NationStates Jolt Archive

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It was a quiet evening for Alexandre Korovin as he sat in a folding chair out on a small second story balcony belonging to a building overlooking the piers of the port of Neutralnaya. The sun was still hanging in the sky, just barely out of his line of sight and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. All in all it was a pristinely peaceful scene for Triari.

Currently docked he could see three large merchantmen, he knew two of them well, one was the Aurora, a mid sized container ship flying a flag of convenience, it was a regular sight in the port as a foreign aid organization routinely chartered the vessel to bring in food and medicine. A bunch of idealists as far as Alexandre was concerned, thinking they could make one bit of difference here. He grunted slightly at the thought, they were however at least smart enough to hire some locals as escort, significantly increasing their chance of actually living through their visit to his nation.

The other large ship he recognized was the Black Moon, an older looking ship that looked like she was on her last days, like the Aurora is was also flying a flag of convenience. It was only because of his position as Harbourmaster that he knew who really owned the ship, it was one of Genrich’s ships used to smuggle drugs and other valuable commodities out of the country and weapons in. A piece of information that if the Kilrany ever got their hands on, would likely see the ship ‘mysteriously’ disappear out at sea.

The third of the large ships he didn’t recognize, it was slightly newer, the Free Maiden, an odd name for a vessel as far as he was concerned. He had no idea what it was transporting and he was smart enough not to ask questions. Given what ships normally transport into Triari, he figured chances were it was carrying weapons and or ammunition for one of the various warlords.

He knew better then to get to involved, he hadn’t managed to maintain his position as Harbourmaster for twenty years for nothing, although it didn’t stop him from taking the bribes offered to look the other way anyway.

For Alexandre, living in Neutralnaya was as good as it got in Triari, it was relatively peaceful and with his position, he lived well, all things considered. Everything coming into Triari had to come through his port. One only had to look up at the sky from time to time to see why flying in was out of the question.

A quick look up confirmed his thoughts as he saw a pair of contrails following behind two glints up in the sky, Kilrany aircraft no doubt. Either they were on routine patrol or here to bomb something, if it was the latter, he’d hear an explosion from somewhere in the city soon enough.

Time continued to pass and he heard no explosions, patrol it was he figured. Despite his relatively comfortable life here, he wished he could live as safely as the Kilrany pilots seemed to. They never flew low enough to be threatened by the easily acquired man portable SAM weapons, and no one was insane enough to try and smuggle in heavier weapon systems, except possibly Genrich that is. But even he never seemed to try it.

Looking back across his port he could see the smaller ships berthed at various locations, the small merchant vessels would often carry in a light load of supplies and even passengers. Mercenaries were a common sight in his nation; money was to be made by supporting the right faction. He shook his head slightly as he recalled a moment from his youth when a group of mercenaries came to his village to rough up a few members on behalf of a now dead warlord.

He grumbled to himself lightly a moment later as he looked upon what was left of the super structure of a Kashin class destroyer. It always annoyed him to see it, knowing that the sabotaged ship took up one of the best berthing spots in his harbour. Lacking the heavy equipment to move it, there was nothing he could do but look at it with disdain.

He remembered the night it happened, waking up to the explosions and thinking the Kilrany were bombing his port, something they hardly ever did, oddly enough. Eventually he learned that there had been no bombing, but that the ship had been sabotages by charges placed on the hull below the waterline. Genrich had not been happy to learn of the destruction of one of his new toys, it got even worse though when a day later his other destroyer was sunk out at sea.

A burst of gunfire drew his attention back to the Black Moon, he had heard gunfire before in his life, and he knew what he had just heard was too brief to have been a firefight. After a few moments he saw two of the ship’s crewmen carrying a body off the ship. Leaning back in his chair he figured it was likely either a crewman got caught sampling the cargo, or they found a stowaway, either way it didn’t matter to him.

-----

While the scene in Neutralnaya may have been peaceful and pristine, the scene within the city of Inara was the polar opposite. Residents cowered in their homes as the sounds of gunfire filled the air from both close and afar. The Distinct sound of an RPG or Dragunov being fired occasionally breaking the relative monotony of AKM and RPD fire.

Kazimir Serov looked through the scope of his Dragunov, an SVD-S model with folding stock and slightly shorter barrel. He wore VSR pattern fatigues and a light assault vest and rucksack, which contained his spare magazines, ammunition, water, a few days worth of food and a handful of various lightweight equipment. On his right arm he wore a red armband, signifying his alliance as a soldier under General Tsetaeva.

He slowly squeezed the trigger of his weapon and released the 7.62x54mm round into the upper body of a militiaman wearing a blue armband and carrying an RPD. He quickly ducked back around the corner he was using for cover before return fire could hit him from down the street.

The heavier thudding of a heavy machine gun filled the air a moment later as an NSV fired off the back of a lightweight truck a few meters away from him, only the tail end visible from one of the narrow streets of the old city.

Serov heard a series of rapid explosions not far away as a barrage of mortar fire rained down on its unsuspecting victim. He waited a few more moments as the other men of his unit continued to engage the enemy down the street before he peered around to find another target.

An hour later Serov found himself and his section moving ahead several blocks from where they had been, a runner had delivered a message to them to go help a platoons worth of militiamen take a large church so they could put an observation team in the tower to help direct mortar fire.

Rounding a corner they could see the militiamen they were supposed to regroup with cowering along a low wall and several homes for cover. Serov didn’t like the militia; they were too unreliable for his liking.

“What’s the hold up here?”

The amount of fire coming their way was light compared to what they had seen so far, but he kept his head down regardless as he moved over to the militiaman who responded, “There’s a sniper in the tower, he’s got us pinned down here.”

Serov grumbled and moved over to a break in the wall and peered around it at the church a hundred meters away. Ruined vehicles littered the road and sandbags were set up around the church, he could only see a handful of militia firing away at them, from the tower itself he could see several muzzle flashes in quick succession from a semi-auto rifle, perhaps an SVT or SVD.

He looked back over to see several of the friendly militiamen fire their weapons blindly over the wall towards the church and resisted the urge to slap them, “That’s not a fucking sniper you idiot, that’s just some asshole in a tower with a rifle.”

He quickly leaned around the same break in the wall, this time with his rifle at the ready, a moment later his rifle barked and he ducked back around the wall, “Now he’s a dead asshole in a tower, get the hell on the move! Give them covering fire!”

He gave the militiaman a shove forward as they began to move out while Serov’s section opened up on the church with automatic weapons fire.

-----

Captain Simon Vrubel ducked low as he stepped through the hatch leading into his ship’s command room, the KIN Sofia, an Akula II class attack submarine of the Kilrany Imperial Navy. Currently she was off the West coast of Triari on a routine patrol.

“What have we got Surikov?”

The question was directed at his executive officer who was currently looking through the ship’s periscope, “Looks like a fairly large merchant, not very new, course projection indicates it’s heading towards the Triari port. Name’s the Salty Mare.”

“That in any of our target books?”

“Balmont is checking the name now.”

Vrubel looked over in the direction of Balmont, another of his officers who was currently looking through a small booklet containing names of vessels positively identified as carrying weapons and supplies for Triari warlords. The officer simply looked back at him a moment later and shook his head slightly.

“Looks like she’s not one of our targets of opportunity, what flag is she flying Surikov?”

“Brazilian.”

“Hmmm, very well then, put us back on our assigned patrol course and let me know if we get any more sightings.”

“Aye sir.”

-----

Night had descended upon the region as Lieutenant Ivanov looked out upon the two kilometer wide no mans land that marked the current Kilrany-Triari border which stretched from the coast in the East, to the Valnari border in the West. His platoon was located in a small observation post dug in on the top of a small ridgeline, normally such a position would be less the ideal, but the Triari had no access to heavy armour or artillery.

He used an infrared sight to scan the darkness for any movement across the open field, on the other side was what was essentially a wall of trees, the beginning of the massive forests with covered Triari and made it so very difficult for large forces to operate in. A few kilometers to his East and West he knew there were other such observation points, and more beyond them, they formed a linked defensive line similar in construction to those the Russkyans had built along their border with Sorachoak.

Over the past several hundred years they occasionally moved the border up several kilometers in places to accommodate some small village that saw the wisdom and swearing allegiance to Kilrany, benefiting greatly from the security and services provided in doing so. Lately however that was less common as the Triari had, for the most part, abandoned the immediate area near the border with Kilrany, for good reason.

Because of the tedious nature of watching the Triari border his platoon would swap out for another one in a few days, usually cycled out every two weeks to a rest period back behind the ‘line’, usually in one of the old fortresses originally built several hundred years ago to watch the border and now used as relatively unique garrisons. Sadly the ones that used to dot the Southern border with Khurzav were mostly all destroyed over the years due to modern artillery and were currently little more then ruins.

OOC: Warning, the following post may contain scenes of violence and coarse language not appropriate for all audiences, reader discretion is advised. Glorified bump.

Kazimir Serov was breathing heavily, he had a large gash across his left arm and his uniform was splattered with blood as he shoved a militiaman wearing a blue armband down to the ground. He screamed loudly as he brought an entrenching tool down upon the militiaman’s head with has much force as he could muster from his right arm.

With his adversary’s skull violent smashed by the spade in his hand he rolled off the dead man to his left and lashed out in a horizontal arc with the same weapon, impacting on the back of the leg of another blue armband militiaman who was struggling with one of his men over a bayonet equipped AKM. Cutting into the flesh of the man’s leg just behind the knee, he cried out and began to topple backwards, taking the AKM and the other soldier with him down to the ground.

In a grapple with the now downed militiaman, Serov’s compatriot attempted to push off away from the downed man with the rifle, but the militiaman held on stubbornly. Quickly raising the spade up again he smashed it down onto the downed man’s face, however it struck with the face of the weapon, smashing the militiaman’s nose.

However it turned out to be enough as he released his hold on the weapon and grabbed at his face in pain, which in turn caused the soldier, now with the rifle to staggered up unexpectedly. Quickly Serov flipped the angle of the weapon in his hand and smashed it back down, edge first at the militiaman’s now slightly protected face, screaming, “Die you son of a bitch!”

The militiaman screamed as multiple bones in his right hand were shattered upon the impact of the spade, but Serov didn’t stop, he brought the weapon up again and smashed it down on the now exposed face as his compatriot with the rifle rammed the bayonet of the AKM into the militiaman’s stomach. A third smash in the face as the other soldier pulled the rifle free confirmed the death of the militiaman.

Serov quickly looked around the interior of the church for any more threats but saw none moving as his surviving forces had finally rested control of the church once again. He took a moment to wipe the blood and grey matter off his entrenching tool with the clothes of the dead militiaman before he stood up and did a quick survey of his surviving forces, while at the same time taking a look for his Dragunov located somewhere on the floor of the church.

He cursed loudly and several times consecutively having apparently lost half his section and nearly thirty of the militia he had taken the church with in the first place.

“Fucking bastards.”

Not long after taking the church from a light number of defenders, they had been counter attacked by a large force of Chuckhrai militiamen, most of which high on the Triari form of Khat. Apparently their commander felt that this church wasn’t to fall into enemy hands. Over run by the more numerous militiamen the fight had degenerated into a brutal close quarters battle.

Finally finding his weapon again Serov finally took a moment to use a bandage to wrap around the gash on his arm and quickly ordered a pair of militiamen to run to the local command post and get reinforcements.

Tedium, that’s what it is, if more people knew just how much work real rulers had to do, fewer would want to be them, a grim smile came across the face of General Marina Tsetaeva as she sat behind a wooden desk writing up a new ‘decree’ for those under her rule. She preferred to write it herself, she didn’t exactly trust anyone else to, hell, I’ll be lucky if this even gets implemented in less then a year, such was how it was in Triari, corrupt and disorganized.

Tsetaeva was not exactly what one might call attractive, she had a hard face dotted by numerous scars, which also marked her body under her clothes; indicative of a life lived in Triari as woman and as a soldier. She wore a relatively simple uniform with a holstered Yarygin PYa, considering herself a pragmatist she hated gaudy expensive clothing, the kind most Triari warlords liked to wear to show their superiority over others.

The office she was in mostly reflected her sense of simplicity despite its size, for it was a rather large room, however this was due to it originally belonging to a previous warlord who didn’t share her beliefs. She had cleared out most of the useless embellishments and only a few such items dotted the walls of the room anymore.

She wasn’t alone in the room however; four men from her personal guard unit were also within the office, two located on either side of the main doors, and two behind her. They wore the same uniforms as her soldiers, but were equipped with excellent body armour and ballistic helmets; they also wore black balaclavas that concealed their faces, though they were still armed with an AKM.

They made up a unit comprising of forty men, she considered them the best trained soldiers in Triari along with being the only soldiers under her command she trusted, ironically enough however, they weren’t even Triari. Each man belonged to the 1st Division of the Kilrany Imperial Guard, a force whose duty was to protect members of the Kilrany Royal Family, members of their government, and in her case, any person of interest, of course she was the only one who knew who they really were. She also knew they couldn’t be bribed and they would fight to the death to protect her, so long as she was of use to the Kilrany, and being a pragmatist, she knew who to throw her lot in with.

They were also the only ones she trusted to safeguard her most treasured ‘asset’, her twelve year old daughter, so far she had managed to keep her existence a secret from the other warlords, they would no doubt place a bounty on her head as well. However not only did the Kilrany help protect her, but they gave an education that Marina could only dream of. If she was lucky, her daughter would replace her when she died, and continue to be protected by the Kilrany, even as if it was as their instrument of change, it kept her safe and alive.

Her nation had to take a new direction and as she saw it, the Kilrany Empire was the way to go, they offered security, education, hospitals and something that was a major problem in her mind, equality. It didn’t matter to her that it was ultimately the Kilrany who had put them in this position, as far as she was concerned it was the warlords who did the real damage, they didn’t care about anyone other then themselves, so by throwing in with the Kilrany, she hoped to finally change things. So far they kept her supplied with desperately needed weapons and supplies, along with crucial low-key training for her soldiers.

Perhaps it was idealistic, but so far, the Kilrany had kept their word, and those villages along the border that had sworn allegiance to them over the years had benefited beyond the wildest dreams of others throughout the country.

-----

Across the sea known in the SFR as the Tsyentralnoye Morye, another woman sat behind a desk in a somewhat smaller but no less simplistic office, her name was Natalia Isinbayeva and she was the Kilrany ambassador to The People's Socialist Republic of Russkya. Like an average Kilrany woman she had a defined muscle tone, although she was no weight lifter, she was more then a match for most men physically, and by Kilrany standards, was reasonably attractive.

Some believed it was a joke on the part of the Kilrany ambassadorial service to choose her as the Kilrany representative to Russkya, whether it was or not, she took her job as seriously as she could given that she was surrounded by Russkyans.

It was with a serious look on her face that she looked back up at the Kilrany diplomatic courier who still stood less then a meter from her across the desk, although she had her doubts he was merely a courier, given the contents of the documents he had just delivered and that she had just finished reading. She lifted over a small piece of stationary and jotted down a quick message, acknowledging the orders with the documents she had received, and a confirmation that she would immediately carry them out.

Quickly sealing it in an envelope she handed it back to the courier, “I’m sure you know what to do with this.”

“I do ma’am.”

“Good, you may go now.”

“Yes ma’am.”

As he left the room she picked up one of the phones next to her and dialed up a number, that belonging to the Russkyan Defense Minister, one Mikhail Sergetov, to arrange a meeting as soon as possible.

Deeply involved in a meeting, Sergetov's secretary knew to hold his calls. Yolka Korovinaya therefore took a quick note in elegant handwriting with her left hand, while her ambidextrous nature allowed her to rapidly alter her Minister's schedule with her right hand, fingers tapping away quickly on the ergonomic keyboard, given the important nature of the caller. Her pleasant voice informed Ambassador Isinbayeva that the Defence Minister would be returning her call as soon as the meeting adjourned.

An hour and twenty three minutes later, precisely, Sergetov stopped to shake a cramp out of his left leg when he was intercepted on his way back into his office by Korovinaya, who handed him the handwritten note she'd made earlier, knowing that Sergetov disdained the electronic "Blackberry"-esque device that functioned as a schedule for most of the Politburo's ministers. Thanking his secretary, he headed into the office, took off his suit jacket and rolled up both sleeves before sitting down in a thinly cushioned, high-backed leather chair, and picked the secure line's (a bit of a misnomer, since all lines in this particular building in Berisak were very much secure) reicever up off its cradle.

"Minister Sergetov for Ambassador Isinbayeva, please."

Having been so heavily involved in diplomatic events for so long, Natalia was accustomed to delays in arranging meetings with Russkyan ministers who were usually busy with affairs of state. As such when the minister’s secretary informed her he was in a meeting, and he would call back when he could, she accepted it and went about other business until then.

She was pleased though when almost an hour and a half later her own secretary buzzed her to inform her that the minister was now on the line.

“Greetings Minister Sergetov.”

Despite her familiarity and friendly relations with most of the Russkyan ministers, she still always chose to address them in the traditional Kilrany manner, using their title, if they had one, and last name as a sign of respect.

“I have a matter to discuss with you in person regarding Triari. When would be a good time to have a face to face meeting?”

"Ambassador Isinbayeva," Sergetov replied, simply out of instinctive response to Isinbayeva's formal greeting. "Just a moment, please."

Extracting the damnable electronic device from a drawer, he flipped it open one handedly and peered down at the screen. Piece of useless shit he thought, overhand tossing it into a trashbin and consulting the large notepad he kept on a clipboard with a pen tucked through the top of said clipboard.

"Anytime in the next two hours, Ambassador, then it seems I have to talk with the Agricultural Minister for some unfathomable reason. Shall we meet in this building or at the embassy?"

Unaware of the Russkyan’s difficulties with his electronic device, Isinbayeva leaned back in her chair and waited patiently for the minister to reply again. A pleasant smile came across her face as she heard him say a meeting was possible so soon.

“That’s good to hear, according to what I’ve been told this is rather important and since you have a meeting afterwards, I will come to you. Baring any heavy traffic,” she chuckled slightly at the thought of that unlikely event in Russkyan, “I should be there in about five minutes.”

Meeting arranged she hung up the phone and quickly clicked on the intercom to her secretary, “Bella, I need the car out front and ready to go immediately.”

“Yes ma’am, just going to the Politburo Building?”

“That’s right, so I just need a driver.”

“Understood.”

Not six minutes later the ambassador was in the back of a black BMW approaching the Russkyan Politburo Building, being driven by a member of the Kilrany Internal Security Ministries Close Protection Unit. A light guard by any means, but given their location in Russkya, a heavy guard for the five-minute trip was redundant beyond all of the natural paranoia of any Kilrany.

Sat on the seat next to her was a folder containing documents she had received earlier from the diplomatic courier, intending to bring them with her as they were to be shown to Minister Sergetov.

Due only to these damned French cuffs on his shirt, his sleeves were still rolled down. They covered bent arms that held a pair of binoculars steady as he looked out from the mirrored glass windows of a building on the outside of the "Inner Security Zone" that contained the Politburo Buildings and RISS Central Headquarters. His laptop was open and resting beside him - he tapped out a series of words on the keyboard, tapped ENTER, and the log of vehicles entering / leaving the ISZ was immediately updated. The sentries further inside the ISZ were now aware of the Kilrany Diplomatic vehicle and presumed occupant, as were three noncontinguous monitoring stations.

One of the men of the Kiril Semyonovich Cossack Brigade opened the door for Ambassador Isinbayeva as soon as her vehicle stopped. She was escorted by two Cossacks to the front entrance, where the Cossacks returned to their sentry positions and battlepair partners. They were not equipped with the ceremonial SVT-40 rifle, but instead carried fully loaded MBRS assault rifles.

Inside the Lobby and Atrium, Isinbayeva was met by two clean-shaven RISS men, both with dark blue pinstriped white shirts underneath black suit jackets. Carefully tailored, they concealed the combat pistols in quick draw holsters on their hips, and the substantial amount of ammunition in the double magazine pouches on the left of their pelvis. A sentry pair updated the building's logbook while the Cossacks outside made note of the diplomatic vehicle's movements, and after being positively identified she was escorted into the inner lobby where she was met with the outstretched hand of Minister Sergetov, still sans suit jacket.

Before Ambassador Isinbayeva exited the car she reached around to her side and unclipped her sheathed knife from her belt and set in on the seat to her left. Having been to the Russkyan Politburo Building many times, she was familiar with the admirably heavy security they maintained, considering it rather excellent, which was no small compliment coming from a Kilrany. Although, most likely due to national pride, she still felt the security in place around the Kilrany Imperial Palace was greater, perhaps though because less of it was hidden away out of sight.

Picking up the folder in her left hand as she exited the vehicle, she glanced over at the Russkyan who opened the door for her and gave him an acknowledging nod of appreciating and approached the building’s entrance with her escorts.

Inside the Politburo’s lobby she greeted the two RISS agents inside with another nod of her head and continued on towards Sergetov, greeting him with the typical Russkyan handshake and a genuinely warm smile on her face.

“Good afternoon Minister Sergetov, I appreciate the meeting on such short notice.”

Immediate formalities aside, she relaxed a little bit, allowing the familiarity with the man to take over, it was essentially a job requirement to become familiar with the Russkyan Ministers given how much business Kilrany and Russkya did together.

“How’s you’re wife doing Mikhail?”

She waited a moment for the Minister to respond before she brought up the reason for her rather hasty visit. She gestured slightly with the folder in her left hand as she began.

“I have a few things here I’ve been sent word to talk to you about Mikhail, seems there’s some new activity in Triari that Sviatov would like your government's assistance on. May we go somewhere a little more private to discuss this?”

It wasn’t so much that she distrusted the men around her, considering the only one’s who appeared to be in earshot was the Minister himself and the two RISS agents, it was more or less the natural paranoia Kilrany had kicking in.

"Hello there, Natalia. She's doing quite well, thank you." Sergetov felt his smile fade slightly as his mind clicked into high gear. While there was no actual concern over what the Kilrany might request, subtle requests generally involved some measure of cloak and dagger, which in turn generally involved RISS.

"Of course. We can use my office."

He pointed her towards the elevator, the doors of which were already open. Tapping a button once inside and holding his thumb against a scanner built into the bulkhead of the elevator that also contained the command panel, a pleasant recorded voice said Defence Minister's Office. The doors whispered shut on their carefully maintained rails and the electric motor brought the secure elevator up silently.

Ambassador Isinbayeva gave a nod of her head, “Your office will be fine.”

She followed silently into the elevator, only speaking again for a moment after the doors closed, “From what I’ve been told, we need to purchase some items from you, ideally in a manner that does not trace back to either of our governments. I have more detailed information with me, but I’d feel more comfortable going into that in your office rather then here.”

"Of course."

Stopping smoothly without the characteristic "too far up, drop back down an inch" feeling that was common of practically every other elevator in the world, the elevator came to a halt. Again with the smooth and whisper-quiet motion of the doors, opening out onto a reception area where Korovinaya smiled in familiar greeting from behind her desk. Sergetov opened one of the double doors to his spacious office - spacious only in the original blueprints. No large meetings were ever held here, so the walls were liberally concealed by large bookshelves, all full to capacity. The only clear space was on the wall to the front of Sergetov's desk, occupied by a large landscape painting executed in watercolours.

These bookshelves and contents often posed a slight problem to the RISS Counter-Intelligence Directorate, providing them with even more areas to sweep for bugs of all kinds. Despite this the task was completed every third day, thoroughly, and often took six to eight hours over the night hours. It was, suffice to say, a secure place to talk.

Onboard the merchant vessel Salty Mare

It wasn’t a new experience for the crew of the Salty Mare. They had been used by J Corp before to ferry operatives into difficult areas where aircraft that flew the J Corp logo might not be the best insertion method, at least not to start with. In political circles it was known as plausible deniability, the J Corp planners just thought it prudent not to be associated with questionable arms deals in obviously war torn countries. Many precautions had been taken to ensure that any casual reporter or observant local wouldn’t be able to identify the men that entertained themselves in the cargo hold as being anything other than just another group of mercenaries. Their more high-tech equipment was stored securely in seemingly innocuous boxes and the men just carried drop holsters for their pistols and standard AK-47 rifles slung around their armoured torsos. Later when they were established, the balaclavas would come out to shield their identities and allow them to use the better weaponry that they had brought.

The leader was simply known as 'Jack' to his men. All ten of those present had worked together before, in one capacity or another. Most were Hitmen or Stevidian, although none carried identification to that effect but one member was from a small country known as the Kingdom of the House of James. Whilst serving in that nations military the man had been based with the peacekeeping force in Kilrany and was therefore deemed to be a useful addition to the adventure. Known to the team as 'John' he was a former Corporal in the Kingdom Armed Forces and had been with the 3rd Irian Guards during their time in Khurzav. They had seen action against guerillas, but hadn’t ventured out of Khurzav. 'John' knew that his usefulness here was only that he had combat experience whilst most of the rest of the rank and rile of the group didn’t. His local 'expertise' was nothing more than a convenient addition. In the confines of one of the small staterooms onboard the vessel he decided to move over to 'Jack' who was furiously typing into a laptop, linked into the J Corp central database through a satellite phone and therefore the only way to contact their superiors back in J City. 'Jack' stopped typing as 'John' approached him and brushed some of his long brown hair out of his eye.

"And how can I help you John?"

"Oh nothing Sir. Just wondered how much longer we have left on this tub that’s all."

"Well the Captain told us that we are berthing later today. If you had a stronger bladder you would have heard that."

"Yeah, well if we had some proper drink instead of all this damned water then I wouldn't be so unoccupied that pissing is considered a worthwhile vacation."

"Never met someone who liked beer as much as you. Neither have I heard of a military force that goes through as much beer as your lot do, so I guess the two go hand in hand...even on deployment."

As a hitman, 'Jack' had never been permitted alcohol on base during a deployment or even during an increased alert or training status. Each to his own he thought, moving hair out of his eye again. At least his balaclava and ballistic helmet kept the damned fashion statement out of his eyes, although they wouldn't be worn properly for quite some time...unless the shit hit the fan that was.

If things did go wrong their plan was to destroy the first weapons shipment that Genrich was to soon pay for and trek overland to Valnari, abandoning their personal weapons before crossing the border and getting a civilian flight back to civilization. The fact that they had a backup plan like that told the team all they needed to know about the reliability of these warlords. J Corp usually preferred to deal with national governments, but with fewer new markets emerging they needed to actively pursue other lucrative areas. Triari had been identified as one possible area. Contact had been made with the most powerful warlord and also with a coalition of others; if both sides could be supplied then it would be double the profits for the money counters in their skyscrapers.


Later that day, in the Port of Neutralnaya

The small mercenary team had waited for an hour below decks as the ships crew began to unload some of their other cargo. Only when the first mate informed them that their crates were to be unloaded did the men shoulder their weapons and one by one emerge into the sunlight and follow the gang plank down to the dock. For most it was a welcome return to terra firma despite heralding the start of the really dangerous part of the mission. Six men kept watch whilst 'Jack', 'John' and two others searched out their contact. One of Genrich's soldiers called Isovich who, they were informed, spoke English and would be able to supply them with delivery and payment information. International bank accounts were apparently hard to come by in Triari.

‘Jack’ had been supplied with a small hand drawn map of the port, along with plenty of cash to use as bribes to the various militias that they expected to find. ‘John’ walked with him whilst the other two men hung back and kept their hands near the wooden stocks of their rifles. ‘John’ spoke limited Russian, thanks to a crash course by the Kingdom troops when they were based in Khurzav. The two men had studied the map a few days before, noting where it was likely that they would encounter militia and routes that they could take to avoid them. A J Corp photo satellite picture had bulked out the map to include more than just the main streets. J Corp had built most of the militaries recon satellites and regularly ‘borrowed’ some information from them, usually with the Army’s knowledge as they were covered as calibration and reliability tests.

It took them ten minutes to get to the marked bar, during which time they had spent nearly a thousand dollars politely moving militia out of their way. Though apparently a neutral city it certainly seemed that some areas were administratively owned by the black armband thugs that they knew they would soon be working with. The two men with rifles took up places either side of the bar door whilst ‘Jack’ and ‘John’ stepped in.

Inside the bar was just as rundown as it appeared from outside. Several electric lights were flickering on the walls, casting shadows across the length of the bar and masking several of the occupants in darkness. ‘Jack’ and ‘John’ approached the bar and once an old man hobbled over to them ‘John’ asked in Russian where they could find Isovich. The barman raised his eyebrows at the name, but when a pair of hundred dollar notes were produced he quickly pointed to two figures in the corner furthest from the door. ‘John’ slid the notes over the table and motioned to ‘Jack’ that these were the people. Both approached them ‘Jack’ taking a slight lead and announcing that he had come with a present for Genrich, the agreed codeword.

OOC: I’m not entirely happy with this post, but here it is anyway.

Finally in the relative privacy of the Russkyan’s office, Isinbayeva felt comfortable enough to go into greater detail, choosing to start with the overall state of affairs in Triari as she knew them. She pulled free a few particular documents from the folder and handed them to Sergetov. Each one contained detailed information on each of the known warlord of Triari, as the Kilrany knew things.

“I’m not sure how much you know about Triari Mikhail, I know it’s not exactly a priority for most people. But it would seem that some time ago we managed to turn one General Marina Tsetaeva while she was the right hand man to former warlord Yagoda, she provided us with the location he would be at, and we struck it with precision guided munitions, allowing her to assume control of his men and territory.”

She paused a moment to let Sergetov take in that piece of information before continuing.

“Now according what I’ve been told, her position is not as secure as we would like, Genrich is actively sending raiding forces to disrupt her area of control, while attempting to convince the various families of the Council to attack her. So far they haven’t done so, and they haven’t been allowing Genrich to send large forces through to do so either. I don’t know if this is because they don’t believe Tsetaeva has sided with us, or they don’t wish to end up in a position like Chuckhrai is right now. However according to this report she not in a position to hold off the combined forces of the three other factions if it came to it, not at this time anyway.”

There was another pause as she pulled free another document, this one detailing weapons and supplies the Kilrany were currently managing to keep Tsetaeva supplied with.

“The problem as they seem to see it back home is that if we actively supply her forces with weapons and equipment it will be enough to unite the other factions against her, and we would lose our foothold. As such they cannot supply her with arms obviously sent from Kilrany, at least not for the time being. RPG launchers and PKM machine guns are no problem for us to get to them apparently; they’re in such widespread use that simply leaving off the manufactures stamp is enough. But we no longer produce most weapons that are in wide circulation in Triari.

Reaching into the folder she pulled out another document, this one a list of weapons the Kilrany wished to purchase off of Russkya in large quantities, if somewhat off the record.

“According to the information I’ve been given, the weapons we’ve been able to acquire so far and supply to her forces have been of a mixed quality, and that supply is getting low. They wish to purchase large quantities of AKM assault rifles, RPD light machine guns and Dragunov marksman rifles. While we still produce the ammunition for these weapons, we do not produce those weapons ourselves anymore, and they wish to acquire quality-produced versions of these weapons, rather then the rather cheap Chinese and American knock offs. They also wish to keep this unofficial so to speak; they don’t want it to be traceable back to Russkya or Kilrany if at all possible.”

-----

Once again Alexandre Korovin looked out upon the ships berthed in his port from the relative safety of his balcony. A newcomer to his port had arrived earlier in the day and he was currently taking a look at it through a pair of binoculars out of a slight sense of curiosity, though he was still smart enough not to ask questions. When it had approached the protected port he had ordered a harbour pilot to guide it in to pier fifteen, not his best berthing spot, but good enough.

For the most part so far they had merely been unloading non-descript cargo containers, nothing terribly out of the ordinary. He was about to lower the binoculars and return inside the building until the armed men came out. Interest renewed he watched them for a moment, but seeing no armband denoting affiliation and not recognizing their fatigues, he dismissed them as being mercenaries, A dime a dozen those mercs, content for the time being he turned and went back inside.

-----

Isovich watched as ‘Jack’ and ‘John’ entered the bar, it wasn’t hard to tell they were new to Neutralnaya, few people not wearing a black arm band walked into a bar under the control of Genrich’s men, even fewer walked out again. But he was expecting them, perhaps not them specifically, but he did know he was supposed to meet some new people in this bar on Genrich’s behalf.

He smiled to himself as he witnessed them bribe the old bartender before they came over towards him, there was a certain arrogance to the man, but that was to be expected, in this bar he was in a position of power in his mind, he represented Genrich, and that made him important. That and the other men inside the bar were on Genrich’s payroll and all of them were armed; you simply did not walk about Triari without a weapon, at least not while expecting to live for very long.

He didn’t know all the details, but that didn’t stop him from speaking like he did in an almost condescending tone, “So you’re the new arrivals, hmmm? What exactly is it you think you can provide Genrich with that any other two-bit merc and arms dealer can?”

Mikhail Sergetov shrugged and walked past Isinbayeva, running his left hand along the third shelf of the bookshelves lining the walls, until he came to the massive binder he was looking for. Pulling it from its spot, he rested it on a small table and flipped through the first dozen pages until he found the entry in the index he was looking for, then hunted down the appropriate page.

Tapped a spot on the laminated page with his index fingertip twice, looking up at Isinbayeva. "Natalia, I think we can provide what you're looking for. We've got about a hundred thousand AKMs and RPDs in storage - each type, you understand - without markings. Everything else we've got has markings on them. I will arrange for RISS to deliver these weapons to you or directly to the "General," however you - or Fifth Division - wishes. In the meantime, I can arrange to have a "special batch" of SVDs and more RPDs and AKMs manufactured, sans the identifications, and ship those as well. We can even set up some old sidearms, say Tokarevs or Makarovs, no problem. What about GP30s?"

I sound like, what's his name? The arms dealer from Lord of War. Yuri Orlov, that's it, Sergetov thought to himself, while reviewing the inventory of unmarked, "Clandestine Purposes" weaponry. And sadly, this will probably not be the last time I play the role either. Although this time, it has a better chance of stabilizing the country than the last time I wrote an order like this.

'Jack' listened to the mans words, the heavily accented English just about computing in his mind. Jack had many talents, but understanding languages was not one of them. However the message got through. He turned to 'John' and raised his eyebrows before taking off his small rucksack and opening the lid.

At that a few blackarmband militiamen came in closer, but 'John' waved them away as 'Jack' pulled out a thick catalouge from the bag and with some effort hefted it at the table infront of Isovich.

It landed with a loud thud and they could see him lean forward to look at it. Emblazoned across the front were the words; J Corp Arms Catalouge 11th Edition: Now with added NBC section!! Below those words were numerous pictures of men firing automatic weapons, rocket launchers, artillery pieces and even a side on view of an AS-2M Anti-Ship Missile.

"I can bring him just about anything he wants from there. Thats what I can do for him. Not only that but I can bring it straight from the factory, with spare parts, ammunition and some basic training. For the right price of course."

The Red Tidean Long Range Sailboat Korinich

Underboss Berovinoch Teretonia was not a man inherent to fear, nervousness, or anxeity. Sure, this was his first job as a Underboss, the third highest rank in the Red Tide Mafia, but being the head of a operation for the first time didnt really bother him. With a little luck, much ruthlessness, and $100 million in cash, he was confident that phase 1 would be completed.

The seller was carefully researched, he was a independent who dealt with all the warlords equally, owned a good sized pier along with a medium warehouse. The meeting location was the very boat Teretonia was on, the Korinich

Officially, the boats crew was only stopping at the pier in Neutralnaya(a thought crossed him that that was a inherently uninspiring name) to restock on supplies before departing to some other obscure vacation place no-one had ever heard of before, then they would come back the same route. If all went well, Teretonia would be dropped off around the same time the small freighter carrying the men would come.

That is, if all went well. In case things didnt go well, every crew member had a pistol and knew how to use it... there were also three thugs below deck with Ak-74 Assualt Rifles just in case extra firepower was needed.

Today was the day they would arrive in Neutralnaya. As the boat approached the pier, Teretonia sat in his assigned quarters, sipping vodka, the boats Captain would lead the seller to him. For now, all he needed to do was wait.

Isinbayeva smiled a humourless smile as Mikhail mentioned 5th Division, thanks to their long-standing relations with Kilrany; the Russkyans were one of the few nations who had an appreciation for just how far 5th Division’s involvement in Kilrany affairs went.

“I think they’re going to be quite pleased with what you have on hand immediately Mikhail, although if I understand this, they don’t need the GPs, but the sidearms will be most useful, and transport will be arranged. Apparently they have their own way of getting weapons to her, so they will be picking up the shipments from you directly. How they plan to get them to her from there, I don’t know.”

She was pleased though, she hadn’t expected the Russkyans to have that many weapons on hand and ready to sell so quickly.

-----

Another new ship, well, aren’t we popular all of a sudden, Alexandre Korovin wasn’t used to seeing many new ships coming into his port and two of them in as many days caught his attention. It was however a good thing for him, for if it was doing something illegal, more often then not someone would come along to place a wad of bills into his hand, as if he was some customs agent they needed to buy off, not like he was going to tell them any different and refuse the money however.

He was still watching the latest arrival when a small column of darkly coloured SUVs drove up towards the pier he had chosen for it. Although this peeked his interest, he didn’t look to closely. Functioning vehicles were hard to come by, most were owned by various warlords, but high quality vehicles like the ones he saw now were exceptionally rare, which told him the new arrivals were about to be visited by a dealer of some sort, whether it was in weapons, drugs or slaves, he wouldn’t dare to ask.

A rumble off to the South drew his gaze, Something just blew up, I hope it’s not one of the power plants, his hope was confirmed a few moments later as the electricity in the immediate area was still flowing. However in a few minutes he could see a pillar of dark smoke rising in the distance. I wonder what unfortunate bastard got hit tonight.

-----

OOC: IH, what specifically will I be seeing available in this arms catalogue, custom NS weapons, or real world ordnance?

Despite the potentially threatening move by the one known as Jack, Isovich remained overly confident, figuring one of his men in the shadows had a weapon pointing at the two in case they tried something. However his jaw dropped slightly and he raised his eyebrows as the large book thumped unto the counter.

He took a moment to flip though the pages, casually glancing at it’s contents, suitably impressed that these men were a bit more then the usual people he saw he looked back up at them, “So you work for this J-Corp, and they’re willing to bring us anything in this catalogue, and risk Kilrany reprisal? Brave, Genrich will be most impressed. I’ll have to run some of this by him though.”

A second later Isovich felt a deep rumble along with a flickering of the few lights inside the bar; a moment later it was followed by the sound of a very large explosion not terribly far away. Isovich grumbled and spoke to no one in particular, “Damned Kilrany.”

-----

OOC: Red Tide2, I’m working on the assuming you expected me to portray the arms dealer.

Michael Bodrov was a wealthy man, wealthy relative to life in Triari that is. Although he had nowhere near the wealth and power of any of the various warlords of his nation, he had far more of it then any ordinary Triari dreamed of. His position however was delicate; one couldn’t sell to all sides without significant risk.

Normally he wouldn’t meet a supplier personally, but given what was promised to be a very lucrative new supplier, one capable of large quantities of heavier weapons, he saw the potential gain outweighing the risk. And he needed new suppliers, it was getting harder to find ones willing to risk large shipments, and he needed them, for Chuckhrai was in such a desperate position he was throwing money around like crazy to save his position against Tsetaeva, someone he couldn’t deal with unless he wanted to have Genrich order him killed.

His small column of five dark blue, newer model land rovers had stopped on the pier next to the ship called the Korinich, the agreed upon meeting point. A respectable guard of sixteen men was present with him from his very small private army of mercenaries, being an arms dealer he was able to keep them supplied with some of his better weapons and equipment, as such they each had heavier body armour and were armed with a shortened variant of FN FAL. He himself carried CZ 75 concealed under his simple black suit.

Only four of his men would escort him aboard the ship however, he had more interest in a profitable deal, double crossing in this business would only ruin you down the road as far as he was concerned.

Escorted aboard he addressed the man who wanted the meeting with him, he felt like getting straight down to business, “So what do you have to offer me mister Teretonia?”

-----

Lieutenant Harlamoff could feel the vibration of the four turboprop engines throughout his body, thankfully however due to excellent ear protection the roar of those engines was barely audible through the headset system used by Kilrany pilots and crew of the relatively small number of Tupolev Tu-95s still in active service within the Kilrany Imperial Air Force.

Although most models of this aircraft still in service were of the ASW variant, this one in particular that he currently let fly on autopilot some nine kilometers over the Triari city of Vernisk, was not carrying any ordnance, instead it was Surveillance model, carrying an array of receivers and transmitters designed to pick up the various signals sent out by modern communications equipment, then relay those transmissions through a Kilrany military satellite back home, where they would be checked for anything of interest.

“Think we’re sending them anything of interest?”

Harlamoff saw his friend and fellow pilot next to him chuckle more then he heard it over the communications unit they used, it was capable to distinguishing the different vibration of their vocal cords from the deeper vibration of the aircraft’s engines.

He noted they were approaching their next waypoint and keyed in the long-range communications to contact the A-50 Mainstay that was also somewhere over Triari airspace monitoring air traffic and coordinating the multitude of Kilrany aircraft over Triari.

As the ship aproshet the habbor karlog lokked upon his land of oppettenty he know frome sure evidens that there there tons of oil just waiting for some one to pick it up what some one would be him. Just three weeks he had made a deal ensuring him a 50/50 share white the Kilrany empire if he startet produktionh they would give him 50 procents of the imcome and arial protection. Not seeing the fracion leaderas as a threat he havent made a deal white them. If they turnt violent he had hired sergeant humper to protect him. As the ship reased dock he weawed awey the dock personal coming to assist him uneducatet barbars shoulten thous his fragil equpment. He rused to the dock office to talk white the man in charge. As he approchet his house he was supristed to find electrical lamps in the land of no tecnolegy. After greting Triari he start talking buisniss whil sliping 1000 dollars in his hand he askted for guids white a good knoledge of the land and told him what this meting had newer happent and that his ship have never arriwed

OOC: Thats fine...

IC: Teretonia reached into his suitcase and pulled out a sheet of paper, which he slid along the table.

"That list shows all the weapons we will initially invest in this operation. You must be aware, that we are not willing to completely jump into a new market opportunity. Once we are confident enough in the stability of this... partnership, we will begin the sale of heavier equipment." He said.

The list mainly consisted of various Soviet and Kraven handheld weaponry. Soviet Ak-74s, RPG-29s, SA-18s, and AT-14s, as well as Kraven GPMGs, carbines, and javelin missiles. The only armored vehicle on there was a BTR-80 armored personnel carrier, with a asterisk next to it marking it as a 'as approved by the Underboss.'

Bodrov nodded his head, he understood the man’s caution and he saw no reason to sugar coat it, “I understand, I’ve had difficulty maintaining suppliers here thanks to the Kilrany. If you can maintain a reliable supply, you’ll find it most profitable here.”

That said, he picked up the list and took a look at it, taking a moment to do so, he looked back at the man across from him with a slight frown, “Well, I can move these Kalashnikovs, ammunition could be problematic for some, but Genrich and The Council will have no difficulties with that. The twenty-nines should sell as well; they like to modify the rounds for those, quite deadly. I don’t know about these other weapons though, this Kraven GPMG, I’m not familiar with it, what caliber does it fire? And these missiles, I can’t move those easily, no one around here has any heavy armour or aircraft and the Kilrany don’t fly low enough to come within range of the Grouse.”

His slight frown disappeared for a moment though when he saw the BTR-80 listed as well, “I might be able to find some buyers for the APC, Genrich and The Council would gladly buy some, Chuckhrai would was well I’m sure, he’s desperate to buy just about anything right now. If you want to make a real killing here though, bring in RPG-7s, those are exceptionally popular here.”

IC: "The GPMG is actually a misnomer, its basically a modernised MG-42 machine gun. Somewhat reduced rate-of-fire, less recoil, alot more accurate, and it makes a sound distinctly Kraven. Anybody who hears it will initially think they are dealing with Capitol Police Troopers. The best part is, some of them have intergrated targetting sights with the optical-mags."

"Now the Optical-Mags are a bit expensive, we dont have all that many of them and the parts a hard to acquire, but they're excellent. They can zoom up to x50 normal sight, have various sighting modes, and, assuming the weapon has the proper uplink, displays a little crosshair where the bullet will go. Its also a good phsycological weapon, as the eye slits can be switched to glow red."

"Now, the AT-14 is not just for vehicles. With minor modifications, it can be utilised by a two man crew. But I would more suggest the Javelin for that, its better at it and only requires a single man."

"I think RPG-7s are on the list, we have a mix of the V, VL, and VR versions. They'll do quite well. Do you have any other advice? How do you think it would work if we brought in rocket artillery, the second-bosses* think they would do well here? It wouldnt require much, just the rockets, and flat roof for the rockets, and an igniter." Teretonia asked. He knew the man was more experienced in the area then him and would know more.

OOC:*The Second-Bosses are the oligarch that runs the day-day activities of the Red Tide Mafia, they only answer to the leader of the RTM, Xenocide.

“How the hell do you make an MG forty-two more accurate?” Bodrov immediately raised his right hand and shook it slightly along with his head, “Never mind, that’s not important. Right then, basically improved forty-two, so that means it fires … seven sixty-two, no, mauser’s seven ninety-two by five-seven … yes … those could sell here. The ammunition is not quite as common as some others, but we still have a few militias and warlords using the forty-two.”

Bodrov had never heard of Kraven, or these Capitol Police that Teretonia spoke of, but decided not to waste time asking, they were of no concern here to him. He frowned again for a moment at the thought of the optics, “Don’t bother with these fancy optics, never been able to find buyers for them, the warlords around here want cheap and reliable and only the occasional individual wants one. Most battles in this country happen at less then two hundred meters, if that, so I suggest leaving out optics for more movable hardware.”

He nodded his head slightly as the man before him spoke of the missile systems again, deciding the fellow hadn’t understood him, which was understandable as far as Bodrov was concerned, he hadn’t exactly elaborated on it much, “Please, trust me when I say missile systems will not sell well here, they require a decent level of training to properly use, and given the choice, most these warlords would just hand out an RPG launcher and pack full of OG rounds and set them loose. Once again, given the ranges, those types of missile systems are simply not efficient. You have to understand sir; once you leave a city or town you’re in the woods. There’s the odd clearing or piece of farmland, but these are not large in my country.”

He paused again to consider his words, “A stable supply of RPGs and ammunition will net you a lot of money here, light armour sells in smaller numbers, the warlords like to have them as part of their primary military units, and they often need to restock on them, the Kilrany like to bomb any perceived vehicle depots.”

“Rocket artillery would sell as long as it wasn’t exceptionally heavy, if they could transport it on light trucks, or even mount them on them like the Russian BM twenty-ones, they’ll buy them. They like lightweight, cheap and reliable here, we don’t have paved roads outside the major cities, and we don’t so much have roads through the country as we have paths cut through the forests, it’s what forced the Kilrany out in the first place. If you can supply eighty-two and one-twenty millimeter mortars those would also net you, and in turn, myself, a good deal of money. Speaking of which, what will be the cut here between your ‘organization’ and myself?”

Jack and John merely looked around the cieling when the dull boom came, both knew that if they had been the target they would be dead and that if their ship had been hit it would have been a lot louder due to the stock of RPG-7's that they had brought as a goodwill gesture if the deal looked to be going ahead.

"We don't exactly work for J-Corp, more we have access to their armouries that we give to selected clients. Effectively we are independent, providing them with business that they wouldn't be able to reach directly due to their internal code of ethics. There are numerous pieces of equipment that we can supply you with from the catalogue. It is assumed that you will be requiring the....ummm....simpler pieces for your militia forces. However we can provide more, user skilled, systems if you require them."

"On another note I was asked to make clear to you that J-Corp does have divisions in mining, petroleum and numerous other civilian sectors whose expertise and infrastructure could also prove useful to someone such as Genrich."

Jack paused for a moment to consider his position. He hadn't quite told the truth. Their pay packets came from J-Corp, just through several dummy corporations to limit their direct ties to the Corporation. The Chairman was a close friend of the President and didn't want to be seen to be supplying conflict zones even if he was. Money was such a powerful factor. The conflict zones also gave some "advisors" the chance to try out newer technology on the battlefield. In time it would be of particular interest to the technicians developing medium range SAM's to take a shot at some Kilrany monitoring aircraft.

"Would Genrich be interested in more advanced weaponary for some of his more experienced soldiers? AK's are reliable but perhaps not the best weapon for a more elite force. Personally I would recommend G-36's or even British SA-80's, the later we have modified somewhat to make them a feasible weapon."

