NationStates Jolt Archive

Whyatican Arabia
Whyatican Arabia was one of the largest, and most productive colonies in the Empire. The oil profits from this region were insanely high, and every Arabian received fair representation in their own Parliament, which decided domestic matters deemed minor enough that the main parliament in Miana did not need to deal with. Arabians also had the right to run for the Miana Parliament, which they did and often won. There was some minor rioting after the Arabian land was sold to Imperial Whyatica in 1873, but there had been few issues since. However, as the tensions between Kahanistan, the Dominion Commonwealth, and Imperial Whyatica began to rise up, a whopping two army groups, as well as the Arabian Colonial Guard were mobilised and placed in strategic points in Whyatican Arabia. It was a vulnerable point - thousands of miles of border, two hostile states at the gates, it was an admitted surprise that the locals had seen little military action.

That would change rapidly, however. The military bases around the border from the small bits of unclaimed desert in between Kahanistan and Whyatican Arabia were manned to the brim, filled with Imperial fighting men from all across the Empire. Arabia, Isla de Les, Colombo Island, some of the first divisions trained from Clandón, et cetera. The 2nd Army Group and the 4th Army Group had been routed from the Imperial colonies and territories into Arabia, and the untold divisions of Arabian Colonial Guardsmen were arming themselves and doing flash-training for a resistance if Arabia is occupied.

Ft. Royal Crown
General Raj-Singh, made famous in the Eurasian Wars, was placed in command of the 2nd Army Group, tasked with the offensive against Kahanistan. Singh was part Indian and part Arabian - he immigrated to Whyatican Arabia during the brief period of time that the Empire occupied a piece of India, and the Singh family left during the Indian insurrection that eventually forced the Imperial fighting men to withdraw. General Donald Dunn was placed in command of the 4th Army Group, based on the Dominion-Whyatican border, planning an offensive against the Transylvanians if it came to blows with them.

The plan against Kahanistan was simple, had been tried and true against the opponents of the Empire in recent times. Use orbital superiority to blind the enemy from space, and from there, the rest was fairly simple.

Under the cover of numerous fixed artillery, ground attack missile launchers, air attack missile launchers, and other such things, an armoured spearhead of the 2nd Army Group advanced out of their bases, pushing to breach the Kahanistani border within a few hours. Now that the war had openly begun, the gloves were off.

The first large artillery bombardment would come from the fixed batteries in the bases - using rocket-assisted shells, it would easily cover the distance from the bases to Al-Sahar, the closest Kahanistani city. The goal was to simply cause chaos in the city, while the army group bypassed it and aimed directly for the core, the same target as their Doomani allies - Najaster, the capital of Kahanistan. The Transylvanians were an unknown factor - General Singh knew the Transylvanians were allied with Kahanistan, but whether they would enter the battle or not is an entirely other story.

Space
The second of the Huntingdon class orbital combatants was up and completing it's test run - the Westminster had been testing it's weapons capability, as well as it's other onboard systems when the call from the ground came. Gsync over coord atch. it said, tersely. The Captain, a little annoyed that his testing was being interrupted for combat operations, obliged. The duties of Westminster, as of that moment, were then to defend all Whyatican space assets and neutralise Kahanistani ones in the area.

The Westminster fired reverse thrusters over Kahanistan, that tiny speck on the face of the Earth, and it's scanners began detecting numerous satellites transmitting directly down to K'stan, as well as ones over the Transylvania. Those were not to be touched - yet. The 25 megawatt laser batteries the Westminster carried were pointed carefully at the Kahanistani satellites, and three quick bursts leapt, as much as lasers can leap, naturally, out of the batteries, hitting the Kahanistani satellites, likely crippling them..

Back to the ground
As the air defense situation was currently unknown within Kahanistan itself, thirty Sariel class stealth bombers were launched, spreading into the deserts of Kahanistan. Each one carried thousands of pounds of firebombs, intended for the Kahanistani cities. The Sariel was a bomber that the Kahanistani civilians were probably already familiar with, having fought CAD nations before, and it was unlikely however that the Kahanistani military would have any better methods of detecting them..

Western Egypt

For weeks preceding the Whyatican declaration of war on the Democratic Soviet Republic of Kahanistan, the Imperium Doomanum had been massing troops in Western Egypt. They were unusually close to the Kahanistani border- and now it was all painfully obvious why that was. Doomanum and Kahanistan, ever since the Vizion War, had been locked in a state of perpetual cold war. Along with MassPwnage, it was the Imperium Doomanum who had originally dealt the Kahanistani Navy one of its most humiliating defeats.

The two nations’ ideologies were virtually polar opposites: Doomanum was a capitalist Imperial theocratic Catholic dictatorship, while Kahanistan, on the other hand, was a predominantly secular democratic socialist state. Ever since his father had waged war on the Kahanistanis, Emperor Maximus III had long planned for the destruction of what he saw as an obstacle for one of the most important prizes he could ever hope to lay claim to: Jerusalem.

The Holy City lay just a few dozen miles from the Kahanistani border to its south; thus the Kahanistanis were certain to be a thorn in the side of any ambitions to take Jerusalem. It was for this reason that he had been eager to assist his cousin, Emperor Paulus of Whyatica, in waging war on the DSRK. Ever since the incident of the shoot-down of the Kahanistani “civilian” aircraft over Clandonia, Classis Misenensis, the Imperial Eastern Mediterranean Fleet, had been on maximum alert in its patrols around Egypt.

Of course Imperial commanders knew well in advance that war with Kahanistan was soon to be at hand- it had been planned for so long that they’d be virtually useless if they did not know. What surprised many was the arrival of Caesar Maximus a few days earlier. When he’d showed up, everyone then knew that war was absolutely certain. They were going to go ahead with it- with or without the Whyaticans. In this case it would be with rather than without, and that simplified things for Caesar’s troops greatly.

In total, nearly one million men had been amassed in Egypt- a token force considering the holy mission they were about to undertake.

The vast majority of this force consisted of mechanized and armored units. This was a desert war, and so the Doomani would be sure to relish in the sort of combat they’d been bred for.

Maximus stared across the vast open desert stretched before him. Sitting atop his command tank and peering through a pair of electronic binoculars, he could see across the border- five miles away from his current position –into Kahanistan. As of right now he really could not see anything…the occasional cloud of dust from a vehicle. That was it. Simply miles and miles of…nothing.

He set down the binoculars beside him. This was how so many battles had started- dead silence. And so it would be today. Of course, when that silence was broken, it would be truly spectacular…

It would be just a few more minutes until His Holiness delivered the address before massive crowds in St. Michael’s Square. When the Crusade had officially been called for, Emperor Maximus III, Defender of the Faith, would be well within his rights to commence Operation Silva. Operation Silva, the code name for the invasion of Kahanistan, was named for Lucius Flavius Silva, the Roman Procurator of Judea during the Great Jewish Revolt, who had brutally crushed that rebellion, ushering forth the Diaspora.

Mounted atop the roof of Maximus’ Imperator tank was a small LCD monitor. Right now it was turned to the news…word of Pope Innocent VI’s impending speech had evidently leaked out, and subsequently every channel being broadcasted in Doomani-occupied territories had been interrupted in honor of this most important event. Suddenly all went silent- Innocent VI took his position at the balcony at St. Michael’s Cathedral, high above a seemingly endless sea of people.

Doomani units massed along the border had all tuned their radios in to this important speech, for they knew what was to come,

” Brothers and sisters,
Long have the Children of God awaited the time that they could return to the Holy Land in peace. Long have the lands that Christ Himself once treaded upon been desecrated by the unbaptized, the unclean, the infidel! For far too long has the Holy City of Jerusalem been under heathen occupation!

Brothers and sisters, I say to you we have liberated this sacred place before, and yet for the longest time it has lived under the tyrannical reign of Muslim infidels and blasphemous Jews. This cannot be allowed any longer! By allowing the infidel to desecrate these hallowed lands, we not only disgrace the names of the martyrs who died to save it from sin- we disgrace our Lord, Jesus Christ!

I call upon the Faithful to take up joyful arms in the Name of God. I call upon the Believers to take up the Cross; I call upon them to make glorious pilgrimage in arms to the Holy Land to liberate the place of Christ’s birth! To free the place of Christ’s death!

Journey now to the Holy City, and cleanse it of the sins of the unbeliever with the blood of the heathen! Let pagan blood flow like a river through the filthy streets of Jerusalem to wash away the sins of the infidel!

At the head of the Armies of Satan are the vile hordes of Kahanistan. These vile pagans, whose domain lies mere miles from the Holy City, callously infest the lands of the righteous with their decadence and evil. They honor Satan above all! Why is it, then, that they have been allowed to exist in this world of God for so long? No more I say! These blasphemers must be shown the light, or they shall be cleansed upon a mighty pyre!

To the Faithful that answer this Call for Crusade, I say to you: To Jerusalem! For the Glory of God! In the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, slit the throat of the heathen and make the barren land fertile with their blood!

DEUS VULT!”

Maximus was greatly moved by this. Once more he lead the Holiest of Missions; today, he went on Crusade!

”DEUS VULT!” he roared at the top of his lungs. His voice carried on for miles; responding to his mighty roar were another million faithful Legionaries massed along the Kahanistani border, roaring Deus Vult so that even the Kahanistanis could hear.

”To Jerusalem!” he roared again.

The tank’s engine started up, and it began to lurch forwards across the desert. All around Caesar, as far as the eye could see, massive clouds of sand were kicked up as thousands of tanks and armored vehicles emerged from their hiding places, surging forth across the desert towards the border.

The thundering of guns could be heard in the distance behind them as the artillery began to open fire on the few border patrols that the Kahanistanis had in place. Initially they would be met with minimal resistance…


High above the advancing mechanized monsters, the Imperial Air Force commenced its own attack. Acredula medium bombers equipped with long-range anti-radiation missiles, operating from within Doomani territory, launched their payloads at targets within Kahanistan: SAM sites, RADAR, radio towers, communications arrays, and command and control centers.

This was all to pave the way for the vast amount of close air support that was to accompany the armored spearhead. Along side the armor came vast formations of Aquila air superiority fighters- aircraft that nearly ten years before had utterly humiliated Kahanistan’s naval air arm. Since that fateful war they’d been vastly upgraded.

Off the Egyptian coast, Classis Misenensis began its own phase of the attack. Long range ATL-75G cruise missiles were launched in vast quantities: nearly ten thousand missiles in the first twenty minutes of the war alone. These were targeted at Kahanistan’s infrastructure: oil pipelines, air bases, roads, water treatment plants, telecommunications and broadcasting facilities, power plants, and roads, as well as visible military assets, such as armored formations and static units.

These were equipped with a variety of payloads: the airbases were targeted with tarmac-destroying cluster munitions and mines as well as penetrating munitions for destroying hardened hangars and munitions bunkers, high explosive warheads for demolishing other structures, even chemical laced explosive warheads for the targeting of water treatment plants, to ensure the enemy’s water supply would be poisoned after the treatment plants had been neutralized.

The fighters, meanwhile, assisted by ground and air based RADAR, LIDAR, LADAR, and infrared on the Doomani side of the border, launched medium range air-to-air missiles, which took data from all of these external factors as well as from their own internalized infrared and RADAR equipment, which would not activate until they were within twenty or so miles of the targets. By then it would be too late: the missiles would be in their terminal stage, and the enemy pilots would have mere seconds to react to the missiles as they gave away their positions with the activation of their sensors.

The fighters, on the other hand, kept their RADAR switched off, making maximum use of their superb stealth. In all likelihood, the Kahanistanis would not even see the Aquilas before they launched their missiles, and after the launches they would simply fade away, splitting off in different directions to prevent any counter-launches. A total of six-hundred land-based fighters launched six missiles each, cruising at mach four, from one hundred-twenty miles away (in many cases crossing the border in order to get in range of various targets).

In the mean time, heavy, long-range land-based SAMs began to sniff out enemy AWACS aircraft. Equipped with powerful scramjet engines, and guided via the passive RADAR receivers and RADAR of friendly AWACS and ground stations, they would home in on enemy AWACS using the enemy’s own RADAR emissions, as well as friendly RADAR.

Space warfare, however, would be left to the Whyaticans…

Initially, the Imperial ground advance had been divided into five armies numbering 200,000 each, consisting of ten legions- a mixture of armored and mechanized units –each. These units spearheaded straight into enemy territory, with two armies moving along the north in order to take out coastal cities, with two more armies pushing straight up the middle towards Najester, moving swiftly across the desert. Portions of the fifth army would be utilized to cut off cities and armies in the south, while the remaining four legions would press on straight through Kahanistani territory to assume positions for the invasion of Jerusalem.

Finally, separate actions in the Western Mediterranean were taken by the Imperial Western Fleet- Classis Ravennatis, proceeded to establish positions around the Straight of Gibraltar.

Najaster, Capital of Kahanistan

"I thought we'd put aside all this rubbish about fighting over Jerusalem when our people decided to quit fighting about religion and live and let live," said Vice President al-Omari.

"Yes, but the Doomies didn't lose most of their fundies in a bloody civil war," said Senator Maribel Crowley, the head of the Armed Forces and Defense Committee.

"Should we relieve them?" asked the Vice President, who unlike the previous few Presidents had no military experience.

"I think so, but it will take time to mobilize," said Senator Crowley. "First we have to get the Doomies out of our own country."

---

Western Kahanistan

The AD battery commanders had learned a thing or two from the use of HARM's by MassPwnage; the vast majority of their AD systems were off. Most of what the ARM's hit were decoys that served to give away the source of the HARM, some with CIWS to try to shoot down the incoming missile so the decoy would be reusable, but a few advance warning AD's copped it as well.

Many of the AWACS were also shot down, but the fighters were largely unscathed, though they would have to turn on their radar after the attacks. One F-35 in five had an active radar, and it was relaying information to its wingmates.

In any event, the Kahanistanian forces knew by now that they were under attack. Rather than retreat into military shelters as had been done against MassPwnage with disastrous consequences, the Soviet Republic responded with a division of mechanized infantry and armor, mainly Merkava IV main battle tanks, including infantry armed with MANPADs, the standard method of attacking enemy CAS.

Behind the mixed forces of armor and infantry, Machbet AA systems were driven up, and the Kahanistanian CAS, mostly consisting of the F-35 Lightning II came behind the defending forces. The Lightning II was favored by the Republic Guard due to its versatility, STOVL capability, and consequent ability to take off from runways so damaged they would ground other craft. They patrolled the skies in large numbers, usually appearing in groups of five or larger wings of twenty. Their tactics, except the F-35's relegated to CAS, were to engage enemy fighters and SEAD units, and leave the enemy CAS to the ground forces unless they were relatively unengaged.

As the Kahanistanian infantry marched toward the Doomani invaders, to calm their nerves they sang a ribald song penned in Latin by the Kahanistanian soldier and Latin poet George Nillis. (OOC: I probably mangled the Latin. It's been seven years since I've had it.)

Doomanum, patria maxima in mundo,
Omnes patriae alterae a puellis parvis regentur;
Doomanum numerus unus exportator religionis;
A patriis alteris religio inferior habentur.

(Doomingsland, largest nation in the world,
All other nations by small girls are ruled.
Doomingsland, number one exporter of religion,
By other nations inferior religion is had.)

Doomanum, domus maximae mundi lacunae natationis,
Eius longitudo treinta metra et latitudo sex metra.
Systema purgandi res mira spectare;
Quartum partem quinque amovet
Hominum solida ramenta.

(Doomingsland, home of world's largest swimming pool,
Its length thirty meters and width six meters.
The cleaning system is a miracle to watch;
The fourth part of five it removes
Of solid refuse of humans.)

Doomanum, Doomanum, valde bella loca es,
Ab campo Arretii ad saeptum borealem Urbis Iudaeorum;
Doomanum, amicus omnis nisi Cohanistae;
Sunt gens nasorum magnorum, cum os in suis cerebris.

(Doomingsland, Doomingsland, very beautiful place you are,
From plains of Arretium to the northern fence of Jewtown, [lit. of the City of the Jews])
Doomingsland, friend of all except Kahanistan;
They are a people of the large noses, with a bone in their brains.)

Industria Doomani in mundo optima est;
Invenivimus confectionem et bracarum singulum.
Meretrices Doomani purissimae in regione,
Nisi naturaliter Terrae Multi Calcitrandi Clunium.

(Industry of Doomingsland is best in the world;
We invented candy and belt of trousers.
Prostitutes of Doomingsland are cleanest in the region,
Except naturally for MassPwnage. [lit. the Land of Much Kicking of Buttocks.])

Doomanum, Doomanum, valde bella loca es,
Ab campo Arretii ad saeptum borealem Urbis Iudaeorum;
Venite, captate penem magnum Caesaris nostri,
Ab coniunctione testium ad cacumen facies!

(Doomingsland, Doomingsland, very beautiful place you are,
From the plains of Arretium to the northern fence of Jewtown;
Come, take the great penis of our Caesar,
From the joining of testes to the tip of the face!)

The tune of the song was very loud and chaotic, not only to drown the fears of the men and women singing it, but also as a grotesque mockery of Crusader rock; soldiers often struck their riflebutts against helmets or tanks at various points in the song.

The sound of this crude war song rang through the desert, the soldiers sounding euphoric, the tones of their voices belying the fears they felt at fighting the Doomani.

---

Many of the telecommunications facilities were built underground, with only antennae above the ground. Cities stockpiled water in deep reservoirs to resist sieges and most people still had water filters from Civil Defense that were handed out during the Pwnage war, when copper had been dumped into the water. However, the water treatment facility in the west was almost totally destroyed, it was functioning at 20% of normal capacity.

F-35's continued to take off from the runways, albeit at a reduced rate; STOL allowed takeoffs with shorter distances. S-400 AD batteries were moved in near the runways, as well as decoy radar beacons.

The Ministries of Health and Defense urged citizens not to drink water without boiling it for 20 minutes and then pumping it through a filter to remove toxins. Civil Defense also ran tests on various water supplies when people fell ill or died unexpectedly.

Over the cities, the Sariel bombers were the chief targets of the F-35's. They took precedence over the Doomani ACI-73's; a fighter could shoot down an F-35 with luck or dogfight it until they ran out of gas, a Sariel could kill many thousands of civilians.

Castle Von Wolf, Romania...

The news of the annex of Clandonia Prime by the Haven Thugs as the Count calls them, had filled the eyes and ears of said Count. His anger level was up because of the news, he could have stopped this from happening but he thought the Clandonians need to learn a lesson. Well, they learned that lesson and the Count learned one, too. Not to sit back and allow somebody to learn a lesson.

Now, as the Count sat behind his onyx colored desk, he saw that Clandonia had reform under this new king. A person that was the last of the royal blood in Clandonia. I’ll have to talk with them later. Maybe fix brides between his nation and mine. he thought to himself.

Then something make him stop thinking and come back to the world, his eyes ran across the Imperial Democracy of Whyatica declaration of war on Kahanistan. He sit quiet, thinking about what to say or really what to do.

Kahanistan was the Dominion’s southern neighbor that had help defend a Dominion’s ally during an attack the Kraven Corporation, they were commies. And the Imperial Democracy had killed civilians of the Dominion to attack a space station that was used by both civilian space forces and military space forces.

“We’ll aid the Kahanistanian in this fight or that is what it will look like.” he said out loud, really he just want to kill the thugs of Whyatica. This would be bloody fight for them, if the Dominion show her face in the fight. The thugs of Whyatica only want land and the Count would make sure that they didn’t get it.

He started getting word out to the Dominion military bases, air bases and navy bases, telling them to get ready but make sure that nobody could see what they were doing. Use hangers to fuel and air the bombers. Use the underground tunnels to move around tanks and other vehicles. Do everything in secret until the thugs from Whyatica get six hours away from Spain.

Then that is where the fun will begin.

At the same time as he ordered the bases, he ordered the Dominion Space Command to look for any and every Whyatican satellites in the areas over Europe, North Africa, Middle East and the every where in between. They would search their IFFs and where the link of the satellite would go back to.

The Dominion would get the blood that he needs from this fight.

Castle Von Wolf, a few hours after the Whyatican space attack...

The Count looked over the reports of the numbers of Whyatican satellites and other space assets entering space over the whole area. He was really pissed about them coming in the space above Europe. They would only do that, if they were going to attack Dominion space assets. The Count knew damn well that Whyatica was part of the super-alliance of APOC and they would attack the Dominion, if the Dominion attacked Whyatica.

The Count moved on to another report, one with the roster of the APOC. His eyes ran down the list of nations and stopped on his allies within it. He looked at the names; Generic Empire, Borman Empire, and Camel Eaters. He wasn’t allied with Doomingsland, but was close friends with the former Emperor and the current one. The Count was friends with most of the CAD nations.

The last report he picked up was the one that made him think that Whyatica would attack the Dominion in the middle of this mess. On top of the report was the words ‘Whyatican Arabia’ in red. The numbers of troopers that were being send there. You don’t send that many unless you’re going to try to invade somebody from the land. Whyatican Arabia and Dominion Middle East were very, very close to each other. These raise in military numbers wasn’t good for the Dominion or the whole region.

So…the Count had to do something, but he had to play his cards right.

Castle Von Wolf, a few hours after the Count look over the reports…

This time, the Count was going to address the Dominion and the whole world about the fight in the middle east and the space those areas. He was going to throw his punch with a clam and collected mind. He wasn’t going to declare war with the Imperial Democracy because there was no real reason to do it unlike what the Imperial Democracy was doing with Kahanistan. Going to war over a civilian plane flying in a no fly zone.

The man in black sat there in his leather chair, behind his desk with the snow filled mountains at his back. He sat there, his black cowboy hat on his head, throwing an eerily shadow over his face. A Cuban cigar sitting in his mouth, lit and smoke exiting his mouth.

He looked straight into the camera as the countdown started going to down, five, four, three, two, one. The red light came on and the Count was live to the world. He was using Dominion satellites to get his face and voice across the world. Plus, he did have a few thousand people call news stations located around the world.

“Greetings,” he said, taking the cigar out of his mouth, “Many of you out there know whom I am, but for that don’t know, my name is JWolf. I run the Dominion as her God-Emperor and run the Dominion Commonwealth as their Lord Marshall. I’m known as the Count, too.”

He smiled and sat forwards, looking right into the lens almost like he was trying to look at everybody’s soul. “I address you all tonight fore one reason. That is the war in the Middle East and the war mongers that are Whyatican. They started with Clandonia Prime over false claims and are now at war with the Dominion’s southern neighbor, Kahanistan. The reason for that war is that an unarmed, civilian plane tried to fly into the former lands of Clandonia Prime.”

He sat back and smiled again. “Speaking of those land, Dominion satellites in those area have picked up some strange things. People be forced into large groups as their cities are being destroyed by the iron fisted tyrannies of the Imperial Democracy. That’s not how you do things. You don’t use forces to get things from people.” said the Count. He picked up his cigar and took a few hit off of it.

