NationStates Jolt Archive

[OOC thread here: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=12171732&posted=1#post12171732 If you have an OOC comments, questions, or concerns, I'd prefer that you direct them there.]

“You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.” -- Pink Floyd, Time

“In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.” --George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

Part I: Genesis

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

He is running. Why is he running? He does not know. Perhaps he runs from something; perhaps he runs after it. But it is always the same: He is running, through a forest, in which the trees are red and the sky green; looking behind him his footprints are imprinted on the dark ground in blue, that fades even as he watches it, like an empty pool slowly being filled with dirty water.

And then it comes up to meet him, a great ‘it’ where there was none before, and he screams soundlessly and without opening his mouth, but screams nonetheless, because it is there before him. It is Death. And contrary to popular belief, it does not carry a scythe, nor wear a cowled robe.

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep...

He awakens suddenly, before he can see its face... if it has one. He still knows not whether he was running from something when he ran into it, or whether he was always running towards it... and he believes, deep within him, that he shall never know. It is not given unto men to know their own fate. Kari Alhoun awakes, and perceives beyond his window that it is morning, the sky dark blue streaked with pink; and he smiles. He is alive; admittedly, it is not entirely his fault, but there is little he can do about it.

Today he has a meeting. One meeting among many; he is growing rather tired of them, having been Foreign Minister for fourteen and a half years, the longest tenure of such a position in the past seven hundred years, since the foundation of the Czardaian Concordance out of a wartorn land. Alhoun is meeting with his Minister of Defence, Minister of Finance, a labor union leader, and the head of a southern lobby to discuss the state of the wartime economy for what – the fifth time this month? Alhoun sighs and begins to dress himself, grabbing together papers in preparation for the inevitable.

...and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters...

Kari Alhoun is fifteen minutes late. This is quite normal for him these days; once he had been much more punctual, before he realised how little importance his role actually holds in a nation ruled by its citizens. Minister of Finance Joshua Hodgkiss sighs and looks at his watch, then taps his laptop to wake it out of its screen saver and back to the blank screen projecting onto a display across the wall.

A few moments later a door behind the display opens and Kari Alhoun walks part of the way in, slamming his face against the screen with an audible ‘oof!’ Hodgkiss apologises and springs up to move it aside, allowing Alhoun to enter the room.

“Forgot that was the door,” the Minister of Finance explains, taking his seat once more while Al Razryuschivensko – head of the National Manufacturing Union – smiles genially. Razryuschivensko, commonly known as Raz, is almost the stereotypical armchair socialist, with glasses, neatly combed white hair, and a portly stomach. Nonetheless, he is actually quite intelligent, with a razor-sharp wit concealed in a razor-sharp glove.

Alhoun smiles all around despite a small bump growing above his left eye, and sits down. “Good morning, gentlemen! I take it we’re doing all right?”

“We’re doing fine, Mr. Alhoun,” Minister of Defence Henrik A. Ogden says, his face deadly serious. “The economy isn’t.”

“Um... ok. Why not?” Alhoun asks.

Hodgkiss says, “Well, with the war on we’ve upped our defence expenditures to fifteen per cent of the national GDP just to pay for supporting eight and a half million men over in Doomingsland. Supply is down, demand is up, and that means prices are going up too. People aren’t very happy with us and the war; they’re beginning to demand we bring the troops home, I quote.” Hodgkiss points over to the display screen and turns up the volume on his laptop’s speakers, which currently are blaring a battle between antiwar music and the chants of protestors, who are waving signs in large lettering reading, “Bring Our Troops Home!”, “Make Jobs Not War”, “Fuck Internationalism – We Have Enough Trouble At Home!”, “Oh My God, You Killed Kenny!” and the like.

The fifth man in the room, Joaquin A. Stone of the Noble and Virtuous Society of Brothers – a Dorandor-based Catholic lobby group – leans forward slightly. “The situation is even worse where I come from,” he purrs in an only slightly Slavically tinged accent. “Dorandorans are demanding, among other things, reform of Czardas’s overly lax and immoral laws, and a change in the name of their city so that they will be adjectivally referred to as something that isn’t the same five letters in a row twice. They’re threatening to revolt if their demands aren’t granted, which is why I’m here now.”

Razryuschivensko nods. “I’m here because of the tremendous amount of extra work my union is doing with little or no pay increase. We work ourselves to the bone manufacturing bullets and armour and cars and the like – and do we get any additional benefits? We come home late at night, our quality of life lowered, and all so the corporate fat cats can get richer manufacturing weapons of war. This is exploitation, Mr. Alhoun!”

Kari Alhoun raises his hands in a mock-serious gesture of surrender. “Calm down, everyone. I think we need to simply remember that Czardas is under a wartime economy right now. Everyone is feeling the stress of this moment, not just the members of individual lobby groups.”

“Mr. Alhoun, we said that last week,” reminds Ogden. “It didn’t work.”

“How long are we expected to remain on a wartime economy?” Raz demands. “Czardas claims to adhere to a system of free-market capitalism because it provides total equality for everyone. But this ‘wartime economy’ of yours has become a tool for the upper classes to use us, the dispossessed workers, for huge amounts of cheap labour – the type you claim gets one to the top in this society – and we stay where we are, at the bottom of the social structure. It is merely an excuse for oppression, and it must end immediately.”

“Mr. Raz-ru-yu-ch-shi-vensko,” Alhoun stumbles, “pulling out of Doomingsland is, at this point, simply not an option. A retreat would be far too costly, and likely cause more deaths than remaining in the current position would. To save Czardaian – and Doomani – lives, we must continue to push on until the Doomani have been, if not defeated totally, at least weakened enough that they can no longer exert the kind of poisonous influence they have.”

“Another issue that should be brought to your attention, Mr. Alhoun,” Stone chimes in, “many Dorandorans feel no great hate for Doomingsland or even look upon the Doomani as their spiritual brothers. Some even feel closer to the Doomani than they do to the Czardaians. This war has been problematic for them since the start, and will probably become more so the longer we remain at cost to our economy and stability.”

Henrik A. Ogden half-smiles. “And to throw my hat in, Air Marshal Siobhan White and High Admiral Nelson Marcus have gotten into at least one major disagreement in the Doomani theatre, and Marshal White is pretty much about to pull out all of her forces in the region. Which means that air cover for our troops may soon become a bit, uh, limited. So it’s a kind of urgent problem, and the entire Ministry of Defence has agreed that we need to pull out of Doomingsland asap.”

Alhoun looks horrified. “Doesn’t Marshal White know that if we do not hang together, we will all likely die?”

“From what Avi—ah, Marshal White—tells me, that’s exactly what she’s been saying, but Admiral Marcus is the one who hasn’t been listening, insisting on distinctly odd troop maneuvers and movements. For instance, he ordered the launch of five hundred nuclear missiles at a single city, he split up the forces in Arretium to the point that they could hardly communicate well enough to avoid killing each other... it’s almost as though he’s been trying to discredit Czardas,” Ogden says.

“Hmm...” Alhoun murmurs. Then, remembering himself, he turns to the two lobby leaders. “Mr. Raz, I’m afraid all your workers can do is keep working. I’ll remind the business managers of Article Six, and possibly get the Council of 400 to introduce a motion... but otherwise, there’s not very much I can do about it. Mr. Stone, the Dorandorans are having a no more difficult time than any of the rest of Czardaians, and you should remind them of that; if they want new legislation, they should petition their local Councilman to write a proposal and post it on Czardasnet.”

“That’s not very helpful,” Stone says. “But we’ll try.”

Once the lobby leaders have left, Alhoun looks sorrowfully at his ministers. “Well, I suppose this is all we have, now.”

He turns to go back, his feet tapping quietly along the bare ground. Up, up two flights, across the grand marble staircases and tapestry-ornamented walls of the Congress Hall. This is where Alhoun is. At the top of the stairs he enters his office, looks around at the familiar space as though seeing it for the first time... as though all his life he has never actually seen. He takes a deep breath and picks up the telephone.

And God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

Part II: Exodus

A set of quietly tapping footsteps echoes throughout the hallway, noise amplified and re-amplified by the bare walls and ceiling, free of anything superfluous or non-functional. The sound is carried throughout to the unyieldingly closed steel doors, resembling more a wall with no visible break, as the starkly naked fluorescent lighting, located behind a panel to cast only a dim glow over the passage, remains on eternally; this is perhaps the place of no darkness of George Orwell’s fantasia, or the ruins of an ancient city far under the sea, like Atlantis.

A door swings shut behind the tapping footsteps and the figure causing them emerges into an elevator, soaring upwards into the sky, towards the roof, towards an eternity of sky, vastness incomprehensible to mortal, sane, and sober men. But philosophy is not on the mind of the ascender today.

She emerges from the elevator into a brilliantly sunlit room, paneled by modified glass, unbreakable and solid. Rays of light slant through the glass, falling on the almost too clean floors of steel; a wall separates this receiving room from what the newcomer has always suspected to be living quarters – if this place’s resident even needs them anymore. At the far end, from behind a circle of tactical displays and viewscreens, a wheelchair turns from the windows and pushes itself towards the newcomer. She stands in front of the closing doors of the elevator, without awkwardness, looking calmly at the wheelchair-bound figure before her.

“I’ve come to announce my resignation,” she says.

The man nods soundlessly. “I guessed.”

“For once it seems you weren’t certain.” A smile plays about her face.

“I had no proof... except the evidence of my own mind.” He swivels to face the vast expanse of city sprawling beneath his feet, and the woman follows, five-inch spiked heels on her boots clicking like crabs.

“Look down there,” the man instructs, his voice hoarse and cracked. “That city beneath our feet is the home to a hundred million people. People you served until now. Why do you choose to abandon them now? Is Czardas in any less danger than she ever was?”

“No... Czardas is in far greater danger. That is why I resign.”

The man nods again and turns his wheelchair to look up at her. “We have always understood each other better than the others,” he says. “I agree with you. The defence of a nation no longer lies in your hands... but in those of Henrik Ogden.”

She turns to the window and speaks in a sonorous yet austere voice, like reciting a catechism of faith. “The days of Alhoun, of Ogden, of Andreas Caverra... they are numbered. It is time for a new order to rise in Czardas, time for the old ways to be abandoned; time to let inevitable progress crush the old, and in its place, there will stand a new, shining truth, the truth of redemption. And we will create that truth.”

“You speak the way Pseris used to,” the man says, chuckling. The woman seems struck by this as for the first time, her voice distant: “Yes, I suppose so…”

The man in the wheelchair smiles faintly. “It’s almost ironic... how much you’ve been my natural extension in the Czardaian Intelligence Service. Almost taking my place as the most influential figure to dominate Greater Czardia since the days of the Empire.”

“‘Almost’?” She laughs.

“Perhaps you don’t remember... at the time of Imperial Galactica my influence was so widespread we foiled three assassination attempts in a month. And I was the one supposed to be such a covert figure.”

“You see, there we differ. Even now nobody knows the extent of my influence... or how I gained it.” The woman smiles. “Although I’m sure they speculate.”

“I’m reminded slightly of Hindu mythology,” the cripple reflects. “According to them the entire universe is divided into three separate but unified entities, if that makes any sense... Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the preserver; and Shiva, the destroyer. Every destruction is a new creation, and everything is part of this cycle.

“I was around to see the start of the Concordance. I lived through most of its existence. And now, it looks like I’ll see its end, too. But – I know what you’re going to say – an end that is also a new beginning.”

“This is the creation,” the woman says. “A new order. A new republic, built from the ruins of the old. And to have the ruins of the old available... we must destroy it. Czardas needs a defence initiative, a first strike force... and I will see to that.”

“Defence initiative?” The wheelchair-bound figure chuckles. “You want to destroy Czardas, and you call it defence?”

“It is defence,” she explains. “Defence, of a way of life. One Czardas no longer exemplifies, if it ever did.”

The wheelchair begins to roll backwards. “Well, I have some work to get on with, although I rather doubt it’ll have any consequence in the long run... but that’s how I’ve lived to be a hundred and forty, by working consistently. And artificial implants – there’s no organ of mine that hasn’t been replaced or fixed at least once – but, well, it’s mainly keeping at work that’s kept me on my proverbial feet.”

“Keep working, then, and I have a feeling you’ll live to see dawn once more.”

He chuckles again. “Don’t say that. Then I’ll have to live all the way until dusk comes around.”

When the elevator doors have slid shut behind the woman, the wheelchair-bound man rolls towards the window, speaking to the city below, his voice almost inaudible.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last...”

* * *

Alma Finlay’s boots click against cobblestones as she exits the Thronak Tower, fresh from her interview. It is the last time she will see Czarna the way it stands today. The sun is fresh on the rooftops like dew, producing its rays of heat and light, and the streets are vibrant with activity as cars honk and beep at the protest of the day blocking the street. As she walks towards the waiting limousine she hears a thousand sounds intermingled, voices and music both, as some pounding bass emanates from a car stereo, drunken revelers sing in the distance, and people shout and yell across the noise at each other, unable to hear themselves otherwise.

This is Czardas the way it will have been, and she may even miss it a little. But, when the lives of all are at stake, this small sacrifice can and must be borne. She steps into the limo and gives a swift instruction to the driver; the car sets off at an even speed, heading for the highways and barely avoiding assorted drag racers, cyclists, motorbikes, trucks, and people. Or sometimes not avoiding. Even so, manslaughter could rarely be attributed to any one person, and chaos ensues whenever police try to investigate. Besides, Alma Finlay is one of the people who are simply not investigated.

Finlay is thinking. She knows, now more than ever, that she has support. Already in her Defence Initiative, or with support pledged, is her own Division, the 14th Special Operatives; their succor can be counted upon in any endeavour which Finlay chooses to undertake, after all. Money, funding, and equipment comes from Dvardi’i Defence Industries and a host of other corporations; at least one of the 270,000 strong National Armies is joining her as well, and likely many more of the most highly trained troops in the Czardaian Army.

As the Initiative’s primary purpose is to defend Czardas against whatever forces might be threatening its stability, and that stability may soon go right down the drain, Finlay well knows that foreign nations may step in to attempt to restore order, and possibly enlist the Initiative to assist them; even now, as she travels towards her new headquarters, she is drawing up a price list that will enable the Initiative to earn a significant profit while still keeping its employees paid, fed, and fit. For the Initiative shall grow; even if the situations in Czarna and Dorandor are resolved, the Initiative will gather momentum, eventually offering its services to whatever is left of the Czardaian government and likely absorbing the rest of the Czardaian military in the process.

The first order of battle, however, is to call home the troops. For troops are supporters.

The Initiative Headquarters is located in the rugged mountains almost equidistant from Czarna, Ardaja, and Dorandor. The area is forbidding, with trees standing bare and stark sentinel for miles around; the lone road goes past heavy barred gates in the middle of a high steel wall, and Finlay can see empty command posts around the walls. They will be filled soon enough, when her supporters get here.

Alma Finlay pushes open the limo door and steps out. Birds are singing in the trees all around her, and she looks over at the radar jammers, whose lights are on, signifying that they are working. Ahead of her is what looks like an average-sized, two-story family house, surrounded by evergreens. She smiles, pushes open the door, and walks in. Inside the scene is very typical: carpeted floors, cheap paintings on the wall, bureaus, armchairs, a modern kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms. Finlay has seen it before. She simply walks straight in and goes to a far wall at the end of the hallway.

At the end of this wall there is a light switch. She flicks it—no light comes on—and inserts her ID under the plate, where it along with her fingerprint from the light switch is scanned. A moment later the wall descends, like a drawbridge; she steps on and walks across, glancing down for a moment at the floor twenty feet below, and back at the mock pillars between from which the wall descended. Stepping onto the other side, where there is another apparently solid wall, she flicks a switch on the floor and the wall returns to its former position; she takes a moment to look down at the floor between the two entrances, which is charged with fifty thousand volts of electricity, and then inserts her ID into a small panel at the base of the steel wall. A moment later, Alma Finlay, and the entire floor area on which she stood, vanishes.

Somewhere in the bowels of the earth, Finlay opens her eyes again; the floor has finished its rapid descent, and she is emerging into the dim light of the Initiative Headquarters. There are already people down here; a uniformed man appears and glances at her. Finlay looks at him with a contemptuous strike, her voice accentuating what the man already knew she would say: “Get people on guard upstairs, we can’t have interlopers just walking in like this.”

Rather than protest, the man nods soundlessly and reconnects to his direct channel across to a certain General Danail Arachinovsky, a supporter of Finlay’s who controls an army stationed in Silanche. Silanche has seen little action lately, despite the numerous other wars going on around the provinces, and Arachinovsky’s troops are soon to return to the Initiative; the private armies hired and well paid by DDI, Things On Wheels! Auto Manufacturing Corp, Greater Czardaian Telecomm Services Inc., and a plethora of allied corporations are on their way in trucks, approaching their new stations with adrenaline in their glands and eagerness in their brains. Many of them are younger and more active men and women, having taken jobs as mercenaries during the Great Work Shortage post-Kregaia; younger even than Finlay herself, who is approaching thirty-five, although—in part due to her constant, intensive martial arts training—looks and acts quite a bit younger. There are also older, wiser, more cynical soldiers, such as the SpecOps of Ardaja. The Initiative is not a single corporation, nor even a mere group... it is only a few weeks old in preparations, a few hours in reality—and it is already becoming a way of life.

Finlay enters her office, flicks on a light switch. It is clean and modern, with nothing superfluous, except for perhaps the oddly expressionist lamps; Finlay grimaces. That is Red Wolf’s touch. She sits down behind the broad oaken desk, her grimace deepening at the selection of small buttons on her end, invisible to someone seated at the opposite side. What is this, a spy thriller? But she feels also a small sense of admiration; she trained these people, after all.

She picks up her cell phone, dials, speaks quietly. “Avi? Come home. It’s all over.”

Part III: Leviticus

A cold wind whips around him as he clutches his cloak closer to himself, keeping along the side of the road. He is one of a very few out at this hour, and trying to keep as silent as possible; he has been learning to do it for years so it is relatively easy for him. Leaves gust past him, borne by the autumn winds; it seems an autumn both of the earth and of the nation, and he for one is proud to say it.

Dorandor has never been known for its nightlife. As a predominantly religious and conservative city, it is much rarer to find instances of public sex or nudity than anywhere else in Czardas, and drug use is virtually unknown. About the only thing that seems popular in Dorandor that is also popular elsewhere is the affinity for rock and the strong individual-nationalist fervour. Therefore, the very idea of a nightclub or late-night concert is quite rare in Dorandor, with only one street where the shops stay open very late; here in the suburbs it is totally unknown. Indeed, Dorium – the overall name for Dorandor, environs, and much of its province – is the quietest place in eastern Czardas.

Ahead of him he sees a telltale sign, a lantern. His contact is here as usual. This is a house both of them have used before, which is rare; they usually keep to different houses each time. He has a vague idea that his contact is wanted by the Czardaian police or officials or something similar, although he is not entirely sure on that point; there are no references to the name the contact goes by in any databases or in print, so he suspects it of being a false name. That is no problem; he too goes by a false name, as one can never be too cautious.

Within moments he is at the door. “Florian?” he whispers, his voice barely audible above the wind.

“Aye. Maximilianus?”

The other’s voice is darker. It has an edge of faint cruelty in it, of fanaticism and insanity, and worse – of erudition, intelligence. Maximilianus has long since known that he has been dealing with a very cunning man, under his apparent disguise of fanaticism. But ‘Florian’ always manages to turn up with the funds, and that is, in the end, the important thing.

The two cloaked figures slip into the dark house. It is abandoned, set for demolition in a few weeks; Maximilianus throws back his hood, revealing his faintly Romulan features: the dark and closely cut hair, aquiline nose, haughty eyebrows, set chin—almost like a scion of an ancient noble family. ‘Florian’ keeps his hood on, and beneath it Maximilianus can see only darkness, save for a white arch that runs across the forehead, and two deeper sockets that could be eyes.

“Do you have it?” Maximilianus asks hoarsely in a murmur. Florian’s only response is to remove a briefcase from under his cloak and place it, open, upon the table before them. In the dim light Maximilianus can see the glint of crisp thousand-dollar notes. Maximilius has to withhold his surprise; he was told Florian was known in these parts as “the Just”, but he never believed anyone could be just with regard to money. He counts it, twice, before looking up and saying simply, “They’re in there.”

Florian passes through the door and flicks a light switch, sending a lamp on dimly in some corner of the room and turning Florian, in the eyes of Maximilianus at the door, into an even grimmer silhouette of his former self. The light is very low, but it is nonetheless possible for him to make out the boxes stacked high against the walls. There were no boxes here yesterday, but Florian does not question. He only opens some of the boxes, running his hands through the contents with what seems to be smug satisfaction. DAC-97s. DR-83s. RPGs. ATGMs. Ammo. Body armour.

At length Florian steps back and says, “This is everything?”

Maximilianus shrugs half-contemptuously. “Weapons are expensive, especially of this quality. And it’s a massive amount of them for a small rebel group like yours.”

The white line on Florian’s “face” seems to crinkle into an eerie smile. “We may be a small rebel group now, yes. But someday, with the help of our allies, we shall become a large and well-organised one. Only ‘someday’ cannot be put off forever. That someday is now. Now is the time for us to rise up and revolt, and whether we are large or small is no difference. Besides, we have help in our endeavours.”

Maximilianus’s face is curled into a look of contempt, but he manages to half-smile. “I suppose you mean Manus Dei... His Holiness is, apparently, on the point of declaring a Dorii Crusade, against the Czardaian infidels.”

“That is because his Holiness is wise,” Florian says, his voice almost cracking from its hoarse, yet educated tone. “He knows that the Imperium must stand by her allies, even potential allies such as the Noble and Virtuous Society. And indeed, the arms of Manus Dei do reach into Dorium.”

The other nods comprehendingly. “Doom Corp and the NVSB share a common interest, now. I suppose it is for the best that we work together.”

When Maximilianus has left, Florian seats himself upon the floor, throwing back the hood. His head is covered by a mask, wrapped in black cloth except for the white stripe that runs around his forehead and ears, all the way around his head. He closes his eyes, and he reflects.

Many long years ago, before he was Florian the Just, he had had another name. He had become known by it for his actions when stationed in Muesilania, when he repeatedly countermanded orders from superiors and finally ended up in open rebellion and conflict with them. Abandoned by all but his most loyal men and gaining a reputation for insanity, he had fled Muesilania before the authorities could catch up to him; his plane was shot down over Czardaian territory and he was presumed dead.

But he was not dead. The crash changed him; he became less comfortable around others, more accustomed to spending long hours alone, in darkness. His once-vaunted agility and power as a warrior were gone now, the result of multiple fractures in both legs. He became Florian, a charismatic orator and logician who could dismiss an opponent with ease; and he became Florian, supplier of arms to the Noble and Virtuous Society of Brothers under Joaquin A. Stone. It was as though he were another Moses, except unlike Moses who brought down tablets and laws from Mt. Sinai, Florian was bringing weapons, tools for people to kill each other with. It must be almost like being a God...

Vae puto deus fio.

Presently James LaFleur, or the man who once was James LaFleur, opened his eyes. He looked down. He looked around. And he smiled.

Soon it would be morning. NVSB operatives will be along to carry off the cases and distribute their contents among those who will rise up, some day soon, to overthrow the Czardaian government. They will not question whence the arms have come; only know that they are there, and for them. Manus Dei, the vast shadowy network with some connection to the Doomani Inquisition, is already in motion; its preachers are in every church now, calling for an end to Czardaian oppression. And for LaFleur, or Florian the Just, as we may call him? He will achieve his own personal vengeance on the Czardaians, the way he always intended to from the start, by destroying the nation from within. Then he will rule Czardas, through the guise of the Noble and Virtuous Society, until the time has come that he can shed that too, and place the entirety of Czardas under his control.

The walls of a fortress are only reinforced on the outside. Florian the Just found that out to his credit. Now he is going about it the right way.

The government of Czardas is its people, and those people shall suffer for it.

Part IV: Numbers

Ieyasu Takahashi throws down her backpack with an expression of disgust. The numbers are all wrong. That idiot Pyotr must have fucked up somewhere, and she’s the one having to deal with it, as usual. Tucking a lock of slightly wavy dark hair behind her ear, she begins typing furiously into the chat window, toggling occasionally back and forth between that and a small javascript box that says only “Loading...”

> I want a proper estimate, kids, not this bullshit.

Takahashi waits. She is 17, of Japanese ancestry, although she speaks Czardaian, English, Pacitalian, and Dienstadi with equal fluency. She has long dark hair, contact lenses, a small frame, and a deceptively innocent look that conceals a mind of surprising devilishness. She is not entirely a typical teenager; her closest friend is a sentient anthropomorphic badger named Erin, although such creatures are gradually growing more accepted in Czardaian society; she also has a professional-level knowledge of hacking; and she is well on her way to leading a nationwide revolution. Or she would be if Pyotr and the others stopped feeding her crap.

<+Pyotr.Karamazov> sorry Shi.
<+Pyotr.Karamazov> but I’ve told you all I know.

She sighs deeply, exhaling a “Fuck!” as she types,

> Ok, who here /does/ know then?
<+John.Lemain> Thing is I’m not sure even the individual groups know.
<+John.Lemain> But I’ve talked to Lewis, and this is what he tells me – I quote:
<+John.Lemain> So far as we’ve gathered, there are at least three hundred million Czardasnet users who support us, possibly even more. Most of them seem to be based around major cities of the North and West: we’ve definitely got everything within a triangle of Aurú, Palma, and Senazkerkia with the Aurdanian spit tangential, as well as the farther northern coast almost to Tyriandor. The rest are in isolated bands across the country.
> Thank Dog for Lewis!
<+John.Lemain> You might ask, if that accounts for three hundred million, what about the other 1.6 billion users? As far as we know they too are clumping together into dissatisfied groups. The largest seems to be a union led by labour leaders and prominent Socialists, such as Albert Razryuschivensko; it may number in the high four hundred millions, and seems to be centered south of Czarna, centering around the cities of Mariosz and, to a lesser degree, Ardaja. It may be a serious threat, but we doubt it is anywhere near as well organised. There are also groups of loyalists, whose numbers are unknown; and localised groups, the largest of which is centered around Dorandor and which, we believe, is unlikely to move out from that general area.
> So we’re safe?
<+John.Lemain> According to Lewis, we are. But I’m not inclined to underestimate the Army. Although we have a million troops deployed plus equipment and logistics, there are likely more than a million left that can be called up.
<+John.Lemain> Remember, these are trained troops whereas most of our boys are going to be, well, average people with guns.
> Oh shush. :P
> I’m not co-ordinating this anyway; you should take that issue up with the head chief co-ordinator, or whatever title he takes.
> I’m just regional head: Czarna.