"Hmm..." Teretonia said, as the man talked about mortars and rocket artillery. "They are rather portable, Hezbollah used lots of them in Lebanon. You can carry them with your hands, but if you want more powerful rockets, your gonna need trucks. I will see what I can do about getting truck mounted rockets, but there is no garuntee. Now mortars, mortars I can get easily. Especially the '82s... they can also use some of the American '81 ammo we have. Now I dont really see the use of '120 mortars here, they're a bit heavy, unless you are going to mount them on pickup trucks."

He jotted down a couple of notes on a sheet of paper.

"As for what the cut will be, that is one of the reasons we are here, to negotiate that. My first proposal is 50/50."

OOC: Looks as though I was wrong, the writing bug hit me and I was able to get a response out tonight after all.

Isovich smirked at the mention of simpler equipment for the militias, like most of the more ‘professional’ soldiers he looked down upon the militias with disdain, “Yes, we don’t bother to give the militias the fancy weapons, waste of time and resources they are, little more then cannon fodder,” his statement elicited a few light chuckles from the men around him in the bar.

“Genrich might be interested in the more advanced weapons, if they actually work decently. There’s something to be said for a weapon that lets you shoot a man through a tree or two,” he grinned at his own attempt at humour in reference to the Kalashnikovs in widespread use in Triari. “Do you offer any sort of training to go with these more advanced weapons? There’s nothing worse then a weapon you can’t use.”

He frowned though at the mention of infrastructure, a topic that was beyond him, “I suppose he might be, but I don’t see how much good you could do, any major operations aren’t exactly hard to spot. But if you bring in so decent SAMs you might just be useful.”

“And yes, I can say Genrich might be interested in weapons like that, he’s been looking to get his hands on some G36s, he seems to like the design on those weapons, I don’t ask why. But if you can get some here and good supply of ammunition, I’m sure he’d be interested in them. Personally I’d rather have a good ol’ AKM in my hands, but what he wants, he gets. He has a handful in stock already, but they’re hard to come by.”

A thought occurred to Isovich and he decided to ask an additional question of the two men before him, “Do you supply aircraft as well? In particularly helicopter gunships?

-----

Bodrov nodded his head, “That’s interesting to hear, we get little news of the outside world here, you can understand that I’m sure. So yes, if you can supply lightweight rockets, I can find buyers. Trucks wont be a huge problem though, the warlords have them, but if you can supply some of those as well, in particular, light trucks, I can find all sorts of buyers for those. Technicals abound here, if they figure out a way to mount in on it on a vehicle, they’ll do it. The eighty ones are less common here, but they’ll still sell if we have some launchers to go with them.”

When the man across from him responded to his question about the cut, he slipped into a poker face, however despite this, a little bit of a pleased expression broke through. Fifty-fifty? I’ll make a fortune on this. Hell, if that’s his opening proposal, I wonder how high he’s willing to go? No, don’t be greedy; greed will get your ass killed. Bodrov allowed a small smile to come across his face as he finally chose to respond to the proposal, “I believe that’s more then acceptable sir, we’re both going to make a good deal of money here.”

-----

In the dark of the night, far away from the city of Neutralnaya, some one hundred and seventy five kilometers South East of the city of Destina, a militia group loyal to Chuckhrai sat about merrily laughing away around a few fires as they stood guard in a small village. Although they were supposed to be standing guard, the five men barely paid any attention to the darkness around them, which would prove to be a fatal mistake.

Farther away from the main group of militiamen currently awake was Anton Korovin, he was at the other end of the small village, some thirty meters away standing next to an old oil drum currently ablaze, providing him with some light. At age eighteen, and born of the village they were in, he was somewhat more dedicated to the notion of guarding the village. Grumbling to himself as he stood next to the fire, occasionally scanning the darkness with his eyes, then looking back to his useless comrades who simply sat around the other fire, his AKM hung in front of him by a makeshift sling he fashioned using a length of rope.

I can’t believe the rest trust these idiots to watch their backs while they sleep, he continued to grumble to himself, thinking about the other fourteen militiamen, including their ‘commander’ currently asleep in one of the dark houses of his village. Sweeping the darkness again he frowned, not that it’s much damned good, I can’t see shit out here.

Looking back at his fellow militiamen for the umpteenth time, he grumbled again at their uselessness, just sitting there laughing away. A look of confusion came upon him though as one suddenly lurched forward, followed quickly by the others and this time he noticed what looked to be a spray of blood from one of them; a moment later he realized they’d just been shot.

As the realization dawned on him what just happened someone grabbed a handful of hair on the back of his head and forcefully pulled backwards, as that happened the most unbelievable pain shot through his neck, words failing to describe the full extent of the pain. He grabbed at his neck instinctively and tried to scream out in pain but all he heard was a gurgling as he felt the his own blood pouring from his now severed throat.

A moment later he found himself flat on his back as he clawed at his neck, attempting to force air into his lungs that just wouldn’t fill. His eyes bulged as he was in full panic mode, desperate not to die and in excruciating pain he was still able to see a dark shape above him, it suddenly moved as if it were descending upon him, and the play of light from the fire now a short distance away upon whatever it was this man was wearing made him look less like a man and more like some sort of shadow monster in Anton’s dying eyes.

It would be morning before the residents of the village awoke to see the carnage that now inhabited their small community. Outside they found the six dead militiamen, five were shot, and one had his throat slit. It was however in the building the other militia had been sleeping in that the true carnage was found; every last man inside had been killed in their sleep, their throats cut open.

To add to the terror of the Triari civilians, a note was also found on a table, in Russian it read, ‘The worst is yet to come for those who follow Chuckhrai.’ The word spread quickly through Triari of the attack on the small village, within two week all of Triari would know, but by then it would not have been the only such event.

Jack began putting his rucksack onto his back as Isovich spoke and put his answers in after each question that he was asked.

“Training shouldn’t be a problem no. Whilst we can give you manuals for the equipment there is nothing better than some hands on training, myself and my colleagues can provide most of that for you. Specialists can help you on any heavier equipment that you want.”


“G-36’s are no problem, I can get a hundred on the next shipment sent out here along with plenty of ammunition and spare magazines. I suspect we have both the C and K variants. Tell you what I’ll show you our online inventory. John.”

‘Jack’ motioned to ‘John’ who removed his own rucksack, this one smaller that the other, and proceeded to unload several pieces of equipment including a laptop and satellite phone. He made each movement slowly to ensure that the men in the room didn’t decide it was hostile and shoot him. As Jack continued to speak to the man he plugged the satellite phone into the laptop and proceeded to log on to a secure website. ‘Jack’ was still talking to the man.

“Helicopter gunships? Well I know we have several available to us, mostly booty from the Talaax conflict that the Hitmen were recently involved in. There are three Mi-24’s at one of our facilites for evaluation tests. For the right price I’m sure we can get some pilots for them as well, getting them here could be a problem though. Do the Kilrany ever stop ships in international waters and search them?”

As he finished speaking ‘John’ had finished his log in procedure and had turned the laptop around on the table so it faced Isovich. The screen showed a database within an internet browser, ‘John’ had brought up the small arms section and the subsection Heckler & Koch. It showed stocks of various weapons, from MP-5’s of many variants through the G-3 and G-36 range to a pair of light machine guns. Each entry on the database had a small picture next to it along with stats on the weapon and the final number listed how many were available. For most weapons it numbered in the thousands. There were other groups out trying to sell to the worlds conflict hot spots and all those affiliated with J-Corp used this website to securely place reservations and impress potential ‘clients’. ‘John’ now spoke.

“The only problem with the website is that it does not accommodate cash payments that we believe you will be making if you choose to order. In that case we will bring the weapons here via ship and meet a representative who will give an agreed payment, the cargo will then be handed over for you to disperse as you see fit along with advisors and a small protection team for them if you require such expertise.”

OOC: Apologies for the slight delay, work this weekend and a simple inability to focus on writing held me up.

Isovich smiled broadly as he looked upon the screen’s display, Real professionals these guys, I like em, although a moment later a minor thought passed through his mind that set off his paranoia, his smile faded as he looked at the two men, “The Kilrany aren’t going to be able to home in on this are they?”

Knowing nothing about Electronic Warfare and some of the difficulties there in, he didn’t know what it really took to do more then just listen in on wireless signals and as such was paranoid of any such electronic gadgets that could potentially end in a Kilrany laser guided bomb hitting his current position.

Brushing that thought aside for a moment however he moved on to the other points of the conversation, “Personally I like the compact version of the G-thirty-six, looks good while keeping the most of the characteristics of its larger version. What’s the difference in price though?”

Continuing he moved on to the topic of the gunships, “We have a handful of pilots on hand, but they’re not trained to use helicopters I don’t think. If you could provide both, I’m sure Genrich would be quite pleased and willing to pay the price for them. As for the Kilrany,” Isovich frowned before speaking again, “They have been known to attempt to intercept and search some of our ships, whether in international waters, or closer. As far as we can tell they only ever do it to ships that belong to us in particular, although it has been known to happen otherwise. Fortunately we haven’t seen many of their surface ships in the area for the past year, their little war with the Khurzav seems to have drawn many of their extra independent ships to that coast to try and prevent weapons from slipping in there.”

He paused for a few moments, appearing to be considering his next words, as if not sure he should speak them, “Its been the experience of our ships that if they attempt to board you, its best to stop and let them do so. Most of the time all they do is confiscate the cargo if it’s weapons and send you on your way, almost as if they enjoy the thought of stopping you again later to take more. They don’t however react well to finding anything else, such as drugs or slaves, and they really don’t like it when our ships attempt to evade them by simply sailing past full speed for the harbour here. If they don’t stop, they tend to put a number of large holes in the hull and let the crew try and swim from there. Bastards”

"Im glad we could reach a quick agreement on that." Teretonia said, "Now, the last issue we need to discuss is smuggling. You have alot more experience with the Kilrany and other neighbouring nations, so I will listen to your advice."

He flipped a page on his pad of notes.

"How often do the Kilrany stop ships in international waters? How thorough do they search? Do they go after the same ships over and over again? How do they react when they find something? And finally..."

He hesitated for a moment.

(OOC Note: I hope the following is okay with you Kilrany)

"We have a small network in Kilrany itself, nothing big, just some low-level smuggling, like alchohol, tobacco, and such. We could easily bribe officials there through this network. Do you know of any Kilrany intellegince people we can put on our payroll? They could be useful in providing their colleagues with counter-intellegince."

OOC: I’m hesitant to allow anyone to simply up and install anything like such in my nation without RPing it, but in this case I’m willing to allow such a minor organization as you mentioned, Tobacco is less common, but alcohol would net some income if you can actually do it without major notice.

Bodrov gave a nod of his head, “Yes, the actual transport of weapons into this country can be difficult at times. However you are new, thus your ships are unknown to the Kilrany. They rarely stop ships they don’t know without cause. If you have multiple ships you can use at different times, you hardly need worry about being searched. That being said though, when they do decide to stop a ship and search it, they are very thorough, I imagine they’d tear the ship apart if they could. And yes, they will stop the same ship again and again if it makes it on one of their lists and one of their surface ships spots it. Fortunately they seem to be fairly busy making sure no one is interfering with their operations in Khurzav right now.”

He paused a moment before going on, “As for how they react, this varies, most of the time if they find weapons, they just seize them and let the ship carry on, I think they like adding the weapons to their ‘plausible-deniability’ stockpile, but that’s just my opinion. Sometimes if they find weapons though, they take them, force the crew to abandon ship and sink it. God help you if they catch you with drugs or slaves,” Bodrov scoffed before continuing, “You’d think they took it personally. But in any case, they catch you with those and they execute the crew ‘and’ sink the ship. This is why I only deal in weapons. The Kilrany seem to care less about arms dealers.”

He shrugged slightly on his last words before leaning in slightly when Teretonia paused, curiosity getting to him, although he almost choked when he heard what the man had to say, “Are you fucking insane?”

He paused for a moment as a look of astonishment came across his face, taking a moment to calm himself down he continued, “I’m sorry, but that surprises me. The Kilrany don’t take well to outside interference in their nation. If you have people in there, you best keep them low, and don’t go foolishly trying to bribe anyone, accepting bribes in Kilrany is tantamount to committing treason and will get a government official publicly executed in one of their coliseums along with violent criminals.”

“I would seriously recommend against bribery, unless you had someone expendable you were willing to lose if it went wrong, and personally, I think it would. But I don’t think you should have any problems initially. The Kilrany hesitate a bit more in my experience with ships they’re not familiar with.”

OOC: Don’t matter at all mate! This isnt the best post ever, but it gets things moving. Perhaps we should move ahead a bit by agreeing on some purchases and then skipping the time frame forward to delivery?


The two J-Corp employees were happy to see Isovich smile at the screen. They had suspected that the man thought they were two bit mercs or just traditional weapons dealers, not people who had access to some top of the line hardware. While ‘Jack’ began to answer Isovich’s questions ‘John’ was typing away on the enquiry facility on the website. ‘Jack’ peered briefly at the screen and produced a note book and pen from one of his fatigues pockets. He began to write down the weapon designation and price, along with an example quantity as he spoke.

“For the compact our base price would be $850, so lets say with an order of a hundred that would come down to about $820 per unit. For the standard version we would ask for about $845 per unit with the dual sights if the same quantity was ordered. On top of that ammunition, for say four thousand rounds of 5.56mm NATO spec, it will cost you $100. The more you want the cheaper it will get per round. At that price its 40 cents a round, but with more orders it will slide dramatically. Currently our stockpile shows us with 9million rounds with 42million available over a slightly longer period of time in this calibre.”

“Oh and don’t worry about them checking it. We are operating a 512mb encryption program over the top of a secure satellite uplink from our satellite phone there. The satellite is…well lets say its secure.”

“Now as for pilots that shouldn’t be a problem. Ground crew may be a little more haphazard but I’m sure we can train some of your people up in that for a price. It’s quite simple to prepare the ground and keep the thing fuelled and armed, maintenance would be more difficult though. Can’t say I’m familiar with gunships, but we can get the right kind of person on the phone in a while if necessary.”

He paused speaking as ‘John’ sat back from the laptop and coughed lightly to inform him that he had something to say. ‘Jack’ took a look at the screen, smiled, and motioned for ‘John’ to carry on.

“Isovich, earlier you mentioned that SAM’s would be quite welcome. Well I’ve had a root around in the database and we have two SA-17 launcher systems along with a dozen SA-11’s and the radar vehicle that those latter ones need. Would they interest Genrich? They are easily ship portable, we just may need to get lucky with the Kilrany not searching them.”

OOC: I have no problem with jumping the timeframe up somewhat. I had planned to do so when the preliminary arms dealing was done.

Isovich smiled again, “Excellent. Then given the price I believe the compact will do quite nicely, I’m sure Genrich would agree. Although I hope you can supply more then a hundred in due time. Genrich may decide he wants more of them. To be honest I’m not sure how much ammunition to order, we don’t usually have anyone with such large stocks on hand and more importantly, willing to transport it here. Perhaps forty thousand rounds to start with? If we can get more such rifles we will no doubt want more ammunition on stand by.”

He relaxed slightly as the ‘Jack’ reassured him that the Kilrany could not home in on the signal from satellite phone, “Ground crew wont be a problem, we have men trained to operate on aircraft, fueling, arming and performing maintenance, although not specifically on a helicopter, I’m sure it’s not entirely different.”

‘John’s’ cough drew Isovich’s attention as well and then grinned broadly at the thought of getting their hands on some SAM systems, “Beautiful, Genrich will want those, no question about it. But we don’t have anyone capable of operating them; we’d need someone to show us how they work.”

His grinned changed to that of a slight frown however a moment later, “We got our hands on some older models some years back, dealer risked selling us some, I don’t know what kind they were now, but we lost them and their crews when the Kilrany struck back with what we figure were HARMs. Bastards seem to make them part of their aircraft’s standard load. Is there anything you can do to help us with that part?”

It had been just over two weeks since the deal had been finalised and confirmation received that the ship had left the J-Corp storage facility at Groom Lake. ‘Jack’ had been using the time profitably. The AK-47’s that his men had initially carried had been handed into Isovich’s men and their local arsenal whilst the twenty RPG-7’s that they had brought had met with a similar fate, probably being taken off deeper into Genrich’s area of control to stock up an armoury here or there.

The men from J-Corp now carried their own weapons, mainly heavily modified M4 carbines although two had G36C’s which had been used to get some of the local men, including Isovich, more familiar with the weapons before the shipment arrived. Isovich had assured ‘John’ that arrangements had been made for both payment and getting the heavier equipment away from the port and to more secure areas where it could be tested and used.

The days had drifted past and the day of the delivery was now upon them. Isovich and some of his men had joined ‘Jack’s team at the quayside awaiting the arrival of the vessel. There was no smoke on the horizon and there had been little Kilrany air activity all day so they all had their fingers crossed that the small freighter Addison High would reach the harbour as scheduled. Onboard the vessel was the equipment ordered, the technical team and three more security men to guard them the bill for all of whom ‘Jack’ had in his pocket. Luckily one of his men was the paymaster and it was his job to determine that the method of payment, diamonds, was correct and proper.

Just in case of any problems ‘Jack’s men were spread out and all on alert. They wore their body armour and helmets and all had personal radios and their full weapons load. A double-cross didn’t make sense but had to be considered. If they were taken out Genrich wouldn’t have access to any more weapons and neither would he be able to use the heavier equipment that was being delivered.

One of Jack’s men was up on a building with a pair of powerful binoculars. Over the horizon he spotted a ship approaching and radioed the fact to Jack who informed Isovich whom he was standing next to.







Itemised:

Hardware

200x G-36C Assault Rifle @ $810 each Subtotal: $162,000
40x 1000round box 5.56mm NATO @ $25 each Subtotal: $1000
3x SA-11 SAM Launcher @ $1.2m each Subtotal: $3,600,000
1x SA-11 Radar Vehicle @ $1m each Subtotal: $1,000,000
20x SA-11 SAM @ $3,500 each Subtotal: $70,000

Technical Support

SA-11 Technical Support Team Subtotal: $20,000


Total Hardware: $4,833,000
Total Technical Support: $20,000


Total Due: $4,853,000
Discount (Diamond) = $3000

Total Payable: $4,850,000

A double cross was the furthest thing from Isovich’s mind as he and a small unit stood on the prearranged dock, he had slipped the old man Korovin a few hundred dollars to see that the harbour pilot sent out to guide the arriving freighter got a specific pier. Despite their violent history, it was rare for the Triari to double cross anyone in any sort of business deal, it quickly gave one a bad reputation and they needed all the ‘business associates’ they could get, this didn’t however stop him from considering that they might double cross him. In preparation for that potential outcome, he had brought along some men from the regular garrison in the city, armed like the militias, they however had slightly better training and experience, and some lightweight body armour.

As they waited for the ship to appear, two of the regulars with Isovich chatted lightly among themselves, “So how much longer do you think Chuckhrai is going to hold out?”

“Hmph, I give him a year, he’s losing his control on Inara already, and the bitch doesn’t look like she’s going to let up anytime soon. The poor bastards got the Kilrany on him now too, so it might be sooner if they manage to get a bead on him and drop a guided bomb on his ass!”

“Hah, yeah, I heard about that too, the note left in the village, classic Kilrany scare tactic, they say fifty militiamen had their throats cut during the night. Hah! I’m sure that’s an exaggeration, I bet it was no more then thirty. Bastard Kilrany like to come in the night.”

“Well no shit, they’ve got night vision and infrared equipment, if we had that stuff we’d be attacking at night too.”

Fortune was on their side that day, many of the Kilrany Imperial Navy’s independent surface ships were tied up patrolling the Khurzav coastline on interdiction duty, ensuring there was no international interference in their attempt to pacify the Southern nation. As such, for quite some time they hadn’t sent any surface vessels around West to patrol up around the Triari port. And since the Kilrany did not randomly bomb ships coming into, or moored in the harbour, it was essentially clear sailing for the merchant ship this day.

Despite himself, Isovich smiled when Jack told him the ship had been spotted, this would be good for him, Genrich would be extremely pleased with him to have garnered a new, and ideally, reliable supplier. In his right hand he held a small briefcase that contained nearly five million dollars in diamonds, it had been decided to use diamonds incase other printed money didn’t work so well for his new friends.

Not far away the harbour master, Korovin, also noted the new arrival on the horizon, a quick shout in through a door and someone on his employ used a radio to alert the current on duty harbour pilots, two of which sped away in a rather modern looking pilot boat towards the Addison High with the intent of boarding the vessel and guiding it in to it’s designated pier.

Isovich turned to Jack and addressed the mercenary in a friendly tone, “I have no problem saying I’m quite pleased right now. You and I are both going to make out well in this. I may have some additional ‘activities’ that you might be interested in, for the right price of course.”

Mid-day in the port of Neutralnaya proved a bit more hot than either of the two new comers were use to. They watched on the side of a minor wharf as sailors struggled to handle the cargo boxes that they had paid to have brought with them. The large sweaty crew pulled on ropes and levies, wrenching a nine by five foot container off the deck of the small transport.

Both men wore suits, not stylish in anyway really, but a light gray-silver color with a weathered look to them. One, 6' exactly, wore a black silk shirt underneath the blazer, the other, 5'11", wore blue. The black shirt had short blond hair, parted to one side and with a very noble looking face, clean shaven, and with very sculpture-esque features. His piercing blue eyes watched the sailors carefully.

The other was a bit more brawny in size, and completely bald. His cheeks and chin were covered in 3-days worth of growing beard. A cigarette hung out the side of his mouth in a lax position as he sat on one of the already offloaded smaller crates, the size of a coffin.

One of the sailors slipped his grip. With a crash the container came to the ground, banging onto the wharf. The blond haired man marched up to them, fuming.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? You going to pay for that if it breaks?" he asked in perfect Russian.

"Sorry sir," said the chief sailor. The chief was easily twice as big and three times the weight of the blond man, but seemed frightened of him. "It won't happen again."

"It had better not be...or I'll take it out of your hides," warned the blond man. He walked back over to his partner who had removed his cigarette and was smashing its still burning ashes into the ground with deliberate and slow turns of his Armani black leather shoe. He pulled a pair of sun glasses out of his pocket and put them on, turning to the other.

"You're going to get an ulser one of these days Hansi," said the bald man. "I'm surprised Colonel Eichmann ever let you out of Neinburg."

"Shut it Rolf, and to hell with Colonel Eichmann," retorted Hans. "And stop calling me that nick-name. It's annoying."

"Thought you liked it?"

"I don't."

"Alright then, I won't call you Hansi anymore...Hansi."

Hans let it drop. It was no use arguing with a man with no moral. Come to think of it he didn't have any morals either, so the point was rather moot when it came to that juncture. Hans took out a cigarette of his own and flipped out an older styled lighter. With a flick of his wrist a flame popped up. "Did you find a store house or warehouse nearby?" asked Hans, smoke puffing out as he closed the lighter and took a drag on the white colored stick in his mouth.

"Sure did, nice and proper one," smiled Rolf. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder to a line of private storage houses along the docks, once that fishermen and merchants would often use to store their wares and catch of the day. "Big enough to even fit the big bang sticks."

"Better be," admonished Hans. He turned to see the last of their cargo come softly, and with great care, to the ground. They needed to get into the city before dark and he didn't feel like lugging those crates around with just Rolf for help. That would be a pain in the ass. "Got the key?"

"Yea," said Rolf, taking a rusty looking key out of his pocket. It had a number '4' painted in red on it. Hans took it form him and walked up to the crew chief again.

"I need your men to carry these crates over to that line of storehouses. Put it all in storehouse 4," said Hans. While he spoke he took a few hundred USD bills out of his pocket and put them discreetly into the chief's hand.

"Not a problem sir," replied the chief with a knowing glance.

"And nothing had better be missing or broken or else I will come and kill you," said Hans, completely calm as ice. The crew shivered and nodded their understanding. Hans nodded in thanks and walked back over to Rolf.

"Alright lets get out of this rat hole and into a decent bar."

"I always like it when you talk dirty," smiled Rolf.

The pair walked into the bustling city out of the wharf area. They passed the open fish markets and came into the city proper. People of all standings and social stature walked by. Salesmen hawked their appliances from store doorways. Girls scantily clad in anything other than maybe a skirt and t-shirt cat called and whistled as Hans walked by. Rolf gave them leering smiles and pretended to lick his chops. The girls naturally flipped him off.

They stopped at the first major bar they found, one near enough the wharf and near enough to the heart of the city; in other words, the perfect location to find someone with the information they needed. Their net database information services had informed them on the current situation in Triari, its political, social, and economical background, and even military information provided by military spy satellites. Neither man was part of some private organization, mafia cartel, or even a member of some hitman based agency of killers. Instead they had the funding and training of special forces soldiers, members of a clandestine brigade run by the elite of Thrashia, the Waffen SV.

Both were officers in the formation but where currently on 'leave' to gain more experience, more information, and above all to have fun doing what they did best: killing.

In the many years Korovin had been the harbour master for Neutralnaya he had seen all types of people come off of the ships under his watch, in that regard he liked to consider himself as having a good judge of human body language. When he saw how the sailors of the newest arrival to his docks reacted to the two men who watched over them in conjunction with their clothing, he decided they must be arms dealers.

Taking mental note of the name of the new vessel, he turned about and walked off his balcony back into his building. Inside on the second story he found himself on another balcony of sorts, which ran along one side of the main room of the building with a stairs running down to the first floor to the right side. In the center of the room was a large wooden table with a map of the harbour on top of it, serving as reference for the handful of employees who worked for Korovin in running the harbour, to the right of the room was a radio station used to contact incoming ships and the harbour pilots out on duty.

“Feodor! Add the new ship to the logbook, low priority,” as the new ship didn’t belong to any of warlords who paid his bills, and they hadn’t approached him with a bribe, he placed it lower on the list of ships that got attention first.

“Yea-yes sir,” the reply from Feodor was somewhat weak, he was a new man, he had to come in rather suddenly to replace his predecessor when it was discovered he had been paid off by someone to try and copy the logbook and sneak it out. Korovin had no choice but to turn him over to local ‘authorities’, which were a mishmash of regulars and militiamen from the various warlords in power, little more then a death sentence, when the man refused to speak about who hired him, he was shot.

-----

The two men had picked a good bar to enter, one of the few in the city privately owned and advertised as being a neutral bar, as such with a wider clientele the bar was a bit better off in comparison to others, decently lit and stocked with various kinds of alcohol, it was popular among the people of the city and various soldiers and militiamen of the factions to peacefully have a drink. To assist in keeping it peaceful, the owner of the bar hired numerous mercenaries and local thugs to act as bouncers.

From behind the counter an old man in his forties, past middle age for the average life expectancy of a Triari saw the two new arrivals enter the bar he was employed by. None of the ‘hired goons’ made a move on them since they didn’t look like they were there to cause a problem.

Figuring they were at least relatively wealthy given their clothing, the old bartender put on a smile as they approached and in a friendly tone addressed them, “Well now, you two are new, what’ll you have?”

“Always interested for the right price my new friend. To warn you about the security on the vessel coming in there will be an additional twelve men, seven technicians and a five man security squad for them. We are assuming that they will be operating separately to ourselves and therefore the firm has decided they need their own escort.”

‘Jack’ continued with the small talk as the Addison High came into view properly. It wasn’t a big freighter, in fact the missile launchers and radar vehicle took up over half of the main cargo hold the rest being filled with bags and bags of grain en route to Stevid – the ship was part of the J-Corp agriculture division.

It took sometime for the harbour pilots to bring the vessel alongside the quay that the collection of armed men were standing at. Some of the security team onboard were visible at the rails of the pilot house; M4’s hanging from the load bearing straps over their body armour. The commander of the five man squad was already in radio contact with ‘Jack’ on the quayside, the latter using his microphone around his throat to communicate. ‘Jack heard him give an order and the men visible removed their ballistic helmets with a large yellow J painted on them and replace them with identical, yet plain, ones.

A pair of deck hands struggled with the rail of the ship as they removed a section in order for two more to place a narrow wooden ramp down to the quayside. With it firmly in place the two deck hands scrambled down to ensure that it was completely secure for the first of the passengers to begin disembarking. They weren’t too far behind the deck hands.

Two well built men in armour came first, holding their M4’s lightly with one hand on the grip as the other guided them down the rail. Once down on terra firma the two took station either side of the gangway and allowed the first of the technicians down, they were all dressed in warm civilian clothing with pistols in drop holsters on their thighs and the first man down moved quickly towards ‘Jack’ who held out his hand.

“Good afternoon Jack, good to see you again.”

“And yourself Mr. Hopkins. It’s a pleasure as normal. This is Isovich. Genrich”

“Mmm..yes..yes. Now the ships Captain tells me he needs to be out of here first thing in the morning and to get unloading asap. Seems a little nervous about having so many pieces of umm…equipment…onboard.”

“Understandable Sir. We need to wait until dark however before we move the larger pieces of equipment, Isovich here has arranged that. We can unload some of the smaller bits and pieces though, personal gear and such. For tonight there are a pair of rooms in Isovich’s barracks for yourself and your team who are not required with unloading. All we really need are the drivers.”

“Quite. Bit cold here isn’t it. I was told tropical forests.”

“Umm. Sorry to disappoint Sir. If you don’t mind we will start unloading now.”

“Very well, carry on. Your show and all that.”

“Thank you.”

He turned away from the slightly eccentric Stevidian lead technician and to Isovich.

“Isovich, do you want to follow me to look at the merchandise. Bring a few of your men to carry the crates as well, I assume you have somewhere to store the rifles immeadiately?”

When he had received a positive response from Isovich ‘Jack’ walked up the gangway where he exchanged pleasantries with the guard commander who then walked them down into the hold. Throwing the large waterproof door open they were greeted with a pile of grain sacks raising to the roof, the commander lead the way to the left of them and they emerged into an area crammed with vehicles covered in tarpaulins and crates marked with the word ‘Dangerous’.

“Nicely hidden” ‘Jack’ remarked sarcastically. The guard commander just leered at him and took two short steps towards a large crate which had a crowbar resting on it. A nod from ‘Jack’ and he prised the box open to reveal a single SA-11 missile sitting in straw.

“Those will need a crane to lift them to the quay and a truck to transport them. These can be carried by a couple of strong men.”

With that he moved to a smaller, deeper crate and prised the lid off of that revealing a G-36C surrounded by empty magazines.

“There are forty crates each containing five weapons and another forty with the ammunition. There are also ten magazines for each weapon in the crates with them.”

Very good to hear, very good to hear indeed, Isovich smiled to himself, “That’s quite reasonable, you don’t want to put your men in unnecessary danger, a personal guard for them makes sense. There wont be any difficulty with them.”

There wasn’t a great deal for Isovich to talk about to Jack as they awaited the arrival of the freighter, he wasn’t quite ready to give the man and his associates a job until they were in someplace a bit more private. Despite this however, he did make up for a little bit of small talk, if somewhat centered around his personal hatred for the Kilrany, little news of the outside world often reached the Triari unless they were wealthy, as the Kilrany habit for jamming signals spread to the civilian radio broadcasts as well.

When the harbour pilot finally guided the ship to a stop at its designated pier, one that included a currently unoccupied crane, Isovich watched quietly as several men disembark from the ship. He was amused to see several men in heavier clothing, apparently cold given that it was the middle of summer in Triari and there wasn’t a trace of snow on the ground.

He couldn’t help a laugh when ‘Hopkins’ actually spoke about it being cold; “You think its cold now, stick around for winter.”

In a rather good mood he responded quickly to the question from Jack about going aboard, “Gladly, and yes, Genrich has a few warehouses in the harbour we can use,” he gestured with his hand to one of the closer ones, then made another few gestures to a handful of the men with him to follow him. At this point, he couldn’t be happier that his initial impressions of these men as nothing more then the average mercenary had been wrong.

Isovich chuckled at Jack’s sarcastic remark, “To be fair, had this ship been boarded, being hidden better wouldn’t have made the slightest difference unless you had this equipment at the bottom of a large grain pit.”

He was almost beaming at the sight in the hold however, “Most excellent. Everything but the vehicles we’ll take out now, the crates will keep everything else hidden,” he quickly pointed at one of his men, “You, go tell Korovin I want a crane operator here now, and tell the men outside to get some heavier trucks here.”

The soldier gave a quick acknowledgement and took off to carry out his assignment. Isovich turned back to Jack, “Just to confirm the plan, we’ll get these crate out now and get them stored in a warehouse of the time being, then when night falls we’ll lift out the vehicles, keep them covered though, we should have some heavier vehicles to transport them into the warehouse, I don’t want these visible to prying eyes, once we get them in the warehouse we’ll take a good look over them. Is this acceptable? Oh yes, will you need to have payment before this ship leaves?”

‘Jack’ looked at the hidden monsters and nodded.

“We will need payment before yes. However in the interests of fairness we will exchange once these have been brought to the warehouse tonight. This glorified barge doesn’t have to leave until the morning so we can get the payment safely stored aboard later tonight when you’re happy about the quality of the goods. If my information is correct they should be able to give some form of demo run or something similar in the warehouse away from the prying eyes as you say.”

‘Jack’ removed his ballistic helmet and scratched his head, taking the opportunity to adjust the earpiece in his left ear and then attach the helmet to his load bearing straps near the small of his back so that it hung slightly behind him. He couldn’t see the need for it any more as he felt strangely at ease with these men. His background in the IH 8th Special Forces Regiment had taught him to be a good judge of character and body language, these men didn’t seem like they were about to spring an ambush on him as the fuckers in Intelligent Neighbours had so nearly done. Only some cool, calm and disciplined shooting from the squadron had cleared those two-bit militia out and allowed them to get to some hastily sent helicopters.

Back in the present ‘Jack’ began discussing security arrangements with Isovich for that evening.

“My men have low light gear and two of them have IR scanners. I think if we put one up on the crane looking outwards we should be able to give good cover of the docks, your men on an outer perimeter with mine closer in – yours can interact with the locals a lot better than mine.”

Almost as he finished speaking another of Isovich’s men ran up and with three others grabbed two odd crates of G-36’s and began taking them towards the doorway and the loose stairs out towards the deck. Most of the rest of the crates were on pallets and so would wait to be hooked up to the crane before they were taken up and out. One of the crewmen was even now holding down the green button that opened the large loading hatch so that all was ready for the crane. If necessary one of the ships crew could probably operate the machinery.

Knowing that the unloading was now best left to the sailors ‘Jack’ took Isovich back out of the hold to the deck where they climbed a single ladder so that they stood on the railing outside the pilot house to survey the unloading. Already a lighter truck was drawn up alongside the quay and the two unloaded crates were being pushed in under the watchful eyes of half a dozen of Isovich’s men and a pair of Jack’s. In the distance Jack could make out the man sent off earlier reappearing from a building with another in tow who he assumed was the crane driver. So far so good.

OOC: Sorry for the late intro RP…I’ll get more into details on the next post.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tenochitilán, México, ANL – 4:21 PM

Tenoch Ohtli looked over the various files on his crowded desk. He looked back at the clock overlooking his desk, extremely nervous. Only a few weeks ago, the Chicote Cartel, informally known as “the whip”, seemed like a distant concern to Tenoch Ohtli, an upstanding citizen in his own right. However, after falling on to some hard times and requiring a few “favors” from this cartel, he was now in debt. Money was only a slight concern for the cartel. Sometimes a simple service was enough to satisfy a debt. However, what the cartel was asking of Tenoch was not a simple task.

‘I can’t do this…I can’t do this…I can’t…” Tenoch thought over and over again. ‘I can’t betray my country.’ He looked down at a small picture of his family – his wife, daughter and father. He had already had brought dishonor upon them, especially his father and mother. While his father was still alive today, he had fought in the thick of the revolution in the 1990s. His mother on the other hand, was violated and befell a brutal death at the hands of the totalitarian government that the revolution brought down. Many of the same people that committed such crimes during the revolution found employment and refuge within the cartels.

However, that brought up a disturbing picture. If he did not repay his debt, his family would be treated as collateral. He would be forced to watch whatever sick retribution the cartel would use against his wife and daughter. What was honor when the lives of those that he loved were in serious jeopardy? Quickly, he looked through the files for any signs of opportunities for the cartel. The Aztec National League kept many files of most of the nations in the world. These files varied in how much information they had - there were even files with nothing in them. After looking through these files for a while, he noticed a file with the name Triari. Its contents were little more than international newspaper articles and web based research. Although the information was vague, at best, the picture was clear – this was exactly what he needed.

=~=~=

Outside Veracruz, México, ANL – 6:01 PM

Victor Rodriguez sat in the back of the Tamuzin Motor Works Triumph, a car similar to the various town cars and luxury sedans that were common in capitalist countries. The whine of the wankel engine increased as the chauffer accelerated the car down the highway. It was a warm and humid day – not uncharacteristic for the tropics at this time of year. It was unusual for Victor to receive such an urgent call from the cartel, particularly from Antonio Urquidez, the leader of the cartel. However, when Urquidez needed Rodriguez’s services, it was apparent that something major was going down.

Thirty minutes later, the car pulled up to the private residence of Antonio Urquidez. As the car stopped, Victor thanked the driver and got out. The residence was unlike the stereotypical mansion of a latin mobster. It was rather plain and seemed like a common, upper-middle class home. However, the wealth and power the family had accumulated was undoubted. Victor walked in through the front gate and glanced over at the pool. As usual, Antonio’s son, Cuetlachtli was sitting by the pool, flirting suggestively with a bikini clad woman. Cuetlachtli lived a rather promiscuous and chauvinistic life, and although Victor really didn’t care how others lived their life, he couldn’t help but feel a bit of resentment. ‘Cabron’, he thought, ‘pinche cabron.’

Victor walked into Antonio’s office…“Victor, how’s things going” Antonio asked.

Victor stood up straight, “Quiet since the last job, looking forward to this next operation.”

Antonio smiled and said, “That’s why I called you, this operation will require your specific expertise. You do have some ability to speak Russian, correct.”

Victor, again rigid, said “Yes.”

“Good,” Antonio responded, “You will also have to be rather diplomatic with this situation…”

They both sat down and began a long discussion. Eventually, this discussion would last two hours, long after the sun had set on the western horizon off in the distance.

Antonio looked over his shoulder and grabbed a folder off the shelf behind him. He quietly handed the folder over and said, “All the information we have is in this folder. Obviously, the job will be a bit more difficult than what I or this information can make you aware of. You’ll be shipped out tomorrow. Be sure not to blow your money on one place, either. Remember, that’s my money. I can accept sunk costs in an investment, but, I have my limits. Until then, you can stay here tonight. Would you like to have dinner with my wife and son?”

Not wanting to offend his boss, Victor said, “Yes.”

Antonio nodded and said “Good, it will be in about twenty minutes. Until then, you walk around a bit.”

Victor shook his boss’s hand and walked to the outside patio. He looked over to the pool again, noticing that Cuetlachtli was in the pool, once more flirting suggestively with another woman, also in the pool. Victor shook his head in disdain and said under his breath, “cabron.”

OOC: That’s not a problem Aztec National League, back story is good as far as I’m concerned, I’d have more in my posts but my muse has been absent of late, heh. I have no real set timeline in this RP, I’m letting it go fluidly, if something comes up that might be contradictory, we can work it out OOCly first then move on if necessary.

Oh and IH, I’m coming up blank for anything decent here to fill it out a little, so it’s somewhat simple will at least get us into the warehouse to move things along.


Isovich nodded his head in acknowledgement, “Sounds acceptable to me, I look forward to seeing a display of these vehicles, I haven’t seen anything like them in quite some time. Amazing they can mound and fire such large missiles. But I imagine to you we’re somewhat stuck behind the times in terms of military technology.”

He paused a moment to think about the security arrangements mentioned by Jack, “Works for me. There shouldn’t be any problems with the ‘locals’ as you say; I have some of the more reliable people on call to do the unloading. I’ve even managed to get a pair of heavy trucks and trailers to haul the armour into the warehouse, so we can keep them covered.”

Isovich quietly followed Jack up the ladder, seeing little more to do just now then to watch the unloading process.

-----

A few hours later, after the fall of night Isovich now found himself in a rather spacious hangar, admiring one of the SA-11s, his mind full of imagery of burning Kilrany aircraft. Most of his men now stood guard or conducted patrols around the outside of the hangar; a scant half dozen remained inside.

Turning towards Jack, Isovich decided to ask a man a question about the vehicles, obviously not well informed to their abilities, “What kind of range do these have? The missiles themselves that is.”

Rolf, in his characteristic manner, smiled big at the bar tenders question. He brought his hand up and put a large breadth between his fore finger and thumb. "I want a shot of scotch that high, then a stronger scotch on top of that this high." He made another measurement in the air with his hands.

"I'll have a vodka-red bull if you will," replied Hans, gazing around the bar carefully. He spotted a few characters of ill repute sitting in a corner and a few mafia types sitting at the far end of the bar. Normal by any means in a city like this one.

The bar tender handed them their drinks. Rolf smiled, laughed, and downed his double scotch in a heartbeat. He shook a bit as the alcohol hit his system like a train wreck then smiled again, taking off his sun glasses as he did so. "I'd like three shots, single malt whiskey."

"No he doesn't," interrupted Hans, leaning forward next to Rolf. Hans smacked down enough money for their drinks, plus an extra $100 USD bill.

"Old man, I wonder if you could tell me a few things," said Hans.

"You always spoil my fun Hansi," grumbled Rolf.

"Shut up you slouch," reprimanded Hans. He turned his attention back to the old bartender.

"So, can you tell me anything about this supposed warlord Genrich?"

The older man took it in stride, he saw all kinds in here but even so he couldn’t help but think these two were slightly more unusual, although for a moment he wondered if perhaps the fellow who ordered the scotch had already had a bit too much.

He raised an eyebrow when the fellow downed his drink in one go, but he’d seen it before, as foolish as he thought it was, it wasn’t terribly unusual to him anymore. Interesting pair these two make.

His eyes snapped towards Hans’ hand when it snapped down on the counter, the quick movement taking him off guard momentarily, but he quickly saw the bill, and nodded slightly when the second fellow asked him about Genrich.

Not the first time someone had asked him that question, he leaned slightly across the counter, “That would depend now,” he paused moment to consider his next words, attempting to be subtle, “On whether or not you’re for or against.”

In the warehouse Jack and his men had relaxed slightly. Most of his team were outside with Isovich’s men whilst the technician’s guards stayed inside with them. In the end all of the technical team had decided to come along, probably because they had little better to do and wanted to check on their systems.

The dust covers and tarpaulins had been removed but the heavy equipment still sat on the back of the big trucks as it may prove easier to move them on to their next destination that way. The two missile technicians had enlisted the half dozen of Genrich’s men to help them load a brace of missiles onto the rails from one of the crates, they used a purpose built crane system on the back of the launchers to do this, another after-market J Corp improvement. This launcher and the two others that had been brought over only had the four open rails and not the canister launch facility that newer versions had. Meanwhile another of the technicians was running a pair of cables from that launch vehicle to the green painted radar vehicle where the rest of the electronics men were going to work. Several circuit boards needed replacing and this was done quickly and the electric generator was turned on to power the systems, the technicians being careful to leave the actual radar in standby mode. While they were all fiddling around Mr Hopkins was with Jack and Isovich and he took care of answering the questions that Isovich put forward.

“Yes interesting question. The claimed range of the missile is actually around twenty eight kilometres, but twenty five is a more effective working estimate. The radar system can track out to 85km and we are confident of engaging 6 targets simultaneously. The missiles themselves have a 60-90% chance of a clean kill when used against performance aircraft, so the Kilrany fighters as well as surveillance aircraft will be in danger. Top speed is Mach 3.1. On a technical note we have eliminated the need for a Command and Control vehicle by integrating the systems in the radar vehicle to include the C&C features. Also we do not need that vehicle to fire the missiles, that can be done from the actual launch vehicle themselves but it cuts the radar range down to 32km.”

He paused to scratch his chin before letting out a mysterious sigh and continuing.

“Our tests show that it can get to a ceiling of 46,000feet, so the MIG’s will be able to go higher and quite fast too so we need to get them within ten klicks, I believe is the term, of the launcher. Our tests show us that the missile won’t track properly at less than 3km either, so close but not too close. Oh yes and from tracking to launch is 20seconds, we managed to shave a bit off through software upgrades…this thing was built in the eighties for christs sakes. I was still in my teens then!”

Jack and Isovich exchanged a look and decided to ignore that blatant lie, Mr Hopkins was clearly in his early fifties with greying hair and a slightly weird dress sense that had been, fortunately, kept in check by the clothes that they had been given for the task by J-Corp. The slightly mad technician jumped as the missile launcher behind him slewed ninety degrees and then back again under the command of the radar vehicle. The voice of one of the other technicians drifted across the rather empty building to them.

“Systems diagnostic shows this launcher is fully operational. We’ll check the other two now whilst we run a separate launch simulation on this one.”

With a smile Jack turned to Isovich and raised his eyebrows. The time for payment had come.

OOC: Sure, sounds good…Considering that, I’ll move things ahead a bit.

A freighter moved slowly across the early morning sea, flying the flag of the Aztec National League. The Triarian port of Neutralnaya was still many, many miles away from the freighter. Despite this, the freighter slowed to a stop, resting in international waters, just as planned. Meanwhile inside his quarters, Victor read through the folder Antonio had given him. The newspaper clippings and three page world factbook-like report were certainly of help. If anything, he understood that the situation in Triari was perfect for this operation.

The intercom in his room buzzed loudly; this unexpected intrusion giving him a jolt of adrenaline as he looked up in slight suspense. After pressing the intercom button, he said, “Alright, what is it.”

Although the static plaguing the intercom system made it difficult to hear, he could understand his orders. “Get ready to depart from the ves..l, your transpo………s rea.. and we ..ve a…ved…at the coordinates…..”

The line went dead, overcome by the static and electrical grid problems of the privately owned freighter. Victor got up and after placing the folder in one of his bags, turned off the lights and walked out of his room.

One of Antonio’s lieutenants was waiting for Victor on the deck, looking towards the eastern horizon. The rising sun was halfway above the horizon of the sea, barely illuminating the misty sky. He noticed Victor walking towards him and said casually, “Looking forward to this?”

Victor, who was always looking forward to the opportunity to make money, said plainly, “Might as well, I wouldn’t be doing anything better.”

The lieutenant smiled and said, “Well, we’re about ready to start. You have everything you’ll need?”

Victor looked around and made sure he had some sort of protection easily accessible to him. “Yeah, all ready chief.”

After chatting for a bit more, the lieutenant, who’s name was Atl, led him to the side of the ship. Suspended in one of the emergency lifeboat retainers was a small, go-fast like boat. Victor and the lieutenant carefully climbed into the boat making sure not to fall in the water bellow. Victor asked Atl, “Coming along for the ride?”

Atl shook his head, “No, I’m going to pilot this craft over there and drop you off at the port. After that, I have to head back – someone has to make sure the crew doesn’t get too curious about our cargo or demands more money. Damn these freighter rentals…oh well, I guess we wouldn’t be here if our only option was using a government freighter.”

Victor looked back and said “Indeed.” The government owned and operated freighters were a bit of a problem for any cartel – not only would the crews inspect your cargo at will, they were infamous for having AIA spies on them, masquerading as the crew. Fortunately for the cartels, there were a lot of privately owned freight transport companies…oddly enough; most of these companies were owned by the cartels.

With a slight jolt, the boat started to slowly descend down towards the water. After five minutes, the boat was solidly floating in the water. Atl climbed on the front of the boat, disconnecting the ropes while Victor disconnected the rear ropes. They were then off towards the port at Neutralnaya.

Two hours later, the boat pulled up to a small landing. As the boat stopped, Victor climbed up and onto the landing, seeing the burnt out hulk of the destroyer not too far off away.

Quickly Victor looked back, watching the small craft heading back to the freighter. It would be a while until he was back home…Without much delay, he started towards the main city, looking for someone who could lead him to a motel or something.

Kazimir Serov peered around the rubble of ruined building that provided him with a semblance of cover towards the focus of his current frustration, a large four story castle-like structure currently under heavy fire. Like most of the buildings of Inara, it was a remnant of the old Triari, the city being one of the few to survive the wrath of the retreating Kilrany forces, only to now face heavy destruction at the hands of it’s creators. Currently the building served as a backbone to Chuckhrai defenses in the city, and despite the intense fire the building was coming under, which included everything from the variety of small arms available to Tsetaeva’s forces, to RPGs, heavy machine guns, and even a recoilless rifle mounted on the back of a small truck, the building’s defenders were returning as much fire as they were getting.

