NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: Just a thread for some secret military developments, and normal exercises and some other odd ones.

SIC:
Haelfroth Airforce Base, Haleth Salt flats
Haelfroth was a nonexistant community as far as the rest of the world is concerned, as there's no mention or record of it anywhere, nor is it on any map or satellite photo. It was originally a humongous cavern filled with stalactites. Back in the early 1940's, a government expedition to find oil discovered the cavern deep in the middle of the salt flats.

The leader of the expedition, Mark Hamel, was a former revolutionary, turned entrepreneur. Hamel immediately recognized the significance of the cavern militarily. His first thought was that it could be used as a secret arms stash for governmental forces in case of another revolution. Upon his return to Illian, he went to his former commander, and one thing led to the next.

By 2004, the former arms stash was expanded, and became a state of the art military base, with all the buildings underground, sloped and covered take off ramps, disguised runways and elevators, and hidden defenses and the like.

On take-off ramp A-4, a dark painted plane began to rev her engines. Her two Have ho turbofans kicked into high gear, exploding like a bottle of diet coke filled with mentos, flying out into the night sky. The plane didn't look much like a plane, with no tail, making it look more like a butterfly. The aircraft was an ISF-15, a state of the art aircraft, designed in secret by Haaj-Frimmel Airworks for the Illiorian Airforce.

The butterfly-like craft made several complex maneuvers, and began to lower itself onto one of the disguised runways, and ended on one of the elevators which took it below to the "hanger" of sorts. There, the pilot hopped out, and began to write his report of the flight, as his crew looked the aircraft over, and began making all the necessary repairs, while also downloading all the flight data.

The development of the ISF-15 was in its final stages, of testing, and modifications, and soon to be put into full production.


Mount Maul
The citadel of Illior, Mount Maul, is the major base for the Illiorian special operations command, Marine command, and also a nuclear safe bunker for VIPs and the like. Usually it's a quiet place, with all the paper-pushers working on some random deployment, or requisition order. Today, on the other hand, it was chaos. An order from the top had asked the special operations forces to go on high alert, meaning a twelve hour deployment warning for a large amount of forces. The marines also received an alert, but it was a 24 hour deployment warning. To add onto that, the 3rd marine division, 15th Special forces division, and the 19th SFD were all ordered to move out for exercises. To make things even more hectic, an invitation was sent to the Cravanian Military, asking them to joint Special Forces Exercises.

Illiorian Space Command also went active, and the Anti-ballistic missile defenses and Anti-Sat missile stations all went on high alert.

IC
Arston Naval Base
Another deployment order was sent out, but this time, it was for the 3rd, 7th and 15th Fleets, to deploy to roaming gnome status, meaning that they'd be sent out a whole deployment shift early, making the total numbers of Illiorian craft at sea quite large.

OOC: I'll finish this later, and it'll also explain the title

BEEP BEEP BEEEP BEEEP
Fucking alarm clock… Captain Mark Hamel thought to himself as he rolled over, hoping the alarm clock would shut itself off. He looked at the clock, 5:30 am. He slapped the snooze button and sat up, rubbing his eyes, trying to adjust to the darkness of the room, barely lit by the green glow of his alarm clock. He looked around, and remembered where he was: a hotel room in Illian. He also began to remember why he was there, to visit the administrative offices of the Illiorian Special forces. Yesterday came back faster than an f-1 car, he was walking onto his shuttle at the Kajl port authority, he fell asleep at his seat, he woke up, with some cute girl with huge knockers, chatted a while with her, and then got off. He took a bus to the Hotel, and fell asleep.

He stood up, walked into the bathroom, and sat down on the toilet. Why the fuck did they call me here... Hamel asked himself as he evacuated his bowels. He then proceeded to disrobe and turn on the shower, not to hot, but to freezing cold. He got in, and let the cold water pour over his body, shocking his muscles out of their peaceful rest, and awakening him almost instantly. He got out, dried his muscle-bound 6’3” frame of a body. He shaved his face, and began to get dressed, and remembered his past.

