NationStates Jolt Archive

Juan made his way through Jens City quickly, the city named after Jensen (capital of the mothercountry) was completely traffic free during the day, between 6AM and 6PM no car or any motorized vehicle are allowed in the inner city where all important corporations and government buildings are located. That huge decision ment a boost for bicycle sales men and a boost in the relationship with the Green Party. An excellent decision, most people thought.

Juan did not go by bicycle however, but on foot as some others. He was not in a hurry, he still had 2 hours before his meeting. The man was the most important foreign ambassador of Lancewot. He had served in many countries, including the mothercountry. Juan had even been recruited by them for Lancewot and served many years in their diplomatic team. Juan, also called "Don Corleone" referring to his looks and way of talking, took his papers and tried to read them again. He had revised them over and over, making sure he knew every little detail. A few years ago, the mothercountry seemed to had dissapeared from the world. The citizens from there in Lancewot received no messages from family or friends anymore and even the ones who were in direct contact with the government lost touch. Lancewottian citizens who lived in the mothercountry never returned, people who were underway, be it by boat or plane, never returned either. Lancewot tried to send teams to contact the mothercountry but even those teams dissapeared. After some months, a lot of politicians felt it had been enough and the following attempts should be more prepared.

And now it was time for one more mission, the Don got the mission to contact old allies from the mothercountry, also known as Camewot, Skinny87. He had already made contact with their Secretary of Defense, Mr. Hoover and would arrive at the Dowland International next week. Today he would receive some extra information, and then it would be Juan's turn to work his magic.

Camewot would be found again, at all costs.

Dowland International Airport

It was a crisp, cold day in the Grand Monarchy. There was hardly a cloud in the sky, but the sun was seemingly reluctant to move from the cover of the sky, so there remained simply a bright blue horizon and sky. Dowland International was as busy as it always was, with hundreds of airplanes landing and taking off every day and hundreds of thousands of tourists and visitors coming into the country during the same period. With most of the country having finally recovered from the disasterous effects of the Civil War, tourism was once again on the rise and giving a much needed boost to the national economy.

On Runway 32, one of the smaller and more isolated runways in the airport, a small group of vehicles were arrayed at the edge of the concrete and tarmac landing strip. Two jet black limousines, jet black in colour and bearing the symbol of the Diplomatic Corp on the doors and hood were parked bumper to bumper by the edge of the runway. To either side of the two vehicles were four lorries painted in dull camouflage, material sides rolled up to show an empty interior. The troops that had travelled to the runway were lined up on the right-hand side of the runway facing inwards, M-8 Rifles placed at attention.

Standing in front of the troops was Secretary of Defense Paul Hoover, a tall and lithe figure wearing a camouflaged Battle Dress Uniform and a red beret. An unusual figure in the new political arena constructed by Alexander I in the aftermath of the Civil War, Hoover was thirty-two years of age and an ex-General of the Royal Marines; having fought throughout the Civil War on the side of the Loyalists, Hoover had been appointed as Secretary of Defense by Alexander because of his uncompromising attitude and battle experience. Now Hoover stood at the airfield, staring impatiently alternatively at his watch and the bright sky above him. Finally there came a low drone from above and Hoover nodded at the officer in charge of the Honour Guard. As the Lancewottian jet came in for landing the man turned to face the landing jet and shouted out a command. The soldiers turned to face the jet and shouldered their weapons, fixed bayonets gleaming in the light.

As the engines of the small jet began to cool down and stop, noise slowly abating, a set of stairs were driven up to the door of the aircraft. The door opened and allowed the Lancewottian representative to ascend and walk towards Hoover. As the Honor Guard saluted, Hoover moved forwards and shook hands with Juan, holding his beret to stop it flying into the engines of the aircraft. "An honour to meet you Mr Representative. My name is Hoover, Secretary of Defense for the Grand Monarchy" Hoover shouted over the still formidable noise generated by the aircraft. Motioning to the Honour Guard officer, Hoover and Juan moved quickly to the first limousine and climbed in whilst the troops climbed into the lorries and followed the limousines as they moved out of the airport.

"Mr Representative, I'll be blunt. The Civil War screwed up a lot of foreign assets throughout Haven, and until recently Camewot wasn't a priority. When you contacted us, we had the RIA try and contact our men in Camewot, but without success. Satellite shows that Camewot still exists as a nation, but we've had no replies to our communications to either the Camewottian government or any other Camewottian installations, military or civilian. Hopefully thats where you come in."