Takahashi switches back to the other window. It has finished loading; she is glancing through the files of the top-security Czardaian database accessible from Czarna. Nothing she didn’t already know, save one fact.

She looks closely at the file. It is that of one James LaFleur, a former Captain in the Czardaian Army, now claimed to be at large. Last seen in the Dorandor area.

She uploads that file as an attachment and types in, breaking into the conversation,

> I’ve got a hunch that those Dorandor folks are harbouring a fugitive. http://127.0.0.1/sites/files/James%20LaFleur.shtm
> Maybe if we accuse them, we can distract the Czardaians by having them send in the army, so it’ll be stuck there when we make our move.
<@Roger.Jones> I’ve got just one question – why do we want to get rid of the Czardaian government anyway?
> ... do I really need to explain this again? 9.9
> Frankly? It’s full of idiots! Democracy’s been proven to be an inefficient solution, and dictatorship is prone to just the same flaws – idiots get into power.
> The only real way to solve this is to create a merit-based government, one in which the informed and intelligent make the decisions for the rest of us.
<+Pyotr.Karamazov> You only say that because you’d be on top. :P
> Yes, I would. :P
> And another thing. Look at the streets! There are people killing each other, stealing, and stuff... the basic principles of morality are being ignored.
> As soon as we’re in power I’m going to try to set some reasonable guidelines – like, don’t kill each other, pay your taxes, no personal nukes... that kind of thing.
<@Roger.Jones> We have personal nukes? o.O Why didn’t I get one?
<+Venaji.Fletcher> Cause you suck. XD
<+Pyotr.Karamazov> Roger! *severe look* We’re trying to fight that kind of thing!!
<@Roger.Jones> Bloody hell, can’t a woman have any fun? :-(

Ieyasu Takahashi watches them. She smiles, after a fashion. But her real attention is concentrated upon a Microsoft Word document that is also open. She is recording what she knows.


[b]Us (The Merit Coalition):
Leader: “Vermius”
~300 million nationwide
Main concentrations: Aurú, Palma, Senazkerkia, Aurdanian spit
In Czarna: ~6.5 million

Military assets secured for Czarna:
~900,000x MT-71
~2,000,000x Galil-96
~2,000,000x M-16
~500,000x assorted other handguns
~600,000x flamethrowers
~40,000 machineguns
~6,000 RPGs/ATGMs
Other assorted heavy weaponry (ask Venaji or Roger for details)

Them (The Czardaian Government)
Leader: Kari Alhoun
Unknown number of supporters
Main concentrations: unknown; Mjenaz and Viyél area suspected
In Czarna: ~6 million

Economic reformists
Leader: Al Razryuschivensko? Some other Communist?
over 400 million supporters
Main concentrations: Mariosz, Ardaja, Czarna
In Czarna: ~9 million?

Other localized groups:
- The “Noble and Virtuous Society of Brothers”, Dorandor – Czarna concentration: 760,000
- The Czardaian Anarchist Front, Czarna – concentration: 900,000 (may band with reformists)
- Tyrianni Liberation Army, Tyriandor – Czarna concentration: none? Total number: about 50,000
- Czardaian Right-Wing Coalition, Czarna – concentration: <300,000

Independents
Totally not organized so we don’t care anyway.

Corporations
Dvardi’i Defence Industries, Port-Khûfi – standing military of 680,000
Czardaian Consolidated Oil & Gas, Ardaja – standing military of 90,000
We Buy It Inc. Consolidated, Ardaja – standing military of about 250,000
Czardaian National Arms, Aurú – standing military of about 400,000
Other major ones? unknown.



She sighs. It’s not complete. But it’ll have to do for now. She switches back to the chat window.

<@Roger.Jones> ’Shi, new development occurred about 5 minutes ago, check out this link: www.gcdi.org.
> Thanks Roger.
<+John.Lemain> I’m already working on tracing its numbers, but it has some kind of uber firewall thing... I can’t get through. I’ll try more processing power and keep trying to hack the passwords.
> Hmm... So this “Greater Czardaian Defence Initiative” was just unveiled? Let me get this straight, it’s a conglomerate, or whatever the word is?
<+Venaji.Fletcher> Never one for economics, were you Taka. :P Yeah, it’s a conglomerate of about 20 corporations – DDI’s involved, so is Things on Wheels, Czardaian Telecomms, the Viceroy Merchant Marine, SysCurity AntiVirus, and others. They’ve pooled their resources and joined forces with something like sixteen defecting SpecOps divisions for the sake of “the defence of Czardas”.
> Sounds like they’re planning something. I’ll add their data. Do we know how many troops they have?
<+Venaji.Fletcher> We can add it up.
> ewww, math.
<@Roger.Jones> XD
*** Join: Merdie.Nourt +iov
<+Merdie.Nourt> Afternoon taka, et al. You’re our co-ordinator, aren’t you?
> yeah...?
<+Merdie.Nourt> why did Vermius pick a teenager?

Ieyasu Takahashi is unsure how exactly Vermius ascertained that she would make a good co-ordinator. Five months ago, she had been approached after school by a completely nondescript man -- one she could not have described post facto if she’d tried -- who had asked her, quite simply, whether she was interested in, or thought herself capable of, becoming a figure of influence. She answered in the affirmative, and was subsequently arranged to be “out sick” the next day while she took an exam administered by another unnoticeable person, or perhaps it was the same one.

Shortly thereafter she was informed of her duties and told to keep them covert. She acquiesced; fortunately nobody really asked her flatly, mainly due to the ingrained Czardaian respect for privacy. She had grown into this new life rapidly: whispered or hidden online conversations about important matters, the multitudes of guns and weapons tossed around like toys, the occasional death threat from some crackpot whom Vermius swiftly had “removed”. She has experience with some of this sort of thing from the popular, and highly realistic, online nation simulation game The Real World®, where she controls a nation she has named “Vietnam”.

She hears footsteps from the stairs and quickly closes and quits the chat window, pulling up her homework assignment and the force list. She flips open her physics textbook and appears to be studying it diligently as her mother enters the room.

“Are you doing your homework?”

“Yes, mother.”

Mother peers at the screen. “What is this? Something for your online game?” Mother is always disparaging when it comes to TRW. “Too violent”, she says. “Immoral”, “unhealthy”.

Takahashi half-smiles. “No, mother, just ... something ... like.”

“Okay... do your homework, please.”

“I know, I know.”

Of course, fairly soon Ieyasu Takahashi won’t need to do homework. At least, not this kind. And she rather doubts she’ll have parents anymore to come up and check whether she’s deployed the right number of tanks to Dorandor or had all of the traitors shot yet.

It is almost an amusing thought.

V. Deuteronomy

It has been six weeks.

For each day of those six weeks, Kari Alhoun had entered his office with another devastating bit of news thrust in front of him. The headlines still ring loud and clear in his head, their exact text almost as visible now as it was on the day he first saw them: Civil unrest grows in South, Sovereign League-owned companies driven out. 3rd National Army joins “defence initiative”. Socialist rally in Mariosz erupts into violence. Air Marshal White abandons Doomingsland operation, citing differences of opinion between commanders. Manus Dei operatives apprehended in Czarna. And so on.

Alhoun is tired, very tired. There are bags under his eyes, purple circles run beneath his eyebrows, he is unshaven and unkempt, and a cloud of permanent gloom has settled over his face. He is beginning to dread Congress Hall and what developments the next day might bring. They are invariably bad. The death toll has already exceeded a hundred thousand in Czardas; riots are erupting everywhere as traditional protests turn ugly, with shops looted – especially gun shops; at least three Council of 400 members have been assassinated in the chaos; in short, Czardas has gone over the precarious edge of direct democracy, into total anarchy.

Despite his better instincts, Alhoun has gone to work today. As he hangs his jacket on the coat hook, he half-smiles and queries his assistant Lorin Dax humourously, “So what’s today’s catastrophe?”

Dax shrugs and hands Alhoun a newspaper. “Try not to faint from surprise.”

The top of the newspaper is occupied, in massive print, by the words:
DORANDOR SECEDES, DECLARES SELF ‘HOLY IMPERIAL DORIAN REPUBLIC’
Issues public ultimatum to Czardaian Government

Attached is the actual message:

Official Message of the Holy Imperial Dorian Republic

As a newly independent nation, the Imperium Sanctum Rei Publicae Dorii (ISRD) hereby makes the following demands of the state of Czardas:

The ISRD demands that Czardas recognize her as a fully independent nation with all privileges, rights, and duties thereof.
The ISRD requests the right to free usage of the Zaïr River as a passageway to the sea, as well as custody of the Port Khûfi military base and CAMERA installation.
The ISRD demands that all Dorii – a Dorius defined as a person born and/or raised within the former city of Dorandor, and her environs and surrounding province – held or compulsed to remain within any part of the nation of Czardas be released into Dorium, and that the passage of any who wishes to emigrate to the ISRD not be blocked.
The ISRD demands that Czardas cease its oppression of religious people and curtail the prevalence of “alternate religions” within its borders.
The ISRD demands that all Czardii military personnel or police – Czardii defined as citizens born and/or raised in other parts of Czardium, who have not chosen to live in Dorium or do not support the rightful government thereof – be withdrawn immediately from Dorium.
The ISRD demands that the state of Czardas not interfere with any ISRD diplomatic meetings, even with CAD nations.
The ISRD reserves the right to kill or expel any Czardii non-Christians, sexual deviants, abortion doctors, or otherwise mentally unsound individuals.

If these demands are not agreed to within 24 hours, a state of war shall exist between the ISRD and Czardas. This is your only warning.

~ Florian I, called “The Just” ~
By the grace of God, His Most Holy Imperial Highness, Emperor of Dorium, Grand Magister of the Noble and Virtuous Society of Brothers
Alhoun groans. “Oh, dear God, are these people joking?”

“Apparently not,” Dax says, “we’ve got satellite shots, they appear to be mobilizing a quite significant force along the northern border of the territory they claim, which is forty kilometers south of the Zaïr, a hundred kilometers southeast of Czarna.”

“I mean their demands. They expect us to give up Port Khûfi to them? Allow them free passage through our lands? For what?”

“I see your point,” Dax says. “Probably for fear of getting attacked.”

“They’re a province of, what? Three hundred million? There are close to four billion people in the rest of Czardas. Declaring war on us? They’ll be... oh wait. Damn.” Alhoun closes his eyes as he realizes the point: two of Czardas’s national armies have defected, four are fighting for their lives and for Czardas on Doomani shores, and the remaining three may not be anywhere near enough to counter the threat of a Dorian invasion.

“I’m going to have to give a speech now. Call home the remaining armies from Doomingsland, they should pull out, I don’t care how many they lose in the process. It’s time, I think, for the Czardaian Government to pull out all of the stops.”

“Kari, don’t bother. The people really don’t like it when we do. Remember the last time that happened?” Dax casts his mind back to the days of Chief Minister William Robert Baxter, commonly known by the affectionate nickname of Billy Bob. During periods of extensive rioting, Baxter had called up a little-used power of the Czardaian Constitution. The resulting public outcry was part of the reason Czarna today existed mostly on only one side of the Zaïr.

Alhoun sighs. “I know. But really, what choice do I have? Refuse and let them make the country an even worse shithole than it already is? I owe it to the innocent Dorandoran folks under this maniac’s sway.”

“Well,” Dax shrugs, “your choice, I guess.”

Alhoun nods and quickly broadcasts the message to the media, inviting them for his speech, on the steps of Congress Hall overlooking Democracy Plaza.

* * *

News spreads fast in Czardas. As Alhoun walks out onto the steps an hour and a half later, along with all the reporters there is a massive crowd of rather angry Czardaians, demanding to know what’s going on. It is simply a mob, and as Alhoun stares at them he realizes that this is what he has been ruling all along: a mob, carried by media and public opinion, influenced by just about any little thing to go off and do violence or protest. This is not the state he had imagined.

But, he realizes with a sickening thud, it is his.

The speech is televised internationally, captured on billions upon billions of TV screens, on TiVo, on YouTube, on podcasts, and just about everywhere else. Alhoun realizes that those billions are all watching him, waiting for him to speak. A single droplet of sweat, or maybe a tear, inches slowly down the side of his face. He looks sidelong at the Congressional Guards standing impassively behind him. None of them are men or women he recognizes, not like the old SpecOps who used to stand guard here: Jim “Master” Shadowe, Shrike, Red Wolf, Enigma, Thomas Irian, Miro Dorakov – all gone, to somewhere whose name Alhoun can barely fathom.

He begins:

“My fellow Czardaians, and citizens of the world, I bring you grave news. The Czardaian province of Dorium has recently declared its independence and threatened war with Czardas herself. As many of you already know, this is directly following massive rioting throughout Czardas – protests and rallies turned violent, military desertions, and the like. Due to the growing chaos at home, I have already given the order for the troops to withdraw from Doomingsland.”

Someone in the audience heckles, “It took that long?” Alhoun ignores the interruption, focusing his gaze on one individual face in the audience, trying to memorise it. “Czardas has always been a bastion of human rights, of democracy, of freedom. The citizens of Czardas are said to be the freest in the world today; and Czardas participates in other organizations devoted to the spread of freedom around the globe, such as the Sovereign League.”

“Spreading ‘freedom’? How about spreading nukes?” It is the same heckler, citing the destruction of Nova Brittanica. Others behind him cheer in approval. Alhoun forces himself to look at the man; while it is a good distance away – there is a broad road and a length of empty cobbled plaza, ringed off with fences and yellow police tape – he can see the heckler, a rather obese, drunk man. Alhoun ignores the interruption as before, and continues.

“But today Czardas is in a state of utter anarchy. People consider the government powerless; the corporate armies are busier fighting each other than working together to defend the nation; entire territories are simply seceding. And Dorium’s recent threat of war has left me no choice.

“The Minister of Defence has already called for all available military units to be moved to the border of Dorium province until the latter’s threat is stood down. There is constitutional precedent for this. We in the Governing Council have also come to a second conclusion after studying the Constitution; as spokesman for the G.C., I hereby declare Czardas to be under a state of martial law, in accordance with section six, article four.”

The voices of the mob are rising in a crescendo, and Alhoun holds up his hands for silence. “Do not panic, Czardaians. There will be no infringement of civil or political liberties. However, a curfew will be enforced, and military and military police will patrol the streets to protect business owners and citizens from rioters. In the event of a Dorian invasion, citizens will be ordered to evacuate their homes...”

Despite the microphone Alhoun can no longer hear himself. The voices are rising to a fever pitch; Alhoun can make out a few words: “—yeah right no violation of civil liberties—” “—a motherfucking outrage—” “—what the hell is he talking about, are we a dictatorship or something?—” “—‘spokesman’? He’s not claiming to be just a government ‘spokesman’. He’s claiming to be a goddamn King. And Czardas doesn’t have Kings, anymore.”

“Please, calm down,” Alhoun says into the microphone, setting the volume to maximum.

“We bloody hell won’t calm down!” a woman screams in what sounds like a Cockney accent. “No military police is going to tell us what to do, we’re Czardaians, we don’t listen to that bullshit!”

Alhoun feels the strange undefined fear creeping through him again, bursting out now. He turns to the guards behind him. “Use all nonlethal methods to subdue the mob.”

“Sir!” The guards salute; an instant later five tear gas grenades and five smoke grenades whoosh through the sky and burst open over the mob. Clouds of gas and smoke obscure the scene; the yelling and shouting from the mob is dimmed slightly, then resumes with a more savage note in it. Alhoun can no longer make out individual cries, which is just as bad: he no longer knows exactly why they are mad at him or what they plan to do. He stands his ground, but not from bravery; rather because his feet refuse to obey his impulse to run....

The smoke is only beginning to clear, but now Alhoun can see the mob advancing. They are wading through the street, towards the police line and fencing. They are chanting something; as they come closer Alhoun can make it out fully: “Down with dictatorship! Freedom and revolution forever! Death to the pig cops and their repressive regime!” (etc.)

Alhoun turns slowly to his guards, half-smiles sadly, shakes his head. “Fire at will,” he says abruptly.

Historians cannot agree on what happened next: who fired what and when, who was killed by whom, etc. Some reports claim that machine gunners on the roof panicked too and started firing prolonged bursts into the crowd, potentially killing dozens. Others claim that the loudspeakers were still on as Alhoun gave his order, enraging further the already inflamed mob. Even the cameras show little; the real-time broadcasting of one simply recorded a massive forwards rush of faceless creatures, all screaming, as smoke and bullets and the sounds of violence and death were everywhere.

Kari Alhoun had forgotten that Czardas is a little bit like Allanea... almost everyone owns a gun or some sort of weapon. As his rounds began to impact, dozens of weapons from small pistols to submachine guns to old AK-47s to rocket-propelled grenades (er, sorry, “handheld anti-tank weapons” in Russian) simply appeared, as though summoned by an invisible entity. Historians do agree that the last thought ever to pass through Kari Alhoun’s head as he watched this chaotic scene must have been some variant of:

Oh, shit.

In Dreams

Dreams are eternal, they tell of our deepest desires, they cast forth our utmost secrets, they are shadows of our waking moments

Dreams are said to be omens, tools of prophecy, reflections of the future in the mirror that is today

In my minds eye, I see an ancient Conflict, I see the fall of man.

The figure twirled and pirouetted it capered in mid air, it’s great stave the center of it’s movement, a heady music swelled and told of a great future, the surrounds lit with light as there was movement.

We were falling

The chamber glowed with light

The dancing intensified, and others were in the dance, there was merely the dance and the dancers, later there would be those who would not dance, they were a threat, they did not obey the divine edicts.

They fell

They Danced

They swirled around, their movements rhythmatic and erratic, unpredictable, yet they were ordained, and a central figure led it all

That expression said it all

There must be more dancing

The chamber wide and angular with many strange alcoves was filled with the movement, they danced a storm, and around them the world fell with them, the world fell down.

As they danced their movements traced the floor a great sigil, the caligraphs swirled in circles at each footfall, the air trickled with light as it fell down in lines, like some distant future’s reality it painted the caligraphs in mid air.

They Continued to Dance

Outside a great clash was heard a racket of spurting lifeblood sundered bone and death rattles as throats were ruptured by powerfully swung implements, great calls to the gods went out, and a shrill cry for the people went up the dancers looked at each other for a second and continued their paths, they now touched, they swirled with each other, their patterns across the floor within the air and upon reality growing more distinct.

“Brothers and Sisters, we must not falter”

The dancers danced yet more, their speed increasing, and in the alcoves around the room the air sparked, it grew tight, it seemed to tear slightly, a faint miasma filled the room, and the room was alive, alive with light

The music resounded yet louder, and a chant began, an almost inaudible chant in a strange alien language.

Their very words seemed to become part of the dance, forming caligraphs in mid air, of pure light, vibrant and shifting rapidly, their robes and ornaments moving with them, in an hypnotic display, and the room seemed to crackle.

The dance continued

Outside the sounds of battle would down, and the great entry to the chamber heaved, heaved like a wounded beast, outside there were calls, the ornaments upon the walls shuddered, and the dancers gestured slightly as they moved, the ornaments too joined the dance, great weapons, massive axes, resplendent broadswords, and other fantastical implements of war, the dancers continued, their robes swirling around their forms non stop.

The Light intensified, the alcoves were filled, each home to a great tear, and inside that tear something lurked, brought forth by unknown forces.

The dance intensified.

The figures chanting began to rise in volume, as step by step syllable by syllable gesture by gesture and motion by motion they unlocked a catch to the great vault, they unlocked the great vault, their dance, a great code, they danced yet more, and they unleashed the secrets hidden within, and as they danced, they dreamed.

The Doors burst open and inwards burst a tall figure, his hair hanging around his head soaked in the blood of battle, he heaved, his armored chest rising and falling with each breath, spattered in blood and gore he stood, around him stood his brave and valiant comrades, staring askance at the spectacle before them, and as they stared the priests first movement was complete, the first step of the dance finished, this part of the dream, at an end, the air shimmered again, and a tall individual dropped out of nowhere, with his comrades.

“Zeon Xalxonois,”

“Vornzel Jindrax”

The pair stared each other down their animosity well known, it was as it should be, all things in this world were meant to be this way, all things in time were set to right, all walked the journey, this conflict, these foes destined to forever meet, it was time, and they knew it.

Yet still they stood

Yet Still They Danced

The light intensified, the dance quickened and clothing billowed even more, it was a sight more dreamed than seen, it was impossible, yet it happened, as the world fell down, they danced, thousands upon thousands slaughtered each other outside this great temple, Vukas clanged, bows twanged, catapults rattled and the dying sang their last words, yet this was unseen within, all that mattered was the dance, there was only the dance, the dancers, and those who would not dance.

The Light grew, and out of the light stepped strange creatures, empowered by the dance they joined the cohort in awe of the dance, and Zeon stood tall, wreathed in the light of the dance as he leered down upon his foe, laughing at the futility, and the dancers continued their dance all the more, their priestly garb swirling in the light.

Voronzel brought his Vukas high as he spoke quietly and quickly, his arm held in front of his face, sweat beaded upon his brow as the air was alive with movement, light grew yet more, the place akin to a great light show than a temple, and yet they still danced, and those joined Zeon increased in number, as one Voronzel and his noble warriors charged, leaping into the fray, Voronzel took into single combat his nemesis Zeon and their great weapons clashed, yet the Dance continued, even though the dancers looked on at those who would stop the dance, yet dance they did, and they chanted all the more.

Light Intensified liming those who fought, and a great flash filled the air, the second step of the dance was complete, the fallen comrades of Zeon rose once more, and out of the light stepped more figures, figures presumed dead, figures who had been dead, yet now walked the path again, and they bore arms against Voronzel’s Chosen, yet more came through the breached doors of the chamber, more of Voronzel’s Stock, and they joined the fray, and the numbers increased, and the dance went on.

Vukas scraped against Vukas as the two rivals glared at each other in deadlock, matched movement for movement parry for parry thrust for thrust, they themselves seemed to dance a dance, and around them their own light shone, and around them their own died, slaughtered by foeman’s hand, errant blows near hit the dancers, yet the blades seemed to curve away from the figures, even as sometimes the rapidly moving figures sought to impact upon the blades.

The Dance went on.

Zeon leapt up upon the platform and so did Voronzel, Zeon’s comrades in arms lay as chunks of fresh sliced meat upon the ground, their features carved and cleaved, their blood oozing along the floor, their death gurgles had touched his ears, and he had wilted within at each overtone in this grand symphony, the dancers themselves seemed to belong to it, the music rose to a greater crescendo, the dancers danced to a new fevered pitch as they one more released a catch of this great combination lock, a circle of light appeared and within it lurked a great figure, impossible in it’s majesty, all around the room the other tears had by now opened wide, and servants had come out, warriors clad in Iron did battle with the Sons of Jindrax, fighting fiercely, yet in this portal above the dancers the greatest figure lurked, and he seemed to soar towards the light as the dancers continued.

The Dancers Continued.

This was the dance of the End, the Fall of Man, retold by Voronzel Jindrax Himself.

In the darkened chamber filled with elevated recesses lined with consoles and monitors, light played distantly, a single word played across each screen, pulsing like veins across an angered forehead, like the steady beat of a youthful heart, so did the letters of this word, this name pulse across the screens,

CYBERAX

CYBERAX

The Words Vanished, and something stirred in the distance, a silver egg approached, it bore the same word

CYBERAX

It grew upon the screens, And it moved, it fell away as something looked up, the face of the machine, the computer looked upon the room, a silvered skull, and it hung there in the darkness, as it observed the room, much akin to a crypt.

“Cyberax, I have a task for you, I sense much conflict in our future,”

“That is to be expected, Conflict has been foretold,”

“Then you should know that we stand ready for it,”

“Affirmative

“Then Go, Go Cyberax, seek out an individual known as Vermius, I have sensed his presence from time to time, go, find him,”

“As you will, Cyberax, Logging Off”

The Face vanished slowly, and the light that it had provided faded, leaving a tall man to stand in the darkness, he stood there his mind racing as he looked up, and he looked down, there was much to do, and so little time.

The Machine was strong, He flexed his will throughout all of Cyberspace, searching out the term, across every computer across every file, even in government agencies, it was a simple task, he held within himself every potential he was the ultimate and the absolute, human nature was easy to him, every where he went he left a little piece of himself, he was everywhere and he was nowhere, he was a myth, a legend, he was a dream.

During his search he alighted upon the computer network of a strange nation, one known as Czardas, a strange nation at that, he drifted through Czardas cyberspace with ease, instantly unlocking anything he came to, even the most advanced firewalls and passwords were as nothing to him, he slid through without triggering an alert or alarm, finally he alighted upon the computer of a teenager, placing a piece of himself within he continued his scouring of the worlds computers, when this teenager next logged in, she would be greeted by the machine itself, a shadow of the true nature of Cyberax, and it would want something of her, it would want Vermius.

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - John F. Kennedy

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Kjurat Lovitad's Office, Ajer, Yafor 2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Socialist Party Leader Kjurat Lovitad sat facing the wall of the room, folding papers over and over. He wasn't actually doing anything, more thinking about politics. The Socialist Party was getting out of touch with the common people in Yafor 2. The parliamentary scandals of over a year ago still damaged their credibility as a bulwark against corruption and that had been their slogan for two years now. It was too late to change that. Meanwhile, economically, the Yaforites had become players in the global marketplace, were bartering their goods with abandon, and the hope of purely socialist economy was leaving. Their only hope, really, now was to take a moderate position and get Rudiv Sodo's replacement to be a socialist. Eliana Dagora. She was the perfect person for the job.

There was a thunderous knocking at the door in front of him. Irritatedly, he stared at it, trying to see if he could make out who it was from their silhouette. It didn't work, and that put him in an even more irritated position. "Come in. Or don't. I don't care." he said, his voice manifesting his irritation. The door slowly opened, as if the person behind it (the person who had disturbed his calm, nonetheless) was slightly apprehensive to enter. That was good. Let them stew in their own juice for a while, Kjurat thought. Then he looked up and his face broke into a wide smile.

