slowly started to impact aroudn him and his small team, oen or two of them being balsted from thier feet as they ran. reachign cover the mix of mafiosa and emrcs fanned out to find survivors amoungast the wreckage as the gunships started again.
Racing into the transept Morgan was greeted by a msot unusual sight of Mugade standing over the prone Ilona. Takign a breath, he raised his rilfe and gentley squeezed the trigger only for a resounding click to be heard above the din of the battle outside, a tthe noise Mugabe turned and grinned wickedly. throwing away the rifle Morgan drew a large ungainly revlover, a gift from Henderson Arms that he had never really seen the point of, such a big pistol with so few rounds simply wasn't practical but strangely enough he ahd kept hold of it.
As Morgan drew, so Mugabe began to charge towards him and moragn was forced to dodge to the side before he could get a shot off as Mugade's massive fist swung for his head. Duckign and rolling he came up and fianlly got a shot off. The large psitol bucked in his hand with arm breakign recoil as the huge bullet lanced out and caught Mugabe in the chest, the big .454" blended metal bullet pentraed mugade's body before disintegrating and blowing massive hole out his back. Mugabe Sunk to his knees but miraculously was still breathing, but not for long as Morgan had the time to properly aim his second shot that perfectly demostrated the head and watermelon analogy.


OOC: Sorry if that was a bit final but morgan is not one to go mano a mano if he can help it.

Over Port Harcourt, an Alouette III picks its way through the anti-aircraft fire and explosions. Captain Musharraf had already radioed back from Paul Vezandlebe's jeep that the fate of Nigeria is out of their hands, and that it would do best to support the anti-Ghadafist factions.

So therefore the small helicopter attempts to make radio contact with someone on the ground who would be able to give them targets. The Alouette itself wouldn't be able to do much, but the combined four (or five?) NAVLARs do pack quite a punch.

((OOC: Just assume targets have been given, LRR. Don't have time to write the cap off to this fine tale right now...))

Ilona stood up slowly, wincing as the pain shot through her left leg. Morgan offered his hand to pull her up, and although she hesitated for a moment, she took up the offer, realizing, for once, that pride had no place in a battlefield.

“Mr. Morgan...I...I’m sorry you had to get dragged into this. It’s just...I’ve been running away from my past for so long, and it finally...caught up with me. But now...now my last tie to my previous life is gone...The murderer of my father is dead...As is my past. It’s...over. Finally over...”

She mused like this for a moment, staring at the corpse of Mugabe, laughing for a moment at the irony of a man who had made a hobby of collecting shrunken heads dying in such a way. Then she shook her head violently.

“And why the hell am I telling you this? Gah. Got caught up there, for a moment....”

A beam crumbled from the ceiling, about to smash directly into Morgan’s skull. Ilona tackled him away from the beam, and they both tumbled out of the burning cathedral seconds before the entire structure collapsed.

“Now we’re even.”

She smiled smugly, and then stood up, brushing herself off and purveying her surroundings,

“Son of a...”

Ilona stared in awe at her surroundings. When she had fallen into the cathedral, her last vision of the outside had been of a few pinned down Mafiosi and Viper Unit members desperately fighting off a swarm of tanks and Gadhafist troops. Now that had all been replaced by a mob of Mafiosi, Mercenaries, and Viper Unit members coordinating the battle whilst surrounded by the flaming husks of Gadhafist tanks.

“Not bad. I’ve seen better, but that wasn’t too shabby. Now, to contact Mubarrak...”

Ilona walked over to Lorenzo, who simply stood shocked.

“What? Bladder issues again?”
“You’re...alive...”
“Yes. What else is new? Give me a f*ckin’ radio, now.”
“But you got hit by...explosion...fell...cathedral...collapsed...”
“Pfft. Trust me, that’s nothing. You should have seen the time when I did my taxes in an hour, while taking on the A-Team, neo-Nazi SS, and MacGuyver inside a plummeting and flaming zeppelin. NOW GIVE ME THE DAMN RADIO!”
“You did your own taxes!?!”
“The radio! Now!”

She snatched the radio, and dialed Mubarrak’s frequency.

“Mubarrak! Battle progress?”
“Excellent! With the Mercs, Hindustanis, Roiks, Vipers, and Mafiosi on the inside and the rest of my men on the outside, we’ve completely trapped the Gadhafists, and are ripping them to shreds. I’m mopping up the re-AAUUUGHH!”

A loud explosion roared through the radio, and all that could be heard later was static.

“Mubarrak? Mubarrak! MUBARRAK!”
“....”
_________________________________________________________________
“Onwards! Onwards!”

Mubarrak yelled, his voice the typical mix of rage and joy a seasoned warrior might expect from a victorious commander. Whilst the battle still raged, it was clear now that the tide had begun turn. Gadhafist forces were being pushed back at every corner, beaten on every street, slaughtered in every alley.

The M1A2 Abrams he rode in (and sometimes on if he felt like barking a few rallying cries) grumbled, churning up the asphalt streets of Port Harcourt. Mubarrak’s team was pursuing a gang of fleeing RPG wielding insurgents, until a slight glance to the right chilled Mubarrak to the bone.

“STOP!”

Screeeech! The treads ground to a halt, leaving vicious looking patterns on the street. He barked over the radio.

“Main group, pursue the enemy! Niikta, take over command. My tank, head to the right. We’re taking a detour…”

Unsure of the reasoning for the detour, but knowing better than to question Mubarrak’s orders, the tank crew rolled to the right, into a desolate, empty, and narrow street. It was eerily empty, with not a single soul in sight. One on side laid a towering gray factory, on the other a tall apartment complex with a small café at the bottom.

It seemed like any other street.

But it wasn’t.

It was… that street. The street of shattered hopes, the boulevard of broken dreams.

Where ten years ago…

Mubarrak’s thoughts were suddenly cut off by a radio call from Ilona. He talked to her for a moment, until…

BLAM!

A thick explosion burst out directly in front of the tank. Mubarrak had climbed onto the top to better survey this fateful street, and in the end that was what had saved him. The explosion sent thick shards of shrapnel directly through the front, killing the crew instantly. Instead of death, Mubarrak was granted a swift flight backwards, ending in a direct crash into the wall.

“Urghhh…”

He moaned as his body painfully slid down the wall and slumped onto the gravel. He tried to get up, but only collapsed in a mess of blood, sweat, and tears.

“God…My friends…Yet another casualty of this damned street! No…Sally…”

Mubarrak clutched his head in agony, as the painful memories of his wife’s deatb merged with the guilt over the death of the tank crew. The emotions he had held a lid on for so long, kept bitterly locked inside, burst out at that moment, as he returned to the very street where, ten years ago, that fatal car crash had ended his hopes for a happy life by killing the woman he loved. All had thought that he had moved on, forgotten about Sally and made peace with the grief. But instead, Mubarrak couldn’t let go. He knew it was destroying him, eating him inside, but instead of dealing with it, instead of making peace with his loss, he clung to it, letting the rage, thirst for vengeance, and sadness simmer within him.