A bullet snapping by next to his head was enough for Serov to curse and duck back behind the relative safety of his cover. This was the second day of their siege of the building, dozens of militiamen from both sides lay dead in the courtyard in front of the building, where both sides had sent the cannon fodder into suicidal charges. Little progress had been made, and he was doubtful they’d even be able to take the building as it still had a line of supply on the other side. Other forces had been tasked to try and brake through to surround it, but he and his unit had been one of the many to get the short straw and keep the defenders suppressed inside, despite the feeling that it was they who were in fact being suppressed.

Since the action in the church a few weeks prior he had the fortune of having most of his casualties replaced, fortunate mostly because none of them were militia and had some degree of experience. Perhaps not a great deal, but they knew enough to keep their heads down, which at the very least didn’t give him the urge to shoot them himself.

There was little he could do in this situation, they currently lacked smoke canisters to give themselves cover in an attack on the building, so they couldn’t cross the open ground to get inside and given the intense amount of metal being flung about the area he couldn’t get into a decent position to take shots on the building with his SVD-S, and he had no intention of wasting the hard to come by ammunition for it. So like most of the men in his unit, and of those around currently stuck with the task of attempting to assault the building, he fired of bursts of fire at the building; in his case he used an Israeli built Uzi, which he had acquired as a secondary weapon after the brutal close quarters fighting in the church.

What I wouldn’t give for a fucking howitzer, no, scratch that, I want a damned assault gun, like those huge old German assault guns, to just blast this damnable building to pieces, if he had ever heard of the TBG-7V, he probably would have wished for those for their RPGs as well.

-----

Isovich was almost giddy at the thought of wreaking vengeance upon the Kilrany aircraft that routinely flew through his nation’s airspace, not so much however because they killed Triari citizens, but because of the damage they often caused to Genrich’s interests. I have no idea about half the crap this crazy ass is going on about but it sounds good regardless, so long as some Kilrany aircraft blow up spectacularly, Genrich will be happy, and in turn I will be rewarded.

Taking note of the look upon Jack’s face, Isovich got the hint and gestured with the briefcase in his hand, “So now that we have confirmation on the goods, I suspect you’d like to receive payment,” a smile played upon the warlord’s lackey as he walked over towards a small table and placed the briefcase upon it. Quickly opening it up to reveal it’s contents, uncut diamonds partitioned off by the million-dollar value, “I assume you’ll want to check their quality before you accept this as payment.”

Isovich decided here would be as good a place as any to make a proposal to Jack, however he decided to wait until he, or whoever he had for that job, verified the diamonds worth and took them as payment.

-----

The privately owned freighter flying the flag of the Aztec National League went unnoticed by the handful of Kilrany attack submarines patrolling the large open waters assigned to them, to the good fortune of the vessel’s crew. Partially due to complacency on the part of the Kilrany in thinking they had discouraged major arms dealers, and their confidence in their airpower overhead had led to a decline in the number of naval assets assigned to patrol near Triari, however the need for naval assets elsewhere and simple economics; currently there was little justification to deploy large numbers of their naval assets up near Triari, were just as much a part of it.

However the arrival of the small boat carrying a single passenger into Neutralnaya did not go unnoticed, that was to be expected though given the relatively active nature of the port. Although Korovin, the old man entrusted as harbour master was currently asleep; the need for rest finally prying him away from his favorite location, one of his employees noted the arrival, not nearly as ‘official’ as the arrival of an actual merchant, he simply made a small side note of the new arrival including a basic description for Korovin to see in the morning.

Victor would have little difficulty finding a someone to give him directions; at the insistence of a few of the warlords, Korovin had made sure that someone was at the gate to give new arrivals directions to bars and inns of higher repute. None wanted a potential new client or supplier sent to any of the seedier places that could see them robbed or even killed in their sleep.

Jack looked at the open suitcase and nodded.

“Very pretty. There is a man on the boat who will check them and then keep them safe. I shall take them now, you are welcome to join us briefly.”

He waited for Isovich to make up his mind and then gestured at two of his men to follow him which both did, picking up their M4’s from the crate that they had been rested on.

They proceeded quickly down to the quay where the J-Corp ship was, Jack tapping the transmit button twice on his radio so that a gangplank slid down the side to allow the men to clamber aboard. Once there they moved to a cabin in the ship that was barely big enough for Jack and the man already in there. That man had a well fitting suit on that seemed completely inappropriate against the background of the cabin and the ship as a whole.

“Here you go, check them as quickly as possible please.”

The man merely nodded and shifted his concealed belt holster so that he could sit down on the narrow bed and examine the payment, complete with the stereotypical single eyed magnifying glass. Jack keyed his radio to the frequency all his men were using and reached into his pocket to remove a detonator which he flicked to standby mode.

“Standby.”

It took two minutes for the man to assert that they were in fact diamonds of the correct monetary value and he informed Jack of this with a smile and a nod. Jack’s response was to flick the detonator back to off and replace it in his pocket.

“Payment confirmed. Jenson, James disarm the explosives and hand them over to our hosts. Tell them I will explain later.”

Back at the warehouse two of Jack’s men moved to the nearest of the SA-11’s and crawled underneath to remove the pre-positioned blocks of C4 explosives, insurance against the militia getting the equipment if they did decide to doublecross them. They cleared each of the three launcher vehicles and placed the explosives on top of one of the G-36 crates to await Jack’s return. He was meanwhile talking to Isovich onboard the boat.

“An insurance policy, I’m sure you will understand. Now you mentioned something else that you might want us to do, shall we talk in a quiet cabin?”

He lead the way to the Captains stateroom which was furnished reasonably well with two comfortable chairs and a coffee table. Only Jack entered with Isovich and he unstrapped his M4 and leant it up against one of the chairs. He did however keep his body armour on, more out of convenience than fear for his safety – it was a pain to carry when it wasn’t strapped onto his torso.

“That would depend now,” the bartender paused a moment to consider his next words, attempting to be subtle, “On whether or not you’re for or against.”

Rolf smiled but said nothing. He managed to snatch away another glass of something that looked alcoholic in nature and proceeded to down it in as few swallows as humanly possible. The four anti-alcohol pills he'd taken before they'd come in were working wonders. Rolf imagined he could down a bottle of PGA without being affected by anything other than the taste. He had to look the part of the drunk, but preferred to be of use when any action started.

Hans nodded in understanding at the bartender and leaned a bit closer. "Well that is a good question. But you needn't worry about us two chaps. See, we just really want to meet him. I've a business proposition to ask him about and I'm just dying to meet him."

"Big bang sticks are a bit too heavy to walk around the city selling from a cart," added Rolf in with a stupid looking grin on his face. Both he and Hans appreciated the ironic humor of their talk, the bartender was of course clueless to any mirth that might have shone as to the cause of their grins other than a couple of gun runners who were interested in getting rich fast.

Victor pulled out the satellite photo of the port…although high resolutions satellite photographs of the port undoubtedly existed, they were probably well secured within the confines of the Ministry of Intelligence in Tenochitilán. However, higher-resolution images weren’t worth the exponentially increased risk of detection, arrest and prosecution. Stealing from the Aztec Ministry of Foreign Affairs was one thing, but stealing from the Ministry of Intelligence was out of the question. Rather, the cartel provided him with a map from some internet search engine…Although low-resolution, he quickly figured out that he wasn’t too far away from the main gates. Without haste, he began walking towards the gates of the port, trying to make sure that no one was following him.

In a matter of minutes, he neared the front gates of the port. Although still partially out of view, they didn’t seem unlike the gates that fenced in the harbor, in the ANL. Before getting any closer, he checked his pockets one more time to ensure he had his protection. Underneath his jacket and housed in a sheath was a knife, and in a holster on his waist was a TK-9/E, one of the many government produced, commercially available handguns in the ANL. Of course, it would be Victor’s prerogative to ensure that these weapons wouldn’t have to be used, unless his life demanded it.

Victor quickly regained his pace and reached the front gates. Although unaware of he was, Victor quickly noticed the person waiting at the gates. He seemed helpful enough, and as such, Victor walked up to him and asked in Russian, “Excuse me, sir. Can you please tell me where the closest inn of good quality is? I just arrived for some business matters so I need to make sure I have a place to stay.”

Isovich took a step back and gestured to the briefcase wordlessly, letting Jack take it and without hesitation he chose to follow towards the ship. He had little to say as they climbed aboard and he waited patiently for this well dressed man to confirm the authenticity of the diamonds provided as payment.

When Jack pulled out a detonator it drew a curious look from Isovich, not quite making the connection as to what it was. However a few minutes later when Jack returned it to a pocket and spoke through his radio, a look of surprised realization flashed upon his face, quickly replaced by one of annoyance.

Although he nodded his head and feigned understanding of Jack’s reasoning for the explosives, it did not quell his frustration which he concealed, it didn’t matter that it was clever and quite possibly an intelligent move on the part of these men, it still annoyed Isovich to be on the potential receiving end of it.

However Isovich was relatively quick to calm down once again as he followed Jack to the Captain’s stateroom, how convenient, I did wish to speak with him in private, he took a moment and sat down in one of the chairs before he decided to make his request.

“Previously I mentioned that there were jobs that I thought you might be interested in, ones that would be of mutual benefit to us. Obviously if you choose to accept any of them, you will be paid for it. Let me start with my first problem. As I’m sure you know by now, Neutralnaya is a neutral city, certain rules were agreed upon to keep this port from being destroyed. To keep it that way, a small ‘council’ so to speak of representatives from each warlord runs this city, I happen to be Genrich’s representative.”

He paused a moment to take a breath before continuing, “Now after Tsetaeva managed to take power in the East, we believe with Kilrany help, I managed to get her representative removed from the council on the grounds that she was working with the Kilrany. Unfortunately this wont last forever, as I’ve been unable to actually dredge up any evidence of this, and I need this keep her from getting back in, rules to follow, traditions, blah, blah, blah,” clearly annoyed upon his last words he gestured with his hands slightly.

“Genrich does not want her in this city, and we cannot take direct action against her forces, we would be violating the agreement,” Isovich released a sigh of frustration, “Despite what we believe to be obvious ties to the Kilrany, it hasn’t been enough. It occurs to me however, that an outside force has no such restrictions, and you boys are the first group of mercenaries I’ve seen in a long time who look like they could do the job discretely,” Isovich gestured to Jack’s M4.

“In the South end of the city is the ‘residence’ used by Vasil Erofeev, Tsetaeva’s lackey. He’s been working hard to convince The Council’s representative to let him back in. I have no doubt bribery has come up. He lives under a relatively light guard, about a dozen men, with suppressed weapons and night vision equipment I’m sure you and a small team of your men could go in, take them all out without anyone knowing about it and leave no evidence as to who was responsible. Obviously blame will be pointed at either myself or Chuckhrai’s man, but few will listen. Interested?”

-----

The old man behind the counter raised an eyebrow at Hans’ choice of words, but dismissed it from his mind quickly. He cared little for who these men were or why they were here. If they really had a deal to make with Genrich or wanted to collect on a bounty, it didn’t matter to the old man. For a moment he remember three mercenaries who had once walked in and directly asked where they could find Isovich, so they could kill him, it was almost laughable given the directness of their questions.

Shrugging his shoulders slightly he feigned thinking about it for a moment, “Well, from what I know, you don’t get to just talk with Genrich, he doesn’t live here in this city anyway, he makes his home in Trosk, as far away from the Kilrany border as he can manage I’m sure. If you want to do business with him, you’ll have to go through his local man, I do believe his name is Isovich,” he paused a moment as if trying to remember the full name, “Bah, just ask a ‘black-band’ to speak with Isovich, they’ll know who you mean.”

Unaware of any anti-alcohol ‘pills’ being possible, the bartender found it odd just how readily Rolf chose to down the alcohol provided, finding the thought of this man becoming stupidly drunk amusing, he smiled lightly.

-----

Despite the fact that his job was probably one of the better jobs in Neutralnaya, that being it was relatively safe unless a Kilrany bomb happened to drop on him, Lev was not exactly enthusiastic about standing about near the harbor’s entrance to give directions. A rather tedious job he often wondered why they hadn’t just gave it to one of the guards who stood about like he now did.

Seeing a new face approach from the piers Lev snapped into greeting mode; putting on his most pleasant smile and using his friendliest tone with the ease of someone turning cruise control on in their car.

“Welcome to Neutralnaya sir, of course, the closest quality establishment would be the ‘Fair Game Inn’,” pausing only slightly Lev pointed with his hand down a surprisingly well lit street going directly out from the harbor’s gate that disappeared into the city, “it’s about a twenty minute walk down that street, right side, can’t miss it, has a fairly large sign displayed. Is there anything else I can do for you sir?”

-----

Corporal Krylov was thankful for the decent ear protection provided for crews of Kilrany Tu-95s, otherwise the droning roar of the multi-engine turboprop aircraft would have drove himself and everyone else inside deaf over time. However it was not his primary concern as he sat in the what used to be the bomb bay of the modified aircraft, in front of him was a command console, next to him was his comrade Corporal Nosov, monitoring various readings on his own console.

They were roughly seven kilometers over ground as they closed in on the Triari city of Neutralnaya. Although the aircraft’s primary role was to pick up on various signals and retransmit them for study back in Kilrany, it also had the capability to jam wireless communications.

“Shall we go subtle or active this time around Krylov?”

Krylov glanced over at his comrade as he asked his question and returned it with a grin, “Oh we’re going active, but I’m going to have a little fun first,” as Nosov watched Krylov keyed in the system in front of him and activated the transmitter.

Across the city of Neutralnaya and for nearly a hundred kilometers in all directions, radios set to various frequencies, listening to various transmissions from Valnari and Germania radio stations went silent for a moment, only to be replaced a moment later by a calm even voice, “We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you this special report, while it’s not unusual to see Kilrany aircraft above Triari cities, most of the time they carry large amounts of ordnance, however today we’ve spotted a slight change, so we must inform you that for the next few hours as it loiters overhead, all your radio transmissions are screwed. So from high up here I say to you, fuck you all,” as the speaker finished silence resumed again, but only for a moment, it was quickly replace with a high pitched warbling squeal as the Kilrany aircraft filled the airwaves with cascade jamming.

Krylov laughed to himself as he released the transmit key and hit enter, highly amused in his own little speech to mess with the Triari and anyone else without transmitters powerful enough to break through the jamming signals.

Next to him Nosov looked over with a grin, “You’re an ass you know that?”

Krylov responded with his own smile, “Oh I know.”

OOC: Not entirely sure about the post, but my imagination has completely gone this morning!

“Interested of course. Sounds relatively simple. I have a few questions that need to be answered beforehand though. How alert are the guards likely to be? How well trained and armed are they? How big is the compound? What kind of security to they have, cameras, motion detectors anything like that? And lastly do you have anywhere that a couple of my men can be placed to overlook the area?”

As if to demonstrate his willingness to take up the assignment, ‘Jack’ reached into a long thin pocket on his tactical vest and removed a silencer from it which he showed the Isovich and then quickly attached to his M4, securing it over the flash suppressor. He would have fired the weapon to demonstrate its effectiveness, however no target presented itself and he was wary of discharging his weapon through the porthole towards the mostly sleeping city.

OOC: Heh, no problem, I know how that feels.

Isovich clasped his hands together merrily, his previous frustration at the knowledge of the explosives temporarily forgotten, “Excellent, and of course, I knew you would want more detailed information; thought it best to start with the basics though, you understand.”

He gestured with his hand towards the suppressor Jack had just a moment before removed, “That is presicely why I believe you can so easily accomplish this. If I so desired I could send a force large enough to kill him, but that would be messy, and obvious, and as I said, would cause me more difficulties then it would solve.”

“Erofeev is a drunkard and a fool, but he is sober enough of the time to be a … nuisance to me, and in turn, Genrich. I don’t believe Tsetaeva gives a rat’s ass about his life. You see, he used to be Yagoda’s man here in the city before she took over; I think she kept him around initially because he knew how things ran, kept him and his men well funded to keep up here, but now she seems to care little for having any control in this port, I think she only keeps him going here to be a pain in my backside. As such she’s not been funding him so well lately.”

“He has no fancy security systems in, or around his home, as much as you can call it that. It’s a relatively small two-story home, running around the home is little more then a rusting cast iron fence barely concealed with rotting bushes. However it is an old home, made of fairly solid stone. On the grounds he has about a dozen men, perhaps a few more, formed from their regulars, but half the time they are as drunk or as high as he is. Pathetic. He relies heavily on the agreement that keeps this city running, and a nearby barracks, about two blocks away, that contains forty some militia. Which under normal circumstances would be enough, if I sent any of my men, they’d be seen coming, and local forces could rally to his aid if he held out long enough, the fool. If you went under the cover of night, you could easily kill them all without alerting anyone.”

He shrugged his shoulders slightly, “I do not however know what lay around his home, I have no doubt that you could find something that would give some of your men high ground.”

Despite the fact that his job was probably one of the better jobs in Neutralnaya, that being it was relatively safe unless a Kilrany bomb happened to drop on him, Lev was not exactly enthusiastic about standing about near the harbor’s entrance to give directions. A rather tedious job he often wondered why they hadn’t just gave it to one of the guards who stood about like he now did.

Seeing a new face approach from the piers Lev snapped into greeting mode; putting on his most pleasant smile and using his friendliest tone with the ease of someone turning cruise control on in their car.

“Welcome to Neutralnaya sir, of course, the closest quality establishment would be the ‘Fair Game Inn’,” pausing only slightly Lev pointed with his hand down a surprisingly well lit street going directly out from the harbor’s gate that disappeared into the city, “it’s about a twenty minute walk down that street, right side, can’t miss it, has a fairly large sign displayed. Is there anything else I can do for you sir?”

Victor thought to himself for a second…‘Fair Game Inn; intriguing. Hopefully not every thing in this nation is considered “fair game.” After this thought had ran through his head, Victor responded to the question Lev had asked. “Yes, I’m curious about your government’s custom inspections?” He had to be a bit diplomatic here, as he didn’t want to say something to the effect of ‘I’m an arms dealer.’ Rather he said, “The business I represent is an exporter of many different products – medical supplies, hardware and whatever. Also, how competitive does business get around here for companies that export to your nation?”

Lev’s body appeared to spasm slightly as he fought to stop himself from bursting out in laughter, although he wasn’t sure if it was because of the notion there was a government here, or customs inspections. He took a moment to collect himself before he addressed the stranger in front of him once again.

“My apologies sir, but your information must be slightly faulty, we have no government here, unless you refer to the ‘city council’, but they do little more then keep the peace,” the term city council was merely Lev’s name for the three current representatives, no ‘official’ name existed, “We have no customs here either, only security maintained by the council to keep the peace, nothing more,” the ‘security’ forces were in truth a mélange of forces from each faction keeping the tentative peace of the city.

He paused a moment to size up the man, however keeping with his job he did his best to show respect in doing so, “That would depend sir. I doubt the foreign aid groups will be all that annoyed should someone else start bringing in medical supplies. As for other ‘items’, I believe you’ll find that there are very few people willing to bring much of anything into this port, I don’t believe you’ll have any difficulty with competitors sir.”

Victor noticed the slight spasm, and although not reacting to it, thought to himself as Lev spoke – it would not be illogical to say think that Lev was starting to become suspicious to the newcomer. Quickly, he said, “Ah, well, I guess that should make things easier then. Before I go, one last question; how accessible is this ‘city council’? It may be profitable for our respective parties to do business with each other.”

He knew that this question was rather overt, but, regardless, Victor surmized that Lev was not likely to kill him...

Victor’s developing belief that Lev was not likely to kill him was a fairly well founded one, especially given the fact that Lev carried no weapon. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t like to, he would have loved to carry a weapon of some kind for his own personal defense if it came down to it, but his employer wouldn’t let him, to ensure he never got any ideas about trying to rob newcomers.

While it was true Lev had his suspicions as to what Victor was truly here for, he had no way to confirm it, in his position he’d seen all kinds, including the ever so rare genuine businessman, just looking to sell their wares.

“The ‘council’ can sometimes be difficult to approach, the representatives who make up the council are prone to assassination attempts, so they can occasionally be wary of newcomers. That being said, so long as you’re prepared to deal with a little skepticism from the guards, you could speak with the council, they hold a weekly meeting in an old building, I dub it town hall, but it’s not quite that elaborate, though it serves the purpose well enough. When there they hear ‘proposals’ and complaints from people, try to keep the peace. However no one but the guards are allowed to carry weapons in the building, they will be taken from you if you have any upon entry, and returned when you leave.”

He paused a moment before he added one more thing, “Although if you’re looking to sell more ‘controversial’ items, you may wish to approach a representative independently.”

OOC: Its quite bad Im sorry, but I have to go shooting today. I am here tonight, tomorrow evening then friday evening to saturday afternoon then I disappear until next thursday Im afraid. After that I have lots of free time :)


"Very well. Tomorrow night I'll have three of my men go and make a reconnaisance of the building and surrounding area to get a feel for their routines and such, the operation will take place the night after. I would suggest that we get out of the city quite quickly afterwards so ensure that our links with you and any possible connection to the attack are kept at a minimum. Perhaps you could find us a place in the country amidst Genrich's supporters where we can train some of your men in tandem with the missile crews perhaps."

OOC: Well now, I didn’t get the usual notification of your post, hence my delay, and don’t worry about it, I’m not going anywhere. Heh.

From his seated position Isovich smiled again, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d smiled so often given the rather poor conditions even he lived in, “Naturally you’ll want to have a look at the building for yourself, it wont exactly be difficult as long as you keep a low profile. Not hard to get some less conspicuous clothing and weapons.”

“Oh yes, we will have to have you leave the city, which will be no difficulty, with you out of the city, no one will be able to make a connection, anyone pointing a finger at us, well, we’ll just remind them how suspicion isn’t enough, like they do when we mention Kilrany involvement with Tsetaeva. We could take you along with the vehicles, technicians and their guards for the time being further North. Genrich’s territory begins quite close to this city, if it weren’t for the likely damage that would be caused to the port, Genrich could take full control of this city with relative ease. At least I think so, he currently doesn’t see it as wise, and I have no intention of going against his wishes.”

“If you would be willing to train some of our men as you suggest, Genrich would be most pleased, most of our men lack training, although many have had the experience of combat, like myself for example, the addition of some decent training would do wonders I’m sure.”

Victor’s developing belief that Lev was not likely to kill him was a fairly well founded one, especially given the fact that Lev carried no weapon. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t like to, he would have loved to carry a weapon of some kind for his own personal defense if it came down to it, but his employer wouldn’t let him, to ensure he never got any ideas about trying to rob newcomers.

While it was true Lev had his suspicions as to what Victor was truly here for, he had no way to confirm it, in his position he’d seen all kinds, including the ever so rare genuine businessman, just looking to sell their wares.

“The ‘council’ can sometimes be difficult to approach, the representatives who make up the council are prone to assassination attempts, so they can occasionally be wary of newcomers. That being said, so long as you’re prepared to deal with a little skepticism from the guards, you could speak with the council, they hold a weekly meeting in an old building, I dub it town hall, but it’s not quite that elaborate, though it serves the purpose well enough. When there they hear ‘proposals’ and complaints from people, try to keep the peace. However no one but the guards are allowed to carry weapons in the building, they will be taken from you if you have any upon entry, and returned when you leave.”

He paused a moment before he added one more thing, “Although if you’re looking to sell more ‘controversial’ items, you may wish to approach a representative independently.”

Victor felt a bit more reassured after this conversation..."Thanks for the information. I'm sure things won't get too controversial." Waiting to see if Lev had any more useful information, he then shook his hand and departed towards the inn, making sure that nothing was following too closely or seemed to have malevolent intentions. It was more likely than not that he would be followed, but, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing - maybe he could get a business contact out of it.

As he walked to the hotel, he tried to understand the place he was in. Although cliché, Victor was a 'stranger in a strange land.' It was clear that things were in distress at Triari. Although unbeknownst to him, this was, after all, one of the more modern and taken care for cities in the nation. To him, it all seemed extremely familiar - it seemed like his own nation during the revolutions of the 1980's and 1990's that ravaged the people and land. However, during that fighting, he was relatively protected by the cartel...The Whip secured its own survival by being the source of supplies, weaponry, drugs and prostitution for both sides. Even if the doctorial, authoritarian government had won rather than the motley assortment of young socialist idealists, cynical libertarians and adventurers, they would be in no threat. Victor mused at the thought, 'it's amazing how a steady supply of guns, butter, needles and women could secure a cartel's survival.'

After fifteen minutes, he noticed the sign for the 'Fair Game Inn' only slightly off in the distance. 'Hmmm,' Victor thought, 'if I live and make a dime off this plan, I might give that guy a bit for his help...he certainly told me the truth.' However, he snapped out of these thoughts, and remained wary of anyone following him. Although he hadn't received the formal training of the Aztec military regarding this issue, he had a sharp eye and a keen ear for possible trouble. Some thought he was paranoid...he just called it an 'overdeveloped sense of self preservation.'

After a few more minutes of walking, he made it to the inn. It was a suitable site, certainly suitable enough for Victor's usages and probably infinitely better than most things in this strange land. He went up to the front desk and asked the receptionist, "Yes, I will need to rent a room, preferably a very private room..."

OOC: Well, I know I said this would be up last night, but I ended up at work after an unexpected last minute call to go in.

Little else for Lev to add, he only slightly hesitated to shake Victor’s hand, an act few visitors would do, more often then not however they would slip a small bill into his hand for his assistance. However he had learned over his time in this position not to always expect that either, as some people were just cheap bastards, while others just didn’t know how things worked in Triari, whichever this man was before him, he didn’t let it bother him and gave a friendly farewell to the newcomer as he walked away.

Whether fortunate or not for Victor, he was not followed as he made his way towards the Fair Game Inn, the well lit street and heavy patrols by the cities ‘security’ forces kept the odd thieves and pickpockets at bay, while none of the major faction forces took major note of a lone stranger walking through the city, as they were not a rarity. Victor’s ‘overdeveloped sense of self prevention’ would serve him well in Triari, although he was relatively safe within the confines of the city.

Due in large part to the ‘more affluent’ clientele seen at the Fair Game Inn, it was one of the cleaner and well-maintained structures along the street, being well lit both inside and outside. Despite the relative wealth it was still rather spartanly decorated inside, a simple coat of pain covered the walls, which were sporadically covered by a few small, fairly cheap paintings of various marine environments.

Immediately inside the door was the front desk, behind which a rather large and imposing man sat on a small stool, though he came to a stand upon seeing Victor enter. He was clean shaven and had a fairly short haircut along with clean clothing, his most prominent feature however was an empty left eye-socket, having lost it due to shrapnel in a Kilrany air strike many years before, he had barely survived the operation.

To the left of front desk an open doorway led into a rather modest restaurant of sorts, a small fairly comfortable room where the inn’s patrons could get a simple meal around the clock. To the right was a set of stairs that led up to the second story of the building, where the individual rooms were located.

In spite of his appearance, the man behind the desk, whose name was Ghermon, was a rather amicable fellow and he greeted Victor with a smile, which almost looked out of place on the large man’s face, “Of course, I would presume since you walked into our fair establishment that you needed a room, and I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that all our rooms are quite private, clean and have their own washrooms. Our going rate per room right now is one hundred dollars a night. For what we offer I believe you’ll find that a most excellent deal compared to the other riff-raff out their calling themselves inns. As an added bonus we have our own security, so there’s no need to worry about thievery here.”

OOC: Glorified bump

Unlike his female adversary in the Southeast of the nation, Genrich Kvasha had no such utilitarian sense of decoration when it came to his residences, lavishly decorating all of them with spoils of his wars and with examples of his wealth. He maintained seven homes in the city of Trosk alone, though this had as much to do with his desire to remain mobile, and not present an easy target to the Kilrany bombers then it did with him being pretentious.

As he sat relaxing in a large leather chair in one of his many lavishly decorated rooms, he looked over one of his spoils of war in particular with a sense of pride, a long slightly curved knife. Although he had a vast collection of items taken during his rise to power, or given to him as gifts from his subordinates, this one in particular had more meaning to him, the expertly crafted weapon was a Kilrany Long Knife. While the type of weapon was not entirely unusual in Kilrany, it was the quality of its construction that set it apart, for it had once been in the possession of a soldier of the Kilrany Imperial Guard.

He knew these knives had special meaning to the Kilrany’s elite soldiers, for they were a symbol of their status as members of the Imperial Guard, with each knife being carefully crafted and given to each individual soldier upon becoming a member. To Genrich they had a very convoluted sense of honour around not only their units but these weapons as well, which was one of the reasons he had grabbed the beautiful weapon along with its sheath off the dead Kilrany soldier when he had the chance some thirty years ago.

The opportunity had come about due to a rather chance encounter with the Kilrany near the Southern end of the nation, before he had much personal power, he had been leading a platoon in a company strength unit in a raid against a rival. It was only after the battle had turned into a hand to hand fight that he learned that they were from the 4th Division of the Imperial Guard, despite their smaller numbers the Kilrany had fought stubbornly to the end and took many of the Triari with them.

It was after the battle was over and they were securing the bodies that he had taken the time to loot one; at the time the only thing that had caught his attention was the knife and its sheath. It was only moments after he had taken the weapon and put it in his pack that they came under attack by their rival’s forces, which had been drawn to the gunfire. Their own numbers depleted in the battle with the Kilrany they were forced to conduct a fighting withdrawal, they had only gotten about a kilometer away from the initial site before they’d all heard the helicopters.

Genrich smiled at the memory as he continued to look over the weapon, the Kilrany had rapidly responded to the call for help their unit had made when they made contact and arrived in time for the rival to get all the blame for the death their deaths. He had later learned that an entire Division of from the Kilrany’s 4th Division of the Imperial Guard had deployed into the area to enact vengeance upon the Triari they thought were responsible.

He had also heard that they destroyed several nearby villages looking for this knife, which he now held, part of that same convoluted sense of honour, taking the knife off a dead Imperial Guardsmen was considered a personal insult to both the soldier and the unit as a whole. He chuckled to himself, without realizing it he had sealed a death warrant for the rival in his actions, however it was for this reason he kept the fact he had such a weapon to himself, the Kilrany may want him dead, he wasn’t however a huge priority in the grand scheme of things, but their Imperial Guard would pull out all the stops to kill him if they knew he had this weapon.

He was just looking over what he always thought must have been some sort of serial number on the blade; in truth it was the id number of the soldier who it belonged to, when he heard someone knock on the room’s door. He took a moment to return the blade to its sheath and place it back in a wooden box on a small glass table in front of him before he called out, “Enter.”

He looked up at the door as five men entered, four of them were heavily armed and wearing quality protective equipment, members of his ‘elite’ personal guard, the fifth man was unarmed, but also one of his regular soldiers, apparently a courier.

“Mr. Kvasha, I have a progress report from Isovich on his dealing with the new supplier and mercenaries.”

Genrich smiled and gestured for him to come over towards him, “Ah excellent, please, tell all.”

Two Nights after the conversation onboard the boat


‘Jack’ has his night vision monocle fixed on his head so that it allowed his left eye to look around as if it was light whilst his right eye peered into the perpetual darkness that was broken only by a sentry few lights and the twinkling lamps from various houses within the town proper. The team was spread out and new the attack plan, one group of four men would penetrate the house once all the outside sentries were removed and the others would remain on the perimeter to prevent the troops from the barracks arriving if they got word of what was going on.

To his left Jack could clearly see the other three members of his assault team, all of whom had seen action before and were as such tried and tested. He listened in his ear piece as very quiet voices came over acknowledging that the men assigned to take out the outside guards had their targets in their red dot sights.

Reconnaissance had yielded a wealth of information to the team and they had surmised that there were only five men on outside guard duty on that night, the rest having retired some time just before dark carrying several crates of what they presumed was alcohol, as they had waited for several hours hidden in shadows, scrub bushes and in the case of one of the men up a tree, they had heard drunken singing as well as witnessed lights going on and off around the building as various people retired for the night.

‘Jack’ barely whispered into his throat mounted microphone, electronics amplifying his voice to the others radios. They had encountered jamming on their supposedly secure signal the day before, likely from Kilrany aircraft with jamming protocols they wanted testing. Jack smiled to himself when he thought how the boot would be on the other foot if they had an SA-11 racing after them. His mind returned to the mission in hand and he said a brief word of command, the only audible signs of which came as a pair of empty cases hit a piece of tarmac and clinked ominously loudly, seemingly drowning out the sounds of bodies hitting the ground. Jacks heard turned left as his M4 came up to his shoulder and simply said “Lets go” to the three black clad figures wearing assault gear and carrying similarly suppressed weapons. The four men ran towards the now empty gate sentry box with their weapons in their shoulders, pausing only briefly to fire a single round each into the bodies before they moved inside the perimeter to seek the two patrolling guards and then move into the building.

Of all the potential jobs lined up for the Mercenaries that Isovich could ask of them, this one in particular; the assassination of Vasil Erofeev, would no doubt prove to be the simplest, if not the easiest to pull off. The chief reason for this though would be the complacency of Erofeev by relying to heavily on the presence of the nearby barracks and his own self-indulgence in drink and women, which had passed on to the handful of men he employed to provide security. As an added bonus the Kilrany aircraft responsible for electronic warfare over Neutralnaya was long gone and would not be back for several days.

Several lights remained inside the house regardless however, though they were restricted to the ground floor where a pair of guards were guarding the entrances of the home; rather poorly however as both had an open bottle of alcohol in front of them and their weapons sitting next to them. Upstairs a lamp was turned on and from the comfort of his bed, Erofeev watched as the ‘working girl’ of that night got dressed and prepared to leave his room. Oblivious to the attack just started, no one inside the home thought anything was out of the ordinary.

The black balaclava was a nuisance for Jack, yet it provided him with some small shred of stealth as he and another of his men approached the main building. The light on above the door meant that he had flicked his night vision monocle up and was now aiming his rifle at the solitary figure sitting, seemingly drunk, on the step to the door.

Jack aligned the red dot in his optical scope on the mans head and squeezed off a pair of rounds, the only sound being that of the two empty cases falling to the ground near his booted left foot. The guard slumped over to one side, a red and grey patch of blood and brain marking where he had been. The man with Jack moved forward as the mercenary leader kept his weapon pointed squarely at the door. With no movement coming from inside the other man grabbed the dead guard by his feet and dragged him away from the door into the night.

At the other door to the building the second half of Jack’s team had taken a similar action, the former IH Special Forces demolition expert Jonas had eliminated the other guard using his silenced USP pistol and had then dragged him clear covered by the second mans M4. With the body removed Jonas clipped his NV goggles down into place and sent a single burst of static across the radio network, this followed by another from Jack was the signal for one of the backup team to cut the power wires leading to the house.

As one every light in the compound was thrown off. Jack threw himself through the door that the other man opened, his monocle giving him a clear view inside the building that was now plunged into darkness. He heard muffled shouts that suddenly stopped as Jonas and his partner burst in through the other door, a thud hitting the ground marking the death of another guard.

The two teams moved methodically through the lower floor, all four of the assault team had been in the IH Special Forces or Stevidian SAS and it didn’t take long for them to clear the lower floor and then move as a four man team to the second floor. A screaming woman came running down the stairs, falling to the ground as a pair of 5.56mm rounds smashed through her ample chest. As the body fell down the stairs it nearly took one of the men with it, however with a small jump and a curse he continued his assent. Both Jack and Jonas changed magazines at the top of the stairs, Jack switching the double magazine in his M4 whilst Jonas ejected his pistol mag and replaced it with a full one, making careful sure to collect the empty one and stash it in a pouch on his leg.

Methodically moving through the upper floor they shot down all that moved, the last guard managing to get off a drunken burst with his Kalashnikov before falling down at the foot of the locked door of his employer. Seeing the simple construction of the door Jack decided not to waste a breaching charge and fired a burst of rounds into the door, splintering the fibres and shattering the lock mechanism itself. A standard issue steel capped boot finished the job as the door burst open followed by Jonas, his USP levelled.

Erofeev fired two rounds from his pistol which impacted the mercenaries chest, throwing him backwards and to the ground as his partner entered and fired a three round burst that blew the mans skull to pieces before he had a chance to even turn to the new attacker. Jack moved to Jonas who was grunting on the floor, a pair of stubbed 9mm rounds embedded in the body armour he wore. Slapping him on the shoulder he lifted the man and pointed towards the locked safe that stood in the corner of the room. Still winded Jonas staggered over and brought out one of several prepared charges which he affixed to the safe and then followed the other three out of the room.

A solitary boom rocked the building and a gust of smoke emerged into the corridor. Jack and Jonas entered, leaving the other two on guard and waved smoke away from their eyes as they moved to where the safe door was hanging from its hinges. Wrenching it aside Jonas took the empty rucksack off of his back and helped Jack to manhandle the contents of the safe into it, a few jewels and cash were the highlights as well as some probably important paper work. Checking that they had everything Jonas moved over to the dead body and fired another pair of rounds through the chest and then stooped to take the pistol from the dead mans hand. He checked the safety before putting it into his holster and running out of the door, the heavy backpack barely slowing him as the four men moved back out of the house, the trooper who had come with Jack being the last to leave.


Five minutes later the team were jogging to a pre arranged point where Isovich would have a vehicle waiting for them. The outside team had moved the gate guards into their compound out of sight, to the casual passer by it would appear an unguarded house not the site of a massacre. All of them kept their balaclavas on until they were in the back of the truck heading out of the city, Jack taking down how many expended rounds needed to be replaced in each of the four men’s stores as he chatted, seemingly oblivious to the killing he had just been part of.

OOC: Minor note, just for the record, IH was given expressed permission to post the end result of the assault.

Despite the fact that Neutralnaya was officially a neutral city, it was not a rare occasion to hear gunfire within its districts, combined with the regularity of Kilrany bombings, there were few who heard the miniscule amount of gunfire that came from Erofeev’s home and took any notice whatsoever. At the nearby barracks a sentry heard the muffled sounds of gunfire but was unable to tell from which direction it came from, after a moment and no further sounds of fighting was heard, he dismissed it as a someone having gotten a little to drunk. It wouldn’t be until noon the following day that red-banded soldiers would go to investigate Erofeev’s absence and discover what had happened.

Many blocks away from Erofeev’s home and back within and area clearly dominated by Genrich’s men, a single green camouflaged and covered medium Ural truck sat parked in a dark alley across from a fairly active bar, frequented by black banded soldiers only. Four of Isovich’s men stood watch around the vehicle, they had been selected from the same group that had been present at the offloading of the heavy equipment so they would better recognize the mercenary force approach them and prevent any ‘accidents’ should they have mistaken their identity.

Leading the small group of men was Mark, shorter then the other four, he was however bulkier, having greater upper body strength, a trait that had allowed him to quite literally, ‘kick the ass’ of other black banded men for his current position of authority. Although a little slower in the head then some, he was far from stupid and waited patiently for the mercenaries to show up from the shadows, making sure his own men remained vigilant even in the darkened streets to prevent themselves from being snuck up on. They did this not over concern that the mercenaries might stumble over them and an accident occur, but more to ensure rival factions or even common thieves didn’t try and hijack the truck.

Mark’s orders were clear, as soon as the mercenaries arrived he would get them in the back of the truck with a pair of his own men, get in the front with his third man and drive the mercenaries out of the city to a training camp of sorts seven hours North to lay low for a few weeks and train some of Genrich’s men as discussed. The ‘training camp’ was an old ruined fortress that had been built up by Genrich to serve as a garrison and training compound, well hidden by carefully managed overgrowth from the Kilrany aircraft and well protected from rivals by its thick stone walls, it was a remnant of the old Triari nation.

There they would meet up with the ‘advisors’ and their bodyguards along with the SAM systems, with several large open spaced buildings with thick stone walls and open courtyards the mercenaries could easily and safely train both Genrich’s infantry forces and the men who were to learn the operations of the SAM systems.

Some days later, "The Fortress in the Forest"


Jack's back still hurt. He had never liked travelling in trucks and the seven hour ride over uneven roads had not done him any good at all. It was a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things and so he kept it to himself as he wandered around supervising his training teams.

Jonas had taken three promising recruits and was training them on the correct applications of small amounts of explosives for big results, the collection of metal sprinklings around his area proving that they hadnt quite got the hang of simply destroying the lock of the cast iron door he had been training them on. In fact several men had come running when the loud explosion was heard fearing that one of the SAM's had gone off rather than an iron door being vaporised.

Moving on into another courtyard a pair of instructors were explaining in halting english how to disassemble and clean the G-36's that all of the men had infront of them. The translator was trying to convey the terms to them with varying degrees of success. Further on some of the others were doing live fire training with the compact assault rifles, although their accuracy left something to be desired the trainees enthusiasm was not found wanting.

The most progress was being made inside, where the heavy vehicles were parked in a cavernous room. The brightest of Genrich's men had evidently been sent to learn how to operate, maintain and protect his new assets. Mr Hopkins and his team were slowly but surely training them on the less complex tasks first and building them up to the more difficult items of radar tracking and overhauls in their own time. The technicians bodyguards as well as some militia formed a protective guard outside the doors to the room to ensure no uninvited guests got to see Genrich's new toys.

So far so good thought Jack. The only thing left was for him to arrange payment for the special job and then to arrange more weapons shipments for Isovich. The man would hopefully tell him what he wanted in the near future.

OOC: Sorry for not coming back when I said I was…I haven’t felt very inspired to make my return to NS, but now that has changed…

Little else for Lev to add, he only slightly hesitated to shake Victor’s hand, an act few visitors would do, more often then not however they would slip a small bill into his hand for his assistance. However he had learned over his time in this position not to always expect that either, as some people were just cheap bastards, while others just didn’t know how things worked in Triari, whichever this man was before him, he didn’t let it bother him and gave a friendly farewell to the newcomer as he walked away.

Whether fortunate or not for Victor, he was not followed as he made his way towards the Fair Game Inn, the well lit street and heavy patrols by the cities ‘security’ forces kept the odd thieves and pickpockets at bay, while none of the major faction forces took major note of a lone stranger walking through the city, as they were not a rarity. Victor’s ‘overdeveloped sense of self prevention’ would serve him well in Triari, although he was relatively safe within the confines of the city.

Due in large part to the ‘more affluent’ clientele seen at the Fair Game Inn, it was one of the cleaner and well-maintained structures along the street, being well lit both inside and outside. Despite the relative wealth it was still rather spartanly decorated inside, a simple coat of pain covered the walls, which were sporadically covered by a few small, fairly cheap paintings of various marine environments.

Immediately inside the door was the front desk, behind which a rather large and imposing man sat on a small stool, though he came to a stand upon seeing Victor enter. He was clean shaven and had a fairly short haircut along with clean clothing, his most prominent feature however was an empty left eye-socket, having lost it due to shrapnel in a Kilrany air strike many years before, he had barely survived the operation.

To the left of front desk an open doorway led into a rather modest restaurant of sorts, a small fairly comfortable room where the inn’s patrons could get a simple meal around the clock. To the right was a set of stairs that led up to the second story of the building, where the individual rooms were located.

In spite of his appearance, the man behind the desk, whose name was Ghermon, was a rather amicable fellow and he greeted Victor with a smile, which almost looked out of place on the large man’s face, “Of course, I would presume since you walked into our fair establishment that you needed a room, and I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that all our rooms are quite private, clean and have their own washrooms. Our going rate per room right now is one hundred dollars a night. For what we offer I believe you’ll find that a most excellent deal compared to the other riff-raff out their calling themselves inns. As an added bonus we have our own security, so there’s no need to worry about thievery here.”

Victor, although noticing Ghermon’s missing eye, kept it in his mind not be distracted by it. Although he was fairly accustomed to seeing injuries such as that, he couldn’t help but feel sorry about injuries and such…that is unless Victor himself was inflicting him. It was an unusual quality – being able to feel sorry for one man while maiming another. Being in organized crimes and playing both sides in a revolution had its effects on a person.

After listening to Ghermon, Victor said, “Alright, that sounds good. I’m curious, though, does this hotel have phone and basic internet services in the rooms? Although this isn’t really important, it would be nice.” He knew the question regarding internet would put him at some risk for sounding ridiculous, but if the hotel did have internet, it would certainly help make his job easier. Realizing he had no real major choice at the second, he waited for Ghermon’s answer and said, “Well, $100 a night will not be a problem.” Although resenting having to ask the question, Victor asked, “Would your establishment care if it is in check or in cash?”

The Fortress in the Forest as it had been coined was a rather sprawling complex of buildings and stone walls, all built up off the original twelfth century ruins of the original fortress, though even now it was but a shadow of its former glory. At one point it was made up of multiple walls of security protecting the various sections of the old fortress and the homes and workshops that inevitably sprung up in support of such massive military constructions.

Now only the inner most wall, the strongest of them all, and the keep remained in respectable condition, the other walls little more then ruins along with the foundations of the buildings they once protected, most now home to forest and the wildlife that dwelled within. Despite its decay, it was still a formidable defensive position for Genrich’s men given the firepower available to his opponents, save for the Kilrany, however they used the forest to their advantage, keeping the growth in check where they wanted it and using man made camouflage elsewhere they kept the exact location of the entire compound almost impossible to discern from the air, and through careful control of how often vehicles came and went, they kept the air of a little used ruin of old buildings, and not even the Kilrany bothered to merely randomly bomb old ruins given how often they were used by random groups of individuals. As an added bonus for the secrecy of the true size of the garrison, materials had been placed in many areas, along with the camouflage that negated thermal imaging from Kilrany aircraft and satellites should they be looking.

At several locations along the now primary wall, and atop the fortress keep, which was much wider in base then it was tall, were numerous light anti-aircraft positions, harkening back to ‘the good old days’ when most aircraft still had to fly relatively low to for close air support. Most were twin gun emplacements of the Bofors 40mm, although a few were 37mm twin guns of Russian origin. Though useless against the high flying aircraft the Kilrany operated this deep inside Triari, they were well maintained for two reasons by the garrison commander, for one it helped to preserve discipline in his men, and two, most mounts were capable of being depressed enough to provide defensive fire against ground attack in much the same purpose as a heavy machine gun.

Maxim Kharms looked out upon the courtyard containing the relatively small number of recruits the mercenaries were training with the G-36 assault rifles, he supported his weight upon the railing of the small second story balcony as he momentarily took a break to survey ‘his’ castle. As garrison commander he over saw a battalion’s worth of men for the fortress compound and the immediate territory around it, though there were few actual ranks in the forces in Triari, the appropriate equivalent he would have held in most other nations would have been that of a Major.

He didn’t mind the presence of the foreign mercenaries, quite the opposite in fact, he welcomed them as an addition to his current firepower, for the time being in any case, he recognized the fact they wouldn’t be here forever, but he was intent to make the best of their presence to get some additional training for the other men under his command.

The sound of an approaching vehicle drew his gaze towards the fortresses current main gate as a small column of four vehicles drove in, their passage having been granted by patrols farther from the fortress monitoring what passed for a road. Leading the small convoy was a UAZ, followed by a covered Ural 43206, a BRDM-2 and a second covered Ural. Driving in they eventually came to a stop next to the outer wall and Maxim watched as the numerous soldiers exited the trucks, a moment later he saw Isovich exit the armoured car. He smiled at first seeing a frustrated look upon Isovich’s face figuring he had not enjoyed the rough journey, he stiffened quickly however as he saw Isovich kick the side of the armoured car and seemingly, and quite angrily, go into a short tirade about something to no one in particular, though he was to far away to hear the string of curses.

As Isovich finished his tirade he stepped away from the vehicle and quickly begin moving towards where one of the garrison troops indicated he might find Jack, a pair of his more trusted men followed him. Despite the directions it took a few minutes for Isovich to find Jack and although he still didn’t look pleased, he wasn’t nearly as frustrated as he had acted upon exiting his transport.

Finally coming up to the mercenary Isovich sighed in frustration, “I must congratulate you on a job well done my friend, but it looks like you may have done it just a little to well, if such a thing is possible.”

He paused a moment but quickly continued, figuring Jack would not quite understand what he meant, “I do mean that though, job well done. But through no fault of your own its lead to somewhat unexpected results, because of the efficiency in the ‘hit’ and the complete lack of anyone hearing it, the idiots have come to the conclusion that the Kilrany must have assassinated Erofeev.”

He raised his hands for a moment as if to gesture with them, but instead half turned and let loose a loud cry of frustration before turning back to face Jack and continuing with a semblance of composure, “They don’t believe anyone else was capable of taking him and his guards down in such a manner so quietly, they’ve not seen it done by anyone other then the Kilrany in so long that I couldn’t convince people otherwise. I had to let it go in the end, otherwise my involvement might have become known.”

