NationStates Jolt Archive

A New Beginning

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The spring sun shone strongly over the tarmac at Xoxocotlan International, the airport that served Oaxaca, the capital of the state bearing the same name, when the first of the Cottish soldiers disembarked the aircraft that had carried them there from their base in Egypt. The soldiers were all accustomed to heat and strong sunshine, but the humidity was a bit different from what they were used to, and with a balmy 25 degrees, the soldiers actually found it to be a bit chilly, being used to temperatures ranging between 35 – 45 degrees! The men were nevertheless prepared for the task at hand, which was to help facilitate the introduction of the newly installed Cottish-friendly government in Oaxaca.

Oaxaca, a 95,364 square kilometre large state with some 3,200,000 local inhabitants had been relinquished to the Realm of Cotland by the Russian Federation a week prior, and after the last of the Russian soldiers withdrew from the territory back into the other territories that Russia still occupied in Mexico, the road lay wide open for the Cottish soldiers. They had all naturally been briefed on the situation, their tasks, and helpful tips on the culture and how to best survive socially in the state that was the new home of the newly formed 9. Armé. With this knowledge in the back of their minds, the soldiers of the 162. Fallskjermdivisjon walked off the tarmac and towards the soccer field a few hundred meters to the southeast of the tarmac, where they were to receive their deployment orders. These men were among the last of their division to land in Oaxaca, the pathfinder companies having arrived almost a week ago and started scouting out good bases for the various battalions of the division. Most were to deploy to the northern areas, in the mountains and jungle where their training and light infantry role was best suited, leaving the flatter areas to the infantry and armored divisions that were constantly rolling over the Layartebian border to the east, near Guadalupe.

After receiving their orders, the men returned to the tarmac where their vehicles were rolling out of the bellies of the massive C-15/A Kondor strategic transport aircraft. It seemed like an unnatural act, seeing the massive aircraft spew out vehicle after vehicle. The Kondor could transport up to three main tanks, each weighing in at around seventy-two tons, so a number of smaller vehicles weighing a mere five tons each were no problems for the aircraft. The twelve Kondors assigned to the 5605. Strategic Transport Squadron were all busy transporting the vehicles and supplies to the division along with the rest of the Kondors and Super Globemasters assigned to the 56. Logistics Wing (Strategic), which had recently been assigned to the newly formed 11. Air Group, which was to be permanently assigned to Oaxaca. This unit contained around 460 logistics aircraft in the form of transports and refuelling aircraft, around 1,150 fighter jets of all kinds and sizes, 12 AWACS aircraft, and several other aircraft serving different roles.

Many of them were assigned to the various airbases that already existed in the state, graciously left in working order by the Russians as they withdrew from the state, but if all were to be assigned there at the same time would cause overcrowding at the bases, so many would remain in other territories while the Cottish engineers expanded the already existing bases and made new ones. Many billions would be poured into the state by the Cottish government, and only a fraction of it to military purposes. Most would be used to upgrade the state to the Cottish standard, both when it came to roads, healthcare, rail systems, education, culture, agriculture, and adequate housing, just to mention a few of the areas the Cottish administrators would expand upon.

On their way to their new bases, the Cottish soldiers made many stops along the way, distributing humanitarian aid and creating a good impression of the Cottish as something else than the bloodthirsty baby-eating barbarians the Russians had portrayed them as. The Cottish had studied the customs and ways of the Oaxacans before they arrived, and they did as they had been advised. They behaved as visitors instead of conquerors, shaking the hands of the people they met as this was considered a sign of friendship and respect, speaking in Spanish – most of the Cottish didn’t know Spanish, but they had been issued traveller dictionaries and taught simple phrases that would at least let the locals know that the Cottish soldiers tried, something the locals appreciated. After all, had they been conquerors, the soldiers wouldn’t have tried to be so polite and friendly, would they?

The Cottish soldiers explained that they had arrived to help Oaxaca, and promised free education and reliable and free healthcare services to everyone living in the state, and an end to the corruption that existed there at the moment. Their words were backed with action, as in one instance in a small, unimportant village outside Tlaxiaco where an elderly couple were struggling to rebuild their house after part of it had collapsed. The Cottish engineers heard about this and made a detour into the village, surveying the place and figuring out what they needed. The next day, they returned with the necessary equipment and materials, and rebuilt the house just the way the elderly couple wanted it.