And now, the shock of war and the return to the fateful place had caused him to snap, for his long held rage and sorrow to explode within him. His mind simply snapped, collapsing into a million shards.

“I walk a lonely road, the only one that I have ever known”

Choking back tears, he raised his head to find the source of the mysterious song.

“You…”

Apparenlty, the street wasn’t as empty as it seemed. In what was a truly bizarre sight, a finely dressed (well the pants, anyway---the man was, for some reason or another, bare-chested), relaxing man listened to a radio while calmly sipping a fine wine. What made this sight bizarre was the fact that besides his table, the entire café was a bombed out, ravaged slice of hell.

“Hello, Mubarrak.”

And of course, what was even more bizarre was that the man in the café was none other than the brutal dictator of Nigeria, Gadhafi.

“What…what…”
“Oh, how did I end up here? I knew you would come here. I remember what happened here ten years ago. The rebellion is entirely focused on you, Mubarrak. Without you, they fall apart. Sadly, that IED my men planted was worthless. It looks like I’ve turned from spectator to executioner.”
“I will make you pay for what you did to her, Gadhafi…”
“Bah! So weak and human! You’re like all of these worthless ants in this worthless country! You care so much about your own little emotional bullsh*t! I mean, look at what’s it done to you! I’d forgotten all about this whore until your name jogged my memory! Ten years you’ve wasted obsessing over this! Can’t you see the revolution is all that matters!?! Who cares if a few ants get crushed along the way!?!”

Mubarrak raised his head and glared at Gadhafi. His eyes were full of bleary rage, ringed with the signs of too little sleep and too much effort, bloodshot with pain.

“I do.”
“That’s why you’re going to die! ”

Gadhafi snatched the pistol in his holster, and aimed it directly at Mubarrak. The bleeding man attempted to stand up, but he struggled in vain. Two bullets slammed into his chest, and he screamed with pain. Gadhafi grinned like the bloodthirsty idiot he was. He then pulled a camera off the table, and strolled over to Mubarrak.

“Now, a little bit of evidence to show to the press, and I can get the hell out of here. I’d stay to enjoy your misery, but the show I have planned for this city is quite spectacular. I needed a photo of your death to dishearten any supporters you have left in the country. With that, plus my little backup plan kicking in here, everything you’ve ever worked for will have failed, Mubarrak. I’d tell you to give my regards to the whore when you go to hell, but I’m not deranged religious fanatic, now am I? Workers of the world unite…FOR GADHAFI! HA! HA! HA!”

His laughter echoed as he walked away from the dying Mubarrak.

“FREEZE, you bastard! DROP THE WEAPON!”
“?”

He swiveled around, only to witness the sight of Ilona, Morgan, and a full squad of heavily armed Nigerian soldiers. He raised his hands in the air, and dropped the gun.

“Damn, I really should stop spending so much time gloating, manically laughing, revealing my evil plan…”

Suddenly, Mubarrak wearily rose to his feet. He waved off the gunmen.

“This asshole’s mine…YAHH!”

Mubarrak delivered a bone crunching punch to Gadhafi’s jaw, sending spit and blood splatteing across the street. Gadhafi, a former champion boxer, immediately snapped to a fighting poise.

“So that’s how it’s going to be, eh? You think you can take me, huh? Idiot!”

Gadhafi unleashed a blazing barrage of punches at Mubarrak’s chest. The general was too weary and wounded to even attempt a block, and he staggered back, coughing up blood.

“You fool! I was the world champion! You were blown out of a tank and shot twice! You have no chance!”

Gadhafi feinted a left punch in the head, only to duck down and rise up with a devastating uppercut. Some of the Nigerian soldiers tensed, but Ilona raised her hand.

Gadhafi brutally pummeled Mubarrak, hitting him again and again. But every time, Mubarrak came right back, refusing to surrender.

“:Why…won’t…you… DIE!!? ”
“….”
“C’mon, don’t you want to visit that delightful little whore in your imaginary afterlife?!?”
“Stop…CALLING her that!”

Something…something changed.

After a man’s mind collapses, he has two options. The first is to continue in this mental morass, and lose all sanity and hope. To allow his emotions to destroy him, and turn him into a raging beast.

The second is…to fight. To pull himself out of his personal hell, and use the emotions to become more powerful than ever before.

Mubarrak went with option number one.

It had been too much. The war, his wife, the taunting, the wounds, the exhaustion…He simply snapped at that moment.

“YAAAARGGHHH!”

As if possessed by a demon of war, he lashed out. Newfound strength flowed through his veins, fueled by pure rage. Punch after punch was barely blocked by Gadhafi, until he could block no more. Right hook, left jab, uppercut, roundhouse kick…All smashed Gadhafi to pieces, His crumpled body lay on the ground, and Mubarrak pulled him up by his head.

“Wait…no…please...I’ll tell you…I’ll tell you how to deactivate it…”
”I WILL KILL YOU!” he screamed, his throat hoarse with rage and fatigue.
“And send the entire city with you…?”
“You’re bluffing!”
”I knew this city was a prime target! That’s why I had every oil well lined with explosives! And it’s set to blow in an hour! The flames will kill everyone!”
“Liar!”

As Mubarrak reared his last punch, Ilona spoke out.

“Wait! Morgan…you worked for the oil companies! Is this true?”

Morgan nodded bitterly.
“It’s true. It was part of the bastard’s contract. I never thought he was crazy enough to use them, though.”
“Why didn’t the corporations disarm them when Gadhafi’s regime started crumbling?”
”Didn’t have enough time. You have to be careful with these things. They’re buried in incredibly hard to reach places, built with a hell of a lot of safeguards, and set to blow with one slight mistake. Didn’t know the bastard could remotely activate it, though. He’s not bluffing, I just got a call from some worried officials who pretty much confirmed the activation sequence’s been started up.”
“F*ck.”
“That pretty much sums it up.”

Gadhafi grinned uneasily.

“Let me flee the country and I’ll deactivate it.”
“You would trust me?”
”No. Which is why I require an escort of my men.”
“How can I know you wouldn’t simple flee and leave us to die?”
”It’s too late for that. If I don’t disarm the bombs, I’ll die as well.”
“But…but…I…I…I can’t let you live! After…”

Ilona yelled out Mubarrak’s name, but it was to no avail. All that consumed him was his thirst for vengeance. As the clock ticked, his rage caused him to brutally beat their last hope for survival. Mubarrak kicked Gadhafi in the head, knocking him against the wall, and then repeatedly punched him as he lay on the ground. The soldiers held their fire, wishing to kill neither of the two men.

Ilona ran forward, accompanied by Morgan, but it was soon evident that Gadhafi’s remaining time on earth was shorter than the sprinting distance to Mubarrak. It was eerily strange and incredibly senseless that the lives of millions would be lost because of the delay caused by one smoldering tank blocking the narrow street.