Isovich sighed again in frustration, but it was significantly quieter then his last outburst, “I’m sorry, this isn’t your problem, its mine, you did the job as I asked, and I did not come all the way out here to rant uselessly to you about it. No, I wanted to discuss the progress you’ve been making here and arrange payment for the job you did, it occurred to me after the fact we hadn’t discussed payment before hand.”

-----

In keeping with his good nature, Ghermon looked at the man across the counter from him with a genuinely apologetic smile, though he had never personally used the internet, he was aware of what it was “This is not Valnari friend, we don’t have a fixed connection to the internet here, you want to get on the internet I’m afraid you’ll need your own wireless connection. Now we do have a phone in each room, they work on a party line system however, it connects down to the desk here and I, or whoever is here must connect you to the number you request.”

The large man smiled at the second question, “We are a cash only business,” he half turned around and reached towards a small radio and turned the dial on the volume on the currently silent device only to be rewarded by a shrill warbling noise. Turning it down again he faced the newcomer with a slight frown, “I hate when they jam the radios, the faint signals we get from Germania and Valnari are about all the music I can get access to,” he sighed slightly.

Figuring this fellow was most likely going to take the room anyway he produced a key from under the desk and set it on top of it. The number on the key was seven, “Your room will be upstairs and on the left side of the hall, don’t mind the two armed guards up there, they’ll make sure no one bothers you,” with that he waited for Victor to produce some money to pay him.

-----

In keeping with his good nature, Ghermon looked at the man across the counter from him with a genuinely apologetic smile, though he had never personally used the internet, he was aware of what it was “This is not Valnari friend, we don’t have a fixed connection to the internet here, you want to get on the internet I’m afraid you’ll need your own wireless connection. Now we do have a phone in each room, they work on a party line system however, it connects down to the desk here and I, or whoever is here must connect you to the number you request.”

The large man smiled at the second question, “We are a cash only business,” he half turned around and reached towards a small radio and turned the dial on the volume on the currently silent device only to be rewarded by a shrill warbling noise. Turning it down again he faced the newcomer with a slight frown, “I hate when they jam the radios, the faint signals we get from Germania and Valnari are about all the music I can get access to,” he sighed slightly.

Figuring this fellow was most likely going to take the room anyway he produced a key from under the desk and set it on top of it. The number on the key was seven, “Your room will be upstairs and on the left side of the hall, don’t mind the two armed guards up there, they’ll make sure no one bothers you,” with that he waited for Victor to produce some money to pay him.

Although not necessarily displeased about the lack of internet capability, he was hoping for a slight lucky break. In any case, Victor nodded and commented about the radio – “Damn, that sucks. Any idea on where the jamming signal’s coming from? If the jamming signal is weak, it may be overcome by getting a radio with a better receiver with better frequency discriminating abilities, though obtaining such an item would be difficult at any level.”

After noticing the key, Victor pulled out his wallet and opened up. He handed Ghermon $150 dollars – the $50 being for Ghermon; after thinking about it, it wouldn’t hurt him to make some good ‘friends’ during his stay (though he wasn’t too sure how much he should tip him.) As Ghermon finished the registration process, Victor thought to himself silently, ‘Damn it, I should’ve asked that guy…what was his name, Lev, when this “city council” met. Maybe this guy knows.’

After Ghermon was done, Victor asked, “I’m curious, I’ve heard there is a “city council” of sorts that administrates this city…Do you know what time they meet or anything about them? I’m doing some business scouting for one of my nation’s private firms and I they may provide to be a good lead…also, when is the check out time?”

While Ghermon was by no means stupid, he stared at Victor blankly for several seconds as he tried to figure out what the newcomer had said to him, as he was not familiar with some of the terms Victor had used. A moment later after he figured he understood the gist of what had been spoken to him, he gave a slight shrug of his shoulders, “As it was once explained to me by another fellow staying here one time, the radio signals are being broadcasted from public radio stations in Valnari and Germania, a fair distance from here, which already makes the signals weak. While the Kilrany jamming signal comes from one of their aircraft as it … ah … orbits, that’s it, as it orbits over the city, usually shows up every two to three days,” he gestured with his right hand in a sort of helicopter motion, “flies around up there for a few hours then buggers off. Bloody thing doesn’t always jam signals though.”

He paused for a moment at the end, suddenly figuring he was talking just a bit too much about something of little consequence, he quickly ginned widely however when Victor produced the money and was apparently giving him a fifty dollar tip, quickly deciding he was going to like this new fellow.

Once again Ghermon showed confusing at Victors words, but it only lasted a moment, “Ah, I getcha, yes, we do have a council of sorts, I don’t know a great deal about them myself, never been my concern really, but I do know they meet once a week, every Friday to listen to complaints and hear suggestions. Usually starts early in the morning and goes into the evening is short breaks taken periodically.”

“Check out time is twelve noon assuming you don’t want to stay longer then a single night.”

Victor noted what Ghermon had said – a mobile jamming unit would be too difficult to defeat without the classified and expensive counter-counter measures and other goodies the Aztec military had – something that Victor could not obtain; even if he could, Ghermon may not be the most suitable user of such device.

After listening to what Ghermon had to say about the council, Victor nodded and said politely, “Well, thanks for all the information. I plan on sticking around here for a while, so I don’t plan on checking out too soon.”

After the transaction was complete, Victor shook Ghermon’s hand looked down and picked up his bag. With the key in his pocket, he began the assent to the upper floor to where his room was. As Ghermon forewarned, there were certainly two guards up there…Something reassuring, but at the same time, could pose a serious threat. He politely nodded to them and walked over to his room and tried to open the door. After some fidgeting with the key, Victor unlocked and opened the door. Removing the key from the hole, he put it in his pocket and entered, closing the door behind him.

The room was fairly spacious – certainly not the biggest room in the world, but sufficient enough. He put his bag down next to his bed, making sure that if anybody riffled through it during his absence from the room, they wouldn’t find anything that could be considered interesting. He also grabbed out his satellite phone, and as he was about to check it, he stopped himself – it’s possible that the aircrafts of Kilrany might be advanced enough to block the phone, or even worse, detect it and triangulate it’s location. It may be better to wait until it appears the jammer is gone.

After waiting a few seconds, Victor figured that he might as well try to get on the security guards’ good side. If it cost him any money, he had enough to last him a long while. He walked outside, noticing the security guards standing about. He couldn’t tell what type of weaponry they had, but whatever it was, it was probably just as lethal as anything other gun. He walked up to the guards and in a polite, non-threatening tone, he said, “Hello, are you employed by the hotel or by another boss?”

Ghermon happily shook Victor’s hand in return and watched as he picked up his bag and walked upstairs, a few seconds later though a thought occurred to the large man and he leaned forward over the desk and looked towards the open door that lead into the inn’s eating area, “Hey Orlov!”

A moment later a yell came back through the opening, “What?”

“What day is it?”

There was a pause of a few seconds before a reply came, “Wednesday,” there was a pause as Ghermon came back up straight then took a seat again, “I think.”

-----

Both of the two men watched Victor has he came upstairs, both wore lightweight body armour underneath their clothing and were armed with 9mm CZ 75s, which was enough to discourage the common thief from attempting anything in this hotel, anything more then that, such as mercenary forces and warlord soldiers, were usually bribed not to cause the owner any difficulties, that coupled with the importance most of the warlord’s representatives saw in this establishment helped keep it fairly safe.

Victor was wise in not using his satellite phone as the Kilrany air crews more often then not only jammed the more common radio signals, those belonging to radio stations and communications sets. The more advanced wireless signals from higher-powered satellite devices were far more rare in Triari, and usually only belonged to wealthy and important people, while the electronic warfare aircraft were in the area these signals were usually intercepted and attempts made to decode their messages in case they provided useful intelligence. Conveniently for Victor there were radios sets included in each room for the listening pleasure of clients, a simple act of turning on the radio would tell him if this particular Kilrany EW aircraft was still in the area.

As an added bonus for those around Neutralnaya, the loiter time for Kilrany aircraft was significantly less then in other parts of the nation, thanks in large part to its distance from the Kilrany border and the flight path their aircraft had to follow to get there. It would not be much longer before the Kilrany aircraft would have to depart from the airspace over Neutralnaya to make its way home as it still had to make a mid-air refueling rendezvous to safely make the trip.

When Victor came back out of his room, Valters Grants was taken off guard slightly, not expecting this customer of the inn to come up to him and ask him a question; in his experience most people ignored the security guards.

“What … oh, uh, yeah, we’re both employed by the owner of this establishment. We work here and no where else.”

He paused a moment and lightened up a little realizing that this fellow was likely just curious about the armed men responsible for keeping him safe while he slept, he gestured to his comrade not far off, “Though Morris here used to work for one of them, didn’t you Morris.”

A smile played across the other man’s face, “Yep. But the money’s better here and I don’t get anyone shooting at me all the time,” this statement elicited a light laugh from the two men.

Victor felt a bit more at ease once he noticed that the security guards were a bit lighter hearted…“I guess if you’re going to make a living, you might as well do it right. Well, I was just curious and trying to see how things were done here, thanks anyways.”

As Victor started to walk back towards his room, he began thinking - this actually proved to be an important bit of knowledge – this Morris character had worked for “somebody” in the past. Although it may not be wise to try to press for more information at the moment – that may unintentionally lead the two to think this could be some sort of hit by a prior boss or rival; Victor would not want to take such chance. This could be revisited in the future – maybe over a couple of glasses of whatever the local favorite drink was; if that was obtainable.

After the short walk back to his room, he entered it and closed the door. He noticed the radio – convenient indeed. Figuring there wasn’t much left to do, he looked for the files regarding this nation – although he had already read them, he wanted to make sure there was nothing he missed…After finding them, he turned on the radio for a few minutes, trying to see if the jamming plane was still in the area. In the meantime, he began to re-read the files, still amazed how the cartel was able to get these files from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs…

OOC: Nothing’s snappy coming to mind, so this will be short sadly.

Valters masked his curiosity as best he could, the unusual conversation, if brief, instigated by the inn’s latest client made him stick out among the crowd so to speak and he decided then and there he was going to watch this person. Although he had no intention of going anywhere near the room to do anything such as spy on the man, he liked being able to breath, so he intended to be as subtle as he could, interested out of mere curiosity.

When Victor’s door closed he half turned to Morris, “What do you think that was all about?”

Uninterested in the whole situation he shrugged his shoulders slightly and his response came out more like a short series of grunts, “I don’t know.”

Valters scoffed and dismissed his comrade with his hand, then simply went back to ‘standing guard’ as it were.

Victor would not have to wait long, already overhead for several hours, the Kilrany EW aircraft straightened out of its last orbital pass over the city, angling off to the Southeast it began the long trip home. Inside the aircrew taped a few keys on their consoles and killed the jamming signal that was interfering with the radios. Downstairs Ghermon smiled as he heard music again coming out of his radio as he checked the volume again, if somewhat weak, it was still better then nothing as far as he was concerned, and for the next few days at least, he could happily listen away.

Valters masked his curiosity as best he could, the unusual conversation, if brief, instigated by the inn’s latest client made him stick out among the crowd so to speak and he decided then and there he was going to watch this person. Although he had no intention of going anywhere near the room to do anything such as spy on the man, he liked being able to breath, so he intended to be as subtle as he could, interested out of mere curiosity.

When Victor’s door closed he half turned to Morris, “What do you think that was all about?”

Uninterested in the whole situation he shrugged his shoulders slightly and his response came out more like a short series of grunts, “I don’t know.”

Valters scoffed and dismissed his comrade with his hand, then simply went back to ‘standing guard’ as it were.

Victor would not have to wait long, already overhead for several hours, the Kilrany EW aircraft straightened out of its last orbital pass over the city, angling off to the Southeast it began the long trip home. Inside the aircrew taped a few keys on their consoles and killed the jamming signal that was interfering with the radios. Downstairs Ghermon smiled as he heard music again coming out of his radio as he checked the volume again, if somewhat weak, it was still better then nothing as far as he was concerned, and for the next few days at least, he could happily listen away.

Victor noticed that the radio started to play music. Of course, he didn’t recognize what song was what, but that wasn’t important. He quickly turned down the radio, low enough so it wouldn’t distract his conversation, but enough so he could still hear it in case if the signal started to become jammed again. Feeling confident that the jammer was gone, he grabbed the satellite phone and turned it on. Once the phone was activated, he was relieved to see that, although weak, it acquired enough of a signal to place a couple of calls. Quickly, he dialed the number of the freighter, to let them know he was in place at the hotel. He waited patiently until the call went to an answering machine, just as expected. After the automatic message ended with a familiar beep, Victor left a simple, short message – “I arrived safely and will begin the tour tomorrow.” Just in case if Kilrany was listening, he spoke in nahuatl, the indigenous language of the ANL.

He hung up the phone, then dialed the direct, secure line to his boss, Antonio. Again, it would be a rather short message. The phone rang a couple of times, but Antonio picked it up. Back at his office, he looked on his caller ID and recognized the number, he quickly picked it up and asked, “What’s going on?”

Victor said in nahuatl, briefly, “My friend, I just arrived at my hotel..”

Antonio said in response, “That’s great to hear, how’s the view? I hope you’ll be able to send me a post card or something.”

The two proceeded to make small talk for a few minutes. All of this was a ruse, as it was important that the state-owned satellites which transmits all the call logs to the Aztec Ministry of Intelligence. Of course, the bizarre location of the call would alert the satellite to flag that particular log entry, but if the call seemed benign enough, the Ministry may over look it. Hopefully, the success of this entire operation would depend if the Ministry over looked it.

After a couple of minutes, the two ended the conversation and hung up. He put the phone down, though not turning it off in case he got a call coming in. So as long as the radio signal still came through, the phone would be on. He then began flipping through the files again, getting anxious about the city council meeting.

OOC: Would it be possible to RP the city council meeting soon?

A sort of peaceful tranquility fell upon the city of Neutralnaya for the next few days, Kilrany fighters continued to patrol the skies over the nations, but their bombers were no where to be seen, for the time being at least. The people of the city knew it would be a short lived reprieve however, as they believed the Kilrany delighted in their torment, rumours abounded that something had temporarily drawn their attention elsewhere, some even stretched the rumours so far as to tie it in with the recent assassination of Erofeev, wildly claiming that a Kilrany assassination squad was in the city, and that was the reason for the break in the Kilrany air attacks.

Come Friday morning around ten, three representatives trudged their way to a relatively small stone building, none of them enjoyed these days, the annoyances of dealing with the people sometimes made them question why they kept the job, those thoughts however usually faded fast as they either remembered the perks or the fact that they’d likely be killed otherwise. As a result of the assassination the usual tension between the rival soldiers was at an all time high, and the mishmash of guards at the building glared at each other in suspicion and paranoia, it led to many citizens of the city to decide that today was not the day voice their complaints, and instead come back the next week.

This had in turn led to a surprisingly small line of people waiting to be let into the building, some would take seats to watch the proceedings out of curiosity, some would take their place in another line to voice their concerns, complaints, or propositions to the ‘council’ in turn.

Outside Victor’s room Morris and Valters were once again ‘on the clock’; while Valters stood leading against a wall and staring down the corridor at nothing in particular, Morris was sat in a small wooden frame chair against the right wall between a pair of room doors, apparently deeply interested in the finger nails of his right hand.

Without a change in his apparent interest, Morris addressed Valters rather nonchalantly, “So who do you figure killed Erofeev?”

Glad for something to do, if even just to make small talk, Valters happily responded, “Hell if I know, could have been any of those opportunistic bastards. Must have been a hell of a firefight though.”

“Not from what I heard.”

“Oh, how’s that now?”

“Apparently they were taken down all stealth-like, they say whoever did it had silenced weapons and knew what they were doing, no alarm, nothing. They were all slaughtered in their sleep.”

Valters grunted in interest, “Nasty. So that’s why I heard some people going on about it like the Kilrany had done it. Though I don’t see why, by the way everyone was talking you’d think Erofeev was working for them.”

“Yeah but most people are full of shit anyway. I only believe the 'slaughtered in the night' bit because I know the guy who told me, he’s on Tsetaeva’s payroll, was working nearby the night it happened.”

“Hah, lucky bastard then he wasn’t too close.”

Morris merely grunted in agreement.

OOC: If you’d like Aztec, you can just skip to a point where Victor is walking to a little speaker’s podium of sorts in front of the three representatives seated at three small individual tables, sometime in the early afternoon, let things move along, or you can stop and have a chat with Morris and Valters before going to the ‘meeting hall’, I’ll let that be your call.

OOC: I’ll just go to the meeting....

The last few days of Victor’s ‘business trip’ in Triari had been uneventful – this was ok, though, as he was waiting for the city council meeting. Dressed up in suit and tie and with handgun left in his discretely hidden briefcase at the hotel, Victor finally waited to speak to this council. Although he had no reason to suspect that anyone would search his room, it couldn’t hurt any.

Victor remembered that on the way here as he left the hotel, he heard something about some sort of successful assassination. Although unsure, it seemed like the person was someone of significance. Victor wished he could’ve gotten more information some how – he tried to find a news radio frequency, but seemingly unable to find local Triarian news, he gave up. Regardless, Victor could still use this as a selling point for his merchandise.

Noticing his turn to speak had come up, Victor walked up to a small speaker’s podium. It almost seemed like déjà vu, as in 2002, he had testified to a committee of the Aztec parliament about the cartel’s involvement with the 1994 revolution. During that time, the then-dominant Libertarian Confederate Party was seeing if the then-opposition Socialist Labor Party, which mostly comprised of former revolutionaries from the war, had gotten too comfortable with the cartels. Everyone involved with the revolution knew the answer – of course, and everyone knew it. However, it was a political stunt – the 2003 elections were just around the corner and the libertarians were miles behind the socialists in the polls. A public embarrasment, they thought, may be enough to save their poltical majority. Although subpoenaed and under oath, Victor divulged no secrets, protecting both his own life and that of the cartel, but did it in a way in which the committee could not prosecute him for contempt charges. He hoped that his ability to speak publicly hadn’t atrophied by now.

Victor reached the podium, noticing the three representatives. They were clearly bored with the job – the look on their faces seemed like the same expressions of that of college students who were elected to their student government senate, unsure of what they were getting into at first and now resenting it. Due to their demeanor, this might be a tough crowd. Knowing a little bit of parliamentary procedure, he waited until he was allowed to speak by which ever member of the council was presiding over the meeting.

OOC: I thought you might.

It was no exaggeration to call the three men who made up the current ‘council’ bored; in their experience week after week these sessions always went the same. Someone from some section of the city would complain about how they’re section was getting enough food, or water, or electricity, though occasionally it was changed up to include complaints about actions taken by the ‘city guard’, the mixed security forces that policed the city, though to call it policing would be the looses possible use of the term.

The ‘gallery’ behind the speakers podium was only half full this day, made up of about two dozen men, some came out of curiosity, some had nothing better to do, and often found the representatives reactions to some of the ‘speakers’ to be amusing. Normally there would be sixteen soldiers making of the guard inside the room, however since Erofeev was not a part of the meeting this day, only twelve guards were present, four for each member, they all glared at each other menacingly as they gripped their assortment of weapons, as suspicion had taken hold, even in Isovich’s men, most of whom knew nothing of his involvement.

When Victor took his turn at the podium, there was slight interest from the representatives; it was the first time they’d had someone come in dressed decently, and he was obviously not a native of Triari. There were a few moments of silence before Siamanto Demin, this days lead member of the council realized that Victor was waiting for permission to speak, this revelation made him sit up in his chair and gesture with his right hand for the man to speak.

Jack had been lounging on a comandeered deck chair when Isovich had arrived, thinking that being visible in the open would let the man find him quicker than if he went looking for him around the sprawling complex. It also gave him some time to clean his M4 that had been slung over his shoulder all morning.

After a while he saw Isovich approaching and so laid his disassembled weapon out on a wooden table next to him and turned to shake his hand. Momentary confusion hit him with Isovich's words, but then he let out a short laugh when he heard of the comparisons to the Kilrany.

"It seems it worked out very well then, they are running around thinking they have a SpecOps team in the city. Might prove a thorn in your side for convincing everybody that they were actually working with the Kilrany though."

He thought momentarily about the payment arrangements, realising that they hadnt actually discussed rewards only the existence of them.

"Well, I'd like to keep this one under the company radar if you get my meaning he said, tapping his nose to show that he wanted it to be kept quiet. "It wasn't strictly in our job description you see, more an unofficial exercise. So it might be best for he funds to be centrally given to me and then when I next go back into the real world for me to distribute them between my mens bank accounts."

He scratched his chin before continuing.

"The guys think that asking for $2500 each is an acceptable price, however if you wish to negotiate I'm sure we can sort out something."

“Well, I’m glad you find this funny,” though Isovich’s initial reaction was oozing with sarcasm his facial expression changed a moment later to a slight smile, “No matter, the important thing is that Erofeev is dead and I’ve come out ahead anyway, I’ve traded a major headache for a minor one, I may yet be able to turn this to my advantage.

As Jack mentioned keeping the payment under the radar, Isovich gave a knowing nod of his head, “I understand, I can work with under the table. But brings to question, how many men are we talking about here? How many went with you on this little … excursion? In any case, I think we can work with that, good work deserves good pay, and to be fair, I’m not going to find men with your abilities willing to come here and work for me.”

OOC: Sorry for my late response…These waning days of vacation have become a bit hectic. Hopefully the following is sufficient.

IC:

Victor noticed the gesture and nodded, he was lucky that the council was this approachable. At the same time, Victor could be forcing himself to walk a thin line – rivals and other opposition factions to the council may have informants going to these meetings. While it’s possible that security, which was surprisingly strong, would filter out known operatives of such parties, it’s impossible to filter out everyone every time. Victor didn’t want to become a marked man, and started to feel uncomfortable about leaving his gun behind. With his thoughts organized, Victor began his speech to the council.

“Gentlemen, I represent a private, family controlled operation based in the Aztec National League that specializes in exporting humanitarian and security equipment. It is no secret that the frequent raids and internal strife within Triari is causing instability, economic stagnation and general chaos. There is little that can be done in the short run with the raids, as this will take many years of planning and cooperation to solve. However, we must deal with the now. This city is fortunate, very fortunate to be in a relatively stable position and access to transportation and infrastructure. As such, my organization, which is not affiliated with the Aztec government, is willing to sell the local authorities medical and security related items at reduced prices. We can discuss details further in private if you wish, but I assure you that we have a broad assortment of products and technologies which will assist in making this city a bit safer.”

Victor paused for a second, hoping he would be able to discuss this issue more in private. After all, guns could be interpreted as security devices. “I am willing to answer questions if you have any.” Victor always hated answering questions – it left him too vulnerable to being stumped or challenged.

Victor was right to be concerned about the gallery of Triari in their rows of seats behind him, though perhaps not for the reasons he thought. While it was true that there were mercenary groups and low level arms dealers in Triari who may not appreciate Victor’s presence and intent, none of them would dare to lift a finger against him for fear of their action being discovered and it costing them their lives in a most painful way, for the rulers of Triari did not take kindly to anyone meddling in their valuable and unsteady supply lines.

The biggest threat to Victor would be an informer, an informer on the Kilrany Empire’s payroll. It was an unfortunate and frustrating fact for the ruling factions of Triari that there were people who would happily supply the Kilrany with information in exchange for money to make their lives easier, whenever these ‘traitors’ were caught they often suffered a most painful death; though this never stopped the various factions from trying to buy off men from opposing factions.

This very real threat was one well known to the three current members of the council and as a result, almost before Victor had finished speaking, Demin hastily spoke out, “Clear the room … now!”

Though the guards hesitated at first, mostly those on the payroll of the other representatives, they snapped to work when Denim’s tone turned harsher and he had finished his sentence with the volume close enough to have been a roar. When Victor had identified himself as a representative of a potential source of supplies, the three representatives had obviously taken notice, straightening in their seats and listening quite careful, now while the gallery population was being pushed out the door by the guards, they eyed each other suspiciously in silence.

Several seconds of silence filled the room after it had finally been cleared, leaving only Victor, the three representatives and their armed guards. The first to speak was Isovich, “You’re rather bold to announce you want to sell to everyone here.”

Denim quickly spoke up however, as a representative of The Council, and an actual member of one of The Council’s ruling families, he was far more interested in what Victor had to offer, especially it would benefit him and his particular family gain more power, “Bold or not here he is and he is offering. You were rather … vague, shall we say, about what exactly your offering. What precisely do you have to offer for sale here?”

"I took nine men with me on the....training exercise." a thin smile spread across his lips. Jonas had asked for more money as he had been hit, but Jack had dismissed that with a cuff around the ear saying it was his own stupid fault. Jonas' ribs had just started to heal, the bruising that the round had left was not major and didn't cause him much discomfort in the day to day activities he was undertaking in the fortress.

Jack had been considering whether he would take the risk of more jobs from Isovich. There was always the chance that the funds would be traced back, hence the rather small sum that he would be charging...the men knew they were in the country for a while so sought to make a little extra money that couldn't be traced by the Tax Man back home, nor by the Corporation who would want their share.

Jack had already put in an order for supplies for his own men, food and some more ammunition. The ammunition he had explained away as being down to caution as he feared the war between the various factions could flare up and leave them isolated from the port. The supplies would come in with the next shipment of arms for Isovich, which Jack would discuss with the man soon.

Whilst he waited for Isovich's reply he scratched the stubble that was beginning to form on his chin and jawline. It made him look more dashing he thought, kinda of like an Italian from the renaissance age. Definitely not like an unshaven layabout which was what his girlfriend always said whenever he grew it back at home. The dark hair was at least full when he grew it, years of shaving in the regular army had meant the growth was quick and full when it was allowed. Special Forces had been less strict, the men were expected to be smart to a reasonable standard with hair being one of the less frowned upon discretions.

But working now for the Corporation, which he had done for two years, Jack was free to do as he wished. He had been a Special Forces Captain, only leaving because of his desire to be with his girlfriend and their newly born baby. But now the baby was three, young Jefferson had only been a year old when his fathers finances ran out and the former SpecOps man was approached by a J Corp representative offering riches and generous periods of time with his family.

OOC: I will flesh this out, but time constraints mean I cant do so tonight. The basic areas are there though :)

OOC: Not a problem, this is going to be rather short as well sadly, nothing inventive is coming to mind just now, still a little tired and not feeling the best.

Isovich’s mood was finally starting to lighten up somewhat, he had been quite frustrated by the fact that he attack had been misconstrued as being conducted by the Kilrany and the seven hour drive on Triari ‘roads’ had only aggravated the situation further, now that he had the chance to stretch and walk on his own two feet he was much calmer.

He took several moments to do the math in his head, Nine men with him, so ten including Jack, at twenty-five hundred each, that’s about … twenty-five thousand … yes that right, hmmm, pricey but worth it for the quality of their work, like most Triari, Isovich had no schooling whatsoever. Despite the best efforts of foreign aid groups who tried to help the people of Triari, which included attempts to build schools, in their current state there were only two jobs that routinely came to men, labourers or soldiers, women were far less fortunate.

“Twenty-five thousand sounds acceptable to me, I’ll get it for you in cash so you can do with it as you wish,” he smiled slightly then nodded his head in the direction of the closed off building holding the SAM systems, “How long do you think it will take before those systems are ready to go to work?”

"Our friend Hopkins says they are pretty much ready, you just need to decide where you want them positioned. Ideally we need somewhere that aircraft fly over reasonably regularly but with good cover...then we wait for a customer to appear. Unless you have something else for my men and I to be doing we will tag along and watch the show?"



Meanwhile back in the USIH,
J Corp Research Facility at BroomLake Air Force Base

Two men in white lab coats were standing at one end of a long thin room. Arrayed on a steel table were several weapons, all modern conventional designs with a stack of magazines for each on a shelf below the table. One of the men seized a P90 and loaded the magazine into the top feed of the weapon, checked the safety then cocked it. The other pressed a button and a door at the other end of the range opened to reveal a sheep clad in bodyarmour that cantered to a trough of feed that stood in the middle of the room near its end.

The man with the P90 turned his head to the other scientist as he brought the weapon into the aim.

"Two rounds?"

"No, try the three round burst. Try and be as accurate as possible, we need to measure the actual penetration values after weakening of the surrounding fabric at range."

"Ok Doc."

He flicked the safety to single shot and fired three rounds in quick succession. All three impacted the sheep's armoured hide and knocked it backwards, the last causing an explosion of thick red blood onto the feeder. The sheep collapsed in a fit of bleating and began slowly rolling on the floor. The man with the P90 turned to his colleague and muttered a curse before dropping his aim slightly and firing a single 5.7mm rounds into the sheeps brain. More blood and brain fragments splattered the ground and feeder as the man removed the P90's magazine and cocked it to remove the last round from the chamber, replacing the special armour piercing round into the magazine for further use. The other man had wandered down and was standing close to the remains of the sheep, looking intently at the armour that had partially protected it for the first two rounds.

"Well Major. We built the armour, now we build the penetrators that will make it useless."

"Yes Doctor. However we still need to field test it..."

"Don't you worry about that Major, I have the perfect place in mind."

OOC: Oooooo, interesting turn of events, heh, rather unique method of laboratory testing though, heheh.

Isovich smiled a little bit at the knowledge that the systems were ready to be tried out and he thought a few moments about placement, “Good news, as for location … it won’t be hard to find cover somewhere near where we can set them up, more bloody damned trees around here then … well you get the idea. Anyway, over the years we’ve noticed that Kilrany aircraft tend to keep a little distance from Germanian and Valnari airspace and there’s a relatively narrow stretch between Valnari and Germania. It’s a little tricky to get there unnoticed, but it can be done, it’s the main route Kilrany aircraft have to take to get over Neutralnaya. The difficulty we face is that this also happens to be the main route for all the other factions around here to get to Neutralnaya. Though I can see to it there are extra men assigned for protection, and since I don’t have any job for you just now, your presence would certainly help keep the systems safe in transit and while onsite. That wouldn’t be a problem would it?”

-----

Korovin looked down about the large table and the map of the Neutralnaya port in his office, a few of his employees moved about marking spots and in general conferring about ships inbound to the port and those about to leave. They were all rather suddenly surprised when one of his employees by the name of Vadym came bursting in through the main door completely out of breath and with a wild look in his eyes.

A look of concern came across Korovin’s face and he quickly began to make his way around to the side to come down the steps while another of his employees came over to the now bent over Vadym to see what was wrong. As he came down the steps Korovin attempted to figure out what had apparently scared the young man, he had merely been sent out to collect a box of high end brandy from a freighter Captain, one Korovin knew well and who liked to bribe the harbour master with fine alcohol.

“What’s wrong Vadym? What the hell’s got you all worked up?”

It took several more moments for the young man to finally catch his breath, by which time Korovin was next to him, he quickly tried to speak as he continued to breath fairly heavily, “Captain … Captain Ohloblyn, he got seached by a … a Kilrany destroyer about a hundred kilomters out, said it followed him in closer for a while … looked like it was going to be around for a while.”

“Ah shit.”

OOC: My appologies once again for the late response. Due to maintenance, my internet has been disconnected since Sunday.

IC:

Noticing the rather blunt comment made by Isovich, Victor smiled and tried to hopefully turn things around a bit, “Well, may fortune favor the bold…or the foolish.” He knew that it wasn’t the most delicate or subtle tactic to use, but it was the quickest. Although the southern neighbors of Trirari seemed very involved in one way or another with daily life, he figured he wouldn’t be in too much danger at this point. Of course, all of that could change the moment he walked out door.

Victor started after Denim had stated his interest. “Yes, I believe for reasons which manifest themselves that I had to be vague while the public’s ears were listening to this business offer. Taking a strict interpretation of what I said does not reveal what my organization can do for you. We can talk much about medical supplies, which I’m sure is needed here. However, security is a much more interesting place to start, isn’t it?”

Pausing for a second, Victor gathered his thoughts. Although he didn’t know solidly, it wouldn’t be illogical to assume that there were other gunrunners in Triari. He started again, “Considering the situation here, I would assume that the majority of assault rifles here are AK-47s, maybe even a limited amount of 74s. Considering that those are the weapons your forces are trained with, and since they are easily obtainable for us, that may be your best option. 47s and 74 would be the cheapest, while 101s, 103s and 108s are a bit more expensive. We could also import some of the state weaponry of the Aztec military. The more common weapons were designed to be compatible with AK 47 and 74 bullets.

As for other, more powerful items, such as laser guided RPGs, throw grenades, explosives and other tools, those are a bit more expensive, but doable. The only thing that would be extraordinarily difficult and expensive to obtain would be landmines, although if there’s a will and enough cash, there’s a way to get them.”

He continued on, “We can also get defensive gear as well as other items such as flack jackets, electronic counter measures and counter-counter measures, advanced surveillance technology, communication equipment, and of course, more humanitarian things like medical supplies and such. Although I don’t have an exact listing of all my prices right now, I can easily obtain that list. Besides, everything is negotiable. Also, in terms of weaponry, I can arrange to allow you and your crews try out some of the goods as well.”

OOC: Not problem.

From his position Isovich grunted in amusement at the reply from Victor, he personally didn’t have a problem with boldness so long as it aided his agenda, before he could respond in turn though to Victor’s response, Denim had spoken up and Victor was answering his question.

All three representatives remained silent as Victor spoke, unconcerned with the notion of medical supplies; they were far more interested in the weapons and ammunition along with the prospect of more sophisticated communications and surveillance equipment. After Victor finished speaking there was several moments of silence where the three representatives were in state of disbelief, while ecstatic that they had a new source willing to try and bring in supplies, it was hard to believe that one was willing to try and bring in all that Victor described.

That silence didn’t last long however as almost in unison all three quickly spoke up to take claim of the situation, their exact words lost it quickly turned into an argument by all three, their loud voices echoing in the room leaving the guards, who were already tense to worry even more, several of them going so far as to flip the safety off on their weapons.

Finally after a few minutes Denim finally broke through the cacophony of voices in nearly a scream, his hands up over his head trying to focus the attention of the other two representatives, “Hold on now damnit! Hold on!”

For a few seconds the silenced returned and then Denim spoke up quietly, “A shouting match will do us no good here, I propose for the sake of leaving this room still breathing we all agree that whatever this fellow can bring in be split evenly among us.”

The other two representatives grumbled slightly before grudgingly nodding their heads in agreement, at which point Denim continued, “Good, now then, I don’t believe we caught your name sir, and can you tell us what kind of communications equipment? To avoid interference from the Kilrany, we’ve been forced to rely on runners to send important messages, effective enough, if a little slow. Additionally, I don’t suppose you could be more specific with the numbers of weapons and ammunition you have available? I had little doubt that our primary interest will be in the Kalashnikovs, they’re much more reliable here and the ammunition easier to acquire.”

-----

The normal pitch and roll of a ship as it cruised through the water was gone for the KIN Ruse, it was replaced with an unsteady floating sensation as the large destroyer cut its way through the small waves at nearly thirty-three knots. On deck the bow mounted AL-130 crashed out a pair of 130mm high explosive shells, which soared out towards a freighter two hundred meters off the Ruse’s port side. Both shell slashed through the air over the freighter just forward of the ship’s wheelhouse before they came crashed down into the water on the ship’s port side in a pair of nine-meter tall plumes of water.

On the bridge of the KIN Ruse Captain Solomon Papava had what could be best described as a mildly irritated look on his face as he looked out the bridge screen towards the freighter with small intercom phone in his hand. A moment later he spoke into it with a tone that matched his expression.

“Merchant vessel Skua, reverse your engines, come to a stop, shutdown and prepare to be boarded or you will be sunk. This is your only warning.”

He placed the phone down into its cradle on a console in font of him and stepped out around it, moving close to the port side bridge screen.

“Any change in their speed?”

“Negative sir.”

He waited a moment as the Skua begin to trail behind them to port, the much faster destroyer quickly beginning to leave the much slower and bulkier merchantman behind, “Con hard to port.”

“Aye sir.”

While not a crash turn, at flank speed the large destroyer began to list to starboard, as was the nature for large ships, cutting in front of the Skua with a mere hundred-meter gap between the two ships.

“Cut speed to fifteen knots, bring us back around to their starboard side again, two hundred meters and match their speed.”

“Aye sir.”

Papava turned around and reached over the same console he had been standing behind a few moments earlier, picked up the phone and pressed a button next to it before turning around with it in hand and looking at the Skua as they began to pass towards its stern on its port side.

“CIC, target the Skua with guns, prepare to open fire on my order.”

There was quick acknowledgement of the order followed by another quickly being given down in the Ruse’s CIC. At his station Gunner’s mate Dimitry Gordeli tracked a targeting hack over the Skua, up on deck both AK-130s turned to face the Ruse’s port side. Moving the target line up to start on the Skua’s bridge, he waited for the order to open fire.

Back on the bridge, Papava patiently watched as they came back around to the Skua’s starboard side, slowing as it did so to match the merchants twelve knots. His patience finally exhausted he was just about to order the guns to fire when one of his crewmen spoke up.

“Vessel is reducing speed sir, sonar reports they’re reversing their engines.”

Papava smiled and gave out a quick order, “Set speed to ten knots and circle the Skua, the second sonar reports their engines have shut off, give Echo One clearance to take off.”

“Yes sir.”

As the Ruse’s Captain sent an order over the ships intercom to the CIC to have the gunners stand by and prepare to stand down, his XO sent an message to Echo One, a KA-29 naval helicopter. Aft of the ship’s primary super structure the contra-rotating blades of the KA-29 began to whine to life. As the helicopter powered up the ship’s flight crew quickly and carefully released the catches and restraints that kept the helicopter tied down to the land pad of the ship, only moments later the helicopter lifted off the deck with fifteen men and women, a reinforced section of the Naval Infantries Special Operations.

While not technically an elite force compared to units such as the Russian and Russkyan Naval Spetsnaz, they were specially trained for close quarters combat on board naval vessels for the purposes of boarding operations and ship security. The SO teams were typically assigned to Kilrany naval vessels that were expected to conduct interdiction missions and to flag vessels for shipboard security. The former was somewhat redundant however as all Kilrany ships were expected to be able to perform interdiction missions; as such most all ships had a certain number of SO teams on board with the obvious exception of submarines.

This section plus one fire team currently in the back of the helicopter were armed with a four to one mixture of RK8 ‘Laika’ carbines and KRCS Blackthorns, the former being a Russkyan designed, bull-pup assault rifle capable of being chambered to fire different calibers, in this case they were chambered to 5.45x39mm and 7.62x39mm in a two to two ration. For additional control in the confining spaces of ships, most of the SO team members had a detachable forestock and cobra optic attached to their assault rifles. The Blackthorn was a jointly designed Kilrany and Russkyan twelve gauge shotgun, semi-automatic and magazine fed, it shared a rough appearance with the Saiga-12k, of which it was designed to replace, like the members with Laikas, those with Blackthorns also had their weapons customized.

Another fifteen Naval Infantrymen waited on both sides of a corridor just inside a hatchway that led out to the ship’s landing pad, waiting for the helicopter to return and carry them over to the Skua in turn. Unlike the first section and a half going over, these men and women were carrying some heavier equipment with them besides their firearms, equipment they would use to thoroughly search the ship for hidden compartments and contraband material.

From the bridge Papava watched as the helicopter made its approach towards the deck of the Skua, near the center of the freighter. This was the most dangerous part for the Naval Infantry, the KA-29 was not exactly a heavily armoured assault helicopter like the Hind, and if the Skua’s crew chose to try and ambush them it would be messy for all concerned.

His concern diminished slightly as the pilot brought the helicopter in low enough and the Naval Infantry assaulted out on to the deck to receive no opposition. The Naval Infantrymen quickly disappeared into a pair of hatchways as the helicopter powered up away from the deck of the Skua and returned to pick up the second half of the search team. Orders were quickly given to straighten the ship out so the helicopter could safely land and load up once more before Papava ordered the ship back into an ‘orbit’ of the freighter.

As the second half of the team was coming in, the Skua’s crew begin to file out of one of the hatchways with their hands clasped together on top of their heads and escorted by several members of the first team. They had to pause for a few moments as the as the helicopter unloaded its second group of personnel, the Kilrany infantrymen were quick to push them along again however as the helicopter lifted off to begin a circular orbit around the Skua.

Papava took a step to his left and pulled a pair of binoculars out of a small cabinet before returning to his original position and looking towards the bow of the Skua where the Naval Infantrymen were gathering the Skua’s crew. Looking through the binoculars he scanned over the gathered members of the Skua crew who were being carefully watched by five of the Naval Infantrymen, in all he counted twenty-five crewmembers.

As the second team began its search of the freighter, the Captain chose to let his Executive Officer speak with the Naval Infantry, though he did listen in.

“So what are you seeing over there?”

“A shit load of lumber, their entire hold is full of felled trees.”

Papava sighed slight, “Makes sense, we caught them coming out of Triari, they’ve got trees to spare. Going to be hellish to check through though.”

The time dragged on as the Kilrany soldiers did their best to thoroughly search the ship, after nearly twenty–seven minutes they had yet to find anything until a particular Corporal noticed something odd about one of the logs in the hold. Leaning in close to one end of a particular log she ran her gloved hand over smoothly cut end where she noticed there seemed to be a circular cut in it.

She let her weapon rest by its tactical sling and pulled out her combat knife, with her other hand still on the end of the log, she carefully slipped the tip of the blade into what appeared to be a cut in the wood. Carefully wriggling the blade for a few second caused the ‘cap’, a circular half inch thick piece of the end of the tree to pull out. Whether the entire long was hollowed out or whether it was just a portion of it she couldn’t tell as it was stuffed with small plastic bags full of a white powder.

“Oh you cagey little bastards,” she murmured to herself before calling out for her Sergeant.

Back on the Ruse the Captain heard the report come in over the speaker, “Yes sir, we have confirmation on the presence of contraband material, looks to be cocaine. It’s a drug runner.”

Papava shook his head slightly and turned to face his XO, “Damned drug runners,” he then gave the officer a nod of his head at which point the XO addressed the Naval Infantrymen, “Standard procedure here, then return to the ship.”

“Aye sir.”

Back on the deck of the Skua the freighter’s crew looked somewhat hopeful as the entirety of the Kilrany Naval Infantry element exited out of several hatchways carrying nothing they hadn’t gone in with. That hope faded quickly however when the five soldiers guarding them didn’t move off to join their comrades to re-board the helicopter when it returned; instead an additional five soldiers joined them. Most of them knew what was about to happen next, or at least thought they did, one crewmen in particular had the sense to attempt to flee and jumped over the ship’s railing just as the ten Kilrany soldiers opened fire on the unarmed crew with short controlled bursts of fire into their upper bodies.

With the main group down several of the Naval Infantrymen moved quickly to the railing and partially leaned over, aiming their weapons downward they scanned the water for any movement of the escaping crewmen. Close to a minute passed before the man was forced back to the surface for air, having moved to the port side of the ship he barely had enough time to gasp in a single breath before a burst of 7.62x39mm rounds shattered his skull. Despite the seemingly harsh execution, the Naval Infantrymen had done them a favour, if unintentionally, under Kilrany law trafficking in drugs was a capitol offence, which would have seen them publicly executed by the 1st Division of the Imperial Guard, in the end being shot was quicker death for them.

It took several minutes for the Ka-29 to pick up the soldiers onboard the Skua and shuttle them back to the KIN Ruse, once it had done so however the aircraft was powered down on the ship’s landing pad and the flight crew secured the helicopter once again. With his men off the Skua and Echo one secured, he gave the order to open fire on the freighter.

Down in the CIC, Gunner’s mate Dimitry Gordeli happily activated the Sovremenny’s bow and stern mounted AK-130-MR-184, unleashing over thirty rounds a minute per barrel into the Skua waterline as he tracked both mounts from bow to stern. The freighter’s hull having no chance against the 130mm high explosive shells was easilly torn to shred under the merciless fire, and with its watertight doors left wide open the freigther began to quickly fill with water. Dimitry continued raking the Skua with fire for a full minute until he was satisfied the ship was broken and sinking, at which point he turned the safeties back on the weapons and put them back into stand by mode.

As the Skua began to sink beneath the waves, Captain Solomon Papava gave the order to return to the ship’s original patrol course at more casual speed.

The day after, on a track through the forest

Jonas sat on the front of one of the tracked SA-11 launcher vehicle as it crept through the forest. The driver of the vehicle had his head up through the wide open hatch and was constantly wiping mud from the goggles he wore to allow him some semblance of vision. About twenty feet in front was another of the launch vehicles that flicked mud from the loose forest floor right up into the drivers line of sight. Jonas was safe from the majority of the splatter as he perched in the middle of the vehicle, his left arm looped over an SA-11 to hold him steady and his right touching the cold steel plating that protected the crew.

Without any warning the first launcher vehicle began to slow, causing the driver of the second to stamp on the brake pedal and nearly fling Jonas off of the front. Only some fancy footwork saved him from a mud bath and he chuckled to himself as he sat down properly and adjusted his boots. To his left he could hear swearing and watched as Jack and a couple of the other mercenaries from the team walked up the side of the narrow track towards the front of the makeshift column. A minute later his ear piece began to crackle.

“We are here gentlemen. Launch site will be three hundred yards on a bearing zero-four-nine. Deploy as arranged.”

Jonas heaved himself up and pulled his G36 round from his back to allow him to jump down to the ground with it in his hands. He patted the vehicle on the track guard before hopping clear as the driver gunned the big diesel engine and the vehicle lurched off of the track and began to thread itself through the trees towards the edge of a distant clearing which Isovich had selected. A Ural Truck, crammed full of people, and the radar vehicle followed the two launch tracks whilst a 4x4 took two of the mercs and half a dozen of Isovich’s men further down the track to act as pickets.

Jonas waved at Jack, who was standing talking with Isovich, before he headed into the forest on the opposite side of the road to which the launch vehicles had entered. One of the other mercs, Johnson, waited in the trees with his M21 Sniper Rifle casually held in his hands. He was barely visible because he wore a ghillie suit that bristled with bits of trees and brush to break up his outline, the former Special Forces sniper had a gleeful smile on his face knowing full well that he was dressed up for nothing. Putting pickets out was just a routine, they didn’t expect trouble near the launch zone. Jonas would have preferred to be there, the bruising on his ribs was still painful if pressure was put on them and lying down put pressure on them. Plus he was a demolitions expert so he could help with warhead maintenance if anything went wrong. But he also had phenomenal eyesight, so he was Johnson’s spotter for today. The first he would know of a missile launch would be the whoosh of it beginning its ascent towards some unlucky aircraft.

OOC:Kilrany, I figure I’ll let you RP the waiting for the Kilrany aircraft plus any firing that may be done…as it is your aircraft after all :). Lovely write up on the destroyer as well mate!

Victor nodded, he had figured that the conversation would be more about tactical gear, which would be better for him and the cartel anyways. After Denim asked him his name, Victor responded, “Well, my name is Victor Rodriguez. In regards to the communications equipment, there are several different options. I am aware of the frequent jamming planes that patrol these areas. However, we can provide you with certain equipment that transmit on higher frequencies that are harder to block. Local communication such as multi-way radios would become much easier. As for long range communication, that can be done with satellite phones and small scale, mobile military grade transmitters. As for security, all military grade communications equipment uses 128-bit encryption codes which randomly change whenever a device is activated. Only other devices which are able to recognize the encryption code will be able to receive its message. Other radio devices would only recognize it as a high pitched squeal.” He figured that the years of war and conflict have made these men battle-savvy – “Although it may not entirely eliminate the need for runners, it may certainly be a great strategic asset.”

He stopped for a second and took in the second question. Specifics were always difficult, though important. Victor leaned back for a second, thinking. “Well, from the most recent update I received (a small note within the files he had brought with him), the current numbers are about 10,000 ‘47s and 8,500 74s. I’m sure that we could import in about 2,000 units of each rifle per month, although less would be more secure. As for ammunition, we can obtain about”…he stopped for a second, forgetting about how much they had available. “I know that our cache is pretty well stocked, but I forget the exact amount. We have armor piercing, in addition to standard tungsten based ammunition. Although it would be difficult to obtain, we may be able to get a limited amount of depleted uranium based ammunition, but due to my nation’s laws, we would have to purchase that stuff from another source.”

He added quickly, “there is a medium sized freighter operated by my organization which as a small sample of the goods. The ship is currently in international waters, so it’s pretty safe right now.”