As the smoke filled the air above him, the Count began again. “The Imperial Democracy doesn’t know how to do thing right as they deal with their new land and new people. My mind flashes back to the age of the Nazis during World War II. The Whyaticans are doing almost the same as the Nazis were doing by forcing large numbers of Jews into camps.” said the Count, he stopped himself from laughing at what he just said. He just called a nation that was part of the Sovereign League a bunch of war monger Nazis.

“As of today, the Dominion has fivecolonies that were not founded by Dominionites. These colonies are Habrigberg, the Dominionite Protectorate of Sanduras, Wolfsburg, the Dominionite Protectorate of Rithman-naar, the Dominion Commonwealth of Ceyolia, the Island of Seferus, and the Dominion Commonwealth of Kologk.” he said then took a break. “The first two were gained after their nation’s attacked an ally of the Dominion, Jenrak. Our two armies forced them to surrenders after both the nation of Sanduras and Rithman-naar fired weapons of mass .”

“The Dominion Commonwealth of Ceyolia was gained after the said nation had got itself into a civil war and the only Dominion base on the whole island was attacked. But we were not being hostile to either side, we were going to wait to see whom the winner was.” said the Count, taking a few more hits off of his cigar. “Right now, there has been peace in Ceyolia with the island being under mostly Dominion control.”

“The Dominion paid for the Island of Seferus to gain that island in our nation. The Dominion Commonwealth of Kologk was another story, the island was gained after the Dominion entered their civil war and took out any faction that got in our way. Kologk was a war-torn, third world country that was home to thugs, thefts, murders and etc during the Kologkian civil war. But it is classified as it’s own nation under the control of the Dominion. And Kolgok is not a war-torn, third world country anymore.” he said.

“In each of those areas that war had rebuilt the building that were destroyed during the war, be from the hands of a Dominionite or the other side. The Dominion didn’t force people into camps and destroy their cities to be rebuilt how ever I wanted. No, I had crews re-built those cities to what they were before the war or we tried as good to make them look like that,” said the Count, “We treat those people located within those land fair like if they were born in the Dominion. Timber Wolf Incorporated even sit up shop in those area, bring new jobs for the people.”

He moved back forwards and closer to the lens. “And know this, the lands of Ceyolia and Kolgok can go back to the hands of their rightful owners. But right now, those people in those areas don’t want that as under the Dominion, their lives have been better.” he said.

“Now, to the main point of this message to the world. The Dominion has picked up a large number of troops being moved into Whyatican Arabia over the past weeks and months. Right now, I have order Dominion soldiers to reinforce Dominion Middle East for hold back the force of the tyranny of the Imperial Democracy.” he said, in a clam and collect tone.

“In space, my eyes are watching the moves of the Whyaticans, both on land and in space. If they launch an attack on a satellites, then they are trying to start war with the Dominion. If they move on the Dominion-Whyatican border and fire on my soldiers, then they have started war.” he said, in the same tone.

“And one more thing, the only people that are Transylvanian are the ones born in the Transylvania region of Romania. My people are called Dominionites.” adds the Count.

“That is all, have a nice day.” he said then the feed was ended.

Castle Von Wolf, a few hours after the address to the world…

The Count was going to use his power with people higher up in this matter. That means he would try and talk with the highest Doomani out there, Caesar Maximus. He didn’t know where he was, but knowing the boy, he would be leading his soldiers on the crusade.

So…he would send a message to his close friend’s son in his native land and hope that is would get re-route to Maximus’ location.

TO: Caesar Maximus
FROM: The Count

Greetings, Maximus, I hope everything is well with you and your people. It looks like the Dominion is in the middle of a fight between you, your cousin’s empire, and Kahanistan. As you may know, the Dominion and your cousin’s empire have had bad past. Attacking a Commonwealth state and killing my people on a space station that was labeled as civilian/military Dominion space station. That almost lead the Dominion into war with him, but I cooled my jets and thought about my people.

As of now, I have a feeling your cousin is going to lead an attack on my nation. It will be the death to Whyatican Arabia as I have planned to attack that during the Clandonian problem. Plus, another reason I have a good feeling that he will attack Dominion Middle East is the large number of troops my eyes in the sky had seen being placed in bases near the Dominion-Whyatican border.

If it does come to blows between me and him, I ask you one thing as an ally and friend. Please, stay out of it and allow me to fight him without an help on his side or my side. Your cousin is a little power hunger for war and is no better then the Nazis or the evil Kraven Corporation.

May your crusade go well.

Signed,
Count JWolf
The God-Emperor of the Dominion
The Lord Marshall of the Dominion Commonwealth.

After he hit the send button, he set back and listens to the radio message about Dominion soldiers moving into the middle east to reinforce it. He closed his eyes and hoped for the best. He had played his card and lay everything out for the worlds to see. The Dominion wasn’t like what the rumor say it is. The Count wasn’t the person the rumors have said he was.

Will it come to blows between the Dominion and the Imperial Democracy? He was ready, if it did come to blows.

Najaster, Capital of Kahanistan

Presidential Palace

Vice President Khalid bin Abdullah al-Omari, General Ibrahim bin Jawala, General Ali Mustafa ibn Abdullah al-Kamel, and Foreign Minister Margaret Delray were discussing how best to handle the war.

"I think that we should concentrate now on removing the Whyatican element," said al-Omari. "They're a democracy, like us. Their people won't be willing to continue with this for long. The recent civilian casualties in Al-Bahr should be enough to get their anti-war movements up in arms, especially after my speech earlier this week."

"I agree," said Delray. "We let the anti-war crowd in Whyatica get nice and angry, then we approach them with a peace treaty, and then we can concentrate on the Doomies without interference. It's not like we'd be losing to the Whyaticans," the Minister continued. "We've already achieved our objectives in Clandonia, we've shown the world the barbarity their soldiers are committing, and it's only a matter of time before the Sovereign League takes action against Whyatica like they did to Clandonia."

And started all this nonsense in the first place, thought General al-Kamel. "Then we can take the forces we have in Al-Bahr and use them to move on the Doomani incursion in the north. Imperial Marine Command figures we can push the Doomies out in weeks if the Whyaticans are no longer a factor."

"And we really need to get those water treatment plants built underground, so they aren't so vulnerable," said General Bin Jawala. "Move them a few kilometers from their present locations, too, to confuse the enemy, they'll expect them to be in the same locations they've been in for years..."

"I'll get to writing something to the Whyaticans. It's only a matter of time before public opinion there turns against the war, and if the Dominion intervenes, we ask them to back off while we conclude a peace treaty, and the Dominion soldiers don't end up dying on our battlefield," said Delray. She would take some time to write her letter, during which the civilian casualties would mount, being filmed by Kahanistanian news crews and shown to the world, adding even more to the force of the Whyatican anti-war civilians.

"In the meantime," said General Bin Jawala, "we'll concentrate our forces on the Doomani, only attack the Whyatican forces if they are a direct threat to the civilian population or we can't escape them. If they suffer too many casualties, they'll be politically unable to withdraw regardless of the strength of the anti-war movement. They'd have to justify such heavy losses."

"Very well," replied General al-Kamel. "We'll concentrate on defending against the Doomani. Just maybe, we'll get out of this without appearing the aggressor and the international community will be on our side."

---

Najaster General Hospital

President Marcellus Valens lay barely breathing on a huge gurney, being fed through tubes and hooked up to all sorts of funny machines to keep his aging heart beating properly. The old leader of Kahanistan slowly opened his eyes. The lights were bright, there were so many machines all over the place, the area was spotlessly clean, and there was only one familiar face in this place.

"Major..." the President said weakly.

Major Fulton raised an eye. "You're awake, Mr. President?" the security officer asked.

"Where are we?"

"The hospital. You had a heart attack about four days ago."

"She never left your side all this time," said a doctor coming into the room. "She must really care."

President Valens raised his head to speak. "When will I be able to leave?"

"Well," said the doctor, "you'll probably want to stay a couple more days for observation, you might want to cut some stress from your life, and you might want to lose some weight, get down to about 120 kilos." His bedside manner was abominable, but his advice was certainly good.

"I will have to step down as President," said Valens. "I can't lead when I'm in this condition. How did the government respond?"

"Well..." Fulton began, not knowing how to explain, she didn't want to shock him. "We sent a message condemning Whyatica, and they're invading us."

"Invading us? So they were not bluffing," said Valens. "I am not a politician, I will not be able to resolve this conflict. There are days I wake up and I wonder why I am in the Palace." President Valens had few issues he was willing to take strong stands on, human rights being among them, as well as any action hostile toward Automagfreek.

"How has Mr. al-Omari handled the situation?" asked the President.

"He gave a rousing speech to the world, the people gave him an ovation after he was finished and they were crowing, 'Allah Akbar!' and 'Pwned!' over and over," said the doctor. He gave Valens a prescription for heart pills and weight loss medication, then administered the President a dose.

"Mr. President..." Fulton started. "Doomingsland has also intervened."

"Doomanum?" asked Valens. "That does complicate matters... I will resign the Presidency as soon as I am discharged from here. I should never have let the Communists persuade me to run..."

"Resign?" asked Fulton. If not for Valens, a more ideological candidate might have been elected on the Communist ticket, one more antagonistic to the Imperium Doomanum. One like Khalid bin Abdullah al-Omari.

"It was my leadership that cost us our allies in Xirnium, our relations with Amestria, isolated us from the world if not for the Southeast Asians. I am a military man, Mara."

Fulton looked at the President. Valens had never addressed his security director by her first name. It was always Major Fulton or Ms. Fulton if she was out of uniform. She let it sink in.

"I... I see," said Fulton. "I'll stay with you until we leave the hospital." She was struggling hard to hide her emotions.

Southern Kahanistan
The rapid advance of the 2nd Army Group's mechanized spearhead met no opposition from any Kahanistani units - so rapid, in fact, that they had to halt and establish a front line so they didn't outrun their own supply lines inside Whyatican Arabia! As fuel was brought to the front and camps were set up, anti-air units continued their vigilant watch for swooping Kahanistani warplanes. They set camp approximately 109 kilometers from Al-Sahar, and the rest of the advance moved to guard the flanks of the spearhead and prepare for the intense bombardment of the city that would soon come. F-8 Phantom air superiority fighters flew overhead, adding an extra set of eyes to the Whyatican advance. Something was wrong here - The Kahanistanis had not even put up a token resistance as they beat a path into their territory, through the desert, and General Raj-Singh smelled a trap..

Of course, he didn't know that the Kahanistanis were intentionally not opposing their advance - which would serve to harm them more than the Whyaticans, as the anti-war movement in Whyatica was not especially powerful politically to begin with, and the fact that nobody wanted to be seen defending Communists in public. The anti-communist movement enveloped nearly the entire nation, while anti-war was pitiful in comparison. People who did not believe in the Kahanistani war were deemed as communist, traitors to the Empire, and ostracized from society. Nobody would dare risk that..

Defending Communists is one thing. Defending civilians who may or may not be left-leaning is another. The Kahanistanian field commanders in southern Kahanistan ordered a line of defense to block movement by hostile forces northwards, their objective merely to protect the civilians from Whyatican advances and allow the domestic opposition to gain strength.

The air forces had since retreated to their bases, having lost over 250 of the F-35's, unable to fight effectively against the technologically superior Sariel bombers. Pilots and wing commanders complained that they could barely see the ACI-73's. The Kahanistanians would defend their cities and troops primarily with SAM's such as the S-400 for long-range protection and the shorter-range Stingers fired from MANPADs or Machbet armored vehicles.

Since there was no clear consensus on whether or not the Whyatican attacks on civilian populations were intentional, Command decided not to place AA systems on civilian facilities such as hospitals and emergency services, and risk being viewed internationally as in the wrong. However, AA systems did surround cities as part of their defenses.

---

Najaster, Capital of Kahanistan

President Marcellus Valens stepped nervously up to the podium, preparing to give what would be his final speech to the Kahanistanian people as President.

"People of Kahanistan. We are engaged in a struggle for our very survival against the forces of APOC. I regret to inform you that due to health reasons, I will not be able to continue in my role as President, and will be resigning effective at the end of the week."

"I will still do what I can to protect this nation, which is why my military commission will be reactivated and I will serve as a commander of reserve forces. I will be far more suited to defend this nation in that role than in politics."

"Mr. al-Omari will make a far better political leader than I ever could hope to be. It is my hope that he will be able to conclude this conflict with minimal loss of life."

"To those of you who supported me, who worked with me, who stood by me in office, I thank you. To those who opposed me, I am stepping down to serve this nation in a way that does not hold such an influence over public policy, and you can be relieved."

Kahanistan Crisis: War Declared

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The Kingston Free Trade Hall: A motion would be tabled expelling Whyatica from the Sovereign League following a Liberal Party victory
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From 'The Herald'
Front Page

Whyatica and Doomingsland have declared war on Kahanistan as the 'Kahanistan Crisis' "balloons wildly out of control," according to the Duke of Warburton.

Addressing the Free Trade League's annual ball yesterday evening, the Duke warned that "threats to liberty exist not just in Gholgoth, but in our very midst in the Sovereign League," pointing to Whyatica of which the Duke said, "here we have a country which has removed self-determination from one nation already, in the name of preserving liberty, and has stated its intention to do the same to another victim through whose lands Whyatican tanks now storm."

The Duke called on the government to "condemn this blood-thirsty hypocrisy" and said that if his Liberal Party wins the next election one of the first things he would do on becoming Prime Minister would be to "table a motion in the Kingston Free Trade Hall - the headquarters of the Sovereign League and supposedly the seat of the free world's might - to have Whyatica thrown out of an organisation it shames."

The Duke's comments follow contraversy over the Whyatican annexation of Clandonia, which many condemned as imperialism of a fellow free country under the guise of concern for human rights, pointing out that instead of replacing the government which the Whyaticans claimed was not fit to rule with a newly elected one, they put the country under the control of an illegitimate military authority and then absorbed the country into Whyatica.

This latest declaration of war against Kahanistan following a special operations insertion by Kahanistan in which not a single Whyatican or Clandonian was killed or injured may be the last straw, according to a Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation survey which revealed only 2% of Praetonians thought that Whyatica and Doomingsland would make Kahanistan a better place, despite 81% saying they disapproved of Kahanistan's socialist domestic policy and 74% saying that they believed the execution of Kahanistani military personnel caught in Clandonia was justified.

Of the respondants, 88% believed that the Whyatican and Doomingslandi invasion would lead to "mass bloodshed and tyranny". Just 6% of respondants said they believed that the finding of Kahanistani special forces in Clandonia was a "reasonable justification" for launching the war.

The popularity of APOC has also taken a hit, with only 38% of respondants saying they "approved" or "strongly approved" of Praetonia's membership, compared with a peak of 67% just a few months ago.

The Government has issued a statement saying that "although His Majesty views the method of execution of the Kahanistani military personnel and the subsequent attempt to terrorise their bereaved families as bizarre and distasteful, His Majesty is forced to accept that as they attempted to disguise themselves as civilians, the personnel involved were irregular combatants and thus not entitled to any special treatment by their captors.", but has remained silent on the subject of the declaration of war against Kahanistan.

It is believed that the Government will be forced to issue a statement on the rapidly developing war over the next few days, but it is at yet unknown what stance they will take. In order for the export of military equipment which could be used against Whyatica and Doomingsland to be stopped, the Government would require an Act of Parliament which, according to one anonymous Liberal-Tory backbench source, would be "likely to fail". Some think it unlikely that the Government would therefore wish to support the war, even in principle, and in doing so risk a clash with their own back benches.

This morning, however, the Shadow Foreign Secretary for the Crown Loyalist Party has made a statement warning the Government not to be "drawn down the root of appeasement of socialism" and worried that "if Praetonia does not support her allies in this instance a rift between APOC and the Sovereign League could well open up."

In response to the Member's statement in the House, the Duke of Warburton declared that he "welcomed such a rift" and "would very much like to see the liberals of the Sovereign League stand up to the autocrats and theocrats of the APOC," warning that "the Sovereign League is rapidly becoming absorbed by an organisation that stands in opposition to most of its founding principles."

It is thought unlikely that Praetonian troops will be deployed in support of the war.

Southern Kahanistan
Two Imperial fighting men stared out into the desert north of them. To the east and west stood the Imperial line, the grinding machine of war. The sky was remarkably clear and blue this day - the sun glared down at them, as it always did in this region, but a cooling breeze made it slightly more bearable than it usually seemed. Daniel Spadaro and Nicholas Ott had known each other since they were kids, going to the same schools in Rose Beach all the way to their enlistment in the Imperial Army at age 17. Now at age 21, they had served in the Clandonian war, Eurasia, and now assigned to the mideast for this war. All they had known for the past 4 years of their life was constant warfare, death, and destruction. The glorious name of their nation was being dragged through the mud because of the actions of Prime Minister McMillin, but he didn't seem to care..

"Dan." Nick said, and his friend looked at him.

"What are we doing here?"

This question alone would have resulted in him being punished for insubordination. Questioning the orders of the Prime Minister or any superior officer was grounds for that.

"You know. We're beating on the commies, Nick, that's all there is to it. The Kahanistani are trying to destroy our freedom, and the Prime Minister declared war.." Dan said, looking out into the desert again.

"Aren't you at all concerned that the Empire nearly lost it's membership in the Sovereign League?"

"No. The Sovereign League is filled with do-gooders, Nick, they'll harm our sovereignty just as much as the Kahanistani."

At that moment, Nick realized something about his friend that he had never seen before. While he always prided himself on free thinking, something which he hid very well from the Imperial Army brass. Dan was brainwashed - he would believe anything the Army brass said, or Prime Minister McMillin, or the Emperor. He was a mindless drone, as were thousands of Imperial fighting men and citizens. He looked out at the desert, and felt very alone. He felt that he was fighting in an unjust war, that would kill thousands of sons and daughters ..

_____________________________

As the army group came to a halt in it's advance, the mechanized groups stopped to refuel while the artillery batteries began their job. Hundreds of shells from 155mm batteries and rockets from the MLRS pounded the Kahanistani lines, and the batteries themselves were protected by prototype mobile laser units. Rushed into production by Carter & Whitman Technologies, these units would play a part in defending against counter-battery fire. Above them, CAS planes flew the 70km to the Kahanistani lines, loaded with thousands of pounds of dumb bombs and guided munitions, targetting the same place in the Kahanistani line as the ground artillery. Above them, escorting, were F-8 Phantom planes, manufactured by Space Union Defense Industries. The positions of Kahanistani artillery were already known thanks to satellite intelligence, and the first attack points for the CAS were mobile air defence units and their RADAR, as well as tank depots and fuel and the like. The Kahanistani line would not likely survive very long before they broke and the Imperial fighting men had a clear route to Najaster...

__________________________
Miana Public Square, Miana, Whyatica
The presence of the Imperial Guardsmen securing the main speaking area of the Square indicated to the civilians that something big was happening today - perhaps another execution! A crowd excitedly formed, ranging from businessmen on their lunch break, to socialites watching from their seats at local high-end cafés. An enterprising jazz group saw the commotion, and grabbed themselves a street corner and began to play their music, getting money thrown at them occasionally by passersby.

The Guards listened to their earpieces intently, and cleared a path for an incoming limousine. The limo pulled over to the side, and out the door came Prime Minister David McMillin, along with his personal guard. He had a strange look on his face, the look that a deranged man would give his psychologist when he says that he isn't insane, that nobody can understand him. He walked onto the stage, and stared into a news camera crew that had just arrived on the scene. He said,

"My friends, today we have been aggrieved once more. A people I once considered friends, the Praetonians today tried to infringe on our national sovereignty by telling us to pull out of Kahanistan. They wish to turn us all into little Praetonian puppets, they will stop at nothing to make sure we bend to their will. I for one am glad that King Sarius is dead, but his successor is no better, King George is even more anti-Whyatican. The Praetonians have stood in our way since as far back as the Eurasian wars, when they opposed nearly every military move we made, and tried to insert their slimy tentacles into our military machine. Their ultimate objective, my friends, is the utter domination of Imperial Whyatica under Praetonia, they eye our vast territories and want a piece for themselves. The Sovereign League is merely a Praetonian puppet for their imperialist agenda, they will enslave us all, do you hear me?!" he said.

The look of insanity hit his face, and a Praetonian tourist to Miana began a string of profanities and boo'ing that nearly caused him to be beaten by the crowd before an Imperial Guardsman escorted him out. As McMillin continued, he actually began frothing at the mouth as his anti-Praetonian speech moved from bad to worse, as he began making stuff up.

"The Praetonians already control Questaria through King Richard, and I will not let them control us!" he finished with, and the crowd didn't cheer. Most Whyaticans considered Praetonia to be their blood-brethren, as Emperor Paulus I was related to the deceased King Sarius by marriage. Even the amount of propaganda that filled the airwaves didn't make them believe this pack of lies, and the crowd dispersed, grumbling to themselves.

The prevalent question..

"We elected this lunatic?"

Kahanistanian artillery had that annoying tendency to... move... every so often, especially after it had just fired on an enemy position or been fired on. Further, the Al-Fao (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Fao) 210mm guns of the Kahanistanians were much larger than the Whyatican 155mm's or even Pwnage 203mm's. Dug into trench lines, they could move along the trench and fire from any position.

The fuel tended to be kept in hard, bomb-resistant, airproofed bunkers underground until it was time to drive it to the front, at which time the transports were generally escorted by heavy armor and mobile AA batteries firing Stingers and Starstreak missiles.

The initial MRLS barrages pounded the Valens Line which surrounded Najaster. As this was the most heavily fortified defensive belt in all of Kahanistan, it was not about to give any time soon, despite Kahanistan effectively ceding air supremacy to the Doomani Air Force. Clods of dirt were kicked up and thousands of soldiers were incinerated, but the huge 210mm cannons fired back as they moved along the trenches of the Valens Line.

The defensive line in front of Al-Bahr was still holding, the troops using MANPADs to combat the enemy CAS while their armor received the brunt of the enemy attacks. The 120mm guns of the Merkava IV's fired back at the enemy forces for as long as they had shells, or guns to fire them from. Those whose guns were disabled simply took ammunition and ran to nearby tanks who were lower on shells.

As the Whyaticans drew nearer to cities, they began facing stiffer resistance as the soldiers' orders may not have been to attack Whyaticans, but to protect the civilians. The troops still only actively attacked the Doomani, fighting Whyaticans only in defense of their own units or when the cities themselves were under attack.

"I am glad that King Sarius is dead" says Whyatican PM

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Mounted police had to be called in to protect the Whyatican Embassy from being overrun by angry protestors
___________________
From 'The Herald'
Front Page

More than ten thousand policemen had to be called in to protect the Whyatican Embassy in Kingston from hordes of angry protestors trying to storm the Whyatican compound after the Prime Minister of Whyatica, Mr David McMillin, declared that he was "glad that King Sarius is dead" and that Praetonia "tried to insert it's slimy tentacles into [the Whyatican] military machine" during the New Year Rising in Eurasia, as well as making references to a Praetonian attempt to covertly seize control of all the Sovereign League powers.