“Mubarrak! Don’t do this!”
”HE KILLED HER!”
“So what? How will leaving millions to die in any way bring her back?!?”
”….”
“Mubarrak! It happened ten years ago! You can’t forever live in the past! You can’t let it destroy your future!”
“How do you….?”
“You talk in your sleep, Mubarrak. It’s haunted you every night I’ve seen you.”
“….”
“Do you think she would have wanted it to end this way…?”
“….”

Ilona and Morhan ran ferociously, but Mubarrak raised his hand for what appeared to be a final punch.

“Mubarrak”

His fist froze.

“Mubarrak, my love”
“What…Sally…?”
“Yes.”
“I…”
“You love me. I know. But you can’t do this. Not to yourself, not to everyone around you. Don’t let your rage be your downfall. It’s over Mubarrak. I died. Nothing can bring me back. Killing him won’t do that.”
“I know…But…”
“Live on, my love. Honor my memory by remaining the kind and heroic man I loved.

Faced with the gates of hell, a man pulled back with the words of an angel. Was it the actual departed voice of Mubarrak’s wife speaking to him? Or simply his guilty conscience taking whatever form it could to convince his feverish mind? Perhaps that answer shall never be known, but perhaps it doesn’t really matter.

Mubarrak dropped the delirious and battered Gadhafi onto the ground. Ilona and Morgan finally caught up, having clambered over the smoldering tank in record time.

“Disarm it. Now.”
“Mubarrak?”, Ilona asked, a hint of emotion sliding across her face.
“Disarm it. Now.”

Gadhafi trembled, and said, “Bring me my escort…And take me to the cathedral…”
“I thought you remotely activated it?”
“There was no reason to remotely deactivate it unless I was endangered. If I was endangered, I could do it myself. I was more worried about it being wrongly deactivated than wrongly activated.”
“You cared more about killing your enemies than saving innocents?”
“Of course.”

Mubarrak snarled, and grabbed one of the radios from the Nigerian soldiers, tossing it to Gadhafi. The dictator dialed the correct frequency, barked some orders, and within minutes a platoon of Gadhafist soldiers arrived. Of course, throughout the whole time Mubarrak held a gun planted firmly to Gadhafi’s head. The battered combatants were supported by their respective soldiers as they approached their vehicles.

The two squads formed a temporary truce as they raced through the streets of Port Harcourt. Finally, they arrived at the ashen remains of the Cathedral. The soldiers there, loyal to Mubarrak, were shocked at the sight of a Gadhafist contingent calmly accompanying Mubarrak’s forces.

“Sir, the battle is won! But what are you…?”
“No time to explain, Lieutenant. Move out of the way.”

A group of medics rushed to treat the wounded general, but he waved them away.

“No…time…”

The group stormed into the ruined cathedral, which consisted of little more a stack of ashes and rubble. They clambered over the ruins, until they reached the one item of the church that lay unharmed; the wooden statue of Jesus. Much to almost everyone’s shock and horror, Gadhafi punched through it’s skull, sending splinters of wood everywhere. Several of Mubarrak’s soldiers tensed, and some attempted to lunge at the crazed dictator before being stopped by their comrades. Underneath the statue’s head lay a metallic screen with several switches and a ever lessening time display.

“Ah! Brilliant plan I had! No one would suspect that underneath a wooden statue of d Jesus---coated in fireproof substances, of course---would be the deactivator to the array of bombs in Port Harcourt! After all, I’m a Stalinist who abhors all religious nonsense, especially that soft hearted tripe called Chris---“

SMACK!

Ilona thwacked Gadhafi over the head.

“Less ranting, more deactivating, bitch.”
“How dare---“

SMACK!

“Listen, I don’t give a damn about your enlightened views of religion, bastard. Just deactivate the f*cking bomb. There’s a fat white guy named Bubba who’s waiting for you.”
“Alright, alr---“

SMACK!

“What was th---“

SMACK!

“Alright, alright.”

SMACK!

“Hey!”
“That last one was just for fun. Now hurry up!”

With seconds on the clock, Gadhafi applied the usual range of DNA, fingerprint, retina, and voice pattern scanning. He rapidly began to type a password.

00:05 seconds remaining

“FASTER!” screamed Ilona.

SMACK!

00:04 seconds remaining

“Something tells me that that’s not helpin’ him go any faster…” commented Morgan.

00:03 seconds remaining

Gadhafi’s fingers became a blur as he furiously inputted the necessary codes.

00:02 seconds remaining

“Just a bit more…” he muttered.

Time froze, eons passed, civilizations rose and collapsed, species were created, evolved, and went extinct, stars formed from the swirling masses of the cosmos and died in flaming glory, and millions of humans were born, lived their lives, and died. Time stood still as that final second passed, as the fate of the city lay in the hands of a murderous dictator concerned only with his own welfare.

Ping!

“Self Destruct Systems Deactivated.”

Yet the expected relief did not come.

Not just yet.

Gadhafi turned around, his face a bitter mask.

“Yes. Yes. I know. A surrender treaty. The battle is lost, and continuing to fight will only ensure my death. But! You must guarantee me and my closest advisors the right to safely flee the country!”

Mubarrak nodded to his men wearily, and they scrambled to bring the wounded general the surrender document previously penned by the Mafiya’s legal experts. The clause about Gadhafi’s guaranteed safe passage outside of the nation was quickly added, and both men sat down at a hastily prepared table. It certainly didn’t look like the historic, dramatic meeting of opposing generals one would expect in an elegant portrait. Instead, two battered, bruised, black eyed, bleeding, rib fractured, practically dying men feebly signed a scrap of paper on top of a plastic table. All of this was emplaced on the ashes and ruins of a cathedral, and done with a ballpoint pen. It most certainly did not look resemble the ornate Courthouse in which Lee surrendered to Grant, or the grand Kremlin in which the corrupt Mafiya puppet regime resigned and surrendered power to Vladimir Putin. But still, it held a certain symbolic charm, as if these two men, battered and surrounded by ruins, encapsulated the entire war they had put their nation through.

As soon as the final signature was added, the tension that had built up over the last few minutes---no, the last few months, for there had been no respite from the tension ever since Ilona had interrupted Mubarrak’s bath---burst out. As if a knife had cut open a plastic bag full of water, relief poured across the group, the city, and the entire nation.

“THE WAR IS OVER!” screamed a random Nigerian standing on his balcony.

Cheers erupted in the streets, as soldiers lay down their arms and joined the celebrations. Someone had managed to hack into the city’s Public Announcement System, and instead of broadcasting endless propagandist drivel, it played “Celebrate The Times” as well as various Elvis tunes. Confetti streamed through the air as the people danced in joy.