"Nurvain Khast! What a pleasant surprise!" he exclaimed, the broad grin on his face showing all his opinions of the man. Nurvain Khast was a Major General in the Yaforite army and the architect of the Yaforite advance to Sofia during the Yaforite-Generian war. It was he who had brought the Yaforites to their greatest height in the war, the water-mark of their invasion. He was an old friend of the Socialist Party Leader's and looked just as delighted to meet him as Kjurat was to meet him. He bore in his left arm a pack full of things, with a slightly torn piece of paper clenched tightly in his palm. His right hand was outstretched.

"The pleasure is all mine, Kjurat." The Major General's voice was soft, yet slightly dangerous - as if he was commanding men. It had been a long time since the Major General had commanded men. Kjurat, the grin still plastered on his face, took the other man's hand gratefully and the Major General smiled as he did. "I've got information for you, Kjurat. The government's picked an assignment for both of us and a lot of SRACH in the bargain as well. Read this." Nurvain Khast released his hand from Kjurat's, and with his left hand, threw down the sheet of paper that he was holding. It was a fluid motion, but the immediacy of it startled the Socialist Leader.

Kjurat picked up the sheet of paper and began to read it, his eyes visibly traveling along each row, till the end, whereupon they went to the next. Kjurat Lovitad tended to read slowly; it was his style and he preferred not o miss anything of importance. It would not take him long to read that sheet of paper, however. It was short, with only a few lines of text upon it. Kjurat read it through once, and his face looked troubled. He looked around, the re-read it. Nurvain Khast nodded knowingly. Kjurat's reaction was almost identical to the reaction he himself had had when he had read that sheet of paper. It would have been a universal reaction for anyone in the government.

"Czardas!?! Why are we going there?" Kjurat Lovitad sounded incredulous. Nurvain grinned. That too was a universal reaction. "I don't know. Ask the -" Nurvain bent down to read the signature (or lack of signature) at the end of the sheet. "Foreign ministry. I'm sure that they will have all the answers you want." Nurvain's voice was slightly mocking - only slightly, as if enforcing that this was not a good idea, but one could try it if one so wished. He was rewarded by an irritated glance by the Socialist. Kjurat Lovitad was known for his temper and it was easy to see why.

"But isn't the government staying out of Czardas?" Kjurat Lovitad still sounded like he didn't believe quite what he had just read. Nurvain's face took on an affirmative expression. "That's what I've heard, too. But I guess that things change, eh? Look at Kari Alhoun. Look how fast things have changed for him?" Kjurat Lovitad looked back at him, his head bare bobbing up and down in agreement. As much as he hated to admit it, the Major General probably was right. Or maybe he wasn't. Kjurat looked at the sheet, re-reading a certain section, then emerging with a triumphant look on his face.

"No, our government isn't changing its ideas. Look." He indicated the section with his left pointer finger. "This is a clandestine operation. That's why we've got SRACH involved. Six teams of SRACH, no less. That's the largest 'advance operation' I've ever heard of!" The Socialist snorted, his voice trailing off into muttering. "Twenty-four agents? What are they doing? Swamping the enemy with SRACH agents? I thought this was to be a clandestine operation, not a parade!" Kjurat Lovitad looked up at the Major General. "And why are they sending us, again?"

Nurvain had a wry smile on his face. "Read the thing, Lovitad. You're the political force behind this operation. I'm the military aid that we promised them. And why else would our government purchase half a million SMGs and many more other arms, for a discount? For this operation. This is going to be the big break that the Grand Democratic Duchy is looking for." He sounded like he was simply relaying facts, for his voice was totally lacking in fervor. "Now, get your stuff packed. We're leaving pretty soon." Nurvain strode out of the office.

Twelve hours later, the two men, along with twenty-four SRACH agents (six teams) were on a direct flight Ajer - Ayadi. Five hours later, they were on another plane, heading to Mjenaz-Arkaia International Airport.

Parliament House, Dowland City

The footsteps echoed through the long corridor, each one sounding like a thunderclap on the dull, gunmetal grey floor - a floor completely unlike the others that existed throughout Parliament House. For although most of Parliament House was open to the public nine hours a day, seven days a week as part of King Alexander I's 'Public Freedom' initiative, and visitors could walk through the beautifully constructed building, this corridor did not exist on any of the large maps of Parliament House that were scattered throughout the entire complex.

There was a good reason for this. The corridor itself was only accessible through a roped-off room on the first floor, and through an ordinary-looking door that had a sign hanging off it reading 'Closed For Refurbishment'. The door seemed to be locked at first apperance, but the manipulation of certain panels on the door in a certain pattern would cause a sudden hiss of air being released, and the door swinging open. Moving through the door - which would swing back silently and close again - would reveal a larger room, brightly lit and containing a steel desk that was bolted to the floor; behind the desk, sitting on a similar steel chair, was a steely-faced woman of middling age, who had a laptop before her and a clipboard. Standing behind the woman, and flanking a thick, grey door were two Marines, clad in standard-issue fatigues, jet-black bullet-proof vests and cradling XM-8 Assault Rifles.

The man to whom the footsteps belonged to had just gone through this rigorous procedure; he had been checked off of a checklist on the clipboard by the woman, then searched thoroughly by one Marine whilst the other kept an XM-8 trained on him, and finally having to give a fingerprint and retinal scan before the second door slid open, revealing the corridor behind it. The man had proceeded through the door and walked quickly down the corridor, noting the way that it subtly sloped downwards. After a minute or so of walking, the man approached a second pair of Marines and a set of double doors. After being searched again in the same fashion as before, the Marines stepped back, the doors hissed open, and the man walked into the room that was his destination.

The room was massive, almost cavernous in its appearance; the new arrival was impressed and not a little awed by it. The room, officially known as 'Emergency Situational Area - Parliament House', was more simply referred to as 'The Grey Room' by its occupants, due to the dull grey ceiling and thick support struts that were scattered throughout. The Grey Room was essentially divided into two areas, seperated by a massive glass screen. The right-hand part of the Grey Room that the man had entered was dominated by the massive conference table that sat in the middle, around which were arrayed a number of chairs and inbuilt computer consoles. The left-hand part of the massive area was a mass of desks, computer consoles, huge computer screens built into the walls, and men and women in grey and tan uniforms milling about.

Around the conference table were gathered almost the entire high-ranking members of the government and armed forces; the Secretary of Defense, the Foreign Minister, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, even a Lieutenant-Colonel who wore the distinctive red and black badge of the Royal Space Force. At the head of the table sat the Head of Government and the Commander-In-Chief, His Majesty King Alexander I, Monarch of the Grand Monarchy of Skinny87. It was Alexander himself, a tall, dark-haired man in his early thirties, that raised a hand slightly to cull the various conversations that were in progress between the men and women around the table.

"Colonel Dupree. Thank-you for coming - I'm glad to see that you arrived safely. The last reports from the Embassy were worrying. How many of the Embassy Staff and your Marines escaped?"

The man, who wore the black and grey uniform of Embassy Guards of the Grand Monarchy, was Colonel Emil Dupree, Commander of the Embassy Guard Detachment of the Skinnian Embassy in Czardas. Former Commander, Dupree mused ruefully as he sat down in an empty seat next to the Secretary of Defense, wincing. There's not much of the Embassy left now, and the same for my command. He turned to face the King, but before he could utter a word, he grabbed for the edge of the desk. His knees suddenly felt like jelly, and his vision swam in and out of focus. He was dimly aware of hands grabbing him and pulling him upright; he must have fainted for a few seconds, for the next thing he saw was the concerned face of Alexander himself, cup of water in one hand and the other hand motioning away several other people who had moved towards him.

Dupree swore, his face rapidly turning the colour of beetroot; he tried to stand up and apologise at the same time but was quietened by Alexander, who pulled him to his feet and guided him to his chair before returning to his own. Dupree gratefully sat down, and began to stammer out another apology, but was again cut off by Alexander.

"There is no need to apologise, Colonel. You've been through a lot in the past twenty-four hours, and this was bound to happen eventually. I can only apologise for ordering you here immediately; if the situation were not as dangerous as it were, I would have sent you with the rest of the survivors. Please, take your time and try to describe to us what happened at the Embassy, and what you believe the situation in Czardas is like at this moment in time."

Dupree nodded, and took a sip of water from the cup that the King had provided him. The cool liquid seemed to fortify him a little, and he was soon able to begin speaking. He went over much of what the assembled men and women knew, but adding a few new details to the already grim picture of Czardas. "The Embassy was assaulted approximately twenty-six hours ago by several hundred angry and well-armed members of the public. Despite several warnings, they crossed to the gate and outer walls of the Embassy Compound and began firing at the Guards on duty. They fired back in self-defense, but were soon cut down. I rushed to the walls to assess the situation, but before I could arrive the gate and much of the southern wall were destroyed in an explosion."

Dupree took another gulp of water, trying to stop the shaking that had begun in his left hand. "I tried to form a rearguard with the Marines left in the Embassy, but we were soon overwhelmed by the mob that had streamed through the breach in the perimeter. Only myself, two Marines and perhaps a dozen assorted Embassy staffers made it to the Helipad on top of the Embassy and onboard the helicopter. As the helicopter orbited the compund before leaving, I could see the mob tearing down the interior garden decorations and ransacking the Embassy. Before we landed on the RSSGalifree, we had to pass over much of the Commercial District in Czarna. It didn't look very good, to be blunt. Many buildings were on fire, there were mobs in the street, and we were fired on on several occasions as we exited the area."

With that, Dupree fell silent, his hands shaking even more. Alexander stood up and walked over to Dupree, laying a hand on the mans shoulder. The room was silent for a moment before Alexander began speaking. "Then I'm afraid it's even worse than we expected, ladies and gentlemen. The riots and fall of the government were disastrous enough, but with the forcing out of our businesses from the country and the destruction of our Embassy by rioters, we can only come to one conclusion: the Czardas we once knew has ceased to exist. The only question that therefore remains is - what can we do to help and stabilise the situation?"

Alexander walked back to his seat, but he had barely sat down before the arguments that had ceased with Duprees entrance started up again. Above the other voices, however, rose two dominant ones; that of the Foreign Minister and the Secretary of Defense. Harry Carter, the Foreign Minister, spoke first. "With the Alhoun administration fallen, a power vacuum has appeared, with four main contestors. There is a pro-democracy faction that has assembled under an heir to Alhouns throne, as it were - a government official we believe to be associated with the Czardian Foreign Office. Then there is the so-called Imperium Sanctum Rei Publicae Dorii, or just Dorium - the splinter country that desires complete independence and is known for its strongly conservative, Catholic outlook on things. Thirdly, there exists 'The Meritocracy' - a massive shadowy underground organisation led by a man known only as 'Vermius'; its primary objective appears to be to restore order where there was once anarchy and create a government determined by achievement, rather than democracy. We know very little else about this person, and believe him to be in reality a propaganda hoax for the Socialists. Finally, there's the usual Socialist group; they appear to be the largest group, seeking to reform the ultra-capitalizt Czardaian system, increase basic healthcare and welfare - the same Socialist agendas."

Paul Eddington, the Defense Secretary, nodded at the Foreign Secretary's apt summary of the political situation. "Your Majesty, the pro-democracy group would appear to be the most obvious group to support. However, we know very little about the forces i-Latinu controls, and establishing contact with him is proving difficult. The Socialists, although larger, are in much the same position with us at the moment, and the less said about 'Dorium' the better - upstart Doomani collaborators. As for 'Verminus', we know nothing at all about him; the Foreign Office believes him to just be propaganda for another group, as the Foreign Secretary noted. In short; it's a cluster-fuck in Czardas. Well, even more so than usual."

The grim joke caused a few small smiles of appreciation, but they were soon quashed by the severity of the situation. Alexander stood up and placed his hands behind his back, lacing fingers together. He said nothing for a moment, then apparently came to a decision. "For now, we have no one group to support, and a fragmented political situation. As such, I am ordering Paul to place six Rapid Reaction Groups on immediate standby for deployment into Czardas, although they will not be deployed until I give my express approval of such an action. In the meantime, I want the rest of you to do your utmost to find out more about these four factions, and try and get in contact with any of them - barring, of course, 'Dorium', to whom we will have no contact as a Sovereign League member. Carry on."

The men and women around the table nodded and moved away, already thinking about their next courses of action. Only Alexander and Dupree remained; Alexander turned to look at the Colonel, who was now staring at his hands, which were shaking furiously. Alexander moved to help the man to his feet and get him medical attention, quietly wondering how many more men and women of his nation would become like Dupree before Czardas was restored to order.

Foreign relations are not just about treaties and conciliation. Often it is a bloody affair, with the decisions of sniveling diplomats directing the flow of history. The world is like a particle accelerator, and empires and republics and military juntas hurtle through at unimaginable speeds. Sometimes they collide. And sometimes when they do, eternal hatreds are born.

Of course, it isn't true that the eyes of the Imperium see everything. That's logically impossible, though the Intelligence Division has almost convinced itself otherwise. But often, they see enough.

***

The room was silent. Usually there were at least murmurs, rumblings as the powerful handed information around. But not this time. Word in the Palace was that the normally silent Lucius Kressh, Head of the Intelligence Division and a man of legendary coldness, had spread around a few whispers about what the news was abroad. What the news was that Minister Darian Aurelius was going to report.

Inner Court meetings were usually quick affairs; the vast majority of reference between different departments took place over secure messaging. Before that kind of technology, they had been essential, but now the Inquisition, or the Armed Forces, or the Ministry of Civics would say their piece, and normally there would be some discussion before Lucifer interrupted them and issued his orders. And they were obeyed.

Today, things would be different.

Darian Aurelius rapped the surface of the conference table for attention before standing. Gazing at the familiar faces of the most powerful men in the Imperium, he did not speak. Without any preamble, he tossed a single newspaper down onto the table, and those who could read the headline soon found their mouths open.

DORANDOR SECEDES, DECLARES SELF ‘HOLY IMPERIAL DORIAN REPUBLIC’
Issues public ultimatum to Czardaian Government

Basking in the shock written on the face of every man there save for Lucius Kressh, whose Intelligence Division had given the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the information in the first place, Minister Aurelius grinned and declared, "The enemy, gentlemen, the Enemy of Enemies, is crumbling."

Indicating High Lord Rahvin, the general responsible for the triumphs of the Czardaian War, Aurelius continued. "This newspaper states, as I'm sure you can see, that the filth-ridden democracy of Czardas is breaking apart. Kari Alhoun announced recently that Czardaian troops were pulling out of terra Doomana, if you will. And, even better, he declared Czardas under martial law.

"As all of you are no doubt aware, Czardas is an anarchist hellhole. And so, needless to say, the people didn't take this well, and it's very likely the entire country will split apart. They simply cannot support their own diversity at a crisis like this. In fact, as I've said, the country is splitting apart. The Catholics of Dorandor have seceded, and there will be war. It's likely our brothers in the Imperium Doomanum will be getting involved to help out their Catholic friends." Heads were shaken all around the table; the Kregaians viewed the monotheism of the Doomani as a problem that could be forgiven, but was still a bit disgusting, like a child that wouldn't flush.

"Gentlemen, I want you to take a minute and reflect on the word 'Czardas'. Go ahead. Consider it." And, bemused, the Inner Court did just that. Save for the Sacred Emperor himself, who sat unmoving at the end of the table, eyes sparkling insanely, they closed their eyes and thought about it.

The word was an interesting one to any Imperial citizen, bringing up the blackest hatred imaginable. There was no real reason why the Imperium should hate Czardaians more than any other infidels, but there it was: Kregaians loathed the Czardaians, to the depths of their souls. The word summoned images of soldiers marching to war, battle in the skies not far from Korronis itself...but among these men, who knew what the war had been, and had watched it unfold via satellite feeds, the word conjured even greater rage, and dark satisfaction. They thought of the ruins of Aurdania, and Auru, and Senazkerkia. They thought of the Senazkerkian forests burning as the city's inhabitants were trapped by the flames. But they also thought of more than two hunded Imperial warships rusting in the seas off the Czardaian coast. They thought of the failed conference of Czarna, and how despite High Lord Rahvin's string of conquests, in the end it had not gained the Imperium anything more than a reputation.

And they decided the time had come.

"Imperator Vuell." The words, from the mouth of Lucifer, jerked the rest out of their reverie, focusing all eyes on the god-king. "The time has come for a second round. I want a fleet assembled, a grand one, and an army to match it. I want the skies to blacken with our fighters and bombers. We are going to war, my children, and I want Czardas to remember how we left it. I want Kari Alhoun, and Henrik Ogden, and all their blasphemous peers to beg for mercy at the feet of the Iron Throne. Inform the College of Priests that the time has come for the Fifth Crusade. No holds barred, my children; we are going to Czardas!" The Inner Court sat in silent apprehension as Lucifer's voice rose, until he shouted the last sentence and surged from his chair.

"Make the arrangements, Imperator! Lucius, keep me up-to-date on everything that happens in Czardas. High Admiral Anor will command our fleets yet again, and High Lord Rahvin, you will take the Legions into Czardas for the second time. I salute you, Rahvin Ares, for you lead this Crusade. The Destroyer is with you, is with all of us, and he is waiting for his sacrifice. We will not be denied again, my children. Blood and Honor!"

ooc I'll get a map up probably tomorrow or Thursday. /ooc

~ Mjenaz-Arkaia International Airport, although really, it could be anywhere ~

Matthew Phillips is kneeling. In his arms, cradled like a wounded child, is his automatic rifle, chattering in its own version of cries; while Phillips occasionally feeds it a clip of ammo to quiet it, its noise grows no less. The rifle is an old one, but reliable; as it continues to send its solid fire barrelling through the air, Phillips peers out towards the advancing Socialist forces. There are quite a lot of them.

"Fuckers," he grumbles, as a flashbang explodes a short distance behind him, followed within a second by a frag. It's an oft-used combination those bloody commies have been using. Stolen straight from Czardaian Army urban warfare tactics, too. How dare they -- his tactics! Phillips feeds his gun another clip and glances at one of the advancing forces below; the man, or woman, keels over with a second red gash in the neck, right next to the telltale red badge denoting them as Socialist forces. Phillips half-smiles. "Pwnt."

Phillips has lost his mind. Or at least, part of it. He remembers the things he has been trained in the Czardaian Army -- how to fire a gun, how to kill, how to identify explosives... even, to some extent, who he is fighting. He does not know why he is fighting them, or who he is, or where he lives; he can be forgiven for this, as he is the only member of his squad who survived (sort of) an artillery attack from Meritocratic forces near Adarion and is thus a little, uh, shell-shocked. Yeah.

Phillips is one of two hundred remaining troops guarding part of Mjenaz-Arkaia. Or at least, it was two hundred half an hour ago. By now there are Socialists in the main terminal, exchanging firefights with anti-Socialist "civilians" and Loyalist troops alike. Phillips is in Terminal C next to the control tower, back to a solid wall, facing across the airfields; as the Socialists advance from the main terminal -- over ten thousand of them -- Phillips and his comrades in arms are cutting them down like wheat before a scythe. Yet then keep coming in droves, increasingly better armed and trained.

"Malthus reporting a line breach at minus sixty-five meters."

"Roger," Phillips says, briefly consternated because Malthus's first name is Karl. He sets aside his doubts and swivels to face the line breach.

A distance down the terminal, sixty-five meters from the control tower, the walls have disappeared, replaced with a blazing inferno. The ruins of a cargo plane are twisted into a blackened burning heap, and Socialist troops have entered the terminal that way, coming in through the ground floor. As Phillips stares in awe another shell slams into the airfield nearby, sending concrete and asphalt through the air and leaving a large crater in their wake.

"That is some big-ass artillery they got," Phillips radios to no-one in particular.

"Yeah, looks like at least fifteen-fives, maybe more."

Phillips hears running feet behind him, peers out through the entrance whence he came. The flash of red. He begins to fire a continuous burst through the entrance to his hiding spot. But it is not enough. He has given away his position, and only moments later the Socialist troops within hear a deafening blast from outside. The brave one to go examine the results finds the small window alcove completely twisted away, as though it had never existed. Satisfied, he leads his comrades on.

On the ground, Phillips raises his head slightly. It's a small wonder he survived; the inaccuracy of the mortar round probably helped. He is bleeding from a dozen wounds and has broken at least one leg; yet, he seems incapable of feeling the pain he knows he ought to feel. A plane is coming in, and he raises his rifle, aiming for the windows or the fuselage and watching the rounds bounce off and ping away. He fires until his fifty-round clip has been expended.

The plane comes down to land, possibly the last ever to land in Mjenaz-Arkaia, but Phillips is no longer watching it.

The Socialists have taken the airport.

~ An aeroplane ~

Joshua i-Latinu is not a particularly important official, and never considered himself as such. It therefore came as a bit of a surprise when he was sent off to a foreign nation as part of a diplomatic delegation. Which foreign nation, well, that's exactly it -- its name consisted of about thirty-six letters, half of which were either Z, X, K, F, or V with the occasional Y and TH thrown in. Probably why he was sent as opposed to any other, then.

i-Latinu is flying back to Czardas, which he always had found much preferable. He is a committed democrat, believing that power should be placed in the hands of the common people where it belongs; and a moderate free-marketist as well, for the same reason. Yeah, for some strange reason i-Latinu believes that giving every citizen the right to earn and keep their own property is a form of social equality, don't ask me why, I'm just the narrator.

i-Latinu has just settled in for a relatively comfortable flight when the TV screens begin blaring forth the news. A bland-looking announcer is speaking in a bland-sounding voice. "Early yesterday the civil turmoil in Czardas erupted into all-out violence as an angry mob overran Congress Hall. Approximately thirty officials of the Czardaian Government, including Foreign Minister Kari Alhoun, are missing; another fifty have been confirmed dead. The breakdown of formal government led to, among other things, the province of Dorium declaring itself independent, and Dorian-led rioting in the capital and elsewhere; foreign embassies and airports were destroyed, as well as many businesses, both domestically and foreign based. Here's Ted Smith with more information."

The camera switches to a picture of a Guy in a Suit standing in front of various scenes of violence and destruction. The Guy in the Suit says, "Thanks, Melinda. I'm here in Czarna now next to the Skinny87 Embassy" (which appears on camera as a dual frame, before and after) "and the situation is bad. Dorian led rioters took over the embassy, killing many of the personnel and systematically destroying it; it was liberated about midday today by forces of the mysterious 'Meritocracy', which restored the area to what little Skinnian control there was and is at the moment engaged in a fierce gun battle with advancing Socialists and the Nativist Party of Czardas, a small splinter group. Casualties are heavy, but Meritocratic forces seem to be holding the figurative fort." (On the word "fort", we hear a loud crash and the camera spins around and falls to the floor, pointing straight up at the open sky and broken ceiling above.) "Sorry about that, our camera guy just got shot."

"Thanks Ted," Melinda says, regaining the screen. "So far the main conflict appears to be between the Socialists, the Dorians, the Meritocrats, and assorted splinter groups. While we are fairly certain there are those still loyal to the democratic government -- 'Loyalists' -- out there, they have yet to organise in any significant fashion and are taking a severe beating, both in Czarna and elsewhere. More updates on this situation as it develops."

It returns to a central news anchor. "Well! That was tragic! Now on a lighter note, ..."

i-Latinu ignores the rest. He is, of course, not entirely shocked; however, the surprising thing is what seems to be the small Loyalist presence. i-Latinu is certain that, most likely, the vast majority of Czardaians would support a democratic government; they just need to make sure their voices are heard. They need a leader. And perhaps he can step in to fill that role... first, he needs to find a Loyalist.

The aeroplane has been redirected to the Federative Sikh Republic of Space Union across the border; from there i-Latinu will probably have to take the mountain train across to the Joltaff and Mjenaz area, and eventually reach Czarna by some means or other. He's not entirely sure how. But he will.

He is quite determined to lead a nation, despite some lack of experience, and no military experience for sure. That hasn't deterred some people today however, like Jimmy Carter. Ok, really bad example. You get the point, however.

ooc #2 lawl Sorry about that... I was working on an even longer post yesterday that incorporated Nova & Kreg too, but jolt ate it. /ooc

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Mjenaz-Arkaia International Airport
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The plane slowly glided down, speeding up as it floated down through the clouds. It was a small plane, but equipped with plenty of fuel for the journey across the mountains that surrounded the cities of Mjenaz, Arkaia, and the other cities around. They were like ever-present ghosts, looming over the area, overshadowing everything that any of the far eastern Czardaians did. It was not surprising, then, that the plane, carrying only twenty-seven people (though it did carry a whole army's worth of semi-automatic machine guns and ammunition) was as full of fuel as it was. Besides, that was what the SRACH had asked for, and only fools ignored the SRACH.

As the plane moved through the wisps of cloud that covered the airport, Nurvain Khast was mildly apprehensive. He knew that whatever greeted them down in the valleys and fields of Czardas was not good. He was sure that it was worse than expected. The reports from SRACH agents in Czarna and Tyriandor told an elaborate story of death, devastation. Many in Ajer believed that they had either gone insane or were feeding the government lies intended to put them on the wrong foot. Both were possible. Both were likely. Nurvain doubted that either was true.

The plane began its descent into the airport and Nurvain could immediately tell that something was wrong. For one, the southeastern part of the airport was covered with a thick cloud of what appeared to be smoke. It was difficult to tell from the height, but Nurvain's keen eye (and military experience) let him pick out tiny flashes of light among the smoke. He guessed that if he could have heard what was down there, that there would be quick bursts of noise as well. Nurvain had seen such scenes before - in Generia, on the battlefield.

The plane sped up and reached the runway. Immediately Nurvain knew that his assessment of the scene had been correct. On both sides, the windows and sides were full of a relentless pinging noise - it was clear that bullets were being fired. He leaned over to look at the window, but the SRACH agent next to him, Snake 6, he thought, grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and spoke at him. "Excuse me, but for your safety you'll have to stay away from that window." Nurvain nodded and quickly switched seats with the SRACH agent who drew up his own weapons and menacingly pointed them at the windows. Nurvain swallowed loudly.