The comments came following criticial coverage of the Whyaticans' war in Kahanistan and their annexation of Clandonia, alongside expectations that the King would be asked by the Prime Minister to call for a withdrawl. The Whyatican Prime Minister claimed that "King George is even more anti-Whyatican [than King Sarius]". A Praetonian Subject had to be escorted from the public square where the speech was taking place by military police after heckling the Whyatican Prime Minister as his claims became increasingly paranoid.

The Whyatican statesman further claimed that "The Sovereign League is merely a Praetonian puppet for [Praetonia's] imperialist agenda", that "the Praetonians already control Questaria" and that "[the Praetonians] will stop at nothing to make sure we bend to their will".

When interviewed on Question Time, Sir Tiberius Polax responded by saying that "the man is clearly insane", and that "he is evidently unfit to hold office". In a rare statement from the Palace, King George said that he was "deeply saddened" both by "attacks not only on My honour but, shockingly, on My late father's honour too". However, the King called for the Embassy protestors to call off their action, saying that "My relation, Emperor Paulus, has told me personally that the views of His Prime Minister are not shared by either Himself or, as evidenced by the reaction of those present to the Prime Minister's speech, the wider populace of Whyatica."

The Duke of Warburton, the leading Praetonian critic of Whyatica's actions, expressed "shock and dismay" that the Whyatican Prime Minister would "sully the reputation of the late departed King Sarius in order to score political points, especially at a time when the nation is still in mourning for his loss," but added that "at least his views do not appear to be shared by the Whyatican people."

The Crown Loyalist Party, who had previously defended Whyatica's actions, have also expressed outrage at the "baseless and inflammatory comments expressed concerning Kings Sarius I and George IV" and demanded "an immediate apology from the Whyatican government".

It is not known whether or not Mr McMillin will resign, but his country's international position appears to be becoming increasingly untenable unless he does, with the Government tabling a Motion of Official Censure in the Sovereign League.

Anti-Prime Minister Riots Suppressed By Imperial Guards
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An Imperial Guardsman stands near an overturned car on Y Avenue in Miana
_____________________________

After Prime Minister McMillin's inflammatory speech yesterday, approximately 3,000 pro-Sovereign League citizens rose up against the PM and his Imperial Guards, overturning cars and clashing with Imperial Guardsmen. The riot was mostly constrained to Y Avenue in between 8th Street and 10th Street. Six Imperial Guards were killed in the fighting, forty rioters were reported dead, with many hundreds more injured. Approximately 3 million credits of property damage was caused, ranging from overturned cars to the house of a Guard set on fire and destroyed. Prime Minister McMillin reportedly called the riot a "[Praetonian] attempt to destabilize Miana." and that he would "keep Miana under control using everything available to him."

Many of those polled on the streets of Miana disapproved of the PM's previous speech, and sympathized with those rioting. While support for the war in Kahanistan remains relatively high among civilians polled, support for the Prime Minister's government has dropped from it's stable position of 60% to approximately 40% of those polled. The largest opposition party, the Classical Liberal party, is calling for the immediate resignation of Prime Minister McMillin, and is also calling for the Emperor Paulus to exercise his powers and remove the PM.

Emperor Paulus gave a short comment to this paper, stating that he disagreed entirely with his views on the Praetonians. He said, "King George, my cousin, is a friend of the Empire, and will not cease to be a friend of the Empire. I disagree with [Prime Minister McMillin's] views on the Praetonians and the Sovereign League, and I urge for him to retract his comments and apologize to Praetonia." The Emperor declined to comment whether or not he would remove the PM's government, stating that it was too early to make a decision.

The Imperial powers have not been exercised in such a manner for nearly 100 years, since Emperor Thomas IV removed Prime Minister Michael Atreides' government. The Imperial seat holds many executive functions, as the head of state of the Whyatican Empire, however, in practice, the executive function is entirely done by the Prime Minister.

____________________________
Kahanistan

The dance of artillery batteries continued on, as the lighter Whyatican artillery was much more mobile, able to move faster than the Kahanistani artillery. Laser batteries detonated many of the incoming Kahanistani artillery shells, although as their rate of fire was not spectacular, most of the shells impacted and did damage to unprotected structures and killed unguarded soldiers. The armoured advance pushed forth, attacking Merkava IV tanks with impunity. The superior armour and armament of the M160A2 prevented the Merkava IV from achieving many kills on frontal attacks, although some tanks were mobility killed when their tracks were disabled. Those tanks effectively became fixed gun batteries, supporting their fellow tanks using it's main gun until its ammunition ran out.

The skilled pilots of the Imperial Air Force continued the intense bombardment of the Valen Line and the line protecting Al-Bahr - the CAS pilots were some of the most skilled at dodging counter-fire, for good reason. Their jobs meant they would be directly in the line of counter-fire, and they had to be good at avoiding MANPADs and fixed artillery. Nevertheless, some planes were destroyed, and their pilots aimed for the Valen Line, not ejecting themselves, using this opportunity as their last attack on the communists. Far above the battles, a B-4 Super Hurricane strategic bomber came, carrying some of the largest bombs used in the Imperial Air Force, specifically made for cracking large fortifications such as the Valens Line. As the Kahanistani Air Force had ceded air supremacy to Whyatica and Doomingsland, the B-4 pilots had no problems getting over the Valens Line to drop several 40,000 kg bombs on the Valens Line..

The Kahanistanian soldiers within the entrenched defenses saw numerous S-9's go down, struck by their defending fire. Medical and intelligence crews raced to the downed planes, hoping to save the Whyatican pilots and take them prisoner. Not that they had anything to fear; Kahanistan treated its prisoners far better than the Whyaticans did. Technical specifications of the S-9 would also be of value to Kahanistanian Military Intelligence.

That Kahanistan had yielded air supremacy only implied there were no Kahanistanian planes in the area. It did not mean that there were no AA defenses, and anything large enough to carry 40 tons of explosive ordnance was an easy target for even a blind S-400 battery gunner. Yet, a small number of bombers got through, and roughly 35,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in the bombing raid, as well as many tanks and artillery platforms damaged or destroyed.

The defenders of the Valens Line then proceeded to dig their infantry trenches slanted so that a hostile tank or other wheeled vehicle would fall into the trench if it got too close.

---

DEMOCRATIC SOVIET REPUBLIC OF KAHANISTAN
Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The Government of Kahanistan finds the comments of Mr. McMillin regarding the Praetonian royal family to be hateful and disgusting. We are also concerned that his statements regarding Praetonian attempts to take over Whyatica are oddly reminiscent of the recent claims of our own Fascist General al-Ghazi (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Abdullah_Hassan_al-Ghazi) regarding Amestrians, which precipitated the riots throughout Kahanistan (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/2006_Kahanistan_riots) last year, or the paranoid claims of Adolf Hitler regarding alleged Jewish control of the world's banks.

We believe that such paranoid comments are completely unbefitting a Head of Government, and suggest a fervent nationalism that may soon grow into fascism and bring about the end of Whyatican democracy.

Signed,
Margaret Delray,
Minister of Foreign Affairs

Unfortunately for the Kahanistani, it was unlikely that they would find any survivors in the wreckages of the S-9 planes. Crashing into the ground at high velocity tends to prevent people from surviving, especially when there are fuel or munitions remaining to add to the boom. The remaining S-9 Strikecats switched their targets from the Valen Line and Al-Bahr Line to any mobile air defence units, pounding them with munitions and dodging AAA fire to return back to the airbase. The B-4 Super Hurricanes fared better against SAMs, carrying AMMs of it's own to deal with the massive S-400 missiles. Also, it sported 5 self-defense autocannons to assist in the anti-missile capability, which prevented a single B-4 Super Hurricane from being downed by Kahanistani fire.

Another flight of Super Hurricanes was launched from an Arabian airbase, some of them loaded with AMMs to act as massive bomber escorts for the main bombers, which were loaded with JDAMs and other large bombs. The Valen Line would not receive a moment's rest, as a flight of Sariel stealth bombers launched from another Arabian airbase to attack the Line. Massive rocket-assisted artillery shells from the fixed batteries back in Arabia began to add their firepower to the mix, as the targetting information was sent back by satellite information and spotters at the front.

The tank advance on the Al-Bahr line continued with a storm, as M160A2 Phoenix main battle tanks engaged the Merkava IV tanks indiscriminately, supported by coming attack helicopters and CAS planes. Al-Bahr was a diversion for the Kahanistani Army, preventing them from supporting the main drive to the Valens Line. However, that drive would not occur until the softening up was completed by air attack and artillery attack...

The forces outside Al-Bahr gave ground only slowly, buying time for civilians in the city to flee using whatever means were available to them. Inside the city, a truck with a 10-kiloton nuclear charge was driven to the Royal Shipyards of Isselmere-Nieland partnered yard with Kahanistan Military Industries. The workers were informed that if the city fell they would be evacuated and the shipyard nuked to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Doomies.

The JDAM's that struck the Valens Line inflicted only minimal casualties, given the huge contingent of 500,000 troops permanently stationed there. Thousands died or were wounded, to be replaced with reservists and active-duty troops from other fronts. The bomb craters also made excellent trenches.

Within and without the major cities, the Kahanistanian civilians buried large numbers of weapons all over the place, made possible by the liberal gun culture. Some feared an occupation and wanted the weapons to be available. Others did not contribute, naively thinking the Doomies would allow civilians to keep their arms. After all, Doomani civilians were known to own guns.

---

Najaster, Capital of Kahanistan

This is not going well. Foreign Minister Margaret Delray sat in her office, still wide awake after 49 hours. She had been unable to sleep under the stress that she was under, trying to deal with these crazy Whyaticans.

She decided to write a letter to the Whyatican Foreign Minister. Maybe he or she was a little less paranoid or crazy than the Prime Minister.

DEMOCRATIC SOVIET REPUBLIC OF KAHANISTAN
Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The Government of Kahanistan tires of this pointless conflict. We see nothing to gain from this war on either side; if we win, we merely suffer heavy casualties and spend trillions rebuilding that we would rather spend on education or health care, and if you win, you merely gain a few thousand square kilometers of overpopulated desert and billions of unhappy citizens, hardly a prize that justifies the loss of so many soldiers.

We hope to arrive at a settlement that would end this war; while two democracies fight each other, it is dictatorships that make the gains. I would personally represent Kahanistan at the negotiations, to be held in a location of the Whyatican Foreign Ministry's choosing as a gesture of peace. I would go alone, with no guards or weapons, to meet the Whyatican representatives.

Thank you for your time and consideration of this matter.

Signed,
Margaret Delray,
Minister of Foreign Affairs

By grounding their airforce, the Kahanistanis had made an utterly fatal mistake. Utilizing massed satellite data, virtually every airbase in Kahanistan was thoroughly mapped out, along with the local air defenses and the locations of hangers, planes, control towers, etc.

The goal of the coming strike was not to neutralize the airfields themselves so much as to destroy the planes themselves. It had already been noted by the High Command that the Kahanistanis relied predominantly on STOVL aircraft, thus destroying runways would most likely end up being a waste of time and money.

Time and money were not things the Doomani enjoyed wasting; thus they would do none of the sort this day.

Operating off of aircraft carriers and bases in Egypt, ACI-3C and ACI-3D Acredula medium bombers began quietly crossing the Kahanistani border at altitudes exceeding 50,000 feet, outside of the cieling of the only things that would have a snowball's chance in hell of actualy seeing them: the Kahanistani low-level air defenses.

Had they attempted a low-altitude penetration, there was a good chance that with the sheer amount of tripple-A, the Kahanistanis could have gotten lucky and gotten a few. Of course, the Arma Caelus Imperium Doomanum was not a force that liked risking multi-million denarii aircraft and pilots, thus they were going to play it safe.

Operating in teams of six, two bombers would be equipped with eight anti-radiation missiles each, the other four loaded up with two dozen small diameter guided glide bombs. When traveling across Kahanistani territory, when an enemy RADAR sight would light up, one of the SEAD aircraft would loose a missile at it in order to neutralize it. The RADARs themselves would be distinguished from decoys via satellite imagery and swift analysis by intellegence analysts.

Better-defended RADAR sights would be countered with multiple missiles.

The missiles themselves were equipped with munitions-dispensing warheads as opposed to conventional high explosive warheads, allowing for them to totally saturate a RADAR sight.

As the escorts were busy picking off the RADAR sights as they lit up, the strike aircraft themselves would be releasing their bombs from a range of forty naughtical miles. These bombs would, in turn, silently glide towards their targets, aided with satellite data, and take out the grounded enemy fighters one by one, along with their hangers (the bombs were fully capable of penetrating over six feet of concrete; even under penetration would result in the bomb being lodged in the concrete, causing it to detonate and cave the entire structure in), fuel depots, control towers, etc.

ACI-22A Malleus strategic bombers, the Doomani version of the SB-22 Sariel, began to warm up their engines at their bases in Sicily, preparing to take off for an extended campaign of bombing throughout the DSRK as a whole.

Maximus' XCV Army, the force initialy facing the Republic Guard divisions sent to counter the Doomani invasion, was pleased to find the Kahanistani Army as willing to come out and fight like men in the open rather than cower in cities. Of course, by choosing to fight a mobile battle, the Republic Guard had also made the mistake of fighting the Doomani on their own terms.

Doomanum, like Kahanistan, was a predominantly desert nation. As a result, the Imperial Army's doctrine revolved around mechanized and armored warfare; the war they were fighting in Kahanistan was precisely what they'd hoped for.

Initial contact was made by turmae of scouts, consisting of reconnaissance variants of the MD.V CMPL utility vehicle. The lead elements of the Kahanistani armored units consisted of mechanized infantry along with tanks, the perfect target for the screening force. They would be able to do precisely what they’d been designed to do.

Concealed amidst the sand dunes, the light vehicles began their ferocious offensive without warning. The Merkavas were the first to be targeted. MD.V-M anti-tank vehicles, equipped with high-velocity kinetic energy missiles, began to light up the tanks, quickly sending their hypersonic missiles downrange. The sheer velocity of the KEMs would be more than enough to crack the frontal armor of the Merkavas and cause their engines and fuel to blow sky high, forcing the crews to abandon their vehicles. With four launch tubes each, the MD.Vs would have plenty of fun picking off the enemy tanks from six kilometers away one by one.

Meanwhile, a brand new variant of the CMPL, the MD.V-S, was having its baptism of fire amidst the fresh war. Equipped with a heavy gas operated 37mm anti-material rifle mounted to a remote cupola, along with a high-powered electronic magnification scope capable of 40x zoom and multiple modes, including infrared. These vehicles targeted the enemy infantry fighting vehicles, M-2 Bradleys. Firing 37x312mm sabot rounds, they targeted the armored engine blocks of the vehicles in order to knock them out and leave the infantry stranded in the middle of the desert.

If the scout elements were successful in neutralizing the enemy vehicles (and chances were, because they were engaging the enemy vehicles from beyond their effective range, they’d be successful), the sniper vehicles would then proceed to start picking off enemy infantry. The sheer size and velocity of the round meant that personnel would simply be blown completely apart, adding a psychological effect to it.

With the sniper vehicles pinning down the infantry, Imperator tanks would rush past the scout units along with mechanized Legionaries in Testudo III infantry fighting vehicles, and proceeed to mop up the survivors. After blowing through the survivors of the lead elements, they would proceed to smash straight into the Kahanistani main body.

The armored centuries, consisting primarily of Imperator tanks manned by veteran Legionaries who had fought in Crematoria against the Questarian invaders, as well as in Czardas, would serve as the spearhead of the strike, with mechanized units moving in behind to mop up any survivors they’d left behind in their wake of destruction.

Meanwhile, Imperial artillery commenced its bombardment of the vaunted Kahanistani Al-Fao systems. 300mm multiple-launch rocket systems loaded with armor-busting GPS-guided munitions dispensers fired en masse into the Republic Guard artillery. They literally blanketed every single piece of artillery they could possibly find with cluster munitions; hopefully enemy artillery would be a non-factor following this onslaught.

The ultimate killing blow, however, would be delivered by Legionary aviation wings, consisting of GRI-37A Corvus attack helicopters. Among the army, there was well over 200 of them amassed. They initially approached from the enemy’s flanks, heading more towards the rear of the enemy force in order to cut off their escape.

Equipped with Cornix anti-tank missiles, the helicopters remained at a stand-off range of twenty miles, hovering low to the ground, and launched their weapons at the enemy armor amassed in the distance. Because they were out of range of the Kahanistani low-level air defenses, and well out of range of the heavy surface to air missiles in the cities, they’d ultimately have free reign. With a total of sixteen missiles each, the helicopters would simply sit back and ripple fire their Cornix missiles, dropping down multiple missiles onto armored formations simultaneously.

Guided via IIR, millimetric wave RADAR, as well as datalinking, the missiles were extremely unlikely to miss, and with a mach three terminal dive from several thousand feet, intercepting them was simply an impractical option for the Kahanistanis. The attack helicopters would aim to completely cave in the Kahanistani flanks even as they were simultaneously engaged by Imperial armor.

Also hunted down by the helicopters were any Kahanistani artillery vehicles that had managed to survive the initial bombardment by Imperial artillery, as well as any enemy armor not immediately on the enemy’s front line.

Naturally, Maximus himself had made sure to get involved in the fight. He personally lead his tank unit straight into the fray, choosing to command from the front. The 125mm L/55 electro-thermal chemical cannons of the Imperator tanks greatly outranged the 120mm smoothbore conventional guns of the Merkavas, thus the Doomani simply sat back beyond the enemy’s range and sent sabot after sabot downrange into the formations of Merkavas, in addition to high-explosive fragmentation rounds into enemy infantry formations, and HEAT rounds into lighter vehicles; when heading through areas they’d neutralized, their roof-mounted 15.7x131mm remotely operated machineguns would hunt down any surviving tank crew or infantry.

On a grander scale, the Imperial advance was unusual compared to what had been seen of the Doomani before. Rather than go through the complications of physically destroying every urban metropolis they encountered, they instead chose to bypass all enemy cities they encountered, cutting their supplies off instead. Along the coast, enemy cities were simply surrounded and put under siege, while the advance straight up the middle went right for the jugular at Najester.

Kahanistanian anti-SEAD decoys tended to look like AA batteries to the naked eye as well as to a HARM so as to fool enemy spies. They were also cheaper to make and often moved around in the desert by remote-controlled trucks.

Adding to the SEAD problem was that the stealth of the ACI-73's made it unlikely that the AD battery commanders would even see them, though they did have better radars than the F-35's. They would turn on only when a decoy was fired upon, and then only long enough to fire their SAM's. Sometimes, though, the Doomani ARM struck the S-400 before it could fire, or before it could turn off its radar after firing.

Artillery took heavy losses approaching 30%; the guns were spread out so that direct attacks would neutralize only a few at a time. Most of those destroyed were closer to the front lines, but there were many ruined hulks throughout the defending forces.

As hardened bunkers and aircraft storage facilities tended to be buried a lot deeper than six feet, more like twenty meters at least, little damage was taken to most facilities, but an entire airbase in the south was leveled and dozens of planes were destroyed or damaged in the shallower facilities.

Outside the defenders' range, some of the helicopters from several kilometers away simply missed. However, they hit very hard when they did connect, and General LeMar Thompson gave the order for his forces to charge the Doomani so they could get their MANPADs within range of the Doomani helicopters before they lost more of their artillery.

Thousands of Merkava tanks rolled down at the Doomani positions, many rolling over mines and their burning crews scrambling out the back, rolling on the sand. Others were struck by enemy shells and blown to pieces, several by Caesar himself. Yet they continued their advance toward the enemy, intent on closing to within range of the Doomani to fire on them.

With the engine blocks of the Merkavas in the front to protect against enemy fire, many tanks were immobilized, but few were destroyed outright. Those that were destroyed and whose crews could escape simply crawled out of the tanks, raised their rifles over the tank hulls, and fired from behind this cover when a Doomani soldier made the mistake of getting too close.

As the 120mm cannons lacked the range to return effective fire, retaliation was largely limited to the remaining 210mm Al Fao SPG's and BM-30 Katyusha MRLS firing 300mm rockets, mainly HEAT and thermobaric missiles upon the Doomani soldiers.

The air bombardment of the Valens line took a new tenor, as the air command advised larger scale use of Fuel Air Explosives to kill as many troops as possible in the Line. As well, General Raj-Singh sent a message to the Doomani Legatus back in the Whyatican CnC asking for Unity Gun bombardment to be redirected to the Valens Line, as Doomanum had 600 Unity Guns under it's belt, while Whyatica was receiving it's first shipment of 100 this next month. The Unity Gun was a Mekugian design, similar to the Nuclear Pulse Gun of ZMI design. The Unity Gun had improvements in rate of fire with a slight sacrifice to range, which made it much more usable for large scale bombardments.

Seeing as Doomanum and Whyatica were partners in Operation: Silva, there was a Whyatican lieutenant general with the Doomani commanders, as well as a Doomani Legatus in the Whyatican command center. As the message was sent back to C&C, the Legatus redirected all 600 Unity Guns to bombarding the Valens Line, which would put 600 33" shells to bear on the Line every ten minutes. No fortified line could withstand that much sheer firepower for long, even one such as the Valens..

The air battle continued with more flights of S-9 Strikecat attack planes dropping fuel-air explosive weapons on the Line, as well as targetting AAA and SAM installations. Even above the CAS planes, yet more B-4 Super Hurricanes advanced over the Al-Bahr and Valens lines, dropping T-12 style penetrator bombs and other smaller munitions on the fortified lines. The sheer size of the T-12 would drive the surviving Kahanistani into thinking that they were attacked with nuclear weapons, although the 20 ton bomb was nowhere near as powerful as a small nuke.

The ground advance against Al-Bahr did not cease, as the attack helicopters added their ground attack capability into the mix against the Merkava tanks. The Merkava tanks did not have anywhere near the range of the vaunted M160A2, which allowed the Imperial tanks to sit back and let the 120mm shells rip. The 120mm ETC gun of the Phoenix was capable of penetrating the front armour of the Merkava IV at nearly any distance, while the Merkava IV's gun could not achieve similar performance for some distance. Also, the fact that the Merkava's engine was front-mounted only served to harm the Kahanistani, as the effects of an engine block being destroyed tended to be incredibly disastrous for the tank, far beyond a mere mission-kill.

300mm MRLS systems finally arrived to the front, supplementing the fire of the lighter artillery and MRLS against the Al-Bahr line. The main artillery batteries continued pouring fire, targetted against the Kahanistani artillery and radar. From the skies, support came on that particular front from S-9 Strikecat CAS planes, launching anti-radiation missiles on known radar installations. Targets were verified through satellite intelligence to prevent the decoy strategy from working again..

What was now unfolding was turning out to be a rather gruesome battle. Caesar's XCV Army had run smack into a Republic Guard Army Group, a force that it was outnumbered by. The Kahanistanis possessed more tanks, more artillery, and more personnel total than the Doomani; yet this day it didn't seem to make a difference.

