NationStates Jolt Archive

The rolling hills of the Janashire governate north of Tarus were not the type of place that Juumanistran military took much of an interest in. Beet farms and pig-pens for most part, that stretched out as far as the eye could see in any direction. The low hills that dominated the landscape were of relatively little consequence to anyway, located a hundred and fifty miles from the governate capital and further still from the industrialized downriver areas of Janashire, this picaresque piece of Juumacana would’ve remained a sleepy rural area of sparse settlement for the foreseeable future.

Were, of course, it not for the hole in the fabric of the universe that had opened in a sunken beet field.

When a local farmer, the quaintly named Judd McGregor, had arisen to check on the status of his latest crop of ethanol feedstock, he was greeted instead by a swirling vortex that covered the whole of the forty-acre depression he used largely for biofuel cultivation. At over a quarter-mile wide, the size of the portal was absolutely monstrous. Indeed, McGregor could scarcely comprehend the sheer size of the portal until he began walking the ridge around the depression. And, after getting a sense of the portal’s size, he did what any red-blooded Juumanistran would do upon finding a violation of most of the standing rules of physics in his backyard: He panicked.

A flurry calls went out; to the governor, the Department of Agriculture, and the Home Guard. Only the Department of Agriculture didn’t hang-up upon hearing his story and, even then, they assumed he’d been brewing his own fuel from his feedstock as most in the area tended to do and had inhaled a few too many fumes in the process. The DoA promised a survey team would be out in a few days to examine the “disturbance”, as they referred to it, scare quotes and all. In the mean-time, he also placed a call to the University of Janashire; he got in touch with a professor who showed a kind of morbid curiosity, the type typically found in academics ready to debunk ufologists. He, too, agreed to come see purported vortex.

When Dr. Beckett Olstedd arrived in Carter’s Ferry(or so the road signs had said), he was fully expecting to find a moonshining old kook who had seen something weird out in his field that had a perfectly rational explanation. When he found a gaping hole in the ground leading to Gods only know where, he was awestruck. Whilst his specialty was biomechanics, he’d been a sci-fi nerd as a kid and had, for a spell when an undergrad, intended to get a physics degree and pursue a career in astrophysics. Whilst he didn’t remember much, he knew most certainly didn’t mesh all that well with what he understood were the established laws of reality.

And so he made a flurry of calls; first to Juumus, where he called an old colleague in the Defense Department from his stint consulting on the Localized Biological Irritant project during the Allen administration; then to the Von Braun Stellar Research Institute at the University of Kruis; and then to SETI, which had a small research station just down the road from the McGregor farm. His message was the same to all of them: something big is occurring out here and it needs to be analyzed now. When the survey team from the Department of Agriculture arrived the next day, their response would be much the same. This was most certainly not within their realm of expertise and that someone needed to call in the big brains.

Then came the deluge. Academic delegations from three-dozen of the country’s best schools; federal teams from the Department of the Interior; hundreds of private specialists from outfits like SETI and Juumanistra’s various aerospace firms; and, perhaps most ominously, the Home Guard’s 3rd Janashirean Infantry Division, at the behest of the Department of Defense, as well as half-a-dozen Skywarden aerial observation UAVs contributed by the Air Force. The ridge above the depression took on the feel of a bee hive; always somewhere to be, something to be done. Equipment to be brought in and setup; myriad readings and measurements to take; experts and colleagues to consult. All the while, the fighting men of the 3rd Janashirean entrenched themselves on the ridge and fortified it as best as possible, on the off chance that something might come through the portal, whilst concentric rings of artillery were concentrated, with all their firepower centered on the portal.