The raucous atmosphere had affected even the circle of elites around Mubarrak and Gadhafi. A spontaneous drinking contest emerged between the Roiks, Black Mambas, and Mafiosi. (And the Roiks seemed poised to win…) In a fit of joy, Ilona kissed Morgan, although blushing heavily afterwards as she attempted to slip away from the scene. Two Nigerian soldiers, caught in the passion of the moment, suddenly discovered they were actually lesbians. (Much to the enjoyment of the Roycelandian Officers, who mentioned that there were tax breaks for that sort of thing back in Roycelandia…) Several Mafiosi already began setting up impromptu bars (that eerily resembled childhood lemonade stands). The Black Mambas and Mafiosi dueled fiercely…in a break dancing contest. A squad of Hindustanis busted out an impromptu Sitar jamming session. Even some Gadhafists, while obviously not happy with the result, joined the festivities, glad that the war was over and that they would soon go back to their homes and loved ones.

The war zone of Port Harcourt had become a gigantic block party, for Nigeria had finally found hope. Hope that their destiny was not to live enchained to a maniac’s revolutionary fantasies, hope that their lives could be punctuated by peace and joy, not eternal fear, hope that they would finally have the one thing that all humans, whether they were Men, Women, Christians, Muslims, Blacks, Whites, Americans, Nigerians, Farmers, or CEOs, desired.

Freedom.

And so they celebrated through the day and into the night, joyously awaiting the fulfillment of their hopes and dreams.


_______________________________________________________________
-Port Harcourt International Airport-
Mubarrak turned a weary head towards Gadhafi’s direction. Both leaders were supported by their men, having so brutally beaten each other that neither could walk without help. (Mubarrak noted with some pleasure that Gadhafi required two men to steady him while Mubarrak only required one.) Wearily, the men saluted each other, with pure hatred in their eyes. Gadhafi staggered away into a modified civilian jet, flanked by one thousand of his elite troops. While Mubarrak loathed considering what havoc a madman like Gadhafi could inflict on the world with one thousand of his elite soldiers, it was a necessary concession. Otherwise, the war could have been prolonged indefinitely, with thousands of Gadhafist loyalists plaguing any new government with an endless insurgency.

And so, Gadhafi departed for parts unknown, desperately seeking asylum in a friendly haven, with rumors pointing to a Dra-Pol whose political views had shifted to become highly compatible with Gadhafi’s…

Mubarrak turned away from the roaring fleet of planes, his leg screaming with pain as it traversed with the aid of crutches.

A little more pain, and this’ll finally be over…
______________________________________________________________
-Former Gadhafist Mansion, The Capital-

It was the largest and most illegal party ever held on African soil. A gigantic drunken gala of suits and ties was held in a obscenely ornate mansion once belonging to Gadhafi himself. This party was not any ordinary party; it was a Mafiya Congress. Not since the days of the Tsar had this occurred. It was a grand party and meeting place where every single Mafiya kingpin, from the Neo-Anarchan drug lords to the Tokyo prostitute-mongers to the Russian upper leadership, everyone who was anyone in the Russian Mafiya was here (except for the mysterious Red Leader). Even a representative from Pacific Lotus had been invited, in order to revitalize the decaying Red Lotus alliance.

Ilona, for once wearing something vaguely decent, a simple black dress, (obviously not of her own free will---Alexandrov had insisted) stood bored beside the paunchy man who ran most of the Mafiya’s day-to-day operations, as he chatted away with a particularly attractive female leader of a Southeastern Asian drug smuggling operation. Ending the conversation with a wink and a small card listing Alexandrov’s room number, the brown haired and smiling Alexandrov turned to Ilona.

“Well, well, Ilona. Not half bad, what you’ve done here. I knew the only person remotely capable of pulling off this operation was you! And you did it! Imagine that, owning an entire nation! An entire nation, which shall be the cornerstone of the Mafiya Empire! The Red Leader is very pleased, Ilona, as am I. So now, go ahead, enjoy yourself! Get yourself some bottles of vodka, a fine room, a bevy of handsome men---or women, if you swing that way---and have some fun for once. Loosen up and have some fun, Ilona. You’ve certainly earned it. Oh, and if it is that suit your fancy, be sure to invite me and be sure to make those women bisexual.”

Ilona rolled her eyes initially at Alexandrov’s ranting, and then narrowed them.

“I don’t do this because I enjoy it. The death, the killing, the destruction…It’s…”
“What’s wrong with you, Ilona? You’re the gung-ho killer who refused promotion in order to remain close to the action!”
“I know…It’s just…I ran away from home to escape the piddling morality and nauseating idealism of my father…The Mafiya became my home, and the Red Leader my father. But…I saw those men die for something. Have you ever seen a man die with a smile on his face, Alexandrov?”
“Well, sometimes when they OD…”
“That’s not my point. These men died for something , Alexandrov. I’ve seen Nigerian soldiers happily march off to their deaths in order to defend their ideals; I’ve seen a man suppress his own thirst for vengeance in order to save the lives of others; I’ve seen a foreigner, a mercenary, no less, leap into a flaming cathedral and go toe-to-toe with the deadliest serial killer Africa has ever seen just so he can save a woman he’s never met. What about us, Alexandrov? Why do we do this? So we can die senselessly in a gunfight with the police? Or rot away in a Russian prison?”
“Well, I intend to die in a four poster bed whilst in an alcoholic stupor and surrounded by a bevy of large breasted bi-sexual women…”

Ilona shook her head, and walked off away from a puzzled Alexandrov, into the balmy Nigerian night. The man just didn’t understand. He was a hedonist in the purest form. His life was one of money, pleasure, sex, and luxury. As long as his job could continue to fuel that playboy lifestyle, he didn’t care what he had to do. He was one of those determined to squeeze every drop of ecstasy out of life. But Ilona…

Ilona had changed. The war had changed her. She just couldn’t understand what to do anymore. She’d blindly followed the Red Leader most of her life, grateful for saving her from the frigid Russian streets. But the endless fighting, devoid of any moral justification, any reason at all except money, money, and more money…How much more money did they need? How many more drugs did they have to cram down the throats of children? How many more businesses did they have to bully into submission? How many more opponents did they have to gun down? Crime was a parasite, one that never stopped draining the wealth of the world. But she had more wealth than she ever needed or wanted. So why continue? Wasn’t her debt to the Red Leader repaid? Was it time to do something with meaning for once, instead of the endless, pointless killing? She’d resolved her troubled past, made peace with it. No longer did she need to drown her rage and regret with her missions. She had accepted that what had happened had happened, and constantly dwelling over her rage at her father for caring only about his idealism and her regret over abandoning him would do no good. Mugabe, her father’s murderer, had sealed the past with his own death. So why, when she no longer needed to run, did she continue to do so?

These thoughts swirled in her mind like the galaxies above her, as she walked across the dark streets of the capital.

As the bustling Mafiya Congress settled down, a large television screen flickered on in the main auditorium. It displayed the face of Mubarrak, which was greeted with a rousing round of applause.

“Ladies and Gentlemen of the Russian Mafiya, you have my eternal gratitude for aiding our quest for freedom and through your money and men, guaranteeing the ouster of that depraved tyrant, Gadhafi. However, I know that Nigeria can never be free when under the grips of a corrupt and depraved criminal organization.”

Every glass in the room tumbled to the floor, sending glass and alcohol all over the elegant tiles.