The amount of damage being caused by the Doomani was simply disproportional: Kahanistani casualties had been higher than Maximus had initially estimated, and it now seemed that they were simply going to rush him out of desparation just to get some shots off from their tanks.

Kahanistani artillery, through sheer numbers, had begun to take its toll. Although it would take a direct hit from one of the 210mm or 300mm HEAT rounds to destroy an Imperator tank, but when it happened, the explosion was absolutely spectacular. The sheer mass of a 300mm shell blowing through the roof of a tank was simply disgusting; it would tear right into the turret, easily connect with the ammunition no matter the precautions taken by the designers to protect the ammunition compartment.

There was simply no practical way to protect an MBT from rounds that large impacting the roof, and it showed.

However, compared to the Kahanistani losses, the Doomani losses were modest at the very worst.

With the constant firing of Kahanistani artillery, they'd made themselves unintentionaly vulnerable to the Doomani attack helicopters and artillery. Imperial counter-battery RADAR, detecting the trajectory of the shells and rockets, were able to pinpoint the exact location of virtually every piece of Kahanistani artillery.

As a result, the attack helicopters were able to ripple fire all of their missiles, utilizing datalinking to plow the missiles straight into the Kahanistani artillery. They did this before the enemy was able to get with MANPADs range, thus when they'd begun to retreat, it was not to escape the enemy: it was to reload.

Meanwhile, Imperial MLRS and howitzers utilized the same exact data provided to the helicopters' missiles to fire their guided rounds right into the enemy artillery vehicles, supplementing the already ungodly amount of missiles being hurled at the Kahanistani artillery.

Along the main battle line, the tanks had come under heavy fire from enemy artillery, but the enemy tanks thus far had proved themselves to be less than a threat. The Doomani armor had stayed out of range of their 120mm guns, simply choosing to backpedal while sending rounds downrange at the Kahanistanis, who helplessly pressed on in hopes of getting within range.

Ultimately, the sheer amount of artillery forced Maximus to resort to simply rushing the Kahanistanis himself.

Rather than backpedaling, the Doomani armor suddenly began to surge forward at full speed, aiming to close the gap as quickly as possible and prevent the Kahanistanis from coninuing to use the one weapon that had proved effective against them.

Even as they moved forward, the mighty Imperator tanks sent round after round downrange; the superb rate of fire provided by their revolver-based autoloader had truly come in handy, as well as the networking systems aboard the tanks. They were literally able to predisignate targets, and each tank would proceed to fire off a round at each individual enemy tank they had designated to prevent from hitting a tank a comrade had targetted as they approached. It was unadulterated, brutal effeciency. Maximus had already counted eight tanks destroyed alone by himself and his crew; the century under his immediate command had destroyed dozens of enemy tanks.

Even as the Doomani armor surged forward, CMPLs continued to make anti-armor runs, sitting back and firing off KEMs at enemy armor. Another CMPL version, the MD.V-O, was equipped with an autoloading 152mm recoilless rifle, capable of launching anti-tank missiles. They simply sped along the line, loosing Gladius ATGMs at unsuspecting enemy tanks the Imperators were not immediately engaging.

Even as the Imperators closed to within range of the Merkava's guns, it became clear that the 120mm conventional guns were simply ineffective against the superior Doomani armor; Kahanistani sabot rounds simply bounced off the Imperator tanks, which would promptly return fire on the offending vehicle. Trailing behind the Imperators, Testudo III IFVs, equipped with dual ATGM launchers, also joined in the fun, sending their own missiles down range at the Merkavas, while their 105mm L/38 guns were targetted at any surviving enemy IFVs and infantry concentrations, as did their heavy-weight 37x312mm chainguns.

Meanwhile, with what seemed to be a failure to neutralize the Kahanistani airforce, the Imperial Navy and Air Force redoubled their efforts; the Acredulae this time were dispatched carrying proper bunker busting munitions which would be dropped right onto the enemy's underground hangers, while the same escort setup was maintained.

Najaster, Capital of Kahanistan

Reports came to the government that the Valens Line was beginning to falter at the west. Anti-air had been largely suppressed and Whyatica was apparently refusing to respond to Delray's suggestion of a peace treaty. On top of that, the situation had almost gone nuclear when T-12 FAE's had been mistaken for tactical nukes and only after a Geiger counter detected no radiation had the order to fire been countermanded.

"This is not good," said Acting President Khalid bin Abdullah al-Omari. "We'll have to declare martial law and evacuate the government." Martial law in Kahanistan simply meant that the civil government had been displaced and the nation would be taken over by the military until the war ended.

Dr. Margaret Delray agreed. "We'll have to get out of here while we still can, move out the government." She had just finished CC'ing a copy of her letter for the Whyatican Foreign Minister to the Emperor himself, as well as the Prime Minister.

Under the Presidential Palace was a secret tunnel leading to a hidden air base loaded with transports, enough to evacuate every major government official and his or her family. Now was the time to flee.

Al-Omari sent a signal to each national-ranking government official with an emergency listserv message. Within half an hour, the government had arrived at the Presidential Palace, been sorted, and taken down a long elevator to a tunnel leading several dozen kilometers, where they forced-marched to the complex under the city of Al-Qamar in the southeast.

Eighteen hours later, everyone was in a plane. Hundreds of modified A-400M planes took off, along with what was left of the Kahanistanian Air Force, whose commander had received an emergency signal, to cover them, and several dozen essentially empty planes to serve as decoys. The government of Kahanistan was now fleeing the war, heading for the Dominion, in order to be able to resume power when the war ended.

---

The Valens Line was receiving an average of one shell per second, and that was just from the Unity Guns. On top of that, FAE bombs destroyed most of the AA around the Valens Line, so that the only remaining AA was around the cities for the most part. The last remaining air defense was the MANPAD's of the Kahanistanian infantry.

While the decoys continued to work (satellite photos only relayed decoys that looked to the naked eye like the real thing) the sheer volumes of ARM's was sufficient to lay the area of the Whyatican attack bare for an advance.

The remaining Kahanistanian armor was forced to travel across mine-laden terrain to close within range of the Whyaticans, suffering disastrous casualties in the process.

On the Doomani front, nearly all the Republic Guard artillery was obliterated in one volley, along with many of the Merkavas. Infantry was mowed down by the thousands in gruesome exchanges of heavy fire. Kahanistan had probably lost by now, unless they could capture Caesar himself or some other miracle. Several soldiers had reported spotting a man who looked like Maximus in an Imperator.

The bunker-busting layout proved more effective, wiping out the bulk of the entrenched F-35's. Only the very lucky ones and the hidden ones lasted. They were down to only about 400.

Low Earth Orbit

Earthlight dancing across the rainbow tinfoil like surface of a shape that anywhere else would be an toy umbrella, here in low earth orbit this delicate shape was a thermoelectric converter, one side in icy shadow while the sunward side burned, suckling the tiny object in its care.

A 20 metre long tether attached this umbrella to a tiny coke can sized and shaped metal lump, the tether itself was not without function, a low powered laser dancing its length turning it into an effective gravity field monitor and delicate aerials dotting its length allowing it to become an effective long baseline passive EM gatherer.

The coke can contained a single set of lenses pointing earthwards feeding two multi purpose CCDs. There were no retros, this device was disposable. This was ZMI milicoms information commands latest answer to building a phased orbital information gathering array. The coke can was not alone, it and over six thousand of its sister micro satellites formed a newly forming dense orbital swarm, feeding data to each other by laser link, and then randomly to a half dozen bigger older mobile birds, hubble sized and priced self defending relics who's huge lenses could pick out newsprint on high rises roof. The phased array on the other hand could pick out the subway car five stories below ground. Data density was the name of the arrays game, six thousand electronic eyes images danced and fed into an already meaty selection of high resolution live feeds from the older birds to build an integrated image that over time given the mass detectors could effectively see through soil without active ground penetrating radar and unlike GPR could effectively not be blocked.

This swarm of was unlike its 8 fellows brand new, launched just hours before from an orbital dispenser dragged by a remotely operated tug. It sat glittering over Whytcian Arabia.


The Ziggarat, Zone One, Megacity One

Minister of Foreign affairs Peter Hule sat in the depths of a restaurant, a pleasant fake Greek temple in ruins half engulfed in vines, hardwood tables dotted around the lush surrounds while the sounds of splashing water from the back wall could be heard emanating from a water feature in the shape of a rather nubile venues that fell the full huge height of the vast stain glass roofed room. It was one of thirty or so restaurants in the heart of the Ziggurat, helping to feed the tens of thousands of bureaucrats and government officials who served as the incorporated states executive. Peter would have before he was a minister have taken the transit line out of the ziggurats confines down to the sea front, probably he thought reminiscing, to one of the small café’s that dotted one of the cities piers or promenades for a pleasant afternoon mean of fresh chowder.

These days he would be escorted directly to his chosen restaurant by armoured air car a flashing escort of M1PD troopers on motor bikes flashing the other traffic out of the way as a massive armoured pursuit vehicle ploughed the road in front of him. It was not exactly what Hule thought of as a relaxing repast, so he more and more found himself eating with his staff within the precincts of the Ziggurat itself. He had found the restaurants here on the outer tier to be a very pleasant surprise from the ussual civil service cafeteria dross he had inflicting upon him when visiting this or that god forsaken new data centre or local government administration block.

Looking up from his work and at this point tepid coffee accented by a few remaining pieces of salad on his plate he saw the waiter begin to quietly clean the table. Stacking filth loading plates onto his tray in artful poses meant to be reminiscent of the images of heroes upon Greek vases. Hule spent a moment starring at the display without really thinking about anything at all. He then glanced back down and sighed while picking up his palmtops stylus and once more returning to his work, insubstantial thin screens slowly moving about the table as he worked and the hours ticked past, seemingly playing an intricate game of dodge the paperwork.

Hule had always preferred to do his own analysis, it was a pleasure he said that he would not give up to some jumped up official or secretary, though his secretary Roslin Price was a pleasant woman in her mid fifties who was god mother to one of Hules children. However at this point he was regretting his life long statements as he contemplated the long list of possible diplomatic communiqués and far more worrying ZMDF projections of the present building conflict that lay on the table in front of him.

On Hules flimsy words and data danced to his stylus while screens showing demographics and possible diplomatic shifts flickered as his hands flashed over his keyboard to alter their feeds or occasionally shut them down or open a new one. Far away a fog horn sounded in one of the industrial zones. Hule finished his report. It would be the last one the Oligarchs read before making there decision.


Fallbright Central MiliComCon facility, 430 metres under mount Lorenz, Aurillia, Haven


The lake lapped gently against an endless backdrop of shattered grey rock. Nothing living moved upon it, no villages dotted its shores, seemingly only the endless grey skree covered slopes and wind scorched hunks of trees now almost as grey as the skree were visible. However occasionally upon this dead coastline a small concrete brake water and a monitoring station sat, its traversing optics every now again glinting in the moonlight. They ceaselessly watched and tested there surrounds, at there base a duo of tiny drone hangers lay, only basic utility models within there cramped cubical quarters and simple betracked forms. The next structure however was no mere monitoring station, it was for one illuminated and surrounded in places by the buzz of helicopters, illuminated blast doors over road ways which led into its depths, it was a series of arcs cut into the mountain side in the heart of this empty mountain top lake, a single tall but massively built sky scraper without windows curving above the valley like a Neolithic monument, lights illuminating its massive concrete flanks which rose from the grey dust dunes into tiers that ended nearly half a kilometre above the surrounding terrain. Most of the structure was support for OTH sensors, the rest was of more offensive use, the tell tale search light like forms of heavy duty optics dotting the higher reaches of the tower. On the ridges above this military conurbation the ground hugging brutishly angular forms of bunkers lay, massive ablative sections over there gun ports while upon the tallest snow capped peaks in the distances a veritable forest of antennae and radar domes were spread.

The ZMDFs Aurilian military central command and control centre was large and for all intents and purposes one of the more boring jobs in the ZMDF. Apart from the occasional re routing of a civilian airliner, or watching as some errant lump of space junk was blasted or avoided the complex this room was at the heart of had never seen much action. The missile silos it commanded had never fired in anger, the NPG batteries it was linked to had never left the ocean surrounding Aurilia a boiling steam wreathed mass of carnage. This facility was a temple to wars not fought, warehouses full of unused IFVs and choppers, nearly five divisions worth of armoured mountain fighting vehicles lay in its underground garages and a single hardened Landcrawler repair depot lay on the surface , its gantries reflected in the lakes waters seeming like the ribs of some great dead animal.

Flight monitoring officer Harold Simms had for most of his watch been glaring at the endless flow of civilian flights, three hours earlier he had reason to contact a small civilian casino flight that was out of its assigned air corridor. Sitting in the eerily display illuminated command centre in a Hawaiian shirt (definitely against regulation) and a pair of what appeared to be shorts made entirely from duct tape he was not the only odd figure in the control room. Boredom and the fight against it was one of the primary occupations in Milicom, and the base’s commander had long given up the fight to keep things to “normal” ZMDF standards. By Simms elbow a cold half empty mug of coffee was unnoticed as said elbow jerked backwards. Slamming down the overrides on one of the main wall screens which was presently filled with a dozen images of warships was now filled with cargo vessels. Simms stared, for the image was not from some far off war torn hell hole but a port just 80 miles away. Side readings showing its minimal radar returns and wire frame pointers outlining damage and stress points of the vessels with neat IFF signals popping up. Panning the image he saw trains pulling up to the angular grey military port structures and being to unload long lines of shipping crates.

Simms then spent the following hours checking movement orders, gently pulling images of air bases half a world away from other officers zones to watch long lines of cargo skyliners the huge lightning strike triangle logo of the parashock divisions clear on there massive blended wing body forms being augmented with Whytican IFFs and logos, the aircraft then taxing. No alarms rang yet and Simms could only watch on over the following hours in horrified morbid fascination as the movements became clear dances of prepared death. Simms had been in the job long enough, he didn't even bother to ask the question and indeed the INT-SEC run human resources section would have been far more interested in him if he hadn't noticed .

Why was a third of the ZMDFs battle force, nearly three quarters of a million personnel and there equipment up to and including four steam sequence nuclear pulse gun armed delta class landcrawlers, a group who administration would shortly designate desert combat group south preparing to ship out? and why were the aircraft involved carrying an extra IFF system?

Valens Line Attack
Seeing as the Valens Line began to falter under the massive attacks, General Raj-Singh ordered the full press on the Line to commence. The armoured divisions began the full push, using engineering vehicles to deploy tank bridges, allowing the heavy tanks to cross the trenches. Now that the main attack had began, the air assaults on the Line moved from the Valens, over to the air defence systems of Najaster itself. Anything that looked remotely like a radar tower, anti-air artillery gun, or missile battery was targetted and attacked with ground attack missiles.

Thousands of infantry jumped into the trenches, wielding bayonet, sword, and rifle, engaging themselves in a deadly melée against the Kahanistani soldiers. They could not receieve much armoured support within the trenches - the tanks were too busy crossing over the trenches and attacking Kahanistani tanks and artillery on the other side to help the infantry attacking. Every Whyatican soldier was trained in swordplay, and carried a short sword in situations like these. Swords were viewed as superior to the contemporary bayonet, but getting stabbed in the gut with a bayonet was just as lethal as being stabbed in the gut using a sword. Hundreds of Whyatican soldiers died as the rush against the Kahanistani trench occured, men using their last dying breath to throw one last grenade against the Kahanistani communist devils.

Now that the main air attack had advanced into Najaster, attack helicopters joined in with the ground forces, raking trenches with machine gun and missile pod fire. The Valens Line could not hold for much longer - the forces engaging the Al-Bahr line had disengaged and rejoined the main attack group, throwing one last salvo at Al-Bahr before retreating, and charging towards the Valens. The Whyatican war machine would not stop until Najaster was in it's hands..

Maximus himself, like the majority of the Doomani tank commanders in the battle, were riding buttoned down. They were not crazy about the idea of a stray Kahanistani rifleman getting lucky with a potshot and killing them, and they needed to use their longer range optics to sight in certain enemy targets for their gunners, anyway.

Besides, they wouldn't be able to use their remotely operated 15.7mm HMG nearly as effectively if riding unbuttoned.

Thus, the Kahanistani soldiers that had reported seeing Maximus riding in the tank itself were probably hallucinating; or worse.

Of course, his own tank was distinguishable from other Doomani tanks thanks to its unique markings. Its lack of Senati markings set it apart from regular army tanks, as did the presence of his other personal symbol (apart from the Crusader's Death's Head, his primary personal symbol which was located on the frontal turret slope of his tank; that symbol, however, was emblazoned on all Doomani units), consisiting of an eagle, its wings spread, clutching a skull in its talons, was also located on the tank.

Of course, the Doomani in the sector Maximus was fighting in, were probably at their strongest, as it was manned by the best-trained troops in the Imperial Army: the Equites Augusta, Maximus' personal guard.

As they drove past the burning hulks of ruined Merkava tanks and Bradleys, enemy crews attempting to flee or take cover would be lit up by the 15.7mm HMG, as well as the coaxial 23mm autocannon. Infantry were targetted as well. Upon passing through, the sectors would be fully secured using mechanized infantry and their IFVs.

By this stage, it became clear the Doomani were not interested in taking prisoners.

They continued to sweep straight through the Kahanistani armor, rapidly targetting and lighting up whatever enemy tanks still remained. At this stage, it seemed the battle was mostly won.

The deal was ultimately sealed when the first of the attack helicopters began to return to the field, once again commencing an offensive against whatever enemy vehicles were still alive, firing their long-range Cornix ATGMs from ranges exceeding fifteen miles.

Once the Republic Guard had been totally finished off, XCV Army would make an all-out rush for Najester. At this stage, they were in friendly competition with their Whyatican allies to see who could reach the Kahanistani capital first.

Meanwhile, the two legions that had been detached from XCIII Army, operating in the south, began their rapid drive towards Jerusalem itself. They would simply avoid major Kahanistani cities outright, and simply level any smaller town that got in their way. They weren't interested in Kahanistani targets: they had a holy mission to undertake.

The launch of the Kahanistani A-400M transports had been quickly been picked up on by satellite-based RADARs, LIDARs, and infrared systems, as well as AWACS aircraft. Because it was only one secret airbase launching the aircraft, the Doomani would most likely have the oppurtunity to snuff out the base before all of the aircraft were launched.

Imperial orbital weapons platforms, equipped with tungsten rods, began to drop their deadly payload en masse on the airbase itself, targetting the runways and planes as they taxied. Because they were such large aircraft, they would require an intact runway to take off from, thus shutting down the airstrips themselves became a priority.

If there were underground installations that the aircraft were launching from, however, the godrods would still be able to tear into the ground with their sheer kinetic energy and cause an ungodly amount of damage.

To make matters worse for the Kahanistanis, ACI-73 air superiority fighters began to cross the border en masse in order to intercept the fleeing transports, which were hopelessly slower than the fighters.

The launch of the remaining Kahanistani airforce did not go unnoticed either; they were the first targets of the eight hundred Aquilas heading in out of airbases and off of carriers, launching three medium-range AAMs each from a range of 120 miles.

These would have a somewhat easy time homing in on the F-35s thanks to friendly RADAR, LIDAR, and infrared (both Doomie and Whyatican) feeding them targetting data. Once the missiles had hit, most of the Aquilas would continue through at supersonic speed to catch up with the transports, launching their remaining medium range AAMs and closing to engage with short range AAMs and cannons.

If there were any surviving F-35s, they'd be engaged by an appropriate amount of Aquilas.

At the same time, Acredula medium bombers flew SEAD to cover the Aquilas as they moved through, snuffing out any Kahanistani ground RADARs that switched on.

On the Whyatican end, the Whyatican Lieutenant General stationed in the Doomani command center ordered Whyatican long-range surface-to-air missiles to open up on the enemy transports even as the Doomani fighters launched their medium range missiles at them.

Further back, Imperial special forces teams were mounting up in their new ACI-91A VTOL transports in Whyatican Arabia in order to hunt for downed enemy government officials and capture them before the Kahanistani army rescued them.

Inside the Valens Line

The Whaytican soldiers who did not face the Kahanistanian soldiers head-on found themselves caught in the middle of countless explosions from concealed mortar positions, anti-personnel mines, and even the Whyaticans' and Doomanis' own unexploded ordnance, which Kahanistanian soldiers shot when a group of soldiers got too near.

Under the ground were two types of heavy destructive ordnance; FAE's which were large enough to incinerate entire platoons or blow up larger units, and the nuclear devices, which required a general's authorization to deploy and would not be used against the Whyaticans at all (the military leadership still hoped for a peaceful solution) or against the Doomani unless they made the mistake of destroying a city.

---

With defeat appearing imminent, millions of civilians poured across the land border into the Dominion, many in cars or trucks laden with valuables, others with little more than the clothes on their backs. Some took their luck with the airlines, the ones that hadn't been grounded. Others fled by ship, the remnants of the Republic Navy covering their flight the best they could.

In Al-Bahr, the RSIN shipyards were collapsed after the personnel were evacuated, the ten-kiloton bomb being placed at the lowest level of the complex and detonated, dislodging the foundations. The strong structure contained the blast and prevented it from damaging the city, but the structure itself was reduced to rubble and vapor, and any computers or other valuable information was destroyed.

---

In total, about three hundred million of Kahanistan's population of 3.6 billion, or one-twelfth of the population, had fled, and about seven million had died, including 400,000 soldiers. The other 92% of the population holed up in their homes with guns, fled into the mountains and sewers to set up resistance movements, converted to Catholicism by the million to endear themselves to the Doomani, or simply continued to live as they had before.

---

With the Whyatican forces retreating from the Al-Bahr Line, General Ibrahim bin Jawala, the commander in chief of the defending forces, ordered his troops to attack the Whyaticans at the Valens Line. He hoped to trap the Whyaticans between his soldiers and the defenders of the Valens Line and force them to surrender.

The remaining IFV's and Merkavas of the Soviet Republic moved towards their comrades at the Valens Line to provide reinforcements. Al-Bahr's garrison of some 100,000 troops came out of the city to form a perimeter and warn of any sudden attack on the city, but by then most of the civilians who wanted to flee had done so.

---

Southern Kahanistan

The 400,000-strong Kahanistanian army group, reduced to about 80,000 troops, began a retreat towards Najaster. They realized they stood no chance against the far superior Doomani armor and were not interested in dying. Death in battle was one thing if it served to protect the Republic, but pointless death was to be avoided at all costs.

---

Fleeing Government

Perhaps one-fifth of the planes were destroyed before takeoff, pummeled by godrods whose kinetic energy rivaled that of a nuclear weapon. Of the other four-fifths, many were downed despite heavy cover from the remnants of the Republic Guard's air wings. Kahanistan's small size meant that the planes needed to travel only about 200 kilometers to cross the Transylvanian border, and many heavily damaged transports took advantage of this fact.

The F-35's were almost all destroyed covering the escape, many steering directly into the path of enemy missiles and ejecting in order to protect the fleeing officials.

