Rooshda
08-09-2006, 18:08
---
Yesterday Evening
The People’s Republic of Rooshda
Dusk had fallen several hours before, casting eerie shadows upon the houses of Tammerville Lane from the streetlights along the pavement. Due to the curfew, there was nobody on the streets except the animals of the night who followed a different set of laws. Darkness emanated from each building, save for a few rebellious lights that refused to be extinguished by the ever-present darkness.
One such light emanated from the upstairs room of Number 24, a modest semi-detached affair similar to the rest of the buildings on the street. There was little to suggest anything out of the ordinary. A pair of garden gnomes stood either side of the main pathway to the house. Their painted china faces grinning alarmingly at each other as if sharing a secret joke. A pair of wind chimes tinkled gently on the porch.
A low rumbling intruded on the privacy of the street. The animals of the night looked up and fled from the mysterious invader, seeking solace in the darkness of the trees and the long grass of unkempt gardens. At one end of the street, an Armoured Personnel Carrier grinded to a halt and shut down its engine, the motor whining down in the cool night air.
The rear door to the APC swung open, and a platoon of soldiers dropped to the ground and lined up smartly. The tenth man out of the vehicle bore the pips of a Captain, and he paused to adjust his cap before taking the platoon’s salute.
“Men,” he said in a low voice. “You know our orders; this is a simple house raid. A high-level counter-revolutionary dissident is maintaining themselves in a safe-house on this street. We are to attack and capture this person with a minimal amount of injury to the dissident.”
The Captain turned to one soldier bearing superior rank stripes to the others. “Sergeant, you will take Section Two and approach from the rear. I will lead Section One through the front.”
“Yes sir!” The Sergeant gripped his AK tightly, grinning in the low light.
The platoon split into two groups, and began to make their way cautiously up the street to the house. The Sergeant took his section through the back gardens of the street in order to approach from the rear. The Captain of the Platoon advanced down the street itself, his gloved hand gripping his revolver.
Both parties stopped as they examined the house from the vicinity of the neighbouring building. It was all quiet. The light still shone defiantly from the upstairs window. The Captain picked up his radio from a holster, and whispered into the microphone. “Sergeant, my group will go in first. You will cover the rear of the building in case anyone tries to escape, and provide support if called in.”
The radio crackled in response. “Yes sir!”
The Captain re-holstered his radio, adjusted his cap once more, and signalled his men forward. They moved on the house, two men flanking each side of their commanding officer as he walked slowly up the main path to the door, his revolver raised in preparation for an attack. As the captain stepped through the space between both gnomes, a tiny thread of wire stretched between each ornament snapped.
Immediately, the light flicked off. The Captain swore, assuming the worst. He motioned to the other soldiers. “They’ve seen us, move!”
The five men sprang forward. With two covering the porch, one man kicked in the front door and turned left into a doorway, whilst another turned right. The rest moved in behind them. Door after door was kicked in, flashlights being shone into rooms, calls of ‘clear!’ before they began moving upstairs in a defensive column.
After a few short minutes of clearing, the Captain kicked in the door where the light had previously shone. He levelled his revolver into the room, the muzzles of two AK-47s flanking him, and flicked the light-switch.
The lights refused to turn on. The room was silent and, seemingly, empty. No trace of personal belongings were present. The only light in the room was the green glow of a digital clock on the bedside table.
The Captain swore quietly, bringing his radio to his mouth. “Sergeant, did anyone come out the rear?”
“No sir,” the radio crackled in puzzlement.
“Well, they must’ve done, damnit!” the Captain snapped. “There’s nobody else here.” He shone his torch around the room. “They can’t have just-”
He stopped suddenly. His torchlight rested on the area of the wall with the light-switch. A thin cable stretched down from the switch along the wall. The Captain followed the cable with the light of his torch, across the room and onto the green glow of the digital clock. It was counting down.
“Jesus Chri-!” he shouted, turning just as the clock hit zero.
The Sergeant sprang back in alarm as the top floor of the house exploded. He shielded his face from the falling debris, pushing himself back away from the fence into the neighbour’s garden along with his section. When he looked up, the top of the building was completely gone.