---

Mark Hamel was orphaned at birth, as his mother died in labor, and no father was mentioned. He grew up on the streets of Tentile, where he became quick and developed an intuition for reading people and assessing risks. These skills allowed him to survive, and also earned him the notice of the local police chief, who caught Mark stealing multiple times, but ended up letting him go every time except one, when the captain brought him to an orphanage and checked him in.

The orphanages in Illior aren’t known for their hospitality, as they generally put the children to work. The one that Mark was put into was an Illiorian arms factory. While there, he was apprenticed to several different workers, each dealing with some final product. He learned from them how an Ih-19 works, and how the ISR-15 works and fires. The one thing that surprised Mark was that he had learned all of this at an extremely young age (by 12) and did it all to survive.

One afternoon while checking over an ISR-15 while his master went the bathroom, he decided to take it out to the range. The ISR-15’s an incredibly heavy weapon, but by 13, Mark was almost fully developed physically, already 6’2”, 210 lbs of pure muscle. He took it out to the range, and grabbed several bullets to test the accuracy of the scope and make sure that the firing mechanism worked, as the last few that he had checked had been faulty. He set the Bipod on the ground, and loaded a single full jacketed 15.5mm round into the breech, and then closed the breech. His master had been a former Marine sniper, so he knew how the weapons should fire, and also taught Mark how to fire the weapon and take care of it, and measure all the necessary factors. He checked his crosswind, elevation, and compensated for his drop. The target he had chosen was set up roughly 500 meters away, and Mark had the head dead in his crosshair. He squeezed the trigger, just as he was taught, and was not disappointed. The round had dropped slightly more than he had expected and went straight through the neck, and would have been a kill anyways.
Mark ejected the spent cartridge, and loaded another, this time loading a HE round, meant for Anti-armor work. He aimed just slightly higher, and squeezed again. The head of the Dummy disappeared beneath a ball of flame. Now, he was satisfied with the gun, he brought it back to the line, and replaced it and went back to work.

As he walked out of the factory, he was approached by a uniformed man, who was about his height. “Son, you’ve got one helluva shot there,” The man said, wearing a Blue blazer, with an orange shirt under it, the traditional wear for a special operations officer. “Oh, the name’s Colonel Frank Heller, by the way,” He said, offering his hand to the boy.

“Thank you sir,” Mark replied as he shook the man’s hand vigorously, and looked him over. As he had originally guessed, the man was about his height, and by his strong handshake, Mark guessed he was confident, but not arrogant. By the way the man spoke, he seemed like he was from a Farm in Northern Illior, but there was a subtle undertone of education, and a good one.

“What do think about coming with me and leaving this place?” Heller asked as they continued walking. His stride was long, slow and deliberate, as if he had been a runner at one point, but had hurt an ankle in the line of duty.

Mark thought for a while as they walked, guessing where he’d go. Heller answered his question before it was asked, “You’d go to Mount Maul, the home of the Fremen. And you’d train with the best, get an education, and serve your country using your skills.” Mark looked the man in the eye, and saw he wasn’t lying. “I’ll be out here tomorrow before you leave, let me know what you think then.” He said, splitting off and walking to a waiting SUV.

Mark didn’t sleep well that night as he went over what he had heard that day, and then decided to talk to his mentor and master about the offer the next morning. The bits he did sleep, he dreamed fitfully about physical pain, enduring pain, the kind that makes you want to just keel over and die, but it seemed that wasn’t his purpose in the dream, instead he kept moving on.

The next morning, he recalled nothing of the dream, although his bead was soaked with sweat from the dream, and his palms and fingernails were bloodied, as if he was clenching far too hard. He got up, and dressed and went to his spot on the line, taking over for another worker who’s shift was about to end. His master showed up slightly late, and Mark told him about the meeting. He listened quietly to the teen’s recollection, impressions of the man, and his confusions. He thought for a minute about the situation the boy was in.

“Son,” he said, “The Illiorian Special forces are some of the best in the world, which means they train hard, train a lot, and fight even harder. When I was fighting in Markov, A Fremen sniper saved my ass from a group of those red bastards, and I was forever thankful. If you do choose to go down that path, it will require years of hard work, and as you’re young, you’ll probably be started off on basics, such as physical strengthening, schooling in certain areas, and marksmanship before they even let you work with any of the other soldiers. You’ll probably be alone, for the most part, as I’ve only heard of ten or so SOF soldiers that started as kids, as most came out of us, the Helljumpers. If you go, you won’t regret it, but it isn’t a path for the faint of heart.” He said, and then returned to checking the safety mechanism on an ISR-15.