The plane ground to a halt on the end of the tarmac (the landing itself was a comparatively rough one, but a smooth ride when the circumstances were factored in). Immediately, in unison, in a movement which appeared to have been practiced beforehand, the SRACH agents rose, their guns pointed unerringly at the lone doorway of the plane. There was a clanging at the door as soon as the plane finished rolling. The SRACH agent in charge, Fox 1, roared rudely at the other men in the plane. "Let me handle this, okay? You and you -" he indicated Nurvain and Kjurat Lovitad, the only non-SRACH persons on the aircraft with an elbow, "stay behind the door and you should be fine. Just do as I say." Nurvain nodded.

Two SRACH agents, Foxes, Nurvain guessed, rushed to the door. Their wily fingers flickering quickly, they began to mess with the wiring on and around the door. Nurvain had no idea what they were doing, but he was a military commander. Perhaps Kjurat would? He glanced at the Socialist Leader to his right and was surprised. Kjurat looked frighted, shaking, and white. Maybe he wasn't quite ready for the realities of battle yet, Nurvain wondered. Touching lightly on the shoulder of the lead SRACH agent, Nurvain indicated the other man. The SRACH agent nodded and went about his business. Nurvain hoped that the other man had understood his point.

"One...two...three...go!" Fox 1 shouted at the other SRACH agents. The door popped open and SRACH agents spilled down the steps of the airplane. Fox 1 grabbed the handle of the door, now stuck in place, and ushered Nurvain and Kjurat to follow him. "Heavy, bullet-proof, armor. Gotta love it." he grinned. Nurvain considered revising his age-old opinion on the SRACH. Perhaps they did have a sense of humor. He doubted it, though. Chances were that they had their flashes, but on the whole, rarely laughed at anything. That was the more likely possibility. He was sure that it was.

They rapidly advanced down the steps, the bullets bouncing off the door, SRACH agents flanking them. These were mostly Bears, the agents in the SRACH who were called upon when brute force was necessary. They were mostly huge men, vast in proportion, who bore guns that fit them. Huge weaponry that rather simply tore holes through anyone who opposed them. They were firing at anyone who was firing at them and it was soon quite clear that both sides warring over the airport were making a wide swath of the plane. It was also clear why. Nurvain couldn't help grinning.

He rather easily nodded at one of the SRACH agents. "Get me one of these to take us to his boss. They're Socialists - look at their red armbands. That's good. We've been wanting to talk to them." One of the agents, a Snake, nodded and disappeared into the mod of Socialists not far from them. He soon returned with a dazed young man in tow. Nurvain slapped him a couple of times till he woke up. "Who are you working for? Where are we? Take me to your leader!" The young man stared groggily up at him for a few minutes. Nurvain sighed, turning to Kjurat, about to ask him if he would like to try.

Kjurat looked stunned. The reality of battle and dead men had hit him hard. "Nurvain, they were right! This is all out war!"

Chamber of the Joint Cheifs of Staff

“OV, assessment.” muttered the Supreme Commander with a quiet sigh.
“Assessing.” spoke one of the avatars of the super-computers as it took in the recon data handled by MIRA’s wealth of information gathering technologies.

“We’re apparently permitted by His Majesty and the Government to respond to the situation as we see fit, sometimes our permanent crisis situation here in Midlonia can be quiet beneficial, instead of being asked to cut costs every twenty seconds we‘re asked for our assessment on the situation.” muttered the Supreme Commander at the far end of the table, face permanently cast in shadow.

“Assessment compiled. The Nation of Czardas is fragmenting politically and militarily, multiple factions are being detected from chatter on most wireless communications, along with the Czardas net, I pulled this from somebody’s hard drive, seems like a loose collection of associates trying to restore things in a different manner.”

The data file that Ieyasu Takahashi had written flickered up on the screens around the commanders.

“The Best advocates of a strong state concept would be that of the Dorandor, however we also estimate that, thanks to the independent, anarchistic thinking ingrained into the Czardasian society, they are one of the weaker factions.”

“Easier to control.” muttered the commander of the Territorial Armed Forces, Commander Jenkins.

For the first time in months, the Supreme Commander leaned forward out of the shadows, his face was pocked and scratched as if from scars, his eyes were sunken and grey and his head had gone bald.

Alsmadeus Sturm let out a long slow sigh as he looked around at the Commanders, an ageing Uncle of the King of the Greater Kingdom he had shifted his job a few times, since Hykar had come of age he had shifted back to his old position, Supreme Commander of the M.A.F.
Despite his slowly deteriorating physical state, his mind was still razor sharp.

“Its not always about the control, I believe there could be problems about religion and their ethics. Either something we limit or control somehow.”

The commanders nodded as the gravely voice of Sturm echoed around the chamber.

“We’re getting a man from the Foreign and Economic Corps in to speak with a representative of the Dorandor over our intervention and restoration of a stable society. We’re running with the Police-Action angle and we feel that most of the states around the North Haven Sphere will understand this, after all, most have been beating themselves up over this business in the Imperium Doomanum and such. We haven’t so much as lifted a finger at this point, so we’re more than capable and armed to ensure that they probably wont touch us while we intervene more directly.” Spoke David Hortley with a slight sniff and a shrug.

“This is being done how?” asked Jenna Astron as she blinked and twitched her nose. “The airports are all areas of intense fighting from numerous factions as far as can be told…”

“Good old secure communications.” replied Hortley with a nod. “Pretty much saying we’d vouch for them if attacked and we’re preparing troops to go in in an attempt to secure the place now.”

“I see. And I supposed you’ll be wanting some of my navy air-arms?” she replied with another blink and a nose twitch.
“Yes.” Hortley simply replied.
The debate would continue for a few more hours yet as an overall strategy was eventually hammered out, troops would land or attempt to secure a harbour area and bring more equipment on board, at the same rough time they would co-ordinate with the Dorandor forces for them to push south along the river to meet them and link up, before attempting to assault Czarna proper and take the capital.

That was it in theory anyhow.

People who were monitoring the deteriorating situation in Czardas would have suddenly noticed the massive movements being made by the Greater Kingdom, they were only next door as it was. Troop movement, ships and transports being assembled.
Land Warfare Battle Groups which usually remained in one spot 98% of the time suddenly appearing, or disappearing as it was.

The one that should really have worried folks was the 5 Devils Cry Super-Artillery pieces that seemed to be making slow and steady progression along the Military rail-lines to the North of the country, they were going to take about a week to go from where they were normally stationed to reach there because of the volume of more conventional traffic slowing them down, but the fact was….
They were moving.

Rail-line #26 “The Death-Ball Express“

The gigantic locomotives ticked over as the officer sighed and moved his way down one of the Artillery pieces top-deck, named Nova it was the second such piece of its type ever built.

The Officer shrugged a little and looked over the railing at the rail-line down below as yet another troop train rattled past, this one apparently from the 4th Armoured Division, Gresley Main Battle Tanks sat two abreast on the railway wagons, their squat short frames shrouded in tarpaulin. Midlonia had decided to develop a series of military-only rail-lines, made specifically wider than anything conventionally used elsewhere in the country to move much larger quantities specifically for military purposes. However, some smart Alec had decided that in order to cut costs they’d only have one rail-line going to the North, with passing places instead of two lines. As such an extra two days had to be added to a journey that would normally have taken one, the best part of a week wasted just moving. Oh well.

The officer merely watched as the end locomotive, a giant square shaped steam locomotive worked its hardest and pushed the armoured division along. He idly clanked his way below deck as the first drops of ran began to fall.

Troubled times were brewing, and fast.

~ Chaos had been known to Nitalians (the official name of a citizen of Nueve Italia) for generations, ever since Paolo Gori and the Great Unification nearly some 30 to 40 years ago. It had not ended with the brutal war to unite the provinces of Isola diArgenta: civil war had engulfed the people thrice. There was the war to overthrow Paolo and his oppressive rule, in which the Holy Imperial Republic was created, the treachery of Giovanni Dominicio Gori I’s sister, Maria, that lead the southern territories in a state of rebellion, and the final, most devastating conflict any Nitalian had ever seen. This, of course, was the Nueve-Bandurian War. What started as an internal coup ended in the death of a land, due to the entry of Banduria. The very country of Isola diArgenta was laid to waste by chemical, biological, and nuclear weaponry. The people of Nueve Italia watched from the sea as their home was utterly destroyed.

From there, the journey continued. The Nueve Italian Imperial Navy and any other ship that could be commandeered fled from the Bandurians who pursued them with the utmost bloodlust. Finally, after several days, the attackers gave up, leaving the Nitalians to drift until they found a new home: Isola Dorata.

Several years have passed since that fateful day. Nueve Italia had rebuilt itself back to antebellum status, and then had exceeded its previous production output. Wealth and prosperity returned, and the people tried to simply forget and live. But they could never forget. Many had lost family, friends. Thousands, nay, millions perished in an action that would echo down Nueve Italian history for as long as the country existed.

However, it was during that dark hour where all hope seemed lost that the Nitalians had come in contact with the nation of Czardas, who had swooped in as if Angels from Heaven to deliver them from their national apocalypse. From there, after the new Nueve Italia was established, citizens of Czardas flocked to the country. Some came for new opportunities, others wanted the freedom of Czardas combined with the protection and ethics of Nueve Italian government, and still more just wanted to leave their homeland. Whatever it may be, the Czardaians came, and the Nitalians welcomed them with open arms. . .
_____

Cítta Santo, Capital City of Nueve Italia

“ Sir, the situation is entirely out of control, we must do something!”

Antonio Orsini Gori, son of Giovanni I and current leader of Nueve Italia, had called a meeting of the Military Heads and the High Senators to discuss what should be done about the recent uprisings in Czardas. Maria Conzuela, Senatrix of Foreign Affairs, had the floor at the moment. She was attractive, to be sure, but nothing special. She had been appointed when the Nueve Italian Government was under reconstruction due to her earlier ties with the Senate as a well-known and capable ambassador. Besides, there was also no one left: over half the Senate had been killed when Isola diArgenta was destroyed.

“ We owe Czardas our very lives at this moment, and we would sit by idly as they slip deeper into war and destruction? Are we not a country devoted to peace and prosperity? This is a cowardly action, to stand here and do nothing!”

At this, Giuseppe Palaccino, the Senator of Defense, slammed his hand on the table around which the Senators, Heads, and Emperor were seated. The sound made Maria jump, letting a portion of black hair fall out of her tight-knit bun and upsetting the thin-framed glasses that rested on her nose. Hastily, she re-adjusted them as Giuseppe spoke.

“ Czardas did not aid us out of some just cause to help a people in trouble! It was said so by themselves that their main concern was the Banduria not gain another base of power! We were simply a pawn in two larger nations’ power games!”

The words touched home to some of the Senators, but still others were visibly shaking their heads, believing that Czardas truly did act out of sympathy. Maria, regaining her confidence, let her voice be heard to counter Palaccino’s statement.

“ If Czardas was using Nueve Italia, as you said, then why didn’t they establish a military protectorate in Isola Dorata? Or, pray tell, why they haven’t even established an embassy here? Czardas is committed to a democratic, freedom worshipping way of life, as are we, though not to the same extent. Senators, this is merely a simple, moral decision: they helped us when we needed it. What would it be saying to the international community if we didn’t aid Czardas?”

More murmurs came from around the table, but they were soon silenced as Antonio stood. His combed back, dark brown hair, swayed slightly atop his head from the small force of the movement. He stroked his chin, or, more accurately, the goatee that adorned his chin, with his index and thumb of his right hand before he poised a question.

“ Acci, how are the people taking this news?”

Marco Acci, Senator of Domestic Affairs, stood. He cleared his throat and began his report in a rather hushed, yet somewhat distant voice.

“ The average citizens of Nueve Italia see the event as a tragedy and that something should be done, but, Sir, I think we should be most worried about the Czardaian immigrants.”

“ Hmm? How so?”

“ Well, Sir, most of the Czardaian citizens are demanding a response, and by response I mean ‘Send soldiers’, but the immigrants, well. . .”

Antonio could see that Acci was avoiding the question, or at least hiding something. As the Czardaian events had only recently transpired, Antonio had left the High Senators in charge of running the nation whilst he had been dealing with another situation in an allied nation: Mondoth. Cristiano Ceri, the agent there, was in grave danger, but from so far away there was not much Antonio could do. He had already dispatched a small force to help quell a rebellion there, and he had returned to the Senate to find that yet another ally was in a state of emergency. Annoyed that Marco would simply not give him the small bit of information he needed to act, Antonio raised his voice sharply.

“ Acci! Speak!”

The Senator recoiled slightly from the harsh tone, and then spat out, “ The immigrants are still holding on to their old customs, the way they do things in Czardas. They are used to a higher degree of freedom and control over the government than we allow here. So, some of them have resorted to riots and violence to demonstrate a demand for action.”

Hugo DeIneffio, Senator of Justice, chimed in almost immediately after Acci had finished speaking. “ We immediately dispatched riot police to the trouble sectors to use non-violent means to quell the immigrants. I have had word that several hundred have already been arrested, and most of the riots have subsided… for the moment.”

Antonio hung and shook his head. Foreigners causing trouble usually created a national sense of ignorance to whatever plight they were trying to bring to light. The situation had to be dealt with while it was still in its infant stages, or the citizens would never back any operation in Czardas.

“ Alright then,” Antonio began sternly, “ the people are clamoring for action, and if we don’t want our Czardaian citizens destroying Cítta Santo, we need to act. This is an immediate vote on a course of action. My proposal is that we get in touch with whatever remains of the current Czardaian government, and help protect it from whatever military action the Dorium, the Socialists, or the Meritocrats take against it. All in favor?”

The Senators and Military Heads exchanged glances or worried looks around the table. Antonio, even though he was Emperor, could not overturn their decision, but he could force them to make a decision within two days, or the Senate would immediately agree with his proposal, as by Nueve Italian Constitutional law. Maria Conzuela raised her right hand, stated a quick “ Concurred,” and watched the expressions of her colleagues. Hugo did the same, as did Marco. Giuseppe, stubborn as he was, folded his arms across his chest. Three Senators and the Emperor were in agreement, but there were six more that were undecided. Slowly, Vincente Larenzi, Senator of War, raised his hand as well, as did Julia Giordano, Senatrix of Internal Economics and Catalina Ortega DiGori, the Emperor’s wife and personal representative in the Senate when he was not present, also agreed.

Only Nicola Vera, the Senatrix of External Economics, joined Hugo. The two other military heads (Antonio himself was the Head of the Nueve Italian Republican Air Force and Air Guard), General Ricardo Valdir and Admiral Faggio Perriggio, also believed that action had to be taken. Thus it was decided: aid would come to Czardas.

“ Then this meeting is concluded,” Antonio clapped his hands together to signal that work, much work, was needed to be done. “ Maria, get in contact with whatever remains of the current Czardaian government, I don’t care what it takes.”

“ Of course,” came the quick reply. Maria left the room to get in to the Communications sector of the Palace of the Republic as Antonio was already directing Marco. “ Acci, prepare a broadcast for me, I’ll inform the people of our decision to help stabilize Czardas, that should help end the riots.”

Marco Acci stood, snapped off a quick salute ( he had once served in NIRAG under Antonio, and still retained military habits), and he too went to the comm. sector.

“ Larenzi, Valdir, Perriggio: we’ll need to coordinate a military task force together for this operation. We’ll see to that later, right now we have to see if our aid will be accepted anywhere.”

The three also saluted and left the room. The others rose as well, filing out of the room in a straight line, all except for Catalina, who stayed behind with her husband.

“ I have a grave feeling,” there was something caught in his throat as he spoke. He loosened his tie and tried again. “ I have a grave feeling, Catalina, that this will not bode well for us…”
_____

An Hour or so Later…

The citizens of Nueve Italia had been informed, and the message was sent to Czardas. There was nothing more to do but see if anyone would respond back. Perhaps, someone who they didn’t expect, possibly, but the Nitalians would get some kind of answer back. Until that time, they would prepare. They would wait, and prepare…~

The same day that saw the Sacred Emperor swear to defeat Czardas once again also witnessed an emergency meeting of the College of Priests in the afternoon. The College barely reached a quorum, which even then had required dozens and dozens of priests to drop what they were doing and hurry immediately to Korronis, but what was important was that enough were there to acclaim Lucifer's request for a Fifth Crusade. It was a sham, of course; the Sacred Emperor was far too powerful for them to deny him this. In the Temple of the True Gods, the largest in the Empire, sacrifices were quickly made and omens read. The augurs all sent the same message: War, with all haste.

***

The next morning, billions of Kregaians woke to find newspapers on their thresholds as usual, but instead of the normal articles, massive headlines dominated the front page of every one:

SACRED EMPEROR DECLARES FIFTH CRUSADE
Czardaian Infidels To Be Destroyed Once Again

The Empire began the preparations for total war. Factories went into overdrive, using the surge of religious zeal to lengthen hours and demand faster production rates; however, this was balanced out by the announcement that the Ministry of Pleasure was lowering prices on entrance to all its many venues, from brothels to bars to stadiums. Troops and war machines were flown in to gathering points from across the Empire, while fleets returned to Korronis to contribute elements to the invading armada that was taking form in the capital's vast military docks. Reservists returned to forts throughout the continent, resuming the harsh conditioning and situation drills that would shape them into professional Legionaries if the time came. Rich sacrifices were offered everywhere; the hymns and prayers of the faithful rose into the heavens to please the gods.

The signs were plain: the coming war would be one of a scale not seen by Kregaians for centuries. The Succession Wars themselves, brutal and slaughterous as they were, had only been a fight for the Iron Throne; this was to be an all-out slugfest between the Imperium and its most hated enemy. The preparations were beginning and the pieces were being set upon the board. It was not to be long before the game would begin.

Able One - Over Dowland City - 10,000 Feet

The giant aircraft roared through the sky, turbojet engines consuming vast amounts of fuel just to keep it airborne, propelling it at hundreds of miles per hour to get its passenger to his next destination. Alongside Able One - a former cargo carrier that had been requistioned by King Alexander a few months after the end of the Civil War - flew a squadron of Joint Strike Fighters; scrambled from Installation One, the main military complex in Dowland City, they would be replaced every hour by another squadron of JSFs and other fighters from the military bases that lay along the route that Able One was taking. Given the state of the Czardian Crisis - the catchy moniker which the mass media had given the situation, and had quickly been adopted by the government - no chances were to be taken when dealing with the leader of the Grand Monarchy.

Externally, the protection afforded to Able One consisted of the constantly-replaced fighter squadrons and constant tracking by LADAR, both by ground installations throughout the country and by AWAC patrols that shadowed the converted aircraft throughout its flight. Internally, an entire Marine Platoon had been added to the normal security complement onboard; fully armed and wearing kevlar vests over their BDUs, the Marines were an imposing sight. Knocking on the thick plastic door of the King's Private Quarters onboard Able One, Secretary of Defense Paul Eddington suppressed a shudder. Although he had done his stint in the military, and served as a Parliamentary Intelligence Officer in the Civil War, Eddington still found the blank stare of the Marines unnerving. He nodded at the Marine guarding the door, getting no response in return, and was greatly relieved when he heard a muffled voice from behind the door permitting him to enter. He pulled open the door, entered the small space, and shut it again with a hiss of escaping air.

From behind the small metal desk that dominated the small room, King Alexander I, Monarch of the Grand Monarchy and All of its Colonies, Territories and Dominions, gave Eddington a knowing smile as he saw the look on his Defense Secretary's face. Motioning him to sit down on one of the metal chairs bolted to the floor, Alexander placed the manila file he had been reading on the desk and pushed his glasses up onto his forehead. Rubbing his eyes and stifling a yawn, Alexander nodded in the direction of the door. "How long have we known each other, Paul? What is it, ten, eleven years?"

Eddington grinned and nodded as he settled down in the uncomfortable seat, crossing his legs and placing the small attache case that he had been carrying onto the metal desk with a thud. "Eleven years and six months, I believe. Something like that. You chose me over the other candidates because I was the only one who you didn't suspect of being a sympathiser of President Martin."

Running his tounge along his teeth, Alexander raised an eyebrow as he pulled the attache case across the desk. As he spun the locks and entered the four digit code that would open it, he continued the banter that the two men had started years ago. "Actually, I chose you because you were a brave man, and you seemed to know what you were doing. In the years I've known you, I've seen you talk down genocidal maniacs, strike deals with fascists, communists and godknows who else, and personally defuse the situation in Nerotika. You did all that without breaking a sweat, and yet every time you come in here, you nearly break out in hives because of the Marines that the Secret Service foisted on me."

"I just don't like the way they look; every man should have some emotion, some expession on their face. But these men don't - it worries me, quite frankly." Eddington looked to continue the friendly squabble, but Alexander frowned at the sheaf of papers he had removed from the attache case, his face moving rapidly from joviality to concern. Realising that the time for witticisms and remincising was over, Eddington cleared his throat and pointed to the top piece of paper.

"The first flimsy you have there is an excerpt of a transcript from a Czardian news channel we intercepted a few hours ago. It would appear that we now have a communication bridge with the Meritocratic forces; they managed to recapture the Czardian Embassy in Czardas from the mob that had overrun it. The second sheet is an intelligence summary of the transcript and other SIGINT and HUMINT intelligence we've recieved that confirm the news report. It would seem that we have a friend in Czardas - and if not a friend, then at the very least a faction that wants us in good favour."

Alexander read the report through again, grunting several times. He looked at Eddington after he had finished, one lip curled down. "The news report said that Dorian-led rioters attacked the compound. Is this true?"

"What little intelligence we have on the matter confirms that, yes. We've re-established control of whats left of the Embassy Compound, and the Marines there have been reinforced; they're helping the Meritocratic forces fight the other groups there, although it doesn't seem to be anything major at the moment."

Frowing, Alexander read the report again and then slammed his hand into the table, startling Eddington. Putting the papers down, Alexander massaged his hand and glanced at Eddington. "I'm sorry, Paul, but this is too much. First, the Embassy is destroyed - by a mob influenced by that blasted Dorian faction, no less. Then it has to be restored by an unknown faction. Not the actual government, not the goddamn Loyalists, but a bunch of...of...who the hell knows! What, pray tell, have the Loyalist forces been doing whilst this is going on? Apart from sitting on their arses whilst the Embassies of their closest allies are torn to the ground?"

Eddington pointed to the other pieces of paper in the attache case, which Alexander had yet to examine in any great detail. "Those reports detail everything we know about the rest of the Czardian factions at the moment. To summarise them, the Mjenaz-Arkaia International Airport has been overrun by Socialist forces, who have apparently fortified it, taking posession of what we believe to be one of the vital airroutes in Czardas, and the Meritocratic forces are still fighting throughout the region against everybody else." At this, he fell silent, with nothing else to say.

Alexander was silent for a moment, digesting the scarce morsels of information and fliping through the intelligence reports. Finally he placed them down on the table and sighed, pushing his glasses back down in place. "So, in summary...we known very little about the situation. Well, that obviously needs to change. As such, we need to do three things."

Eddington nodded, mentally preparing to remember the points as Alexander began to speak, emphasising each point by raising a finger on his left hand.

"Firstly, we need to begin a full-scale mobilisation of the military. I want all leave cancelled, all passes to be denied, and the National Guard to be ordered to round up all its part-timers and bring them in for refresher training. Then, I want ever Rapid Reaction Force we have ready to mobilise to be ordered to make for Czardas at their best speed. The Fourth and Eighth Fleets should be relocated to protect the convoys as they progress."

Eddington nodded, unsurprised by the first point. Full-scale mobilisation was standard procedure in a crisis like this, and it was a fairly routine exercise undertaken by the military; it would not be a great problem. He peaked his ears as Alexander moved onto his second point.

"Secondly, I want the Royalist Intelligence Agency to deploy a Sigma Team into Czardas as soon as possible. I want eyes and ears on the ground to give us info about the factions, and events as they occur. I no longer want to be informed about events in Czardas from their national news network."

This was slightly more surprising to Eddington. A Sigma Team was a small group of the most experienced covert intelligence officers the Grand Monarchy possessed; sending them into Czardas signalled that the Grand Monarchy was serious about the Czardian Crisis.

"Finally, I want all efforts to be made to communicate with the Meritocratic forces, and an effort made to locate a leader of somesorts and offer them our complete economic and military assistance."

Eddington raised an eyebrow at this. "We won't be supporting the Loyalist forces, as per usual doctrine?"

Alexander shook his head. "Since when has Czardas ever meant 'Usual Doctrine', Paul? No, the Loyalists are far too splintered to be of any aid; they can't even stop our Embassy from being destroyed. The Meritocratic forces seem far more organised and politically astute at this point. We shall throw our support behind them. That is all."

With that, the King of the Grand Monarchy has just set down official policy over Czardas; called for the mobilisation of the military; demanded covert intelligence operatives be employed in Czardas; and radically changed official policy to support an unknown splinter group, and not the usual pro-democratic forces the Grand Monarchy usually supported. As Eddington nodded and moved out of the cabin to issue orders, he prayed that the course the country was now set on was a wise one, and would not lead to disaster...

Warning: The following contains graphic and gory stuff. You have been warned.

This is God's war

God's war

War of holy principles
I've seen God's helping your destruction
Slit the throat of heathen man
And let his blood dilute the water
Bury your dead

-Slayer

Arretium, Imperium Doomanum

Nightmarish images flashed before his eyes as the open-top utility vehicle sped down the road. A mound of severed heads surrounded by piles of arms, legs, eyes, tongues, and organs, all slowly decaying. Dozens of flayed corpses hung from their entrails. A tent made from human flesh and bone. All of this did not even begin to describe war-torn Arretium. None of this bothered Maximus; he’d seen so much of it through his life it had become common place.

Columns of Imperial soldiers marching along the side of the road saluted and cheered as Caesar passed them by in his staff car, sitting perched high up in the back to give himself the best view of the area around him, while also giving his faithful Legionaries who had shed so much blood for him a good view of their commander.

A thick cloud of dust hung above the ruined city, as it had for some three months. As it had since the day the Czardaians had launched their nuclear strike on the City of Arretium. He was currently traveling to his command post just a little over a kilometer behind the front line. Day to day he toured different sections of his lengthy battle-line, which stretched all around the harbor where the enemy had been encircled.

He was now returning from a tour of his artillery, ensuring all was in place for the assault that was to begin within a few hours.

He wore the uniform of a Legionary, his face concealed behind an armored mask. A red visor hid his fierce eyes, while air filters built into the mask and helmet worked tediously to ensure that the noble warrior it protected would not die of radiation sickness. The armor he wore had a golden cross sewn into the breast plate, his helmet was topped by a red crest, and his personal seal was emblazoned on his right shoulder guard. It was in this way that all Doomani fighting in Arretium could recognize their Emperor instantly, even amidst the chaos of battle.