Those that survived landed in the Dominion, broadcasting signals to Dominion forces as they did so.

"This is the Kahanistanian Government. We request emergency transport to Praetonian soil. Please respond. Over."

When all was said and done, nearly half of the Supreme Soviet, the Ministers of Agriculture, Energy, and Science, numerous lower officials, and over 15,000 of their family members were dead, injured, or downed in Kahanistan as Republic Guards raced with the APOC forces to find them.

The only thing the Dominion was doing was sitting back and preparing for an attack on Dominion Middle East by the forces of Whyatica. By preparing, hordes of Dominion soldiers were being moved into the area. Tanks, anti-air systems and etc. waited near the borders of Whyatican Arabia. Helicopters flew on the Dominion side of the border, watching for an movement of the Whyaticans. The Dominion would fight, if the Whyatican want a fight.

The Dominion had enough forces in the area to hold back the invading Whyaticans, that is if they decided to attack Dominion Middle East.

The Count just watched everything via satellite images above the battles, reports on news station and whatever else that people get news from. He watched the dumb behavior of the Whyatican Prime Minister, you don’t say that you happy that an ally’s leader is dead. Who in their bloody right mind elected him? Maybe he was the idiot that the Count had to deal with during the Clandonian invasion.

As the Kahanistani planes, carrying the government officials, neared the Dominion-Kahanistani border, their pilots would get to see some Dominion planes heading towards them. F-35A Lightning II fighters, bearing the markings of the Dominion Air Forces, the cobra on the Dominion’s flag with white wings, moved in on the transport planes. There were hundreds of these fighters heading to act as escorts to the transport.

Good thing they were bearing Kahanistani markings or the Dominion fighters would have had a fun time shooting them down. Most of the pilots knew these planes housed government officials because of the reports that civilians were leaving in trucks and other ground vehicles. Bad thing for the government official is that most Dominionites are like their lord, they don’t like fascists or commies.

The F-35A’s, two for each transport, moved on each side and radioed to the plane that they would be escorting them to a Dominion airbase. They told them to chill that they were safe from the Doomanis and Whyaticans. They are safe and in land that didn’t have a thing to do in the current matter.

One by one the Kahanstani transports were being flow to the nearest Dominion air bases, where they would land. After each plane landed, their passengers would be lead to a large hanger. In these large hangers would be people with paper for these people to right their name and everything what they did in Kahanstan. And the most important thing, was what their party was? Were they communists, socialists, fascists, or something else?

At the Dominion-Kahanstani border, the fleeing Kahanstani were allowed across and told to head to the nearest city to get food and to fill out some forms. Those with some military training would get the option to join the Dominion Foreign Legion. Those without training, could join too.

If the Kahanstani military won, then the Dominion would allow the people to return. If they didn’t, then the Dominion just gained some more people. To make sure that nobody tried to invade the Dominion for the Kahanstanis, the Count was going to give an official warning to everybody.

Official Message from the Dominion

Greetings form the Dominion, Kahanstanis are welcomed in the Dominion and they will be safe from the invading forces. The Dominion is not part of the fighting, so nobody should attack it. These Kahanstanis are under the protection of the Dominion because they are civilians.

That’s is all and don’t test my words.

Signed,
Count JWolf
The God-Emperor of the Dominion
The Lord Marshall of the Dominion Commonwealth
The CEO of Timber Wolf Incorporated and its sub-companies

Foreign Minister Margaret Delray was among those lucky enough to survive. Her husband, on the other hand, was not so lucky; he was a Colonel in the Republic Guard and had stayed behind commanding his troops. She tried not to think about whether or not he was safe.

She filled out the forms the Dominionites gave her. Delray, Margaret Katherine. DOB: 1 October 1963. Age: 43. Height: 5'4". Weight: 130 lbs. Hair: Red. Eyes: Blue. Party affiliation: Green Party. Occupation: Politician.

After the MFA had filled out her forms, she asked to speak to a higher official of the Dominion regarding transporting the government to Praetonia, and rescuing as many of those who were shot down as possible.

Donovan Ladd languidly turned his head a fraction towards the door. "Come in."

Brushing back sticky strands of dark blonde hair from his forehead, he swiveled around in his chair to face the doorway and the two people standing there now, like grim sentinels blocking out the light from behind them. Ladd smiled, his face cracking like ice as though briefly illuminated by a ray of sunlight, and then hit a switch; dim lights flicked on, concealed behind bookcases and beams. This was his private office and only a few people found their way in here.

"Mr. Chedrin, Ms. Tanner. Sit down," Ladd welcomed them. Foreign Council Chairman Jael Chedrin, his plump healthy face a total contrast to Ladd's hollow, gaunt, angular bones, beamed broadly as he sat, every dark hair in place; Defence Council Chairwoman Karael Tanner afforded Ladd only a polite smile, her blonde hair in yet another incarnation (this time in its natural state of straightness and let down to her shoulders), before she spread a dossier open on Ladd's table.

"What can I do for the pair of you today?" Ladd asked, warily now.

"For starters, you can get me a drink," Tanner said, leaning forwards.

Ladd smiled. "And if I say no?"

"I'll get it myself." Tanner picked up the bottle of scotch on Ladd's desk and poured some of it into a nearby glass.

"I was saving that scotch for the Pacitalian prime minister!" Ladd glared mock-angrily; Tanner affected an innocent look as she sipped from the glass and set it down between her and Chedrin. Chedrin picked it up himself; Tanner snatched it away; Ladd's face congealed into a serious expression, he sighed with impatience and said, "Moving on."

"It's like this, Premier," Tanner said with her usual get-right-to-the-point style. "Whyatica and Doomingsland have just launched an invasion of Kahanistan."

Ladd raised an eyebrow. "I'm not entirely surprised, what with all their anti-communist rhetoric. What cause did intel give you?"

"Supposedly, it's because some Kahanistani special forces were discovered in Whyatican territory. Five of them to be exact."

Ladd sighed. "And they go to war... over that?"

"Not only that. It's a war of extermination, so far. Remember, the Doomani are involved."

Chedrin spoke up for the first time, his faintly Russian features belying his perfect unaccented English: "Kahanistan requested international aid, of course. It's not going to stand up for very long against a Whyatican-Doomani advance."

"Any word from the rest of the Sovereign League then? They're the ones dedicated to justice and freedom and all that crap, what have they to say about it?" Ladd was becoming impatient now.

Chedrin continued, "Praetonia apparently officially 'disapproves', but isn't going to do anything about it. The rest of the SL is silent."

"So, let me get this straight. They're ignoring the human rights abuses and needless conflicts of their members, the same things they're trying to prevent?" Ladd steepled his fingers.

"Certainly looks like it," Tanner said. "First APOC, now this whole business... Either they tell Whyatica off, or they lose face with the international community."

Chedrin broke in, "But aren't we allied to Whyatica too, after a fashion, through that Haven mutual-defence pact?"

"Yes, buuut.... we're still under no obligation to help or support them in any external conflicts," Ladd said, intently studying a point midway between the two.

"Doesn't mean they won't listen to us where others haven't," Tanner said, eyeing the now-empty glass of scotch. Ladd carefully picked up the bottle and placed it behind him. Tanner placed her hands on her hips and stared icily at him.

"We can try it," Ladd shrugged. "I doubt they'll listen."

"And what do we do then?" asked Chedrin.

"Then it goes to me." Tanner affected a predatory grin and rose to her feet, Chedrin beside her. "Premier?"

Ladd rose as well. He was a full head taller than both of them. "Mr. Chedrin, send a message to Whyatica explaining the Commonwealth's position. Ms. Tanner, keep our Northern Fleets on alert, if they aren't always that way anyway. You'll know what to do if it comes to that. Just as a precaution."

"Of course," she said, almost in surprise.

Once they had left, Ladd turned back. For a few moments he regarded the bottle of scotch behind his desk. Then he opened a window and stared out upon the city below.

Official Communiqué
Target: David McMillin, Prime Minister, Imperial Democracy of Whyatica; CC: Emperor Paulus I, ditto

The Commonwealth sends you her greetings.

We observe that Whyatica has recently launched a joint invasion of Kahanistan with the assistance of the Doomani. The reasoning behind this war seems slightly obscure. It would seem reasonable to punish the Kahanistani special forces for trespassing on Whyatican territory, yes, and warn the Kahanistani government not to do such a thing again. But to launch what is increasingly looking like a war of extermination? Whyatica here appears guilty of a Dreadfire-esque overreaction.

We would strongly recommend that Whyatica withdraw her forces from Kahanistan, or at least make some attempt at diplomacy and negotiation. Otherwise, Whyatica runs the risk of both losing her position in the Sovereign League and permanently staining the reputation of that alliance for a very long time to come. Already, the opinion of Whyatica in the Archipelago is dropping; only 19% of Catalasians believe the invasion of Kahanistan to be morally justified, and it is probable that many similarly-minded nations are encountering similar popular support.

This is merely a suggestion, but it is one backed up with significant diplomatic, economic, and political force. Disregard it at your peril.

With warning,
~ Jael Chedrin, Chairman ~
Commonwealth Foreign Council

Mekugian nights were bright and calm, a full new moon made for a gorgeous evening, and gentle westerly wind made for a night in which most Mekugian tuned off the air conditioning and opened their windows. he praetor was enjoying this beautiful night in the most reverent way he could, snoring loudly to dreams of threesomes with large breasted Anchrish women and cornering the market on heavy industry, such dreams were sadly not to last.

A persistent mechanical buzzing slowly forced its way uninvited into his thoughts as the bedside phone began to ring, and despite the praetors subconscious attempt to swat away the seeming invisible fly he opened his eyes slowly returning to the place his dreams had meant him to evade. Rolling groggily over to the phone he picked up the receiver and grunted at whoever ti was on the other end, when the response came the, the Praetor responded in the way one might expect of a man so interrupted.

"You cannot be serious..." Praetor Keiso was angry, groggy and sadly missing the best part of one of his favorite reoccurring dreams. He none the less turned his head tot eh side and coughed harshly clearing his thought before bringing the phone back to his ear and standing up from the bed. "I'll be down in just a minute..."

Grabbing a pair of khaki slacks and an old sweatshirt he didn't quite look the way one might expect a world leader but at three in the morning it would have to do. He roughly combed his hair in place with his hand and got into the palaces elevator to head to the command room at the sub-sub-sub--basement of the palace, the ride taking only a few second but the deceleration at stop made it obvious how fast and how far down he had gone. the opening of the doors met him with the cold glare of unpainted concrete walls, this far underground the corridor was cold and though the floor itself was heated the ambient temperature was far below that of the the surface air.

Walking into the command room he took a seat and motioned roughly to an attendant standing in the corner for a cup of coffee. "Alright please tell me this is an early surprise birthday party, and what the commodore recently told me is a complete fabrication." He was met with silent stares and the sound of shuffling feet as no-one really felt like answering that question.

"....riiiight then so its true that a Nuclear device was detonated in Kahanistan, are we sure it wasn't just an over sized FAE or conventional bomb?"

George sat idly in the corner his chair leaned back against the chair rail responded plainly. "We know our Shit jon, we've gone over the reports and it most certainly was a radiological device. Whats important about this not that it happened, but how it happened, there was no trajectory, nor thermal bloom prior to detonation."

"Your saying we have an immaculate nuke then George?" the praetor was tired and grumpy and even his old friend wasn't making him smile tonight.

"No Im saying short of the development of a nuclear capable weapon that leaves no trace as to its trajectory what so ever... Kahanistan nuked themselves. Its Occam's razor Jon, all things being equal the simplest explanation is usually the most correct, and in this case they shanked themselves..."

The praetor didn't really know how to respond, George was right chances are they had done it too themselves and the lack of a nuclear response from Doomani or Whyatican silos seemed to prove that. "but why..." was the only response he could give this early in the morning and George, much closer to a morning person than Jon was glad to reply.

"They are loosing, and were trying to destroy something of value, it was shipyard prior to the conflict, chances are thats what it was, why they nuked it with the equivalent of several thousand tons of TNT and irradiate a portion of their own territory is of course a questionable choice, but the result is what they wanted, no-one will touch it now."

George leaned the chair forward and rested his forearms on his thighs leaning in towards Jon. " the real kicker is that the Doomani used their unity guns, and they have done a world of damage on the Valens line, our tests were -nothing- compared to the data gained in just one full salvo of that strike, R&D tells me that if they can get full statistics on another strike all sorts of opportunities open up... that includes mobile options Jon.. mobile..."

The praetor couldn't control his grin, the Unity gun had been a boon of a project, excellent sales, high effectiveness, and lowered matinence cost had allowed the almost complete refurbishing of their strategic arsenal, and now it had taken first blood and was pushing close to bearing fruit, and or child. the praetor straightened up and took the coffee from the attendant drinking a long slurp from it.

"Call the Doomanis see if we can get some more specific data, and ask for field attendant to be present next salvo they launch, I want as much field data as possible, but first..." the praetor took another slurp and set the cup down gently. see what we need to do to get firing solutions for out Unity cannons, first hand experience is always preferable to statistics...:

George smiled and walked over the conference table picking up the red phone at its center before pressing the number one.

With what was left of the Kahanistani army now routing before his men, Maximus was able to take a breather. The forces on the front line with the fleeing Kahanistanis were relieved by other units, which picked up on the pursuit of the enemy army.

However, the only reason the armored forces were chasing them was simply to drive the fleeing Kahanistanis straight into the swarm of attack helicopters that slammed the door shut on their rear. The helicopters left the fleeing Kahanistani armor literally no room to run; they simply sat back directly in their way and rained down torrents of guided anti-tank weapons on them.

Simultaneously, the armor rushed them from behind, easily overtaking any foot infantry that were simply running to get away. With the legions being properly rotated, virtually no momentum was lost, and XCV Army was able to continue on at a rapid pace towards Najaster.

However, something strange also happened. The Imperial Army, in an unexpected move, established a safe corridor through which civilian refugees could travel. This was due to a secret deal made with the Midlonian government; Midlonian Red Cross personel were on their way to man the corridor.

Just what the Midlonians had given to the Doomani in return for this seemingly humanitarian act could only be speculated, but those who knew the truth knew that what the Doomani had recieved in return was something far from humanitarian...

Maximus was able to catch up on the diplomatic goings-on of the conflict after the battle, and quickly sent a communique to his friend, Count JWolf, requesting that he extradite important Kahanistani officials to Doomanum.

At the same time, special forces personnel, carried by ACI-91A VTOL transports and supported by friendly aircraft, began to cross the border, moving at a rapid pace towards where Kahanistani aircraft had gone down, and also to where anyone had bailed out. Their aim was to capture as many Kahanistani politicians as possible before the Republic Guard arrived in force.

Valens Line
The air bombardment of the Valens Line had done it's job - the daunting numbers of Kahanistani soldiers had been drastically cut down, allowing Imperial fighting men to charge the line with all their fervor, drawing swords and hopping into the lines. Heavy weapons men advanced through the trenches with their squad automatic weapons, mowing down opposing soldiers. Whyatican casualties were initially high as the Imperial men rushed the line, pushing against the remnants of Kahanistani machine gun nests and mines, but dropped drastically as heavy armour support crossed the trenches and attacked the Kahanistani support vehicles. Najaster was within sight for the Imperial troops, and nobody could stop them now. No diplomatic or political pressure could stop the momentum of the war machine bearing down on the Kahanistani capital, the soldiers would march through Najaster come hell or high water.

Their duty to Throne and Empire over all else, the killing of Kahanistani communists was all that the front line fighting men could think of. Kill or be killed, natural selection. The strongest in this melée survived, and the weak ones died off. Some of the greenest soldiers, never having seen real death on this scale before, became weak at the knees, targets for the Kahanistani guns. For the battle-hardened men, however, this was a turkey shoot at times..

____________________________________

Private Message to Catalasia
I, the Emperor, am doing everything within my power to end the Kahanistani War as quickly as possible. In Imperial politics, my hands have been tied as Emperor after Emperor prior to me sat back and did not take an active role in politics, allowing the Prime Ministership to become the primary figure in the executive functions of State and Empire. I intend to change this, however, and as soon as I can, I will end the Kahanistani War.

I agree with your nation and all the similarly minded nations, Prime Minister McMillin has overstepped his bounds and is dragging the glorious League and my nation through the mud for his own insane goals.

Emperor Paulus Whyatica I

The Kahanistanian armor was next to no more under the long-range attack helicopter fire. The defenders were now down to leg infantry.

Inside the capital, another army group awaited the Whyaticans. Even with the government fleeing and many deserters from other units having fled the nation disguised as civilians, the soldiers in the capital would defend the nation to the death.

They awaited the Whyaticans who made it through the minefield; Najaster would see the bloodiest warfare that Kahanistan had ever experienced. There were still eighty million civilians in the capital who did not want to leave their homes. Most of these were busy looting the homes of those who had fled, leaving the more disciplined military to handle the advancing enemies.

Even the Presidential Palace was not immune to the looting civilians. Huge chests of gold and large amounts of furniture were looted by those who could barely hold what they had in their small apartments, cramped as they were in the tall towers designed to hold as many people as possible. Computers with classified information on them had also been looted. The Doomies would have loved the information, but they would have their work cut out for them finding the computers in that nest of anarchy.

There were two competing theories going on in the Whyatican command and control for as to the Battle of Najaster - Enter the city and end the war immediately, no matter the cost, or encircle it along with the Doomani and siege the city until everyone starves or the Kahanistani surrender. General Raj-Singh himself preferred the former strategy - the Kahanistani war had already caused a massive international uproar, and the sooner the war ended and the Whyatican military could get the hell out of K'stan, the better it would end up being. Many of the underlings wanted to encircle the city to minimize Whyatican casualties, and Raj-Singh had to point out numerous times that the longer the war stretched on, the likelyhood of international intervention became more and more likely. Thankfully, this is the military, and Raj-Singh's decision would pass through - the drive through Najaster would continue, at all costs.

The Valens Line still stood in the way of the Imperial fighting men, however broken it may be. As Whyatican soldiers entered the Valens Line trenches, the initial numerical advantage of the Kahanistani soldiers slowly dragged down, as the more experienced Imperial soldiers ground through the more green Kahanistani men. Casualties still mounted, however, albeit slower than when the first waves hit the line. As the Valens Line broke underneath the mighty war machine, the Imperial soldiers prepared to consolidate their position for the final push into Najaster..

CAS planes and tactical bombers began flyovers of Najaster, striking against air defence and known military bases. The Imperial Whyatican Air Force was taking as many pains as possible to avoid civilian casualties, but with the horrors of urban warfare, civilian deaths were inevitable. Eighty million residents in Najaster, most of which were armed..the line between civilian and paramilitary was always blurred in a massive urban invasion, this time even more so. When a civilian with a gun exits his house, and you're a soldier, what do you do?

Within the city, more soldiers armed with MANPADs fired on the CAS whenever they could get a clean shot, which was not often when one takes into consideration the fact that Najaster and other Kahanistanian cities had very tall apartment towers, and a stray Stinger or Starstreak missile could easily hit the 130th floor of a tower and into somebody's den instead of downing a Whyatican bomber.

General Marcellus Valens, former President, former Minister of Defense, and the man after whom the Valens Line was named, stood in the city at the head of his troops. He knew that popular unrest would grow in Whyatica and / or the Emperor, who had also been sent a copy of the MFA's letter, would remove the Prime Minister, and even if that didn't happen, Whyatica would be expelled from the Sovereign League. Time was on his side; the city had enough food and underground reservoir water to last for years, and Civil Defense had given out ROWPU's and other water filters during the Pwnage war as well as the current conflict in case anyone got the idea of dumping something nasty into the water.

Wishing to avoid civilian casualties, or at least place the blame for them squarely on the Whyaticans' and Doomanis' heads, General Valens ordered the civilians in the city not to open fire unless fired upon. The Republic Guard would hold the city as long as it could.

The foot infantry were swiftly rode down upon by fast-moving Imperial armor, which disgourged its own infantry to round up any surrendering Republic Guards. Those who didn't immediately drop their weapons simply recieved a 37mm, 23mm, or 15.7mm shell to the chest or head from the coaxial and commander's weapons of the Testudo IIIs and Imperators.

The attack helicopters, in the mean time, hid behind dunes, popping up only momentarily to let loose bursts from their 30mm chainguns, giving the Kahanistani infantry not nearly enough time to establish a lock with their stinger missiles.

The task of slaughtering what was left of the Kahanistani army was delegated to Legio XXIX, while the other four broke off and rushed towards Najaster, Maximus with them. They'd be arriving sooner rather than later, in time to join the Whyaticans in their assault and keep them from snatching all of the glory.

Meanwhile, the units headed towards Jerusalem were nearing the border and would soon be descending on their target.

By now the entire Kahanistani coast was crawling with Imperial mechanized and armored units, cutting off the cities in order to prepare for an eventual assault on each of them. That, however, would come at a later time. It was entirely possible the Kahanistanis would surrender before it came to that.

Meanwhile, the Legio Arcanus operators began to deploy from their VTOL transports in the desert amidst the downed enemy transport and stranded personnel. Supported by overhead UAVs for intellegence as well as their VTOLs for close air support, and special forces variants of the CMPL for rapid transport to their targets, deploying their vehicles right out of their VTOLs.

Frightened by the gruesome photographs posted all over the Internet of the murdered Kahanistanian Captain who had infiltrated Clandonia, most of the soldiers would have rather died than undergone the tortures the body showed signs of: medieval Inquisitorial torture. The Doomani were known to be ruthless Christian extremists and were blamed for the torture with minimal evidence.

As a result, very few Kahanistanian soldiers surrendered to the Doomani, most considering a bullet in the head a preferable death. However, they wanted to take as many of these terrorists with them as possible, even resorting to throwing grenades at the treads of the Doomani tanks and at the tanks' machine guns and chainguns and shooting anything that came out of the tanks.

---

In Transylvanian territory, about 100,000 of the now 550 million refugees joined the Dominion Foreign Legion. About 10% of these were Kahanistanian military deserters who now saw the war as hopeless.

Dr. Margaret Delray was on her cell to the Midlonian Red Cross, asking about the transport of the displaced government to Praetonia.

---

Near the downed government planes, the Republic Guard approached, and saw the Doomies about a kilometer ahead of them. The Doomies would notice a force of Kahanistanian infantry about battalion size moving toward their position...

Command and Control, Whyatican Arabia
"General, this is ridiculous! Our best estimate has millions of civilians dead, the Kahanistani are using their arcologies to defend their military, civilian shields. Every time a stray bomb lands on an arcology, we kill thousands of civilians. Continuing from this point is utterly pointless, Kahanistan's military has been decimated by us and the Doomani. Their government has run to the Dominion. The vast majority of their population is running away. We encircle Najaster, allow a corridor for people running to run from, and wait until Valens surrenders. Fighting through thousand story arcologies will result in a vast waste of Whyatican, Kahanistani, and Doomani life." a Lieutenant General said, looking at the satellite photos of Najaster.