“My God,” he breathed.
---
Nineteen years earlier
The Democratic Republic of Rooshda
The NCPR meeting was, as usual, relatively small. Less than a hundred people sat in a hall designed for much larger numbers, the echoes of voices casting a somewhat embarrassing impression on the membership base of Rooshda’s smallest political party.
Kit sat at the front of the small group, his arms folded, his eyes watching the speaker with an expression somewhere between disbelief and disgust. The 18-year-old had very little experience with political speaking in his short life barring what he saw on television, but this man was abominable. The leader of the National Communist Party was an elderly trade unionist, whose firebrand days had been extinguished long before Kit had even been born. Now, the man stood on stage, mumbling about “the solidarity of workers” and “the importance of comradeship” in a voice so low and a method so jumbled that several others on the front row had to strain forward to hear. It was, to put it bluntly, a mockery.
Sharpe sighed, leaning back and tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling, waiting for the meeting to finish. Brought up a hardcore Communist, his family had a century long tradition of belonging to left-wing movements since the fall of the Empire. But the left had faltered, losing out to the bourgeoisie as the revolution fell into the hands of the merchants, the bankers and the industrialists. And now, despite rising poverty, a faltering economy and growing dissatisfaction, the left was losing out to the other end of the political spectrum. The fascists had gained massively in their membership base, whilst the communists had lost numbers.
And no wonder. The speaker had faltered in his speech, and a rustling of paper told Kit without adjusting his gaze that the old man was rifling through his notes. Kit closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to prevent himself from yawning.
A shadow moved across his vision, blocking the overhead lights. Kit opened his eyes, and had to prevent himself from physically jumping when seeing the face three inches from his head. The face, seeing his reaction, broke into a grin and sat back into the seat behind him.
Kit turned and leant on the back of the chair, a slight frown on his face. “What was that for?” he asked in a hushed tone.
The girl smiled. Now Kit could see the girl from more than three inches away, he discerned an attractive, raven-haired girl about his own age. He dark top was adorned with the party badge pin on her collar, and her legs crossed inside her short skirt in an innocently provocative manner. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” she said impishly with a wide grin. “You looked like you needed waking up.”
Kit blinked for a moment, and then smiled back. Casting a conspiratorial glance at the stage, he sighed. “He is pretty terrible, isn’t he?”
The girl nodded, and both of them shared a short laugh at the old man’s expense. Several of the older members cast annoyed glares in their direction at the interruption, to which the two smiled apologetically.
Kit beckoned the girl to lean forward, and whispered in her ear. “Listen, there’s a pub over on Coal Mine Road where some of the younger members hang out, what’s say we grab a drink and I’ll introduce you to a couple of people?”
The girl smiled. Her hot breath across Kit’s ear made his neck hairs stand on end. “Sounds like a plan to me,” she said softly.
Sharpe grinned, looking at the girl for a moment longer, before turning back to the stage and waiting for the meeting to end. All the while, he could feel the girl’s eyes on the back of his head, and permitted himself to blush slightly.
---
Present Day
People’s Republic of Rooshda
The Presidential Palace had been gradually modified since the revolution. Along with the cosmetic changes – Rooshdan Communist flags adorning the roof and the walls, statues of great revolutionaries such as Lenin, Mao alongside a statue of the President himself – the security had been improved significantly. Two pairs of guard towers had been erected in the grounds of the palace, one pair covering the front and the rear advances towards the building. Machine gun nests and concrete bunkers had been positioned and built along the main walkway up to the Palace’s front entrance. The roads around the building had been sealed off for a mile in each direction and were no ‘No Go’ areas for anybody except authorised personnel. President Sharpe was anything if not careful about safety.
At this immediate moment in time however, he was feeling incredibly unsafe. He sat in the large, leather-back chair of the President’s Office and looked incredulously across the table at the smoke-covered, bedraggled and somewhat frightened Sergeant that stood in front of him.
“What do you mean, she’s escaped?” Kit shouted angrily. His right hand clenched a pen dangerously tight, the up-turned nib in danger of breaking against the pressure of his thumb.