“Therefore, with the power bestowed upon me by the Divine Russian Empire and as an agent of the KGB and as Governor General of The Divine Russian Imperial Protectorate of Nigeria, I hereby inform you that you have all been sentenced to death. Good day.”

The elegant party collapsed into chaos. Everywhere, Mafiosi scrambled to the doors and windows, only to realize that they had been sealed. Flames erupted all around them, and the entire upper Mafiya leadership died in one fiery blast. An overhead bomber squadron, auspiciously for “security” had been the culminating element of a plan crafted by Vladimir Putin himself. Mubarrak had been on the payroll of the KGB since the days of the Cold War. The USSR had needed someone to monitor their ally, and Mubarrak, then still a loyal Communist, happily agreed to their offer. He had changed of course, after Sally’s callous murder had forced him to re-examine everything in his life, but so had Russia. The KGB still paid him, and when the Mafiya came sniffing around his doorstep, he, sensing an opportunity, immediately contacted Moscow. Vladimir, seeing a historic moment, hatched a scheme that would not only crush the hated Mafiya once and for all, but also add a valuable territory to Russia’s empire and grant the people of Nigeria freedom.

To further clench this plan, Operation: Headless Snake had been launched. The single largest KGB operation in history, it was the culmination of thousands of sting operations. With their leaders gone, Mafiya units were uncoordinated and bewildered, which left them vulnerable and prone to KGB units poised to strike. In a single day, thousands upon thousands of anti-Mafiya operations were conducted, leaving the once powerful Russian Mafiya in pieces, shattered and shredded apart. Billions of pounds of drugs, millions of weapons, trillions of dollars in assets, and tens of thousands of criminals were seized. Local KGB commanders had been confused at first, wondering why their individual sting operations had been delayed so long by Moscow. Explanations for this had ranged from simple bureaucratic delay to a possible alliance with the Mafiya. However, as thousands of Mafiosi battled KGB agents in bitter duels to the death, the KGB infiltrators realized that Moscow had waited until the optimal moment when the Mafiya’s head had been sliced off and most of their divisions had been infiltrated. Flushed into the open, confused, and leaderless, the Mafiya began to crumble. In most places, they were overwhelmed and quickly captured/killed. However, in Neo-Anarchos, former Marimaia, Grande Peru, Japan (Mainly Tokyo’s prostitution districts), Russia, Quinntonia (Mainly Chicago), China, the Phillipines, and the newly Bedgellenized districts of Jharkland and West Bengal bitter firefights emerged between KGB agents and Mafiya squads, with both sides desperately appealing to local authorities for aid.


Mubarrak, now forced to rely on crutches, spoke quietly with Morgan on a balcony overlooking the Mafiya Congress’ mansion. Mubarrak had refused to accept anyone but Morgan as a representative of the foreign oil companies, and they had negotiated oil contracts and payment for the foreign mercenaries when the mansion was ripped apart by Mubarrak’s bombers. Morgan was obviously shocked, but Mubarrak simply smiled and sipped from his champagne glass. He explained to Morgan the entire plan, how he had been working for the Russians all along, and how the Mafiya was finished once and for all. A small, flitting shadow caught Mubarrak’s eye.

“No…”

He stared down at the ground from his balcony at Ilona, who was stumbling around dazed and confused from the enormous blast.

“Morgan! I cannot let her live! She’s become a legend in Mafiya circles! Her reputation could help her rebuild the shattered elements of the Mafiya! She must be killed! I’ll pay you anything, just kill her! There’s an ATV in the garage, take the keys, go!”

I’m sorry Ilona, my friend.
_____________________________________________________________________
-Nigerian Diplomatic Communications-

-Hindustan-

The new democratic Nigerian government wishes to express its thanks to your aid in the struggle against the corrupt totalitarian Gadhafi. I apologize for keeping you in the dark for so long, but here is the truth: I am an agent of the KGB, and have been so for a long time. Nigeria is now a mainly autonomous Russian protectorate. However, we initially will not be governed by Russian economic policy. Vladimir himself has told me that although he abhors socialism, he believes it necessary in the begin stages of development for a nation that lacks the basic foundations needed for capitalism. Therefore, I, as the temporary Governor General of the Russian Imperial Protectorate of Nigeria (we shall hold elections as soon as things stabilize) request three things: One, humanitarian aid to relieve the immediate sufferings of the war ravaged Nigerian people, two, any aid for our extensive public works programs (to build bridges, schools, hospitals, roads, etc.), and three, to recognize our government as a legitimate one. In exchange, lucrative construction contracts will be offered to Hindustani corporations.

-Strathdonia-

I apologize for keeping you in the dark for so long, but here is the truth: I am an agent of the KGB, and have been so for a long time. Nigeria is now a mainly autonomous Russian protectorate. However, we initially will not be governed by Russian economic policy. Vladimir himself has told me that although he abhors socialism, he believes it necessary in the begin stages of development for a nation that lacks the basic foundations needed for capitalism. Therefore, I, as the temporary Governor General of the Russian Imperial Protectorate of Nigeria (we shall hold elections as soon as things stabilize) request three things: One, humanitarian aid to relieve the immediate sufferings of the war ravaged Nigerian people, two, Strathdonian peacekeepers to stabilize the situation(Russian troops would likely be unwelcome and are not available anyway) and three, to recognize our government as a legitimate one. In exchange, lucrative construction contracts will be offered to Strathdonian corporations.

-Roycelandia-

The new democratic Nigerian government wishes to express its thanks to your aid in the struggle against the corrupt totalitarian Gadhafi. I apologize for keeping you in the dark for so long, but here is the truth: I am an agent of the KGB, and have been so for a long time. Nigeria is now a mainly autonomous Russian protectorate. However, we initially will not be governed by Russian economic policy. Vladimir himself has told me that although he abhors socialism, he believes it necessary in the begin stages of development for a nation that lacks the basic foundations needed for capitalism. Therefore, I, as the temporary Governor General of the Russian Imperial Protectorate of Nigeria (we shall hold elections as soon as things stabilize) request three things: One, humanitarian aid to relieve the immediate sufferings of the war ravaged Nigerian people, two, any aid for our extensive public works programs (to build bridges, schools, hospitals, roads, etc.), and three, to recognize our government as a legitimate one. In exchange, lucrative construction contracts will be offered to Roycelandian corporations, and all previous arrangements you had with the Mafiya. (You receive a western strip of Nigeria that compromises 10% of the nation)
______________________________________________________________________

Publicly, the new government’s status as a Russian protectorate in not disclosed, although heavy Russian donations to the new government are announced, as well as the democratic and mildly leftist nature of the government. (And the national anthem has been announced as the “Diff’rent Strokes” theme song.)
______________________________________________________________________

-Warri-

When the UE agents had intended to create ethnic strife in Nigeria, they had both failed and succeeded. They failed because the conflicts were limited to one city, as most eyes were on the larger Gadhafi/Black Mamba war, but succeeded beyond their wildest dreams by causing a truly horrific level of damage in Warri. Or rather, the smoldering rubble in the ground formerly known as Warri.