And, soon enough, the game would be afoot…

*=*=*=*=*

Dr. Olstedd found himself wondering why, after more than a month of work with the team on Carter’s Ferry Anomaly(his idea of calling it an Olsteddhole had, unfortunately, fallen flat), he was still there. Firstly, he corrected himself, “team” was a massive misnomer; between the scientists, bureaucrats, and soldiers, there were more than twenty-thousand people in-and-around the Anomaly. Returning to the question he posed to himself, he supposed it was just the infinitely curious child within him. Besides, he had been the first on the scene and he wanted to see how this ended, dagnabbit

Besides, it did have its moments. Today, for instance. He would be a part of history, standing here, halfway up the slope from the Anomaly to the bristling ridge behind him. Today would be the launch of Explorer I, which would, if all went well, be the first manmade object to travel to another dimension. Explorer I was the culmination of a month’s worth of research on the Anomaly and, it was hoped, would answer a great many questions that the portal had generated.

Olstedd wiped the sweat from his brow. What they actually knew of the Anomaly was scant. One of things that they did know was that it was hemorrhaging heat; at the focal point, it was over a hundred degrees Celsius. Even here it was a balmy thirty-five. As he wiped his brow again, he glanced over at Explorer 1. The bulbous probe failed to impress. It looked like nothing so much as a giant sinker, attached to an equally large cable and wench. Given that a majority of the astrophysicists seemed to think that this was a transdimensional portal, the plan was to launch this probe through and gather information about what was on the other side before endangering human lives. Assuming, of course, that the probe survived entry into the portal; a point that was still quite contentious.

“Explorer One, launch readiness confirmed,” a voice boomed over the loudspeaker a few feet further up the slope, “launching in three…two…one…--“ Olstedd couldn’t even hear the word ‘zero’ as the probe’s launching system roared to life. The probe was, essentially, the projectile in an enormous pneumatic catapult. The sound was deafening as the catapult lobbed Explorer I into the air and into the vortex, where it disappeared. The wench whirred for a moment giving the probe slack before abruptly stopping. Olstedd, and the rest of the observation team, quickly scurried up the embankment to the control tent to find out what had happened.

“What’s going on?” One of Olstedd’s colleagues, a professor from Wellington, asked, his voice filled with eagerness and giddiness.

“Lots, but we’re not going to find out much,” the lead technician manning the probe’s controls sulked, “temperature’s over six-hundred degrees and is frying most of the probe before it can really come online; we’ve got another thirty seconds or so before the heat eats through the cable and we lose our data connection,” he gestured to the plasma display behind him as it came to life, “might as well enjoy the video while we can.”

Immediately it became clear why the wench had stopped. Whilst the probe had been launched downwards, it had been translated onto its side by portal and had bounced a few feet before losing all momentum and rolling to a halt on a ridge overlooking a vast expanse. The heat interference was terrible, making it impossible to see much of anything, beyond columns and columns of grainy blots moving around in the expanse below the ridge.

“You know, that looks like a…” The lead technician trailed off as he squinted at the grainy image in the hopes of getting a better look. Olstedd’s stomach sank. He’d seen this before. Once, more than a decade ago, one of his friends in the DoD had asked him to attend the graduation of his eldest son from Easterbrook. Swap out Juumanistran graduating cadets for the grainy blobs and you’d have something resembling parade ground formation.

“…an army.” And, with that, the connection to the probe was severed.

*=*=*=*=*

Those seventeen seconds of footage, of what appeared to be an army gathering on the other side of the portal, electrified the Juumanistran government. What concerns there were for the Posse Comeitius Act went out the window, as Juumanistran regulars were scrambled to reinforce the Janashirean Home Guard. The main ridge fortifications were redoubled, as the Home Guard broke out the massive R312 MANPOR 25mm autocannons to supplement the 6.8mm and 14.5mm machine guns already emplaced in the main defense line. Razorwire was strung in a dozen consecutive rings around the portal, from the base all the way up to the ridge. Even more artillery was brought in and aimed at the portal. Two regular mechanized infantry divisions were committed to the direct strengthening of the main defense line on the ridge. An additional two were tasked with the construction a second defensive line on another ridgeline a half-mile out from the main defensive line; this second line would also be supported by three Janashirean Home Guard infantry divisions.