Mark saw the Colonel standing outside the gate, and went straight for him. “I’ll do it,” Mark said.

“Atta boy, I’ve already taken the liberty of having your belongings shipped ahead, as we need to catch a flight soon.” The colonel replied, politely pushing him towards the SUV.

The first few years that Mark spent at Mount Maul were as his master predicted, he studied intensely, mainly in linguistics, leadership training, mathematics, and military history and strategy. In the four years from 14 to 18, he managed to pass all the required courses to earn a degree, and did so. But those four years weren’t just all paper workings.

Every morning from six to eight AM, he’d run with a sack of weights on his back up and down part of the mountain, and do circuits inside the complex, and he’d also lift weights and learned Uechi-Ryu, the type of martial arts taught to the marines and Special Forces. In the four years, he mastered every technique, and was able to progress to the 5th level of black-belt, getting a certificate of achievement from the current living master.

He also played sports, excelling at basketball, with his mastery of ball skills, and defense while being able to read any defender or play quite quickly. He managed to become the starting point guard on the Fremen’s allstar team, which managed to barely squeeze past the Marines to take on the Airforce in the finals. With the help of Mark’s excellent defense, the Fremen won, 98-97. In the marksmanship competition, Mark managed to get second, using an ISR-15 that his mentor sent him, out shooting far more experienced snipers that were using smaller caliber bullets.

After those four years, Mark was fully grown at 18, being 6’3”, 230 pounds of pure muscle. In his uniform, he wasn’t a very imposing figure at all, but he was highly respected for his hard work and calmness in pressure situations. At 18, Mark began to train with the newest class of Fremen.

---

He finished clothing himself and walked to the office which was 3 block away. The administrative offices of the Fremen were in an imposing 25 story building, which was even more deceiving, because unbeknownst to most of the world was that the actual offices went down underground for twenty stories, with the twenty-five stories aboveground being offices for a nameless company.

Mark entered the reception area on the ground level, and before he even spoke, he was directed towards the elevators and told to put his thumb on the gold rimmed button. Mark did as he was told, and there was a slight lighting behind the button, which went off after he removed his finger. The elevator came shooting up after a slight delay. Mark stepped in, and the door closed. It seemed like the earth dropped out from under him as the elevator dropped for about a second and came to a quick halt shaking Mark slightly. As he stepped out, there was a cute looking girl in a military uniform who asked mark to follow her into an office, with a label on the door saying GENERAL HELLER-MARSHALL, which Mark ignored as he was staring at the girls’ ass.

“The General will be right with you,” The girl said, as she walked out, swaying her hips slightly as she went, which did not go unnoticed. Mark sat down in the leather chair across from the official looking chair on the other side of the desk. Nark was just admiring some of the awards framed on the wall, when in came former Colonel Heller.

“Mark! How have you been?” Heller asked

“Colonel! So you’re a general now?” Mark shot back as he hugged the man

“Yes, I am.” Heller replied, offering Mark a seat. “Well Mark, you’re probably wondering why I pulled you off of your leave. It’s because you’ve been promoted to Major.” Heller said grinning slightly, handing Mark the folder that was on his desk.

“Thank you general, but why now?” Mark asked, looking the general over, knowing there was a deeper purpose.

“Because you’re to be commanding a detachment of Fremen, the most elite unit we’ve put together, so the elite of the elite of the elite. The men in your detachment will all be specialists in some area or another, highly intelligent, young, and reliable. There’ll be seventy of you, including support staff and pilots, and crew. Your actual combat ready group will consist of twelve members, including yourself,” Heller said, handing Mark another file folder, this one being much larger, filled with a large amount of documents. “You’re leaving on the seven thirty flight for Allson Air force base, and as usual I’ve sent ahead your equipment from Kajl. All of your questions should be answered by that packet.” Heller said as he stood up, dismissing Mark.