The Sergeant shifted uncomfortably, moving the weight from one foot to another. He had been ordered to report immediately to the Palace as soon as he had explained the situation in a shaky voice. He had not been given time to change or recover. Now, he was beginning to wonder if it would have been a quicker death to have been in the house.
“Mister President,” he began. “When we got there, the house had already been vacant for a period of time. Long enough to plant explosives as a trap,” he added. He risked looking Sharpe in the eye, feeling his ordeal gave him at least that right. “With all due respect sir, they knew we were coming.”
Sharpe sat, fuming quietly, staring across at the military man silently whilst his mind reeled. Presently, he sighed, leaning forward and dropping the pen onto the table. “Thank-you Sergeant, you are dismissed.”
The Sergeant saluted, then turned and left the room as quickly as dignity would allow. As the doors quietly closed behind him, Kit leant back in his chair and sighed, resting his head against the leather.
In the corner of the room, Field Commander Peter Smith stood silently, disliking the prospect of the coming questions. Smith was in charge of the Revolutionary Militia, and therefore in charge of the intelligence gathered by his forces. He stood silently in his military fatigues and peaked cap, a sewn badge of the Revolutionary Militia on his shoulder, showing the flag of the People’s Republic with a lightning bolt through the centre.
“Your intelligence was wrong, Peter.” Sharpe looked across at his senior military officer. He gazed at the man for several moments. “You know she’s a smart individual and dangerous to the revolution, and yet you let shabby intelligence get the better of us.”
Smith licked his upper lip nervously, the beginnings of a moustache tickling his tongue. A traditionalist, he intended to cultivate this akin to the popular handlebar form of Generals of years past. “Sir,” he began. “We can begin searches of the surrounding areas and-”
“She won’t be anywhere near there,” snapped Kit. “You forget that I know this woman…” he paused. “We all do,” he added softly, his eyes growing distant for a moment. Then he shook himself. “She’ll be far gone by now, possibly on the borders.”
Smith frowned. “Wouldn’t she have fled to another country?” he asked.
The President sighed, smiling a little. “She wouldn’t leave whilst there are still her comrades to look after,” he said. “That is the greatest part of her personality.” His eyes then hardened. “And it will also be her downfall…”
---
Simultaneously
The ‘New Hope’ Mining Corporation had gone bust nearly eighty years before, but the efforts of their labour under the previous governmental system still stretched across the mountain ranges of Rooshda. These were now abandoned due to faltering economic conditions and exhaustion of mineral pockets, but the mining complexes left several dilapidated buildings and a network of tunnels through the mountains; the perfect hiding place for those who wished not to be found.
Deep within the entrance tunnel to New Hope Shaft 6, a side-chamber had been broken through to create an underground shelter. Now, a group of people sat, cold and distressed, their faces only illuminated by a single oil lamp sitting upon a makeshift table of wooden planks.
“We have to get out of here,” one man was saying. He was dirty and dishevelled, with a scar across his face from a recently healed wound. He looked around the others angrily. “We barely got out of the cities alive, and now we’re held up here.” He gestured wildly. “It’s only a matter of time before they come looking.”
“You’re talking crap, George,” another man said. He holstered his dirtied AK-47, one of several stolen from military forces during the revolution. Hundreds of weapons had been discarded and gone missing as democratic forces had submitted and broken, and many had ended up in the hands of those who did not necessarily agree with the new regime, minority though they were. This particular rifle was old, and had not seen action in a while. The owner had, and he glared at George. “We can’t leave whilst there are still sympathisers in the country. We all know what will happen if we leave.”
George threw his weapon down, causing several to flinch. “What difference does it make, Steven?” he shouted. “We lost, we’re done for! We have to-”
“Enough!” a third voice, hardened feminine, snapped. The others fell silent, turning to the woman. She sat cross-legged on the floor, her blonde hair dirtied and her face smeared with dust. A rifle lay across her lap, a Kalashnikov equally as dirty as Steven’s but more obviously used recently. She glared around the group. “We do not leave whilst our comrades are in danger,” the woman stated, making it sound both a fact and a threat. “We can establish a route out of the country for those like-minded who dislike the Sharpe regime.” She sighed. “We can help people.”