In addition to direct ground commitments, the whole of the Juumanistran military roared to life. Close air support No-27 Rancors were put on fifteen minute launch status; attack helicopters patrolled the area above and around the portal in-force at all hours; Home Guards were mobilized in every governate and prepared both to defend their governates or become expeditionary forces against come what may. The reserves were, similarly, called up and, in conjunction with the regular army, began maneuvering into position to reinforce the eight divisions already in-place. The Army intended to have another eight divisions within ten miles of the portal integrated into the defensive network within a week. And so it would continue, until such time as the portal could be closed or was deemed to not be a threat.

Or the enemy on the other side, if it were an enemy at all, took the initiative.


*=*=*=*=*

[OOC: Okay, Warshrike, ground work has been laid. ‘Tis all up to you now. This is really why you should have invaded instead of letting me set the mood and tone. The hellgate sits at the bottom of a two-hundred foot depression. The depression itself is an old impact crater, which from its floor where the hellgate is, gently rises for six hundred feet before reaching the ridge, which has been highly fortified and where three Juumanistran divisions are currently entrenched. And then, I would think, there are the translation issues. Stuff that walks through the hellgate on your end, unless it can fly, is going to pop out on my end and fall flat on its face.

Well, I guess this is where things get fun, isn’t it?

A map of Juumanistran can be found here: http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b177/arrdeeagnp/JuumanistraHellgate.jpg with the hellgate being designated by the large red circle. Now, granted, it's nowhere close to scale, but it gives you a rough idea of where this is taking place relative to the major population centers of the nation.]

The morning after the strengthening of Juumanist's defences activity was finally seen from the portal. Yet it was no "army". Instead crawled out of the portal one single man who appeared quite human... well... apart from the black eyes... He wore a long black robe and long pitch black hair, going just past his shoulders. After him came twelve massive "ogre" demons, each armed to the teeth, each carrying in their boulder sized hands either a "white flag" of some sort, or gold and silver.
The man, who for now will remain nameless, spoke in a commanding and loud voice in the ancient Hebraic tongue. "Greetings, mortals, I bring thee gifts from my lord" Gestures to the gold and silver "And wish for thee to send a delegate to meet me here, in neutral grounds, to discuss thou terms of surrender. Our lord appreciated thou gift of metal but can find no use for it, apart from a decoration, may I ask what its purpose is?? Perchance childs toy? A music box?. It is of no consequence I suppose. Thee have one hour to send a good delegate or thou shall be annihilated"
With this he turned his back upon the army and walked back to the rim of the portal, (not knowing what the humans odd shaped metal hunks do{throwing weapons maybe??}) sitting and dangeling his feet in the edge as a child at a pond, his "bodyguards" left the gold and silver and formed a guard around him.

OOC:Juu the reason I dident just invade is because I believe it wouldent of been interesting to just have a gate pop up in your parlioment house now then would it?? and besides I was hoping for a map *>)
In any case please don't shoot the messenger as I intend him as my main char. for this (even hordes have those who stand out)

Private Yuya Jensen stood on the parapet of the trench, FR.5 lazily trained on the Anomaly. His squad was currently taking the platoon’s observational shift of the swirling vortex in the depression downhill from the ridge. The tedium of sentry was beginning to wear him down. Whilst he and everyone else in his unit had caught the infamous March of the Blots footage revealing what was thought by all who saw it to be an assembling army, and he understood the grave implications of what was on the other side of the portal, but none of that made it any easier stomaching the waiting. While he prayed nothing would happen, he also wished that, if all hell were to break loose, that it would do so sooner rather than later so that the anguish of waiting to find out if one would live or die would abate.