Initially, the rioting had been limited to the Itsekir and Ijaw. That was hell by itself. But then the Gadhafist civilian loyalists came in, 100,000 strong. Blood was in their eyes, fueled by years of propaganda and indoctrination, and catalyzed by the slow collapse of the regime they worshipped with every breath. Madness flowed through their veins as they attacked all minority groups, shifting their hatreds and vendettas by the hour. They tried to slaughter all Jews, Christians, and anti-Gadhafists, but these proved hard to identify, so they focused their homicidal rage on whites. This failed to satiate their bloodlust, for the supply of whites was vastly limited, and none of their efforts seemed to curb the halting decay of the Gadhafist regime. They turned to all out warfare, and a three way struggle between the Itsekiri, Ijaw, and Gadhafists left the city completely ruined. Since no one was actually out to conquer the city, with their only goal being of destruction, it was leveled by endless volleys of weaponry. Refugees only trickled out, as most were killed when attempting to flee, and millions lay dead. It was perhaps one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the 21st century so far, and its only testament was the blood stained rubble in the ground. While the world watched the clashes of grand armies, the plight of the innocent and downtrodden was ignored. The legacy of Gadhafi’s bloodstained regime would be preserved in this spot, along with the memory that, yet again, the world’s powers had left the Dark Continent to suffer another unspeakable tragedy. (The guiltiest, perhaps, were the Russians, who had triggered the entire war, and the Elians, who had greedily reignited ethnic strife in order to pocket oil profits.)

It would go down as one of the most spectacular dodgy-back room deals in history, but His Majesty was a very happy chap indeed.

Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Scattered Imperial Guard units were doing their best to maintain order and prevent looting, which wasn't as hard as it sounded since half the city was drunk and the other half was either high or getting laid.

The battles had been hard fought, and several Imperial Guard had been killed in the fighting, defending the Roycelandian Embassy and various refineries and other facilites. Still, it had not been in vain, and a International News photographer captured a prize-winning photo of two Imperial Guard lighting cigars from the burning wreckage of a Ghadaffist T-54 Tank.

Things were looking up for Nigeria.

Port Royal, Roycelandia

"Gentlemen, the War in Nigeria is over!" His Imperial Majesty announced to the room full of Very Important, Powerful, and Influential People.

There was a spontaneous round of applause.

"It gets better. Despite the fact Nigeria is now a Russian Protectorate, we have been granted the western 10% of the country as Roycelandian Territory. I've decided, because I'm the Emperor and I can do whatever the hell I like, that Roycelandian Nigeria will become part of Roycelandian Equatorial Africa, with a Lieutenant Governor overseeing each of Nigeria and South-West Gabon. I shall announce the Governor-General of Roycelandian Equatorial Africa by the end of next week. And now, without further ado, it is time for the Ceremonial Victory Dance!"

"You put your down, down, and thrust your pelvis, Huh! Thrust your pelvis, Huh! Thrust your pelvis, Huh!..."

Wiggles, who had the misfortune to walk in on this, sighed, and decided he'd attend to the provision of Humanitarian Aid and so on himself, rather than bothering the room full of people doing the Funky Duckman.

Communique to the Imperial Russian Foreign Office

Gentlemen,

The Roycelandian Government congratulates you on your handling of the situation in Nigeria, and wishes to confirm that we will provide engineering teams, construction materials, and humanitarian aid to rebuild the country, as well as military aid to ensure adequate law and order.

We look forward to working with the Russians in this endeavour, and will formally demarcate the Roycelandian Territory as soon the details are finalised.

[Signed] Timothy Wigglesworth, Aide to His Imperial Majesty Emperor Royce I

(ooc: very nicely written M8 you shame me as always i'll trya nd get a decent IC post to follow this soon).

Bump!

(OOC: This may not be the best place for this, but it sorta fits in)

Tokyo

The red light districts were turning to chaos as the battles between KGB agents and 'Mafiyosi' continued. Despite the fact that the Pacific Lotus was at full strength in Japan after the abandonment of Peru, the Mafiya's allies offered no real support; instead the Lotus moved on the Mafiya's holdings as the Tokyo police moved in to quell the violence. Kangtian Wei promised to hand over all evidence regarding KGB involvement to the government; Japan's populace and neighbours were becoming vocally anti-Russian, and if the government had a reason to join in then so much the better.

IC:
Lilongwe, Strathdonia
To say that the Strahtdonian Government were more than a little surpirsed by the anouncement from Nigeria would be somewhat of an understatement.
As such it took the cabinet some time to actually make up its mind about how it felt about things, soemthing not helped by the foreign office's total abivelance towards Russia, on one hand the violent right wing attitude didn't exactly endear Russia towards your average strathdonian, neither did thier involvement with the evil fenian kingdoms of the Holy league. In the end though Strathdonia didn't really care for all they knew a ramapnt right wing capitalist ideaology might be the way forward for some even if it wasn't for Strathdonia.

The eventual response answeres all three requests in the afrimative with light forces and aide packages being loaded immediatly into available transports while at the same time the ghost units are quietly withdrawn.
++++++++++++++++++++++
Nigeria

Morgan Strolled out of the mansion and got behidn the wheel of the ATV but as the engine hummed into life he pasued for the moment.

"What the hell are you doing Morgan!" Yelled his concience, "you aren't some cold blooded assassin and what has that russian girl ever done to you, she saved your lfie thats what!"

"i may not be an assassin but i am a killer, look a tthe blood i have on my hands, i am far far from innocent, whats one more death if it means a bit mroe peace in the world, anyway i've got a job to do!"

"Hah some job, youa re not contracted to Mubarrak in any way!"

"For Pity's sake leave me alone"

"Oh you're afine one to talk about pity..."

And so the battle raged within Morgan's soul as he drove away towards the remains of the mafia palace.


OOC: by ATV do you mean a quad bike or a jeep? just wanting to keep thigns clear in my mind, oh and as you can tell i still can't decide what Morgan will do.

As the smoke clears over Port Harcourt, what handfull of Hindustani marines found themselves involved in the battle do their best to keep some semblance of order, standing around in their stained and dirty tropical fatigues and brandishing their Sterling and Owen SMGs. With a Type 12M frigate offshore, the scene could be Hong Kong, Brunei, or Aden decades earlier, if it wasn't for the different ensigns and insignia.

A motor launch full of fresh marines and a medical detachment, accompanied by the ubiquitous piper playing Scotland The Brave, arrives on the Port Harcourt waterfront and disembarks its passengers. While ostensibly there to secure the port facilities and airport for the arrival of humanitarian supplies, the fact that Mumbai hardly approves of the Russians no doubt escapes very few.

But nonetheless, freighters are soon on their way to Nigeria from ports along the Hindustani coast, bearing emergency food supplies, construction equipment, prefabricated shelters, and copious amounts of medical equipment including field hospital kits, ambulances, and plenty of medecine. A team of doctors, part of the very large HDF medical corps, is sent to the area aboard a chartered Boeing 707.