Did she still honestly believe that? The woman didn’t know anymore. She had once thought she could help Sharpe. She had been proven wrong.
Bringing herself back to the present, she cleared her throat. “We have access to a radio transmitter, we call for outside help.”
The group hesitated. Steven licked his lips. “Sarah, bringing foreigners-”
“-will help our position,” Sarah responded angrily, turning to the man. “Are we now to become the xenophobes in charge? Or are we to accept that the proletariat is universal, and cannot be broken up by national borders.” She sighed again. “So we send…”
Sarah trailed off. The group looked puzzled, and then their expressions changed to those of dread. A roaring overhead began growing louder.
Sarah stood suddenly, grabbing her rifle. “Get the lookouts inside!” she shouted. Already, two people were running out the door and up the mine shaft, shouting to their comrades on watch.
She already knew they were too late by the time she herself reached the entrance. The three lookouts were stumbling through the entrance to the mine shaft, but the aircraft had roared overhead a third time by that point. She swore, looking up as the Mig-17 fighter shot low a fourth time across the mining complex, and then turned in the direction of the town of Northpoint at the bottom of the mountains.
Sara sighed, shouldering her weapon as she watched the aircraft disappear into the distance. “They’ve found us,” she said. Turning to look at her comrades, she licked her lips. “We better get that message out fast.”
---
The transmission was filled with static and garbled, but was still audible. It took several seconds for the message to filter through, but then became clear.
“…speaking to you with a plea of assistance; we need support. We are vastly outnumbered, with only two hundred fighters scattered across the mountain range. We must survive in order to assist our comrades in their escape. The Sharpe regime is no friend of the people. The Stalinists must lose out to the concept of permanent revolution and democratic means of control by the people. I repeat, this is Sarah Marxton, leading and representing the Rooshdan Trotskyite Revolutionary Militia. I am speaking to you with a plea…”
(OOC: The OOC Thread can be found Here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=498670) with the neccesary geographical and military information)
Yesterday Evening
The People’s Republic of Rooshda
Dusk had fallen several hours before, casting eerie shadows upon the houses of Tammerville Lane from the streetlights along the pavement. Due to the curfew, there was nobody on the streets except the animals of the night who followed a different set of laws. Darkness emanated from each building, save for a few rebellious lights that refused to be extinguished by the ever-present darkness.
One such light emanated from the upstairs room of Number 24, a modest semi-detached affair similar to the rest of the buildings on the street. There was little to suggest anything out of the ordinary. A pair of garden gnomes stood either side of the main pathway to the house. Their painted china faces grinning alarmingly at each other as if sharing a secret joke. A pair of wind chimes tinkled gently on the porch.
A low rumbling intruded on the privacy of the street. The animals of the night looked up and fled from the mysterious invader, seeking solace in the darkness of the trees and the long grass of unkempt gardens. At one end of the street, an Armoured Personnel Carrier grinded to a halt and shut down its engine, the motor whining down in the cool night air.
The rear door to the APC swung open, and a platoon of soldiers dropped to the ground and lined up smartly. The tenth man out of the vehicle bore the pips of a Captain, and he paused to adjust his cap before taking the platoon’s salute.
“Men,” he said in a low voice. “You know our orders; this is a simple house raid. A high-level counter-revolutionary dissident is maintaining themselves in a safe-house on this street. We are to attack and capture this person with a minimal amount of injury to the dissident.”
The Captain turned to one soldier bearing superior rank stripes to the others. “Sergeant, you will take Section Two and approach from the rear. I will lead Section One through the front.”
“Yes sir!” The Sergeant gripped his AK tightly, grinning in the low light.
The platoon split into two groups, and began to make their way cautiously up the street to the house. The Sergeant took his section through the back gardens of the street in order to approach from the rear. The Captain of the Platoon advanced down the street itself, his gloved hand gripping his revolver.