"Lieutenant, the Kahanistani arcologies can support themselves in terms of food and water for many, many years. The war cannot last much longer." General Raj-Singh said, and the Doomani Legatus, Gaius Junius Lepidus looked at both of them strangely.

"General, Caesar has a plan for this. We will raze Najaster, one tower at a time, using our Unity Guns. They will surrender or they will watch Najaster burn to the ground." Lepidus said, calmly while the rest of the Generals looked at him.

"All your men need to do is encircle the city and prevent the Kahanistani military from escaping."

General Raj-Singh looked a little uneasy, but he said, "Fine. Create a circum/contravellation around the southern half of Najaster, and allow the escape path. Prepare a leaflet campaign, although I doubt the people are going to leave their towers to read them. Hijack as many radio frequencies as possible and transmit a warning message to the civilians."

"Aye." the other Whyatican generals said, while the Legatus nodded and left the war room.

______________________________

As the assault on the Valens Line itself wound down, with the remaining Kahanistani retreating into the city itself, the Whyatican fighting men began to set themselves in a double encirclement pattern - one combat line facing in to Najaster to prevent any breakout attempts by the Kahanistani army group inside Najaster, and a combat line facing out to prevent any attempts to relieve them from outside. The Imperial Whyatican men were settling down for what they believed to be a long haul, as they all could see the massive towers of Najaster from their positions. Although it had not taken a very long time for the Army Group to reach this point, the majority of the combat men did not believe that they could storm every single arcology in a short time, without simply destroying the tower.

There was a noticeable gap in the double encirclement lines, with signs being put up that all unarmed civilians in the gap would not be shot at and would be permitted to exit Kahanistan. Armed men would be shot on sight. Thousands of leaflets were being printed back in the headquarters that said the same thing in Arabic and English, for dropping throughout Najaster before the massive Unity Gun bombardment would start.

The tanks and IFVs took no risk with the Kahanistani infantry. They remained a safe distance back and simply peppered away at the surviving Republic Guards that refused to surrender with their autocannons. The explosive rounds would have simply blown the infantrymen apart.

Those that surrendered were initially spared, and herded into groups by the Legionaries. They were bound and blindfolded, and made to kneel side by side in the sand. Surprisingly, the Doomani had chosen to spare their captives, for now. They had something special planned for them. They were to be shipped back to Doomanum proper...

Meanwhile, the first of Maximus' troops began to arrive near the outskirts of Najaster. They'd begin to consolidate in force on their end. They wouldn't be entering the city for quite some time; for now they began to dig entrenchments outside the city in order to properly box it in from their side.

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

The special forces units, now noting that the Kahanistanis had arrived in force, realized that if they themselves engaged they'd most likely find themselves outnumbered and outgunned. Though they were superbly trained and could easily hold their own against the Republic Guard, they simply did not want to risk taking needless casualties.

They began to spot targets for their nearby VTOL transports. The ACI-91A was an extremely heavily armed and heavily armored aircraft; facing off against a pure infantry force with only MANPADs for air defense did not phase them in the slightest.

They initially began their runs over the advancing enemy battalion by firing dozens of rounds from the 82mm rocket pods hanging from their wings; they poured literally hundreds of high-explosive fragmentation rockets right into the enemy formations. At the same time their turreted 37mm nose-mounted autocannons pumped high explosive rounds into the enemy infantry, making sure to aim specifically for enemy air defense gunners.

At the same time, their 15.7x131mm gattling guns mounted to the rear door pumped thousands of rounds at the enemy as they passed.

With two dozen heavy VTOLs making strafing runs at high speeds over the Kahanistani infantry, the Arcani began to fan out, heading towards the locations of the downed enemy passengers via their MD.V-A scout vehicles in order to capture them before they were rescued.

Najaster, Capital of Kahanistan

General Marcellus Valens allowed anyone and everyone who wished to live to leave the city. This included military personnel who were too demoralized to fight; Valens did not wish them to drag down the morale of the remaining troops.

As a pagan who worshiped the old Roman gods, Valens fully expected to die at the hands of the Doomani. He prayed to Mars that he not die by torture. He would once again join his beloved wife, Claudia, who had been killed by the Freeks over a year earlier.

Valens spoke from the gate of the Presidential Palace. For once, he was not accompanied by his security commander, who had left with the new President. He looked odd without her; they had appeared so close that there were rumors of a deeper relationship, despite the 43-year age difference.

"Those who would rather live to fight another day... those who would rather live out their lives in exile or under occupation... do not follow me, but only those who are willing to go through Tartarus to bring about the freedom of Kahanistan, follow me."

Of Najaster's defenses of 80 million armed civilians and 4 million soldiers, 65 million civilians and 400,000 soldiers left. The soldiers had changed into civilian clothes and left their weapons behind so as not to be shot. Hopefully, the Whyaticans would neither know nor care that many of the "civilians" were deserters.

Najaster was now in the hands of 3.6 million soldiers and 15 million armed civilians. They now had even more supplies to last them for years, and 150-story apartments gave them more living space than even in their wildest dreams. The city was made to support a far larger population, and many of the people proceeded to rig up IED's, bring out the Presidential Security Detachment's heavy vehicles, and in general fortify the city against even the most ferocious of Doomani onslaughts.

The Kahanistanian newspapers were still in full swing, having been taken over by defending civilians with some journalistic skills and / or a sense of humor. Drawing inspiration from the Mohammed Cartoons, one young woman decided to target Doomani sensibilities; it was the Virgin Mary who was lampooned in them, depicted as anything from a graven idol to a stereotypical slutty Catholic schoolgirl, to a preteen victim of sexual abuse at the hand of God. The papers would be tied to kites and flown off the tops of the apartment buildings, hopefully into the Doomani lines. Others were tied to helium balloons and let fly to parts unknown, to hopefully be published in various newspapers around the world.

---

Controversial cartoons published in Kahanistan!

NAJASTER, Kahanistan (AP) - Today, Kahanistan National News, one of the most right-wing major media in the Soviet Republic, has published a dozen cartoons of the Virgin Mary that critics say are offensive to Catholics.

The writer of the cartoons, Laila al-Majani, says that she submitted the cartoons as a political statement.

"The cartoons represent what we will no longer have the freedom to do if we are taken over by the Imperium Doomanum," said al-Majani, 19, a sophomore political science major at Kahanistan National University. "Our troops are fighting so that people will have the freedom to speak their minds, and these cartoons will tell the Doomani just what we think of them and their restricted media."

Airbase Flying Dragon, Jordan, Dominion Middle East…

After going through a dozen or more Dominion air men, Dr. Margaret Delray would get to talk with highest ranked person at the airbase. This man was legend as being in three of the Dominion’s military program. He was a soldier in the Dominion Armed Forces, a fighter and bomber in the Dominion Air Force and now an Air Admiral of the Dominion’s Airship fleet, the 2nd Dragoon.

The man, close to forty-five years old, looked at Dr. Delray as she talked on her cell phone. His gray, old eyes looked at her. The man wore his airship officer uniform (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y101/CountJWolf/AOU.jpg) with the rank of Air Admiral over the 2nd Dragoon (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y101/CountJWolf/Dragoon.jpg) on his right upper arm with pride, his service short sword at his left side and his service Burning Fox pistol on his right side. His head is full of gray hair and an equally gray beard.

“Mrs. Delray, I hear you wanted to talk to me,” said the old man, “I’m Air Admiral Michael Klunzinger, the commander of this here base.” His tone was friendly, he was trained to be friendly as he talked to people that were not the enemy. If she was the enemy, he would still be nice to her as he was raised not to hit women.

Other Dominionites began to place the papers into lap tops and started figuring out how many government officials were in the Dominion. They would find out the postions of each of the people. Plus, how many party members were in this group? How many commies and etc.

Castle Von Wolf, Romania…

The Count had been getting many reports from the last few hours. Reports of the number of Kahanistani government officials in his land. Reports of the Kahanistani civilians in his land. The reports of the one going the Dominion Foreign Legion, where they would be with other foreigners from many different nations.

Then he looked over the message from the Caesar himself, the son of his friend. He smiled at what he wanted. The Count knew the Doomani like the back of his hand, so he knew what the Caesar would do with the key Kahanstani government officials.

So, being the good friend, he wrote a message back to the Caesar.

-----------

Greetings, young one, how’s the fighting going? You allowed a lot of their government to flee. Your father would have made sure they were all killed before they could escape. But back to the point, I have my people taking to figure what key government official that I have.

But you will not get the women, I don’t like to see women in pain, Maximus.

But for me to do this, you will have to do something for me as what I will be doing is not something good. I want the Whyatican Emperor to tell the families of my murder civilians that he is sorry the lives of the ones killed. I want him to see that he was wrong with his order to attack on the Clandonian space station. Anybody with half a brain would see that it was really my space station and was joint station with both civilians and military personal.

If you do that for me, I’ll see what I can for you.

Signed,
The Count

-----------

With that, he send the messag to the Caesar. He would wait and see what would come for it. Maximus was dealing with the first puppet master and the devil at the same time. Strange that his father even was friends with the Count as vampires were the children of Satan or that’s what the religion people said. The Count didn't give a damn.

Dr. Delray nodded. "When can we expect transport of our government officials to Praetonia? And is anything being done to retrieve our downed officials?"

Most of the government officials did not wish to give too much political information; they knew that the Dominionites did not like communists. Many identified as liberal. socialist, or apolitical. Very few admitted to being Communists, and they were generally the hard-liners.

---

The battalion sent to retrieve the government sustained heavy casualties before they even knew what hit them, but returned fire with their MANPAD's to give the rifle infantry time to move forward and retrieve the escapees.

The infantry charged ahead with their weapons blazing when they could do so without hitting their own people, which wasn't often. Mostly, they would fire short bursts at the Doomies and try to close in with them, in order to save their government.

[OOC: Decided I'd complicate matters a bit. :P]

Official Statement
Target: All available frequencies
Encryption: None

Along with the Dominion of The Transylvania and the Crown Commonwealth of Praetonia, we have expressed some concern over the current war being waged within Kahanistan. The Archipelago Commonwealth is willing to evacuate and offer humanitarian aid to both unarmed Kahanistanis and Kahanistani government officials, and assist in rebuilding efforts on the ground upon cessation of hostilities.

The Commonwealth advises Whyatican and Doomani forces in the area that Catalasian unarmed aircrafts will be arriving in Kahanistan to assist in evacuation and humanitarian relief efforts, escorted by one fighter squadron. If these aircrafts or the personnel they carry are fired upon, your governments shall be held directly responsible. The same holds true if they are fired upon by Kahanistani personnel.

We are a neutral party in this conflict and would like to remain as such. Please oblige us.

[signed]
~ Donovan Appius Ladd ~
Premier of the Commonwealth
Director of the Bureaucratia

Najaster

Maximus' command tent was abuzz with information circulating in on enemy positions, strengths, political fallout, and other data that an Emperor required when waging Holy War. Caesar, sitting upon a guilded throne, was carefully sifting through the reports brought before him.

Junk...junk...more junk...ah, here we go!

He'd finally recieved his reply from the Count. He'd been eagerly awaiting this response; he knew full well of the Count's rather...weak stomach, when dealing with affairs such as these, and so he'd expected that JWolf would have wanted something in return.

An apology from Paulus...how quaint.

Maximus simply loved how the Count blamed the actions of Whyatica's crazed Prime Minister on his younger cousin, the Emperor. He found it almost...insulting that JWolf would compare his dear cousin with such an insolent peasant. It did not matter. The Count had something he wanted, and so he was willing to play his game.

Reading through the message, the first two lines rather irritated Maximus. It was as if this old man spoke to him as if he were a child. Maximus cracked his neck and sighed. How he hated diplomacy; it was so much easier to do things with a heavy hand. Calling over his personal secretary/advisor, a slave by the name of Herius, he dictated a letter,

My dear Brother,

The fighting has indeed gone better than I could have possibly have hoped. Najaster lies within my grip...I need only clench my fist and squeeze the life from this wicked place. Indeed, I expect the Kahanistani infidels will be done within a week or so.

Now, on to business. My cousin, Paulus, you demand an apology from him. You overestimate my influence over the boy, brother. I shall write him immediately and convey this request of your's, and just why it is necessary; however, this is all I can do. I cannot force him to do what he does not wish.

When I make this request of him, I shall hold my end of the bargain fullfilled. I expect that you shall, as well. Until then, however, I expect that you will keep those in your custody under close watch.

I bid you good day, brother, may we meet in person soon,

Caesar Maximus III

Maximus sighed. He'd be extremely irritated should the Count make an annoyance of this issue with Paulus. He'd deal with it later. Next on the agenda, a communique from the Catalasians.

Maximus simply shook his head.

"Take a letter, Herius," he growled.

OFFICIAL COMMUNIQUE

IMPERIVM DOOMANVM

Premier Ladd,

Your deployment of armed fighter aircraft to Kahanistan is absolutely unacceptable. Your transport aircraft shall recieve Imperial Air Force escorts; should any armed Catalasian aircraft violate Imperial airspace, it shall be considered an act of war.

Your transports shall operate only within the alotted humanitarian corridor. Any attempt to operate outside of this corridor other than while in transit shall be considered an attempt by the Catalasian government to aid the illegal Kahanistani government, and they shall be dealt with as such. I am being more than reasonable; I expect you to observe these laws.

Failure to do so will result in unfortunate consequences.

-Caesar Maximus III, Imperator of the Imperium Doomanum, Defender of the Faith

Politics...

Suddenly, he heard a torrent of profanities being shouted from outside of his tent by more than one individual.

"What the fuck is going on?" he said aloud, standing and heading towards the entryway of the spacious, well-decorated tent.

Stepping outside, he saw what appeared to be a pamplet. He did not even turn to the two Equites Augusta saluting him from either side; he picked it up, and within a split second had turned bright red with sheer rage.

"What is this blasphemy?!" he roared allowed.

The cacaphony of cursing throughout the camp immediately ceased with the sound of Caesar's voice.

The Doomani lines had been littered with the cartoons; what the Kahanistanis had done was something that was simply beyond disgusting. They had blasphemed the worse they had done so far. And they would pay dearly.

The Kahanistani girl's attempt to show the Doomani what she and her people though of them worked: they demonstrated their sheer hatred for the Christian faith as a whole and all Doomani. And frankly, the Doomani did not care what they thought. What they had done, however, warranted a slaughter the likes of which had not yet been seen in this war.

Maximus tore the vile cartoon into pieces and looked up towards the nearest cluster of skyscrapers, some five kilometers away. Even from that distance he could see it very clearly.

Several of his generals had exited the tent, walking on Maximus' flanks looking around at the pamplets in disgust. He at last spoke,

"Their towers futiley reach towards heaven. Let us bring them crashing to the Earth below for their hatred of God Almighty, for they disgrace his skies with their heresy," he turned away and walked back into the tent, followed by the others.

An hour later, hundreds of artillery batteries were trained on the city. 152mm self-propelled howitzers, along with 300mm multiple-launch rocket system had been planning their bombardment for the past hour or so. The shells and rockets being loaded into the vehicles were something of a commodity in the Imperial Army. Chemical weapons.

Also trained on the structures in the immediate line-of-sight of the Imperial Army were Bootscraper self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, sporting twin 105mm L/70 guns. Because the DSRK's air force had been utterly annihilated, the Doomani had found an alternate use for this unique vehicle of theirs: Direct fire bombardment.

For this swift and terrible attack, Caesar, his generals, and a few dozen of his favorite tribunes and centurions, in full combat regalia, sat on lawn chairs near the front line with a perfect view of the city, along with a few dozen kegs of beer, and watched through binoculars.

Tended to by slaves, the men sipped their beer mugs as the first of the guns began to open fire on the city.

Behind them, the thundering of the howitzers and the shrieking of the rockets sounded. High over their heads, thousands of 300mm rockets streaked across the redened skies, along with hundreds more unseen 152mm shells. Before they began to impact, the Bootscrapers began their rapid bombardment from up ahead, prompting them men to look back towards the city as the shells began to impact in rapid succession on the apartments, each inidividual track pumping round after round from their twin 105's into Najaster.

Maximus smiled and lit up a cigar as he witnessed a 150 story-high aparment complex bear the rapid fire from four different Bootscraper systems, the high-explosive shells picking the facade of the structure apart in a matter of seconds. As the city began to crumble before the eyes of the butchers, unseen horrors occured out of sight.

All over the city itself, the rockets and shells began to slam into the ground. 152mm shells crashed through the roofs of buildings and began dispensing their gas; 300mm rockets burst, choking the air. The gas being used here would have been vaguely farmiliar to the Kahanistanis: it had been used by MassPwnage in the previous war.

Dubbed Pestis Dei by the Doomani, it was a gas devised by Pwnage Pharmaceuticals and DoomCorp in a joint chemical weapons program. The gas had been specifically engineered to burn through gas masks, NBC filters, clothing, even glass consisting in part of aerosolized hydroflouric acid. When it did make contact with the flesh or lungs, death was swift and absolutely agonizing.

Even when dealing with ionizing filters, the gas itself, along with being toxic and corrosive, was flammable, meaning that it would be ignited as it passed through ionizing filters, rendering them useless and exposing inhabitants of shelters to the deadly gas.

The bombardment would drag on for a total of two hours, the goal being sheer retribution. The entire time, the guns simply did not cease; they continually rained down shell after shell on the city, simply choking the air with Pestis Dei, while the Bootscrapers occasionaly ceased fire only to take on more ammunition and give their barrels time to cool off. Maximus, upon the conclusion of the attack, dictated another letter, this time to President Valens,

President Valens,

I need not introduce myself; formality in this instance is but a vanity. You know what I am capable of, both physically and mentally. You know full well that I have the capability of completely exterminating the city of Najaster, and you know that I will not hesitate to do so should I find it to be even slightly amusing.

Your men have fought bravely and admirably, and I shall not deny that. Yet, for all that, it has still come to this. Your armies lay shattered; your cities lay in ruins. Your government has fled the country in fear. Valens, what do you have left to fight for?

Freedom, you say, of course. That is always your justification. Freedom for who?

Your fight is futile. You are already defeated and you know it; it is only a matter of time before you are all dead. Is that what you want, Mr. President? Do you truly wish for me to wage a never-ending campaign of extermination on the Kahanistani people?

You know I will if I find it necessary, and as of late, it is starting to look as if it will be necessary. That brings us back to freedom. You know that if you continue this futile resistance, you will all perish; there is absolutely no hope of freedom from annhilation. By resisting, you bring nothing but death upon your people, not freedom, not democracy.

Valens, despite the disgusting things your people have done, despite my inclination to kill you all, I am offering you one last chance. Surrender, and you have my word I shall show quarter. I will give you three hours to think this over, I can imagine this situation I have put you in is rather perplexing.

One last thing: I do not hate you. I am merely removing an enemy.

Your Honorable Foe,

Caesar Maximus III

Najaster, Capital of Kahanistan

Even with their population severely depleted, the city still had a working NBC defense unit, equipped with NBC warfare suits, upgraded with double filters. However, despite the fact there were about three of them for every one individual remaining in the city due to the mass exoduses the nation had undergone, distributing them presented a significant logistical problem.

Pandemonium reigned supreme as the Pestis Dei, or Plague of God, struck the capital in absolutely terrifying amounts. Millions poured out of the city toward the Whyatican lines to surrender, many choking on their own bodily fluids, desperately seeking medical attention. Others fled to shelters, where Najaster Police handed out germ warfare suits to frightened civilians and rendered whatever medical assistance they could, usually palliative; injections of narcotics and such.

Hundreds of towers were struck by thousands of Doomani shells; while the civilian structures were built to resist artillery and missile strikes, not even the mightiest of fortresses could withstand being struck by hundreds of 300mm rockets, with a total payload likely capable of sinking a battleship. Undoubtedly hundreds of thousands or millions would be killed.

The city which had half an hour earlier been a raucous den of drugged-up civilians congratulating Miss Laila al-Majani for her creative cartoonism and holding orgies that would make an ancient Roman blush was, in short, now a clone of Stalingrad with chemical weapons. Men and women lay in rubble buried several hundred feet deep, children cried for their mommies while throwing up copious quantities of gore, and the survivors prayed to whatever gods they worshipped.

Maximus had apparently not known of Valens' resignation from the Presidency, but General Valens did not care as he read Caesar's letter. The old general's hands shook as he read this, not knowing what he should believe.

Valens' eyes filled with tears for the first time since he had seen his wife's body taken from the Freekish stake. He took two cyanide pill and inserted them into his mouth, but would not bite down until he was taken to be tortured. He wrote back to Maximus.

Caesar, I have no wish to die. I and many of my people do find it preferable to foreign occupation under a government whose culture is so different from ours, but not all of my people do, and it is for their sake that I offer the surrender of the capital city.

I would like my surrender to be sent to the other cities so that they might surrender, and to have your word that those of my people who have been captured will be freed. Those prisoners we have managed to take and keep alive, if any are found in Najaster, will also be released.

[OOC: While there are probably very few, if any, prisoners captured by the Kahanistanian side, Valens is too high in the chain of command to be aware of exact details of the battlefield. He's trying to get Maximus to trust him, and his political skills suck.]

Castle Von Wolf, Romania…

The Count smiled as he got the message from Maximus, he had a feeling that the Caesar would be mad at being called young one. He didn’t think anybody would like being call young one by anyone. But it was his way, everybody was a young one to the Count. Even an eighty year old man would be a young one.

The Count would fix that later with the Caesar, like invite him to Castle Von Wolf to a party in his father’s honor. Helldawg would like that and maybe Maximus would too.

But back to the point, the Count started a message back to the Caesar.

-----------

Very well and I thank you for trying. I know your cousin wasn’t the person I had to deal with, but he could have controlled his prime minister better. That man is a hundred percent fool. If Paulus is like you or your father, then I know that there is something good about the man.

Now, as you did what I asked, I will hold my end of the bargain. If I have any key male official in my custody, they will be send to your nation for you do whatever you want with them.

These Kahanstanis are being a little tricking, my people are having a hard time find this key officials. I think I have found a way to find them.

Anyways, I’m thinking about holding a party to honor your father and the new legion of the Dominion Armed Forces, which has been named to honor your father. Maybe after this, the party will be start and we can met in person then.

Best wishes, Maximus.

Signed,
The Count

-----------

The Count then send the message and took a drink of fresh blood from a black cup.

Airbase Flying Dragon, Jordan, Dominion Middle East…

Air Admiral Michael Klunzinger smiled at her and said “I don’t know about transportation to Praetonia, but there is a cargo plane being readied to take you to Romania.” The man’s eyes looked down at the lady as he was close to six feet, six inches tall.

“The Count knows that you are here and that you are the highest ranked official of your government in the Dominion,” he said, “Unless you not the highest official here.”

At that time, in the hanger and the other hangers that had Kahanstani government officials, a new search as started. One that used the cameras in those hangers to looked at the faces of each of the Kahanstani government officials. Then faces then would be ran through a database of known Kahanstani government officials, mostly the ones seen on television and etc.

The Count would get his prize soon.