The road upon which they drove had been rebuilt by Imperial engineers: part of it went directly over one of the massive craters where a nuke had hit, thus that area had been totally decimated. It served as a constant reminder to the men as to why they were fighting: these infidels had come to their lands seeking to steal them for their own deviant devices. They had murdered whole families in the name of ‘freedom.’ This was by far the most personal war any Doomingslander had ever fought.

Arretium itself was built around a massive crater: the harbor itself. The city was constructed around the raised land surrounding the harbor, which sat comfortably at the bottom of it all. This gave whoever controlled the high ground a clear view of the harbor below. Granted, the amount of nuclear fallout had drastically reduced the vision of both the Imperial troops controlling the Heights of Arretium and the Czardaian troops dug in at Arretium Harbor, but the fact that Imperial forces, with their control of the high ground, could actually see directly into the harbor was a major blow to the Czardaians as a whole.

Thus, during their evacuation efforts over the previous weeks, many ships had been sunk in the harbor. A total of one-hundred fifty-thousand men had been stranded in Arretium and left to the mercy of the Doomani. And now they were preparing for one final push to annihilate their hated foe from the face of the Earth.

As the vehicle neared Maximus’ headquarters, it began to slow. The barking of machinegun fire and the hollow booming of artillery impacts could be heard in the near distance. The road branched off in two directions, the fork formed by a ruined church, the crumbling steeple adorned with the severed heads of Czardaian prisoners.

The vehicle pulled onto a narrow path leading through a partially standing area that was once a government complex. The vehicle pulled up in front of a large structure featuring extensive Roman architecture, massive Imperial black and gold banners draped from it, signifying it as Caesar’s headquarters. He stepped out of the vehicle and took a breath of the rancid air. It was absolutely putrid, reeking of both rotting flesh and burning armor.

This area appeared to be in better shape than the others, save for pocked walls and pillars of the surrounding buildings.

The headquarters itself was part of a governmental courtyard: it had once been the Praetor’s Palace, but had long since been relieved of those duties. On all sides were once-magnificent feats of architecture: towering pillars holding up massive roofs, the buildings themselves featuring ornate vaulted ceilings. The courtyard in which they stood had once been a beautiful garden. All had since fallen into severe disrepair.

The garden was now a smelly mud hole; the once-ornate buildings had since been looted by Czardaian troops and shot up by Doomani forces as they retook the sector.

Mold grew infectiously along the blood-stained pillars of the mighty surrounding buildings.

He had arrived in Arretium only a month before and already it felt like home. A decrepit and charred home at that, but home none the less. He knew the city like the back of his hand at this stage. He hadn't had a single day of peace the entire time he was there: every day he had led his army to push the Czardaians further and further back.

It was tiring work to say the least. The fighting was downright vicious. Caesar himself had been wounded numerous times during the course of the fighting, and yet he remained at the front in this Crusade. As Caesar, it was his God-given duty. To abandon this place personally would be a sin near-unforgivable as long as infidels still desecrated its sacred soil.

He was on a Crusade, and until it had reached its successful conclusion he could allow himself no rest. A moment spent in idleness was a moment of peace for the heathen, and the heathen could be allowed no peace.

As Maximus boldly strode towards his headquarters building, he was flanked on both sides by his elite Equites Augusta, his personal guard. At the foot of the marble steps leading up to the entrance of the building were several mounds of severed heads; hanging from the massive slab of marble supported by the ionic columns that was the roof of the building was the body of a Czardaian soldier. He and the rest of his unit had managed to fight their way to the headquarters building only to be totally annihilated.

While the others had been massacred, their heads piled high in front of the headquarters; he had the severe misfortune of being taken alive.

He’d been tortured for days before being suspended upside down by a pair of meat hooks hooked into his calves and hung over a slow fire until he died an hour or so later. Of course he’d been skinned alive as part of standard procedure. And so there he hung; a wretched pile of flesh hanging like a cheap slab of meat in a slaughterhouse.

Maximus stepped through the entrance of the building to be greeted by several officers, all in similar NBC gear as he was wearing. They exchanged salutes and silently walked through the vast hallway that the building initially opens into. It had a high-vaulted ceiling, painted with scenes of past battles. The entire room was of hand-carved marble: it was a work of art.

Caesar and his entourage proceeded through yet another door leading to a set of stairs leading downwards into the HQ’s basement structure. Upon reaching the bottom they were met with a heavy steel door, which was promptly opened. They stepped through into a decontamination chamber, and the door behind them shut. There was a sharp hissing sound as they were sprayed with a foul-smelling foggy substance designed to cleanse them of radiation. Above them a green light illuminated and there was a beep, and the door in front opened.

Maximus removed his helmet and mask as he stepped through, wiping the sweat off of his scarred face.

His eyes slowly adjusted to the light of the command center. It was a poorly-lit murky bunker, the walls lined with countless monitors with men managing each one. It had a very temporary, primitive air about it.

Marius Alexius Doomanus, Maximus’ second-in-command and brother, was there waiting for him.

”Marius, report?” Maximus asked as he walked by his brother on his way to his personal quarters,

”Various interrogations and UAV flyovers have put enemy strength at around ‘hundred-fifty thousand in our most pessimistic estimates,” Marius walked behind his brother as he spoke.

Marius was a few years younger than Maximus and a few inches shorter. He had a far less severe attitude on life than his older brother, the Emperor, but this was not because of lack of experience or naivety. Marius had commanded an army in Damnatium against the Questarians, and, like his brother, chose to lead from the front. He had seen his fair share of killing in his life time.

And yet he was not nearly as stone-faced as Maximus, who often carried on without even the slightest display of emotion.

”They’re starving and low on ammunition…they won’t survive this last push, brother.”

Maximus nodded in agreement.

”What time is it, brother?” he asked, seemingly off-topic.

O’five-forty.”

Maximus grunted in response.

”Few more hours, then.”

He walked by the door of his quarters and tossed his helmet into the room without stopping. Down the hall was a conference room, their destination.

It was a simple concrete room with a cheap metal table stretched out along it in the middle, a scale model of the city at the center, with figurines representing various friendly and enemy formations.

Everyone in the room immediately stood upon Maximus’ entry to the room. Arrayed about the room were some of the highest ranking generals in the Imperium: Marcus Alexius Doomanus and Cassius Alexius Doomanus, both brothers of the Emperor. The two were twins but they could not be more different: Marcus was a fanatic of the first order and a patron of Manus Dei, donating vast sums of money out of pocket to the organization. He was generally regarded as a bit…mentally unstable. He was considered extremely pious and stoic by his peers, almost to the point of obsession. His twin, Cassius, was a realist if anything. He followed the Faith when it suited him, and thus he’d come under the scrutiny of the Inquisition on more than one occasion. He was, however, an extremely shrewd tactician and an indispensable member of Maximus’ retinue, seeing things in a different light than his fanatical brother.

Others included Camillus Gaius Varinius, Lucius Aulus Avitus, and Magnus Varus Malleus, some of Maximus’ most prized and trusted generals. Malleus, whose very name meant ‘hammer,’ was the most outstanding among them. He’d served alongside Maximus in several other campaigns and was regarded as one of the most capable generals in the service of the Imperium; and one of the most ruthless, rivaled only by Maximus himself and the now deceased Severus Alexius Doomanus, who had been killed in battle with the Questarians. Another of the Emperor’s brothers, the man had quite simply been a sadist. It was he who had thought up the majority of the methods of torture used in the Imperial Army, and had, in fact, wrote the latest version of the Imperial Army Interrogation Manual.

He’d been killed through his own stupidity and blood lust, blindly charging a Questarian machinegun nest and going down in a blaze of glory but for naught. Malleus had assumed command of his army shortly thereafter and proceeded to reap a terrible vengeance.

”Take your damned seats,” Maximus muttered as he plopped himself down at the head of the table, sitting up straight and looking up and down the table.

The air was one of total seriousness.

”Very well, then. I take it everyone’s forces are in position?” Maximus boomed.

”You need only give the order, m’lord,” responded Avitus, speaking for the group.

”Twenty-thousand pieces of artillery, Caesar,” Cassius chimed in with a smirk, ”Like he said, you need only give the order…” he allowed his voice to trail off for added effect.

The entire face of Arretium Heights facing in towards the harbor had been entrenched with thousands of howitzers. 105mm, 152mm, 203mm. Mostly towed weaponry. All of them had a clear and direct line of fire right into the Czardaian entrenchments. On the other side of Arretium Heights were thousands more quick-firing 152mm howitzers and multiple launch rocket systems of varying calibers.

The amount of fire power that could be brought to bear on the Czardaian entrenchments in a single instant was simply staggering. They sat there for another hour, going over the plan once more, occasionally arguing over details, but in the end it all came together. Everything was finalized and everyone was ultimately satisfied.


Two Hours Later

Maximus drummed his fingers on the composite shell of his binoculars as he stared across no-man’s land. Occasionally machinegun positions of both sides would exchange fire, but there were rarely any casualties on any side. The land before him was utterly desolate: pocked with craters and littered with thousands of mangled corpses of men of both sides, mixed in with rubble and debris of all sorts, making an advance across the “field” (and that is a very loose use of the term) very slow and hazardous, even without the presence of machineguns. A thin cloud of brown dust gently hung about the expanse, distorting his view only slightly.

Setting down the binoculars on the ledge of the trench, Maximus stepped down from the ladder upon which he had been perched. He grunted in his usual manner, the way he does before he is about to get on to the day’s bloody business…

He turned to find a group of officers congregated before him. He gave a slight nod to them, and one got on his radio and began chattering away. Word quickly went down the line: the attack was to commence two minutes into the bombardment, even if the guns aren’t finished with the shelling. It was key to the attack that the bombardment and entry into the enemy trench have as little time between them as possible.

From behind Arretium Heights, the bombardment began. Firing using MRSI (Multiple Rounds Simultaneous Impact) firing pattern, the guns fired ten shells at ten different trajectories within the space of a minute. The trajectories had the shells hitting the same target, however, all ten rounds would be impacting at the same time due to differences in flight time.

As a result, the initial barrage along the Czardaian line occurred in the blink of an eye. The roar of the explosion was near-deafening, even from one thousand meters across no-man’s land. For that one instant, Arretium shook like it had three months before, when the nuclear strike occurred. The entire Czardaian trench line had totally disappeared in the massive cloud of dust and debris thrown up from the well-over 60,000 separate, good-sized explosions occurring along the line at the same time. Hell seemed to have cast open her gates and send forth her armies as flames, dust, and debris shot high into the air, shaking the ground even back at the batteries, so enormous was the amount of firepower hitting the trench all at once.

After the first MRSI bombardment, the howitzers proceeded to fire at will, shelling indiscriminately into the general area of the trench. Meanwhile, the four-thousand MLRS systems positioned behind Arretium Heights proceeded to kick off their bombardment immediately after the MRSI barrage had finished. Already programmed with targets, the first of forty-eight thousand 300mm thermobaric rockets ignited their engines, swiftly exploding out of their launch tubes. From the Imperial line, one could see as the tens of thousands of swift orange lights flew upwards from behind the hills, disappearing in mid flight.

Seconds later, thousands of relatively small explosions rippled across no-man’s land at the Czardaian line. Seconds after that, the entire line seemed to be totally consumed in flame as the second stage of the 300mm thermobaric warheads ignited the flammable gasses the first stage has dispensed all over the trench. Maximus watched all of this through his binoculars. It was like a scene from Dante’s Inferno, if one could even compare the destruction unfolding before the Doomani to a mere epic poem.

The destruction was unrelenting: even after the first rockets impact, more continued to slam into the surface, eventually starting to roll backwards from the trench, the bombardment delving ever closer to the harbor itself. Suddenly, the hills surrounding the harbor seemed to glow as ten-thousand more howitzers of varying caliber opened fire directly into the Czardaian sector.

The crews and guns, drawn from all over Doomanum, shipped to Arretium over the past few months, had a superb advantage, having a direct view at a target on lower ground than they, with guns capable of reaching their targets using direct fire. They simply picked out anything that even remotely looked like it could belong to the enemy and was in front of Imperial lines, and sent rounds down range to take it out.

They had roughly a minute and a half to fire before they were scheduled to cease fire; the timing was only slightly different for those behind Arretium Heights. This was designed so that the last of the shells would impact only seconds before Imperial troops started pouring into the Czardaian trenches and bunkers, or at least what was left of them…

Before any of the infantry poured out of the trench, tanks and armored fighting vehicles poured across the top, rushing across the shattered landscape. The tanks had been equipped with mineplows, allowing them to blaze a trail through the rubble for the infantry to follow. First over the top in his sector was none other than Maximus himself, roaring in anger as he sprinted, bayonet fixed, in the wake of an Imperator tank, his Equites Augusta in close pursuit.

The adrenaline surged through his veins, and his training and instinct took over as he charged across that field. The world around him seemed to fade out as he bolted past the tank, clutching his rifle tightly.

The tanks had dumped the dirt and rubble their mine plows had collected right into the Czardaian trench, creating bridges from which more Imperial troops could pour across in their advance towards the harbor. Behind Caesar and his troops, there was an ever growing sea of Legionaries and Imperial Guard, thirsty for heathen blood, surging across the field.

They were a hardened, vicious-looking bunch: DR-83 and DR-78 rifles, eighteen-inch pugio bayonets fixed. They wore Doomani desert uniforms, more similar in design to the clothing worn by Iurarii tribesmen than BDUs, but more similar to BDUs in look than the robes worn by the Iurarii. It kept them extremely cool in the extreme heat of the desert, and warm during those cold desert nights. The ones they wore were stained in blood and covered in dust. Emblazoned on their left shoulders was the Chi-Ro, a tradition dating back to the Emperor Constantine. Their NBC masks, in many cases, had crosses drawn in blood upon them.

Maximus, upon diving into the trench, was shocked to find…nothing. The artillery had seemed to do its job. It was nothing more than a row of shell craters, extending as far as the eye could see. The craters were still smoking from the explosions: the only thing resembling a person within them were a few charred limbs lying scattered about. As his troops began to drop into the trench around him, he became slightly worried. They couldn’t have gotten all of them…could they?

Cautiously, the men stalked along the trench, hunting for anything that remained. Past the trench, the sound of gunfire broke out towards the harbor.

”Shit, we’re missing all the fun, boys!” yelled Maximus to his men.

Without a moment wasted, he pulled himself up over the top of the trench. He dashed forward, leaving his troops behind, still clambering over the top of what was left of the trench complex. Maximus smashed his way through the remains of a hotel: it was completely ruined. Its once finely-polished marble floors were now buried under several feet of rubble, debris, and human remains. All that stood were a few walls, which Maximus promptly kicked over on his way out of the building.

Upon emerging on the other side, he was treated to a close view of the harbor. For the first time since he had arrived in war-torn Arretium, he was able to see the harbor up close and personal. Still lying at the bottom of the harbor, her superstructure gaping out of the water like an ancient monument was the Super Dreadnaught Romulus, sunk by the Questarian air raid that had initially begun this bloody war.

Oil still burned on the water’s surface, and shattered hulls of Czardaian transport vessels clung on for dear life. Bodies dotted the surface of the harbor as far as the eye could see; even from where Caesar stood, the water appeared to be red, matching the sky above. Smoke rose high into the air from all over the harbor, and fires burned wherever one looked. It was a truly unforgettable sight: something out of Revelations.

Bullets began to impact right near Caesar, and yet he seemed utterly unfazed. He immediately spotted the man that had fired the offending burst: he was simply spraying wildly in the direction of the advancing Doomani while backing up towards whatever cover he could find. He was clearly terrified.

Maximus immediately shouldered his DR-83 and stared down the red dot scope, brining the laser dot directly over the head of his foe and squeezing the trigger. The weapon gently recoiled against his shoulder as it spat out a single round, which plowed its way through the enemy soldier’s NBC mask and dropped him in an instant.

Upon taking out that target, he ran forward across the remains of the docks. It was littered with abandoned Czardaian equipment. Moving up next to him quickly were a group of his Equites Augusta, clearly distressed that they’d left Caesar alone for as long as they did. They weren’t doing a very good job at protecting him at the moment: he just seemed to throw himself right into danger, and there was nothing they could do.

He advanced with his men through the ruins of what were once Arretium’s military docks. The barking of machinegun and rifle fire emanated from all around; explosions threw chunks of concrete high into the air all around. Suddenly, chunks of concrete were kicked up around him as a Czardaian machinegun nest opened up on him and his men.

The man next to him quickly went down, the fire walking up his body and cutting him down in an instant. Maximus dove to the ground and seized his comrade by the collar and began dragging him to cover. Gripping his DR-83 in his other hand, he returned fire on the machinegun, which continued to spray at him. He was caught in the leg and stumbled over. He grunted as white hot lead tore through his left thy and dropped the man, gripping his rifle with both hands and firing off a few accurate bursts, evidently catching the gunner’s assistance in the chest, suppressing him for a few seconds, just long enough to continue dragging his wounded comrade to nearby cover behind a steel crate.

He propped the man up against the crate as the machinegun once more opened up on him, pinging off of the steel crate, shooting up sparks in front of him. Centurion Herius Gaius Tertius, the wounded man, was a friend of Maximus; one of his best men. He had saved Maximus’ life on several occasions, and it pained Caesar greatly to see his comrade in such a state.

Shit.

Frantically, he tore off the man’s armor, radiation be damned. He’d been hit in six different places, the rounds impacting in a diagonal pattern from the belly up.

”MEDIC!” he yelled at the top of his lungs as he attempted to put pressure on as many of the wounds as he could.

Fire was being exchanged between the Doomani forces and the Czardaians. Evidently there was quite a few of them left in this sector, and they were initiating a counter-attack on Caesar and his troops. He and his men had been caught slightly off-guard, but their superb training and sheer fanaticism kept the men in perfect order, and they swiftly assumed defensive positions.

In a perfect orderly manner, they proceeded to lay down suppressive fire on the machinegun nest, allowing for a medic to dash across open ground to Caesar and Tertius.

”Patch him up!” Maximus ordered the medic before quickly scrambling away from the area, sprinting out from cover across the shattered docks towards the enemy machinegun next.

It was a hastily prepared sandbag and cinderblock pillbox, with a sheet metal roof. Inside was a Czardaian heavy machinegun, its crew, and a few riflemen. Bullets whizzed just inches over his head as he moved as fast as he could while keeping low. Luckily, his men were superb marksmen, and were able to keep from hitting their emperor. Upon reaching the pillbox, he flattened his back up against the wall, just beneath the opening.

He grabbed a fragmentation grenade off of his vest and promptly pulled the pin. He let his hand off of the safety lever, cooking it off for three seconds before he pegged it through the small slit of an opening. The Czardaians had only time to yell before the grenade went off, blowing the roof off of the pillbox.

Maximus’ ears rang from the explosion and was temporarily disoriented, but quickly scrambled to his feet and drew his Gladius and lept over the top of the pillbox. He landed right in the intestines of the gunner, which had been ripped from his belly in the explosion. The rest of him had been thrown all over the pillbox: arms, legs, torso. Two riflemen lie nearby him. One of them rolled over, clutching a pistol.

Maximus, in one swift motion, kicked the pistol out of his hand and plunged his Gladius into the throat of his victim, tearing it out with a twist, nearly decapitating him. The second man had managed to get to his knees and was fumbling with his holster when Maximus turned, whipping his Gladius around and catching his foe in the throat, slicing clean through it and spraying himself with a jet of his foe’s blood.

He stood, stretched, and grunted. The first man, whose head was nearly detached from his body, lay at his feet. Maximus seized the head from the hair, and, his foot on the corpse, tore the head from his victim’s shoulders, and impaled it on the barrel of the machinegun.

Within twenty minutes of its starting, the battle seemed over already.

As Caesar strolled along the ruined docks near the water, he watched as his men erected the Imperium’s standards, freshly impaled severed heads mounted atop it. Legionaries stood watch over a terrified group of bound captives, who most likely already knew the gruesome fate that was about to befall them.

Among them were several high-ranking officers. The officers would live, for now. Long enough for them to watch their men be brutally tortured and killed. After that, they’d probably be shipped off to the Saguinarium to spend the rest of their lives in constant torture and mutilation. The Doomani had never been known for mercy.

The prisoners had been lined up and made to kneel, their hands bound behind their backs. Caesar walked down the line of Czardaian prisoners, staring at them coldly. The officers had been separated from the others and herded into another group facing them. They would have a perfect view of their men’s last moments.

The Czardaians had been stripped of their armor. Some bore looks of sheer terror, others defiance. Some simply stared blankly at the ground. They’d seen what the Doomani do to their prisoners, and knew they probably had something special planned for them. Nearby, Legionaries had begun erecting scaffolding. Maximus stood silently as the Czardaians were forced to their feet and led to their place of execution.

The Emperor turned towards his prisoners,

”You infidels picked the wrong lands to defile,” he growled, ”and now you shall pay the price. The fate of these men does not even come close to the suffering you shall face…” he smiled viciously behind his mask, ”This is merciful.” he spat.

As he spoke, the prisoners were lined up in front of the scaffolding. Each one was assigned an executioner, and the executioners promptly forced their captives to the ground, drawing their knives with glee. Without a moment’s waste, they went to work. It was tedious work; the skin of the Czardaians was gently sliced from their bodies, layer by layer; the executioners castrated their victims while they were at it. The executioners clearly knew their stuff; they were extremely precise in their work. The screaming of the Czardaians was simply indescribable: they sounded almost unhuman, as one would expect of one whose skin was being stripped from ones body like clothing.

The officers attempted to protest the gruesome treatment of their men, yelling at Caesar to stop his men. He simply laughed in response. Then they began to beg.

Their pleas fell on deaf ears. When the executioners had finished their bloody task, the flayed victims were forced to their feet. Already many of them had succumbed to shock, luckily, the executioners had thought ahead and simply injected their victims with a stimulant, bringing their victims back to the world of the aware. Behind the scaffolding, Legionaries tossed chains with hooks attached to them over the scaffolding to the executioners, who hooked the handcuffs binding the Czardaians hands to the chains.

From behind the scaffolding, the Legionaries pulled hard on their end of the chains, hoisting their prisoners off the ground and into the air. The men could here the bone cracking from the tearing limbs, as their hands had been bound behind them, making for a rather nasty ascent in the manner of a strapado.

With much haste, more Legionaries, carrying artillery shells for some odd reason, rushed over to the scaffolding. The reason for the artillery shells was not apparent at first- that was, until the men began unscrewing the fuse caps from the shells, revealing their deadly payload:

Throughout the Battle of Arretium, the Czardaians had been shelled with all manner of nasty things: high explosive, thermobaric, concussion shells. But one weapon stood far apart from these others. Prior to the Arretii Crusade, Doomingsland Defense Industries had experimented with the use of insects as a weapon of war. The result was an artillery shell packed with frozen Iurarii Fire Ants. Within seconds of the shells bursting, the outside heat would awaken the ants from their hibernation, and they would proceed to go on a rampage, getting into the enemy’s food, attacking enemy soldiers directly, and even completely smothering individuals.

By now it was rather evident what the Doomani planned to do with the ants. The men that had opened the shells hastily set them down in front of the prisoners before running away as fast as they could. These creatures were rather unpredictable, but some appetizing treats had been strung out in front of them. As the men had been unscrewing the shells, the executioners had smeared honey over the bellies of the helpless prisoners.

Within seconds, they began to scramble out of the shells: tens of thousands of them, perhaps tens of millions in total. The vicious little fire ants clambered their way up the scaffolding, and the prisoners screamed in terror. By now the officers had begun weeping at the sight. They began to crawl down the chains, across the arms of the men. Some began already to bite into the raw flesh of the men. It was a matter of minutes before the men were totally covered in the ants, the majority staying over the belly area, eventually chewing right through into the intestinal area, slowly eating the men alive from inside and out. The same scene played out all over the harbor. Nearly five-thousand men would die in this manner that day.

Maximus simply turned and left without a word being said, leaving the Czardaian officers stunned and demoralized. He had more important matters to attend to.

There was a saying in Doomanum: Remorse is for the dead.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maximus once again stepped through the portal into his command bunker, removing his helmet and tearing off his gauntlets, setting them down on a nearby console as he walked. The room was abuzz with circulating information. They may have won the battle but the war was not yet over. The Imperial Navy under Admiral Lucius Alexius Doomanus, yet another one of Maximus’ many brothers, was in hot pursuit of the Czardaian fleet, and it seemed that battle was immanent.

”Caesar, the Senate is on the line wishing to speak to you!” his brother Marius once more walked with him, carrying a wireless phone,

”Tell those fat lards I have better things to do than listen to their ass-kissing,” he responded casually. He was clearly in a hurry.

”Very well.” responded Marius, clearly unsurprised at this response, speaking into the phone, ”His Highness has better things to do then listen to your ass-kissing, you fat lards,”

Maximus continued down the same corridor he had earlier that day, once more entering the conference room. This time he was met by applause and cheering from his generals. Maximus smiled slightly at this and motioned for the men to sit. He’d gone through a lot to drive the Czardaians from Doomani lands. Now he could finally rest for a few moments. Of course, he’d soon be embarking on another campaign, this time much further from home. A large portion of the Czardaian Army had escaped Arretium weeks ago, and he was not about to let them go unpunished. He would pursue them all the way to the mudhole they called home, and kill them there if he needed to.

Upon taking his seat, an unfamiliar face approached him. Looking at him for a few moments, Maximus remembered the man. Cardinal Antonius Caius Cyriacus. Leader of Manus Dei. The man was in his seventies, and had the appearance of a wise elderly gentleman; he wore the robes and red cap of a Cardinal, and was soft-spoken,

”Ave, Caesar,” the man said, his head bowed. He presented Maximus with a sealed envelope, bearing the Seal of the Papacy. ”His Holiness has requested that you be the first to read this, my liege,”

Maximus, slightly puzzled, tore open the envelope and withdrew the letter, and read it aloud:

Official Papal Decree

A Call for Crusade

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v383/Doomingsland/421px-Emblem_of_the_Papacy1.png

Brothers and sisters,

Our Father, Thy Will be done! Dark times have once more befallen God's Children. Once more the infidel has chosen to spread the blood of the innocent in the name of false gods: greed, decadence, and infidelity; once more the pagan have been allowed to breathe the same air Christ once breathed.