Shortly the first flights of Strathdonian Aid and troops arrive, the bulky forms of Belfasts digorging vast amounts of food aid while The first elements of the 2st and 2nd BAttalions, The Strathdonian Green Jackets disembark from Strathdonian Tu-154 airliners to prepare for the arrival of the rest of thier comrades.

OOC: Well, I had a quad bike in mind, but it doesn't really matter. Choose what you want. And good, it'll help keep the tension up.

IC:
The tremendous blast knocked Ilona off her feet and onto the sweltering asfalt. She stood up, brushed herself off, and gazed at the conflagration that devoured the mansion, tearing up wood, stone, and flesh. Flames licked the sky, smoke billowed into the air, and dying Mafiosi flailed pathetically.

Oddly enough, she really didn't care. Perhaps in another time Ilona would have rushed into the blaze, risking her life to aid the Mafiya she had once adored.

But now...

Nigeria had changed her. She could no longer spend her life fighting for no purpose, warring endlessly. She had now gained...a conscience. And as the Mafiya was the exact opposite of a conscience, a parasite existing only to enrich itself at the expense of innocents. She'd paid her debt to the Mafiya, and now could care less if it burned in its own rot and filth. But what to do now?

Ilona wandered, too tired to react actively to the burning of the Mafiya Mansion, but not weary enough to retire to...somewhere.

Hmmm...The annihilation of the mansion has somewhat complicated mysleeping arrangements...

So she just circled in a sleepy daze, watching the embers dance in the night sky. Suddenly, she heard a pathetic scream. She looked down, and at her feet lay Alexandrov, the Red Leader's second-in-command and the Mafiya's paunchy face to the world. She had last seen him drinking expensive wine and surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women in his arms, but now his legs were aflame, his body was oozing blood, and he was clawing at Ilona's dress with a pair of mangled arms.

"Ilona! Ilona! Please, help me...Take me to a hospital...I'll give you anything, ANYTHING! Together we can rebuild the Mafiya! Together we can have unimaginable wealth! Wealth, fame, pleasure..."

He sobbed miserably, and trembled from the pain. Ilona glared down at him, her dress swirling in the cold night breeze.

"Wealth? Pleasure? You know what I've realized, Alexandrov? The Mafiya is nothing more than a glorified frat party for thugs. You and your goddam friends just party, on every else's payroll. Killing and partying, over and over, without a point. Well it's over, punk. I've done a lot of evil things in my life, but maybe just once I can do something that would leave the world a little better than I found it. Ever heard of that concept, you bastard?"

A smirk flashed across her face.

You know what, Alexandrov? There's something I've been meaning to tell you..."

She grasped for a handgun, giving Alexandrov a generous view of her leg (which he managed to gain some perverse pleasure from, despite his imminent death---some men were just wired that way) as she brushed aside part of her dress to snatch the hand gun strapped to her leg. Ilona then aimed it directly at Alexandrov's sweating face.

He looked up at her, his eyes full of fear. His mouth began to form words that would plead for mercy, but before they could come out...

"F*ck you."

BLAM!

A man died, a woman reneged, and a Red Leader ignored. Those three individuals were the only ones capable of reforging the Mafiya.

But none would do so. The Mafiya was dead.

And so, as Alexandrov's brains showered the earth, Ilona turned towards the sound of a roaring engine, raising her gun in caution at first, but then lowering it at the sight of Morgan. Morgan was a friend, an ally, someone she felt...oddly towards...

He would never harm her.

Or would he?

-Port Harcourt-

Mubarrak had made the momentous decision to move the capital to Port Harcourt, as it now represented his largest base of support, as well as the fact that it was a major economic center. It also seemed a symbol, for if the battered city of PH survived, then so could Nigeria. Roycelandian, Strathdonian, and Hindustani aid was greeted warmly, but it still remained only a drop in the bucket. Most of Nigeria was devastated, with the war having shredded cities, shattered lives, and ruined the nation. Corruption, anarchy, and disease ran rampant, and most cities had degenerated into individual fiefdoms. The army, cooperating with Strathdonian peacekeepers, was pursuing the arduous task of reincorporating the cities back into the nation, by force if necessary, and Mubarrak himself was consumed by the task of building an entire government from scratch. The only thing functioning in Nigeria, it seemed, was the oil industry. The revenue from that, along with truly massive Russian contribution (both governmental and private, which has exasperated the already ballooning federal deficit) would serve to restock the treasury Gadhafi had so rudely looted. Nigeria was both a nation of hope and a nation of despair, whose future loomed bright, but uncertain.

Russia hopes to repair relations with Hindustan and Strathdonia through Nigeria, and all communication between the nations is warm and concilliatory.

"We have gone through many difficulties and disagreements, but now we must come together as one to rebuild the ravaged nation of Nigeria. Let us put aside the past, and build a brighter future." -------President Putin

Requests for more foreign aid, debt relief, and peacekeepers are issued, in pleading tones. (Along with tapes of starving Nigerian children...)

-Ottawa-

"In general, it seems like it is a good opportunity for Hudecia to begin reworking its foreign policy." Widjaja was extolling to the President via a conference call. "We have been aggressive for so long it gives us an excellent opportunity to begin a rewiring of the military thinking here."

The President agreed silently, unhappy that Hudecia was helping Russia, even indirectly in the process. President Lau was making her way to Moscow on a visit, so perhaps it would be brought up then.

In the meantime a Hudecian general offered to send several hundred peacekeepers as well as ship humanitarian aid to Nigeria.

After a rather lengthy deliberation, Parliament comes out in favor of reinforcing the HDF's modest peacekeeping contingent in Nigeria. To further those ends, No.3 battalion of the 5th Light Infantry Regiment is shoved aboard the HDF's two Shorts Belfast transports and spirited away to Africa. Unable to take its heavy equipment, No. 3 battalion is very much a peacekeeping unit in its present configuration. While room is made for several Mahindra jeeps and 81mm mortars, the array of missiles, light artillery, and machine guns that the average HDF combat unit can be expected to carry is not present.

The battalion takes off in olive drab tropical uniform, with slouch hats in place of helmets, and with little more than belt gear for the individual trooper. Such a state of equipment is far from alien to the light infantry regiments (Nos. 2,3,5,8,10), who are regularly called away to deploy on a moment's notice. And if heavier firepower is needed, a follow-up airlift can always bring in FV101 light tanks and 105mm howitzers...

The Roycelandian Red Cross and the Imperial Guard are stepping up their relief and peacekeeping efforts, flying in DC-3s, Sunderlands, and C-130s full of food, supplies, and equipment.

Soldiers are giving out lollies to kids, aid packages are being distributed, and a few refugees are heading for Western Nigeria, for some reason...

Roughly 800 Hudecian soldiers from the 3rd Marine Brigade, equipped with only light weapons are loaded onto an Albion class transport while several Humvees and armoured vehicles are placed on an NAOR Transport. The Hudecian Aid Society contracts out 3 Boeing 747s to begin flying humanitarian food supplies to Nigeria.