OOC: Thanks for the compliment, heh, sorry for the delay of this, mental block on writing and all the jazz delayed it longer then it should have. Heh.

It would be two days of waiting before a suitable target came within range of missile system and the time moved slowly as far as Isovich was concerned. They ran on passive receivers only, not wishing to draw the attention of the Kilrany fighters which they knew to operate with a mix of air to air missiles and HARMs, instead they waited for the tell-tale signal of a slower moving strategic aircraft, identifiable by the type of radar it used. To limit the potential losses, they only brought the surveillance radar vehicle, the command vehicle, and a single TEL.

While they waited the soldiers under Isovich’s command had spent the time digging in around the under-strength air defense battery and conducting patrols around it to ensure its safety from prying eyes on the ground. For Isovich this demonstration would be a quick hit and run attack, not willing to risk his newly acquired toys on their first day out, they would fire, confirm a hit or miss, then immediately pack up and take off from the area before the Kilrany had enough time to properly respond.

Their ideal target would be one of the Kilrany modified Tu-95 Bears, large and relatively slow moving compared to the other aircraft operating in the Triari theatre, they felt they would have a greater chance of a kill. Around 14:21 on the second day of their wait, they finally picked up the radar emissions appropriate for that particular type of Kilrany aircraft.

As the large Kilrany aircraft continued to close the distance, the AS-11 operators prepared to bring the active radar online and give the crew of the aircraft a most nasty surprise.

Onboard the modified strategic bomber, the Kilrany crew went about their business as usual, in the back the equipment operators tuned in their systems and were already listening for signals to intercept and retransmit back home.

As the aircraft closed in to fifty kilometers, still a few kilometers outside the engagement radius, the SA-11 operators powered up their systems, slamming out invisible pulses of energy to track the exact position of the Kilrany aircraft. Quickly following this was the fire control radar, painting the large Bear with an invisible spotlight as the missile crews called out sequence of orders which lead to the launch of two of the five and half meter long, six hundred and ninety kilogram missiles.

Onboard the Kilrany Bear curses followed the bellowing of the aircraft warning system, alerting them that radar system was scanning them, quickly followed by the warning of a fire control radar locking on to them. Before the warning system could blare out that missiles had been fired the pilot had already initiated evasive maneuvers in an attempt to reverse out of the area.

In the back of the windowless aircraft the electronics operators could only grab for handholds attached to their workstations as the aircraft tilted upward and to the left. Pitching his aircraft up and out into a steep climbing turn, the pilot pulled power from the engines and the airframe began to shudder lightly as he popped flaps and spoilers as he continued to roll through into a descending spiral. A series of soft bangs could be heard coming from the aft end of the aircraft as its countermeasure system pumped out blocks of chaff and anti-IR flares.

Burning in at close to mach three the one of the large 9K37 missiles was pulled off its course by the countermeasures system; the second stubbornly homed in on the fleeing aircraft. Inside the aircraft the crew could only wait for something to happen, they didn’t have to wait much longer.

The second missile roared in at nearly one kilometer a second and impacted the descending aircraft underneath the fuselage where it met the wings, in back the crew had a split second to see the nose cone of the large missile smash in through the airframe before its seventy kilogram warhead detonated, shattering the entire aircraft and instantly killing the entire flight crew with the shrapnel and concussive force of the missile detonating inside the aircraft.

Nearly thirty kilometers away from the SA-11 system the burning debris of the aircraft came crashing down into the dense woods of Triari, broken into four major pieces, the aircraft’s fuel quickly helped spawn a large fire.

“We’ve got a clean kill!”

Cheers roared out from the Triari soldiers as one of the system operators poked his head up out of the vehicle, Isovich smiled broadly at Jack and offered his hand exuberantly, “How I would have loved to see the look on those bastards’ faces when they knew they were the ones going to die.”

Without hesitation the crew began to pack up the system and prepare it for transit, shutting down the radar and readying the system to ‘get the hell out of dodge’.

Isovich once again turned to Jack as an idea came to his mind, “Well Jack, I might have another little job for you if you choose to accept it. Though I will understand if you don’t. You fellows have an understanding of electronics; I’d like you fellows to secure anything of value from the remains of the Kilrany aircraft. I’ll send two sections of my men along with you for added security as well,” Isovich gestured to some of the Triari soldiers around them, most of them having been picked from the group the mercenaries had been training with the new assault rifles.

He quickly continued, “Though I have no doubt the Kilrany will be quick to move to secure their property and you will have to move on foot to reach the site from here if my memory of the area is correct. It is not easy to travel quickly in these woods Jack, so I will understand if you don’t wish to risk running into the Kilrany.”

-----

OOC: Sorry about the small response, nothing special is coming to mind for this scene right now.

Denim nodded his head, the thought of once again having instant communications with their military units without interference from the Kilrany, though he, like the other representatives didn’t know much about modern communications systems. Such information was not so much hard to come by, but was usually seen as being outside their reach given the aggressiveness of the Kilrany.

“I believe less … radiated ammunition would be better. Well then mister Rodriguez, this all sounds well and good, but I suppose the next question comes to the all important cost. We find we often have to pay large sums to ‘dealers’ for taking the risk of smuggling items in and out past the Kilrany. So, what can we expect to pay for this generous supply of weapons and equipment?”

As Denim finished and before Victor could speak, Isovich spoke up, “Boldness has its limits, I don’t want to lose a new source of material this early on. The Kilrany don’t give a shit about international waters, that’s where they stop half the ships coming in and out of here. I do hope for everyone here that this freighter of yours is well out in international waters so as not to draw the attention of the Kilrany.”

Jack took Isovich’s outstreched hand and shook it vigorously, making a fist out of his left hand as he did so to show his happiness. Having camped out around the makeshift battery for two days the men all had a vested interest to see it accomplish something, the fireball some distance away signalled that.

Jack noted the mission impossible way that Isovich asked him to go and recover data and electronics, but he ignored it. If the Kilrany come they will have to use choppers to get out this far, luckily these blokes have plenty of RPG’s that should be able to warn them off if they get out here in that time. he thought.

Whilst Isovich assigned the men, Jack got on the mercenaries personal radio network.

“All OP’s converge on battery position. We leave for the crash site in five. OP Four will form point, OP Two will be the rear guard. Crash site is on bearing zero-two-one, roughly forty klicks. We need to do it as quick as possible.”

From the four Observation Posts that the mercenaries had maintained throughout the two day stay the men broke cover and began running back towards the camp. Jonas and his compatriot were the last back in to the camp, their arrival coinciding with the two men from OP #2 and a pair of locals heading out in the direction of a large plume of smoke that signalled the resting place of the Bear.

The two sections of locals had formed up into a rough single file marching line, all of them clasping G-36’s and carrying large empty rucksacks to bring back any equipment that they found. Jack was conferring with the two commanders and just nodded in Jonas’ direction when he saw him. Johnson had sat himself down on the back of one of the trucks and was removing the ghillie suit, carefully putting it into one of the many rucksacks that the team had brought and left at the main launch site. He bundled the packed bag into the rear of the Ural along with many others. The team should be able to cover four miles in under an hour, even with the thick forest, speed being more important than safety at this moment.

Nevertheless Jonas and Johnson were told to wait five minutes and then follow the column into the forest. They would act as point guard on the return, which would no doubt be even more hurried if the Kilrany were coming to the area which had to be assumed that they were.


With the main body of troops, Jack was going through a mental checklist of what would be needed from the crash site. First on his list of priorities was the blackbox from the aircraft, if they took that the Kilrany might not know that it was a missile that took the aircraft down for some time. After that electronics would be the primary pieces of loot that he would search for, along with pieces of proof that the aircraft was brought down that Isovich would want for his superiors. Aside from those things he could think of little else to remove, the bodies of the crew would be left for collection by the Kilrany who would doubtless be trying to figure out what had happened to their aircraft and when they realised dispatch a helicopter team to secure the area, if indeed their control reached as far into this place as Isovich would have made out. Walking near him were a few men carrying RPG’s, the lack of guided munitions would make it hard to bring any choppers down but they would serve to make the pilots more cautious if they did appear. Like many others, Jack had watched and read Black Hawk Down.

The destruction of the Kilrany electronic warfare aircraft had not gone unnoticed, quite the opposite, despite the fact that the aircrew had gone under full EMCOM incase the missiles had been upgraded with a homing ability in addition to its normal guidance package, a Kilrany airborne early warning aircraft had monitored the entire incident. Powerless to help their comrades, all they could do was log the event and inform their superiors.

While there had never been a prior incident of a Kilrany aircraft being shot down by a SAM over Triari, the possibility of such had never left the minds’ of the Kilrany air force commanders. Quickly the report moved through the chain of command and within fifteen minutes of the incident a call was made, somewhere in Khurzav, conducting a secret tour of the Delesian controlled military base, the Kilrany Emperor was informed of the act.

Within a half hour pre-arranged contingency plans were being enacted, well over six hundred kilometers Northwest of the Kilrany-Triari border it was too far to immediately send helicopter forces in to secure the crash site, especially over the hostile Triari terrain. In one of the Northern Kilrany airbases, the crews for an entire wing of Kilrany strategic bombers were being scrambled, and their aircraft loaded with munitions based on the two possible mission assignments that might come about depending on which plan of action was possible.

Concurrent to the word of the attack spreading through the Kilrany air force chain of command, it also spread even more quickly through the intelligence network of 5th Division, who monitored all military communications without the knowledge of the various Kilrany military branches. Knowing they would eventually be tasked with creating an intelligence briefing on the situation, they quickly used one of the many Kilrany military satellites under their control to being scouting the area around the crash site as best they could given the dense Triari terrain, of important note was the still burning wreckage that was starting to create a wildfire in the dense, fuel ridden woods.

Time was of the essence for the Kilrany commanders for they knew not how far Triari scouts would be from the wreckage, and as much as they wished to recover the bodies for the sake of their families, they were more concerned with the information carried on the potentially still intact computer systems. Which among other things would contain the current Kilrany communication encryption codes and the current capabilities of Kilrany electronic warfare specialists. Information the Kilrany knew would not only greatly help the Triari, but also sell highly on the black market to any interested parties.

Forty-five minutes after the downing of the Kilrany aircraft, Kilrany Foreign Affairs Minister Pavel Kasatikin came barreling into his office inside the primary Kilrany government building in the capitol city. He had been woken up rather quickly in the night when a 5th Division Internal Security team had come calling, they hadn’t bothered knocking and had come right into his room to wake him rather then simply call. He had little time to lament on how frightening a form they were to wake up to, their escort had quickly seen him reach his office in record time, which included a quick briefing of what had transpired and what he had to do.

He was one of the few people in the Kilrany Empire with a direct line to the Valnari President, of which he was know needed to contact, he had no doubt the man would not be happy to be woken up himself, but given the situation Pavel didn’t particularly care.

The conversation was fairly short lived, the Valnari President, one Alex Lindbergh had indeed been sleeping and sounded tired in his conversation, understandable given the stress the man was under. Duly elected as the President of Valnari many years prior, he was now desperately trying to hold on to his position in the wake of the disastrous Khurzav-Valnari war, a four-day war that had cost both nations immense casualties in both personnel and equipment and had led to the invasion of Khurzav by the Kilrany. Initially terrified that the Kilrany Empire would invade them as well in the face of their severely weakened military, they had found themselves surprised to be on the receiving end of Kilrany generosity.

Pavel’s request had been simple and straightforward of the Valnari man; they wanted access to one of their Northern airfield to deploy a rapid reaction force into Triari to conduct a recovery operation. Though he could have said no, he felt he had little option to say anything other then yes given his nation’s current standing, additionally he saw an opportunity to help himself. For years the Triari were smuggling drugs into Valnari and the general population was sick of it, something that had merely increased in the wake of the Khurzav-Valnari war debacle, here he planned to ‘let the Kilrany strike a blow against the drug dealers,’ at least that’s how he would spin it to the press of his nation in the morning.

An hour and a half after the incident, two Kilrany Tu-160s were lifting off the runway, the other ten aircraft of the wing set to stand-by following the approval of the Valnari to use one of their airbases, had it been denied, these ten aircraft would have been tasked with simply carpet bombing the entire crash site into oblivion, with each aircraft loaded up with forty thousand kilograms of iron bombs. As it was only two of the aircraft of this strategic air wing lifted off, one carried two large Thermobaric bombs, one in each bomb bay, of which would be dropped a few kilometers from the crash site to create possible landing zones in the dense terrain. The second TU-160 was the dedicated ECM aircraft of this strategic air wing.

At another airfield farther West and a hundred kilometers South of the Kilrany Valnari border, half a Kilrany heavy lift air wing was also lifting off, inside these six massive AN-124s, was a 4th Division rapid air assault company. Contained within the holds of four of the aircraft were a total of four KIAM produced and modified MI-17s and four KIAM-24 Hinds, while the other two aircraft contained munitions and various supplies.

-----

Isaac Losenko looked up towards the sky from the clearing he was in with a somewhat perplexed look on his face, though it wasn’t so much a clearing in the true sense of the word, more of the Triari sense in with the trees simply weren’t quite so dense and he could actually see the sky. The extremely loud droning that was typical of the four turbo-prop engines of the Tu-95 Bear had drawn his attention as it came circling down towards the ground, he had never seen a Kilrany aircraft this close to the ground before, though that was a relative term as he was still over twenty kilometers away.

He was surprised when he saw something streak in towards it and the explode, shattering the large strategic bomber, though he quickly understood what had happened, “Holy shit, someone just shot down a Kilrany aircraft!”

A mixture of shock and surprise came from the platoon worth of men behind him; they were all regulars for The Council and had been tasked on a long-range reconnaissance patrol. After a few minutes and the aircraft had fallen below their line of sight, the initial surprise faded.

“How far do you think that was from us?”

“That’s a good hike through the woods to check out.”

“Yeah, better get started.”

A good twenty-eight kilometers from the crash site, it would take a good eleven hours for the platoon of men to make it through the dense terrain, but they quickly set out. Isaac, not sure what, or more importantly who he might find at the crash site decided to move slower then he could have so as not to draw as much attention to their travel through the woods.

Somewhere in the forest, about three hours into the march

Jack was not happy with the pace. The GPS device he had on a loop around his neck told them that they had barely moved more than 4km in three hours. Even though the terrain was difficult he had expected a quicker speed of advance. Used to working with Special Forces he had not expected the leader of one of Isovich’s platoons to come and ask him for a ten minute break just two and a half hours in. Evidently weapons training took a higher precedence to fitness, something he would have to look into when they got back to the Fortress in the Forest.

Every minutes delay in the march increased the likelihood that their pointmen would arrive to find Kilrany crawling all over the crashsite. Luckily helicopters would make noise, some of which would be heard by the approaching ground column. If that did occur, Jack had decided that it may be better to turn around immediately and head back, it was unlikely that they would have the firepower to deal with too many Kilrany who would have all kinds of heavy support.

One of the native section commanders approached him, speaking in halting English he informed Jack that it would be getting dark within a few hours and queried what he was going to do.

“Look here, we have to move to that crash site as quickly as possible. Do you think that night coming will affect the Kilrany response? No. My men have thermal and nightvision equipment, we have a couple of spares but not enough to go all round. The march will continue until we are there no matter what the weather conditions.”

As if to highlight Jack’s resolve in the face of adversity, the steady patter of rain could be heard beginning on the forest canopy above. The mercenary leader just shrugged and nodded forward. All along the column the men pulled poncho’s from their otherwise empty rucksacks and put them on, many replacing their helmets and then bringing up the hooded part to cover their exposed neck. Jack did the same, taking only a second to radio the point, rear and flank groups to inform them that they needed to go faster.



Ten hours later

The two men on point had to raise their nightvision goggles, not because darkness was coming but because the fire from the small valley in front of them was playing havoc with the expensive pieces of kit, despite the fire being a couple of kilometres away. James, one of the point men, got on his radio to Jack.

“Umm…we have a problem that involves jet fuel and a forest.”

A little under an hour since they took off, and just over two and a half hours since the incident occurred with the Tu-95, two Kilrany Tu-160s blazed a path through the sky at nearly two thousand kilometers an hour at a height of ten kilometers. With what the pilots knew of the SA-11 and its subsequent upgrades, they still considered a launch a possible threat against their aircraft, as such the defensive system operators in both aircraft paid very close attention to their threat boards, as an additional precaution, they ran without their radar active, instead they received active radar information through an uplink with an AEW aircraft some distance behind them.

Rapidly approaching their target position, both aircraft began to reduce speed closer to fifteen hundred kilometers an hour, the lead aircraft so it would have a somewhat more accurate drop, the second to merely maintain formation with the first. Despite this, accuracy was not a primary concern, neither for the mission requirements, nor for the ordnance carried in the bomb bays of the lead aircraft. For contained in the lead aircraft was a pair of Thermobaric bombs, also known as fuel air explosives, at nearly ten metric tons each, they had a yield roughly equivalent to fifty tons of TNT.

As the pilot maintained a steady flight path, the aircraft’s bombardier began the crucial task of ensuring their payload reached the target area. A few moments later he spotted the target, which was hard to miss given the firestorm raging below as dense woods, aviation fuel and fire all mixed together. He opened the bomb bay doors and released the first weapon, letting the second go ten seconds after the first, knowing that given their speed, the second would hit four to five kilometers away from where the first one would.

Extremely simple devices, they had no guidance to them beyond simple free fall, and their detonators were similarly simple and would detonate the bombs roughly fifty meters before they hit the ground. It was most fortunate for those on the ground, that they were no where near the detonations of either device, which landed roughly five kilometers South and Southwest from the apparent center of the debris field.

Their task complete, the two aircraft headed for home, passing by a flight of Su-37s that would keep station over the area for several hours, before being replaced by another flight of Su-37s. Their mission was to suppress or destroy any further air defense systems with their HARMs that might go active and threaten the response force.

-----

Warrant Officer Second Class Edward Tennant watched with intense interest as he watched the Kilrany personnel offload their helicopters and equipment from the massive AN-124s they had arrived in not fifteen minutes earlier. Along with the combat personnel they had brought along, they also had ground crew with them and he watched both work quickly at preparing everything.

It had been about four hours since the Kilrany aircraft had been shot down, though Tennant had no idea it had happened, in fact none of the Valnari personnel had any real idea why the Kilrany were here beyond that their President had given them the ‘ok’ to use this airbase to strike out into Triari territory that their helicopters couldn’t normally reach. While they had offered their help to the Kilrany in offloading their equipment and helicopters, they had been little surprised by the response from the 4th Division personnel, though it had been more respectful then expected.

Tennant’s attention shifted from the personnel to their helicopters as they began to bring them out of the monstrous cargo bays of the AN-124s, taking specific note on the rather tight fit the MI-17s still made within, rather interested by the fact that the Kilrany had designed these ones with collapsing rotors for transport in heavy lift aircraft. It didn’t surprise him however, as he knew the Kilrany had a habit of extensively modifying the original aircraft designs that were built from their Kilrany Imperial Arms Manufactures.

Most notable of these was the Mi-24, of which they now classed as the KIAM-24 due to the changed made from the original. Although most of these changes were internal and thus beyond what Tennant could see, most being done to the engines, electronics and fuel capacity, several alterations were more noticeable, along with being somewhat expected. Tennant was unsurprised that the Hinds were fitted with exhaust covers, box like objects fitted over the exhaust of the Hinds that mixed ambient air in with the hot exhaust before it came out, greatly reducing the infrared signature of the aircraft, though he did find it interesting to note that these Hinds looked slightly larger then the original ones.

There wasn’t much for Tennant to do beyond watch the Kilrany for the time being, despite the large sales of weapons and equipment from Kilrany they were still struggling, lacking aircraft and qualified pilots. Some analysts said it could take as long as two generations for the Valnari military to fully recover its manpower after the war with Khurzav without damaging their economy any more then it already has, though those comments tended to be on the extreme end of the crowd.

His interest slowly began to fade in the Kilrany activity as they went about arming the helicopters they had since removed from the cargo aircraft. Their Hinds appeared to be split in their weapons layout, though mainly in the terms of their guns, two appeared to have the original tri-barrel twelve point seven millimeter rotary gun, while the other two had the newer, twin thirty millimeter autocannons fixed on the right side. Being attached under their wings appeared to be eighty-millimeter rocket pods, while the wingtips mounted a pair of tube loaded missiles that he didn’t recognize as standard for the Hind. Even the MI-17s they had brought along appeared to be getting armed, the ground crew the Kilrany had brought along with them were attaching the wing pylons and what appeared to be a mix of gun pods, which Tennant figured to be in the twenty-three millimeter caliber and fifty-seven millimeter rocket pods.

His interest was renewed however when he caught sight of one of a darker coloured uniform in amongst the mostly Gorka-S and overalls jumpsuit clad 4th Division combat and ground crew personnel. He recognized the two additional soldiers immediately as belonging to the 5th Division of the Kilrany Imperial Guard, unlike some people he found them fascinating, a viewpoint he was able to attain from never actually having personal contact with them.

Being a neighbour of the Kilrany Empire, just about every Valnari had heard about 5th Division in some form and Tennant had always been intrigued by the Mythos that had come to surround this Kilrany organization over the years. They were only visible to him for a few moments however as they stood near the open backside of one of the AN-124s dressed in their well-known black uniforms, they apparently called out something, but Tennant was too far away to make it out. Moments later many a good number of the Gorka-S clad soldiers began to file into the back of the aircraft, leaving Tennant to wish he could stroll into the back as well and see what was going on.

-----

Sergeant Annika Kodasnakova sat comfortably in her seat in the upper cabin of one of the six AN-124s that had brought the 4th Division company to this Valnari airbase, seated around her were the other Sergeants and Lieutenants, all here for the same purpose, to receive a more detailed briefing from their company commander and the two 5th Division intelligence operatives who stood to the front of the cabin. They all knew the basic idea of what was going to happen, they knew one of their aircraft had been shot down and that they had to go in to secure any remains and surviving equipment, this briefing was merely to finalize the details.

They all listened intently as their company commander, Captain Velten gave them the general rundown of the situation and the fact that they had no knowledge of what to expect in hostile forces given the nature of Triari, including a general assignment for each section. Following his words were those of the 5th Division operatives who, using a laptop filled them in on the area they would landing at, terrain type, the exact locations of the crash site and cleared landing zones as noted by satellite surveillance, though this information was just as much for the pilots who were also gathered as it was for the soldiers themselves.

After the briefing was completed they all left the aircraft to regroup with their individual sections to apprise them of the general plan. She found her own section still waiting by the Hind that was to carry them into Triari, taking note of the look on Corporal Arkady Kolesnikov’s face as she approached, she knew what was on the man’s mind, he had had the same concerns when they had taken part in the Khurzav war almost a year ago now in regards to a specific member of their section.

She made a quick survey of her troops and equipment, they all carried a full combat load, due to the dense forests of Triari, the weapon of choice for the 4th Division soldiers was the RK8 Laika, a Russkyan designed bull-pup assault rifle, in this case chambered to fire 7.62x39mm, of which they carried an adequate supply of both standard rounds and armour piercing, additionally, half of her men with the RK8 also had the attached under barreled grenade launcher. Those armed with the Laika, including herself, Arkady, who also carried a Blackthorn semi-automatic combat shotgun, Victor, Silin, Karl and Isaac.

Isaac stood out among her section however, not only because he carried an RPG-7V, but also because he was of African decent, being a ninth generation black Kilrany. While it was rare to see them, they were not entirely unheard of in the mostly Slavic nation whose first experience with them dated back to the Roman Occupation. Having watched too many Western movies, he had been affectionately nicknamed ‘Token’, short for ‘their token black guy’, he had been a replacement for Corporal Kulie, who they had lost during the Khurzav war almost a year before and had since made himself a welcome addition to the team.

In addition to the Laikas, the seventh member of her section, Vincent, carried their section’s machine gun, a PKM, while their eighth member, a female Corporal by the name of Tanya, their section’s designated marksman, carried the RK8 Lapinkoira, a PDW variant of the RK8 family, also chambered for 7.62x39mm. Normally she would also carry an SVD-K chambered for 9.3x64mm like all Kilrany designated marksmen, however the 4th Division marksmen were leaving them behind in favour of their Lapinkoira secondary weapons and increased ammunition load for them because of the impracticality of the Dragunov in the dense woods of Triari.

-----

Several hours later and nearly ten hours since the incident, Annika heard the word over her radio that they were approaching the landing zone. A light rainfall had turned heavy several hours before and had now since died to light sprinkle, had done wonders for putting out most of the fires around the crash site that had merely been started by the crash, those that were still fueled by what remained of the aircraft fuel supply, still burned lightly, enough however to create several thick plumes of smoke which they could easily see through the aircraft’s small cabin windows.

Only three platoons of the Kilrany 4th Division were being airlifted in to the area, Fourth Platoon remained behind at the Valnari airfield to ensure the protection of the Kilrany aircraft, through this had more to do with the natural sense of paranoia within Kilrany, then actual need to protect the aircraft.

Their approach was rather simple and straightforward, they had chosen to land at the Southern most ‘clearing’ some six kilometers from the crash site despite the Southwest ‘clearing’ being closer by almost a full kilometer. This had been done under the belief that if an ambush were waiting for them, it would be more likely at the closer landing zone then the farther one. Though despite that possibility as well, the four Hinds maintained close watch on the standing tree line of the man made clearings as the four Mi-17s landed their load of infantry first, once they were down they were quickly followed by the Hinds.

After unloading their passengers, two of the Mi-17s and two of the Hinds immediately broke off and returned towards the airfield, the plan for them being that they would refuel and return in time to replace the four aircraft that would remain behind to provide air support. Additionally it was hoped that at range, anyone near by would not have been able to identify how many aircraft had arrived and that the four aircraft that remained would make it appear as though the Kilrany force that landed was smaller then it really was.

-----

Now on the ground Annika and her section watched East as they all held their position for several moments in the large swath of destroyed and downed trees that had been caused by the Thermobaric device. They had been on the ground now for close to five minutes as they assessed the situation, their landing zone was roughly half a kilometer in diameter, and there was concern that an ambush could lie in wait near one of the tree lines some distance from them. While they had a fair amount of concealment to approach the edge of the forest with all the downed trees they weren’t about to go rushing in just yet.

The 4th Division soldiers were not alone however as 5th Division had sent along two sniper spotter pairs with them, like all snipers in Kilrany they were prized for their ability to remain unseen rather then make a precision shot at one and a half kilometers, a task which could be done by any designated marksmen with the right weapon. With that in mind both snipers carried the VSS Vintorez while their spotters carried a modified AS Val with an attached BS-1 Tishina under barreled grenade launcher.

Finally the order to move out came and while Third and Fourth Section from Third Platoon remained behind with one of the sniper spotter pairs to maintain security around the primary landing zone, the rest of the force moved North towards the tree line using bounding over watch. Meanwhile overhead the four remained aircraft went into a wide orbit around the area, maintain a reasonable cruise speed and an average height over ground of one hundred meters.

It took several minutes for them to cross the destroyed landscape to arrive at the tree line, as they did they initial took up defensive positions until all sections arrived. With darkness beginning to fall and the smoke from crash site ahead only making things worse, they all pulled their night vision goggles from pouches and attached them to their helmets, readying them for use for when it became to dark to see normally.

This done they spread out and began moving at a rather casual pace towards the crash site in order to maintain a base level of silence to their movement, within each section they maintained two meter intervals while each section maintained a fifty meter interval between another section.

-----

It had been a long and steady hike for Losenko and his ‘Council’ men, but it was not something they were unaccustomed too as they regularly conducted patrols in this area. They had only taken a few short breaks along the way, but this was easily done thanks to the somewhat slow and cautious pace they had set for themselves, choosing to move at an almost casual walk.

Many hours before hand they had heard the distant rumble of the Thermobaric devices the Kilrany had used to clear a landing zone, however because of the extreme range they had no idea what it really was and merely dismissed it as a secondary explosion at the crash site.

Unlike either the Kilrany or the Mercenary forces backed up my Isovich men, whose presence they did not yet know of, they did not have any night vision or infrared goggles. Now only a few kilometers from the crash site and concerned over the approaching night, he gave a quick signal for his platoon to spread out into a line and they cautiously began the final few kilometers to the crash site.

It was only moments later he heard the distant sound of helicopters, something that came as a surprise to him, although he had heard helicopters before, if rarely farther South, he had never in his life time seen or heard a Kilrany helicopter this far North. As he and his platoon continued to approach the crash site from the East, he grew concerned, it did not occur to him that the Kilrany might have simply been using a base in Valnari and grew worried that the Kilrany had managed to significantly increase the range of their helicopters.

He now considered this little trek through the woods to be a simple reconnaissance mission, if he could he would avoid coming into contact with the Kilrany, but he wanted to see the crash site and acquire anything he could before he had to leave as doing so could earn his entire platoon a hefty bonus.

-----

At the faint sound of helicopters several of Isovich’s men who were following Jack and his mercenary team cursed under their breath, some did so a bit louder then others. Quickly one of the section leaders of the Triari soldiers jogged forward to address one of the mercenaries.

“The Kilrany are here, perhaps we should turn back.”

The mercenaries had heard the sounds of the helicopters too. The sound of the rotor blades cutting through the air was familiar to them, on IH bases in particular they flew overhead every minute or so, although whilst trekking through woods they knew that it wasn’t a comforting sound.

The mercenary that was nearest the two section leaders already had his personal radio on the secure frequency and was listening to the communications between the point men and Jack, the latter put out a message across the net for radio silence to be maintained for the moment. You never knew what kind of monitoring devices they had brought with them, they wouldn’t be able to crack the encryption but they might be able to detect radio usage. The mercenary heard Jack’s last broadcast and then turned to the two section leaders, shaking water off of his Kevlar helmet as he did so.

“Six is gonna make a recon of the situation with the point guys. You two are to go with him. He’ll pass through here in a minute. Until then hold tight and get your guys aware.”

The two section leaders nodded and the mercenary watched as they scurried off and began quietly telling their men to get their acts together. G-36’s came off of shoulders and were mostly checked and cocked as the men also checked their ammo supplies and food rations.

Jack had been at the rear of the column with Jonas. Now he came striding through the forest, his M4 RIS held firmly against the rear of his body armour by a three point sling that had been adjusted to allow the weapon to go around his back. The black body armour and holsters contrasted badly with the woodland pattern BDU’s that he wore, his helmet had the woodland pattern cover over it so the black Kevlar didn’t show. After it had become evident that the rain wasn’t too heavy he had discarded his poncho to one of the locals who had lost theirs. Now he bore a serious face as he approached the two of his men that were with the main force.

“What’s going on here? You two, get these guys spread out and in defensive positions whilst I go forward. A fifty yard perimeter around this location” he gestured with his hand to a small dip in the ground the could have been a bomb crater from decades ago. He raised his voice to make it carry to the two section leaders who were with their men.
“You two, come with me. Bring the translator to these guys who will organise the men.”

He turned back to his men and said under his breath.

“Get these guys into proper positions, site the machine guns but remind them not to put their weapons training into use unless ordered too, our flank and rear guys are still out there.”

With the two section leaders, Jack set off at a trot towards the point men.

Jonathon met them as they came through the forest. His M4 was in a similar position to Jack’s, although the flap on his pistol holster was open whilst in his right hand he had a pair of high power binoculars.

“Can’t see shit. We started hearing helicopters about three minutes ago, Johann has stayed put to try and see something. Guess we know what the big crumps were a few hours ago…probably some heavy bombers clearing an LZ for these guys as close to the crash site as possible. What do we do boss? Johann estimated that there were at least half a dozen choppers before, plus we think we say some contrails up high. Unlikely to be a commercial bird.”

“Can we see anything definite? Do we know if they have men on the ground?”

“Negative, we have seen nobody. Best guess has the crash site in-between us and them and the rain has put out most of the fires there. Personally I don’t think we are gonna find anything but trouble in this valley.”

“Agreed. But if we can set up an ambush and take some Kilrany down it will be a big victory for these guys and perhaps keep the Kilrany out of here for a while.”

“Or bring bombs raining down on all of Genrich’s territory, thereby making our mission to sell arms a dud.”

Jack shot the mercenary a cold look.

“Our orders are to secure that crash site and get any piece of equipment or intelligence that might help us in the future. I’ll admit that if we don’t know the size of the force down there it’s a big risk, especially taking these guys who aren’t the best trained in the world. Nonetheless Isovich wants us to see what we can get, until I get better information we advance to the site. You two are on point, stay quiet, stay concealed, get on the radio as soon as you make visual contact, we need to know how many of them there are.”

The two point men, unhappy at the fact that they were still advancing towards a probable full Special Forces crash site security team, called over the two locals who were with them and quietly continued their advance. The main group would follow them shortly afterwards, the local regulars trudging along towards the Kilrany despite their best instincts telling them to go the other way.

Despite having no direct knowledge of any hostile forces in the area, the 4th Division soldiers moved towards the crash site under the assumption that there were. Leading them off was first platoon in a rough arrowhead formation while second platoon along with the two sections from third platoon with them followed behind them in staggered column formations. Additionally, since the dense woods prevented any useful over watch position, even for the simple role of observation, the 5th Division sniper-spotter pair moved just behind first platoon, keeping their eyes open for a useful position.

They all moved as quietly as a force their size could through dense woods, while they felt the need to arrive at the crash site before anyone else might, they also had no intention of running in blindly to stumbled into a potential ambush. Without any reason to currently be concerned about their transmissions being detected, they readily used their personal role radios as required, typical of the Imperial Guard they lashed around the throat picking up the vibration of the vocal cords, allowing them to transmit without being audible to those around them.

The light continued to fade as they approached the Southern edge of the burned out crash site where the still dense forest met with the charred remains of trees and undergrowth, forming a large swath of destruction roughly a kilometer long and half a kilometer wide towards the Southwest, the last direction the pilot of the aircraft had managed to set for his aircraft, the wreckage itself was strewn across half of the scarred terrain. With night so rapidly approaching combined with the smoke of sporadic fires, the majority of the 4th Division soldiers had donned their night vision equipment, though some who had better natural night vision then the others left them off for the time being.

Sergeant Kodasnakova gave a quick ‘hold’ order to her section as she received it from their company commander ordering second and third platoon to hold position. Through her night vision goggles she watched as first platoon slowed down their movement before holding position and crouching as they spread out into a skirmish line five meters in along the still healthy tree line. She also took note of the sniper-spotter team who moved up in between first platoon and going prone, carefully moved up closer to the edge of the tree line.

Now at the crash site speed was no longer a critical concern for the Kilrany, as anyone attempting to scrounge about in the wreckage would give themselves away with their noise, a few moments later their company commander came over the radio again, “First platoon will hold here, Arkhip, split your platoon along with third and secure the East and West edge, three hundred meters.”

“Acknowledged Captain. Annika lead off East with Anton and Kazimir, Ilya, Vasiliev with me on the West, move out.”

Annika quickly added her own acknowledgement to the chorus and signaled to her unit and both Anton and Kazimir as to formation and they slowly began to move out, circling around to their right and staying a good twenty meters in from the edge of the tree line.

-----

Losenko didn’t like what he could see before him as his own platoon was spread out in a line a mere two meters in along the tree line on the East side of the crash site. The darkness was making it difficult for them to see anything clearly despite the light of numerous small fires, though the way the wreckage was spread out along with the fallen an charred trees, it limited the distance of one’s vision anyway.

He quietly called out so those immediately around him could hear his order, “Andrey, take your men and move in towards that wreckage over there, see if you can spot anything interesting, the rest of us will cover you.”

He couldn’t see the unhappy expression of Andrey’s face from where he stood, but he could readily imagine it and he fully understood it. The constant sound of the Kilrany helicopters maintaining a wide orbit around the crash site above them was extremely discouraging as they occasionally caught a glance at the dark shape of one of the four helicopters present, but the promise of a bonus was enough to make the men move anyway.

It still took a moment, but Andrey gave the order to cautiously move forward, his twelve-man section began to break from the tree line while keeping as low to the ground as they could while not being prone and still being able to step over fallen trees.

OOC: My imagination has completely left me now that I've finally got the time to write. I have a deposit down on another flat now, so hopefully that will go through and free up a lot of time for me!!

IC:

The two mercenaries on point were advancing slowly and silently towards the cleaning made by the falling aircraft. Bits of tree stumps were still smouldering, giving the place an almost spooky aura as smoke drifted on the light wind current. The unmistakable sound of a human voice came across the clearing.

Without a seconds hesitation the two mercenaries flung themselves to the ground and began communicating via hand signals. The exchange over, neither could decide for sure which way the voice had come from, they raised their weapons whilst still prone and maneuvered slightly to get into better firing positions. One of them pressed his throat mounted microphone in and whispered back to the command element, receiving an equally quiet reply he deduced that the shout had not come from the main body of men behind them. One of the two had his NightVision set over his eyes, the mercenaries had sets with rubber bands to go around the users head rather than clips to attach to helmets. The green tint that they gave him made the area infront seem like a marsh land from a bad science fiction film, but they were no help in picking out anything.

With the sound of rotor blades coming closer the two men pushed themselves further into the ground, their woodland BDU's thouraghlly mixed with the vegetation that remained just into the forest from the crashsite. As the helicopter swept over them the downwash caused the smoke to swirl affording the men a brief glimpse of the open land. They swore that they saw men with AK's crawling all over the wreckage.

Sergeant Kodasnakova slowly scanned the dense woods in a roughly sixty-degree arc to her front from her position as fourth to the right of their point man. The three sections she was in command of on the East side of the crash site were moving at a slow pace in another roughly arrowhead formation with her section in the middle and the left most man five meters in from the edge of the woods. It had been nearly ten minutes since they had moved away from the South edge of the crash site, moving slowly to reduce the noise they made moving through the dense Triari forest.

“Visual, three fifty, maybe four hundred, to the Northeast.”

Annika quickly ordered her units to hold position when the voice of the 5th Division spotter came over their radios, followed a moment later by Captain Velten.

“I see them, four-no five of them, probably more, Kodasnakova, what’s your position?”

Annika keyed in her radio and replied, “Two-fifty, maybe three hundred along the East.”

“Acknowledged, get low.”

As she issued orders to the sections under her command to spread out and keep low, she heard Velten address the pilot of one of the orbiting aircraft, “Echo one, we have hostiles approaching the aircraft from the East side of the crash site approximately four hundred meters from the South. We will converge fire on them with tracer rounds in ten seconds then give them some eighty millimeter.”

“Acknowledged, standing by.”

“Alright, line up on that small fire next to them and fire off a five second burst on my command.”

Three acknowledgements were heard then from the PKM gunners on the South, who readied their weapons by bracing the stocks into their shoulders and taking aim. They didn’t have to wait long as Velten gave the order to fire only a moment later.

-----

Andrey peered to his left and right quickly as he and his men moved slowly towards the wreckage, carefully as they made their way over the burnt out and downed trees, a handful of fires around the area gave them their only light. He wasn’t particularly fond of being the one to move out in the open, especially without the ability to see very well and was on edge.

He nearly feel over backwards however when he heard the three PKM machine guns open up in a long burst, hearing the weapons only a second before a tracer flew past him. He looked to his left to glimpse the muzzle flashes spread along the Southern tree line as he yelled out a superfluous order for his men to get down, as they did so on their own upon hearing the weapons fire. Having taken his own advice as well, he now lay on the ground using a downed tree as concealment between him and the source of the gunfire, which died down a moment later.

Trying to control the level of his voice so it would only carry a short distance, he called out to his men, “Anyone hit?”

The silence that ensued told him that no one had been hit by the burst of enemy gunfire, that or they had all been killed outright, but he deemed that highly unlikely given the relatively short duration of the bursts and the fact they all seemed to be aimed at one location, which confused him.

He wouldn’t be confused for long however as the sound of the orbiting Kilrany helicopters changed and grew louder as one of them was apparently bearing down on them from the West. The pilot having watched the tracer fire of his comrades on the ground through his night vision goggles and keeping a mental image of their converging location, readied his weapons.

Andrey looked away from the South towards the sound of the approaching aircraft, just able to make out its silhouette in the dark sky some seventy meters of the ground.

“Oh shit. Get your heads down!”

Burying his own head down into the ground as best he could and covering it with his hands, he knew at least one of his men disobeyed the order as he heard the sound of an RPD open up. For the pilot of the Kilrany Hind, there was almost amused to see the small arms fire arc in at him as he pulled the trigger on his controls and allowed his eighty millimeter rocket pods to ripple fire into the ground, walking a dozen of the heavy fragmentation weapons over his target area and close to the tree line before his helicopter quickly flashed by overhead and was heading away as quickly as it came.

The two pointmen tried to press themselves further into the ground as all hell seemed to break loose around them. First came the chatter of machine guns, followed soon after by the crumping sound of explosions hitting the mud. Jack's voice came over the radio net, urgently demanding a status report. The two mercs both went to talk back, one noting that a stray round had impacted not too far from them.

"Somebodies shooting. Cannot, repeat cannot, see the shooter. We were probably not the target. Those choppers just started beating the ground with rockets, target unknown."

"Damn it. Stay in position and prepare to fall back to the main group if ordered. Keep me informed."


Back with the main group Jack was standing with the two local commanders, the sound of the rockets had made them crouch, but the theatrics didnt seem necessary anymore.

"Either or you know much about the Kilrany? Tactics, likely strengths, unit trainings?"

The blank looks answered his questions fairly enough.

"Ok, how many RPG's have we got?"

"Three, with twelve grenades"

Jack thought for a minute.

"Ok, we'll have a pop at their helicopters and then scamper away. From the sounds of it they have landed troops with some heavy weaponary and we cant take them on quite frankly. Assemble the guys with RPG's here in one minute. My guys will find the place."

Jack wandered off, talking rapidly on the radio. The men over on the left flanking position had a small clearing near them, they had seen a Kilrany helicopter buzz it a couple of times already. That seemed like the best place to try, so Jack returned to the group and ordered the RPG men to follow him along with a squad from the local troops. The main group he ordered to retire back further into the forest along the trail that they had followed. He left the two mercenary and two locals who were on the point in their places to observe any movements that they could.


The locals had their G-36's up in the shoulder as they advanced in a skirmishing line towards the clearing, halting approximately five metres from the edge. Jack and the men armed solely with RPG's came behind them and they walked along the edge, listening to the sounds of a helicopter coming near. The four men dashed out to the edge of the small narrow clearing, the RPG men shouldering their loaded weapons and pointing them skyward as one of the Hind's came over the opposite tree line. Its nose erupted in flame as the gunner saw them and fired his cannon, three unguided RPG's were dispatched towards him leaving smoke trails behind them.

As the men turned to run back to the relative safety of the trees, one of the RPG men was hit in the leg. The cannon shell literally exploded on the bone, obliterating the top half of his left leg and leaving the man to crumple to the floor. The unfortunate man had thankfully passed out by the time the next cannon shell hit one of the RPG's and blew his body to pieces, liberally sprinkling the surrounding area with blood, bone and gore.

Jack turned back as he reached the tree to see the explosion that signalled the end of one of the precious RPG's. He couldnt see the helicopter anymore, but he didnt think it would have been hit.

Gathering his men with a shout they began back towards the main column at a jog, Jack telling the pointmen to begin falling back too. This they did, the two mercs instructing the locals to cover them as they carefully placed two Claymore mines and trip wires near their positions and then departed back towards the rest of the group.

It was hard enough for pilots of aircraft to spot infantry on the ground, let alone at night in dense terrain cover and while traveling at nearly one hundred and eighty kilometers and hour, but sometimes sheer good fortune rears its head and lowers the odds against them. This would be the case for one the Kilrany 4th Division pilots of one of the two KIAM-24s following a wagon wheel orbit around the crash site along with a pair of Mi-17s.

The pilot had glanced over to his left for a moment to witness the strafing run conducted by his wingman on some hostile targets nearer the crash site, when he looked back he just barely caught the sight of movement, just enough to recognize infantry on the ground in one of the rare clearings carrying something on their shoulders. Not knowing whether they were merely RPGs or MANPAD surface to air missiles, and caring little for the difference at the moment anyway, he took direct control of the aircraft’s twin thirty millimeter autocannons mounted on the right side of the forward fuselage given the lack of time to warn his WSO who had yet to see them. Simultaneously he called out a warning to his WSO and pitched the nose of the aircraft down slightly to allow for a quick burst of fire from the aircraft’s guns, to scare the hostiles on the ground and potentially disrupt their aim then in a serious attempt to hit them before bringing the aircraft hard over to the right and diving dangerously close to the treetops.

He didn’t hear the three RPGs fired at him fly past the aircraft and miss as it now hugged the treetops, he simply knew that he wasn’t dead and his aircraft was still flying at high speed, now away from the crash site, which was a problem he would rectify in a few moments when he felt it was safe to gain altitude and return to formation. He quickly sent out a warning to the other aircraft that there were potential anti-air weapons in the area.

The warning was just coming through over the radio as the Mi-17 that had been trailing the Hind that had taken fire was moving in to make his own attack run on the position the RPGs had been fired from. He had been nearly fifteen seconds behind the Hind and he doubted the targets would have stayed in one place very long, however he toggled on the two twin twenty-three millimeter gun pods attached underneath his aircraft’s wings anyway, intent on making sure the attackers, who he assumed were Triari got the message one didn’t attack the Kilrany without repercussions if they had indeed stayed nearby. The pilot let loose a long seven second burst from his weapon systems, walking the rounds deeper into the forest from the tree line of the clearing as he flew over it at high speed.

-----

There wasn’t much for Sergeant Kodasnakova and her men to do but keep low as they listened to the sounds of the various events take place around them, first the short burst of PKM fire followed by the eighty millimeter rockets, the explosion of which they caught sight of through the dense woods, then the sound of what seemed to be RPGs fired in the distance mingled with autocannon fire.

“Kodasnakova, continue to advance on the East, we will engage tangos in the open.”

She gave a quick acknowledgement to their commander before giving the order her men to move forward. Spreading out into a line with half a meter between them, they once again moved forwards at a slow pace.

On the South the three PKM gunners once again opened fire on the Triari caught out in the relative open, firing off short controlled bursts two to three seconds long, but restricting their fire away from the Eastern edge of the tree line to avoid potentially hitting the three friendly section nearby. Joining in the remaining eighteen soldiers armed with the Russkyan designed Laika begin firing off single aimed shots, if somewhat conservatively as it was difficult to pick out human targets intermingled with the forest debris over three hundred meters from them. The three marksmen armed with only the Lapinkoira now found them selves regretting the decision that had been made to leave their Dragunov rifles behind in favour of more ammunition for the compact assault rifle.

-----

Andrey coughed several times as he lifted his head up out of the ground as debris settled in around him, his ears still ringing from the multiple explosions that had gone of near him. As he took up his AKM once more he couldn’t hear any screams or cries for help as the ringing subsided, concluding that either no one got hit, or if they did they were killed outright.

He carefully crawled forward half a meter and pushed himself up off the ground with his arms to look over a downed tree off to the South where the machine gun fire had originally came from, but he could see nothing but darkness in the tree line. He lowered himself back down then called out as softly, hoping his voice would not carry to far.

“Who’s still with me?”

In quick succession seven of his men returned the call, most of his squad had been spread out when the attack had come and fortunately for them all it hadn’t been centered on them, instead hitting off to their right slightly. Despite the high number of survivors he cursed the Kilrany for their attack. He was about to give the order to slowly fall back to the tree line and regroup with their main force there when the sounds of RPGs firing mixed with autocannon fire reached him.

“What the hell?”

He didn’t have time to wonder what had happened much longer as shortly there after the Southern tree line opened up, lashing their positions with automatic weapons fire. Somewhere to his right one of his men screamed loudly as a burst of 7.62x54 ripped through the damaged three he had been using for cover, the heavy rounds nearly taking his right arm clear off.

Several of his men began to return fire towards the muzzle flashes to their South; not realizing the range favoured the Kilrany in the darkness. Several long bursts on full automatic from their own weapons did nothing to curb the fire from the enemy they assumed to be Kilrany, had their own PKM gunner still been alive, their return fire would have been far more effective.

No longer concerned with staying quiet, Andrey yelled, “On the smoke, fall back!”

With that said he pulled free a smoke canister, pulled the pin and tossed it as hard as he could towards the South, angling it slightly towards the tree line on the East. While he waited for smoke to billow out, he rested his AKM on the downed tree and pulled the trigger, unleashing a long burst before he realized he had it set to full automatic rather then semi-auto. A quick flip of his thumb fixed that problem for him and he squeezed off several rounds quickly, barely aiming at the muzzle flashes.