Of course, this was all duly recorded and played in the news both in Oaxaca and elsewhere in the Realm, and the opinion of the Cottish, which had been very low when they first arrived, was getting better and better for every passing day. No longer did the local children run and hide whenever a Cottish convoy passed. Instead, they came out in the streets and cheered the vehicles on, often with smiles, waves and candy-bars being given back as a thank-you from the soldiers. Additionally, they didn’t go around in full combat gear either. With their berets on, rifles casually slung along the sides and sunglasses far away from their eyes so they didn’t appear as threatening as they would, the Cottish soldiers didn’t make much fuzz around themselves when they weren’t helping the civilians out. They quite simply behaved as guests, and not as the conquerors they really were. They didn’t call themselves occupiers either, even though that was what they were. When asked why they were there, the Cottish soldiers answered politely that they were peacekeepers and there to help the locals. With the help and aid they were distributing in addition to keeping the peace, the explanation was highly credible and believed. In short, the Cottish were winning the heart and minds campaign they had mounted from day one.

The Cottish had been in Oaxaca for three weeks, and they had managed to sow the seeds of trust and friendship with the civilian population, greatly helped by the humanitarian aid and reconstruction work the Cottish forces had undertaken so far, as well as the fact that the Cottish did their best to respect the traditions and beliefs of the Oaxacans.

The Cottish build-up in Oaxaca had been largely completed by now, with the one hundred sixty-six thousand troops from the Army, the few hundred thousand Air Force personnel and about a thousand Special Forces soldiers being present in the state and establishing themselves along with the various civilians that were responsible for transforming this Mexican state into the Cottish way of thinking. All that lacked was the Navy, but it was underway towards their new bases. There would be two Cottish naval stations in Oaxaca. One, the largest, would be in Santa Cruz on the eastern coast, with Puerto Escondido on the western coast being the second base. Both had been former Nuevo Rican naval stations, and both had all the facilities that were needed to support a large naval force. So, when the ships of the 8th Fleet steamed into the ports, they had no problems docking at the vast and modern piers, assisted by the dockhands that had arrived via the Layartebian border a week prior.

Standing on the bridge of the brand new Demon class destroyer D-1005, the first officer looked out the windows on the coastline to the port. It was a nice morning, and the ship was on its way to its new home base at Puerto Escondido along with the rest of the escort vessels attached to the mighty Ormen Lange class battleship HMS Balder, that had been assigned as the flagship to the newly formed 8th Fleet. The Balder was just off the starboard bow, steaming in a casual fourteen knots towards the base when something caught the eye of the first officer. There, inside a small creek, there was something large and grey.

”Sjef, jeg tror jeg ser noe.” [Sir, I think I see something.] He said to his captain, who was sitting in the comfortable leather chair in the middle of the bridge. The captain looked up from the mug of coffee he was drinking and just looked at the officer with a questioning look.

”Jeg tror det er et krigsskip av ett eller annet annet slag. Der inne, i viken der.” [I think it’s a warship of some sort. In there, in the creek there.] The first officer elaborated, pointing to the creek the ship was passing. It got the captain’s attention. The captain got up from his seat and strode the few steps over to the port hatch and exited, grabbing a pair of binoculars from a sailor as he passed. Getting out on the bridge wing, the captain looked through the binoculars to the place the first officer had pointed out. He stood there in silence for the better part of twenty seconds before he took down the binoculars and looked at the first officer.

”Det er ett eller annet der. Vi kan ikke forlate Balder, men jeg synes likevel vi burde ta en titt… Send opp speider’n.” [There’s something there. We can’t leave the Balder, but I still think we should take a look… Send up the scout.]

The captain was referring to one of the Demon’s two Q-40/A Fire Scout unmanned aerial vehicles, a small little helicopter-like UAV that could serve as a forward observer, scout and RADAR picket for the vessel or formation it was assigned to. One of them was always ready to be launched within five minutes, so two minutes later, the small craft took off from the helicopter deck on the aft of the 165.9 meter long destroyer.

The Fire Scout set a direct course for the creek, controlled by a controller inside the air-conditioned Combat Information Center (CIC) of the destroyer. The Fire Scout’s sensors and the TV camera in particular were operational and being piped through to the bridge monitor, where the captain and first officer waited for news. It wasn’t long before the Fire Scout revealed what was hidden inside the creek, which wasn’t really a creek but rather the mouth of a river: four, three hundred and twenty meter long, forty meter wide, grey-painted vessels. The captain and first officer both recognized the vessels immediately, the former because he had served on one during his first years in the Navy some twenty years ago, and the latter because his father had been the captain of one once. The four vessels the Fire Scout had detected were none less than four members of the venerable, Cottish-built Ragnarok class of battleships!