Juan was pretty impressed by the looks of this airport and city. The man he saw when he first set foot on Skinny soil looked impressive and shouted his full name and title. "Juan Laplaya, extra member to the diplomatic corps of Lancewot," he shouted back. Both men shook hands and once into the limo, Hoover started talking. Juan listened carefully and quietly admitted that Lancewot did not have any luck either. But as he heard the words "RIA", the man almost wanted to cry. He was only a little boy when the RIA attacked the newborn Camewot. Juan had lost about 5 brothers, his father and 4 uncles in the fight over the Twin Cities. It was a bloodbath, only few survived but Camewottian troops supported by several communist nations managed to maintain the cities, even threathened by a chemical disaster. But some soldiers gave their lives to dismantel that ticking chemical timebob, including his father. Could it be that the Skinny government named their intelligence service after these murderous men? Juan quickly got a hold of his feelings again and lightened a cigare. "Hmm, yes, I know how frustrating that can be," he finally said after his first cigare. After that, he took out his laptop and showed pictures to Hoover of what might be Camewot, taken by a civilian sportsplane which got lost. The pictures were send to a homebased computer server but the passengers never returned. And only recently, somebody send a picture of a harbor.

"Our primary goal is to spread these pictures around the Skinny citizens or military to identify these pictures, some people in Lancewot already think they are actually Camewottian but we need confirmation, and I think we can find that here. Is it true that you were good allies of our mothercountry and maintained a good relation with them? Could it be that there are still several civilians or even soldiers who stayed in Camewot for a long time? If they can confirm that these pictures were taken in Camewot, there is a chance we can track them with your help. It is our last option to find the families of our beloved founders!"

4 years ago, Jensen

"I don't think that is a good idea, comrade." The sounds of their footsteps echoed through the hallways as they walked through the old headquarter of the rebel movement. The police had been searching for this building for ages, but it had been hidden underground ever since the rebel movement was first founded, officially they were called the Workers Rebel Organisation. Now most of the members were dead or imprisoned and the building could be found every minute when one of the members would be forced to give the location, but that did not stop some members to still hold their parties or secret meetings here. Most men were proud communists who could not see how Camewot was run by liberals, for ages and ages already, and although those leaders held good ties with communists, they wanted the ultimate power, at all costs. "We're not strong enough to do such an attack anymore, I won't be supporting you." And now the two men with the most power left were debating in the deserted underground building, they both had 50 % of the members left on their hand and kept the police busy by giving false tips and stealing important evidence to trial the most important members. The WRO's reputation was very aggressive, they had committed several serious bombings and hostages at the start of the year and therefore they were quickly cracked down by the police force. Now Jo Lurger had a plan to get the WRO back on track, but it would mean fighting the army. His only obstacle was the other leader, Met Lastras.

"It is a perfect plan, Met, it only requires good planning and skilled members to perform the attack..." Met shook his head, "there's no singly chance in succeeding. Camp Mable is heavily protected and fortified, why would you want to attack it? We'll all be killed, and it will mean the last punch for our movement." Jo started to get irritated and raised his voice, almost screaming he said: "All the nuclear weapons are located there, Met. If we succeed, Verhofstadt will have to surrender, wether he wishes or not. There's no doubt about that!" Met kept shaking his head, "And with what, Jo, with what can we attack?" Jo could not believe how stupid his partner was and went completely violent, pulling out a knife and stabbing Met right in the heart. He ran away to plan the attack with the militants.

It would mean Camewots big, unwanted change.

Hoover took the proffered pictures and flipped through them as the limousine and escorts moved out of the airport and into the busier sections of Dowland City, traffic streaming past the small convoy in both directions. He recognised several of the landmarks in the photo's, familiar from the satellite images that the RIA had delivered to his office after his order to reposition several of the recently re-launched MILSTAR satellites. When he came to the picture of the Harbour, Hoover stopped for a moment and frowned. There was one way to make absolutely sure that this was from a Camewottian harbour.

He flipped down the keyboard of the laptop that was embedded in the hard fabric in front of him, and activated the satellite transmitter/reciever that was part of the computer system. He quickly tapped in his authorisation codes and activated a secure intranet link with the Department of Defense. Using a system of micro-bursts every few seconds, the laptop could communicate with the DoD computer system and pull up certain files - and in this case, photos. It took a few minutes, but Hoover soon had a series of classified surveillance photos up on the monitor, and he quickly scrolled through them. Colour and black and white photos flashed past - buildings, gardens, people - all moved quickly upwards as Hoover searched for what he wanted. Suddenly he stopped; on the screen was a high-resolution image of a harbour in black and white. He picked out the original photo of the Harbour and placed it against the laptop screen, comparing the two.

They were exactly the same; the small builldings and trees were identical in each picture. He angled the screen towards Juan and motioned to it. "This is one of a series of digital photographs taken by one of our naval special forces teams a few weeks ago of Camewot. From your photo, I'd say we have a 100% match. That harbour is in Camewot, and I'd wager good money that the rest of these photos are from Camewot as well." He turned to look at Juan directly. "So, what's the next move?"