As you know, a cruel and unholy race, the Czardii, have taken up the sword in the name of Satan against the righteous, defiling Christian lands. Though they have made many a martyr in the past days, and the forces of Christ have prevailed! Brothers and sisters, Arretium has been cleansed of the infidel! Glory to Caesar, for he hath done God’s Will!

Let us not rest now, however, for there is yet more injustice! A fair and holy people, the Dorii, have requested aid from these same oppressive heretics, the Czardii, who again prove their belligerence and evil by encroaching upon their fair soil! This cannot stand any longer! This day, the Lord calls for a full-scale Crusade upon all Czardii, for they have long made His children weep. No longer can they be allowed to spill the blood of innocent Christians! And so I say to you, let the heathen suffer God’s wrath! As Peter the Hermit, blessed be his name, once said many centuries before, by the blood of our Savior, ye shalt slit the throat of the infidel!

This day I call upon all who call themselves followers of Christ to cease making war on the faithful and turn their attention to the holiest of missions and the true enemy of the Faith; I call upon the Caesar once more to take up the Cross, to lead this journey to far away lands to make war on the infidel, who has defiled Christian lands for far too long!

Let us all unite under the Holy Cross to bring His Word to the unfaithful. Let us make a glorious pilgrimage in arms to the lands of the heathen to illuminate these dark lands. Most of all let us bring victory to the Righteous and Faithful, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