Both parties stopped as they examined the house from the vicinity of the neighbouring building. It was all quiet. The light still shone defiantly from the upstairs window. The Captain picked up his radio from a holster, and whispered into the microphone. “Sergeant, my group will go in first. You will cover the rear of the building in case anyone tries to escape, and provide support if called in.”
The radio crackled in response. “Yes sir!”
The Captain re-holstered his radio, adjusted his cap once more, and signalled his men forward. They moved on the house, two men flanking each side of their commanding officer as he walked slowly up the main path to the door, his revolver raised in preparation for an attack. As the captain stepped through the space between both gnomes, a tiny thread of wire stretched between each ornament snapped.
Immediately, the light flicked off. The Captain swore, assuming the worst. He motioned to the other soldiers. “They’ve seen us, move!”
The five men sprang forward. With two covering the porch, one man kicked in the front door and turned left into a doorway, whilst another turned right. The rest moved in behind them. Door after door was kicked in, flashlights being shone into rooms, calls of ‘clear!’ before they began moving upstairs in a defensive column.
After a few short minutes of clearing, the Captain kicked in the door where the light had previously shone. He levelled his revolver into the room, the muzzles of two AK-47s flanking him, and flicked the light-switch.
The lights refused to turn on. The room was silent and, seemingly, empty. No trace of personal belongings were present. The only light in the room was the green glow of a digital clock on the bedside table.
The Captain swore quietly, bringing his radio to his mouth. “Sergeant, did anyone come out the rear?”
“No sir,” the radio crackled in puzzlement.
“Well, they must’ve done, damnit!” the Captain snapped. “There’s nobody else here.” He shone his torch around the room. “They can’t have just-”
He stopped suddenly. His torchlight rested on the area of the wall with the light-switch. A thin cable stretched down from the switch along the wall. The Captain followed the cable with the light of his torch, across the room and onto the green glow of the digital clock. It was counting down.
“Jesus Chri-!” he shouted, turning just as the clock hit zero.
The Sergeant sprang back in alarm as the top floor of the house exploded. He shielded his face from the falling debris, pushing himself back away from the fence into the neighbour’s garden along with his section. When he looked up, the top of the building was completely gone.
“My God,” he breathed.
---
Nineteen years earlier
The Democratic Republic of Rooshda
The NCPR meeting was, as usual, relatively small. Less than a hundred people sat in a hall designed for much larger numbers, the echoes of voices casting a somewhat embarrassing impression on the membership base of Rooshda’s smallest political party.
Kit sat at the front of the small group, his arms folded, his eyes watching the speaker with an expression somewhere between disbelief and disgust. The 18-year-old had very little experience with political speaking in his short life barring what he saw on television, but this man was abominable. The leader of the National Communist Party was an elderly trade unionist, whose firebrand days had been extinguished long before Kit had even been born. Now, the man stood on stage, mumbling about “the solidarity of workers” and “the importance of comradeship” in a voice so low and a method so jumbled that several others on the front row had to strain forward to hear. It was, to put it bluntly, a mockery.
Sharpe sighed, leaning back and tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling, waiting for the meeting to finish. Brought up a hardcore Communist, his family had a century long tradition of belonging to left-wing movements since the fall of the Empire. But the left had faltered, losing out to the bourgeoisie as the revolution fell into the hands of the merchants, the bankers and the industrialists. And now, despite rising poverty, a faltering economy and growing dissatisfaction, the left was losing out to the other end of the political spectrum. The fascists had gained massively in their membership base, whilst the communists had lost numbers.
And no wonder. The speaker had faltered in his speech, and a rustling of paper told Kit without adjusting his gaze that the old man was rifling through his notes. Kit closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to prevent himself from yawning.
A shadow moved across his vision, blocking the overhead lights. Kit opened his eyes, and had to prevent himself from physically jumping when seeing the face three inches from his head. The face, seeing his reaction, broke into a grin and sat back into the seat behind him.
Kit turned and leant on the back of the chair, a slight frown on his face. “What was that for?” he asked in a hushed tone.
The girl smiled. Now Kit could see the girl from more than three inches away, he discerned an attractive, raven-haired girl about his own age. He dark top was adorned with the party badge pin on her collar, and her legs crossed inside her short skirt in an innocently provocative manner. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” she said impishly with a wide grin. “You looked like you needed waking up.”