The injured man didn’t wait for the smoke to fully disperse however and attempted to run to the relative safety of the trees too soon, his right arm swinging strangely, barely still attached. Andrey could not see this from his position however, nor did he see the soldier cut down by several rounds from the Kilrany riflemen and a burst of PKM fire, the heavy rounds from both tearing apart his upper body. Andrey didn’t even notice that the man’s screaming had stopped either over the din of gunfire.

As a round smashed through the tree he was using for cover only a scant few centimeters from his arm, Andrey was finally content with the amount of smoke the canister had created and yelled loudly for them to break for the trees. He half stood to a crouch and moved towards the trees himself a moment later before he finally stood up fully and sprinted as fast as he could without tripping in the tangle of dead plant life.

Seeing the smoke billowing up and concealing their targets, the Kilrany surmised they were attempting to withdraw and the gunners increased their fire, letting loose numerous seven to eight second long bursts into the smoke, hoping to catch a few more contacts before they escaped. Concerned with his own safety, Andrey didn’t see two more of his men get cut down by the Kilrany machine gun fire as it swept along around waist height.

From his position back in the tree line, Losenko had a good view of the entire series of events all developing from his original order sending Andrey and his section forward and he had been cursing severely from the initial rocket barrage to the moment Andrey came sprinting back into the trees with his handful of surviving men. During the meant time he had ordered the other sections to take up a sort of perimeter defense around his current position, but with Andrey’s quick retreat, that was quickly about to change.

With little concern for any potentially wounded men still outside the tree line, he immediately ordered a full withdraw, having no intention of openly engaging the Kilrany forces and deeply concerned with the apparent attack on the Kilrany aircraft to the North. There was little order as the his entire force smashed their way back through the woods and away from the crash site, silence no longer a concern, Losenko only wanted to get himself and his men away alive as quickly as possible.

OOC: Glorified bump.

The rumble of heavy engines, both diesel and petrol based, pierced the thick Triari woods as a column of trucks bounced along a decrepit, but well traveled path cut through the woods. There were approximately twenty medium to heavy transport trucks in the column, all a mishmash of different brand names and models, though they were all under one banner, that of General Tsetaeva.

In the back of one of the trucks, an old covered Ural 4320, Kazimir Serov almost hit his head on one of the roll bars when the vehicle hit a particularly nasty hole in the road, his own curse intermingled with the other men in the back. He, like everyone else who had ever driven on a Triari ‘road’, despised them completely, though he was still glad they hadn’t run over a mine, which were somewhat common in the disputed zones like the one he was in now.

Their destination was the ruins of an old Triari city some one hundred and thirty odd kilometers Northwest of the city of Inara, currently in use by Tsetaeva’s forces as a forward base of operations for their offensive against Inara, still mostly held my Chuckhrai’s forces. Not marked on any map, it had been abandoned during the original Kilrany withdrawal from Triari as they carried out their ‘scorched earth’ policy, pillaging and burning what they could.

Their travel had been slow going, but as far as Serov figured it had been just about over five hours since they left Inara, two full companies worth of tired, wounded and frustrated men. Tsetaeva’s commander in charge of the Inara campaign had decided to cycle them back to a rear position to rearm, reequip reinforce and to let them have a short rest period after the failed siege of a critical portion of the Chuckhrai defensive line in Inara.

He was looking forward to some down time and he needed to reequip his section, while his Israeli Uzi was proven itself useful, he was finding it harder and harder to acquire the quality ammunition his SVD-S required. His platoon commander had told them they had been promised first crack at the armoury, he looked forward to this as much as he did the down time.

When Serov noticed a sudden shift in the quality of the road they were on, he half turned in his seat on the truck’s bench to lift up part of the canvas cover and look outside. It had not been his first time in the ruins, he cycled through the place on his way to Inara in the first place, but it was no less a sight to see.

The road they traveled on now had originally been made of heavy stone and had stood the test of time well, the same couldn’t be said for the remnants of the majority of the city. Around it’s outer perimeter, mostly overgrown and in rubble was the old city’s wall, as was much of the lower class section of the once proud city. Trees and vines had long since found there way in and laid root inside, slowly by surely removing the traces of the ruined stone houses.

The city’s inner wall had survived significantly better then the outer wall, originally a more physical barrier between the upper class and the citadel within, it now served as the outer perimeter for the two battalions worth of Tsetaeva forces within. The repair work on the wall was noticeable however and it was nowhere near as grand as it once was, but it served their purposes. It didn’t serve as their only defense however; Serov could easily see another section moving out to conduct a patrol of the area.

Passing under one of the open gates of the inner wall, he got his second good look at the upper class portion of the city. Much like the repaired walls, the homes in this section had remained in better condition then the outer, lower class section, and while decrepit in appearance, it, along with the citadel in the center served their purposes exceedingly well. Letting the canvas drop once more, he turned back proper on the bench and closed his eyes, resting his head against the canvas.

-----

A few hours later Serov was almost gleefully looking through the massive selection of weapons available to him and his newly reinforced section. He had ordered them to turn in all their weapons, choosing to reequip them all in a more uniform pattern then he had initially been able to do, a fresh supply of weapons giving him plenty of options.

As he moved through the armoury, his thoughts were mixed between the weapons before him and the stories he had heard from the garrison forces. While they had not yet heard about the attack on the Kilrany aircraft, there were stories coming out of the South about continued nighttime attacks on Chuckhrai forces attributed to the Kilrany. Apparently they were cutting a swath of destruction through his Southern holdings and making his life an even greater living hell.

His section of men followed behind him as the walked up and down the rows of neatly stacked and crated weapons, looking for anything that caught his eye. While he realized he couldn’t be terribly picky, he was intent on having more commonality in ammunition in his section this time around. In the bitter urban combat in Inara, he couldn’t afford having his men all using different weapons.

He moved past the Soviet bloc weapons towards the NATO bloc weapons, eyeing the various options of which he knew the ammunition would be in good supply of. It was when he was passing by a number of FN FAL battle rifles that his attention was drawn to a particular section of them, the paratrooper model with shortened barrel and folding stock. It wasn’t so much the rifle itself however, as the optic device, and older SUIT optic.

Picking up the weapon he checked it over, in particular the optic itself, looking through it he was quite pleased. However he wasn’t so much with the options initially provided him for a support weapon, as from what he had seen in combat, he was not fond of either the LMG version of the FAL, or the MAG, which both used the 7.62x51mm rounds.

He quickly got an idea however and moved farther ahead while still keeping the FAL he had picked up, a moment later he found what he was looking for.

“Right, Sergo, Tamar, you’re going to take an HK 21 here, make sure to get plenty of box magazines from our friendly quartermaster. The rest of you grab a FAL, take the ‘Para’ variant, just a little bit lighter, except for two, Giorgi, Leo, you’ll be taking one of those RPG-7Vs up there, so take one of those ‘sawed off’ versions with the vertical foregrip.”

As his section did as he told them, he smiled, pleased that all his men would be able to use the same caliber round, a caliber that was nearly as common in Triari as 7.62x39mm. As an added bonus he had two weeks to take a break from the fighting and get his men acquainted with their new weapons. While he knew the Heckler and Koch light machine guns would require more care then the other options, he felt it would be worth it in the end.

OOC: Glorified bump.

Ilya Formin could see little in the darkness as he peered through a small periscope like device through one of the windows of the massive structure the Tsetaeva forces had been attempting to assault only days before. As a soldier for Chuckhrai he didn’t dare stick his head out into plain view, as he had noticed that the Tsetaeva forces were increasingly using night vision equipment, even if it was still just a handful of them, it was too many as far as he was concerned. He might have been a bit more cavalier however in his actions if he had known that the next few minutes of his life would be his last regardless.

Night had long since settled on Triari and from his position on the third story of the four story building, he had a decent line of sight on the area the enemy forces had been attacking from. Though over the course of the day they had all realized that those forces still attacking them had pulled back slightly to better cover. Most of them figured however that they were merely regrouping for a renewed assault, they had been going steady for two weeks, it was doubtful they would give up now.

Shifting his position back to a seated one with his back against the wall, he looked over to one of his section mates, another Chuckhrai soldier by the name of Karl Landau, “Hey Karl, how long do you think before The Whore’s forces come back?”

Both men were almost perfect examples of the stereotypical Triari male, buying in to their own superiority over women, they always referred to Tsetaeva with whatever colourful slur they found amusing at the moment. To them, Marina Tsetaeva was an affront to their way of life, having made slavery, drug use and rape illegal in her territory, unlike how it was in virtually ever other section of the nation.

While this was losing her support in the male militia populations outside her controlled city, it was gaining increased loyalty from those in the ‘rural’ areas, generally outside the immediate control of the various warlords and their cities. For those men who still felt women were to be subservient to them in these areas where it was now legal for a woman to defend herself, they were quickly starting to realize that a woman with a weapon was as dangerous as a man with one.

Karl looked back at his comrade, “I bet you a cartons of cigarettes they’ll be back and attacking again in the morning. The Bitch isn’t about to give up now.”

Ilya grunted in amusement, “I’ll take that bet, I say by tomorrow night.”

Murmurs filled the room they were in as other members of their section quickly placed their own bets, hoping to win the ever growing pot, decent cigarettes being as hard a commodity to come across as batteries for electronics.

Still amused, Ilya leaned back around to pear through the small periscope, still unable to see any movement in the relative darkness of the night, a few fires burned here and there to provide small light sources. He had no idea that several hundred kilometers away a similar quiet, and poorly lit scene was the setting for a mostly one sided firefight between the Kilrany and some Council men, with some Genrich men nearby, all over an aircraft that had been shot down.

Had he been outside the building with a better view of the front, he might have noticed something peculiar, a little red dot dancing around on the outside of the building facing the location that Tsetaeva’s forces had been attacking from. He had no idea that across the square, a Tsetaeva soldier was aiming a small box like instrument the size of a modern digital camera, through a break in a wall towards the building he was in.

At presicely twenty-three hundred hours local time, a pair of laser-guided bombs released from a Kilrany aircraft after it detected the targeting signal. Not long later, Ilya would have a fraction of a second to feel the vibration of something impacting the building as both two thousand kilogram weapons easily smashed trough the building’s wall inside. Another fraction of a second later and both weapons detonated, causing a pair catastrophic explosions inside, while a sturdy structure; it was no match for nearly four thousand kilograms of high explosives.

Ilya never knew what, or who killed him; if he had he would have likely cursed the name of the Kilrany pilot who had released the weapons, even more so if he had been able to know it was a female pilot.

The locals were tense. They had their G-36's trained outwards as the three commanders conferred in a small huddle beneath a particularly thick tree. Three of the mercs were within the circle with the rest several hundred yards in various directions in a semi-circle facing back towards the direction of the Kilrany. Only a single man was on point in the opposite direction, the direction of safety.

Jack pulled the rough map of the area from his fatigues and unfolded it, spreading it across the tree so that the others could see. With one hand he held it steady and with the other began to point.

"We are here. As far as we can tell the Kilrany are swarming all over the crash site here and the surrounding hills. Who those randoms were we don't know, but if half of what you lot tell me about the Kilrany is true then they are probably dead already. We have a long trek infront of us to ensure that we don't..."

All of the men instinctivly ducked as a helicopter passed overhead

"that we dont get caught. We RV with our transport here, a fifteen hour speed march away if we are lucky. Your section will cover the columns rear as we go, my men will set the pace up front and one will stay with you to provide radio transmissions to me. Clear? Ok lets hussle"

The locals looked at him with puzzled expressions on their faces, particularly at the last term. But when Jack moved off and began speaking quickly into his personal radio they went back to their sections. Understandably the local section detailed to the rear were not too happy, but with some gesturing of his rifle the leader managed to get them formed up into a group, leaving his two most trusted men as a rear guard.

The three mercs inside the perimeter were all standing up, contrary to the locals who were mostly crouching. All had their weapons in their hands and their heads were scanning backwards and forwards endlessly trying to see something the others had missed. Gloved fingers twitched near the safety catches as the sounds of battle continued. Their NV equipment helped them in the dark but didn't let them see through trees, as it was a forest there were a lot of trees.

Jack finished talking on the radio and the three mercs moved out of the perimeter at a trot, they would form the point unit whilst the others fanned out to provide some form of flank guard for the locals. Jack was performing a tactical withdrawal, he didnt have the firepower to match the Kilrany nor the correct equipment to try and even up that balance. It seemed the logical option and he was sure that Isovich wouldnt want him wasting the two sections of troops for some equipment that may or may not actually be there, not that he suspected it would be must use to the natives even if he found anything still in one piece.

The snapping of branches and trampling of bushes to their front immediately drew the attention of the three Imperial Guard sections under the immediate command of Annika Kodasnakova. The riflemen snapped their weapons up while the machine gunners did the same but went down on one knew for greater stability.

Looking down the sight of her own weapon she could barely make out the sporadic shapes and movement through the dense woodland some fifty-five meters to her front of a two, maybe three targets. Despite the contacts being well within their weapon’s range, the simple facts that they were fleeing fast, they could barely be seen and their noise suggested a far larger force, Annika gave a hold fire and position order for the moment.

Rather then risk a change of mindset from a potentially larger force from flight to fight and get her unit caught up unnecessarily in a bloody close quarters fight in the dense Triari woods, she waited for the sounds of the fleeing force to die off before giving the order to move again. On her units left along the tree line she ordered Kazimir’s section to move up ahead slightly, changing the formation from a wedge to echelon right with Annika’s unit in the center followed by a quick situation report.

Their movement remained slow, taking another minute for them to reach the position just inside the tree line where the company of Council soldiers had been minutes before. Initially Kodasnakova spread her three sections out simply, her own and Kazimir’s along the tree line facing the crash site with Kazimir on the North while Anton’s section was spread out in a line fifteen meters deeper in and watching their back in case the Triari got courageous again and came back.

Content with the locations of his forces on the West, South and East sides of the crash site, their company commander called in a quick fire support mission from the orbiting aircraft. Unsure if there might be any further Triari forces holding on the North, he requested his air support make several attack runs along the Northern tree line to discourage any remaining Triari forces to leave the area.

The requested attack runs were carried rather quickly as the four helicopters following their ‘wagon wheel’ orbit around the crash site. The first helicopter to arc inwards in their orbit was one of the Mi-17s, whose pilot promptly began to unleash a series of short three second long bursts from his aircraft’s 23mm gun pods, strafing along the tree line before returning to his orbit. Following up for a second run was one of the Hinds, this pilot choosing to unleash a number of his 80mm rockets and some 30mm cannon bursts deeper into the forest, shattering trees and spreading shrapnel into an area empty of human life.

As the Hind returned to its orbit in turn and the dust began to settle down to the North, the company commander for this Imperial Guard unit ordered a cautious approach towards the wreckage. One section from each unit slowly crept out from the trees towards their objective, on the East, Annika led off for her unit, leaving it to Kazimir and his men to cover North.

Unlike the other two sections moving directly towards the wreckage, Annika was more interested in investigating the remains of those they engaged, and subsequently, whom they thought had engaged their helicopter. Once again she used a simple wedge formation, leading off towards where the she could make out one or two corpses. Looking down at one in particular she noted the green armband, identifying the soldier as belonging to the Council, a fact she passed on through the throat microphone to her company commander.

A muffled groan to her right drew her immediate attention, along with the barrel of their rifle. After a quick order and a hand signal she approached the source of the noise with Arkady and Silin, their section’s medic. What they saw was not a pleasant sight, a Triari soldier badly wounded from what was no doubt numerous strikes from a PKM, which made him lucky to still be alive at all as far as Annika was concerned.

She knelt down near by and raised her weapon, aiming it at the injured Triari, Arkady followed suit and Silin moved up slowly, slinging his weapon around on his back and giving the wounded man a check over. It didn’t take Silin long to examine the Triari, it was somewhat superfluous given his obvious state as far as Annika was concerned, but one could never be sure and it wouldn’t hurt their cause to bring one of these Triari out alive for questioning.

Silin glanced up towards her and shook his head slightly, “He’s as good as dead.”

“Kill him then.”

There was no hesitation on Silin’s part as he reached around to his back with his right hand and withdrew his Kilrany Long Knife from its sheath; he promptly ran the symbolic blade of the Kilrany Imperial Guard across the Triari soldier’s throat. While it was by no means the most pain free method to kill this dying man, it was as merciful as the Imperial Guard would be to a force they had little respect for. He would be the living Triari they found near the crash site as they secured their objective.

-----


Jurgas let out a long, poorly concealed yawn before he put his cigarette back up to his mouth and took a long drag on it. Next to him stood three other soldiers under the banner of Genrich, each smoking a cigarette themselves near one of four fires they had set up to provide light in the area given the darkness.

Nearly forty kilometers away from the crash site and a rough fifteen hour march through the dense woods of Triari, six medium lift trucks, mostly Russian Ural types, sat off to one side of one of the many paths through Triari used as the poor man’s road. Four of the trucks were intended for transport of the additional Genrich men and the mercenaries, the other two transported an additional four sections of men currently spread around the vehicles for local security. The area they had chosen to base the Sa-11 attack from was normally a little traveled one, but Isovich didn’t want to leave anything to chance for the time being.

Most of these men stood or even sat about rather nonchalantly as they had been there for a better part of a day, stationed in this position after the mercenaries and their little force of locals had been dispatched to examine the crash site. Isovich himself had long ago left with the TEL vehicles and radar system back for the fortress rather then stay out in the open for long.

OOC: Bump and update

As the dust began to settle around the once mighty building and the rubble continued to slam back to earth, Levko Meitus stood in awe of the large explosions that had decimated the keystone to Chuckhrai resistance in Inara. This look of awe was slowly replaced with an almost malevolent looking grin at the knowledge that was to come next. Unlike the Tsetaeva soldier who had targeted the building with a laser designator, he had no knowledge of what actually caused the destruction, the true extend of Kilrany involvement was still unknown to many who followed the female warlord. Rumours would quickly be spread by those in the know that demolition experts had managed to gain access to the basement of the building from an old sewer, it was a blatant lie, but one the mostly uneducated Triari would buy nonetheless.

Backing away from the whole in a the wall of the building he and his company of men were using for cover, he picked up his AKM and racked the bolt back, loading a round into the weapon before turning to his men, some of whom had been asleep prior to the explosion, were now all wide awake.

“Ready your weapons, we’re breaching this line tonight!”

A cheer rose up from his men at the thought of finally breaking through the Chuckhrai defensive line, they were new enough to the urban combat of Inara to still have a decent level of morale.

It would seem that those higher up then him had the same idea as a runner came quickly into the building through one of the doors, his passage not hampered by the two sentries.

“Meitus, sir, commander Vedel wants your unit ready to go in five minutes to assault to breach, the militia units are being formed up now and will go in first, set up in support positions and get ready to come in behind them.”

If it was possible, Levko’s grin got wider and he acknowledged the runner’s message, the younger man quickly disappeared out the door once more to carry on with his duties.

“You heard him, form up!”

-----

“Gaaaah!”

Leo Altman growled out the sense of pain shooting through his body as he regained consciousness, quickly gritting down on his teeth in an attempt to fight it off. Not yet sure what had just happened he looked at his legs in the darkness, a few lights around let him see enough to know that he was half buried in rumble from the wall he had been sleeping against before and his leg was bent in the wrong way. He probably would have been in more pain had it not been for the small does of Triari Khat.

He gritted out another curse quietly through clenched teeth, “Son of a bitch, grah.”

He looked up from his leg to where the wall had been, hoping to find out why it had suddenly collapsed only to freeze in horror. The wall he had been against was on the second story of a smaller building next to the stone structure that had just taken a pair of heavy laser guided bombs and now it simply wasn’t there. He could see a large open space between him and the building that had been opposite the center of their defensive line only minutes before. He was quickly snapped out of his momentary sense of shock when he heard the sound a whistle blow out one long note, at which point all hell broke loose.

He instinctively pressed himself down against the remaining floor of the building he was in as numerous RPD light machine guns, PKM general purpose machine guns and a pair of NSV heavy machine guns opened fire on several of the still standing buildings. While this alone was bad enough, he heard the screaming of militiamen as they charged forward out of their positions.

Fear pushed his physical pain to the back of his mind temporary as he almost began to panic, snapping his head around and looking for his weapon, he knew that injured or not, Tsetaeva’s men would show no more mercy then he would have. Spotting his own rifle, an SKS a meter away, he pulled himself over with his hands and arms, his right leg clearly broken. Taking hold of his rifle he pulled himself another two meters towards a window that would give him a good look at the square the Tsetaeva militia would be coming in from.

Sitting himself up he snapped the spike bayonet into position, cycled the bolt back to load in a round and leaned out to take aim through the window. The pain made his aim shaky but it mattered little as the enemy militiamen were in a mass charge on his position, he emptied his magazine in less then three seconds, not even sure if he had hit anyone.

He pulled an old F1 type hand grenade from a pouch on his vest and pulled the pin, counted to two and tossed the weapon out before he pulled free a stripper clip and reloaded his weapon from behind the wall. He didn’t get to see how much damage his grenade caused, but he heard it detonate along with the screams of several men. Leaning out the window once more he managed to fire off half his magazine before a long burst from a PKM ripped through his cover and tore through his body.

-----

Several hundred kilometers away from Inara and some two hundred kilometers Southeast of Destina, Mykola Choris stretched widely and released a long and rather loud yawn, though he was careful not to crush the cigarette he held in his right hand. Taking a few slow steps forward he scratched the back of his head with his left hand before taking in a long drag from his cigarette, letting it out in a slow release and watching his smoke stained breath fill the air.

He slowly glanced to his right as he inhaled another drag, a few fires burned in drums a hundred meters away from him in a small village that his militia used as cover, he could only see it because the trees here were slightly less dense, many cut down by the village’s inhabitants. Not too far away from him, roughly five meters, was the somewhat hidden entrance to an underground drug lab, his unit was there to guard it and make sure the villagers did their job, the quiet area and the perks with the female villagers made it an good, but boring place.

His weapon, a Czechoslovakian built Vz.58P hung in front of him from a makeshift sling, bounced slightly as he continued a slow circling path around the lab’s entrance. As he inhaled another long drag his thoughts drifted off to a girl in the village who he intended to visit again come morning and the end of his sentry duty, he knew eventually she’d stop resisting him, not that it does her much good anyway, he smiled to himself.

Slowly he exhaled again, watching the smoke exit his lips, but before he could draw in a breath a gloved hand clamped down over his mouth and part of his nose, pulling back on his head. Instinctively he let go of his cigarette and reached for his attacker’s hand with his own, before his cigarette had made it halfway to the ground however he felt a sense of pain that defied description as a Kilrany Long Knife slammed into his back and through his kidney, the tip exiting out the front of his stomach, the pain alone would have prevented his scream, but he didn’t even have the breath regardless.

Without a moment to recover the wielder of the knife used their weight to push down on the handle and twist it hard, using his weight to cause maximum damage to the Triari militiaman. Choris screamed a silent scream as he writhed in pain, the blood loss was quick and he was dead within twenty seconds, at which point the 5th Division operative, who still had an iron grip on the dead man, slowly lowered him to the ground, took a firm grip on the hilt of his knife and pulled it free, taking a moment to wipe the blood off on Choris’ clothing before returning it to its sheath.

-----

Moving slowly in his flora pattern Gorka-S uniform, the 5th Division special operations soldier made his way over towards the Triari drug lab’s entrance, readying his AS Val as he did so. In the minute amount of light that covered the area, his silhouette was joined by three others near the trap door set horizontally in the ground, though clearly attempts had been made to conceal it, it was obvious that it was not done by Triari with the best of woodcraft skills. Hidden out of sight were four more of the Kilrany soldiers, each one providing cover for their comrades.

No audible commands were given, nor any hand signals; these operatives knew that the Triari, at least in this area, lacked the equipment necessary to pick up and triangulate the wireless signals from their personal role radios. He would be the one to approach the trap door first, the other three soldiers set up on each side of it roughly two meters away with their weapons at the ready to cover him as he carefully made his way in closer. He let his weapon rest on its sling once more as he crouched down in front of the poorly concealed wooden door, almost to the point of lying down, then he pulled a smaller combat knife from a sheath on his vest.

Looking through his night vision goggles he carefully reached forward with both hands, intent on checking the door for any tripwires that may set off an explosive device. Without warning however the trap door snapped upwards, nearly smashing part of his night vision goggles in the process and the head of a Triari militiaman popped up out of the ground.

Initially there was an indifferent look on his face, his intention had been to chat with Choris for a few minutes, he had even had just enough time to open his mouth to speak before he saw the dark shape immediately in front of him. A look of surprise didn’t even fully come across his face before the Kilrany soldier slammed his knife forward, the tip slicing in through his throat an into his brain.

The operative had a brief second to see the Triari’s look of surprise before his body went limp and dropped like a stone back down through the opening, taking the knife with him and thumping down below. He scrambled forward quickly and peered down into the tunnel below, quickly judging the drop to be around four meters he stepped forward and in.

Landing fairly hard in a crouch he ended up down on one knee, but his weapon shot up in an instant, only to find himself aiming it down an empty tunnel. It ran off to his front for roughly fifteen meters at close to a thirty-degree downward slope before it briefly leveled out at which point there appeared to be an abrupt left turn. Small electric lights had been strung along the left wall every four meters attached to support beams, which were in turn placed every two meters, the faint sound of a generator could be heard from deeper within. While comfortable enough to walk upright in, it was still small and provided no cover for the Kilrany soldier.

He kept his weapon up and aimed despite the lack of presence until a few moments later when one of his comrades came down to join him, choosing the somewhat less hazardous method of climbing down the available ladder. It was only when the second operative had joined him and taking up a position next to him that he reached over and pulled his knife free of the dead Triari, taking a moment to wipe it off before returning it to its sheath. With that down he slowly led off down the tunnel towards the turn.

He stopped and went down on one knee once more roughly halfway down the first stretch, waiting there a few moments for the third soldier to climb down and join them. Each of them wore the same uniform, its fabric mask covering their faces and were each armed with an AS Val, though the newest arrival had a BS-1 Tishina attached. Moving up along the left side of the tunnel, the second soldier carefully loosened the bulbs from their sockets, slowly dousing the small amount of light.

Leading off once more first soldier slowed as he came to the left hand turn and put his back towards the right side, with the lights off, there would be no shadow to betray his position as he slowly inched his way along the right towards the turn. A loud burst of laughter from deeper in momentarily froze him in his tracks before he leaned out further to get a good look down the tunnel.

From here he could see that it continued on at a fairly level grade another ten meters where it met a door, currently open that led into what appeared to be a much larger room, filled with more light then he would have liked. In light of this he had to lift his night vision goggles up so as not to be blinded and waited a moment for his natural eyesight to recover, his comrades doing the same.

Unable to see anyone from his position, but able to barely make out muffled voices, he crept forward once more, sticking close to the right side of the tunnel so the second operative could still have a clear line of fire along the left side. Cautiously they approached the opening where they could now more readily hear the voices, which seemed to be coming from the left side of the room. Also able to see more of the room itself, it was quite evident that its purpose was mostly likely to process cocaine, numerous long tables held various lights and equipment he recognized as being required for that activity. They were however not currently in use, most likely due to the late time of day and the majority of the village’s population and their de facto slave labour being asleep.

He snapped his weapon over to his front as a Triari militiaman stumbled along some seven meters deeper into the room and directly across from the opening them held just slightly back from. He held his fire however as the target didn’t look at them, instead he turned his back on them and leaned against one of the tables, in his right hand he held a bottle they presumed to contain alcohol, of which the militiaman seemed to be drinking rather quickly.

The lead soldier kept an eye on this threat as he listened to the voices he could hear, distinguishing at least two, possibly three of them in the room to the left. Ordering a quick plan of action through his radio, he waited a moment for the acknowledgement before he stepped through the threshold quickly and turned right. Following his lead, the second soldier stepped through and turned left while the third soldier came straight in several steps and unleashed a controlled burst into the exposed back of drinking militiaman. Two rounds of 9x39mm escaped the soldiers AS Val, one impacted in the back of the militiaman’s upper right back while the second tore into the back of his lower neck and into his spine, the thumped to the ground with his bottle, the contents of which quickly began to seep into the soft earth.

While the third moved into the room slightly farther then the rest and took his shoots, he immediately turned left to support the second soldier, as that was the direction of the multiple voices. The lead soldier didn’t have a clear view of this as it happened however, his attention drawn by a militiaman on their right who he took down with a burst of three rounds to the upper body. He didn’t turn around however as he heard the sound of his comrades suppressed weapons firing as he continued forward towards another opening he noticed, suddenly concerned about more militia.

As he came to the new opening his comrades gave him a signal indicating that the room was now clear of contacts and that three targets had been to their left. He acknowledged it and quickly added a warning about the second doorway he was now coming up to, knowing they would quickly come about and watch his back. Peering through the opening he quickly noted that the room inside was not lit at all, the light from the room he was in however provided enough light to make out the shapes of what looked to be cots and the sleeping forms of men.

No shouts of alarm came from within the dormitory as they had apparently not heard the rather quick sounds of their comrades deaths, content with this, the lead soldier held his weapon at the ready just in case that changed and ordered his own comrades to place explosive charges, to which they responded to quickly. Each one pulled free a pre set block of plastic explosives and set the timer on them to five minutes, activating them only when the lead operative gave the order.

With that done they quickly withdrew from the underground drug lab, exiting as fast as they could while remaining quiet. Once outside they moved off to the West and away from the village to regroup with the rest of their section, in turn they all quickly made their way off to the Northwest. Several minutes later the operative both heard and felt the explosion that ripped through the drug lab and its rather volatile contents.

OOC: I dunno if you want to persue the guys or not, so Ill put these movement post up and look at another angle, then we can continue along if you choose! Sorry for the delay in posting. Ive changed ISP and now come back to my parents house for the holidays!

IC:

Jacks men were making good progress through the forest. The sounds of cannon fire and explosions had been mostly left behind as they continued at a feverish pace, nearer to jogging than to walking.

Some of the natives weren't accustomed to such exercise and the effects of stress and vigorous exercise were beginning to show on the faces of the mercenaries, most of whoom had seen combat but never against such odds. Usually they were the ones being dropped in by helicopter and washing entire areas with rockets and cannonfire.

Jonas wished that the Kilrany would come chasing them, if only so that he could get off a few rounds and not feel like some kind of Frenchmen, running without firing a shot.


The Fortress in the Forest

Dr Hopkins had been back at the fortress for a few hours and had left his technical crew checking the missiles and launch vehicles with their team of local trainees. They didn’t expect the rest of the mercs back for sometime, but Hopkins still had a bodyguard with him. He was after all a valuable asset to the corporation, not so valuable to be sitting in an office though he mused.

The man with him was discreet enough, staying a couple of steps behind as Hopkins ambled his way along one of the walls. Stopping at each sentry or patrolling guard to attempt conversation in appalling Russian. The British term for him was eccentric, but most of the Corporation thought of him as useful but with limits. His talent for devising new ways of harnessing old weapons systems was why he was in Triari and it was that which he was trying to explain to the harmless grunts that walked around near him.

Green forest stretched away in every direction and Hopkins stared out over the canopy. Faint smoke was in the sky in the direction of the crashed plane. If Hopkins had super agile hearing he could have heard the explosions from the helicopters rockets. But he didn’t.

What he did have was an idea. To investigate it he suddenly turned around, surprising his guard, and marched quickly towards the citadel of the fortress. His bodyguard followed, the weight of his M4 with its various attachments seemingly forgotten as he moved down stairs, through tight doorways and eventually across a courtyard trying to keep up with his charge. The Doctor barreled right past Isovich without showing any recognition, just muttering to himself. Gene, the guard, just shrugged as he ran past the local commander, breaking into a sprint as he rounded a corner. Hopkins’ back was only just around the corner and the merc flung himself to one side to prevent him from knocking the man over.

Before Gene had finished dusting himself off, Hopkins was on the move again. Heading deeper into the Citadel and climbing the stairs towards the pinnacle of the fortress. When he finally reached the top he stood and looked at the roof and then at the walls.

“We must put a radar in here.”

Gene looked at him in surprise and not a slight bit of anger.

“You mean we came all the way up here for you to say that?”

“What do you mean all the way. Surely you enjoy a little exercise young man. Besides we needed to check the dimensions of the room. We can fit an array in here and with a clever mechanism allow it to operate almost at total efficiency. Although how we get it up here I don’t know. If we do, it should provide raid warning…although maybe we need a passive array so as not to draw attention.”

“What ever you say Doc. Just no Kilrany bombing raids whilst we’re here yeah. The random nature of a bomb is a little too…random for me.”

“Yes. Well takes one to know one I suppose”

Gene just looked on bewildered with that comment by the Dr. The attic of the citadel was obviously used to survey the surrounding countryside every now and again. A set of chairs and table stood up against a wall and the arrow slits were wide enough to get a good sight through a pair of binoculars. Not as they had been designed but rather as nature had worn away at them over the years. Gene moved right up to one that faced east, the creaking floorboards making him wary of a short fall to oblivion.

OOC2: There is more to come, but im knackered now and need to edit it before its posted! Sorry for the huge wait again!

OOC: Sorry for the delay, bloody work.

Tension was still high for Annika despite being able to see the area around with relative ease, her night vision goggles continued to cut through the darkness. While no living Triari remained in the area, it was a fact that the Kilrany were not yet aware of, as such they continued under the assumption that there were.

With the immediate area where the Council soldiers had been engaged on the East side of the crash site secured, she received new orders to take her section to the North edge of the burnt out clearing. To supplement her unit in securing the North tree line, Sergeant Vasiliev, who had been ordered to the West was now ordered to move through the tree line to the North as well.

Had the 4th Division soldiers even known that the Genrich men had been in the area, they would have no doubt allowed them to depart the area as they did with the Council soldiers, their orders that day were not to seek out and destroy Triari military groups. Even had they known of the presence of mercenary forces in the employ of Genrich, their primary objective to secure the crash site would still have taken precedence. Only perhaps the knowledge that these mercenaries were behind their aircraft being shot down would have drawn them away, but it was knowledge they did not possess.

Once they had secured the Northern tree line, their company commander sent forth another section to examine the wreckage in detail for specific equipment and any remains they could obtain. Overhead the first flight of Hinds broke from the orbiting formation to return to their impromptu Valnari base to refuel, the two Mi-17s remained for another thirty minutes before they themselves had to break off and return.

Had they looked up and it been daylight, the 4th Division soldiers could have perhaps glimpsed the sight of the same strategic air wing that had been put on stand by to bomb the wreckage along with an escort of a half dozen Su-37s. Their mission however was not to see to the end of the crash site, but to bring the wrath of the Kilrany Empire to another target.

-----

Doctor Hopkins’ hearing would have had to be mighty indeed to have perceived the sounds of rocket fire from the crashed Kilrany Bear, the wreckage of which was over one hundred kilometers away to the Southeast from both the fortress and the city of Neutralnaya. The darkness of the early morning hour was barely pierced by the array of small fires spread around the old fortress, the desire to maintain a façade of an old, insignificant fortress winning out over keeping it well lit at night.

Isovich barely took notice of either mercenary as they barreled past him; for despite Hopkins position, Isovich saw him as yet another mercenary he had to pay for, to intent was he on the words of a messenger. Maxim Kharms; the Fortress commander, was however a bit more intrigued by the sudden and rapid movement of the foreigner and given the relative dullness of his position, he followed the pair inquisitively.

He was not quite so inquisitive however to move as quick as the two men and lost them momentarily somewhere on the way up through the old keep, a quick questioning of some of his men directed him in the right direction. In the end he came up through the stone stairwell behind Hopkins and Gene on the tail end of their conversation, leaving him to curiously address the two men, one of his men trailed behind him with an AKM slung behind his back, little concerned with the company.

“So what’s all this excitement then and mention of bombing then hmmm?”

The Fortress in the Forest

Gene turned and nodded at the base commander when he came up the creaky stairs behind them. AS he spoke Gene motioned his eyebrows towards the tubby man in the corner, dressed every bit like the typical English explorer from the 19th Century. Dr Hopkins continued to stare at the rafters for a minute before acknowledging the man’s presence and answering him.

“Well I was just mentioning to my esteemed escort here, that this is the highest place for miles and therefore suitable for an advanced radar post. I assume that your boss thinks highly enough of you lot to not want to see you get flattened in this here castle? One of our radars in here would give you low level attack warning for at least thirty miles and quadruple that for high level. Enough time to get the SAM’s and men out of here, or fire back.”

The doctor smirked. It was a pretty obvious place for a radar system and he suspected everyone knew it. A bit of camouflage here and there would disguise the protruding bits and bobs and the top level of the tower would be enough for the equipment to power it; the operators could be lower down.

“I only mention it because I assume that the owners of a recently crashed aircraft are going to be rather annoyed with whomever they find out is responsible and I’d rather not die here.”



In the Forest, Some time later

Jacks column of men were making good time. The rain had stopped and the night seemed rather pleasant. Two mercs who had moved to the rear of the column and then held themselves in place for an hour had reported no sign of pursuit and so the group was resting, about two hours march from where their transport should be.

The locals were all huddled around each other, G-36’s over shoulders or in the laps of those sitting. They were obviously tired and so were the mercs, but someone had to maintain a half decent perimeter just in case. The two local commanders were sitting up against a tree looking rather dejected and trading a few words with each other, seemingly as exhausted as their men. Overall Jack’s opinion of the locals hadn’t risen that much from when he had first arrived in the country. They lacked discipline and fitness, he was sure that at least one was on drugs, and they collectively seemed rather too eager to not engage the enemy or partake in any action that was too taxing. Not that he was eager to throw his life away, but he would have to report to the Corporation when he got back to the Fortress, progress and money were key. If they didn’t believe that he was doing well enough in the supposedly customer rich environment then he and his team might be replaced with the next J Corp shipment. The lucrative job, and even more lucrative side excursions, were a good ground for a man who hoped to settle down with his family in the next five years. J Corp paid well, but expected well trained locals who paid on time and kept ordering lots. The next consignment of weapons would be loaded aboard a freighter soon and he needed to finalise the inventory with Isovich, as well as remind the man that the jobs he was doing were not strictly within company policy. His attention was jolted back to the present by a whispered voice in his ear.

“Six. Two, approaching RV.”

Jack toggled his radio system to reply to the lead scout.

“Two. Six. Evaluate and report.”

There wasn’t any sense in alerting the men guarding the trucks, just in case they weren’t Isovich’s men but some others that had somehow overpowered them. Jack and his team believed in being cautious and staying alive, two traits that didn’t go together all the time.

Near the RV point Jonas was crawling slowly on his stomach with his M4 held in front of him. Trees obscured his vision through the NV binoculars, but he was certain that he had seen the flicker of a fire a minute before. Night Operations were his favourite. The enemy didn’t seem to have NV technology here and it reminded him of the fight against Intelligent Neighbours rebels on an island off their coast. Like shooting stationary fish in a barrel...with a machine gun.
There wouldn’t be any shooting tonight though. He checked his watch, less than two hours till dawn and he was supposed to find a place to sit tight and watch the men by the trucks for any hostile intent. Surplus men, or particularly alert and well armed ones would be his key determinators, as would booby traps on their perimeter. He had found none so far, but didn’t know if that meant they had no hostile intent or just didn’t know how to set up a perimeter.

It was perhaps not entirely fair to blame the small unit of Genrich’s men for their unwillingness to stand and fight against the Kilrany, nor for not being entirely in the same physical condition as the veteran, professionally trained former soldiers that seemed to make up the bulk of the mercenary force. Aside from a few special cases, there were no training regiments for the soldiers of the Triari warlords; their experience often came from simply surviving whatever battle they were thrown in to. More often then not it was the false courage created by the drugs they would often take that would keep them fighting.

The Kilrany were another story however, had they the fortune to only run into the Council reconnaissance force they would have not been so timid, and would have had little problem bringing the fight to the enemy. Their experience with the Kilrany had long taught them to fear their Southern neighbour, their aircraft chief among them; but none came close to the fear at the thought of dealing with the Kilrany at night. The Kilrany seemed to view Triari as a massive training ground for its military forces as much as it did a rebellious province. Had Isovich thought of them before had departed with the self propelled air defense systems, he would have sent along some of their Strela, MANPAD anti-air missile launchers from a small stockpile in the fortress.

Around the six trucks, Jurgas still stood smoking his cigarette next to the second Ural type. Only half of the platoon of forty-eight men were intently, some otherwise, watching the darkness that loomed up around them in the forest, barely held at bay by the four fires they kept lit. No mines had been set up and no patrols had been ordered, both useless to the small force lest they mistake the returning friendly forces for enemies and lit then up. Mines especially deemed to dangerous to set about should the friendly force stumble in to them, counting on the same skill level of their own forces then those of the mercenaries.

High overhead in the pre-dawn darkness the flight of Kilrany aircraft continued their course Northwest at high altitude just above mach one.

-----

Kharms was not exactly known for being a patient man, but he held his tongue and waited for Hopkins to speak and acknowledge him; something he was no longer accustomed to in his current rank in Genrich’s forces. His temper was tempered though by the knowledge of what Isovich would do to him if he insulted his new friends.

Whatever annoyance had been their before however was quickly forgotten at the mention of a radar, long had he wanted one, but been unable to get a passive warning array for the important position. Genrich had tried before, but much like heavy air defense systems and heavy armour, there were few willing to attempt it in light of potential Kilrany retribution. Isovich himself would have likely begun to order such things eventually whenever he realized he could acquire them as easily as the Sa-11s.

“You and me both. But yes, we’ve long wanted to install some sort of fancy electronics here, but Isovich and others have never been able to get it. You telling me, on top of everything else Isovich is getting from you, you can get us radar systems too?”

Kharms half turned to look towards the steps past the immediately visible guard and called out to one out of sight farther below in Russian, “Ivan! Get your ass down to the courtyard and find Isovich, he’ll want to here of this … now!”

A quick acknowledgement in Russian followed a moment later from below and Kharms looked back at Hopkins, “How long would it take to get it here and install? How hard will it be to operate?” A dozen other questions ran through his head at the moment and thoughts of a long life as well, but he settled for asking the first two.

OOC: Thanks for letting me rejoin this RP Kilrany! As for the lateness of the post, it took me a while to find off where I left.


...
Denim nodded his head, the thought of once again having instant communications with their military units without interference from the Kilrany, though he, like the other representatives didn’t know much about modern communications systems. Such information was not so much hard to come by, but was usually seen as being outside their reach given the aggressiveness of the Kilrany.

“I believe less … radiated ammunition would be better. Well then mister Rodriguez, this all sounds well and good, but I suppose the next question comes to the all important cost. We find we often have to pay large sums to ‘dealers’ for taking the risk of smuggling items in and out past the Kilrany. So, what can we expect to pay for this generous supply of weapons and equipment?”

As Denim finished and before Victor could speak, Isovich spoke up, “Boldness has its limits, I don’t want to lose a new source of material this early on. The Kilrany don’t give a shit about international waters, that’s where they stop half the ships coming in and out of here. I do hope for everyone here that this freighter of yours is well out in international waters so as not to draw the attention of the Kilrany.”

Victor nodded to Denim’s question about cost. Concerns about the bottom line would always be a major consideration for a nation in disarray such as this. The organization back home would clearly want to ensure that they would want to make a profit. Victor was well aware that his employers would be more than happy to leave him for dead in this mess of a nation if this didn’t lead to some sort of profit. All was such in the world of weapons smuggling...

However, Victor’s thoughts were distracted by the interjection of Isovich – the man did have a point. It would be foolish to assume that security would only stop at the end of some arbitrary limit. Quickly, Victor had to come up with some sort of answer.

“Well, uh,” Victor began, “your concern about Kilrany’s oppressive nature is well warranted. Hell, it’s absolutely ridiculous that people, your people can’t listen to the radio on certain days because Kilrany says so. I will make sure that the freighter is out of range and hopefully try to get some sort of protection.”

Turning back to Denim’s concern about price, Victor said “We will be willing to work with you on pricing. We of course do have to make a profit, the items that you sound interested in will probably be easier to transport and handle. I think the main concern is actually transporting in the goods – as the honorable councilman pointed out, Kilrany probably wouldn’t take too kindly to one of our freighters poking around the harbor. Although we have smaller vessels that are more maneuverable and can slip detection easier, they aren’t as efficient. If you or the authorities with more experience with this nation’s specific conditions have a protocol in getting goods in and out of the port, I would be willing to listen to them.”

OOC: Sorry for the delay, and no problem, welcome back.

For Denim it was not so much a problem of the middleman making money, though he likely would have preferred the cost to remain as low as possible anyway, but was more in regards to the fact that they were all used to having to pay exorbitant costs for even basic ‘restricted’ items that the Kilrany would take objection to. Such things as weapons, ammunition and fuel could easily cost ten times their actual value elsewhere for the warlords of Triari.

There was a long period of silence from all three representatives, not a one of them, even Denim who came from The Council who still maintained the illusion of a democracy, was prepared for the manner in which Victor addressed them. So accustomed to sorting out petty squabbles of the local citizens and avoiding all out war for the city between them, being referred to as ‘honourable councilmen’ or the ‘authorities’ was well beyond their experience and it took them slightly off guard.

Before the silence could become uncomfortable however Denim spoke again, his thoughts recollected and his train of thought reformed, “You misunderstand slightly, but you are new to Neutralnaya and that is excusable. I fully understand that you need to make a profit off what you bring us,” he paused a moment to dramatically gesture with his hands towards his fellow representatives as though the crowd of Triari were still in the gallery, “we all understand that. But we have had to deal with those in the past who would ask for far more then the items’ worth that they would send to us.”

He didn’t intend to sound insulting in his words, but he did intend to try and get as low a price as possible as any customer would, “As to transport. Here we find our problem, the one that affects us all. The Kilrany are currently beyond our range when out to sea,” here Denim’s voice became sarcastic for a moment, “the ‘honourable councilmen’ to my right can easily attest to that, can’t you Isovich? Genrich had the means to ‘guard’ our little port here did he not? And what became of that, hmmm?”

Denim had gestured only slightly with his left hand towards Isovich in this case and he did not look towards him to see the scowl he got in reply from the man, instead he continued a moment later, sans sarcasm, “There is little that can be done to simply ‘slip past’ Kilrany vessels as we have no means to combat them, though we have noticed they are less willing to stop vessels flying a flag unknown to them … at least for a time. We also; fortunately, happen to be a good distance from their own ports and only small numbers of their vessels seem to patrol the area, mostly taking interest in lone merchants. They also seem to be unwilling to stop the odd convoy of ships we’ve occasionally had from bleeding heart aid groups. At least when their numbers are few in the area.”

Isovich’s scowl was only now starting to lighten as Denim spoke once more, “If you can supply us with what you say you can, and in large quantities, we will be more then happy to pay for it. But cost is still a factor, how much can you bring us in weapons and … electronics technology and how much will it cost us if we split it three ways?”

OOC: If you’d like you don’t have to be terribly specific here, we can assume an amount of money is stated and most likely it can be paid, unless you actually have numbers for all this and want to bring them up, then by all means do so, I’m flexible either way.

OOC: Sorry for the delay, and no problem, welcome back.

For Denim it was not so much a problem of the middleman making money, though he likely would have preferred the cost to remain as low as possible anyway, but was more in regards to the fact that they were all used to having to pay exorbitant costs for even basic ‘restricted’ items that the Kilrany would take objection to. Such things as weapons, ammunition and fuel could easily cost ten times their actual value elsewhere for the warlords of Triari.

There was a long period of silence from all three representatives, not a one of them, even Denim who came from The Council who still maintained the illusion of a democracy, was prepared for the manner in which Victor addressed them. So accustomed to sorting out petty squabbles of the local citizens and avoiding all out war for the city between them, being referred to as ‘honourable councilmen’ or the ‘authorities’ was well beyond their experience and it took them slightly off guard.

Before the silence could become uncomfortable however Denim spoke again, his thoughts recollected and his train of thought reformed, “You misunderstand slightly, but you are new to Neutralnaya and that is excusable. I fully understand that you need to make a profit off what you bring us,” he paused a moment to dramatically gesture with his hands towards his fellow representatives as though the crowd of Triari were still in the gallery, “we all understand that. But we have had to deal with those in the past who would ask for far more then the items’ worth that they would send to us.”

He didn’t intend to sound insulting in his words, but he did intend to try and get as low a price as possible as any customer would, “As to transport. Here we find our problem, the one that affects us all. The Kilrany are currently beyond our range when out to sea,” here Denim’s voice became sarcastic for a moment, “the ‘honourable councilmen’ to my right can easily attest to that, can’t you Isovich? Genrich had the means to ‘guard’ our little port here did he not? And what became of that, hmmm?”