Mark began to read through the folder as the plane took off. His combat crew was young. Everyone in there was 22 or younger, including himself, meaning that they all must be a lot like him. The one name that stood out to him was “Christina McMahon”, with no rank or previous military service, but instead, it said IFS. IFS normally means “Illiorian Foreign Service,” but to him, it was something totally different. IFS was also a code word he stumbled upon in his studies, and there it noted a select group of intelligence operatives good at what they do.

Mark finished reading through all the personnel files, and then moved onto their first training mission: work with Cravanite Special forces in exercises Alpha Seven, Charlie four, and Sierra Twenty one.

It was just another usual spring day in Tentile, with the usual rush-hour traffic filling up the metro system, the congested walkways of the city, and the usual bustle of offices, almost. Next store at Arston Naval and Air Force base, things were quite different. Air patrols were drastically increased, with ISF-24s, ISF-17’s, GS-425 Nightwings, and IAL-4s constantly taking off and landing, with full combat loads. The port was no different. The Illiorian Coastal Patrol’s ships were being loaded for long trips, with many Type 53’s being sent out, along with the Tarel’s, Itirica’s and its variants. The Illiorian Navy was no different. The new carriers purchased from SUDI and SSNA were receiving their final aircraft compliments and weaponry as their counterparts from RSIN were already loaded and moved out.

The scene at Arston was not an isolated incident, Air patrols were stepped up all over the country from every Air Force base. Literally half of the Illiorian navy that wasn’t already at sea was being mobilized, and put to sea, with another third being spun up and being put on high alert. For the most part, the change went unnoticed by the majority of the population, as the Illiorian Navy generally kept five fleets out at all times, so many families just thought it was their husband’s, son’s, wife’s or whoever’s turn for a deployment. For the most part, things were quiet at the marine bases, as the only orders issued were to have active duty personnel report in for time on the weapons range. The Special Forces were a totally different story. Their isolated cadres received orders to begin training missions throughout Illior, specifically practicing guerilla warfare tactics and the like.

At the Illiorian National Defense Center, all Major SAM batteries went on-line, as did the whole ABM system, with theater SAM radars going active, space based detection systems went active as well. Any person looking closely at the Illiorian situation would find it quite interesting as to what was happening. With no overt stealth measures being taken, it didn’t look like the Illiorians were preparing to invade anyone, nor did it necessarily look like they were preparing to be invaded, as certain measures that would signal that, weren’t being taken.

It had been a while since the last spin up of defenses had occurred, and since then, things had wound down. The Combat Air Patrols had gone back to their normal states. The less visible preparations, however, had not changed their readiness. The current two Roaming Gnome fleets seemed diminished, as their usual other three fleet counterparts disappeared, as had the marine complements of the other two fleets, so roughly 100,000 of Illior's finest were on deployment, as far as the world knew, but the marines knew otherwise. Their mission was to move, and be ready to protect.

Over in the Havenic colony of Burning Bay, the Havenic fleet returned to their normal stations. The preparations that had been made at an earlier point for the other fleet were dissipating, the heavy moving equipment, and the heavy armor were moving back to their warehouses, as was most other things. One thing seemed out of the ordinary, any overhead advanced intelligence satellite would be able to tell that the submarine pens were strangely empty. If another satellite passed over two hours or more later, the pens would be filled once again.

The pens at Arston Naval Base were like a desert. No man was found to be in site, no equipment was out, no subs were docked. over 300 subs had disappeared into the night, their destination, unknown. Once again, most of Illior and the world would be oblivious, as families would just think it was a regular deployment, but it was not. the roughly four hundred submarines were headed somewhere, the Tichys racing ahead, spread out over a huge area, and eventually split into two groups, one significantly larger than the other. The other submarines that followed did likewise. The larger group was moving south, towards an area known as British Londinium, and the smaller was moving to join with the 3 fleets, to bolster their strength as they moved towards the south west.

OOC: Stupid jolt ate my post... meant to have this up this mornin

Now things were becoming more and more noticeable with the Illiorian buildup. Now all active duty marines that were not on deployment were immediately sent to one of the many training camps that Illior has to offer, updating their combat skills in all areas. The 150,000 special forces, that existed but didn't, that had been training for the past several weeks began to finish up their actual battlefield training, and they began moving to their assigned departure points for the future, each of the divisions ready for the combat to come. The other million marines throughout Illior all received a coded message, essentially saying that they may soon be called to action, but at the moment to keep silent.