Kit blinked for a moment, and then smiled back. Casting a conspiratorial glance at the stage, he sighed. “He is pretty terrible, isn’t he?”
The girl nodded, and both of them shared a short laugh at the old man’s expense. Several of the older members cast annoyed glares in their direction at the interruption, to which the two smiled apologetically.
Kit beckoned the girl to lean forward, and whispered in her ear. “Listen, there’s a pub over on Coal Mine Road where some of the younger members hang out, what’s say we grab a drink and I’ll introduce you to a couple of people?”
The girl smiled. Her hot breath across Kit’s ear made his neck hairs stand on end. “Sounds like a plan to me,” she said softly.
Sharpe grinned, looking at the girl for a moment longer, before turning back to the stage and waiting for the meeting to end. All the while, he could feel the girl’s eyes on the back of his head, and permitted himself to blush slightly.
---
Present Day
People’s Republic of Rooshda
The Presidential Palace had been gradually modified since the revolution. Along with the cosmetic changes – Rooshdan Communist flags adorning the roof and the walls, statues of great revolutionaries such as Lenin, Mao alongside a statue of the President himself – the security had been improved significantly. Two pairs of guard towers had been erected in the grounds of the palace, one pair covering the front and the rear advances towards the building. Machine gun nests and concrete bunkers had been positioned and built along the main walkway up to the Palace’s front entrance. The roads around the building had been sealed off for a mile in each direction and were no ‘No Go’ areas for anybody except authorised personnel. President Sharpe was anything if not careful about safety.
At this immediate moment in time however, he was feeling incredibly unsafe. He sat in the large, leather-back chair of the President’s Office and looked incredulously across the table at the smoke-covered, bedraggled and somewhat frightened Sergeant that stood in front of him.
“What do you mean, she’s escaped?” Kit shouted angrily. His right hand clenched a pen dangerously tight, the up-turned nib in danger of breaking against the pressure of his thumb.
The Sergeant shifted uncomfortably, moving the weight from one foot to another. He had been ordered to report immediately to the Palace as soon as he had explained the situation in a shaky voice. He had not been given time to change or recover. Now, he was beginning to wonder if it would have been a quicker death to have been in the house.
“Mister President,” he began. “When we got there, the house had already been vacant for a period of time. Long enough to plant explosives as a trap,” he added. He risked looking Sharpe in the eye, feeling his ordeal gave him at least that right. “With all due respect sir, they knew we were coming.”
Sharpe sat, fuming quietly, staring across at the military man silently whilst his mind reeled. Presently, he sighed, leaning forward and dropping the pen onto the table. “Thank-you Sergeant, you are dismissed.”
The Sergeant saluted, then turned and left the room as quickly as dignity would allow. As the doors quietly closed behind him, Kit leant back in his chair and sighed, resting his head against the leather.
In the corner of the room, Field Commander Peter Smith stood silently, disliking the prospect of the coming questions. Smith was in charge of the Revolutionary Militia, and therefore in charge of the intelligence gathered by his forces. He stood silently in his military fatigues and peaked cap, a sewn badge of the Revolutionary Militia on his shoulder, showing the flag of the People’s Republic with a lightning bolt through the centre.
“Your intelligence was wrong, Peter.” Sharpe looked across at his senior military officer. He gazed at the man for several moments. “You know she’s a smart individual and dangerous to the revolution, and yet you let shabby intelligence get the better of us.”
Smith licked his upper lip nervously, the beginnings of a moustache tickling his tongue. A traditionalist, he intended to cultivate this akin to the popular handlebar form of Generals of years past. “Sir,” he began. “We can begin searches of the surrounding areas and-”
“She won’t be anywhere near there,” snapped Kit. “You forget that I know this woman…” he paused. “We all do,” he added softly, his eyes growing distant for a moment. Then he shook himself. “She’ll be far gone by now, possibly on the borders.”
Smith frowned. “Wouldn’t she have fled to another country?” he asked.