Laksevag Naval Shipyards had constructed eight Ragnaroks for the Nuevo Rican Navy before that nation collapsed, four of each flight. The first flight was the conventionally powered battleship, which had a top speed of some thirty-eight knots thanks to their eight powerful diesel engines, and the second flight which could reach an amazing forty-one knots thanks to the two nuclear reactors. Both flights sported nine 406 millimeter ETC cannons, twelve 155mm ETC canons, sixty Mk.51 vertical launch cells, four Quad Launchers and a number of smaller guns, and a crew of some 2,300 souls. Apparently, upon the collapse of the Nuevo Rican nation, these four vessels, the sole survivors of the Nuevo Rican battleship fleet after the Layartebian destruction of the nation’s navy upon its conquest of the four southern Mexican provinces, had been mothballed here. The images the Fire Scout sent to the Demon made it quite obvious that there was no activity aboard those ships, mostly thanks to the many tarps over various areas, flaking paint job and the rust marks along the anchor chains and sides.

The four ships were in a miserable state, but the two officers, both of whom had a connection with the class, believed the ships should be restored to their old glory. The captain reached for the radio as he asked the petty officer to patch him through to the admiral aboard the Balder…

The transition of Oaxaca to the Cottish was seen as a relief. It was one less border that the Empire had to man with zeal and fervor to the point of a demilitarized zone. The Cottish government wouldn't be soft on crime or terrorism and the Russians had never quite been able to begin the transitioning of Oaxaca away from Neuvo Rica. As the Mayan territories were being absorbed into the Empire it was seen as more than beneficial that now, Oaxaca, was ruled by a friendly nation.

Eleven months later, and Oaxaca had been fully integrated into the Cottish Realm as the Mexican Protectorate. The state had undergone a massive boom in the year that the Cottish had been in Oaxaca, with free and open parliamentary elections having taken place under the careful supervision of external international observers, with a record participation rate of 89 % of all eligable voters! This had resulted in a pretty even race between the various runners for the political parties, but eventually, all five hundred and seventy seats - one for each municipality in the state - had been filled. The first Oaxacan parliament had convened just three months ago, and having seen the benefits of the protectorate status the Cottish had offered, had put to the vote the issue concerning Cottish involvement in the state. With 549-21 votes, the parliament had voted to remain a Cottish protectorate. As such, His Majesty the King had appointed generalløytnant Sebastian Wolff of the Royal Cottish Air Force as the Cottish Emissary to Oaxaca, to serve as His Majesty's Representative. In reality, this meant that generalløytnant Wolff was in charge of approving all issues the parliament had decided, as well as imposing the directives from the central government on the state. This was all done in a quiet manner though, for natural reasons. The Cottish didn't want the Oaxacans to believe that they weren't as autonomous as they thought they were.

Oaxaca had as mentioned earlier undergone a massive transformation, with new schools, hospitals, power stations, industries and public transportation popping up everywhere. Children were sent to the new and massively upgraded schools, the hospitals gladly accepted patients without first checking their bank accounts as healthcare was free of charge in the Realm - a positive side-effect of paying one's taxes, and everyone were supplied with cheap and clean power from the new nuclear power plant outside Salina Cruz. The new industries ensured that new jobs were created, where everything from aircraft to televisions to chairs and tables.

Along the coast, at Salina Cruz, the shipyard was quite busy working on the four old battleships that had been discovered nearly a year ago by the D-1005. All four had been towed to Salina Cruz by a small armada of tugs after having been checked by naval engineers and shipyard supervisors who had approved the ships for the passage, and repaired. Fixing the ships had been a messy affair, as the ships had all been in a serious state of neglect when discovered. However, with a lot of work, a lot of resources and a fresh coat of paint, the four proud ships had been restored to the condition they had been in when they were brand new. The Navy normally didn't recommission old ships, but in this case it had made an exception. All four ships were positively identified as having been ex-Cottish Navy, and it had been decided in the highest echelons of the government that the ships should be restored and returned to duty, regardless of cost. And so, with an army of twenty thousand shipyard engineers and workers, the ships had been refitted.

The four ships, HMS Bergen, HMS Trondheim, HMS Arendal and HMS Stavanger, with pennant numbers 61, 62, 63 and 64, respectively, were all re-commissioned to the fleet using their old names and pennant numbers in a small but fitting ceremony on the dockside. Even though they were re-commissioned, they wouldn't be rejoining the active fleet for some time yet, as they had to be rearmed and repopulated first. Two ships, the Trondheim and the Stavanger were already completed, having been the two ships in the best state when they were found, and were moved out of the docks to fit the other ships. Moved to a position two kilometers from the shipyard, the two ships anchored up next to each other, and a few gangways were put out to bridge the small gap between the two massive warships.

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It was expected that all four ships would be completed within six months, and in active duty within twelve.