EWB (Engineers without Borders) and Medecins sans Frontieres in Hudecia begin sending specialists to help rebuild Nigeria and provide medical assistance.

China has pledged medical supplies, and water filter systems to the people of Nigeria.

Quietly, the Nigeria situation had been slightly disappointing. Elias Petroleum had certainly benefitted from the spike in crude prices caused by the war, but it was rather too brief. Ideally, the war would have dragged on for longer, much longer and crated more permanent damage to Nigeria's hydrocrabons industry. Of course that was the view of the corporate executives in Abdullah.

In Baghdad however, diplomacy continued, and with the current atmosphere of generosity by some nations who quite frankly could afford to give aid the least, it would seem rather uncompassionate if UE did nothing to help the poor suffering Nigerians. This was slightly problematic however, generally the accepted rule in respect to Africa was that the Federal Intelligence Bureau started wars, the military ended them, and someone else cleared up the mess. In theory there was the 'Joint Taskforce for International Humanitarian Contigencies' (JTIHC) with members from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defence, Infrastructure and Public Health that was supposed to organise various agencies and NGOs for exactly this type of situation. This never actually worked in practice though, since each Ministry typically passed the buck back and forth as to who should be responsible for any action. As far as the NGOs were concerned, the situation was no better. The largest international relief charity operating from United Elias was the Elias Red Crescent Society. The reputation of this organisation had been hugely undermined when it had been expelled from post-war Gabon after allegedly handing out aid only when it was accompanied by copies of the Holy Qu'ran. This had also meant that it lost funding from the highly secular government and many private donations as well.

Most unusually the government of the protectorate of Belize informed the JTIHC that it would accept responsibility for providing UE's contribution to the aid operation. Over the coming days, Elias Air Force EA-80 transport planes would deploy a nearly thousand strong force to Port Harcourt, consisting of the 1st Belize Engineers Battalion, the 1st Belize Medical Battalion and the 2nd Belize Military Police Company, along with a group of journalists to document UE's compassion and the success of its overseas territory's indigenous defence force.

IC:

Morgan switched off the engine and slowly dismounted the jeep, his hand slowly lossening the flap on his holster, his eyes never leaving Ilona.

Oddly his hand began to shake, What the Feck was happening to him! He hand't flet like this since...
"Since before Jennifer was blown to bits by that Irish Bastard's bomb," yelled his inner self. "You're fecking falling in love again you big Arse!"

Slowly Morgan refastened his holster and reached instead for his radio.
"Hey Ivan we need another passport, yeah Strathdonian will do, as for the name, I think Aileen Stewart will do the job, yes it is who you think it is now stop your bloody sniggering."

Finally he turned and met Ilona's eyes.
"Some times i wish had left his sorry arse for the Esties to get hold of but at least he's compenetant." He half smiled as he passed her the jeep keys and a security pass, these should get you to the main compound where Ivan is waiting for you. You might have to spend a few weeks on a tramp freighter but you are now off the radar." Morgan actually blushed as he handed her a small business card, "here's my contact details if you ever, you know... feel like getting in touch. Now if you will excuse me i have an excution to arrange, i don't suppose you ahve soem handy items to help the KGB identify your corpse?"

She smiled tiredly as he passed her the keys. She was confused for a moment as to why she needed to flee, but then her face sharpened with anger.

"That bastard! Mubarrak! I knew he arranged this whole betrayal thing, and I don't f*ckin' care, but...I..didn't...I should have known better. I've grown too...Never mind."

The rage on her face dimmed as she looked upon Morgan, and she noticed the trembling in his hands on the red that streaked across his face.

Was he...?

No. Of course not. Such things didn't happen to her. She was a killer, a loner. She may have found a bit more idealism now, but still...

"I'm sorry, Derek. I am...was one of the Mafiya's top hitwomen. It was my jobnot to have some handy items that the KGB could use to identify my corpse...They do have my DNA from my stint in prison...They're using intense firebombing. You could just tell them I was incinerated by the flames, and all that was left was this!"

She suddenly sliced off the lower part of her hair, which in the mix of fire and moonlight only made her all the more alluring. Short hair seemed to fit her more, make her look more fiery, more dangerous, in short, more like her.

Ilona's hands felt a slight tinge as they met Morgan's, but she quickly pulled back, leaving the hair in his hands and the card and keys in hers. It was funny how two grizzled warriors, who had stared death in the face countless times, were so petrified by their own emotions.

Ilona sat down into the jeep, slammed the keys into the engine, and heard it growl into life. She looked at Derek Morgan, the hard bitten, Strathdonian mercenary who seemed to approach life with an almost bemused, sardonic detachment that was so different from her own views, and she felt, for one of the rare moments in her life, an incredible urge for spontaneity.

She kissed him. Her lips pressed against his, and although the scraggly Scottish beard that should have been shaved days ago caused a bit of irritation, the emotion of the moment overwhelmed her. They stood there for what seemed like eons, two dark shadows on the flaming canvas, and then...

She was gone. Driving off into the night...

And Mubarrak, who had followed behind after managing to get ahold of a motorcycle, simply sighed, and turned back.

He smiled, his heart cleared of its regret, and thanked God.

He thanked God Ilona was alive, and he thanked God it was all over.

BUMP so Strath can put in his two cents and then I can wrap this up...for now.

BUMP so Strath can put in his two cents and then I can wrap this up...for now.

I should be able to get soemthign decent up tomorrow i'm at work right now and have a social engagement tonight so i have soem time to think.

IC:

Morgan could only stand there stunned as the noise of the engine drifted off into the suddenly peaceful night.

Behind him the buring biudling added to already warm night air, it's blaze a mirror of the new light that now fought agaisnt the darkness of his mind. Over time the blanketing darkness had become a source of comfort, the pain of the past drowned under a sea of violence and singlemindedness. For all that the new light burned as it dug up old wounds it also southed, bringing a new horizon for his soul to journey towards.

Morgan sensed that some one was watching but for once was not troubled as he turned towards the blaze to leave the treasure end of the trail for those who sought it, he threw all but one small lock of the hairs into fire, the last strands he quietly wrapped in a hankercef and slipped into his pocket.

"Well Derek, what do we do now, retire home and help with your cousin's farm, take up fishing? bird watching perhaps? No there is too much to be done, McGhinty is still out there and there is always a need for a violent man, even if that man now has soemthing to live for other than the slow corruption of hard cash."

In its first major declaration on the issue, Mozambique says that it advocates 'an independent Nigeria run along the lines of Parliamentary Democracy with respect for Human Rights and the Environment.'

For the CoMDF's peacekeeping contingent, due to arrive via Strathdonia, it will be the force's first deployment and will likely provide an excellent test of the CoMDF's abilities and deficiencies. While the peacekeeping force to be deployed is made up entirely of unexperienced volunteers and equipment standards are low, standards of training are relatively high and the CoMDF can count itself as a truly proffessional force.