Denim had gestured only slightly with his left hand towards Isovich in this case and he did not look towards him to see the scowl he got in reply from the man, instead he continued a moment later, sans sarcasm, “There is little that can be done to simply ‘slip past’ Kilrany vessels as we have no means to combat them, though we have noticed they are less willing to stop vessels flying a flag unknown to them … at least for a time. We also; fortunately, happen to be a good distance from their own ports and only small numbers of their vessels seem to patrol the area, mostly taking interest in lone merchants. They also seem to be unwilling to stop the odd convoy of ships we’ve occasionally had from bleeding heart aid groups. At least when their numbers are few in the area.”

Isovich’s scowl was only now starting to lighten as Denim spoke once more, “If you can supply us with what you say you can, and in large quantities, we will be more then happy to pay for it. But cost is still a factor, how much can you bring us in weapons and … electronics technology and how much will it cost us if we split it three ways?”

OOC: If you’d like you don’t have to be terribly specific here, we can assume an amount of money is stated and most likely it can be paid, unless you actually have numbers for all this and want to bring them up, then by all means do so, I’m flexible either way.

Victor straightened out his back for a quick second – standing here for a while had left his back somewhat fatigued. It was clear that the Council was intrigued by his proposition – though it was also clear that these men were well experienced in dealing with gun runners and the sort. They would watch him as much as they could, but that was the risk of doing business in a war torn society. The jibes that Denim was taking were little unsettling, though it was amusing to watch.

Upon hearing about the issue of the sea patrols, Victor thought for a second and said, “That presents an interesting situation. Although my nation has never had contact with Kilrany’s vessels, it still is only one vessel right now. It wouldn’t be difficult to get extra vessels here and create a small convoy – the organization that I am employed with owns and operates many commercial freighters. It will take a short while for the extra ships to get here, a day or two, but it’s certainly doable and we would be able to bring more goods anyways.”

It was inevitable that the issue of price would come up as well. Any warlord like this would be under fiscal pressures that a well-established nation couldn’t understand. However, what was a warring faction if it didn’t have weapons. Victor looked down for a second and looked up again at his potential clients – “Fortunately, there is a very high supply of guns within my nation, left over from our previous civil wars and conflicts. I know that typically, one of our AK-47s will cost $100 - $250 depending on the age of the unit. As for the ammunition for such a gun, since such ammo is easy to come by, we could probably sell it to you for $1.00 per round. This of course includes the cost of bringing the weaponry in. As for the electronics, basic multi-way, multi-channel radios will cost about $30 per unit, radios with encryption technology will cost about $50-$100. We can also try to bring in basic radar in, but such a system would cost at bare minimum $2,000. It should be noted that all prices are negotiable as well.”

OOC: Delay in response due to an ice storm that hit early in the week and knocked out power to the entire Western half of the province I live in for the better part of this week.

Both Isovich and Denim smiled inwardly, keeping their true feelings hidden, for Isovich he continued to scowl at Denim and Denim maintained a pleasant if somewhat passive demeanor as he retained his apparent hold as chief negotiator. Denim choose to respond to the prices denoted by the foreigner first, believing them to be of the most importance.

“While I only speak for myself here, I would say that those prices sound reasonable enough. I’m concerned however over the thought of radar … don’t get me wrong, I would like to be able to see Kilrany aircraft coming, but it has been our experience that such things tend to be a beacon for Kilrany munitions. Though I believe it is safe to say The Council will be most interested in acquiring some of them,” he didn’t mention the cost of the ammunition, while he felt it was a little high, he shrugged it off as being of higher quality then their own limited production facilities could manufacture, as well as Victor’s simple explanation of transportation cost.

Before anyone else could speak again, Denim continued, “Now that we have a firm number on cost, do you have any figures on numbers? I mean how much of this could you bring us in this first shipment of yours?” here Denim appeared to grow concerned about preventing a small scale conflict by dividing up the total shipment evenly, at least as far as these two bastards next to me need be concerned, he added to himself.

Intent on not letting the foreigner see his position diminished by Denim’s earlier words, Isovich quickly spoke up in an attempt to show up his rival in their dealings with Victor, Chuckhrai’s representative continued to remain silent, far to fearful of blowing the opportunity to speak up, “I would suggest to you sir, that you have your ships fly an additional flag that would identify yourselves as being a convoy of aid ships. They are the most common group to come in to our port here in convoys. When their ships are in smaller number here they seem less likely to harass them.”

Content with what he said, Genrich’s representative then strove to get a jab in on Denim, “Unfortunately as my ‘esteemed’ colleague has noted, we are unable to provide any naval escort, but this is the price of not bowing down to the Kilrany and taking active measures to oppose them,” for a moment he considered adding more specifics, but was satisfied with the barely audible annoyed grumble that came from Denim, stick that in your pipe and smoke it you ass.

OOC: Sorry its taken so long to get up!

The Fortress in the Forest

Hopkins just smiled at the base commander and began stroking the stubble on his chin as he spoke.

“Obtain one? Of course dear man! When our blonde friend gets back from plundering the wreckage we shall have a little look on his ingenious laptop and find a myriad of wonders. Delivery time would depend on what system you wanted, but I’m sure it could get on the next shipment and be here in a couple of weeks. It might be a little tricky to install covertly and my men here are more than capable of using the systems. In time some of yours will no doubt become accustomed to it as well, perhaps we should get a Russian system so the instructions are all....err..readable.”

A crooked smile revealed that the Dr didn’t brush his teeth that much before he turned around sharply and started studying something out of the window.

“If we are feeling particularly clever I’m sure we could rig up some form of cable link from a passive array here to some SAM’s hidden away somewhere. Give your oppressors a what-for if they come sniffing.”



The forest

Jack had the men up and in a loose column heading towards the RV. It had been a little suspicious of him to check that Isovich’s men weren’t planning to massacre them, but he hadn’t lived this long by being too trusting.

The men looked a little downbeat, although he detected a few smiles as they got closer and closer to the transports that Jonas was watching. Most carried their rifles on the slings whilst a few still had them in their hands. It looked like some form of modern squad machine gun would be needed to give them some extra firepower, along with some basic fire and manoeuvre tactics training. If all went to plan then these men would be able to disseminate it to yet more of Isovich’s soldiers around his territory.

A shout came from in front as one of the truck guards saw the approaching column, the lead men in it waving back at him. Jack keyed his radio to all of his men.

“Collapse back in on the perimeter. Time to get out of here. Jonas maintain overwatch for five then come in.”

Jack kept walking at the side of the column, turning around and walking backwards for a few steps to watch his rearguard coming in; the early morning light beginning to flood the forest.

In a few minutes the men were clambering aboard the vehicles, Jonas came jogging in and leapt into the truck with several of the mercs. Jack sat in the cab of it already mentally forming his report for Isovich when they got back to the Fortress. A huge jerk to the left announced they were moving as he closed his eyes to think and then fall asleep for a little.

The fortress commander grunted lightly as if he agreed with the man, but he was in truth amused at Hopkins confidence in Jack and his fellow mercenaries in light of a no doubt rapid Kilrany presence to claim their own. While they had yet heard no news beyond the fact that the aircraft had been shot down, his own view was heavily biased given stories spread about the Kilrany and his own experiences against them.

As a Triari who had managed to acquire himself a position of power, he had a also acquired himself a rather substantial supply of arrogance, though he was not yet so powerful that he dared show it to Isovich’s guests. Still a subordinate to Isovich, he held his tongue and contempt for foreigners to himself, only spoken of privately away from any prying ears, At least for now, you wont be around forever Isovich. Unsurprisingly this was common in Triari, and while Isovich did not know of this particular commander’s ambitions, his type was why he traveled under heavy guard, with men from Genrich’s ample supply of soldiers whom he paid extra out of his pocket to keep them loyal. Being that type of man himself, Isovich knew full well the consequences of letting one’s guard down in Triari.

Feigning interest in what all Hopkins had to say, he listened intently, but being a rather unfamiliar with technology, he only understood what the eccentric man had to say in the most basic of ways. Attempting however to conceal his own ignorance, he nodded his head occasionally as if to agree with Hopkins.

Just as Hopkins finished speaking, the same Triari soldier the commander had spoken to a minute before hand popped his head up at the stairway, not speaking a word of English, he addressed his superior in Russian.

“Sir, Isovich does not wish to climb all these stairs and says he understands that this strange fellow wants to install a radar, he agrees wholeheartedly with a passive system, but is concerned with any active one giving away this position,” he himself ignorant of radar, shook his head in annoyance before continuing, “He says there will be no problem buying whatever they can put in here.”

With a wave of the commander’s hand the soldier’s head disappeared once more, then waiting a moment he addressed Hopkins to ‘translate’, “Isovich says he will be happy to pay for anything you can install up here.”

Now slightly perturbed by Isovich’s rather quick acceptance, the commander grew suspicious of his superior, paranoia sending troubling images through his mind. Desiring to contemplate a plan, he quickly nodded his head towards Hopkins and his guard, “I must be off to see to other matters, clearly you have Isovich’s approval to do what you will up here with your electronics.”

With that he turned to move down the stairs, his personal guard in close pursuit.

-----

What little sense of relief that Genrich’s soldiers had at the sight of their comrades and the trucks they guarded was still, for the most part, carefully kept in check while they felt they were still ‘under the shadow’ of Kilrany forces. Some continued to look over their shoulders out of concern despite the professionalism and determination to live that Jack and his band of mercenaries had shown in their return towards their transport.

Only when they were all aboard their respective trucks and moving off on the poor Triari roads did any of them begin to relax their guards slightly and joke amongst themselves about the ‘cowardly Kilrany’, easily and quickly forgetting to men killed in the RPG attack. They would all have stories of bravado to tell to men and women alike the next chance they had to visit a bar despite their lack of action.

Less concerned with their stories and more with the frustratingly poor road before him was the driver in the truck whom cursed under his breath at the road and his old truck at every bump he hit, which was rather regular given its state. He did have cause to wonder at Jack an hour into the drive when he appeared to have fallen asleep, must have been one hell of a trek through the woods for the buggar to have managed sleep on thi- fuck, god damnit, piece of crap road, his train of thought was quickly re-directed when his truck hit yet another bump that nearly cause the truck to slide off to the side into a tree before he recovered in time and re-centered back on the road.

It was many hours later and well into the afternoon that the convoy of trucks arrived back at the old fortress in the forest, the rainfall the night before had made the roads even more treacherous then they already were. To a man they were all ecstatic to finally be able to get out of the transports they had been so glad to see earlier and set foot on the ground once more. Most nursed sore limbs and bottoms as they stretched their legs.

Isovich was not there to greet the arrivals as he was off elsewhere in the large fortress dealing with an attempted thief who was now suffering a rather cruel fate. They had been expected later in the day to begin with and Isovich would be delayed another half hour before he came up from his current task.

When he did finally show himself once more he was smiling as he came up towards Jack, if he was disappointed with the mercenary for failing to come back with anything he certainly didn’t show it, “Welcome back Jack,” amusement clearly evident in his voice, “What did the wreckage look like? There were no Kilrany survivors were there?” Unfamiliar with aircraft as he was with electronics, he was genuinely curious about the subject. He had only a basic of report given to him in haste from his own men, which essentially only told him that Kilrany response teams had reacted quicker then they had been able to arrive and that their presence had been to heavy to do much of anything, so he looked forward to the details that Jack would have for him.

OOC: Sorry it’s been a long while since I last posted. I’m back at putting 30-40 hours at the university a week and I’m either too tired or it’s too late to post. Regardless, here I am!

IC:

It was clear that like anywhere else, given a little ammunition, these “politicians” would be more than willing to take snipes at each other. This was clearly a chance for opportunity for any entrepreneurial soul. It was amazing that the ANL itself had not attempted to take advantage of the situation here. Usually, under the guise of benevolence and humanitarianism, the government had a habit of making foreign relief into a state-sponsored growth industry. At least that’s what the center-and-hard line-right parties accused the leftists in power of doing, rather than letting private firms handling the “humanitarian” efforts. No matter who was in charge though, the families and cartels would be happy.

Victor heard about the quantity question and stood up straight. Although it was clear that these fellows needed the ammunition and weaponry, it was also clear that they could betray him as soon as a better offer came along. The thought of recording devices transcribing his words passed through his head for a second. However, reality crept back in…the Kilrany weren’t interested in working with these people, they wanted to suppress them. However, it was true, he would have to keep his eye out for any possible hint of deception.

“Well, with the quantities issue. The freighter we have out there has around 5,000 AK-47s on board currently. As for ammunition, from what I seen, there are around 50,000 rounds of ammunition. If that amount seems small, please understand, we were trying to be frugal in how much we wanted to bring in on the first delivery in case we were to have any issues with the Kilrany or other unwanted attention. Our family currently has ready access to 200,000 AK-47s and an ample supply of ammunition. Acquiring more weaponry and ammunition of the same type won’t be a problem, however.”

Upon hearing the representative for Chuckhrai, Victor nodded and said, “That is certainly doable. Our ship currently has some other goods on there that would easily be considered nothing more than humanitarian fare. We can bring in more of the goods you are interested in and also have it appear like it’s a humanitarian vessel.”

OOC: No problem, my job tends to do the same to me, better a delayed good post then a rushed bad post, right?

It was indeed true that had the situation only been slightly different that the men contained within the room with Victor would have gladly taken far less ‘verbal’ jabs at each other given the means, none had made it to their current position by being timid or chivalrous. Victor however had all but ensured his safety within Triari from almost all threats by coming before the small Neutralnaya council, they all needed weapons to badly to risk killing someone willing to run the risk of Kilrany interference, and no rival gunrunner would dare touch them lest they forfeit their own lives to the Triari warlords. The only remaining threats to Victor’s life would be Tsetaeva or the Kilrany discovered him; given their limited presence in Neutralnaya however, this was somewhat unlikely, though a threat none the less.

Several moments of silence followed after Victor finished, thought perhaps not an uncomfortable bit as Denim simply took a moment to glance towards each of his ‘compatriots’ to see if they had anything to say about it first; none did. Isovich may have had something to say had he known Victor had mistaken him for Chuckhrai’s representative rather then Genrich’s in regards to the cover of a humanitarian mission, though not being a mind reader, he knew not the mistake.

At length Denim looked back towards Victor and addressed him once more in kind manner in order to keep what he saw as a valuable new recourse happy, at the very least, content, “I see nothing wrong with this, in fact it is a good number for an initial run on such short notice and we shall be happy to buy them from you. For additional shipments however, we would also ask if you would be able to bring in some heavier weapons with those assault rifles if you can, RPGs and PKMs and any ammunition you could bring along we would pay for as well.”

While weapons were plentiful in Triari, they were getting older with time and their condition worsening with improper care by all but the most veteran of fighters who knew how to care for their weapons. Thus they would happily buy new weapons to replace their aging stockpiles and outgun their rivals in an unceasing war for control of Triari.

Denim had more plans for Victor however then he would let on to the men next to him and one more thought came to him that he felt he should speak of before Victor finished and left them for the time being. He tried to choose his words carefully so as not to let Isovich or the Chuckhrai representative guess his mind, “Should we wish to contact you in the future, where are you staying at?”

OOC: Sorry its taken so long to get up, rather dialogue heavy now I look at it.


The Fortress in the Forest

Hopkins listened to the base commander with his hands in his pockets. He smiled at the part about doing what he wanted with somebody else paying and waved at the retreating form of the commander. From his pocket he retrieved a laser measuring device and began moving around the room pointing it here and there. Only once did he look at Gene and his remark was typically confusing.

“And a generator downstairs”


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


Outside Jack took Isovich’s hand firmly.

“Good to be back. I think we’ve experienced the Kilrany now. I’m afraid we are a few men light, I tried to bring down a gunship with RPG’s which wasn’t the best move but its given us a good idea of their operational capacity. Right now it’s probably best that we don’t piss them off any more I think, those guys were looking for revenge.”

“There was also another group of locals there, don’t know who, but they got shot up pretty badly by the Kilrany. I’m afraid that we didn’t get anywhere near the crash, two of my men got eyes on it but that’s about it. If it makes you feel any better I doubt we would have got anything useful from it anyway, the thing had obviously burnt pretty heavily and was scattered around a square mile. In consultation with your guys I decided to withdraw and save the men and equipment for a more even fight.”

“We also got another communication from the Corporation. They have another shipment ready to come out to us. I need to check with you and Hopkins over what we need to put on it.[/i]”

Jack keyed his radio to Gene, who passed it over to Hopkins in the tower.

“Jack, tell them a Soviet Long Track system with a pair of heavy duty generators. We’ll rig something up here and winch the actual detector up whilst leaving the generators down in the foot. Tell them five kilometres of cables for systems and electricity. Tell them to leave it on the lorry to get it here but include some cutting equipment.”

Jack looked at Isovich.

“That answers one question. It may be a little pricey though. I’ll check the inventory.”

Jack waved over his man who carried the laptop and satellite linkup gear. He set the system up on a low wall at one side of the courtyard whilst the locals trooped out to their barracks for some rest. Jack waved the rest of the mercs to their quarters, the men checking their weapons and walking off to clean them before they got some sleep. Having had a sort of sleep in the truck Jack was more alert than might have been thought, knowing that he had to get the order off pretty fast to catch the transport ship. The merc unstrapped his M4 from his body armour and leant it against the wall before peering into the computer screen.

“Johnson, you did put in our ammo order as well didn’t you?”

A nod was his response. Jack explained to Isovich.

“With the ferocity of the Kilrany response I thought it prudent to bring in extra ammo for our weapons as quality 556 is probably pretty hard to get around here. It won’t be included in the price of course, its down as personal security requirements. Plus it will replace that which we used a couple of weeks ago. Now what more do you need?”

OOC: I figure you can produce a shopping list that Isovich might want :)

Though he hid it, Isovich was surprised by Jack’s sudden handshake, while it was typically a good way to make sure someone wasn’t carrying a weapon, it still wasn’t all that common in Triari. Jack was quickly moving up through the ‘ranks’ as it was in Isovich’s mind, earning him a favoured position among Isovich’s friends, though still not trusted, as in Triari, one typically earned the title of trusted friend posthumously except in rare occasions. To be fair however, Isovich was not a trusting person, to get to his position one couldn’t be, he did however know when to feign trust in order to obtain it from others.

As Jack spoke about the experience in the woods, the Triari man listened intently to what he had to say, occasionally making a small quip here and there, most prominently at the beginning with the mention of the Kilrany with a small amused grunt, “Yes, a rather wrathful people the Kilrany, now you know why they’re such a pain in the ass here.”

Isovich took on a thoughtful look before responding at length, “hmmm, could have been just about anyone; this other group you mention,” though he said no more about them, he continued to think about it, curiosity taking hold, however he also knew his initial words were true in that they could have been just about anyone, even other mercenaries come to investigate. He said nothing about Jack and his team being unable to retrieve anything, he had known it was a long shot from the beginning, and having no desire to waste his newly acquired resources in Jack and his team, he held no ill will in regards to the entire incident.

The mention of a new shipment and the suggestion by Hopkins in regards to the heavier equipment brought Isovich out of his temporary silence once more, “Excellent, some good news for a change,” he paused a moment then quickly added, “The Kilrany were more active then you yet know, I guess they weren’t happy with simply securing that wreckage. I got word about a half-hour ago that their aircraft struck at Neutralnaya, rather heavily. They leveled both power plants and several seemingly random city blocks, hardly the first time they’ve struck at the city, but it’s been a while since they did so on such a large scale. Fortunately the harbour was untouched.”

Through the night, while Jack and his team had been making their way back to the trucks with the specially trained Triari soldiers, the flight of Tu-160s that had flown over their heads at high altitude reached the city and unleashed their simple payloads on their targets, carpet bombing the city. Only the power plants had been a set target for part of the strategic wing, the rest of the flight were to choose a section of the city at their discretion to release their payload on. While they could have easily used more precise munitions, collateral damage was not a concern, in fact, out of a desire for retribution, they wanted as much of it as they could obtain. Power was not wholly cut throughout the city despite the temporary loss of the power plants, as it was far from the first instance, most critical areas of the city under the control of the various warlords had large generators to supply power in the event of a Kilrany air attack.

Moving back to the subject of more weapons, Isovich went on seemingly unconcerned at first for the damage sustained to the city several hours drive to their Southwest, “If you can, I’d to see an addition of Strelas, or some equivalent MANPAD we can use. While we have a supply of them, they are getting quite old and I hear they tend to fail the majority of the time after a certain point. As for this, what did you call it, Long Track? As long as it can be used in such a way not to give away this position, you’ll get your asking price for it.”

After another short pause to think, Isovich continued, “Do you have access to the Russian Zu-twenty-three? We have a large supply of ammunition for them, but apparently we lost a number of the actual guns recently, if you could get us some more, it’d be most useful. Same for RPG rounds, specifically for the RPG-seven, can always use more of those. Whatever you can get added on to this shipment you mention would be most beneficial.”

The rumble of engines coming in through the entrance of the fortress drew Isovich’s gaze and upon seeing he grinned, nodded his head in their direction and spoke again to Isovich, “To ‘celebrate’ the achievement of knocking one of those bastard Kilrany aircraft out of the skies, I made arrangements for some entertainment tonight for the entire company here, your men are more then welcome to participate.”

A large convoy came to a stop within the walls of the fortress, at its lead was a battered looking UAZ converted to carry a roof mounted AGS, following that was a Ural type truck filled with escorting militiamen. The next three trucks were large, heavy transport types and were loaded down with crate upon crate of alcohol, mostly Vodka and Rum, of both good quality and questionable quality. The ‘good stuff’ as it were, was to be reserved for the higher-ranking members of Genrich’s men, and Jack’s mercenaries.

Behind the three heavy transport trucks were another three Ural types, at first only four soldiers jumped out of each, but moments later women begin to step down out of the back of them, helped by the soldiers. At this point many of the men under Genrich’s banner had gathered and were now hooting and hollering in excitement, most of the women were prostitutes, however some looked of questionable age and hardly like they were willing to be there.

Trailing at the end of the convoy was a darkly coloured land rover; two more troop laden Urals, and another battered looking UAZ, this one with a mounted PKM. Men of a different sort exited the land rover as they escorted another woman, one of ‘quality’ as they would say as she walked along with her escorts, a haughty look about her, only to be consorting with the wealthy Triari she would, in this case Isovich.

OOC: No problem, my job tends to do the same to me, better a delayed good post then a rushed bad post, right?

It was indeed true that had the situation only been slightly different that the men contained within the room with Victor would have gladly taken far less ‘verbal’ jabs at each other given the means, none had made it to their current position by being timid or chivalrous. Victor however had all but ensured his safety within Triari from almost all threats by coming before the small Neutralnaya council, they all needed weapons to badly to risk killing someone willing to run the risk of Kilrany interference, and no rival gunrunner would dare touch them lest they forfeit their own lives to the Triari warlords. The only remaining threats to Victor’s life would be Tsetaeva or the Kilrany discovered him; given their limited presence in Neutralnaya however, this was somewhat unlikely, though a threat none the less.

Several moments of silence followed after Victor finished, thought perhaps not an uncomfortable bit as Denim simply took a moment to glance towards each of his ‘compatriots’ to see if they had anything to say about it first; none did. Isovich may have had something to say had he known Victor had mistaken him for Chuckhrai’s representative rather then Genrich’s in regards to the cover of a humanitarian mission, though not being a mind reader, he knew not the mistake.

At length Denim looked back towards Victor and addressed him once more in kind manner in order to keep what he saw as a valuable new recourse happy, at the very least, content, “I see nothing wrong with this, in fact it is a good number for an initial run on such short notice and we shall be happy to buy them from you. For additional shipments however, we would also ask if you would be able to bring in some heavier weapons with those assault rifles if you can, RPGs and PKMs and any ammunition you could bring along we would pay for as well.”

While weapons were plentiful in Triari, they were getting older with time and their condition worsening with improper care by all but the most veteran of fighters who knew how to care for their weapons. Thus they would happily buy new weapons to replace their aging stockpiles and outgun their rivals in an unceasing war for control of Triari.

Denim had more plans for Victor however then he would let on to the men next to him and one more thought came to him that he felt he should speak of before Victor finished and left them for the time being. He tried to choose his words carefully so as not to let Isovich or the Chuckhrai representative guess his mind, “Should we wish to contact you in the future, where are you staying at?”

Victor smiled at Denim’s comment, but remained professional and composed. “I am glad to hear that our current shipment will be acceptable. I will notify my superiors, however, that more advanced and effective hardware is in order for the next batch. Once I make contact with them, I will ask them about the price.”

A few seconds passed while the council sat amongst themselves and did whatever real councils did. It was again such a striking shock to see how raw the politics, or whatever resembled politics, of this nation were. Upon hearing Denim’s question, Victor perked up and said “I’m currently staying on suggestion at the Fair Game Inn.”

The Fortress

Jack nodded at Isovich’s description of the attack on the city. The complete lack of care Isovich displayed told Jack that it wasn’t a particularly major thing, only a few civvies killed he suspected. Weapons were back on the conversation before he had really divulged the news fully.
“I’m sure Dr Hopkins wouldn’t want to be bombed and I’m quite sure the Long Track has passive detection systems and an active array just incase. As for the MANPAD’s, we have a lot of Igla’s that we took from IN stockpiles after that war, they’ve been looked after and probably come at a knockdown price. Not hugely different from Strela’s although maybe a bit of training on them...I’ll get them to send the manual. ZU-23 is a little old but there might still be a few around, can’t guarantee it. There are a mountain of RPG-7 rounds, its one of the things they show you when you join this area of the Corporation. I’ll get on it.”

Jack was surprised to see the convoy come in, he hadn’t figured that Isovich would spend money on entertaining his troops that often and probably just let them go off for themselves. Perhaps he had underestimated the level of care that he held for them...or maybe it was self preservation to keep them sweet. Either way he was married with a young kid and wasn’t about to be getting some STD from a forced whore.

“Very good. I’ll retire to my room and get this sent off I think. I need a rest rather than all this rowdiness.” he turned to the other mercenary that was still standing near him “Go and tell the lads that they can do as they will for the rest of today. Normal training resumes at 1000 tomorrow for us. I’ll be on the radio net if I’m needed.”

The man nodded and quickly moved off to get the others. Jack swung his weapon around his back and picked up the laptop and satellite phone before bidding farewell to Isovich who was clearly focussing on the celebrations to come.

As he walked towards his private room he met the group of men coming the other way. They were all dressed in fresh clothes and had evidently showered quickly. Several still carried their sidearms whilst some of the others seemed to be trusting enough not to carry them. Jack gave them a nod as they hurried by, catching a glimpse of some of the technical staff mixed in with them as well.

It took a few minutes to get to his room. It wasn’t much, not too big or too small but it was in a relatively quiet area of the castle that was nice and warm. He dumped the laptop on the rickety wooden table and unslung his weapon to lay it on the bed. The body armour came off next and was put over the back of the surprisingly comfortable wooden chair onto which he now sat and turned the laptop towards it. He had been typing away for a couple of minutes when a burst of gunfire made him rush to the badly glazed arrow slit; only to be confronted by a couple of already drunk locals in the courtyard showing off to a couple of whores by blasting rounds into the air.
I’m getting too old and boring for this shit was his only thought as he returned to the table.


The Port of Gillen, the next night

The freighter Galavant sat at anchor taking on the last of her humanitarian cargo. She had been chartered for the voyage a few days before and had only arrived at one of the J Corp piers three hours ago. The crew had never experienced such a quick turnaround time, nor were they used to the six men that came onboard to supervise the transit of the equipment. Two strange looking trailers had been loaded aboard in the dead of night along with quite a few crates that the men had taken interest in. They had been winched down to the forward hold on pallets and gently slotted into place where they were still, just, accessible. One of the crewmen thought they saw the word “Igla” on the side of one before he was pushed out of the compartment by one of the security team.

The loading had been quick because it had been well prepared. The six J Corp employees had the assistance of an experienced crane crew and a pair of big lorries that had brought the equipment from the J Corp stockpile outside of the city limits. The rest of the aid was real and would be distributed in the country as a front for the illegal operations. The only link to J Corp was the chartering of the vessel and that had gone through half a dozen dummy companies that the Corporation owned.

As the freighter made its way from the pier and into the channel out to sea the security team took up its bunks. The leader carried a manifesto of the real contents of the special crates and trucks. He wondered what sort of war was being fought in Triari, but thought it was for the best that they only had to spend six hours alongside there.

Isovich’s order had now been checked and shipped. The weapons went down in the log as being taken for decommissioning due to faults in the batch, it kept the paper work clean. Crates of ammunition had been dealt with similarly, the radar system had been turned over to contractors and the other equipment was declared lost.

OOC: Sorry for the delay on such a small post, work has been rather demanding on my time for the past two weeks as I continue to cover other’s shifts.

All three representatives nodded their heads slightly in their own time as Victor spoke of the next shipment, each one thinking in turn about how this would only help elevate their positions; though the Chuckhrai was more concerned with merely maintaining his position given the situation his own ‘employer’ was in. The news he received of the battles in Inara and the raids outside Destina bode poorly for him, should Chuckhrai fall he would rather quickly find his life forfeit in Neutralnaya, thus acquiring more powerful weapons was extremely important for his own survival, let alone progression in power.

At length Denim spoke once more, and feeling that they had accomplished all there was for this day, he chose to wrap up their private meeting for the moment, “Well then, this day has been a most interesting one indeed,” assuming he actually lives up to his bargain, “We shall await word from you once more upon the arrival of your vessel,” he then took a moment to address the others, “I do believe we can let the masses back in,” he looked back at Victor, “Though next time I would suggest a less public venue for such discussions. By the time you return to your lodging, we should have been able to decide upon a more effective means of arranging a more private meeting, no?” his last words were aimed more towards his ‘colleagues’ then Victor.

No immediate reply came from the other two, but Denim was quite familiar with the workings of their little council and knew there would be some arguments later in regards to who would take lead on this matter, mostly for posturing he knew. As it was, with his words several of the soldiers on guard moved towards the room’s doors to reopen them and allow the more routine proceedings on the council to proceed and to permit Victor the ability to leave for the time being.

-----

Isovich nodded his head in approval as Jack spoke but chose to clarify on a few things first, “Excellent, though it’s not the guns themselves we need so badly in regards to the Zu-23s as it’s the ammunition that is harder for us to acquire. The twenty-three millimeter is difficult and costly to make ourselves; proper rounds that don’t misfire half the time, or simply explode in the barrel are what we need.”

With no more to say beyond that for the time being, Isovich merely nodded his head at Jack’s apparent lack of interest in the ‘festivities’ he had arranged for the men in the fortress. He didn’t particularly care about any of them, not on an individual level at least, as such he wouldn’t have cared if any one of them lost their lives. What did matter to him though was their loyalty and the force of arms they could bring to bear upon his opponents, keeping them happy with the occasional bribe; for in truth that’s what it was, was not a significant problem for him.

The festivities went on through the night, the men drinking what they could and rousing a great noise all through the night as they celebrated their ‘glories victory’ over the Kilrany, for even though they had not been able to secure the wreckage, a Kilrany aircraft had been shot down by the Triari, and that was something that had not happened for many years.

-----

As the sun rose the next morning and the men were nursing hangovers from the night’s festivities, Isovich was sat comfortably enjoying a simple breakfast on a terrace attached to his private room. Next to him a small radio set to a station broadcasting from an extremely high-powered transmission originating in Russkya, the station was preferred by Isovich as the Kilrany never tried to jam it.

"Gentle listeners," the pleasant baritone announced, "that was the Tempo Ordina from Bach's Concerto in A Minor for Violin and Orchestra, BWV 1041. Performed by Polina Nikiforova and the superlative Budapest Symphony Orchestra. Today we have some news regarding regional events, as you have no doubt heard from other sources well prior to this broadcast. Quite some time ago now, the Delesian fleet, cooperating with the Kilrany Imperial Navy and other international forces, launched ballistic weapons in the Zuiderzee Strait.

"This launch sparked much activity and has become the focus of regionally oecumenical tensions. Currently the Delesians withdraw northwards into the Tsyentralnoye Morye while our brave sailors and airmen of the RVMF contain the Me'ei fleet deployed to the Strait. As of now the Me'ei claim a peaceful interest in closing the Strait to prevent the increase of further tensions, pretending benevolence. Fleet Commander Rabchenko, the Admiral of the Green, informs us that the RVMF's intent is to open a lane in accepted international waters through which all traffic may pass. The Me'ei delegation to Russkya has been uncharacteristically silent.

"We return now to our afternoon programming, featuring the singer Maria Callas performing Mozart's 'The Marriage of Figaro'."

Isovich grunted in amusement at the thought of the trouble this would cause for the Kilrany as he lifted up a mug to take a drink of hot coffee. His mind shifting to other matters he called out to someone within his room, “Petrov, find Jack for me, I would like to speak with him.”

From within, one of his armed guards responded with a simple acknowledgement and went off to carry out his orders.

OOC: Sorry for the delay on such a small post, work has been rather demanding on my time for the past two weeks as I continue to cover other’s shifts.

All three representatives nodded their heads slightly in their own time as Victor spoke of the next shipment, each one thinking in turn about how this would only help elevate their positions; though the Chuckhrai was more concerned with merely maintaining his position given the situation his own ‘employer’ was in. The news he received of the battles in Inara and the raids outside Destina bode poorly for him, should Chuckhrai fall he would rather quickly find his life forfeit in Neutralnaya, thus acquiring more powerful weapons was extremely important for his own survival, let alone progression in power.

At length Denim spoke once more, and feeling that they had accomplished all there was for this day, he chose to wrap up their private meeting for the moment, “Well then, this day has been a most interesting one indeed,” assuming he actually lives up to his bargain, “We shall await word from you once more upon the arrival of your vessel,” he then took a moment to address the others, “I do believe we can let the masses back in,” he looked back at Victor, “Though next time I would suggest a less public venue for such discussions. By the time you return to your lodging, we should have been able to decide upon a more effective means of arranging a more private meeting, no?” his last words were aimed more towards his ‘colleagues’ then Victor.

No immediate reply came from the other two, but Denim was quite familiar with the workings of their little council and knew there would be some arguments later in regards to who would take lead on this matter, mostly for posturing he knew. As it was, with his words several of the soldiers on guard moved towards the room’s doors to reopen them and allow the more routine proceedings on the council to proceed and to permit Victor the ability to leave for the time being.

-----



Victor nodded and before the masses rushed in, he said, “I thank you for this opportunity. If the Kilrany jamming aircraft are not in the area, I will make the call to my superiors as soon as it’s convenient.” With that he turned around and headed on out of the council chambers. He knew that he had compromised his security somewhat with his public announcement, however, it was apparent that his new clients were more than happy with the supplies. Triari was a bizarre place – he could certainly make quite a profit for himself and the cartel back at home. It certainly seemed to be worth the dangers of the operation.

Although the council meeting didn’t seem to take that long, it was noticeably getting darker. He picked up the pace to get to the hotel sooner, despite it not being a long walk. After only a few more minutes of walking, Victor got back to the hotel and noticed Ghermon at the desk and asked, “How’s the radio today?”

Denim quietly continued to watch Victor as he departed from the ‘council’ room, his mind carefully going over the entire conversation that they all had just moments previously while the somewhat annoyed public began to trickle back in, grumbling to themselves at being ousted from this day’s council and some for missing their chance to speak, figuring they wouldn’t have time now. He’s going to be useful, but a more private meeting needs to be arranged, as Denim continued to muse, he didn’t notice Isovich’s knowing look aimed towards him.

-----

Ghermon smiled broadly in his usual manner when he spotted Victor come back in; though it didn’t hurt that Victor was an excellent tipper, being as he was though, one had to truly wound him in order to make him hate you, “Ah my friend, you are back, your meeting went well yes?” after his initial excitement at Victor’s return he quickly turned slightly and rotated the volume dial on his radio in order to answer the question.

Slowly the volume came up and a piece of soft jazz playing out of a station in Valnari came in with very little static. Unlike some he preferred this particular Valnari station, as he understood the language the best, unlike stations from Germania, or even Radio Russkya, which was comparable in signal strength to BBC World Service, though occasionally he did listen to it as well.

Upstairs, both Valters and Morris were on guard once again, having had a shift break in the afternoon while Victor was in the council meeting. Outside a decently dressed man around his mid twenties came walking up the street towards the inn, though he was still a distance off, following him were two soldiers wearing light body armour and carrying only sidearms, they both wore a green armband. Overlooked by these three men however were two more following farther behind, feigning a patrol, these two soldiers were fully equipped with heavy body armour AKMs, and wore red armbands.

Freighter Galavant

Crewmen were bustling around on deck lashing down the hold doors and checking the variety of instruments that told them everything from weather conditions to the time of day around the world. They had sailed through strong winds the night before and it was prudent to double check everything was still ship shape.

An IHN Missile Cruiser had come close in to identify the vessel, even though it had been over flown by a pair of F-30 Shinden II’s only two hours before. The Navy was increasingly active on the approaches to the homeland due to the increased tensions with the Macabees and other seemingly hostile powers in the region.

Deep in the hold the small team of J Corp Security contractors were checking their charges. Two of the crates had somehow fallen over and needed to be re stacked, one of them had a small crack in it that had allowed some salt water to seep into the crate and slosh around over the 23mm rounds that it contained. The security team emptied the crate, sealed the hole, then refilled it before moving off to check the other, bigger, pieces of hardware.


The Fortress

Jack was out taking a morning run when the man came looking for him. Most of his men had skipped the morning routine due to excessive hangovers and he had allowed them a few extra hours of rest. The lack of company allowed him to increase the pace even further and also to stop and do strength exercises whenever he felt the need to.

The fortress wasn’t that busy this morning, the few guards being the only men moving around as the others still nursed their hangovers. The convoy of vehicles still sat hidden beneath the high walls as he completed his fifteenth circuit of the grounds and decided to head in for a shower. His only stop on the way to his room was by the door where he unloaded the forty kilo’s of rocks from his rucksack and left them to one side.

Springing up the stairs he saw the man waiting outside his door and took the message from him, telling him that he would shower and then report to Isovich.

Ten minutes later he was strolling up to Isovich’s door. He was wearing a white t-shirt and woodland camouflage BD trousers complete with thigh pistol holster and USP .45 pistol. It was a casual dress for meeting his employer, but he didn’t seem to stick to strict military dress like the regular military might.

One of the guards knocked on the door and then opened it to allow Jack to enter, his boots thumping on the stone floor of the corridor and then the small entrance way to Isovich’s office.

“I apologise for my lateness, I was out running when I received your message and felt it wise to shower before presenting myself. How can I help?”

The crew of the Galavant would find themselves in for a fair bit of luck this day, and for the next several as a direct result of current hostilities erupting on the other side of Triari, within the Tsyentralnoye Morye and the Zuiderzee Strait. The two Kilrany Destroyers making there way North outside Valnari national waters to take up patrol outside Neutralnaya had been called back to re-enforce Kilrany naval assets around Khurzav while the bulk of the Kilrany Imperial Navy was mobilized to deal with the threat posed by the Me’ei attempting to close down the Strait.

This currently left the ocean to the West of Neutralnaya completely devoid of Kilrany surface warships with which to harass merchant vessels bound for the Triari port. There were however two Kilrany nuclear attack submarines still on patrol in the sea, but without the ability to board an unknown ship, they could do no more then attempt to identify it, note its passage and continue to search for known Triari smuggling vessels they were cleared to sink.

Though a look upon the Galavant through the periscope and the thrill of even an imagined hunt would be a welcome change to the Kilrany submariners from the generally uneventful routine of their patrols.

-----

As it had been some time since he had sent one of his men to bring Jack and morning was wearing on, he was long finished of his breakfast and comfortably sat within one of the smaller spaces in the room he had in the fortress, using it as a make shift office. The Fortress was not his home and he rarely came here, it was only because of the team of mercenaries and suspicion of the base commander that he come to stay so long, unwilling to allow his new recourses to be won over by a potential rival.

Not one to be terribly uptight about one’s wardrobe, especially so early in the morning, he himself wore a simple pair of pants and a shirt as he sat doing some of the boring work of being a man in power, reading reports. In another room his entertainment through the night slept soundly under the covers, a favourite of Isovich, she knew she needed to fear no harm here.

Isovich was happy for the interruption when Jack finally was let in to his quarters in the large stone works of the fortress and smiled in greeting to the man, shaking his head slightly though at the mercenary’s words, “Greetings my friend, think nothing of it, I would have done the same.”

He paused for a moment before he continued, taking a sip of vodka out of a small glass, he gestured with it to Jack, if he accepted one of Isovich’s men would bring him one, “Well then, I suppose I’ll get right down to it. Genrich is intrigued by the training you are giving these men of his and he’s a little impatient to see some results. Now I know the action involving the Kilrany was not a good indicator of the worth of this venture, as its hard to get them to stand and fight when they know the Kilrany are present and Genrich seems to know this as well, as he wants to use them in a raid against a Council arms factory to the West of Vernisk.”

“I was hoping you might go along with them to both assist them and ensure they don’t fall back on any bad habits, you will be paid extra for it of course. They wont be the only ones to go however, a company from the fortress here will be going along as well to provide fire support, with them will be some eighty-two millimeter mortars and heavy machine guns. I’m to order them out in six days, enough time to let everyone have a brief rest from the previous action and for you to think it over if you’d like, either way I have to order them out.”

He paused again for a moment before he finished to let Jack respond, “If you will do this then I’ll tell you a bit more about what’s to be expected along the way and at the factory.”

-----

Outside the Fair Game Inn, the well-dressed man and his escorts came walking up towards the front entrance … and then continued on past it, much to the confusing and irritation of the two Genrich men following at a distance.

“What the hell? Was Isovich wrong?”

“It may be a trick, maybe they realized we’re following them and intend to double back later.”

“I don’t see how, they haven’t even looked back at use since they left Council territory … bastards … I don’t intend to fuck this up so lets keep with them.”

“Fine … I don’t look forward to telling Isovich he was wrong about Denim though, better hope that ass up there comes back so we can report it.”

“I hear that.”

They had to pick up their pace a moment later when the three they were following turned down another street a quarter of a kilometer farther down from the Inn so as not to lose them. In there haste they didn’t notice an attractive looking and well kept woman watching them go from an alley only a fifty meters from the Inn.

Like most Triari she was of Slavic decent, her strait black hair ran down just past her shoulders and she wore a long navy blue sequined skirt and blouse that accentuated her features, but she was no whore, the two Council soldiers hidden deeper in the alley stressed she was off limits. Strapped to her right thigh underneath the skirt was a Makarov PMM, which she knew how to use with lethal effectiveness.

A smug smile came across her face for a moment as she watched them disappear around the corner of the street, “Fools.”

She waited for another minute before half turning to her escorts, “Wait here and stay the fuck out of sight.”

Normally they wouldn’t take orders from a woman, but she was a special case and in the employ of Denim, they had no intention of crossing him, thus they simply nodded their heads and stuck to the shadows, though one crept forward slightly to keep the Inn within his sight.

With that she began to casually stroll up the street towards the Fair Game Inn, her heels clicking ever so slightly on the pavement of the sidewalk.

Victor nodded at Ghermon and said, “I see you have your music today. At least those Kilrany bastards aren’t around right now. The meeting, oh it went well. It was interesting getting to meet the council, though I’m surprised to see people actually go to the meeting. In any case, I have a small favor to ask. If anyone comes for me, please have them escorted up by the two guards, it couldn’t hurt any. Well, I gotta get back to my room.”

He quickly made his way up the stairs and passed by Valters and Morris, nodding to them politely. He knew that the best protection was one that was well paid, though he didn’t have the money on him at the moment – it was in his room. He quickly made it into his room, put down his brief case and then pulled a wad of cash out of the suitcase he had hidden in the closet. He then walked outside and handed for Valters and Morris $250 each – “Thanks for the protection.” After giving them the money and exchanging any pleasantries, he then walked back into his room, closed and locked the door behind him. He then found his gun put it in it’s holster and strapped it on. He then turned on the radio, putting it low so he can tell if the Kilrany planes start coming back into range. After dialing his mission boss’s phone number, he peered through the curtains, though remaining discrete so that no one may possibly catch him looking outside.

A higher pitched, Anglo voice came over the line – “12 here, what do you need 42?”

Victor quickly said, “I need a several more ships to be deployed to meet up with our current assets in Project: Northrop…Something on the order of a humanitarian operation, the guards will look the other way. Bring plenty of liquid assets.”

The Anglo voice came over the line – “Acknowledged.” He then hung up…It may be in good timing too, for a second, it seemed that the radio began getting some sort of interference…then again, it may just be interference.

OOC: Sorry its a little rubbish, tried to think of a way to character build/pad the post but it didn't end too well.

The Fortress in the Forest, Isovich's Office

Jack considered it a bit too early for drinking and politely declined the offer with a wave of his hand before taking a seat as Isovich offered it to him. He didn't hestiate before accepting the local mans offer.

"Of course I'd like to take my men along. Give me the co-ordinates and I can bring up a satellite map to give us an idea of what we are talking about...the IH military has one pass over this region every day or so, its quite easy to borrow some of the footage as my company built them. If we can get some sort of plan ingrained in your men perhaps it will work out better for all of us. Do you intend to hold the factory, or simply take the produce that they already have stored there?"


In the Fortress grounds

Gene stood some distance from Dr Hopkins. The good doctor had been bending over a tree stump for quite sometime and Gene's curiosity finally got the better of him and so he wandered over.

As he got closer he could hear the sound of Dr Hopkins voice speaking quite quickly and then pausing before resuming. Enthralled, Gene let his weapon rest on the sling and approached the scientist from the side, peering over the tree. All he could see was a small frog that sat, quite patiently, near the stump that Hopkins was standing rather strangely over. Gene looked between the two briefly before he spoke.

"Dr are you Ok?"

He had to repeat himself twice before he got an answer.

"Can't you see I'm involved in a conversation here. This person is telling me some highly vital information."

"Dr, its a frog."

All Gene got in return was silence. It took a minute before Hopkins stood up and walked straight past Gene back towards the fortress. As he did so he finally spoke.

"That creature was a damn sight more intelligent than you. It informed me of the algorythum needed to crack codes don't you know!"

"Of course it did Dr. Jack wants to see you, he needs to borrow some satellite imagery."

"Well, if our leader needs it to arms!"

Gene didn't say anything else, his thoughts were taken up wondering how on earth this man wasn't consigned to a mental ward.

OOC: That was hilarious, talking to the frog ... big grin here. Heh, also glad I found the time to get this written despite the extra several hours a day in my shifts.

Isovich smiled as he leaned back in his chair, while he had hoped Jack would take a small unit of his mercenaries along; he hadn’t quite expected him to jump at the chance so readily, which made for a rather pleasant surprise. He didn’t intend to let it on, but he was under quite a bit of pressure from Genrich Kvasha; while the SAM had proven to be a resounding success and Jack and his men were most welcome as suppliers, the merit in training any of his men had yet to be proven to Genrich.

While Isovich himself had few doubts as to just how effective these men could become, he saw the mercenaries as a far more valuable resource then any unit they had. If they could make Triari soldiers even half as good as they proved themselves to be so far however, it was more then worth it to him; Jack and his team going along merely assured the success of the mission in Isovich’s eyes, and would no doubt continue to help his standing with Genrich.

“Well, the informer who brought this to our attention – sadly not one of my men, wasn’t entirely sure what was being built inside, though he believed it likely to be ammunition. It’s location makes it impossible for us to actually hold it right now, so this is to be a quick raid; get in, kill the garrison who get in the way, place explosives on the factory’s structural supports and blow them, then get the hell out of dodge.”

He paused a moment as he rifled through some papers next to him before he pulled free one in particular and handed it over to Jack. It was admittedly a crude sketch, but it was quite detailed despite the lack of artistic skill in the one who made it, with streets playing the most critical role with distance in meters marked on them.

The sketch gave the layout of a small town, capable of supporting between eight hundred and one thousand people, but it was on the West side where the true detail would be found; marked as an industrial compound it showed numerous large structures in crude squares and rectangles, each with rough estimates in length in meters, one in particular near the center was marked with a arrow which led to the words, ‘weapons factory’. Not to far off, in a smaller rectangle near the West of the industrial compound was another building marked with an arrow which read ‘barracks’, while on the East side of the town an area with numerous structures was circled and marked with another ‘barracks’ note.