The President sighed, smiling a little. “She wouldn’t leave whilst there are still her comrades to look after,” he said. “That is the greatest part of her personality.” His eyes then hardened. “And it will also be her downfall…”
---
Simultaneously
The ‘New Hope’ Mining Corporation had gone bust nearly eighty years before, but the efforts of their labour under the previous governmental system still stretched across the mountain ranges of Rooshda. These were now abandoned due to faltering economic conditions and exhaustion of mineral pockets, but the mining complexes left several dilapidated buildings and a network of tunnels through the mountains; the perfect hiding place for those who wished not to be found.
Deep within the entrance tunnel to New Hope Shaft 6, a side-chamber had been broken through to create an underground shelter. Now, a group of people sat, cold and distressed, their faces only illuminated by a single oil lamp sitting upon a makeshift table of wooden planks.
“We have to get out of here,” one man was saying. He was dirty and dishevelled, with a scar across his face from a recently healed wound. He looked around the others angrily. “We barely got out of the cities alive, and now we’re held up here.” He gestured wildly. “It’s only a matter of time before they come looking.”
“You’re talking crap, George,” another man said. He holstered his dirtied AK-47, one of several stolen from military forces during the revolution. Hundreds of weapons had been discarded and gone missing as democratic forces had submitted and broken, and many had ended up in the hands of those who did not necessarily agree with the new regime, minority though they were. This particular rifle was old, and had not seen action in a while. The owner had, and he glared at George. “We can’t leave whilst there are still sympathisers in the country. We all know what will happen if we leave.”
George threw his weapon down, causing several to flinch. “What difference does it make, Steven?” he shouted. “We lost, we’re done for! We have to-”
“Enough!” a third voice, hardened feminine, snapped. The others fell silent, turning to the woman. She sat cross-legged on the floor, her blonde hair dirtied and her face smeared with dust. A rifle lay across her lap, a Kalashnikov equally as dirty as Steven’s but more obviously used recently. She glared around the group. “We do not leave whilst our comrades are in danger,” the woman stated, making it sound both a fact and a threat. “We can establish a route out of the country for those like-minded who dislike the Sharpe regime.” She sighed. “We can help people.”
Did she still honestly believe that? The woman didn’t know anymore. She had once thought she could help Sharpe. She had been proven wrong.
Bringing herself back to the present, she cleared her throat. “We have access to a radio transmitter, we call for outside help.”
The group hesitated. Steven licked his lips. “Sarah, bringing foreigners-”
“-will help our position,” Sarah responded angrily, turning to the man. “Are we now to become the xenophobes in charge? Or are we to accept that the proletariat is universal, and cannot be broken up by national borders.” She sighed again. “So we send…”
Sarah trailed off. The group looked puzzled, and then their expressions changed to those of dread. A roaring overhead began growing louder.
Sarah stood suddenly, grabbing her rifle. “Get the lookouts inside!” she shouted. Already, two people were running out the door and up the mine shaft, shouting to their comrades on watch.
She already knew they were too late by the time she herself reached the entrance. The three lookouts were stumbling through the entrance to the mine shaft, but the aircraft had roared overhead a third time by that point. She swore, looking up as the Mig-17 fighter shot low a fourth time across the mining complex, and then turned in the direction of the town of Northpoint at the bottom of the mountains.
Sara sighed, shouldering her weapon as she watched the aircraft disappear into the distance. “They’ve found us,” she said. Turning to look at her comrades, she licked her lips. “We better get that message out fast.”
---
The transmission was filled with static and garbled, but was still audible. It took several seconds for the message to filter through, but then became clear.
“…speaking to you with a plea of assistance; we need support. We are vastly outnumbered, with only two hundred fighters scattered across the mountain range. We must survive in order to assist our comrades in their escape. The Sharpe regime is no friend of the people. The Stalinists must lose out to the concept of permanent revolution and democratic means of control by the people. I repeat, this is Sarah Marxton, leading and representing the Rooshdan Trotskyite Revolutionary Militia. I am speaking to you with a plea…”
(OOC: The OOC Thread can be found Here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=498670) with the neccesary geographical and military information)