A cold, female, Israeli-accented voice spoke from behind Delray.

"We are not interested in going to Romania. We will go to Praetonia."

The speaker was a slender, attractive woman about 5'6" with long dark hair and vacant gray eyes. She looked about 35, but then, the war and emotional stress had aged her. In actuality she was only 28. She looked coldly at the Dominion officer. She was a Kahanistanian security officer; it was her job to be suspicious of anything out of the ordinary, and she thought the Dominion would try to get classified information from them in the Transylvanian capital.

Delray looked back up at the Admiral. "What can I do for you?"

Maximus smiled triumphantly as he read over Valens' response for the fifth time. His brutal attack on Najaster had been well worth it; it had brought an end to the war. By butchering millions he had potentially saved billions of Kahanistani souls from damnation, for now they would here the Word of God!

Caesar wrote back swiftly and without delay to the conquered Valens,

President Valens,

I hereby accept your surrender. Formal ceremonies for this surrender shall be held in three hours in my camp; you are expected to attend. You have my word that your men shall be released. You may possibly have Whyaticans in custody, though I myself am not sure of this; they should be released to the Whyaticans themselves, for I know for a fact none of my men would have allowed themselves to be taken alive.

You also have my word that your surrender shall be delivered to the rest of the cities so that this bloodshed may end immediately.

I shall see you in three hours.

Your's in Peace,

Caesar Maximus III

Maximus lit up a cigar, and turned to the men assembled before him.

They were all covered in dirt and sweat, all scarred from past battles. Some were stained with blood. All of them had a hardened look on his face. These were his top centurions and tribunes, men he valued greatly. Once again they'd served him well.

Marking the end of the Siege of Najaster, he let sound one last battle cry,

"DEUS VULT!"

General Marcellus Valens and several other men and women, the commanders of the defending forces who had survived, left the bombed-out Kahanistanian capital to meet Caesar Maximus Alexius Doomanus III. One officer, trying to lighten the mood, cracked the joke that Caesar's initials spelled "mad." He was fixed with an icy look from another officer.

The Kahanistanian commanders crossed the lines of entrenchments to the earthern rampart surrounded by barbed wire and stakes. Valens nodded to the Equites on the path. The Kahanistanians were so used to Doomani brutality they barely noticed the severed heads of soldiers and flayed, crucified corpses that lined the gateways.

Across the entrance to the camp, Valens and his company walked down a red carpet to stand before Caesar Maximus. Maximus' legionary eagle was held before the commanders by Doomani standard bearers. Maximus, too, had a company, several centurions and tribunes to witness the surrender of the mighty Kahanistanian general who had never before surrendered in his fifty-one years as a military commander.

The seven-foot tall Valens sat down in a large seat by a table across from Maximus, and read over the surrender documents.

Maximus wore blood-stained dirty BDUs, his armor, a golden cross emblazoned on the chest over that, with his crested and crowned helmet sitting atop his shaved head. Leaning against his throne was his Gladius. He was only slightly shorter than Valens at 6'8", but in superb shape, and a bulky, muscular build. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing numerous scars on his arms; the scars across his face were a trademark of his.

"I've already signed my part, brother," Maximus said to Valens cordially.

They very well could have been signing a trade agreement if one didn't take Maximus' tone into context.

"The Whyaticans are late as usual, I'm afraid."

Indeed, General Raj-Singh was still on his way to Maximus' camp to sign the documents with the others.

Imperial Palace
"Sir, a communication from Caesar." an aide said, pointing to a printout in a manila envelope for the Emperor's eyes only. The 19 year old Emperor looked at the envelope and said, "From the battlefront?" The aide nodded, and the Emperor dismissed him with a wave of his hand. He flipped open the envelope, reading his cousin's message, and stood up from his chair.

"Why should I apologize for that nutball's remarks?" he muttered, pulling up a computer for him to type out a response.


Cousin, I refuse to apologize for Prime Minister McMillin's remarks. It is not my responsibility, and I believe that it is not Whyatica's responsibility that the idiot Count put his own civilians in harm's way by putting them in a military station.

Emperor Paulus I

Paulus sighed. He also began drafting an official document, one that would remove Prime Minister McMillin and his government from power. He didn't like invoking his powers in the middle of several international crises, because that would cause a massive change in leadership of not just the domestic government, but the military, might cause problems within the Colonial Parliaments, and so on and so forth.

"McMillin's gone too far.." he mumbled to himself, as he began to type the official orders.

Imperial Army fighting men would enter the Capitol building, seize the Prime Minister and his entire cabinet, and put them under Army custody before the Emperor installed a new government from Parliament. As Paulus typed, a thought entered his mind that would change the face of the Imperial Democracy forever..

Kahanistan
As a temporary forward HQ for the besieging forces was brought forth, General Raj-Singh was flown from the base in Whyatican Arabia, so he could more effectively command the Whyatican army group that was still advancing forth, preparing to encircle the remaining Kahanistani cities and prevent a breakout attempt from reaching the contravellation line. As the dust was settling over the former Valens Line, General Singh entered a tent to talk to a communications officer and see if he had missed anything in the 25 minute flight from Arabia to the temporary airfield in Kahanistan.

"General, the Kahanistani have surrendered to Caesar. Valens has gone to the Doomingslandi camp for surrender talks." the comm officer said, listening to his radio.

"Tell the Lieutenant General that he's in temporary command, I'm taking the chopper over to the Doomani camp." Singh yelled, jogging out of the tent and over to a waiting helipad. A transport helicopter, escorted by two attack helicopters, flew the distance around Najaster to the Doomani camp quickly, trying to get Raj-Singh there before the Doomani finished negotiating. Whyatica had it's own interests to be defended here, after all..

His hands shaking, General Marcellus Quintus Valens signed his full name to the surrender document.

The general sat back, as if a heavy weight had been lifted from his chest. He waited for the Whyaticans to arrive so he could negotiate with them.

General Singh's helicopter landed in the Doomani camp with little fanfare, his Imperial Guards escort struggling to keep up with him as he entered the building with the Doomani Emperor and the Kahanistani man. He gave a nod to the Emperor. He had had a brief meeting with Caesar prior to the operation, making sure their strategies were similar and that the command and control was integrated. Valens he had seen before in the pre-operation intelligence briefing, but it was unlikely the disgraced General had seen him before. He quickly introduced himself to the Kahanistani man merely as "General Raj-Singh, Whyatican Empire. Apologies for the lateness, our radio man was slow in receiving the message that you had surrendered."

Singh looked at the surrender document, reading it briefly. Imperial Whyatica had no intentions of occupying Kahanistan post-war, leaving all of it to the Doomani anyway. He didn't especially care what the Doomani did, so he signed the document and put the pen down.

"General Marcellus Valens," said Valens. He extended his hand to General Singh. "Lateness is always unfortunate in battle." Turning back to Maximus, the general asked, "What will happen to Kahanistan now?"

Maximus responded sternly, "The former nation of Kahanistan is now officialy the Province of Iudaea, sovereign territory of the Imperium Doomanum. The people you once ruled over shall now commence the ardous process of becoming Imperial citizens; I sincerely hope they do not...resist this process," he said thoughtfully.

He elaborated no further.

"General Valens, you and your men are now my prisoners," Maximus remained seated as a group of Equites entered through the gates, their rifles leveled with bayonets fixed.

His centurions, lining the side, had their hands on their sidearms.

"You shall all return to Najaster and organize the disarmament of the city and the surrender of its populace," he said to Valens' officers and guards, "You, Valens. You shall remain here."

A pair of Equites Augusta approached Valens and proceeded to handcuff him, forcing him to kneel. The table was removed, leaving a clear path from Valens to Maximus. Maximus remained seated, staring into Valens' eyes.

His Aquifiler, the Eagle Bearer, lowered Maximus golden legionary eagle, affixed to a long shaft, pushed it towards Valens, and indicated for Valens to kiss it.

Castle Von Wolf, Romania…

The Count sat back in his large leather chair, relaxing as people were being killed by the Doomani forces. He didn’t really care about their lives and how they were killed. He watched the city being attack on a satellite feed on the hundred inch flat scene plasma television on the wall with his office’s bar.

He hasn’t heard from Maximus, but knew the man was in the middle of a war zone. So, he would wait, but had a feeling that the nineteen old Paulus wouldn’t do what he was asked to do. The boy was too young to rule a nation and too young to do what’s best for his nation. The Count is a dangerous person to have pissed off at you.

As he waited, he knew that Kahanstan wouldn’t be a nation anymore after the Doomani attack. So, he has a government in exile within his nation.

And he had to do something about that. He got in touch with Airbase Flying Dragon…


Airbase Flying Dragon, Jordan, Dominion Middle East…

The Kahanistanian security officer would get to met somebody as rude as she was to the Air Admiral, behind her came a voice. It was young sounding male voice, but one that had some knowledge in it.

“If you wanted to go to Praetonia, then why flying into the Dominion? The Praetonian don’t give a damn about you and your people. If they did then, they would have stepped in and aided you.” said the man, wearing the same uniform as the Air Admiral with the rank of Captain on his upper arm.

The man was a blonde haired, blue eyed Dominionite, that was somewhat mad that he had to deal with these exiled people. They could stayed and deal with the Doomani.

Before the Kahanistanian security officer or Dr. Delray could say anything, the Air Admiral looked over at his captain.

“Captain, that was uncalled for.” he said in commanding tone.

“Sorry, sir,” said the captain, ”Anyways, the Count is on the radio for you.”

“Very well,” he said, the looked over at the two women and adds, “Ladies, I have to see my lord wants. Maybe it is something good for you and your government”

With that, the two men walked towards the hanger’s office and entered the small room. They stayed in there for close to fifteen minutes until the Air Admiral came back out to Delray.

”Good news, in an hour, you and the rest of your government will be boarding transport planes to head to Praetonia under the cost of the Dominion. I will tell you when they are ready.” he said, in the same tone as he talked with her early.

Doomani Camp

Valens was a huge man, but he had been taken by surprise and been unable to resist before the cuffs were on him. When the eagle was lowered to him, he understood the motion and kissed the emblem. To him it was just another idol, and he was in no mood to argue.

The generals who were with him headed back to Najaster, where the people had readied their arms to fight to the death. The general who announced the surrender had a gun leveled in his face until another officer warned that shooting the messenger would lead to Doomani retaliation. Not wanting another whiff of Pestis Dei, the gunner complied and laid down his weapon.

Thousands of Kahanistanians came out of their apartments, holding weapons to surrender. Many others were hiding their weapons in vents, toilet bowls, or even in the dirt that filled the gardening vats some Kahanistanian citizens hung out of their high-rises in order to grow flowers and plants without garden space. These weapons ranged from .22 pistols to Javelin ATGM's; almost all remaining residents had at least an AK-47 and many had more advanced rifles. Some gun nuts had whole racks with several dozen guns on them.

---

The Dominion

"Thank you very much," said Dr. Delray. She turned to the security officer. "Major Fulton, that was a bit cold."

The pretty security officer nodded her head. "I wasn't going to have them extracting information from us in Romania. We'll all stick together, and we'll all go to Praetonia together."

"Good plan," said Delray.

The Doomani roared with laughter as Valens humbled himself. Maximus himself cracked a smile when he bore witness to it. Suddenly, he stood, drawing his sword and holding it high in the air,

"DEUS VULT!" he roared in triumph.

"DEUS VULT!" the rest of the men roared robotically, drawing their swords; others fired their rifles and pistols into the air.

The men chanted the battle cry for a good two minutes as Maximus sheathed his sword and walked back into his tent. The chanting continued even as a pair of guards siezed Valens and lead him towards a hanging cage in the center of the camp, outside of Caesar's Praetorium.

The cage was lowered and Valens, still handcuffed, was forced inside, the door slammed shut behind him. An electric motor pulled on the chain connected to the cage, hoisting it up into the air, and Valens was left there. Slowly, the men began to disperse.

The encampment itself was precisely layed out; this particular section, housing the high-ranking officers, was separate from the rest of the fortifications, containing just a few dozen tents of varrying purposes in three neat rows forming a partial square around a central square, along with a few tracked vehicles, and surrounded by earthern ramparts. Maximus' tent was the largest and most ornate, at the center of the row adjacent to the entrance.

Valens' cage was located at the center of the central square, giving him a view of everything around him. It all had a rather temporary feel to it.

He had just two guards assigned to him, both of them Equites Augusta. Though they were not expecting Valens to attempt an escape, they were extremely warry, none the less. Such was the result of Legionary training.

Meanwhile, all civilians had been instructed to leave the city and approach Whyatican or Doomani lines with their hands in the air. They were told that those who refused to leave would be killed without exception; however, more time would be given to the sick and wounded to leave.

They were told that once it had been confirmed all Kahanistanis had been accounted for, they would be returned home. For now, they would be sent to nearby relocation camps for registration...

Doomani Camp

The Kahanistanian General looked around warily. He would wait until he was either searched or in a situation where he would be tortured before biting down on the two cyanide pills he still had in his mouth.

He faced the guards. "What will you do with me?" Valens asked stoically, as he always spoke.

---

Najaster, Capital of Kahanistan

Most of the citizens moved towards the Whyatican lines, expecting more humane treatment and a pass out of the country. Some holed up in their homes or in the sewers with their weapons, a few went to the Doomani lines, a few even took potshots at the Doomies, aiming for officers.

The insurgency had begun.

Raid on Government

Meanwhile, the VTOL aircraft had begun to blast a message informing the attacking Republic Guards of Kahanistan's surrender. However, at the same time, the mounted special forces had begun taking up positions around the crash sites. Every Kahanistani that wasn't shooting at them was hit with tranquilizer guns and tasers and loaded into the CMPL; at the same time, the heavy 15.7x131mm machineguns layed down heavy suppressive fire on the incoming Republic Guards, while the special forces not tied up with taking prisoners (namely the squad marksmen, grenadiers, and automatic riflemen) also assisted in laying down covering fire.

The VTOLs had taken heavy fire from the incoming MANPADs initially; thanks to their heavy armor, only two were forced to make crash landings in the desert. This, however, presented a great problem for the other men on the ground: they'd have to choose between rescueing their downed airmen before they were killed by the Kahanistanis, or continueing on with the mission.

Naturaly, they chose the later. The downed air crew would have to come later.

The VTOL pilots had done their best to crash as far away from the enemy as possible. The protection of the aircrafts' armor as well as the fact they were hitting soft sand ensured the pilot, copilot, and weapons operator survived; however, on both craft, the crew chief, the only crewman not located in the cockpit, were killed on impact.

On both aircraft, the crew were relatively intact and capable of moving. It was decided that they would put up a defense of their positions until they could be extracted.

Armed with DAC-97 sub machineguns, they'd try to hold out as long as they could. In desparation, the crews, whose craft had crashed facing away from the Kahanistanis, jerry rigged their 15.7mm miniguns mounted in the rear doors to protect the crash sites.

With one man on the machinegun, the other two would take cover amidst the wreckage and prepare for the onslaught. Surrender was not an option; it was a concept alien to the Doomani. They would die for their Faith, martyrs deaths, deaths they found to be fitting and glorious. If it was indeed their time, they would welcome it, smiling in the face of God as they entered Heaven in payment to their services to Christ on Earth.

Meanwhile, noticing the predicament of their comrades, two of the VTOLs split off from the main group, covering the crash sites with their cannons and rocket pods.

An emergency alarm had been sent back to the High Command, and within minutes another two dozen ACI-91s loaded up with air mobile Legionaries was en route. Rather than a quick snatch and grab, these men were ordered to exterminate the Kahanistani infantry.

At the same time, eight Acredula medium bombers we rerouted to the area. They would provide close air support to the men on the ground from an altitude of 40,000 feet, something that seemed to be a contridiction. However, they would act as gunships, dropping 1000lb laser guided bombs whereever the men on the ground needed them to be dropped.

To spare their comrades the horrific tortures the Doomani had in mind, the Kahanistanian infantry opened indiscriminate fire in the general direction of the captors. If a bullet struck one of the prisoners instead, fine; the prisoner would be spared the hellish tortures of Doomanum. Some even went as far as firing on the CMPL's that held their friends.

The soldiers at this point were more concerned with avoiding torture by the Doomies than with saving their own lives. Many killed themselves if separated from their units for more than five seconds.

Those who had sniper rifles aimed for the machine gunners, they were presenting a formidable obstacle and killing many of the Kahanistanian infantry. Covering their ill-organized attack with MANPAD fire at the VTOL's, the soldiers advanced to capture the Doomani crews of the planes. Experience as a Kahanistanian prisoner of war and the humane treatment they would be afforded would hopefully weaken whatever hold their propaganda had on them, if only slightly. Planting the seeds of doubt in some military officers might be all that was needed in Doomanum...

However, the advancing infantry was taking heavy casualties from those machine guns. Sniper fire worked, especially if the snipers aimed to wound, rather than kill. The biggest threats were the VTOL's that were exchanging fire with the MANPAD crews...

"DEUS VULT!" the air crews roared in unison as they let loose a vicious torrent of fire at the advancing Kahanistanis.

No Doomani had ever been made a prisoner of war; it would be no different this day. The heavy 15.7mm miniguns let loose a wall of lead capable of disintegrating most light vehicles in the blink of an eye; this firepower was now brought directly to bear on the advancing enemy soldiers by the downed aircrew, while the other two took careful aim with their DAC-97s, aiming for the face, extremedies, and pelvis in the likely event the enemy was wearing body armor.

Their superb marksmenship training, driven into them constantly since early childhood, would allow for them to pick off the swarming enemy soldiers with little difficulty...

As the men waged what was likely to be the last fight they ever engaged in, they chanted their prayers, calling upon God to make their aim true, to guide their bullets into the skulls of the infidels, even as they squeezed the triggers on their weapons.

The men were completely filled with rage; they were prepared to die for the Faith and Empire. As their last act on Earth, they would slaughter as many infidels as they possibly could, and to this end they put great effort. They knew no other option but to do so; surrender was a concept alien to them. If the enemy came dangerously close, the men would simply tear the pins from the grenades lining their vests and hurl themselves at the enemy in the manner of a suicide bomber. Such was the way of the Doomani. They would die the death of martyrs and smile in the face of God Himself in a matter of minutes.

Death before dishonor; death before blasphemy!

Meanwhile, the special forces had done all they could. All the government officials they could get to were either dead or loaded up in their transports; under the cover of machinegun fire, they mounted up (taking their dead and wounded with them) and began to drive away at high speed, heading towards a safe extraction zone out of the enemy's line of sight.

The infantry attack had been utterly blunted. It gave a few dozen politicians time to escape in the confusion, but most of the intended targets of the rescue effort had either killed themselves, died of crash injuries, or been captured.

Virtually the whole battalion had been wiped out. Only a few soldiers escorting around 60 officials managed to survive by reaching the humanitarian corridor to Transylvania and freedom.

The last pocket of military resistance had collapsed totally. All that was left now were the insurgents, various paramilitaries fighting for their own ideas against a force that had already defeated the military.

Within 24 hours, the other Kahanistanian cities would surrender too. Iudaea Province was now in Doomani hands.

The air crew, shocked at their survival and their victory, attributed it to none other than God Himself. God's Will had dictated that they triumph gloriously over the infidels, and they had done that! The men would be spending the next few days locked in solemn prayer in thanks to God for this glorious victory.

However, unfortunately for the escaping soldiers and officials, the surrender of Kahanistan had resulted in the closing of the corridor; they had nowhere to run now.

The incoming reinforcements now began to arrive in their VTOLs, initially making a strafing run over the group of fleeing men and women.

They fired rockets filled with aerosol warheads containing gas designed to knock the Kahanistanis unconcious in a matter of seconds; seconds after their firing, the soldiers fast roped onto the desert floor from their VTOLs all around the Kahanistanis while the door gunners made a point to eviscerate anyone still on his feet who had a weapon.

They would quickly round up the survivors and load them onto the VTOLs...

OOC:I'm done for tonight, we'll wrap this thread up tommorow and tie up the loose ends and we'll start the occupation thread...

Imperial Palace, Miana, Whyatica
A messenger rushed into the room with a message folder marked 'URGENT' again for the Emperor's eyes only. Giving the folder to Paulus with a bow, the messenger left the room as he was not meant to even be in the room with the Emperor while he read the message. He flipped open the folder, and threw it on the table where his computer rest, a half-finished document in it's midst. He scanned the contents of the folder once, and his eyes bulged a bit and he picked up the paper to read it more closely. It detailed how the Kahanistani had surrendered, the Pestis Dei plague, and everything else from the last report until now.

He doubled his efforts on what he was writing. The war was basically over, now was his only good opportunity to remove McMillin before things could get worse. He had talked to one of his best friends, an Imperial law scholar, to weigh all his legal options in removing PM McMillin, to make sure that all his planned moves were within the bounds of the various documents that restricted the Imperial crown's power. After his friend had assured him that he wasn't committing anything illegal, he began to write an official Imperial edict, erasing it several times to start over. He became a little nervous about his planned moves, as an Emperor had not seized power like this for proverbial eons.

Finally satisfied with his work, he began printing copies, signing them with the official Imperial seal, and sending them through the proper channels to put it in motion..

_________________________
EMPEROR REMOVES PM FROM OFFICE
PM WILL FIGHT EDICT
MC Register
The Imperial Crown today issued an edict removing controversial Prime Minister David R. McMillin of the Libertarian Party from office, assuming temporary control of the duties of Head of State and Head of Government until a new government can be chosen. Emperor Paulus cited in his Edict, "..the growing abuse of executive power in domestic and foreign matters...", and "..the insane warmongering regarding Kahanistan and others..". This follows a major international uproar about Imperial military actions within the former nations of Kahanistan and Clandonia Prime. Many in the allied nation of Praetonia are calling for the expulsion of the Imperial Democracy from the Sovereign League, which provoked PM McMillin to make an inflammatory speech in Miana Square two days ago, causing further furor in the Crown Commonwealth.

As the Imperial Powers Act of 1891 gives him, Emperor Paulus is legally justified to remove the Prime Minister's government if there is "gross incompetence" or other justifiable offenses. Paulus will be holding executive power for now, and he has ordered the Imperial Army to take custody of McMillin and his Cabinet for trial.

____________________________________________

Capitol Building, Miana, Whyatica

During an extended session of Parliament, Prime Minister McMillin stood at the podium, giving a ranting speech about how staying in Kahanistan for the occupation is the right course, not giving in to threats from other nations is the path of the brave, and so on, and so forth. The MPs were beginning to tire of his rhetoric, they noticed the man's descent into insanity and were preparing to vote him off the floor, when the doors were suddenly jarred open and three Imperial Army fighting men, dressed in honour guard uniform, with battle rifle and bayonet. McMillin stared wildly at them, and he said, "I know what you are going to do..Guards!"

The Imperial Guards in the Chambers stood at attention. These men were conditioned to obey every order the PM gave them, whether right or wrong. They were the élite of the Imperial military, but their intense loyalty would prove to be a problem..