In the vain hope of relieving his increasing boredom, he gazed out the sight of his FR.5. Pressing his eye to the scope, he surveyed the depression. All seemed to be in order; on the other side of the depression, dozens of machine gun and ultralight cannon emplacements dotted the ridge’s first trench-line, manned by sentry teams similar to his squad, ensconced behind a dozen layers of razorwire; he panned down the slope, finding concentric rings of the same dozen-layer thick razorwire wound in concentric rings emanating outwards from the mouth of the portal; and then to the mouth of the portal itself, the same blue-black swirling vortex, with a human hand emerging from it…. At that moment, Jensen experienced a split second of cognitive dissonance. He knew that nothing was supposed to be coming out of the portal. Indeed, he hoped against all hope that nothing would be coming through. But, plain as day, something was coming through.

“Movement! Movement!” Yuya’s daze faded as his training kicked in. “Sentry Charlie-Echo-Seven has movement. Requesting confirmation,” he said, his voice transitioning from panic to poise. The sound of his voice got his comrades attention; the radio got the attention of the rest ridge’s forces. A few moments later the sound of confirmations raced across the airwaves. It was both a vindicating and terrifying moment for Yuya, one that he could not dwell on, given the enormity of the task at hand.

Men rushed into the trench as confirmation was made. Soon enough, the whole of the company was packed into its particular length of trenches, all aiming their rifles or machine guns at whatever was emerging from the trench. The same was occurring across the whole ridge, as the whole of Juumanistra’s three divisions scrambled into their fortified positions and readied for what may come. Behind them, the artillery crews began loading the eight hundred artillery pieces that had been dug in at various intervals between two and five miles away from the portal. Si-56 attack helicopters converged on the ridge to provide airborne firepower as heavier close-air support was scrambled. The Juumanistran defenders wound themselves tight as the rules of engagement came down; do not engage unless engaged or the first line of defenses is otherwise compromised.

And so, for men like Yuya Jensen, all there was left to do now was to pray and wait for the fighting to commence.

*=*=*=*=*

History may well remember what transpired that day as a grand missed opportunity. In the rush to reinforce the defendable heights around the portal, Juumanistran officials had given scant thought to the idea that someone would come out wanting to talk. Their lack of forethought on that front was not totally inconceivable, though. The portal had been open for over a month before the launch of Explorer One; no one had come through in that period, so it was a fair assumption that there was either no one on the other side or that, if there was someone, they weren’t all that interested in talking. Thus, there was no one there on-site who could make heads or tails of this strange humanoid from the other side of the void.

Not that much of anything could be heard in the first place. Between the clamoring of men, the loading of mortars, and the hovering of attack helicopters a few hundred feet above the ground, no one in the trenches could really hear, let alone make out, what the emissary was saying. And, even if they could have, the Juumanistran grunts could do little with what they heard. Juumanistran was, in-and-of-itself, an English derivative language that borrowed heavily from Japanese, the Biblical language most Juumanistrans studied was Latin, and what few Jews who were in the Army who could speak(or remember, for that matter) any Hebrew could not begin to parse the arcane dialect spoken by the emissary. And, even if the sound and language barriers could have been overcome, the notion of Juumanistran surrender would have been scorned by the generals in the field.

And so the emissary’s promised hour passed in a kind of Mexican stand-off, sans the Mexicans, with the whole of the Juumanistran contingent’s arms trained on the emissary and his entourage…

And so the hour passed.
Within the portal a loud, droning buzz was heard as the man stood up, his feet being in the portal he obviously fell in, and the ogres followed him after grinning and licking their lips, scanning the crowd with tiny eyes. Seconds later from the portal spewed forth hundreds of thousands of wasps. The smallest was the size of a mans finger, one or two larger ones that of an entire man. As they flooded from the portal they flew towards every lifeform in the area, from the farm animals to the Juumanistran Military. Then yet from the portal came twisted, scaly beasts the size of wolves, long tails lashing one another creating great gashes which bled dark blood, before covering over in seconds. There were about one thousand of these beasts, whom also spread in every direction. wherever the wasps reached the lines they stung with wounds that became infected in seconds and the lizards (for want of a better term) gouged men with rows of razor sharp teeth, long claws and their barbed tails.

Somwhere within the portal drums could be heard, a steady beat...