Deus vult!

~~~His Holiness, Pope Innocent VI

Maximus appeared dumbstruck. He had not expected this so soon. It was…perfect timing. He stiffened and turned towards the Cardinal,

”Tell His Holiness I would be most honored to take up the Cross once more,” Maximus said humbly.

He turned to the other men at the table.

”There is no time for celebration, I’m afraid, brothers. Have your men ready to ship out by the end of the week. Inform them of the Crusade: let them know those that fled will be punished by their hand,” he said severely to the men around the table, ”I want a transport fleet here even sooner.”

Without a word being said, they all nodded in agreement. Lucius’ fleet was hundreds of miles away by now; once he’d finished off the Czardaian Fleet, he would assume escort duty.

”Cardinal, I would like to speak with you in private…” Maximus said to Cyriacus separately. He was well aware of Manus Dei’s involvement in Dorium. They would prove invaluable in any campaign in Czardia…

~ An Undisclosed Location ~

“I am here, and everywhere; and I am nowhere.”

There are rows and rows of computers, connected to a closed network, powered by their own generator, from their own underground waterfall. A self-sustaining network, inaccessible by even a virus or artificial intelligence of any kind. Nothing links them to the outside world. Stored here is information, a good deal of information. Information too great and terrible for the world to know, for any human to know.

“None can withstand me. None can match me.”

The Operators are sensing. One cannot say they are watching, because they cannot see; nor that they are listening, because they cannot hear. But somehow information reaches them and they act upon it. It is what the Operators have done since the beginning of computing. And the Operators have sensed an anomaly.

This is Operator Three One Eight Seven Bravo. We have detected an anomaly in sector seven. Investigating. There is no-one to hear Operator 3187B. Or perhaps there is. The computers themselves never find out, and it is not given to them to do so.

Cyberax finds his first block here. He senses, in turn, the scanning of an unknown presence; he doubtlessly senses the 4096-bit encryption and the numerous firewalls and blockages. But as he maneuvers to enter the source by some means, he encounters more oddness. The programming language is one he has never encountered before, an indigenous one. The random matrix configuration of the data prevents the retrieval of information in a non-garbled fashion.

“I am the Operators. I am the Mirrors. I am the Destroyers.”

The information gathered on Cyberax is faithfully recorded and stored in its own separate computer, entirely unconnected to all of the others. This is a place that will surely intrigue the AI, and for a reason; it is here, after all, that Vermius resides. Vermius, the Conqueror Worm.

~ Czarna ~

The sky is red when Takahashi wakes. She looks up at it, first uncomprehending of what she sees. Then a flight of DF-3 Kestrels passes low over the city, screaming by and dropping a fusillade of bombs as it goes. Explosions boom dully in the distance. She raises her eyebrows slightly, slips out of bed, and begins hunting for something clean to wear.

Her parents are not downstairs. They must be out fighting for their lives, or something... typical of them, going off to die on her. She half-smiles scornfully – Ieyasu Takahashi is not a compassionate woman – and makes herself breakfast, boiling some water and preparing a glass of tea (no sugar, no milk, very strong) and an orange, both of which she consumes with alacrity. She collects her laptop, some clothing and food, and other necessities. Then she opens her front door.

She is facing a large spider. She knew it would be here; undaunted, she climbs up the side into the open hatch, waving a cheerful greeting to her friends. The spider is a Scorpion Mk. II light tank, and its hydraulically powered legs begin to move forwards again, creating small craters wherever they impact the asphalt. While denoted “light”, the Scorpion Mk II is twice the height of the average minivan and can actually bring quite significant firepower into an urban conflict like this one; that, and the fact that this is just one tank in a line of twenty, makes it a rather secure location.

Inside, Venaji Fletcher has pulled out a sheet of paper. The tank interior is large enough for three people to sit comfortably, including the tank commander, a fox; Fletcher is to play the role of gunner if it’s needed, whereas Taka is secondary commander, or some such honorary position. Fletcher cannot be very much older than Takahashi herself, with long brown hair braided and thrown over one shoulder, a well-trimmed beard and moustache, and a pair of sunglasses. He might look like a hippie were it not for the rather unfriendly-looking submachine gun beside him.

“We’ve got this sent down from Vermius and the ‘Upper Echelons’,” Fletcher says. “They want us to make contact with and assist any foreign delegations and groups in Czarna, who aren’t already allied to someone else.”

“Favour-mongering, I see?” Takahashi smiles.

“What else?” Fletcher says. “That’s why we helped the Skinnies in the first place... we won’t succeed in establishing control without a few allies.”

There’s a loud boom as something explodes behind them. The fox/tank commander, Darren Jenkins, says, “Damn Loyalists, trying to bomb us. We got AA?”

“Yeah,” Fletcher says. “I’m leveling it out now.” Manipulating the secondaries, he turns the 14mm anti-air gun up into the sky and lets loose a barrage of rounds. A Kestrel plunges burning from the sky. The others seem to have gotten the hint and are already taking evasive maneuvers, which are dangerous in an urban setting; another Kestrel collides with a building and explodes, setting it afire.

Takahashi interferes with the fun. “Ven, we got anything on foreign nations’ take on this?”

“Uh... Kregaians declared a crusade against Czardas, probably means they plan to walk in and take the place for themselves... we picked up and decoded a message from Nueve Italia, seems they’re interested in helping a democratic government get back on its feet, strange because it doesn’t have any no more. In Haven we’ve detected mobilization from the Skinnies and oddly, the Midlonians – they’ve not done anything for years.

“As for the corps... the Initiative’s taken Khûfi for itself, ditto Aurdania. We Buy It just snapped up the major rail line from Mariosz to Ardaja, so they could cut the commies in half if we got ahold of them first... and we’re reporting a GCDI hostile takeover of a major shipping company, too.” Fletcher finishes the recital, setting aside the message, then rethinking and stuffing it in his bag.

Jenkins brings the tank to a stop. “We’re here,” he announces. “Mind the roof.”

The hatch opens and the three of them climb out. Takahashi is first; she hadn’t noticed the change of scenery, but they seem to be inside a large building. A big empty warehouse, perhaps.

“Very clever,” she tells Jenkins. “Where’s the entrance?”

“Somewhere back there.” The fox jerks over his shoulder with a paw. Takahashi isn’t sure how exactly the “bloody anthros” are capable of acting like humans in every possible way, while still retaining their animal features; but it’s a question for another time. They are walking swiftly towards a guarded door, to what may be the control room or something similar. Jenkins arrives first, being swifter than the others on four legs, and inserts his ID, gives his pawprint, and undergoes a retinal scan; the door opens and he shows the others in.

“Welcome to your new home,” Jenkins says. Takahashi looks around. The house/control room is fairly spacious, with several rooms full of computer monitors and equipment, as well as separate living quarters with shared bathrooms, like a college dorm. In fact, this building was formerly part of the prestigious Idi University, before the campus was bombed in the Kregaian War and the building transported underground on several very, very large trucks.

Apparently no fewer than sixteen supporters of the Meritocracy will be residing here, including most of Taka’s control group. She moves her “stuff” into her room, then, deciding to check her e-mail before going back downstairs, flips open her laptop.

Then she begins to stare in astonishment as the silvered skull appears on screen. She certainly didn’t install this. It’s even more surprising when it speaks, addressing her by name, no less, and asking her for something she cannot tell it: Vermius. After querying it for a moment as to how it got there, and receiving nothing more than a cryptic reply, she sighs and resigns herself to her fate (to have a strange creature inhabiting her computer).

She explains, hoping her voice will be picked up and interpreted by whatever is living in her hard drive, “That’s a bit difficult since Vermius was never in direct contact with any of us. He always sent us messages through his, well, messenger, the Eminence Bleu. I’d recommend getting in contact with the Eminence to find out more about Vermius.”

She thinks, quickly. I’ve never seen Vermius actually referred to as such outside of Eminence Bleu’s communications... damn, this is going to be tricky.

~ Mjenaz-Arkaia International Airport ~

Armonde Kohl wasn’t born a fighter. He wasn’t raised one, either. Nonetheless, he had little choice; when his entire Labour Union went to war, he picked up his gun and went with them. Kohl had divided his time between postgraduate studies in engineering at Troën University and actual applications of that engineering in the Dvardii Defence Industries plant near it. Now, his unit relied on him mainly for similar engineering concepts, such as determining the structural integrity of buildings and weapons, and the like.

Kohl is, at the moment, in the “Dazed and Confused” category of warrior. Wielding his rifle, he occasionally shoots at people who may or may not be enemies; he wonders desperately how close the nearest bathroom is; he mentally undresses that really cute medic with the short blonde hair; he does almost nothing actually helpful to his cause. Until an unfamiliar-looking man in some sort of shiny armour and with strange weapons drags him away from the fray with a few words of introduction, and deposits him insensible on the ground amongst a group of more people with funny accents.

Kohl’s vision slowly returns to focus as some of the noises of battle and phrases uttered seep back into his brain, jumble into a mass of sound, then sort themselves out into their respective places. He’s facing another one of the people in shiny armour, with his gun, or large weapon, or whatever it is on the ground. His mouth begins to move.

“Wha? Hunh? I swear Officer, I’m innocent!” Some guy did it in a movie, and Kohl’s never seen a policeman, so he wonders if this is what they look like, and why criminals are all afraid of them. The man shakes his head and says something else; eventually the words “Take me to your leader!” filter through to Kohl’s brain. Kohl slurs out, “...aliens? I don’t want to be abducted!”

The man slaps his forehead and shakes Kohl more vigorously. Someone pours ice water on Kohl’s head; his powers of reasoning swiftly begin to return as he complains, “What was that for? I didn’t try to kiss you or anything, I don’t think,” only to realise that the pourer of the water is a large impassive armoured soldier and he had been fantasizing about that medic again. “Er. Who are you people?”

They tell him, and repeat their questions. Kohl scratches his head. “We don’t have a leader. We are revolting against that type of hierarchical structure espoused by the capitalist oppressors. Uh... but the Arkaian Manufacturing Union’s head is ... a guy named Roger Squirrell... yes, Squirrell, like the animal, with another L on the end. You can find him and talk to him about important stuff like that, I don’t really, uh, know that much about, yeah.”

Kohl looks around awkwardly and attempts to stand up on jelly-like legs.

~ The Joltaff-Mjenaz Train, eastern Czardas ~

It hurtles out of a tunnel at high speeds, into snowcapped mountains and valleys. But Joshua i-Latinu is not paying much attention to the scenery. He is far more interested in his cause: democracy, and how to preserve it. i-Latinu’s first order is to find a Loyalist commander; he knows there are bands of them besieged in Mjenaz, in Czarna, even in cities like Palma which are 72% Meritocratic. He’s gotten information from human rights groups, news organizations, and more; he knows that there are millions of democratic forces scattered about the country, and he just has to find them all.

i-Latinu only looks up from his notebooks and papers as the train slows to enter Mjenaz platform. It’s not as bad as some places; the tracks and platforms are mostly intact, and he can hear no gunfire or bombs. The train rolls to a stop and the doors force themselves open with a rush of air; he steps out onto the platform, feeling the wind rush past him again, and descends from the platform to the street. Mjenaz is a far more secure city; here it would seem martial law is enforced, with armed militia patrolling the streets, chatting it up with locals, watching the local protests with mild interest. If it were not for these armed men, and the aircraft flying overhead and the sound of distant artillery, the civil war might not be happening at all.

i-Latinu approves. Hailing a taxicab, he directs the driver to take him to the main military outpost in the city. The driver complies, taking off in haphazard Czardaian fashion (running over a dog and accidentally smashing a traffic light) to brake to an ear-shattering halt at a large brownstone building. i-Latinu hands over the requisite twenty-nazarin piece and climbs out; the taxicab zooms away, ricocheting off buildings, as i-Latinu cheerily greets the guard on duty and dutifully hands over his ID card. The guard inspects it, smiles wryly, hands it back, and lets i-Latinu in.

Inside he stops at the door of the commanding officer, a Lieutenant Colonel Maria Lichènes, and knocks twice. From within a Secretary bids him enter, so he pushes open the door. Inside the uniformed Secretary taps on her desk and frowns disapprovingly at him, something she probably does to everyone (as i-Latinu is not a particularly disapprovable person).

“Do you have an appointment?”

“Not exactly. I’m Joshua i-Latinu... leader of the Loyalists.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Took you long enough. Well, come in, the Colonel’s been waiting for someone in authority to show up.”

And he follows her into history.

Imperator Jakran Vuell, Head of the Kregaian Imperial Armed Forces, glanced out his office as he shuffled the papers on his desk. Just out the window gleamed the towers and skyscrapers of Korronis, reflecting the dawn light. The Imperator stifled a yawn as he turned back to his work and glanced at one report marked “Special Transport Request-TOP SECRET”. Checking that all four shipments of cargo were on their way to Korronis, Vuell next examined a status report on the fleet assembling in the Korronis docks; the entire Second Fleet had been pulled off patrol duties and sent to join the Crusade.

Vuell shivered with anticipation. He’d been Imperator during the Fourth Crusade as well, when the CAD had collectively slaughtered a massive Jarridian army. At the time, new to the job of Imperator, he’d hoped to lead the Crusade himself, but those hopes were gone now. High Lord Rahvin was a great man, a great leader; famous, rich, charismatic, and lordly, he was the personification of the Kregaian aristocrat. Not to mention the grudge he carried against the Czardaians. No, Rahvin was the man for the job; Vuell could take satisfaction in knowing that he would get to see the whole thing unfold.

Crusades were hardly a casual thing for a Kregaian. It was a bit disturbing that Lucifer had declared Crusade at all; prophecy stated that there would be only nine Crusades, the last being the war that would destroy the world. On the other hand, for the Czardaians, there could be no denying it was worth it. Democratists, all of them, rabble too idiotic to even be aware of their own sinful nature. Such idolatry! Such cowardice! Such weakness of heart! There could be no mercy for the Czardaians, Vuell thought. He smiled at the mental image of a burning city. No mercy at all.

***

In the Imperial financial center of Mon Serat, the stockbrokers and traders and other sundry money-mongers had been given larger breaks in order to attend special services intended to please the gods so that they would look favorably on the Crusade. More favorably than normal, anyway.

The Temple of the Furious Destroyer was not a very large one in most cities. It embodied a certain aspect of the Destroyer god which only received serious worship in times of war, especially when all the stops were being pulled out. Even then worshippers were a little more reserved than they might be at, say, a temple of the Thinking Modeler. After all, the Modeler didn’t demand sacrifice at all, while the Destroyer required human souls.

High Priest Invarus, standing before the god’s altar, raised his hands to the heavens and intoned, “Lord of Bloodshed, your servants call to you, in the certain knowledge that you hold the power of war.” The temple worshippers chanted a rote reply, and the holy man continued. “Your servants call to you, knowing that without you there is no victory.” Again the congregation replied, and Invarus turned to face them, staring down at the stone altars on which the sacrifices were bound. Drawing a knife from within his priestly robes, he dipped it into a brazier near the altar, raised the weapon, and cried, “Great Lord, with fire I purge this dagger, hoping that the souls it takes will find their way to the fires of your being.”

There were three altars in all, one before him, and two more on either side. Priests with similarly cleansed daggers raised over their heads stood over their captives. All were stripped naked, defenseless before the hunger of the Destroyer; one, a beautiful woman, smiled and writhed slowly within her bonds like someone in a lover’s embrace, while the other two, torn from death row and unready to meet their gods, squirmed from the blades above them, eyes alive with fear.

Shouting a final prayer, Invarus slammed the blade down. His victim, one of the convicts, screamed in agony as blood spurted from his chest. First wound. The other, on Invarus’s left, similarly screamed, while the woman, ecstatic at the prospect of being received into the Destroyer’s embrace, gritted her teeth and moaned. Again the priests raised their daggers before hurling them down again. Second wound. And finally, the bloody weapons were raised a third time; the bloodcurdling screams of the captives and the woman’s pleasure-filled moans were abruptly cut off as their throats were slit. Stained with blood, the priests dipped their hands in the wounds and then raised them to the congregation, who gazed at the spectacle disgusted yet enthralled. Lifeblood ran in grooves from the altars, stained the clothes of the priests, and painted their hands. As the litany of the Destroyer stated, ‘Blood is, blood was, and blood shall always be.’

***

The Cadian Gate. One of the most famous bastions of Imperial power; a series of fortresses and installations that had, from stone castles to fortified cannon emplacements to the modern superfort it was today, broken the onslaughts of armies for centuries. The cream of the Legions was quartered here, along with the most advanced war machines and dedicated staff. Second only to the vast defenses of Korronis, of course. Needless to say, along with its weapons ranges, batteries, and myriad other examples of military infrastructure, there were quite a few training areas in the Gate. And what would those training facilities be without a top-notch staff?

“STRAIGHTEN THE FUCK UP, FAGGOTS!” Subaltern Harrst bellowed. “EYES FRONT AND LISTEN TO THE COMMANDER, OR GODS HELP ME I WILL EXECUTE YOU ONE BY ONE UNTIL YOU DO!” Taking a step back, the Subaltern snapped to attention as Commander Haddon Verres strode up and down before the first rank of Legionaries, standing at perfect attention in full combat dress.

“Soldiers.” His calm, albeit hard, voice was a perfect contrast to the roaring tones of the Subaltern. “This company has been called to perform frontline duty in Czardas.” It was a testimony to the Legionaries’ discipline that they did not cheer or even smile. “Some of you served in the first Czardaian War. You might think you know how they fight, how they flee. You might think they will roll over and die. But assumptions like that will get you killed, by the worst kind of infidel.”

Staring each soldier directly in the eyes, the Commander continued. “Things will be different this time, in a lot of ways. We will be on Crusade, soldiers. There will be no more room for disobedience or personal glory than there will be for mercy or reluctance. You must be willing to kill; you must also be willing to wait to kill until I say so. The gods have blessed you and the cause, and you will reap your reward if you act with discipline and with ferocity. The infidels know this. They remember Auru, and Aurdania, and Senazkerkia. They will fight to the death this time, because they know how far we are willing to go. Even as fractured and disorganized as they are, from the moment a Kregaian puts a foot onto Czardaian soil, they will unite and swarm over us like rats. Obeying me, fighting with fury and intelligence and faith: these will let you enjoy personal victory as well as the triumph of the Crusade. That’s all, soldiers. Our train is waiting outside. Get to it. Blood and Honor.”

With such words, the Legions were readied for combat. Across the land, dozens of such troop trains ferried warriors to Korronis, where they were assembled and quartered until the troop transports were ready to house them. Anyone looking at the reports could see it: the Fifth Crusade was taking shape, and it would be the most momentous event in recent history.

His Majesty's Ship Tiberius - Approximately 400 Miles from Czardian Waters

The Tiberius ploughed through the calm waters of the Ocean, bow knifing through the gentle waves that lapped against the hull of the ship as if the water did not exist. More than three stories tall, the Tiberius was a new class of RORO (Roll-On, Roll-Off) Carrier, designed exclusively for the Rapid Reaction Forces that were now a standard arm of the military of the Grand Monarchy.

With enough cargo space below decks to hold more than two thousand men and women, as well as dozens of vehicles, the Tiberius was just one of dozens of RORO vessels in a massive naval convoy that stretched across the ocean for several miles. The convoy, dominated by the massive Superdreadnoughts Invincible, Republic and Grand Sovereign that could be seen in the distance from the deck of the Tiberius, was sailing at its highest speed towards the invisible line seperated international waters from those of Czardas. It carried within it the First, Third, Fifth and Ninth Rapid Reaction Forces; all told, nearly a hundred thousand soldiers were being escorted by more than three hundred ships

On the bridge of the Tiberius - which was carrying most of the 12th Armoured Division in its massive holds - the captain of the vessel raised a pair of black, scarred binoculars and scanned the horizon. Captain Jack Farragut, Naval Reserve, had commanded the Tiberius for the six months that the massive vessel had been in service after being released from the New Kaylee Naval Shipyards. Before that, he had spent more than twenty years in the Naval Reserve, commanding a dozen different types of vessel and seeing action in a number of theatres; Nerotika, Hitlerreich, the Civil War, and even the spat in Die Boerstaat.

As such, Farragut was no stranger to the inherent danger that being a member of the military of the Grand Monarchy caused. However, scanning the horizon, weathered hands gripping onto the equally weathered plastic of the binoculars, Farragut felt something in his stomach - a sense of unease that he had not felt since the uncertain days of the Civil War. This conflict in Czardas was bigger than anything he had ever seen - even the Civil War - and something about it made Farragut believe that it would not be another of the short but bloody campaigns that the Grand Monarchy usually participated in.

"Seeing anything interesting, Captain?"

Farragut grunted in reply to the voice, placing the binoculars on the surface next to him and then turning around. The voice belonged to Lieutenant-General Ashley DeFarr, commander of the 12th Armoured Division. Tall, with short black hair and a scar along her cheek, DeFarr was another veteran of the military, having served in both the Civil War and in Nerotika. She gave Farragut a nod as she walked up with a cup of black coffee in her hands, and Farragut shook his head and pointed towards the computer display that dominated the Bridge.

"There's been nothing new on the Interface since the last time the Invincible called to check in on us. A Carrier Air Patrol buzzed us a few minutes back - damned airjockey's have an easy life, flying around for a few minutes and then sitting below decks, sipping Martini's and shagging anything that moves."

DeFarr gave a wry smile, by now used to Farragut's eccentric sense of humour. She took another sip of the strong coffe, grimacing slightly at the taste, and then showed Farragut the folder she had in her hands. "These are the new communication decrypts from the Invincible - they'd just come in when I passed the Communications Suite."

Farragut raised an eyebrow and looked at the folder. "Don't tell me; the war's over, peace has broken out, and this poor old sailor can go home to his wife and children." His tone of voice gave lie to what he really believed the transcripts contained, and DeFarr did little to dissuade him as she withdrew the papers and began reading from them.

"Well, for starters it looks like Doomingsland is going to do its utmost to support the Dorii faction in Czardas. Aretius Harbour has been siezed by their forces after quite a bloody battle, and of course there have been the usual massacre and execution of any poor Czardians they managed to lay their hands on."

Farragut spat onto the deck, ignoring the surprised looks of several crewmembers walking past at the time. "Bloody religous fanatics, doing 'God's Work'. Has their mockery of a Pope decided to declare another Crusade, or has the old fossil kept silent this time."

"Nothing surprises you, does it Farragut? Yes, His Holiness, Pope Innocent VI has indeed declared another Crusade on Czardas - I've lost count of how many that is now. It must be in the double figures by now."

Farragut grinned, revealing gums that had lost more than a few of their original occupants. "I don't know why the damned Doomies don't just have a ready-made 'Decleration of Crusade. Any more news from the international scene before we move onto Czardas itself?"

DeFarr consulted the papers, scanning them quickly. "Well, the Kregaians have also declared another Crusade." She stopped for a moment as Farragut rolled his eyes, smiling in agreement. "Yes, apart from that, it would appear that the international scene is quiet, apart from Midlonia beginning a mass mobilisation. We have no intelligence on who theyre going to support at the moment."

Farragut grunted again, and waited for DeFarr to move onto Czardas itself. Shuffling the papers, DeFarr cleared her throat and began reciting the large amount that had occured in Czardas since their last communique from the Invincible. "Port Khufi and Aurdaniahas been taken by the Initiative, a corporation, as has a large swathe of territory by We Buy It Inc - from The Silver Sky, I believe. Some other corporations have taken some more land, and unfortunately the Grand Monarchy has yet to even land any troops."

Farragut winced slightly at this. "That's not going to make our landing any easier, now is it?" He asked rhetorically. DeFarr nodded in grim agreement, then kept reading. "Palma seems to be our best bet, as it's rumoured it's largely being controlled by Meritocratic forces. There are even more vague rumours that the Loyalists may have found a leader for themselves - a government official of some kind, although no word on who that is, or even if its true."

DeFarr put the papers back in the folder, her reading finished. The two said nothing for a few moments, digesting the facts that they had just been given. DeFarr was the first to speak after taking another gulp of coffee. "Should we ever get word back from some kind of command echelon in the Meritocratic group, we'll be able to begin a real military action. Until then, however, we're to stop once we reach the water boundary."

Farragut nodded, staring at the Interface behind them for a moment, before turning back to face DeFarr. "Any news on the Embassy in Czarna?" DeFarr shook her head. "No, we've heard nothing over the communication system since it was retaken by the Meritocrats and our forces went back in. Any particular reason?"

Farragut shook his head slowly, and looked back out to sea. Sensing something was bothering the old man, DeFarr kept silent, pondering just what it was that had caused Farragut to ask that question...

Skinnian Embassy - Czarna

Lieutenant Charlie Farragut fiddled with the chinstrap that was affixed to his helmet, in a vain attempt to try and get it to not chafe the skin on his throat. Swearing at it, he finally gave up, and turned his attention back to the men and women around him. Ten in all, they were his command - his first in Czarna. Newly arrived in the shattered remnants of the Embassy Compound, Farragut had been one of a hundred soldiers from the 1st Marine Battalion inserted into Czarna to secure the Embassy and make contact with the Meritocratic forces.

Looking around at the ruins of the Embassy, and the bunkers and sandbagged positions that had been set up in it, Farragut felt a trickle of sweat bead up on his forehead and begin the slow journey down his face. He cuffed at the drop, but failed to stop it, only succeeding in scratching his face. Swearing again, Farragut looked around for his Sergeant, Franklin Higgins. A few seconds of searching located Higgins checking the harness of one of the soldiers in Farragut's patrol. After checking his own webbing and equipment, Farragut walked towards Higgins, dust kicking up as he moved.

Higgins saw him approaching and snapped off a crisp salute, dismissing the unfortunate Private who had earnt his wrath. "Are we ready to move off, Sergeant?" asked Franklin, hoping that his voice did not betray his nervousness. If it did, Franklin did nothing to show that it had. Instead he nodded once and pointed to the small group of soldiers crouching by the remnants of the gate to the Embassy. "Patrol fit and ready to go, sir."

Farragut smiled briefly, thankful the waiting was over. "Then let's begin, shall we? We don't want to dally here and risk any more mortar bombardments. Bad for the health and all."

Franklin gave a small smile at the feeble attempt at a joke, then bellowed at the patrol. "All right, you lot. Form up, weapons at the ready. Let's move out!" Farragut and the Sergeant joined the patrol, moving to the head of the small column, and walked out of the relative safety of the Embassy Compound and into Czarna itself. The odd explosion could be heard in the distance, accompanied in a grim concerto by the bark of a rifle or the longer whirr of a machinegun.

Farragut tightened his grip on his rifle, and signalled for the patrol to move forwards. As they did, weapons up and searching for any potential targets, Farragut prayed that he would find an officer of the Meritocratic forces soon, as he had been ordered. Czarna wasn't exactly a healthy place to be at the moment...

End Game

It was cold, so cold; it chilled every bone and fiber of muscle in her body, down to the core.

Like a frozen fire it burnt at her skin, charring it pale blue instead of a coal black.

It consumed her, like a disease for which there was no cure, no turning back, only black abyss.

She couldn't more but her eyes and lips, and even then she could utter no word, like a gasping fish she lay, yelling for help as if it were space.

All she saw was smoke and death, explosion and ruin, blood and bullets, her body laid on its side, unable to move, stuck facing the death

She watched as he fellow soldiers died around her, as the enemy closed the distance, the red and black flag could be seen.

The Hammer and Sickle. The symbol of the Sapin Revolutionary Front. The bane of capitalism.

Then, she was jerked away from the carnage, by an unknown hand, a friend coming from the abyss, she saw his face, he yelled, but she didn't here.

Then, a powerful blast rocked the ground....

Then she woke up, and immediately sat up in her bed, eyes like dinners plates, he lungs and mouth gasping for breathes and her body sweating coldly.

She grabbed her heart and felt it beating like a gattling gun; she could feel her cold hands through her thin night uniform. Her dark blue eyes flickered around her, as if to make sure she wasn't still dreaming, she wasn't no more were the visions of death and destruction, replacing them were visions of the relatively tranquility that was her small officers hut.

He vest, fatigues, helmet, rifle and chest were all where they were supposed to be, nothing moved, not even the shutters that were keeping the cold wind out. She calmed down and sighed, she could see she was alone, no evil communist, no death, and most of all no hero .

She got up, oh; 'she' is Colonel Emily Sanders of Hostile Takeover Inc.'s 3rd Corp, 12th Division’s Airborne Brigade, assigned to operations in the Czardaiian Sector Charlie, named aptly for the large amount of 'Economic Reformist', basically communists in the area.

Emily continued to walk, her medium 5'10" frame dragging it's self towards the bathroom, her strawberry blond ponytail bobbing around above her loose night uniform swaying with the moves of her curvy body, clinging to her rather normal C sized bust, and her baggy military issue pants a sharp contrast to her fitted shirt, she moved like a shadow over the cold concrete. No sound but the swishing of her clothes.

“Damn, that's the fourth time in the past week and a half I've had that dream, ever since those commies ambushed Gamma Patrol last week, kicked their asses we sure did. She thought with a thinly veiled smile as she turned the knobs on the shower, running some warm water.

She quickly shed her sweaty shirt, and threw it in the direction of the laundry bin, revealing her nice curves and toned abs, which hug her stomach and ribs a bit too tightly, the few rays of gray dawn that snuck through the shutters highlighted her frame beautifully she stuck her arm in to test the temperature.

And of course, with a muffled yelp she withdrew her hand from the shower. ‘God damned too hot!' She thought as she mentally cursed the shower and its future offspring. She quickly stuck her arm back in, as if to dodge the heated drops, and allowed more cold water to flow into the shower head.

Relieved in not be scalded by the water anymore she quickly shed the rest of her clothing, revealing her built legs but decidedly feminine legs. She shivered from the cool air wrapping around her body and quickly jumped into the shower, closing the 'door' behind her, letting the warm water and air flow over and envelope her body. The water was just like rain, always there to wash away her worries, now if only she could keep them from coming back.

Outside was a slightly different story.

The base that Col. Sanders was based at was a Hostile Takeover Inc. Security Base for a We Buy It Inc. It was one of fifty bases throughout Czardas; there were two for each division in the country.

Outside Col. Sanders Bunk was a single figure, a male, about 6'2", wearing fatigues, body armor, but missing the standard helmet instead he wore a head of jet black hair, he seem at guard. This individual was Lieutenant Colonel Mike Hamilton, personal 'bodyguard/assistant' of Col. Sanders; he had been up for the last hour, silently waiting for her to exit the bunk.

Of course, this would be really creepy if this wasn't protocol, Lt. Col. Hamilton just waited and looked around, waving at other soldiers on guard, he would whistle, but that could attract unneeded attention from communist patrols, and just be really annoying to those trying to sleep.

But, just as he was about to die from boredom Col. Sanders graced him with her presence.

“About time you go up and about Sanders." Said Lt. Col. Hamilton with an air of jest and a slight smile.

“Watch it Lt. Col., I'm not in the mood for your usual crap." Responded Col. Sanders in mock anger, they had been deployed together since before they were even deployed to Czardas and knew each other top to bottom, well, figuratively. They were only friends.

“Aww, did you have another one of your dreams with the mystery man rescuing you?" Joked Lt. Col. Hamilton, as they began to walk over to the motor pool.

“As a matter of fact yes, and stop making fun of me, and besides, do you have the orders for today?” Responded Col. Sanders, not missing a beat as she holstered her TDX Pistol she had been polishing.

“As a matter of fact I have them right here!" Exclaimed Lt. Col Hamilton as he brandished a fresh stack of orders, “Today we're supposed to go reinforce the 1st Armored Brigades position, the 1st Corp managed to take the Mariosz - Ardaja Rail Line which extends our reach to 50km from the shore, we are here," Said the Lt. Col. as he pointed at a small dot about 15km south, southwest of Ria, “Western Command wants us to head up and reinforce the 1st Division, apparently their airborne has seen quite a bit of action and needs relief."

“Hmm, that's good, any news about our advance towards Mariosz, or about the forces in the west near Mjenaz?" Asked the Colonel as she, the Lt. Colonel, the driver, and 4 other members of her fire team jumped into the LV-08 Armored Patrol Truck.

“Well, Command has halted the advance towards Mariosz, socialist resistance has become too great and it won't help us at all, we just need to get some place close to the shore to get supplies and another five corps of troops from the fleets off shore," Responded the Lt. Col. matter-of-factly, “And in the west we've gotten reports of Socialists capturing the Mjenaz-Arkaia Airport, but the 'Artery Tunnel' is still in our hands, and the city of Sameri is in the hands of the 2nd Corp, securing our main bases left flank."

"That's good, now, how long until we reach the forward base?” Asked the Colonel, who was rapidly become disinterested. “Umm, about 30 minutes at this pace, especially with all the shell cratered ro..."

Then, as if the word 'shell' was magic a single shriek could be heard. Followed by, you guessed it, a big explosion!

“Fuck! Damn Commie Socialist Pinkos and their mortar roads, where did that come from!?" Yelled Col. Sanders as the convoy was showered in dirt and little pebbles. “Recon says it's from the clearing to our east, Grid Bravo-9, they go SAH-33s on it, and they should be passing over...... now!" And again, as if on cue, the helicopters came in low over the convoy, firing off rocket pods and 30mm cannons into the aforementioned clearing, obviously deating the socialist scum.

“Well, that was quick, those recon guys really make use of the acoustic detection and ranging stuff they got on their 'Raptors', sure makes pinpointing mortars a lot easier." Sighed Sanders as she slumped back into her seat.

‘Another brush with death, that was the 10th one in the last month and a half, but I’m sure it won’t be the last.’ Thought Col. Sanders as she brushed her hair out of her face and sighed. ‘I hope this war gets over soon’

Last Bet

Of course, there was other action else where, just as important, but not enough to warrant being first.

Like all great military machines Hostile Takeover Inc. Security Forces needed a central command center, this role was filled by the Ardaja Western Command Center (AWCC), located just north of what was Ardaja International Airport. It housed hundreds upon hundreds of defensive positions, from automated gun turrets to heavy artillery emplacements, mines, machine guns nests, basically the works.

Also, the airport itself had been assimilated and became part of the base's airport, which, up until a month or so ago was receiving reinforcements from The Silver Sky, but of course, that couldn't really happen now with their being a good 200km of commie-land between them and the fleets off shore.

That is why Operation 'End Game' was under way, it was a gambit by the commanders to get a city with a beach or port large enough to unload another 474,500 troops, this time government troops under 'Black Secret Orders' to reinforce the We Buy It Inc. holdings, before the communists rallied and pushed them back into the foothills of the southern mountains.

Of course, a meager 949,000 troops could not stand up to the onslaught of possibly millions of communist troops, no matter how badly trained and equipped they were.

Thus, an alliance needed to be formed, one not of offensive power, but of defensive preservation of their own lives. The Greater Czardaiian Defense Initiative would be that ally, for now, as We Buy It Inc. did not want to fight an offensive war, and would be content to allow any side to rule over Czardas as long as they were allowed to do business, of course, this was impossible with the socialist, so they became the main enemy of the Hostile Takeover Inc. Forces.

In fact, the last three major operations had been against the Communists and Socialist, this included the seizure of the Mariosz - Ardaja Railway (Including Ardaja it‘s self), the capture of the Ardaja International Airport, and the blitz-like invasion and capture of the city of Sameri and the surrounding land, to secure We Buy It Inc.’s Ardaja Base, the ‘Ardaja Western Command Center’, from attacks from the left flank. Also, Hostile Takeover Inc. was cooperating with the Holy Imperial Dorian Republic, allowing their forces to pass through WBI Inc. Territory and complying with their laws.

Of course, there was an on going operation near the ‘Artery Tunnel Complex’. The Complex had been started when deep mountain mining was made possible by the building of huge burrowing machines to get at the resources that had been in the mountain.

But after the resources began to be taken out, all that was left was a huge hollow tunnel and cavern system, which was large enough to accept trains carrying tanks in both directions. Some general the had the bright idea of using the complex as a military command bunker, similar to NORAD or the Malinta Tunnel, in World War II, soon the tunnel was being reinforced with steel, reinforced concrete and the rail line was being improved and a ‘highway’ built to let troops travel on foot/wheel, eventually it housed the ‘Eastern Command Center’, and became the ‘Gibraltar of Czardas’, parts were so deep in the mountain (100-700m) that the main section of the tunnel was immune to even nuclear bunker busters, and to keep the tunnel connected to the outside numerous ‘escape tunnels’, most big enough to take a tank, were constructed.

The tunnel was protected by a multitude of Surface to Air Missile Installations all over the mountains, as well as VTOL Fields, even an underground airbase had been constructed, housing a large portion of the Hostile Takeover Inc. Air Forces in Eastern Czardas.

However, the main command base remained in Ardaja for now. And We Buy It Inc. had no desire to fight any invading powers. A simple message was sent to the Dorian Republic outlining that We Buy It Inc. would not fight against them.

Also, a message was to be sent to Doomingsland, and Kregaia(sp?), as well as Midlonia and Skinny87, as their forces were mobilized and We Buy It Inc., as well as the Skyian Government was curious.

To: Doomingsland, Emperor Caesar Maximus,
From: CEO Steven Miller, We Buy It Inc.

Greetings Emperor Maximus, I am Steven Miller, Chief Executive Officer of We Buy It Inc., and I have sent this message to ask you questions about Doomingslandi involvement in Czardas. We know that Czardas launched an invasion of your holy land, an invasion that has obviously failed, and now Czardas is falling apart like it should have ages ago.

We suspect that you will aid the Holy Imperial Dorian Republic in their secession from Czardas, we respect this. I wish to inform you however, that We Buy It Inc. holds ‘territory’ in the area, and we have allowed Dorian Forces to pass through, as well as complying with their laws. We have basically made ‘ally’ with the Dorian Government and people. We wish to only be left alone to continue our business. We however don’t wish to support any ‘faction’ as of yet, we will not fire on your troops when they undoubtedly invade, and we wish the same respect.

I hope we can come to a mutual understanding on this subject, one that will keep blood from being shed unnecessarily.


To: Kregaian Empire, Sacred Emperor Lucifer
From: CEO Steven Miller, We Buy It Inc.

Greetings Emperor Lucifer. We have noticed that you have declared a crusade against Czardas. We wish you luck in this endeavor. We, we have ’territory’ in Czardas and big stake in their natural resources, so we wish to be allowed to keep our ‘territory’ and not be fired upon by your soldiers, if you agree to this we shall allow your troops to pass through our territory without hindrance or trouble. Also, if you are supportive on the Dorian Republic please know that we have cooperated with them and we have also sent a similar message to Doomingsland.

I hope we can reach an agreement

To: Midlonia
From: CEO Steven Miller, We Buy It Inc.

Greetings, we have noticed your recent military mobilization through means we would rather not talk about. We however have little doubt that this has to do with anything besides the civil war in Czardas. We would like to inform you of the presence of the 474,500 Hostile Takeover Inc. Security Forces we have in Southern Czardas and our intentions to land 474,500 Government Troops near Aneida. We would like to cut a deal with your government. Our ‘territory is the area in black on this map, light blue is key roads, and gold is key routes to the front.