"I WILL NOT BE ARRESTED!" McMillin bellowed, adding, "OPEN FIRE!" at the Guards. They armed their weapons, the fifty Guards in the chambers, and the Army soldiers looked wildly across the room, arming their battle rifles and preparing for what they thought would be a mere standoff against their fellow soldiers. They were very tragically wrong, however, as the Guardsmen opened fire with their battle rifles, cutting down two of the Army grunts before they had a chance to fire, and the third soldier fired wildly at the Guards, putting a hole through the wall and nearly killing a man on the other side. McMillin ran out a rear door, headed for an emergency radio transmitter in the Capitol, one that had the capacity to broadcast on all frequencies to warn the Mianan populace about immenent disasters.

Pushing his way through interns, MPs, and other men unimportant to him, David crashed through the door of the radio room, and locked it behind him, He set the radio frequency to the one that all Imperial Guards used to receive orders in their earpieces, and said into it, "The Emperor has committed treason, he is attempting to execute me..All Guards, open fire on the Emperor's Army soldiers, drive to Miana Palace and capture Paulus!"

Castle Von Wolf, Romania…

Being in a mood that he hasn’t been in a long time, the count was going to read a message to the young emperor of Whyatica. He was going to give the young man a reality check with this message. One that could put him on the straight arrow of running a nation right or just piss him off. The Count really didn’t care which path that the young man will follow, he just want to mess with him.

He started writing the message….

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

Dear young one,

I’m going to try and show you the path of ruling a country right. First off, place somebody in control that you can trust and is not a nut job like your prime minister. You know he cost your nation an ally with his comments to me. Maximus, on the other hand, is a find young man and damn good leader like his father.

Now, here is other thing that a good leader needs to know. Have your military commander research a few things before you attack. If your men did their jobs, they would have found out more about that Clandonian build space station. I’m going to give you some history about that space station.

At first the station was manned by only Clandonians, but that changed a week later. At that time, the space station became a joint space operation between the Dominion and Clandonia Prime. The personal was divide between both nations.

A month after that, the space station became a joint civilian-military station as it was big enough to handle both of those thing. By that time, the space station was seen as a Dominion space asset. So, your forces should have ever targeted the space station.

At the time of the murder of my crew on that station, I didn’t ask for money or anything from your nation. All I said was for your commander to face the families of the murdered crew members.

This is where I will be getting a little rude with you. I think you are too young to rule a nation like Whyatica. I have seen a lot of people like you through out my long life. Take me, I didn’t gave my power until I was over ten thousand years old. I was in the background during the early years of the Dominion until I became the rightful leader of her. I did form the Dominion back in the day.

Paulus, I want to go find you a nice looking women and get laid. Then go out and find somebody like Lord Paris or Sir Daniels to become your new prime minister. And have your old prime minister killed for being a fool.

That is all and I hope you have a nice day. The United Dominion will not try and invade your nation, so you don’t have to worry about us. Maybe you will have to worry about those in the SL, I don’t think they will like the latest actions of your nation.

Signed,
The Count

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

With that he sent the message to the young man.

Airbase Flying Dragon, Jordan, Dominion Middle East…

The time somehow flew by really, really fast as the transport planes were fueled for the trip. There were enough planes for all of the Kahanstanian government officials. These people would be happy, as the Air Admiral walked back into the hanger and over to Delray.

“Mrs. Delray, the planes are ready and you may get your people ready to board the planes. We have fighters ready to travel with the planes as far as they can.” said the Air Admiral.

The hanger’s large doors opened to show the waiting transports planes, each black paint with the Dominion markings on them.

Castle Von Wolf, Romania…

The Count need to read the Ceaser another message because he knew he would see something weird as a large number of transport planes and fighter were about to leave the airbase in Jordan.

He started back up his message service and began to type.

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

I’m giving them all to you, if you want to know. I wrote message to Paulus, too. Told him to get laid and maybe that will clear the boy’s head a little. Told him to get people that he can trust to run of his nation.

I hope you are in the mood to party as I’m going to throw a party in honor of your father soon. I’m working on everything as of now.

Later.

Signed,
The Count

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

He pushed the send button and got back to the party planning thing until some thing else popped up for him to do.

As the Kahanistanians boarded the planes, Fulton clasped Delray on the shoulder.

"What is it, Major?" asked the Foreign Minister.

"I've got a bad feeling about this. Seriously. They were going to take us to Romania, probably to get information out of us... I don't think they'd give up so easily. This isn't good..."

"Major... you're a good officer, that's why you were put in command of the Presidential Security Detachment. But this is just paranoia."

"I trust her," said Senator Nikolai Vorinov. "She's got a certain... way of knowing things are up. I wouldn't get on that plane."

"Fine," said Delray. "We'll go to the Midlonian Red Cross station."

However, most of the officials did not heed Fulton's warning. 1,200 members of the Supreme Soviet boarded the planes, along with several dozen Kahanistanian security officers and family members of the officials. There were also several cabinet ministers on the planes and hundreds of lower officials.

The other four hundred or so Senators and other officials left the Dominion base for the Midlonian Red Cross station.

Airbase Flying Dragon, Jordan, Dominion Middle East…

The only thing that wasn’t good for those that tried to exit the base is that the Midlonian Red Cross station wasn’t near the base or in the Dominion and that the base was on locked down. The base was really near to the are where all the fight had happened at, so it would be on locked down. Those they were trying to leave, got to see some armed soldiers guarding the gates.

One of the soldiers looked behind him to see this large group of people heading his way.

“People, the planes are on there.” he said, pointing over at the large number of planes.

As one of the transports was filled to its limit, the plane moved to the runway and began to enter the sky. The fly path was heading towards Praetonia as two F-35A Lightning II fighters moved in to each side of the transport.

One by one, the transport planes were entering the air, heading after each other. Two F-35A Lightning II fighters would link up with each transport plane as they flew towards Praetonia.

As they got out of the range of the people, knock out gas began to fill the planes, unseen by the naked eye. The only Dominionites on the planes were in the cockpit as they were full off Kahanstanians. The gas should keep them out long enough for the planes to arrive in Doomingsland and there was still a back up system to be used, if they started to wake up. The planes started moving into their fly path to Doomingsland.

The only transport planes that were left were the one for the rest of the Kahanstanian government officials.

The security officers with the politicians shook their heads. "We'll have to get out of here..." Fulton's suspicion became hard proof in the eyes of most of those remaining. Suddenly, several people in the crowd produced M-9 Berettas from their clothes and fired into the Dominionites. During the confusion, most of the officials who had refused to board the planes escaped, losing 24 dead politicians and 57 dead security personnel.

"Grab cars, any cars!" ordered the security commander. Skilled in hotwiring vehicles as many of the security were (they were actually trained to prevent hotwirings, but some learned how to hotwire in the process), they managed to liberate several dozen cars, which they took in various directions, communicating by radio, to find the Midlonian Red Cross station.

Airbase Flying Dragon, Jordan, Dominion Middle East…

Then the shit hit the fan as the jump Kahanstanian jumped the gun, their 9mm rounds were almost useless against the solders in dark gray and dark blue sets of Transylvanian body armor. A few rounds impacted the eyes holes of the armor and killed the wearers.

As those few that were killed fell to their knees, the orders was given to shot to kill. The soldiers were part of the 6th Soul Tigers (http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y101/CountJWolf/6th.jpg) and each one had a DR-83 tactical rifle in their hands.

They dropped down to a knee and began to fire at the Kahanstanian officials and their security officers. The base was locked down, where were the Kahanstanians thinking they could run to.

A number of Ka-50 Black Shark attack helicopters began to enter the air and search for those that were trying to escape, their cannons armed with deadly rounds.

“Kahanstanians, what have you done?” came the Air Admiral’s voice over the base speaker system located throughout the base. The sound of M-415 Mongoose infantry fighting vehicles (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12133340&postcount=92) could be heard in the air, they were joining the hunting of the Kahanstanians. They began to train their weapons on the fleeing Kahanstanians.

The only vehicles to be found would be ones that had armed Soul Tigers around them or near them. These soldiers were in towers, on roofs, and almost everyway they could have been at. Each one fired into the Kahanstanian.

“Surrender because you started this attack!” yelled the Air Admiral’s voice over the speaker system.

The airbase had became a battlefield...

OOC: Your people aren’t going to liberate any car on the base as they are Armed Forces vehicles or Air Forces vehicles, which have guards around them or close to them. They will have to fight for those cars, if they want them so bad.

[OOC: They're going for civilian cars off the base. I'm not about to write 40-some new character bios just to restart my government, especially when I've put months into developing them and already effectively lost one major one. You've already got most of the nondescript senators.]

After harrowing chases, close calls, many crashes of cars and deaths and captures of officials and security personnel, the two-hour ordeal ended when the remaining vehicles found and entered the place where the Kahanistanian civilians were being sorted by the Midlonian Red Cross.

"The Dominionites are trying to kill us, they're taking some of us to Romania for interrogation and we wouldn't board, and they wouldn't let us off the base so we shot our way out," they said. They then mingled into the civilians.

OOC: Do you know what locked down means? Four hundred against thousands of Dominionites in a locked down base. Meaning your people would not get to far from the edge of the base before they were killed. I have soldiers everywhere becasue of the this war.

The border is closed from what Doom said and there is not a Midlonian Red Cross station within my nation as I said early. I wouldn’t have allowed them to set up shop.

[OOC: I know exactly what a lockdown is. These are some highly trained security officers and the Midlonians were evacuating civilians earlier. Maybe they set up shop without permission?]

To be sure of their safety, the Kahanistanians grabbed any aircraft laying around that wasn't bolted down, and spread as many of their people as they could into as many aircraft as they could see, and filled each of them to the brim with civilians. The Dominion would have to choose between letting a few politicians go and killing thousands of civilians.

Destination: Kingston, Praetonia.

OOC: My guards are highly trained soldiers and the base isn’t anywhere near a city. I don’t place base near cities. So, there would have been a rare number of civilian car for you people to get.

From what I read early, the Midlonians were on your side of this not mine. If they were on my side, then they would have ask to set up shop.

Early, I was trying to get a few of your people to come to Romania because the Count was going to check them safe. I don’t need to learn anything for your people, so why would I want to interrogate them?

Your last few posts have been godmodding. Liberating car when you know my people would fight your people, if they tried to steal their cars.

Ignoring that you are in my nation and saying that after two hours, your people escaped. I would have had helicopters on them the whole time and pistols can’t take down helicopters. Speaking of those pistols, your people should have had those anyways. If you said something about them early, I would have already took them away. You don’t bring firearms onto another person’s base and think you can keep them.

Lastly, about your latest post, the border has been closed down from what Doom said. Meaning those people would still be in my nation. Meaning you have to role-play fighting for those planes, if they are in civilian airports. A bunch of armed people couldn’t just go in and think they can get what they want. Almost all of my airports have guards armed with sub-machine guns.

[I know it's a bit wanky, but it's my right not to lose important characters I spent months developing. I'm willing to accept the loss of most of my government, I'm just saving a few key officials and an "old order" core around which to build my new government, and preserve several months of character development. I can't lose them all, you know.]

OOC: All I was going to do was throw those not killed and whom gave up into some heavy max prison. They will be safe.

OOC: I didn't know that, you were going to send them all to Doom, and I still wouldn't have the old order core to build my new government around if they were in prison. How can I build a new nation and have any continuity without any of the leaders from my old nation?

IC: The planes headed for Doom would arrive uneventfully, not a creature stirred, not even a mouse. The passengers were still asleep, blissfully ignorant of their true location...

Official Response
Target: Emperor Maximus III, Imperivm Doomanvm

Of course, perhaps I did not make myself clear. As per standard protocol Catalasian fighters will escort the transports to the edge of former Kahanistani airspace, where they will break off and await Doomani escorts; no armed aircrafts shall enter the airspace under Imperial control.

~ Donovan A. Ladd ~
Premier of the Commonwealth

Ladd was almost tempted to add the word "Better?" after the end of the paragraph, or issue a Picard-esque Make it so! command to the officers in charge of deploying the humanitarian mission. But he did neither. Instead, he merely hit the send button, to get it to Maximus, with the invisible CC to the Air Marshal.

Within two hours twelve DF-3 'Kestrel' fighters, newly commissioned from Czardas's Dvardii Defence Industries, were in the sky in a wedgelike formation, covering the line of hulking behemoths of transport planes, each empty. For now. From the protective skies of Haven they set out towards Kahanistan... er, sorry, 'Iudaea Province' ... to evacuate anyone who was left, and anyone who came along peaceably. The Commonwealth didn't want to get a name extracting out terrorists... er, 'freedom fighters'.

Somewhere over the ocean, approaching Kahanistan

"India Four, contacts incoming."

"Roger that India Four, do we have a positive?"

"Transies, and headed south, towards Doomingsland."

"How many?"

"An assload. Looks like some larger planes, transports maybe, and about double the number of fighters.

"This is India Nine. They're going to direct intercept us in T minus three minutes."

"Shit. Should we bother with sending them a transmission?"

"Well, there are a lot of them... looks almost like, say, a troop transport convoy."

"All right India, Juliet Squadrons, gain altitude, I'll radio them."

"Roger that."

The fighters and the transport planes they were escorting began to rise to allow the Dominionites safe passage below them, while issuing a radio transmission to the lead aircraft approaching: Greetings! We are the Divisions National Aerospace Force 19th Transport Wing, a neutral party bound for Kahanistan on a humanitarian mission. We have no hostile intentions.

And that is all, since more is not really necessary; Dominionite airspace was not far, so the presence of Commonwealth aircraft could be seen as a threat otherwise. Anyway, the time was approaching for India Squadron to break off from its transports, so the Dominionite aircraft continued on their way while the Catalasians went on theirs, approaching Iudaea at the snail's pace of full mach.

"We're picking up a Doomie squadron coming in," India Four (the talkative one) notified his comrades.

"Roger that India Four. Open a channel to them."

Doomani squadron, this is the DNAF 19th Transport Wing. We have humanitarian officers aboard; we are here to render assistance to civilians and affected parties. And a moment later: India Squadron, of the Commonwealth, breaking off.

And with a brief order India Squadron broke its perfect wedge formation, gained altitude and velocity, and began to head back home at about double the speed. For a perilous moment the transports seemed to hang still in the air, unescorted. Then Doomani ACI-73 fighters circled in to bring the Commonwealth transports down into Iudaea, where they could begin their much-needed work.

OOC: I didn't know that, you were going to send them all to Doom, and I still wouldn't have the old order core to build my new government around if they were in prison. How can I build a new nation and have any continuity without any of the leaders from my old nation?

OOC: Really, you didn’t know I was sending them to Doom. Those that attacked will be the ones heading to the heavy max prisons. I’m going to ignore all of your posts after post 68 and I will be ignoring parts of 97.

The ones in my care will be released, but not until the Count says so. Your people attacked Dominion soldiers, which is not a good thing.

Take a look at Clandonia, he didn’t have to use any of his old people to create his new nation.

The fighters and the transport planes they were escorting began to rise to allow the Dominionites safe passage below them, while issuing a radio transmission to the lead aircraft approaching: Greetings! We are the Divisions National Aerospace Force 19th Transport Wing, a neutral party bound for Kahanistan on a humanitarian mission. We have no hostile intentions.

As the radio message was picked up by the lead transport and it fighter support, a short message was send back. “Very well. Best of luck to you.” There was nothing else in the message, nothing about what the transports were doing.

The transport planes and fighters moved a little downwards, so that the 19th Transport Wing wouldn’t run into them.

OOC: Ooooh boy, plenty for me to respond to...

IC:

Najaster

Loudspeakers blared, ordering the civilians approaching the line to continue moving even as stray insurgents took potshots at Imperial officers. Six men were hit, only one of them being a lethal shot. This, however, REALLY pissed off the Doomani, who believed that they were doing humanitarian work at the moment. As a result, they did what the Doomani generally did when they were shot at: kill everything not in a Doomie uniform.

The air was cut by the barking of machinegun fire all along the trench line: 7.8mm crew-served medium machineguns, 15.7mm heavy machineguns mounted on armored vehicles, 37mm chainguns in single mounts on IFVs and in quadruple mounts on self-propelled anti-aircraft tracks; even the vaunted twin-105's of the Bootscraper vehicles, firing flechette buckshot rounds, joined in the massive never-ending barrage into the areas the insurgents were firing from.

By now only a limited number of civilians had reached Imperial lines; they'd be safe for now, and given whatever medical treatment they needed and promptly sent down the line to the relocation camps.

The loudspeakers increased their volume, ordering the civilians to continue forward while crawling to avoid the machinegun fire. Naturally there'd be plenty of civilian casualties, but if they decided to run back into the city they'd be killed anyway, and the loudspeakers advertised this fact...

In the mean time, in response to the now advertised presence of insurgents in Najaster, the artillery once again opened fire into the city. Once again they completely blanketed the city with Pestis Dei; once again the Kahanistanis would find their gas masks utterly useless as the filters were literally melted by the gas, allowing for it to seep right through. Even the glass visors of the mask would be melted by the gas; there really wasn't wany way to hide it, especialy when artillery shells penetrated the road and landed in the sewers, completely flooding them with the gas.

At the other cities, the civilians were ordered to immediately evacuate in force and move to the Doomani lines unarmed. Various checkpoints were established were they'd be divided up effeciently and searched for weapons; once the twenty-four hour deadline (giving the civilians time to gather up injured and disabled family members, as well as pets and other living things they wanted to not die) for the evacuation of a city was up, it would be subject to a massive chemical weapons bombardment to ensure there were no insurgents remaining inside.

Once the civilians had been secured, they'd be shipped off to one of several centralized relocation camps. From there they would sign registration forms, which asked for personal information such as race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, languages spoken, level of education, age, etc. Ultimately, depending on how they answered their questions, only two fifths of the population that entered the relocation camps would return to the cities (of course, the cities and homes they were returned to were not their own, nor were their neighbors, allowing for the Inquisition to plant its own informants in the population).

For the rest, their lives had only begun to turn into a living hell...

Meanwhile, in the cities that had been gassed following evacuation, Imperial forces moved in and proceeded to hunt for any insurgents, while establishing 'communities' within the cities. These were quite simply ghettos; areas that the civilians would be made to live in upon return. Each community was separated from the others to avoid communication as well as to allow Imperial troops to easily control them.

They were very small areas, allowing for surveilance equipment (microphones, cameras, etc.) to cover virtually everything. Walls would be built around them, as well as guard towers; barracks and other living structures for Imperial troops would be constructed in between. Each community would be located around a central square; there the Imperial engineers would errect a place of execution for dissenters, consisting of an elevated platform with a series of steel stakes jutting out of it. Within it was a sort of grill/oven that would allow executions to automatically burn prisoners at the stake: it was high-tech medieval torture.

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

Catalasians

The Catalasian transports were allowed to land at a temporary airbase the Imperial Air Force had established within Kahanistan. Structures were constructed of cloth and sheet metal. The airstrip itself was not even paved, instead having a temporary tarmac rolled out.

The Catalasians were greeted by an Imperial Army centurion and eighty Legionaries. They were clad in full desert combat equipment, their rifles at the ready.

"You may begin unloading your equipment; make haste, however, we need to get you out of here as soon as possible," the grizzled, scarred old centurion growled to the Catalasians as they stepped off their transports.

The Legionaries would assist in unloading the equipment.

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

Jerusalem

The Imperial Army had finally reached the gates of Jerusalem, immediately surrounding the city and laying siege to it. Entrenchments were dug around it similar to what had been done with the rest of the Kahanistani cities, and a demand for surrender was wired to whoever was in charge within the city. Meanwhile, Imperial Army troops prepared to storm the city from the Jewish and Muslim quarters of the city; the reason for this was, quite simply, to make sure most of the damage was done to these areas, and not the Christian quarter.

Of course they were planning to slaughter every non-Christian that resided within the walls of the city...but they did not advertise that fact...

OOC:Kahanistan, I think we should start a separate thread for the occupation now, we're pretty much all set here. We can probably do some character RPing detailing how all the stuff I just described with relocation and crap went...

The leader of the Catalasian reliefs stared hollowly at the Doomanus. "We may need to stay a while, to render medical assistance to those who need it, and to ensure that all of these supplies go where they are needed."

His cynicism was partly brought on by his knowledge of the Doomani 'respect' for human rights; namely, they had none, and both parties knew it. As the tons of food, sheets, clothing, medical supplies and the like were offloaded, by Catalasians and Doomani alike, the leader -- a slender clean-shaven man with a blank expression -- turned briefly as a younger Catalasienne appeared at his side with a note, which he read and then turned back to the Doomanus.

"My apologies," he murmured. "I was unaware of the Kahanistani surrender and subsequent commencement of Doomani occupation in the meanwhile. It appears we won't be necessary after all. We shall likely move on to the surrounding nations, to which Kahanistani civilians have fled."

He turned and walked back to the aircraft. The other Catalasians followed his lead, carting the supplies back to load them back on.

Inside the aircraft, he re-read the note. Well damn. This complicates matters.

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=518230 - Insurgency thread.

Trans: If you want to go into greater detail about the escape of the base, we can do that in another thread, but I want most of the politicians to live, and be freed at some point, remember? I still need the old order.

OOC: K-stan, check your tms.

OOC: K-stan, check your tms.

Read it already.

Now, if you're honest with me about not sending them to Doom when I've already given up the majority of them and taken a lot of casualties, I'll play fair with you and see what this really cool RP you have in mind is. I do at least want to get my MFA, remaining senators, and higher-ranked officers free at some point, I have a lot of plans for them.

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=518230 - Insurgency thread.

Trans: If you want to go into greater detail about the escape of the base, we can do that in another thread, but I want most of the politicians to live, and be freed at some point, remember? I still need the old order.

Damn, I had a badass title for it...

Read it already.

Now, if you're honest with me about not sending them to Doom when I've already given up the majority of them and taken a lot of casualties, I'll play fair with you and see what this really cool RP you have in mind is. I do at least want to get my MFA, remaining senators, and higher-ranked officers free at some point, I have a lot of plans for them.

OOC: The only I’m sending to Doom were the ones already loaded on those planes. The odd four hundred you had attack my men, well they are now my problem. The living ones will be sent to prison and a few will be freed latter on. I.E. Dr. Delray.

I'm not gonig to send them to Doom as those poeple are not his problem anymore.

Damn, I had a badass title for it...

OOC: You could always ask the mods to edit the new title in. It will give them something to do.

OK. Trans, should we start a new thread or go with this one?

Doom: What title did you have in mind? I could ask the Mods to change the title, just pop into the Mod Cave or something...

Reign in Blood :)

Ripped from Slayer, yes, but very appropriate in this case.

OK. Trans, should we start a new thread or go with this one?

A new thread is the best as this thread has been mostly OOC on the last page. So…I made this thread. http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=518238

I’ve placed each post that deal with the airbase and edited out the wankish part in some of your post.

The title somewhat fits with everything. Mess With The Devil and You'll Get Burned. I get the mods to edit it. Hahaha, I messed up.