And so it began. The buzz was deafening; the bugs poured forth by thousands, in a seemingly endless horde. Some forces would have been demoralized; indeed, some would have turned tail and ran. But the well-armed and well-entrenched Juumanistrans would do no such thing, for as the drone appeared to be reaching its zenith, it was drowned out by singular explosion of epic proportions, as the 844 artillery pieces arrayed around the Juumanistran defensive formation barked in unison. Given the amount of time and effort that had been spent zeroing the artillery, the effect was extraordinary. At a height of seventy-five feet, across the whole quarter mile of the portal, there was another singular explosion, as the artillery shells had been so precisely mapped as to achieve a total blanket effect of the area portal. The shells landed in the heart of the emerging swarm; what had been a solid mass of demonic wasps suddenly bore a startling resemblance to overly bored Swiss cheese. And, eight seconds later, the guns barked once more. And, after another eight seconds, they would retort again. And again. And again.

The artillery bombardment, however, was not capable of containing the emerging wasp swarm. There were simply too many of them; but there were other avenues of resistance. As the artillery was getting into its rhythm, it was supplemented by the several thousand man-portable mortars that had entrenched and brought into the trenches by the Juumanistran contingent. It took a bit of jury-rigging to get the mortars to function as air-burst weapons, but it was done and they were soon doing as much damage, if not more, to the wasp swarm than the artillery. The Juumanistrans also threw into the swarm high-explosive rounds from the hundreds of tanks that had been entrenched to act as point artillery. It appeared the swarm was diminishing, that they were taking out more than were coming through. And, given how well-stocked the Juumanistran bombardment contingents were, they could literally keep this pace up for days.

And so, it seemed, the Juumanistrans were gaining the upper hand…

*=*=*=*=*

Yuya Jensen sighted one the bigger bugs; it seemed to him to be about the size of a human arm. He squeezed the trigger; three rounds were sent downrange before he felt the recoil. One through the head, two through the upper thorax; the wasp’s wings stopped flapping as it fell limp, catching itself in one of the razorwire rings, joining what seemed to be thousands of its comrades that had either snagged themselves there or had gotten caught after taking hits from the trenches or bombardment.

“Up!” The call came from his right. He wheeled his weapon upwards to see a massive bug bearing down on him. He pulled the trigger on his X84 underslung shotgun: once, twice, three times. Chunks of wasp were blown off until, with the third, its entire head was cleaved off. The corpse careened earthward, landing behind him, snagging itself in the clearance razorwire of the second trench line.

“Bug-whacking wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I woke up this morning!” Yuya grunted aloud as he sighted another one and squeezed off another three round volley. Over the din of battle, he could barely hear himself. He had his doubts that anyone else could.

“Ditto,” his squadmate, the one who had warned him of the one from above, replied, disproving Yuya’s doubts, “but if this is the best these sons of bitches can—“
He was interrupted by a singular explosion and roiling of the air as another one of the artillery volleys detonated. The blast and shockwave momentarily dazed Yuya; just long enough to notice that one of the smaller wasps had landed on his back.

By the time he did realize the bug was there, it was too late. The wasp aimed to take a piece out of his right arm; it readied itself, opened its mandibles, and went to take a bite…and got nothing. This obviously consternated the wasp, as it had never found flesh that it could not penetrate. Unfortunately for the little guy, he had never run across the Aegis MCS; whilst the heinously expensive double-stitched biosteel MBU component of the MCS was often derided over its exorbitant cost of close to ][35,000 per soldier, here it saved Jensen’s life, as the wasp was unable to penetrate the biosteel weave of his sleeve.

With the wasp absorbed in trying to get to Jensen’s flesh, it never noticed that his squadmate had drawn his service knife. Soon enough, the wasp was speared and out of commission. Yuya and his squadmate then mounted their service knives as bayonets, on the off-chance that this happened again.

“Ack!” A voice echoed on the company’s radio channel, “what’s that thing?”