Things at the naval yards were slightly different, as things were becoming a bit more blatant. The seven fleets that had been sent out were now being recalled to their home ports, with five going back to Illior prime, and the other two heading towards the Joint Havenic Colonies that Illior has with Cravan, and the Illiorian Colony of Burning bay. The marines that were on board the fleets stationed outside GE began to be flown home, their equipment following on the landing craft in the fleets. The other twenty-three fleets still sitting around in Illior went from completely passive to one of two states: sort of active, or prepare for departure. Close to thirteen fleets began to mobilize and load supplies, draining warehouses, soon to be refilled, and doing any last minute repairs. The coastal defense fleet stepped up patrols, and more diesel-electric subs began to prowl the waters. The massive amount of passive CAPTOR mines surrounding Illior went from standby to ready, not yet active but damn close.

The skies were the same way as the rest, ISF-24's began to cruise the skies incessantly, as AWACS after AWACS took off to begin their lengthy patrol runs, going out to the OTH radar's edge of decent view, and bolstering it, making the viewing radius absolutely humungous. There was one oddity, a lack of manned fighters on CAP. Of course, no one outside of the military bases would recognize this, but it was weird. They had all disappeared.

The INS ILLIOR, the only Hood Class vessel Illior owned was being sent to Allanea, with Allanean crews due to pick it up and sail it away shortly.

Shit, shit, shit, SHIT, FUCKING SHIT! Erika Kars thought to herself as she read the report on what had gone on in Illior in her absence. The military state of affairs was a complete mess. Gholgoth was asking for support in its invasion for Nova Europa, Allanea was pulling its usual Shit-Eating Grin stuff, and the usual APOC posturing. She sat looking over the report, and was glad to find that her stupid fucking steward had done one thing that could be of some use: he sent several new bombers to Burning Bay and guns as well. Shit, shit, FUCKING SHIT she kept saying to herself as she moved through, reading that the new naval purchases she wanted done hadn’t been done, not enough new planes had been purchased, and he’d set up part of the Army for demobilization. She kept reading, and found one glimmer of hope. A new NATO member, HolyMarsh, was asking for support.

Her Mind began formulating plans at what seemed like the speed of light. Firstly, she was going to order a Fremen division into HolyMarsh and another into Burning Bay. She also began laying out a deployment order for five fleets to move into Haven for “Joint Operations” with Novan forces outside their colony and as well in Northland. She also set out orders to move another five air divisions to the colonies as well, and maybe one to Marsh as well, just as another “Joint Exercise.”

The order went out that day, and things began moving, but moving quietly, with the fleets going out just looking like the deployment of the usual tours, yet the commanders knew better. Once in deep water, the subs began speeding ahead, moving to stay with the fleet which was moving at a good twenty knots or so. It would take roughly a week of sailing to get there, but they would get there. On board the carriers, there was the usual bustle of activity, with the usual “training BARCAPs”, but this time, the planes weren’t carrying blue missiles: they were loaded, and ready to fire if needed.

Two divisions of Fremen who were just coming back to active duty also began being deployed, although not directly to active deployment, but instead to “Light training in Burning Bay and Northland”, and were loaded into airliners with their gear to follow in GS-427’s. In actuality, they weren’t headed for either of those locations. One division was headed for the Novan territory of Tyvreaintyil, and the other was headed to the Holy Land of Marshes.

For the air forces, it was slightly more noticeable. Deploying Air divisions is a massive task, especially when one wants to fly them all the way across an ocean to get them somewhere, but luckily it can be done. The five divisions were split in a sort of 3-2 ratio, with the first three being ASF/Interceptor based, with all the necessary logistics, and the second two being bomber flights. These divisions would spread throughout Haven, with two of the fighter divisions headed to Cravanian territories (Carpanthium and the Home Islands), the two bomber Divisions headed for the Illiorian territories, and the other fighter division headed for Burning Bay, but luckily, it would be hard to tell at all because of all the staggered launches from all the airbases spread through Illior, and with all the stops going on as well.