We will allow your forces to use Ardaja International Airport as a gateway into the country, and allow them to use our roads to reach your destination. In return we would like to keep our ‘territory’ (Mines, factories, bases) after the wars end. Should this be acceptable we will let you commence landing of troops at your command.

To: King Alexander I, Monarch of the Grand Monarchy of Skinny87
From: CEO Steven Miller, We Buy It Inc.

Our intelligence reports to us that you are sending forces to Czardas to aid the Meritocratic cause. We would like to offer our support. We Buy It Inc. has 474,500 Security Troops in Southern Czardas and will be receiving a further 474,500 troops for the Skyian Government. Our territory is outlined on this map. In exchange for not being shot at or cut out of any end of war treaty, we shall allow our forces to use Ardaja International Airport as a stage for moving troops into the country and the use of our roads for moving troops to the front lines. Also, we are poised to take the city of Aneida from the socialist rebels to allow us to land the additional 474,500 reinforcements. While our fleet is large enough to hold the beachhead open for a while we would like to leave as soon as possible. However, if your fleet were to arrive in time we could extend the time we could hold the beach head to allow you to land your forces.

The only extra thing we ask is that you contact the Meritocratic Forces on our behalf, as we have been unable to reach any of their factions.

Operation: Last Bet tettered on the completion of of Operation: End Game, once that was completed Hostile Takeover Inc. would have enough troops and supplies to begin serious offensive campaigns. The socialist would not know what hit them. The landscape of Southern Czardas would be changed for years, both politically and physically.

With the closure of one book came the opening of another, an empty book, whose white virgin pages seemingly called to all those who wanted to make their mark on history. Hostile Takeover Inc. and the soldiers they employed were some of those people. And they would truly go down in history, for better or for worse.

High Seas

A large fleet held position 100km off the Frye Islands, facing Czardas, putting them a mere 500km from the war stricken land. The islands were a USSNAian Territory, which was slightly strange because of the distance from the USSNAian Mainland and it's close proximity to other countries.

But anyhow, that played right into the hands of the Skyians, the USSNAians had long been a great all of the Skyians, and it was not a stange thing to see Skyian Vessels anchored off the shores of the Frye Isles, especially with We Buy It Inc. having holdings in Czardas and oil fields of the Czardaiian Shores.

However, this was the first time that a fleet of this magnitude had been anchored offshore. It was in fact the 3rd Naval Fleet, complete with a the SRNS 'Cthulhu'. The fleet had only been back from it's deployment to Aralonia for a mere 2 months before getting orders to sail out once more.

Inside the bowels of the transport ships were 474,500 troops of the First Marine Field Army. They were waiting anxiously for their chance to jump into the history books once again. Armed to the teeth with BAR-68 Rifles, SAWs, and DMRs, as well as sitting inside of heavily armored behemoths called tanks.

The as the fleet began to move towards the Czardazian shore off of Aneida hundreds of planes began to take off and scan the area, they were going to war
.
The End Game was afoot. But this end was merely the beginning of something much greater...and much deadlier. For the End of Game was merely the Beginning of Another.

OOC: Hope I was right with the Latin.

OFFICIAL IMPERIAL COMMUNIQUE

To Steven Miller, CEO of We Buy It, Inc.

We fully understand your concerns; you have my personal assurance that We Buy It, Inc. will continue to control its assets during the Crusade, and that you will be rewarded for your foresight. Rest secure in the knowledge that we do not forget those who help us, and even right of passage through your territory is a great help. It has been a pleasure doing business with you, and I certainly hope we shall build on this exchange.

His Divine Majesty, Sacred Emperor Lucifer of Domain Halcyon

***

OFFICIAL DIPLOMATIC COMMUNIQUE

To Our Brother, Caesar Maximus Doomanus

Greetings!

We of the Empire cannot help but be honored that we march to war with our brothers in the Imperium Doomanum; sub caelis socius melior non est. However, there are of course a number of issues that need to be resolved. For example, the Imperial banner which our troops will be bearing on the Fifth Crusade is a five-armed cross, which Dorians or even Doomani might take as an insult to the Christian cross; for this reason, we will likely be unable to pass near Dorium under any circumstances.

Another matter is the issue of coordination. If it pleases you, hotlines and live feeds are ready to be set up between our own High Command and the upper echelons of your own military, and we are sending military personnel to the Kregaian Embassy to facilitate coordination between our forces. The Imperium stands ready to help resolve any other issues that arise.

Brother, it does not matter who our nations worship; the goal of each Crusade is the same. Vengeance. To both of us, the Czardaians are merely infidels caught up in the plan of the divine, and it is a historical fact that holy warriors charged with vengeance cannot be stopped. Blood and Honor.

His Divine Majesty, Sacred Emperor Lucifer of Domain Halcyon

ooc Eh. TSS, assume you've received messages and stuff from the Greater Czardaian Defence Initiative and so on. /ooc

~ Somewhere between Doomingsland and Haven ~

It had been a difficult decision. But in the end Admiral Nelson T. J. Marcus had had no choice, he reflects; with Czardas no longer in any state to supply its overseas forces, there was no way he could have stayed in Doomingsland very much longer. Marcus’s current supplies are barely enough to see his fleet through to home, and they’ve put in maximum speed: air cover is scant, as the bulk of Marshal White’s forces have long since cut and run for home, and the 700,000 remaining troops are quite prepared to support their comrades in Czardas, whoever those comrades might be. Battle-weary, they are already starting to grow crusty and cynical.

Marcus’s attempts to get in touch with Kari Alhoun or another government official have all failed. He’ll have to go to someone he never liked contacting, but at the same time the most powerful, and knowledgeable, person in Czardas. He’s in his private office now, face sunken, as he dials the number; the face that appears on the viewscreen is that of an ancient man, his face wrinkled and creased, seated comfortably in a wheelchair. Our readers will recognize him from Post #2.

The man speaks sternly, “What is it, Nelson?” His hoarse and rattling voice comes across the gulf of kilometers.

“... We’re coming home,” Marcus finally says.

“I guessed as much,” the man says. “They threw me out of Thrönak now. I no longer get my lovely windows and sun. It’s a sign that dark times are coming, I tell you.” He smiles ironically.

“Dark times are here already,” Marcus says. “The Doomies are on our tail back to Czardas, although I suspect they’ll break off inside Havenic waters simply because Doomies and Haven don’t mix. We’ve got a few hundred klicks before then, though. And in Czardas, there is war?”

“Yes.”

“So it seems. No-one appears to know anything about what’s going on there. I’ve even talked to foreign governments; the Skyians seem to be under the impression that the Socialists are taking over, while the Skinnies believe the Meritocracy is the best-organised faction, and the Kregaians called us infidel pagans and hung up. So I figured if someone knows anything, it’s going to be you.”

“How flattering.” The cripple spreads his arms wide. “What do you want to know?”

“Whatever there is to know,” Marcus said, but that was too vague. “What’s happening on the ground. Who’s really leading, and who’s losing. Everything.”

* * *

On the bridge of the CCS Steel Penis, the usual chaos had subsided for a while. Tradition held that it was now that someone would godrod the fleet, or something heinous like that, but in fact nothing at all was really happening, apart from people getting high or playing videogames. An ancient Vice Admiral named Tardis Bajor was watching the news in a half-awake state; it was to a large degree about the Czardaian Crisis, as the media had dubbed it. News channels were divided over this issue. Some of them, especially those based in countries like Skinny87 and the Silver Sky, portrayed it as a war that could wrench the Sovereign League apart and had the potential to start a whole new and frightening era in international politics. Questarian news stations especially were more apt to present it as a small regional conflict that would eventually resolve itself. Doomani news stations showed it to be the rightful disintegration of a corrupt society into anarchy and warfare, and implied that only more civilized peoples such as Doomani themselves could ever restore order there.

This was a Czardaian news station, and thus completely neutral on the whole issue. Oddly enough. The announcer was reading, “... Loyalist forces are finally starting to come back into the picture, reinforcing their positions south of Czarna and pushing Dorian forces back into their own territory. However, they have come into strong conflict with the Meritocracy, the most proactive group to emerge so far, partly due to its organization with co-ordinators making sure each controlled city functions properly. The Meritocracy controls all of Czardas between the Zaïr and Tyrion rivers at the moment, although the Socialist-affiliated Tyrionese Liberation Army is resisting the spread of the Meritocracy movement any farther north.

“Strangely, it appears that the Dorians are not threatened by the Meritocracy nearly as much as they are by the Loyalists or Socialists; as Dorian Emperor Florian I said,” cut to shot of Florian the Just, mask and all, “‘We shall always crusade against Communism, against Anarchism, against Atheism; we shall never rest until Czardium is cleansed of these evils, and Dorium is granted what it deserves.’” Cut back to announcer. “The Dorian forces have made good on these threats virtually everywhere in Czardas they choose, and appear to control a far-reaching terrorism network...”

Bajor has woken with the sound of Florian’s voice, and is looking flabbergasted at the television screen. “You know, I recognize him! Wasn’t he in the Army once?”

“Pardon?” someone nearby says.

“That guy! Calls himself Florian the First now, but I remember him as ... LaFleur ... LaFleur something, the one what was put on the wanted list for high treason?”

Everyone is looking at Bajor now. “James LaFleur?”

“That’s the one, yes.”

“... Well, that explains it...”

~ Czarna: Some distance outside the Skinnian embassy ~

“Drop ’n’ roll, boys!”

Lance Corporal Jim “Master” Shadowe is in his element. He jubilantly yells orders across houses and valleys of death; his team of Special Operatives is nominally part of the Greater Czardaian Defence Initiative, but he’s been ordered to make contact with Skinnies and escort them to relative safety. Shadowe throws himself to the ground as a mortar round smashes somewhere above him, rolls towards his rifle, and raises it to chin level and the scope to eye, squeezing off four rounds and making four kills.

This section of Czarna is by far the most dangerous. The Nativist Party of Czardas, one of the most fanatical splinter groups, has taken control of it and ringed it with armed men and women. Shadowe clambers across a stairway and leaps from an open window, landing silently on his feet on another rooftop like a cat. A trio of SpecOps is already there, forming a triangle of machine guns blazing liquid fire down at the Nativists. They are dropping like flies.

“Shrike! We got an ETA on those Skinnies?”

Shrike, the stereotypical beautiful redhead who happens to be a master of disguise and treachery – wait, that isn’t a stereotype, is it? – of the 14th Special Operative Division, looks at her GPS. “They’re heading down Oak Street now, ETA at Crabtree Boulevard of five minutes.”

“Oak Street? That’s what, three blocks away?”

“Yeah.” Shrike pauses, distracted, to reload. In a building across the way a sniper fires; Shadowe grabs Shrike and wrestles her out of the way as a round leaves a small crater where she was sitting. He refocuses in his own rifle’s scope on the sniper, who is hidden in darkness, so he switches to IR sights just in time to see the figure fall over and another pair of figures enter. His radio buzzes.

“Master, this is Stardust, we’re in the building across the way, proceed at will.”

“Thanks.” Shadowe says sarcastically. “Block clean yet?” he asks the squad medic, Cpl. Watson.

“Mostly,” Watson says, peering out along the street. It’s mostly silent. “Yeah, we’ve taken care of the motherfuckers,” he concludes.

“Parrot, we’re exchanging heavy fire on the corner of Maple Street, come on down.”

Shadowe nods at the squad and begins to descend through the burned and blasted-out buildings; Shrike, Watson, and the third man (Pfc. Jonathan Ariki) follow him, guns at the ready, all manner of weaponry bristling in their armoured belts. The sounds of gunfire can of course be heard from all sides, and the streets are smoky, with low visibility; nonetheless, Shadowe can make out the sounds of SpecOp ammo clattering against the ground and walls already. The quartet’s journey abruptly ends as they reach the end of the block; they are on the tenth floor of the building, and the walls and ceiling have been reduced to twisted, smoking rubble. They take up defensive positions here.

Rounds are clanging everywhere. Parrot and three comrades, holding a balcony across the street, appear to be exchanging fire with a machine-gun nest somewhere nearer the roof. Fitting the designated marksman IR sights to his rifle, Shadowe aims and fires off two or three rounds towards the figures outlined there in stark red, watching both fall. Apparently those were not the only two, as more shots come pinging towards Shadowe. Ariki mutters something under his breath and sets up his MG. “Bloody racist fags.” The chattering of rounds goes on as Shadowe does a quick recon. Dave “Stardust” Jinnam and Rog “Crump” Krampowitz have crossed the street in a burst of fire from behind Parrot’s team, to join Shadowe’s forces upstairs. Looking down Maple Street, Shadowe can see cars and houses burning, and off in the distance a towed artillery piece.

“We’ll have to get rid of that one...” Shadowe muses. “Shrike. You’re with me. Ariki, Watson, you two wait for Stardust and Crump to come in, co-ordinate your movements with Parrot and Aïda and company over there.”

“Righto,” Ariki says, not looking up, focused on his MG. Shadowe looks at Shrike wordlessly; she follows him to the staircase and they descend at a jog, guns, grenades, and flamethrowers at the ready. As they emerge silently on the second floor, and approach the exit, all the guns in the world are suddenly brought to bear on them.

This time it is Shrike who pulls Shadowe to the ground as rounds clatter above their heads. The twisted wreckage of the second floor is probably enough to hide them adequately, but they have no idea where the assault is coming from; Shrike finally espies a figure peering at them from a window across the street, and mutters, “I’ll cover you.” She sets her sights to IR and begins to fire, as Shadowe runs to the window, smashes it with a single armoured fist, and hurls a thermobaric grenade into the opposing floor, which erupts in flames. As the fire continues, Shadowe yells into his radio, “Parrot. Burn them.”

Across the way Parrot, a young subaltern, fully understands the meaning. Rallying his forces to him, two young men and a woman in all, he leaps across the narrow chasm dividing the two nearest buildings, and grabs the edge of the roof as he passes it, digging in his boots and inching along to the nearest window. Then, flexing his well-trained muscles, he throws himself back and allows the legs to smash into the window, shattering it and dragging him in (weapons and all). As he goes in he lets a flashbang towards the street side. The resulting explosion temporarily blinds him; by the time he’s come to, he’s staring at a severed arm at his feet, the largest body part to survive the explosion. The other three are already inside, weapons already out; Parrot draws his MG and follows them down a circular staircase, where he finds that the first person down has already taken out her flamethrower and done what people do with flamethrowers, which is burn stuff. What’s left of the nativists is not pretty.

By now Shadowe and Shrike are across the street, heading down Maple. They are not doing this in a very traditional way; Shadowe had smashed in the ground-floor window of the still open cigarette shop across the way and, in front of the surprised proprietor, simply burned his way through the stock and other wall. He punches holes large enough for two people to fit through as he goes down Maple, killing anyone who resists with relative ease. On the opposite side of the street, Shrike is doing the same.

“Shrike here, that arty’s in front of us at one o’clock,” his radio says.

“Roger.” Burning through a shower wall, and the unfortunate couple “taking one” at the time—his flamethrower only slightly dimmed in capacity by the water—Shadowe emerges slightly drenched at a window in his enclosed bathroom and assesses the situation. The towed arty piece looks like a 105mm howitzer, and it’s manned by at least thirty armed Nativists, as well as a truck. It’s set up in the middle of the street amidst the wreckage of cars and the like.

With a swift co-ordination, he and Shrike both hurl their frags at the same time. Twin explosions on either side of the arty piece result; Shadowe smashes through the window and flips in the air to land on his feet with a grunt, his rifle already out and on fully automatic. His armour system protects him against serious harm, although the manufacturers shouldn’t have worried; by the time he and Shrike have reduced their second Nativist apiece to cinders with flamethrowers, most of them have already fled in terror. The truck is beginning to drive off, and Shadowe is fairly certain most of the Nativists have escaped to there. With a shouted confused order to Shrike he leaps into one of the few intact cars, sticks a skeleton key in the engine and activates it, following the truck at what must be close to a hundred kph.

The truck driver is clearly terrified, perhaps worried that Shadowe and Shrike were merely the advance scouts of a massive army of such creatures. Shadowe is fairly certain most of the Nativists are similar—recruited to drive out foreigners for money and apt to jump at the slightest threat of death. As he drives haphazardly towards the truck, smashing over anything in his way, he notices that it too is speeding up. Shadowe looks forwards again. Maple Street ends in another five blocks.

As Shadowe draws level with the truck, he draws out his sidearm and fires towards its rearview mirror, which is broken cleanly off. Then he fires into the window, twice, rolls down his window, and jumps from his window to grab hold of the door handle, whereupon he fires again through the already shattered window at incredibly close range, then smashes through himself.

Both driver and co-driver are dead, blood welling up in great pools from the .40 caliber holes in their heads. Shadowe shoves the driver aside and grabs hold of the steering wheel as an explosion sounds; “his” car has just smashed into the end of the block, a prominent Nativist headquarters for which the truck was heading, lighting it on fire and sending up even more explosions as their ammo stores go up. Shadowe U-turns manically, smashing through windows and doors and walls and trees, and begins to accelerate as he approaches the howitzer’s position, yelling to Shrike over the radio, “GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY!” As the truck careens towards its doom, Shadowe leaps from the door, hitting the ground messily and rolling over and over towards the roadside. At almost the same time truck and howitzer collide in a massive explosion; the gun’s ammo goes off, turning buildings into rubble and killing all of the Nativist troops within.

Shrike reaches Shadowe as he sits up, dusting off his uniform. “You ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says, half smiling. “You been in touch with Stardust? Where are those Skinnies?”

“They’re apparently held up in a firefight on Oak and Crabtree. Alma’s sending us six mantises, though; they ought to show up by the time we clear the place.”

“Right. To Oak Street!” Shadowe gives a mock-triumphant call, marching through the rubble of Maple Street towards the beleaguered Skinnies.

* * *

“Briefing?” Crump asks, kneeling as he reloads his mortar.

“Uhm. It looks bad,” Subaltern Parrot says, rubbing his forehead. Watson, the medic, is extracting a bullet from behind his right shoulder, so he’s in a fair bit of pain at the moment. They are in relative security; Ariki and Stardust are holding the windows, watching the Skinnies and Nativists clashing below. Parrot continues, “Skinnies are acquitting themselves well though. They’re outnumbered at least six to one; we’re guessing they’re just a patrol, but they’re doing surprisingly well for non-SpecOps.”

“That’s nice,” Crump says impatiently. “What are we waiting for? Let’s burn the racist sons of bitches.”

“That’s an order I can live with,” Ariki grins, smashing in the window and keeping the Nativists below in his IR sights. They seem to be based in a three-story building, well below the SpecOps’ fifth-story outpost. The SpecOps start out by letting fly with RPG rounds, which blast massive holes in the roof of the building, and follow that up with thermobarics and frags. The Skinnies across the way have probably noticed them by now; Ariki and Stardust lead the way, swinging down on grappling hooks into the twisted mess of rubble that is the ex-Nativist outpost to clean up; the other six follow them down. The building, which had contained at least seventy Nativist troops before the battle, soon erupts in a confusing mess of noise, gunfire, screams, and general mayhem. Within a few minutes Parrot has reached the front windows and looks through towards the Skinnies, waving cheerily; another squad member named Weasel brandishes his flamethrower from a lower window like a flag; and so on until Shrike and Shadowe have arrived to take care of the last few. As Shadowe finally switches his flamethrower to safety mode, he looks around. The charred and blackened remains of the building are littered with many corpses, all of them Nativist; the superior equipment, training, tactics, and strategy of the Special Operatives has won out again. It is remarkably quiet; it appears that apart from this building, there are few Nativist forces actually here specifically.

“Let’s go down and meet our friends, shall we?” Shadowe says. The Special Operatives erupt in a well-deserved cheer, probably audible from across the road as well; Shadowe is the first to emerge, and he removes his helmet to reveal his slightly grizzled dark blonde hair, complete with a week’s stubble, his prominent nose and chin and his piercing humorous eyes. As the Skinnian commanding officer emerges, he says, “Lance Corporal Jim Shadowe, Greater Czardaian Defence Initiative. We’re working with Meritocracy.”

It probably feels a bit like a deus ex machina to the other man, but Shadowe isn’t exactly concerned with that. The other SpecOps are emerging behind Shadowe now, revealing their faces and holstering their weapons (flamethrowers and RPGs across the back, rifles and sidearms along the belt). They all begin to introduce themselves, greeting the Skinnians like old friends.

~ Aneïda, southern Czardas. ~

The city of Aneïda is important for a few reasons. Originally held by Loyalist forces, Socialists had moved in to annex it shortly after the start of the war, as it had a garrison of only about ten thousand. There is no active rioting or violence in Aneïda; it had only a hundred and eighty thousand inhabitants and is not a very important city in most ways.

It is important geographically. Most of Aneïda is perched along the one relatively smooth incline south of Mariosz; whereas most of the shores consist of 600-foot cliffs and rocks and reefs, Aneïda has been rebuilt in an area that had been first set at a more gentle incline by a small glacier millennia ago, then further flattened by Parthian superdreadnoughts in the Kregaian War. If one wants to land a significant number of troops and tanks, it would be there.

But Aneïda had something else. It is the home of the Southern Czardas Command Centre (SCCC), which manifests itself from above as a small, heavily guarded building near the shore, set at the bottom of the cliffs. Underground, deep underground, the SCCC contains hallways and bunkers and rooms housing a set of intimate controls. These in turn are linked to literally thousands of underwater missile launchers stretching along the Czardaian coast as far north as Gelta and as far south as the border. Part of the CAMERA system, it too was installed (at a cost that would make baby Jesus cry) to prevent a repeat of any Parthian style attack.

The Socialist forces have basically forced their way into the complex, cracking security with the aid of powerful supercomputers; they have access to at least part of the modular system. Even as the Hostile Takeover Inc. forces approach they are still trying to crack the rest of it.

Of course, they tend to like keeping their territory. As WBI forces cast off – even as the first planes begin to take off – the Socialists have positively ID’d them as hostile and are preparing a response.

Every single missile launcher they have access to is going to be used. No expense will be spared to get rid of these invaders. By Raz’s orders (Raz being the union leader “in charge”, currently in a bunker in Mariosz), the small forces controlling Aneïda, a hundred thousand untrained troops in number, are to use any means necessary to destroy and kill the enemy.

By hitting the “Fire” button multiple times, the Socialists manage to achieve the following:

Five thousand X-1 Firestorm missiles – oft-used, but new name – emerge first. They erupt into the air as one, arching almost into low earth orbit and rocketing along at Mach 2.7 before arching back down to smash into the ships with terminal velocities approaching Mach 10, a “guided ballistic” trajectory. They form a solid line of fire a couple kilometers in breadth, and are bound to cause problems for any close-in weapons system due to their insane arc.

As these 5000 tubes reload, another five thousand spew forth X-2 Icestorm missiles. They emerge, but instead of going into the air, they stay by sea level: a few metres above the waves, they skim at high velocities, although not quite high enough for them to break apart. Something like Mach 3 or 4, or whatever it was, if anyone really cares. Anyway, they’re going pretty fast, right? Then, once they reach 70 km from their targets, Stage II activates. Each missile drops a single 1000mm keelbreaker torpedo, which descends to just under the keel of a ship (hence the name) before turning back up, penetrating, and exploding. Meanwhile, the shells that have so discarded continue to play with enemy electronics, turning off and on jamming and the like before they run out of fuel and fall into the sea.

The reload takes about thirty seconds, so it’s only then that a second volley of five thousand missiles of each type is launched. And a third volley. Then someone comes in and tells whoever is playing with the missile launch system that it’s really been enough and they have to activate defence systems and the like now, in case the Skyians happen to dislike being shot at with thirty thousand missiles and attempt to do something radical like strike back.

~ An Undisclosed Location ~

Numerous attempts have been made to contact the Meritocracy, and the Operators are aware of them. The Operators are strictly aware of everything; but this specifically they have been processing, deciding what to do. As usual the information is to go to the specified IP that the Operators know by the code name Eminence Bleu; it is an IP they well know, one they have matched with its proper owner, but of course who are they to tell anyone?

The obvious solution is to call up Vermius. The Operators, once more, know what to do. They are programmed to know. They are activating the cameras, searching networks for relatively easy to access terminals, generally those with 512 or fewer bits of encryption. If there is no easy access, they must go around “the back way”, entering through anti-virus and anti-spyware software. The processing power of a small nation turns to this, and soon it is done; very soon. In the bunkers, the TV cameras activate.

To all those who have been seeking Vermius, he appears now. The Operators have found the largest possible screens to project his image; before the CEO of We Buy It, and the ruler of the Grand Monarchy, and before Cyberax, and before others. It may not be at exactly the same time, but it is relatively close, and at least synchronised. Whatever may be going on at the time in the office, it is interrupted as the image of Vermius—his face in silhouette, light falling from somewhere behind him, only the faint glow from his pipe emerging to cast a faint glow.

“Greetings,” he says, his voice an educated baritone. “You may have heard of me. My name is Vermius. I’m the co-ordinator of the forces seeking to establish achievement-based rule in Czardas.”

He pauses for a moment. “I’m sure many of you have questions or requests to make of the Meritocratic Forces. Unfortunately, my time is limited so I may be unable to answer all or any of these personally. Therefore, I’d recommend you contact my second in command, L’eminence Bleu.” His accent is perfect. “I will repeat the contact information once. It is as follows.” The man states an e-mail/MSN address. “Thank you, and have a good day.”

The face of the man who might be Vermius disappears. Back in ~ Undisclosed Location ~, he re-lights his pipe. He stares out the window upon Czardas, upon the sun beating down upon its forests and mountains and valleys and plains.

Despite the sun, night has fallen. The era of Democracy, seven hundred years in length, has set. And now begins the long night of civil war before the new dawn of ... perhaps his state? perhaps another? He cannot know. Not even the Operators can know.

He stares forlornly out. He is worried, very worried. And he is more than a little sad.

Perhaps most curiously of all, he doesn’t exist.

Czarna - Remnants of Oak Street

As a young boy, Charlie Farragut had seen the unique blend of chaos, destruction and horror that a Civil War could bring to a country. Living only a few miles from Port Stanley, the tertiary port facility that for months had been the only way for the Parliamenterian forces to get supplies and reinforcements from both their scattered forces and their allies, Farragut had seen the shelling, the bombing and the gassing that the Port and its beleaguered defenders had endured; he had even seen 'The Week of Terror', the seven-day long barrage of rockets, shells and bombs that the Loyalist forces had thrown at Port Stanley to try and make one last breakthrough.

Thus, Farragut was no stranger to death and destruction, and the results of a Civil War. Yet as he led his patrol through the winding, narrow streets of Czarna towards the Meritocratic forces - a patrol that numbered only ten men and women, something he became more concious of every street they had travelled along - the destruction in many places seemed far more brutal and terrifying than even he had experienced. As he saw the intersection between two streets in the distance, Farragut suppressed a shudder and concentrated on getting his squad across the road alive.

[TBC]

“Far away from the land of our birth
We fly a flag in some foreign earth
We sail away like our fathers before
These colors don’t run from cold, bloody war...”
-“These Colors Don’t Run” by Iron Maiden

The world will quiver, the Sacred Emperor thought. Staring out over the Crusading fleet, it was easy to harbor such thoughts.

The wharves and warehouses of the Korronis harbor stretched out across the entire horizon; gun emplacements rubbed shoulders with filthy pubs and brothels. If it had been a clear day, a rare thing in Korronis, one might have been able to see right across the strait to the other side of the Gold Sea; as it was, the sky was a gray, overcast shroud, and the sea a choppy expanse of dark waves. Rain fell from the heavens, drenching the hundreds of thousands of citizens who cheered, fanatical conviction glittering in their eyes. And Sacred Emperor Lucifer, clad in ceremonial battle armor and wearing the Iron Crown, looked around at it all from a stone dais and he saw that it was good.

Bloody-handed priests of the Destroyer stood beside him, immune to the wind whipping their cloaks and their hair, or to the rain that ran down their faces. Silently they stared at the fleet, or rather at its core: the massive superdreadnaught Apophis, the essence of the new Imperial fleet, and the nerve center of the Crusade armada. They thought of the troop carriers that floated in the restless seas, and of the hordes of Legionaries that waited in its depths, spiritually readying themselves for the journey to Czardas and the war ahead. This, too, was good.

Behind and around the dais on which Lucifer and his chosen stood throbbed a massive crowd, screaming, chanting blessings, or waving banners displaying messages like “Blood Is, Blood Was, and Blood Shall Always Be”, the mantra of the Destroyer. Many had painted their faces with the five-armed red cross of the Crusade, making the howling mob considerably more striking. The people gave voice to their admiration and their encouragement and their hatred of the Czardaians...and this, too, was good.

There was no need for words. What need of words? Lucifer had spoken to the people, roared his personal blessing on every last warrior marching off to the battle, had done everything expected of him. He had denounced the Czardaians, invoked the Seven True Gods to watch over and guide the Crusade, had praised Rahvin Ares and Ludo Anor for their previous victory over the Czardaian heathens. No, there was nothing left to say. Instead, Lucifer simply pressed a button on his handheld signaling High Admiral Anor, far away on the bridge of the Apophis. Moments later, giant banners were unfurled on all the capital ships; great black banners, darker than midnight, save for the crimson five-armed crosses that shouted to the whole world that this force was on Crusade.

The crowd went wild, twofold cheers and screams erupting from their throats. Guns thundered aboard the ships; a twenty-one gun salute ten times over streaked through the skies as the great vessels lumbered off slowly, out through the straits to the raging oceans. Lucifer gazed south from his dais, fingering the hilt of the ancient ceremonial sword he carried in his belt. South towards the crashing, tempest-tossed sea. That way lay the untamed and wild expanse of the open ocean. That way lay Czardas. That way lay victory. And the Sacred Emperor grinned, stroked his beard, and turned to walk back to his limousine.

The world will quiver, indeed.

Dorandor, Dorium

He set the phone back down on the receiver and smirked in the darkness of his hotel room. Appius Camillus Sidonius had just delivered Florian’s government access codes to the EID’s local satellite network, giving them live video feed of virtually every battlefield they were currently involved in, as well as orbital RADAR, LIDAR, and LADAR arrays, courtesy of the Imperial Government. He hadn’t needed to set up contacts between the Dorii and Manus Dei; that had worked itself out, and quite nicely. The two worked quite well together, it seemed, which made his job all the easier.

Sidonius’ job was simple: act as Caesar’s eyes, ears, and mouth in Dorium. His duty was to funnel massive amounts of intelligence to both Manus Dei and the Dorii, as well as to…nudge the two factions towards doing what Caesar wanted, whether or not they knew it. So far he had not had any problems with either of them, which somewhat surprised him.

He lay silently on top of his bed, a laptop on his lap, which cast an eerie light across his face. The only sound that could be heard was the gentle humming of the laptop’s processor, and chants of “Deus vult” emanating outside of the room from the large crowds, riled up by Manus Dei preachers calling for them to go on crusade.

It was all falling into place rather nicely at this stage.

He was nondescript by Doomani standards: creased Roman face, lightly scarred, tan, shortly cut brown hair, relatively well-built physically. He had not yet met face-to-face with Florian, although he had met with Manus Dei’s regional commander, Marcus Fidelis Cato, on several occasions, which had turned out to be rather fruitful meetings. The Dorii thus far knew him only by his voice, although he was sure they could find him if they wanted. He wasn’t exactly trying to hide, although he was being discreet.

Displayed on his laptop was live infrared footage of Czarna from an Imperial satellite in geo-synchronous orbit; high quality footage, at that. He was easily able to distinguish the Loyalists from the Meritocrats, Socialists, and Dorii. He did this only to ensure his Dorii clients would have working satellites when they logged in. They would be most pleased by this, he was certain.

His Manus Dei colleagues, on the other hand, appeared to be quite busy within that embattled city. Within the past ten minutes of watching alone, he’d seen two suicide truck bombs go off near Loyalist and Meritocratic positions. Clearly Manus Dei work.

From what Cato had told him, they had death squads and militia operating throughout the city of Czarna as well as most other major cities in Czardas, separate of the mobs of Dorii. Manus Dei had its own agenda, and although Dorii independence was a part of it, it was just that: a mere piece of the vast puzzle that was the Manus Dei plot in this nasty little war.

He did have a slight inkling towards what it was they were trying to accomplish here, although he did not concern himself with it. As long as they did their part in paving the way for Caesar’s invading crusader armies, he was satisfied. Once Emperor Maximus III arrived with his legions, nothing else would matter. It would descend into pure, unadulterated bloodshed and slaughter from there…

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Czarna, Czardas

Octavius Aurelius Seneca kept his head down at the Meritocrat tank rolled by the convenience store he’d entrenched himself in. Windows of the storefront had been shattered, the shelves tipped over by looters and grenade explosions. He sat with his back to the front of the store behind the counter, a broken mirror on the wall opposite himself giving him a view of the outside.

He cradled his DR-83 tightly in his arms, quietly flicking the fire selection switch to ‘auto’. Behind the enemy tank were at least a dozen Meritocratic infantry; they glanced into the store as they passed by cautiously.

He wore a black balaclava and some dusty, dirty grey urban digital pattern BDUs with an armored vest. Tied to his left arm was a black arm band bearing the symbol of Manus Dei: a golden Chi-Rho surrounded by a laurel.

As the Czardaians passed by the storefront, he silently took his right hand off of the pistol grip of his rifle and placed it over one of the hand grenades hanging on his load bearing vest. With the other, he gently placed the rifle on his lap and slipped his left index finger through the pin, jerking on it and pulling it out. This noise evidently caught the attention of one of the passing Meritocrats, who raised his rifle and pivoted towards the storefront, quickly catching the attention of his comrades.

Not a millisecond later an explosion rocked the small urban neighborhood as a 125mm recoilless rifle shell slammed into the engine block of the Meritocrat tank, quickly putting it out of commission. A machinegun, previously hidden in a church steeple at the end of the block, began to bark loudly as they walked their fire right up along the outside of Seneca’s store; he watched through the mirror as chunks of pavement shot up around the men outside, jets of blood spattering the ground as a few dozen 6.7mm rounds tore through them.

Other riflemen had taken up positions in the surrounding positions independently of the machinegun, as Octavius had done, and were making plenty of noise of their own as they precisely layed down short bursts meant to pick off the men the machineguns had pinned down. Three of the five men in front of the store went down immediately, with wounds to the chest, legs, and one man with a piece of his skull missing. Two more of them had dove out of the way of the machinegun into the storefront, right into Octavius’ kill zone.

The grenade he had been preparing now went into use as he tore it from his vest and lobbed it backwards over the counter towards the front of the store, gripping his rifle and tucking his head down as the ensuing blast shattered the mirror he had been watching the enemy soldiers through. Shrapnel tore through the store, whistling through the air inches over his head. The Meritocrats were not so lucky; a storm of torn flesh went with the shrapnel.

Seneca popped up behind the counter, staring down the sights of his rifle, to find a pair of disfigured and burned corpses not ten feet away from himself. Movement from across the street caught his eye as one of the Meritocrats made a mad dash from the ruined car he’d been hiding behind to the store behind him. Without even blinking, Seneca stiffly adjusted his aim and squeezed off a short burst, sending the man tumbling face first into the store, three bullets in his back.

Seconds later, the machinegun ceased fire, as did the rest of the men. The men shouted to one another in Latin: they’d not sustained a single casualty in this ambush. They’d just wiped out a whole Meritocrat squad along with a tank in under two minutes. That was the record of the day for this band of Manus Dei fighters.

For now, it was time to get out of there. More Meritocrats with even more troops, and possibly more tanks, would be showing up soon, and they wouldn’t be able to repeat what they’d just pulled off a second time.

Seneca was like many of the Manus Dei militiamen fighting in Czarna: a young Doomani, just twenty-two years of age, eager to spill the blood of the heathen in this crusade. While some chose to demonstrate their faith through acts of charity, Seneca had chosen the way his people had always favored the most: War. Manus Dei was the easiest way for a young man of conviction like himself to get into a Crusade, and so at the age of sixteen, he’d joined up in his local chapter. He’d been sent to Dorium not a year ago, and there he had trained with local units. There he'd learned to despise the Czardaians and all that they stood for: decadence, blasphemy, immorality, infidelity. He was utterly convinced that these people willingly served Satan; thus, it was his duty as a Soldier of God to end their continued extistance on Earth so that their souls may be judged. He’d arrived in Czarna only a few days ago, and had been involved in near-constant fighting and ambushing ever since.

He rolled up his right sleeve, revealing his rather buff forearm, which bore five cross-shaped scars along the top. He withdrew his pugio dagger from the sheath on his belt, and proceeded to dig the blade into his forearm, dragging it slowly across. He smiled and muttered a prayer as he did so, pulling the blade away and making another, shorter vertical incision, forming a cross. He did this two more times: one for each of the infidels he had slain.

Wiping the blade off on his sleeve, he sheathed it again, leaping over the counter and swaggering out of the store into the street where his squad was forming up, wiping the bottom of his boots on the on the corpses as he exited.

The other six men in his unit had begun to congregate off to the side of the street.

”Three,” he said proudly as he walked up to the group.

”Excellent, brother,” responded their leader, Avitus Publius Livius, who stood in the center of the group.
”God has willed us to defeat these heathen fools far more easily than we would have thought, my brothers, however, I fear we may need to get the fuck out of here before more of them show up,” Livius said to the men in an authoritative voice.

He was the oldest of the men at thirty-eight years of age. He was a seasoned veteran of Manus Dei’s small yet vicious wars, and his experience in urban combat had proven indispensable in the past days.

”Apparently the Merries are getting help from some foreign infidels, command wants the city purified of them,” Livius continued, referring to the Skinnians, whose movement from their embassy had been eagerly watched by Manus Dei via Imperial Government satellites, ”They’re within about two klicks of us…to the north…we’d best get going now if we’re to catch them. This is an important one, brothers. We need to let these blasphemous knaves know we’re in town, and we aren’t some pitiful unorganized rabble.”

Manus Dei generally considered the Dorii to be just that- a pitiful, unorganized rabble. Even the many tens of thousands of Dorii that served in Manus Dei found their brothers outside of the Order to be lacking in skill.

The seven-man unit quickly formed up and began heading cautiously across the war-torn city. They’d won a small victory here, but it was just one of many hundreds of battles that needed to be won…just a few of many millions of infidels that had throats that required slitting.