Yuya turned his attention momentarily away from the wasps and towards the portal. Indeed, something had stumbled out of it, something that resembled nothing so much as a lupine lizard. The beast gathered its bearings for a moment and then charged headlong up the embankment. Straight into the first of more than a dozen razorwire rings that ran up the whole of the embankment. The beast writhed in pain as it struggled against the wire and got itself even further enmeshed in the first ring’s multiple layers.

A few more stumbled out and then, just as the first had, charged headlong up the slope of the hill. And met the same fate as the first one, enmeshed in the razorwire. And still more came; and more mauled themselves. But soon the trickle became a torrent…

*=*=*=*=*

What the lizards lacked in brains, they made up for in tenacity. Their strength of numbers allowed them to breech the first razorwine line, as those who came later simply mounted those already dead or dying and used them as a step-stool to get over the wire, though quite a few ended up ensnaring themselves in the process. They were also presented with the problem of dealing with the second razorwire line. Some charged headlong in and suffered the same fate as their earlier cousins. The less impetuous ones took a moment to think.

A moment, unfortunately, that most of them couldn’t afford. Originally given off by the wasp influx, the Si-56s had returned in force after the situation started coming under control. With the wasp attrition rate increasing exponentially by the minute, they were largely unmolested as they returned. Given their current load-outs, they would be rather ineffectual against the wasps; they had been armed to deal with an army marching out of the vortex, meaning they were more than capable of handling a few thickheaded lizards.

The first squadron crept back over the ridge and aligned its gunsights. The group of lizards that had been smart enough to ponder their situation was soon inundated with 27mm autocannon fire from the helicopters. And, as other squadrons joined them, they would continue to target the lizards, freeing up ridge-based defenses to concentrate on the larger wasp threat.

[OOC: Warshrike, as I’ve gone to pains to mention in my previous posts, all approaches away from the portal have been heavily fortified. In order to reach the Juumanistran Army by foot, you have to fight up a six-hundred foot slope to reach the ridge where the Juumanistrans have dug in, a slope that has had a dozen rings of razorwire(each ring, in and of itself, being a dozen layers thing) and obstacles to wade through. We’re talking about a fortification system that would make even the most ardent trench diggers of the Great War proud. Hence why the lizards were stopped cold; unless they magically levitate, they’re going to send up snared and mauled by the wire whilst Juumanistran gunners take them apart at their leisure.]

OOC: ahh... I forgot the barbed wire... but you seem to forget that these things regenerat at an alarming rate... sorry I dont have time for a long post rite now I will in a few minutes but(about 10)

[OOC: Well, there's not much to forget, as you never mentioned any kind of enhanced rate of regeneration. And with regards to the razorwire, the key to remember is not so much that they get themselves killed in the wire so much as get caught and immobilized, making killing them simple for hovering gunships and Juumanistran gunners in the trenches. Some of them will invariably get themselves killed in the wire, due to getting caught, struggling, and severing some important vein or artery or, if they've got their head stuck, severing their windpipe. This is due additionally to the fact that Juumanistran razorwire is somewhat derivative from convetional barbed wire in that the number of barbs is exponentially higher, in that Juumanistran warfighting doctrine uses razorwire to literally entrap those who touch in through much nastier individual wire strands and large volumes of wire coils.]

OOC: Argh, sorry this took so long We having a fair few problems with the interweb.

IC: The defeat of the first wave had not been expected and caused a short panic among the demons not sent through, and that's quite a few, but it was of no consequence. The next wave was bound to put A large dent into these mortal warriors.

Upon the surface it seemed as though a light green mist seeped from the portal. Moaning noises were heard. A human hand grasped the edge with four bloated fingers, the other one a stump. This hand hauled out an even worse looking arm, followed by a torso and then a fully bloated man stood up and began shambling into the barbed wire, oblivious to the gashes caused. a few more of these appeared. The ghouls shambled up the hill. Every time they were harmed more of their diesesed guts. And the more the Juuman's shot them, the more dieseseseseses flowed up the hill into their lines, infecting the defenders.