“I’m sure its not quite what you’re used to, but if you can get a satellite image of this little hole of a town, our informer’s little picture there ought to be rather useful, though as for coordinates,” Isovich played the word out a couple times before he was pleased with his pronunciation, “I don’t really have those, but the town there is pretty much one hundred kilometers due West of Vernisk, give or take a couple kilometers, and the nearest town or village a good twenty in any direction … shouldn’t be too hard to spot I should think.”

If you guys have satellite capability … fuck … I could be putting you all to so much better use … have to remember that when this is all done, Isovich’s thoughts ran freely through his mind as he allowed for a slight pause before snapping back on track and continuing, “The bad news now I suppose, first off is it will take nearly four days travel by our roads to get there in a safe enough manner as to actually carry out the raid, arrangements for that are being made right now, including re-supply stops and the right fingers being greased to look the other way.”

There was another pause before he went on once more, “And then there’s the defenders. I’ve been told the informer is reliable, so we’ll have to assume he’s telling the truth for the moment. According to him, there’s a platoon of Council regulars under the control of the Denim family garrisoned in the barracks near the factory with four armoured vehicles of the BTR variety, what kind specifically the informer could not tell, as well as a full company of militia supposedly present at the Eastern barracks. But back to good news, this is why the company from the fortress here will be going along, Kharms – the garrison commander here, has already been informed of the plan and is putting together the force. I suggested to him you might go along to keep and eye on our boys, he’ll be thrilled. We’ve plenty of NSVs, eighty-two millimeter mortars and PKMs for them, so you’ll not be lacking in heavy fire support, and he’ll make sure they know what they’re experienced fighters. Our boys,” here he referenced the men Jack had been training, “will need to make room for some high explosives, we have some of that in stock here too, hopefully someone in your unit is a demolitions expert and will be able to help them find the best places to put it all.”

-----

“That fucking bastard.”

Not terribly far away from where Jack and Isovich were having their private conversation, Maxim Kharms was having his own private conversation with a Triari soldier by the name of Melkikov, roughly equivalent to a Captain, he was to command the company from the fortress. Melnikov didn’t reply to Kharms’ quiet curse, as one of his ‘trusted’ men, he knew that the fortress commander had some lofty ambitions.

“Do you believe the mercenaries will accept and go with them?”

Kharms frowned as he looked back up towards Melnikov, “I don’t see why not … no matter, you will do no differently should they go along, if the opportunity arises, you take it. You’re certain you can get enough for a full company?”

“Perhaps not a full company’s worth, but I can get a good number of men who will do as I say no matter what, when I say to do it. Will probably have to get a few we have to let in on it all, the rest I can fill out with a few of the idiots.”

“Yes … and they can be eliminated should it be necessary to add to the truth of the story, should you be able to pull it off,” here Kharms gave the soldier a very hard look.

“That they can, assuming I can get a clean shot on them.”

“Yes … if it happens, none of them can live to tell otherwise, or you and I will live just long enough to wish for death. Now go set this up, we only have six days before you have to leave.”

Confident, Melnikov showed no reaction to the danger in their plan and merely gave a nod of his head before leaving Kharms’ office, leaving the fortress commander to dwell on their plan. If he pulls this off, Isovich losses face, and I can catch the Genrich’s attention.

Their plan was brutally simple, the company from the fortress garrison would assist the small mercenary team and trained Triari soldiers assault the factory, defend them against the garrison there and ensure they destroyed the industrial building. However as they were to withdraw, they would have to do so within the already pre-set fire arcs of the company’s heavy weapons, at which point they would decimate their fellow comrades, report back that the men failed, but that they were able to accomplish the mission themselves. Assuming of course Melnikov can get a clean line of fire on them all.

It wasn’t that Kharms had anything against Jack and his mercenaries, far from it, like Isovich he recognized the potential for using them to their own ends, but he also didn’t have a problem if a handful of them were killed to do it either. Ruin Isovich in Genrich’s eyes, and perhaps I can replace him, or weaken his position enough to take care of him directly.

-----

Upstairs in the Fair Game Inn, returned the greeting with a nod of their own heads as Victor returned from the meeting with the council, though desiring not to appear to pry, they asked him no questions. When he unexpectedly came back out rather quickly they didn’t think much of it at first, but suddenly found themselves at a loss for words when he gave them a rather large sum of money each. They were used to getting something in gratuity, but not quite that much and each mentally made note to make sure nothing happened to their new, and well paying friend.

Back downstairs, as Victor was making his phone call, Ghermon sat quietly on his stool, listening to his little radio and looking down slightly at the counter. The sound of the door opening brought his gaze back up, and as he stood up he caught sight of the new arrival, smiling sheepishly he spoke up, “Hello Svetlana … what brings you here tonight?”

Svetlana Denim had to force the smile at Ghermon’s slightly hopeful tone of voice as he asked why she was there, though the man didn’t quite notice the fact that it didn’t quite reach her eyes as he was to busy lapping it up like a parched man in the desert who had just stumbled across an oasis. As she stepped up towards the counter she swayed slightly from side to side, “Hello Ghermon, I see you’re the same as ever. Unfortunately I’ve been sent by Peter to speak with a rather interesting new foreigner he met today, is he in? … Perhaps if he and I finish talking early, you and I could have a chat.”

Ghermon’s smile widened as his face reddened and he looked down at the counter, averting the gaze of the woman across from him who knew full well he was infatuated with her. It was far from her first trip to the Fair Game Inn, as cousin to Peter Denim, he often used her as an agent to deal with new suppliers, to use her wiles to get lower prices, or more information.

As his gaze fell from hers, she took on an almost remorseful expression for just a moment before returning to her previous charade, Ghermon was the only man she ever felt guilty about toying with to get what she wanted, he was such a rare one to find, but she had no choice. Even though she was born into one of the families of The Council, they treated women with very little difference from the Triari norm, so long as she had other uses, she had some relative freedoms most didn’t. Typically the usual lot she had to speak with and lead on were smugglers and arms dealers, who always wanted more from her, but she was no whore, she only hoped that she could accumulate enough money and contacts before she lost her use to Denim, as even though he was her cousin, she knew he’d not bat an eye at giving her off to someone if it suited him.

Face still red, Ghermon looked back at Svetlana, “Yes, he’s in, I suppose he’s expecting you. He asked that if anyone came, to send them up with Morris and Valters … but you don’t need an escort, second door on the left.”

Her smile turned to a genuine one as he finished speaking, while she might feel guilty about it, she still had a task to accomplish this night, poor old Ghermon, everyone takes advantage of you, yet you’re still the same lovable oaf who doesn’t seem to hate anyone … how the hell do you manage that. She leaned in slightly towards him over the desk and placed her right hand on his cheek, “Thank you Ghermon.”

With that she withdrew and slowly walked off towards the stairs, giving a parting glance towards Ghermon as she went until she disappeared out of sight. Only after she’d left did she sit back down where upon a stupid looking grin came to his face and he stared off over the counter, with one missing eye though, it was difficult to realize he wasn’t quite fully in the room anymore.

As Svetlana came up the steps, Valters and Morris showed no immediate reaction, though they did tense up slightly, but because Germon had made no noise from below, they did not reach for their weapons. They recognized her quickly but remained silent as she walked up towards the door, each one admiring her form, but trying not to be obvious about it.

She knocked lightly on Victor’s door three times and waited for him to open it, beginning with a simple and straightforward approach, though she smiled warmly, figuring Victor was no different from the usual lot, she had no problem toying with him. If Victor was familiar enough yet with Triari accent and speech, he would likely have been able to note the difference in hers, being educated above most others, though it was a relative thing in Triari, “Good evening mister Rodriguez, I’m Svetlana Denim, Peter Denim; one of the gentlemen you spoke with this afternoon, asked me to come speak with you concerning a few things … in private. May I come in?”

The Fortress in the Forest

Jack listened intently to Isovich, making a few notes on a small pad of paper and examining the sketch closely.

“Ok. Firstly we’ll get those satellite pictures, may have to wait a few hours for the pass though. From there we can see how accurate your source is and plan accordingly. I’ll get the photo’s relayed to us every time a bird goes over so we can get an idea of the patrol routes and where they store the BTR’s. Your 7’s should be able to open up those tin cans if the crews get to them.”

“My first impression is that we go in at night, preferably around 3-4 am. Place a pair of PKM’s or the 12.7’s covering the main exit from the two barracks and hose down the garrison as they come out to play. Drop a few mortar rounds onto the barracks to encourage them out and reduce it to rubble. We can leave that duty up to your heavy guys from here, my men and I will take your guys and remove the building, one of my men has plenty of demo experience and should be able to wire something up. I’ll have a sift through it for anything of use to us first though, it’s reasonably isolated so we should have a little time to search it.”

“I want to train the guys pretty intensive for a few days. Fire and manoeuvre tactics as well as some hand signals to liaise with the heavy support. If we have spare RPG-7’s I want the designated users to get off some practice shots because success might be in their hands if the council get a pair of BTR’s on us.”

“If that’s all I’ll go brief my men and get some basic exercises set up. I’ll arrange for the security team here to go to the docks with you and ensure the next shipment is correct and paid for.”


With Isovich’s permission Jack stood and left. He hadn’t brought his radio so he had to go back to his room and get it. He collected the majority of his combat gear too – except the helmet - and dressed accordingly, even slapping a magazine into his M4. Better look the part, especially as he and his men would be demonstrating.

Jack turned left out of his room and went down the single set of stairs to where his men were quartered. They were mostly laying around or reading, Jonas had been trying to determine what a Russian porn mag was on about but had now settled to just looking at the pictures. Seeing Jack enter he gave a polite nod and set the magazine down on his bed, wondering if the Triari soldier was missing it yet.

“Morning gentlemen. I hope we all enjoyed last nights heroics.” there was a chorus of cackling from the more successful of the men “Isovich wants us to take our trainees and some heavy support on a big attack on some arms factory, our one will be the assault element with some of the garrison from here acting as fire support. Jeff I need satellite pictures of the only town 100klicks due west of Versnik, put an alert so we can see them everyday until we move. Training begins in one hour, intensive fire and manoeuvre. Jonas, pick out four of the most promising guys they have and they will come with us on the actual assault and to help you with demo charges. The rest of you assemble in the main courtyard in five, full gear, live ammo. Lets get to it gentlemen.”

Joseph Isovich nodded his head as his own reply to most of what Jack had to say in response, by now he had grown far more confident in Jack’s abilities, at least insofar as he trusted that Jack knew enough to get the job done right. He did however have a few things to say before Jack left and added them quickly before the mercenary was gone from the room, “This fortress is well stocked for ammunition, so feel free to give them some live fire exercises, especially with the RPGs, our boys don’t get much practice with those. As for your security team, that’s most welcome, I need to return to Neutralnaya as it is, I’m not able to spend too much time away from that blasted city and those damned council meetings.”

A few minutes after Jack had left and Isovich went back to the menial paperwork he had to do, he suddenly snapped his fingers and mumbled to himself, “Damn, forgot to ask him if they could supply any extra radios for this, Kharms will I’m sure then.”

-----

A full company … that’s not going to be terribly difficult, I already know the unit leaders will do as I say, that’s the easy part, Melnikov mused to himself as he walked through the large fortress towards one of the barracks rooms, I should be able to find enough of the fodder to do whatever we tell them to do, that’s not the real problem.

His primary concern was numbers, he could not recall how large the force was the mercenaries had taken for training, if its only a platoon, that’s just under fifty men, we can handle that no problem, even if the mercs send a team along. But if it’s a full company, that could be near two hundred men, how the hell would we take them all while being sure of no witnesses … damn … this will all have to depend on this bloody town, he wasn’t pleased with the thoughts that ran through his head, he was just as ambitious as Kharms was and he knew full well his status would rise with his current commander, especially if he could claim victory where the mercenaries supposedly failed.

After several more moments of mulling the numbers, his thought process shifted to the layout of his forces, Screw it, I can’t plan for that yet, but at least I’ll have the heavy weapons under my control, those could be the key to this. There was no real standard of operations for the Triari, most of the time it was dictated by what weapons were available and the desires of the commanding officer. In his case he had four platoons to work with and no restraints on his ordnance selection, Isovich may be able to pass an order through here to support his little mercenary friends, but I control my company, not them.

His basic layout would be brutally simple, six of his sections would be outfitted with a heavy machine gun in the form of the Russian NSV, three men would man it, four would carry extra ammunition for it along with an AKM, two would carry a GPMG in the form of the PKM, while two more carried extra ammunition and a AKM, leaving the twelfth man per heavy machine gun section to be the unit leader. Four sections would carry an eighty-two millimeter mortar, Likely a PODNOS, forget what we have for mortars, he thought to himself, again three men would man the weapon system itself, though in these four units the remaining personnel would all carry extra ammunition for the weapon system and an AKM as they would remain to provide local security for area they set up them up at. Additionally, he planned to have two more sections carry a recoilless rifle, I think we have a number of SPG-9s in stock, and some RPG-7s in the same fashion as the heavy machine gun sections.

He smiled as he continued along, pleased with his plans, suddenly confident that if he got his chance to act, they would succeed. An outside observer may have possibly noticed however that he had only arranged three of his four platoons, the answer to this was also simple, his fourth platoon would be a selection of his most veteran soldiers, the closest thing one could find to a ‘elite’ Triari military unit that wasn’t trained by foreigners. He knew they were reliable; as he had commanded them in combat, even against Valnari military forces some years back when they had attempted their own ‘war on drugs’, much to the amusement of the Kilrany who had done nothing to interfere.

It was only their experience under fire that made them any different then most Triari soldiers, and their equipment testified to this. Unsurprisingly their main weapon of choice was the AKM, with two, sometimes even three RPDs making up their machine gun selection, as they didn’t use a GPMG, Melnikov himself believing it superior given the nature of most combat in Triari.

He made a mental note then to ask the lead mercenary for the use of some of their radios within the day, so as to ‘better coordinate their attack on the town’; he chuckled at that thought, figuring they would have no reason not to believe him.

OOC: Glorified bump

In a small, somewhat insignificant town roughly one hundred kilometers West of Vernisk; called Ballan by its inhabitants, Vitali Izmailov walked down a street on the Eastern side carrying a sack of fresh corn over his shoulder. While there may have been a few distance errors on his drawing of the town, it remained surprisingly accurate for being hand drawn by this man, who now hefted along a bag a fresh food to bribe some of the militia. For him, the five thousand that Genrich’s men had paid him for the information he provided on the factory and garrison had merely awakened a desire for more in him; as the sum was massive by his standards, and now he was getting greedy.

If there was one thing that could be said about The Council, they kept their roads better then everyone else; at least in the towns and cities, but then they had to, they relied so heavily on consistent trade. So while the asphalt under Vitali’s feet was cracked and the potholes rather self evident, it was still a sight far better then outside Council controlled communities.

This slight ‘technological’ edge, if you could call it such, extended past simple roadwork however and into the realm of forestry as well. Of all the factions, The Council had put the most effort into pushing the forest back from their controlled communities to extend their farmland, enacting a simple but brutally effective slash and burn tactic. This wasn’t to say that elsewhere the forests weren’t slowly being cut back as well, but it was only The Council, and to a lesser extend Tsetaeva’s forces that aided locals in the task, as most simply left the farmers to their own devices, and took half their crops for themselves on the threat of force.

In that regard, when the satellite Jack had access to went over the region, it would get a clean look at the town, but also the layout of the land around it that Vitali hadn’t though to add to his diagram. Stretching around from the Northeast to the Southeast, a tremendous swath of forest had been cut down and replaced by close to twenty square kilometers of tilled farmland that now grew wheat, with a few small crops of their version of Khat interspersed for good measure. Twenty kilometers North of the town was where its real food supply came from, here a massive swath of destruction had torn through the forest and just over eighty square kilometers of land now grew various additional foodstuffs.

The Western side of the town had not yet seen as much work done to it, as it was, next to the heart of the small industrial sector of Ballan. Outside the two meter tall stone wall that ran around the outer perimeter of this industrial section of the town, wild brush and the odd tree were interspersed within a roughly three hundred meter gap from the edge of town to the edge of the dense forest stretching around from the South to the Northwest.

Only two roads led in or out of the town and were located on the North and South sides. To the North it cut fairly straight through the woods until it reached the Northern farmland, where it began to snake its way along the South edge of the fields before cutting nearly straight towards Vernisk. On the South the road went a full kilometer covered in broken asphalt and loose gravel before it became a typical Triari road and snaked its way along until it met a crossroads twenty kilometers South of the town and split East and West under the dense canopy of trees.

It was not unusual for the residents of any town to bribe the local militias with food, drugs, or directly with currency in order to get on their good side and save themselves any hassle. It was this normal activity that Vitali believed would hide his true intentions; he had only guess at the number of militia forces on the East side of town, and hoping that Genrich would pay him more money for more specific information, he intended to get it.

Approaching one of the entrances to the barracks compound on the Northeast side, one that was guarded by a few men he knew and had already managed to become friendly with, he saw one of the wheeled armoured vehicles of that belonged to the militia forces, though he still didn’t know that it was called a BTR-60, he figured that wouldn’t make much difference. Even though he couldn’t see the other three anywhere, he knew they were in the town; it was after all the place of his birth and he had never left it, as such he had seen the four vehicles when the militia initially brought them in.

Recognizing one of the militiamen at the gate, he extended his left arm out as if he was about to hug the man while continuing to hold the sack over his shoulder with his right, “Semyon, how are you my friend,” a grim look upon the face of the militiaman in question stopped Vitali in his tracks and he slowly lowered his left arm to his side, “What’s wrong Semyon.”

Semyon responded rather quietly at first, “I can’t take anything from you today Vitali,” then quickly added in a much louder voice, “You’re going to have to move along.”

The dumbfounded look on Vitali’s face was clearly enough for Semyon to realize that the man didn’t understand and he added quietly once more, “I’ve got regulars breathing down my neck, they’ll shoot me if they see me accept something from you,” then once more he spoke in a loud voice, “I said move your ass along, now!”

It was only then did Vitali notice some other men farther inside the compound wearing proper Council colours and uniforms, soldiers who were quite obviously watching them. Without another word Vitali half turned and walked on past the gate along the side of the street, carefully watching the small group of regulars out of the corner of his eye as he as he did until they stopped looking at him.

He breathed a sigh of relief for a moment then and continued on at a casual pace, trying not to draw attention to himself as he walked along the low stone wall of the barracks compound that had once been the wall to a rich man’s garden; both now long dead. A Moment later he chanced a glance to his right into the compound where he happened to get a clear line of sight inside a sizeable vehicle shed through a large open door.

He stopped dead in his tracks a second later as he saw more then just the handful of Council regulars currently inside and his eyes widened in surprise and fear. Where the hell did that come from? He nearly screamed the thought in his mind before he quickly started walking again at a faster pace while looking down at the ground.

While they were rare outside chief Triari cities, and he had never personally seen one before, he had heard enough stories about them to recognize a main battle tank when he saw one. How the hell do I get this out? I don’t get to meet with anyone for over a week … they’re going to fucking kill me when they find out this is here and I didn’t tell them before.

Fear for his own life took over his mind as he debated with himself over what he should do now, while he didn’t know what kind of tank it was, it would have hardly mattered if he knew that it was a cheap export version of the Russian T-62. He was just a simple farmer, he knew nothing about armour schemes and how a HEAT warhead worked, all he saw was a metal monster sitting in that vehicle shed. It didn’t help matters that the Council soldiers had uparmoured the vehicle; though cheap and simple in method, it was effective and gave the Russian built tank a more sinister look.

Welded on to the front of the turret and glacis plate of the tank were large, thick sections of steel plate, spaced apart from each other by steel support rods. Along the flanks of the T-62, several more plates of steel, though much less thick, where held in place by their own welded steel rods to kept them a few centimeters from the hull. On the roof, a pintle mounted PKM was also modified with several steel plates in the form of a shield to provide protection for the vehicle’s commander if he turned out to use the GPMG. While this all heavily weighed down this main battle tank, drastically reducing its power to weight ratio and dropping its speed, it wasn’t intended to go beyond Ballan anyway, as such, this was not deemed as a problem.

Even if Vitali had been able to gather all this information from his quick glance, it would have made little difference to him, If I show up at the meeting site and tell them about the new threats, they might kill me for not telling them sooner, and if I don’t show up and they attack the place, they’ll think I double crossed them and they’ll put a bounty on my head. But I can’t go to Semyon or the regulars, they’ll kill me outright for helping Genrich in the first place … God damnit why did I have to accept that man’s offer?

OOC: I'ts a bit of a filler post really, don't know if you want to skip forward to the attack or similar?


Jack hadn’t been able to find a printer in the two days since Isovich had given him the mission and so he was still referencing pictures from the laptops hard drive. One of his men had been building up a model to show the troopers, time was of the essence so it wasn’t particularly good but the ratio of dimensions was right and that was the main thing.

The pre-determined kill zones that the garrison troops would fire down were still being sorted out, Jack was trying to get permission to have all of the men aside from the mortar teams, reasonably close in. The fortress commander seemed unwilling to allow his heavy support machine guns to infiltrate with the assault troops and then provide fire support in close. Jack’s men were still instructing ‘their men’ on tactics and the rattle of gunfire illustrated that the G36’s were being used to good quantitative effect. Every so often the whoosh of an RPG and the dull boom of its warhead could be heard, the men weren’t crack shots but they were good and getting better.

Isovich’s spies had been trying to find out the likely patrols along the roads so that Jack could form his plan. With the heavy weapons that the troops were carrying Jack wanted the trucks to be reasonably close, the jumping off point for the attack and also the fall pack point if everything went pear shaped.

Ideally Jack wanted to attack from the West with the cover of the trees and so he could get as close to the target as possible. That meant the trucks dropping the men off to the south and them having a march through the forest to their attack positions. Radio comms would then be used to summon the trucks when all was done or inform them of a change of plan.

A louder boom broke the relative calm of gunfire. Jonas had probably just detonated a test pack of explosives; just to see if he still had the talent with them.

OOC: Mine was something of the same, I wasn’t sure if you wanted to say anything before I skipped ahead and I didn’t want to arbitrarily do so, I should have just asked in the OOC thread, heh, that’s what it’s there for. I’ll just move us ahead seeing as how I had nothing special planned for the trip.

Two days prior to leaving the fortress, Melnikov sent one of his soldiers to make a request to Jack for some of the mercenary’s radios under the mask of coordinating the attack. Regardless of Jack’s response to the request, the plan he was to carry out by order of Kharms would go ahead if he felt he could pull it off.

On the seventh day after Isovich had brought Jack in on the planned attack on the munitions factory, the convoy set out from the fortress. To transport Jack’s team, the two platoons of the specially trained Triari regulars, and the full heavy weapons company, a jumble of fourteen medium class covered transport trucks, most being the Ural-4320, were provided.

An equally eclectic array of vehicles escorted the transport column; leading off was a UAZ with a mounted PKM followed by a BTR-40A; the twin fourteen point five millimeter heavy machine guns mostly used against ground targets rather then aircraft. Two additional trucks carried further soldiers from the fortress to guard the column during the attack while at the rear of the column there was a BRDM-2, a BTR-152 and a variant of the Land Rover armed with at AGS-17.

Making good time, and fortunate not to have a breakdown, it took just over a day and a half for the column to snake its way South over the rough and basic Triari road networks and proved ultimately to be an uneventful trip. Militias loyal to Genrich let them pass unopposed while the handful of Council militias on the route they chose were more then willing to accept the sums offered them beforehand. So far from the various seats of power and the watchful eyes of regular units, the militias were notoriously unreliable, but lacking manpower otherwise, they were put up with.

It was around mid afternoon when the convoy came to a stop roughly twenty-five kilometers Northwest of the small town of Ballan; the vehicles simply halted slightly off to the side of the passage through the trees as no clearing made itself available. Like a swarm of locusts the Genrich regulars exited their respective transports and begin to group together into their respective platoons.

Before moving out, Melnikov came walking over towards Jack, a crude map of the area in his hands as his late model Russian AKM hung on a sling. Angling the map so the mercenary could see it clearly, he pointed to a location three kilometers West-North-West of Ballan and addressed Jack in Russian, “We’re supposed to meet with the informer here shortly after midnight. We should move the entire formation up nearby and go to the point with only some of main fighters in case it’s a double cross. I’m only here as support though, so whatever decision you make lets get on with it, I’d rather not be trying to move this large a force through the woods during the dead of night.”

With that said he waited for Jack’s decision to move his company out through the woods towards Ballan and make for the meeting point.

Jack and his team had endured the bumpy ride in almost total silence. Some of the mercenaries took the time to sort through some gear in the backpacks that they all now carried with them. Some had dozed off despite the exceptionally bumpy ride but Jack had woken them all up before they got to the end point.

Jumping down from the rear of the truck they had travelled in Jack was pleased to see the locals getting themselves organised and gathering their equipment. Melnikov approached him as expected and Jack waited a moment before answering him and tracing several points on the map.

"Mmm. Take a couple of men and form an advanced guard. Stay around two hundred yards infront of the main group and give me a headsup when you meet the contact. We'll loop around slightly as planned and meet the contact. From there he will be able to guide us in for a reccee before we commence the attack. Form these guys up into a tactical column and lets get moving."

Jack's last words were directed to the two other local commanders who were standing close by. Together the three locals moved off and began barking orders and forming their men up at the side of the road. The convoy of vehicles had their own guards who were even now preparing for the wait. They had two radio's with them and Jack had given the further four spares to the heavy weapons teams to facilitate good fire support and minimise friendly fire. One of those radios was taken by Melnikov as he went to the front of the column with two of his men and lead them out. Jack and the mercs slipped in with the column just before the men carrying the mortars and together they set out.

A few hours later, just before midnight, Jack looked at his watch through his right eye that wasnt covered by his Nightvision goggles. He had moved away from the column with Jonas Melnikov and another merc to investigate the ground infront and try and locate their contact. Infront he saw the disinctive flare as somebody lit a cigarette. Two hand signals sent Jonas and the other merc off to the left to circle around and check for anybody else whilst Jack and Melkinov waited for the burst of static to confirm that their contact was alone and not a trap.

Much like his superior, Melnikov didn’t hate Jack and his mercenaries, thus he didn’t feel the need to put on any front that he liked them to hide his ultimate purpose; though he would have admitted a slight jealously at their equipment, namely their night vision monocles. While it was the case that he acted as he normally would, taking their orders and suggesting his own ideas, he kept in mind that should the opportunity present itself, he would have to kill every last mercenary and their trainees, and should it be known, he would do so without hesitation, for he had done such before, and would do it again readily if it served his purposes.

With little more then an acknowledgement of, “You got it,” Malnikov rallied with the platoon commanders from his company before taking a lead element to the front. Here he quietly conferred with them in their native Russian, ensuring they understood the plan of approach to the meeting point and how the march would proceed.

He also took this moment to double-check that each of his platoon commanders understood that if he spoke the words, ‘Yarkii Dushi;’ something he’d never say in a combat situation, they would know to switch the frequency on the radios they were given to a preset he had chosen. While he knew this would not stop anyone from listening in on it, he figured it would cause enough confusion among the mercenaries and the trained soldiers in the first crucial minute of their ambush that it could ensure that it was a one sided fight; for Melnikov never fought fairly if he could manage it.

With that done, his company formed up; the three heavy weapons platoons took up a rough column formation side by side while thee of the sections from his combat platoon took up on the sides and rear of the heavy weapons specialists. He took point as Jack request, but brought the fourth combat section with him. While it all had the appearance of a gaggle of disarray as these were far from professional soldiers, they moved with a reasonable degree of silence through the woods, for the Triari could come dangerously close; some even surpass, the level of fieldcraft that Russkyan soldiers were trained with, this was most noticeable with Melnikov’s combat sections. Though unfortunately for the Triari, this was not something trained into them, but something gained from experience moving in their primeval forests, with some learning its importance far to late.

-----

A few hours later, Vitali Izmailov, the farmer turned informer nervously lit a cigarette and took a long drag on it as he still debated the wisdom in his actions. He almost dropped the cigarette when he snapped his head over to his left thinking he heard a noise, but seeing nothing in the darkness he discounted it and continued to wait. The added fact that he had already been there for a half an hour waiting for his Genrich contact, in which time he had already heard enough noises to nearly drive him crazy.

Sat on the ground next to him was an unlit oil lantern; while he was accustomed to walking around in the dark, he had brought along the small lantern to help him find a path through the forest, which he had only lit after losing sight of Ballan and had promptly blown out upon arriving at this meeting point alone. Clearly visible tucked into his belt however was a single, old looking Tokarev, which he had brought along to protect himself from any predatory animals that may have stumbled across him in the dark.

-----

Jack and Melnikov didn’t have to wait long for burst of static to come through their radios, as it was readily apparent that their contact was alone. Melnikov; who out in the field looked as much a professional soldier as one could in the mish-mash of equipment the Triari had available, didn’t hesitate to move forward towards the simply looking farmer, and while his weapon rested in front of him, he was still tense in his grip of it, ready to snap it up should it indeed be a trap. Farther behind them, his section of infantry kept a respectable distance so not to frighten their man.

Before he got within sight of the man with the cigarette however, he quietly called out a simply rhyme in Russian, the contact signal that had been pre-arranged. The farmer appeared to almost jump in place before he replied quickly with the counter-phrase with a voice a little louder then Melnikov would have liked.

Approaching the farmer so that he could easily see the man’s face in the dim light of the night’s moon, Melnikov could easily see that the contact was visible nervous, which immediately set him on edge. Figuring Jack would have moved up with him, Melnikov couldn’t remember if the mercenary understood Russian or not and decided to translate as best he could in broken English what their contact told them unless Jack signaled to him that he didn’t need to.

Choosing to get right to the point, Melnikov addressed the farmer with what he felt was the most pressing concern, “Why the hell are you so damned nervous? Genrich is paying you enough to make this worth your while and no one will know about it.”

The farmer glanced between Melnikov and Jack before he responded, deciding to be rather direct himself rather then beat around the bush in hopes that a little bit of honesty would prevent him from getting killed, “I … they moved in some more regulars to the Eastern barracks, along with what looked like a tank-”

Melnikov snarled before Vitali could finish, and taking his left hand off his AKM, reached forward and grabbed him by his collar; while the farmer was fit from working the fields, he was to frightened of the soldier to more then hold up his hands in fear, “What the fuck do you mean there are more of them now, how many more? And why the hell didn’t you tell us sooner?”

Just as suddenly as he grabbed him, he let the man go as the knowledge of a tank amidst their enemies sunk in and he quickly changed subject before the farmer could speak, “A tank? Where, what kind?”

Scrambling to recover from the heated response from Melnikov, the farmer stammered several times before he finally managed to speak clearly, “I don’t know how many more, or what kind of tank it is, I just recognized it as a tank at the Eastern barracks.”

Melnikov raised his left hand again, but this time brought it up to his forehead as he cursed several times under his breath before he looked back at their contact and addressed him in a slightly calmer tone, “Can you at least describe it, or estimate how many more men you saw?”

A little less nervous now that the soldier had calmed down a little, and it evident for the moment that they weren’t simply going to kill him, he replied, “I only saw it for a moment and it was covered with what looked like steel slabs or something like that, though it did have a rounded turret. As for numbers, I’ve been trying to quietly ask that question, of some of the militiamen I was able to get close to away from the barracks, but they seemed unwilling to speak of them, the best I could get is that there might be another platoon or two of regulars, and I think they may have moved some to bolster the position at the factory barracks.”

Melnikov spoke then to no one specific, and seemed to be reassuring himself just as much as anyone else, “Alright, its just one tank and a few more Council soldiers then we expected, we can still do this,” he then turned to Jack, “Assuming you still want to carry this out,” and finally back to their contact as he assumed the attack would likely still go forward, “You’re going to help us do a little scouting.”

While the farmer looked extremely nervous again, Melnikov mused to himself as he waited for Jack to decide how he wanted to proceed; God damnit, this is not the time for this shit. More men we can deal with, but a tank is just a whole new bloody problem, this might make the whole damned plan impossible.

OOC: Glorified bump

Kazimir Serov’s heart beat rapidly as he snapped his head from left to right in the darkness, the weight of his FN FAL ‘Para’ comforted him as he cautiously took one step at a time along a small wooden fence with two men from his section following close behind. His section had been sent on a short-range patrol from the garrison where they were resting, during which they had come upon a small village as it was being raided by bandits.

This had in turn led to his current predicament, having engaged the bandits; they were now in a deadly game of cat and mouse in the darkness to route out those who remained in among the buildings. Small fires burned intermittently around the small village, evidence of the attack that had begun only minutes before their arrival, which had sent civilians screaming away or in to hiding, which proved another problem for him, recognizing the bandits from the civilians they were to protect.

As he slowly moved forward, he caught a glimpse of movement not far from a small fire burning atop a dwelling to his front. He came to an abrupt halt and stood still for a moment, his shadows doing the same as he watched the shape take a more distinguished form. Unexpectedly the fire flared and he got a clear look at one of the bandits; without hesitations he squeezed the trigger on his FAL and fired a burst on automatic and the weapon kicked into his shoulder.

The heavy rounds smashed through the upper body of the bandit and he dropped liked a stone to the ground, immediately Serov went down on one knee for a moment, an action that saved his life. A split second later, a long burst of fire erupted from their right, the rounds from a Russkyan designed Tukachev SRO, the nine millimeter rounds cut through empty air just above Serov’s head; instinctively he dropped to the ground as both men in his section turned and eviscerated the upper body and head of the bandit with their combined firepower.

Recognizing the same thing Serov did, they immediately shifted position and went low, but no additional rounds were sent their way, for the moment in any case. Unwilling to get up just yet, Serov crawled forward to a corner in the wooden fence a mere two meters in front of him before going back up on one knee.

Glancing right and left once more, albeit slightly more slowly and intently, he wished he had access to advanced communications equipment; as it stood, all he had was his own voice, which was as much a request to be shot as turning on a flashlight. Thus the rest of his section, half sitting at the edge of a tree line behind him, and the other half split off much like his own and moving farther to the right of the village, could not be called for to aid him just now. This in turn left him cursing his own stupidity for splitting up his force in these conditions, at least as he saw it.

Gunfire to his right drew his gaze as the sound of several more FN FALs disturbed the once still night air once more; these sounds were quickly multiplied by the addition of several smaller caliber weapons, including a pair of submachine guns and an AKM. Immediately he was up and moving with his two men in tow in that direction, all the while keeping low to the ground and next to the fence.

Only seconds later as the gunfire was still raging, he caught sight of the source of the AKM, another bandit using a decrepit looking stone wall for limited cover. With a clear line of fire and a little light to confirm his target, he squeezed off several rounds on semi-auto, his first round shattered the bandit’s shoulder and spun him around to take a second round in his spine just below his neck.

As yet another bandit fell to the ground, the gunfire stopped, in another hour of searching they would find the remaining band had fled, and that his section had come out lucky with no injuries. The experience they had earned in Inara, a city they would soon be returning too, had given them a decisive edge over the a band of bandits who’s own experience had been little more then terrorizing villages and the odd under-armed militia.

They knew why they were here.

And despite this, some of their number persisted in idiocies. Nicholas was first down the gangway, expensive hiking boots leading the way onto the pier. Matthias followed, waving goodbye to the bridge of the heavily refitted medium freighter Chu'tikwuk Minwasoh. Translated from an Amerind dialect similar to Cree that Nicholas forgot the name of, it meant "Handsome Peace."

Arnaud, raised in Chaucel Province, rushed down from the bridge at the behest of his Captain, who felt the Chu'tikwuk Minwasoh should be represented when they went to meet the harbourmaster. Geneviève was stopped at the head of the gangplank, Arnaud pointing towards the superstructure. "Go get dressed."

"I'll be fine."

"No, you won't be. Don't tempt them - they have these problems because it's total disorder down there."

Geneviève sighed and accepted Arnaud's logic. Clad only in khaki shorts and a bikini top, her attire was only appropriate for a sunny day on deck. She was one of the dozen medical staff aboard that would try administering to the sick and injured here in Neutralnaya. The other members of the University-aged crew were familiar with carpentry, masonry, there was an architecture student who was here as a way to spend his vacation time helping his fellow man. The bulk of the others were ideologue "Gaffers," people who could do a lot of things but not necessarily well unless under guidance from an expert. They were all dedicated to the thought of making the University of Elschedel International Plaatische Aid Program's first mission a success.

Matthias spoke halting Russian, intercepting a passerby and asking as best he could where the harbourmaster's office was. He then headed in that direction, Nicholas in tow.

Alexandre Korovin, the Harbourmaster for the port of Neutralnaya could as usual, be found in his favorite folding chair on the small balcony of his ‘office’ building, with such a pleasant day out, he was quite relaxed despite the recent heavy bombing by the Kilrany air force, which as usual seemed to avoid his harbour. He didn’t particularly care why, but he was happy for it nonetheless and happily watched the comings and goings of freighters and their crew, for he took his supervisory role to heart, and knew how to delegate so he did as little as possible.

To that end he watched as one of his ‘employees’, headed off a pair coming from a recently docked freighter, a promising looking knew visitor to his port. His name was Vasili, and he was a typically looking Slavic Triari with short black hair and stood around a meter point six, unlike most however and purely out of necessity of his job, he spoke both a fluent Russian and a passable, if accent heavy English.

Not far from where they disembarked and flagged down one of the port staff, Vasili came up and first addressed them in Russian, in his left hand was a ledger and in his right a pencil, “Good day, you two are from that freighter there yes?” he gestured then with the pencil towards the Chu'tikwuk Minwasoh, which he couldn’t see the name of from his position, “Harbourmaster sent me to take record your landing, can I have the full name of your vessel, general intent and how long you wish to stay in port so we can work out your bill? You know, routine stuff.”

He was fairly new to the job; so he didn’t overtly ask for a bribe, his predecessor having accidentally walked into the wrong place in the city and was gutted for his trouble by Chuckhrai soldier. Korovin found he always seemed to have a high turn around rate for employees, another reason he did so much delegating.

"Her name is Chu'tikwuk Minwasoh, we'll be here for three months," Matthias responded. "To help."
Nicholas busied himself by smiling at everyone he made eye contact with. In De Vliggenplaat this would have been unusual. Here, the locals were starting to look confused, if Arnaud was interpreting their expressions correctly.

Aboard the Chu'tikwuk Minwasoh, the medical staff were busy taking inventory, readying beds and deciding triage. The assumption made back at the University was that a hospital ship, even an ad-hoc one with a capacity of only two hundred beds, would be welcome. The aft holds were crammed with food aid, the amidships hold stacked to the deckhead with medical supplies, and the forward holds had been converted to house and treat two hundred at a time, with room for a hundred more "walking wounded."

Leaving the bridge, he bumped into Geneviève again, who had a group of younger students in tow. What he noticed first was that she was more sensibly dressed in slacks and a long sleeved shirt, and then that all of the undergraduates were relocating some of the food aid from aft to the head of the gangplank, to begin distribution. Arnaud carried on, thinking nothing of it until the First Officer, a former Koninlijke Marine man, could be heard from down the corridor.

"You know we have a crane? That we could unload it via pallets onto the shore once we have an offloading and distribution centre set up? Something that would be more efficient and not interfere with the movement of my crew around the ship?"

"Every little bit we can do helps." Geneviève retorted.

"And the crane can help a lot more in ten minutes than you can moving things by hand in an hour, miss."

Korovin noticed the movement of several people on the ship, specifically near gangplank, curious he reached over and picked up a pair of binoculars from a small table, which also held a small glass of Vodka. Peering through the lenses, he scanned over the length of the decent sized freighter, wondering what sort of cargo she was carrying. When he fell upon the student near the gangplank, moving some crates, he sighed loudly, “God, not more of them,” in all his years as Harbourmaster, it wasn’t hard for him to spot the idealists.

Closer to the ship, Vasili quietly took down all the information, scratching it quickly on his ledger with his pencil. He shrugged off the comment about being here to help, while he was new to the port facilities, he knew enough about their kind, leading to a slightly less negative, but similar thought as to what Korovin had spoke aloud.

As he scribbled away, he made a personal, mental note to himself, giving them three weeks; a month tops, before they realized their help was futile, and the violence in his home country would send them scurrying back to their comfortable lives elsewhere. Though he did figure it was all relative, if they stayed inside Neutralnaya, they were reasonably safe, even idealists got the protection of the local militias and regulars within the city limits, for sometimes such aid groups could be a valuable tool to the various factions.

Finally he nodded his head, “Thank you, this will do, we’ll tally this up and get back to you.”

He waited a moment longer, not sure whether they would give him his bribe now or not, quickly though he decided he didn’t feel like waiting and made another mental note that he’d make sure to ask for one when he came back with the bill.

Not far off, atop the deck of another, larger freighter, the Diablo; a ship used to run weapons and ammunition into Triari, a pair of armed regulars, bearing them colours of Chuckhrai, stood looking out to sea. One of them happened to notice the movement on the deck and snapped the other in the arm to get his attention, which promptly was replied to with an angry look and inaudible curses, being to far away to actually be heard.

The expression of the second soldier changed to that of amusement rather quickly however when the first pointed to the Chu'tikwuk Minwasoh and the movement on deck. Laughter was exchanged between them and the second made a lewd gesture with his hands in regards to one of the women and more laughter followed, a few minutes later they seemed to lose interest and go back to their sentry duty.

"Okay Brechtje, we're ready here."

As the University of Elschedel students posed for photographs on the waterfront, ranging from tourist snapshots to propaganda pieces for later use in online publications or the "U of E's" various magazines, the crew of the Chu'tikwuk Minwasoh worked. They worked efficiently; none of them wanted to be here and dragging their asses would only prolong that stay.

Brechtje looked down into the hold as far as he could. He couldn't see much, but he did confirm that Gehardt and the others were out of the way. Trusting "Gert" to have kept the ideologues away from the crane as it was in operation, he swung the one ton pallet up and out of the hold easily.

The crane had the package over the offload point a moment later, to be taken control of by Johanna. A diminuitive woman, she was distinctively redheaded and carried a nightstick on her left hip ever since the "filthy hippies" had come aboard "her" ship. Aside from strongly disapproving of any drug use - of which there was some, many bongs having come aboard - she was from a military family, and herself was a Naval Officer Cadet only on the Chu'tikwuk Minwasoh as a way to pay off a loan for her University education not covered by the Koninlijke Marine, that of art history.

While the Plaatische Navy had no qualms about her being versed in Gogh, Theo van Doesburg, Henry Matisse, they were not about to spend money to finance that particular course. Her course in military history and a second course in maritime systems operation aboard civilian ships? Those they'd finance.

Three of the "filthy hippies" were neatly stacking supplies off slightly to one side of her offloading point, the same ones brought up to the head of the gangplank earlier. She estimated nearly three hundred kilograms. She smiled thinly as she signalled Brechtje to swing the load a few more meters starboard, then drop it down.

Built of solid wood timbers, the pallet thunked down on the dock a few inches away from the hand-offloaded bags of grain, causing Geneviève to jump in alarm. She whirled, glaring at Johanna, who simply raised an eyebrow and rested her hand on her nightstick. If this vegan bitch wants a tumble, oh, I'll cripple her.

In the crane's operator booth, Brechtje grimaced, playing it up for the officer of the deck. He surrepitiously lifted his handheld Motorola radio. "Guys, stand ready. It looks like Johanna's about to start wrestling this University chick. The blonde one."
Frederik, effectively Johanna's boyfriend, was first on deck after that announcement. His digital camera was hanging from around his neck by its thick nylon strap. "For posterity," he explained, snapping a quick photo of the gangplank and U of E students labouring under sacks of grain as the crane swung back up and around to the cargo hold.

Then, quite rightly, he returned his attention to "his MOK."
A small delegation of students, headed by Nicholas, set out into Neutralnaya armed with little more than phrasebooks, ready smiles, and pockets full of chocolate bars for distribution to the younger or hungrier looking Triari they might happen to run into.

[MOK: Marine Offizier Kadet, Naval Officer Cadet]

Korovin had a long and hearty laugh to himself after witnessing the little game of ‘dodge the pallet’ played out near the newly arrived freighter, wondering if the miss had been intentional or not. His thoughts were quickly refocused on the source of multiple diesel engines and he turned his head to look at five heavy trucks; two covered Ural 5323s, two Kamaz-6560 and a Ziz 4334 in cab form carrying a long box containter. Preceding the column was one decrepit looking, but up-armoured Mark II Daimler armoured car, still sporting its original two pounder while a single covered Ural 4320 took up the rear.

Moving at a respectable pace they all passed through the port’s entrance without difficulty and made directly for the Diablo, which took them past the university students. The column came to a stop roughly two hundred meters farther away, relatively close to the berthed Diablo, whereupon a large contingent of Chuckhrai regulars poured out the back of the trailing truck, eyeing everything suspiciously as crew came walking down the ship’s gangplank to begin the process of unloading the trucks, and loading the ship.

Six of the regulars, three armed with AKMs, one with an SKS, one with a PKM and the last with what looked like a PPS-43 and an RPG-7V on his back, came walking fifty meters away from the trucks and back towards the university students and their freighter. Spreading out slightly and keeping a close eye on them, they said nothing, but their message was clear, “Keep away and mind your own business.”

Korovin grunted in amusement before setting his binoculars back on the small table and laying his head back in his folding chair, content to take a nap if it was forthcoming.

With nothing else to stand in their way and a friendly greeter paid to give them any directions they could want, the university students could mostly explore the city at will, though obviously not belonging, they would be quickly scared off from any places they shouldn’t be by the local militias and regulars patrolling the city. The local children on the other hand would welcome them with outstretched hands, ever ready to take in free gifts such as chocolate.

It would however become readily apparent that the young girls did not travel alone, not even in groups if they were only girls, ever escorted by parents or older brothers anywhere they went, especially if they were over twelve. Though it sadly mattered little what age they were, any unescorted girl could quickly find herself kidnapped and sold if found by certain individuals. Fortunately for these university students, they were safe from just about everything short of pickpockets as long as they listened to the local security forces and stayed out of their way, for in Neutralnaya, attacking or brining harm to a foreigner without the expressed permission of the council of representatives could get one executed in an extremely painful manner.

OOC: Sorry for the huge delay in this post, exams have been taking their tool. But ive called a night off tonight, so here we go!

In the forest

Jack had listened to the conversation that had been conducted between the informer and Melnikov. He had picked up a few words by himself, not the word tank though and that came as a surprise when Melnikov had informed him of it. By itself a single tank was not too much of a problem, as long as it wasn’t a Nakil of course. The way that it had been described lead Jack to believe it to be of poor quality, especially so if the locals thought it needed to be uparmoured.
The presence of it was however worrying. Whatever there was here it was obviously worth protecting very well, Jack hadn’t seen a tank since he had been in the country and was sure that they weren’t distributed willy nilly. He sat against a tree for a moment to think and consider his options. He wasn’t about to call the operation off because of it, he believed that a surgical strike could take it out of play before the main attack began. To that end he toggled his radio button to speak to his men.

“Change in plan. RV at my location. Send out locals to secure the perimeter and stay put.”

Jack spoke with Melnikov for a moment, using him as a translator to get a little more information from the informer before his men arrived. By the time that they had all assembled he had a rough plan formed in his head. He lowered his voice and spoke to his men plainly.

“Our informer here tells us they have recently moved a tank into the area. Main plan will go ahead as trained, team two will provide a surgical strike against the tank which our man here will identify the location off when we get to the village. He will accompany the team and set the charge. Jonas I trust you have enough demo for a little extra work. Set the charge and detonate it as the main attack goes in. Understood?”

He looked round his men as he received a chorus of nods. A simple message of good luck was all that was needed and he motioned to his men as six of them moved off at a trot, taking Melnikov and the informer with them. Those men would form the advanced party that would infiltrate and destroy the tank before the main assault. Jack and two of his men went back towards the main party to brief them on the change of plans and to make sure that they all understood. Meanwhile the rest of Jack’s men in team one congregated where they had met the informer. Two of them removed their rucksacks which others began to unpack whilst they attached silencers to their sniper rifles. When that was done they placed the weapons on the ground and were helped into their guile suits by the remainder of the team who also attached bits of foliage to the suits to further break up their outline. With this done the two snipers also moved off, the remaining men picking up the rucksacks and moving back towards Jack.


Team two was moving through the woods, Melnikov and the informer were leading them whilst the six former special ops men watched the sides and rear of the group. All six now had silencers attached to their personal weapons, in four cases M4’s and for the other two SG552’s. The sidearms were also all silenced, stun and phosphorous grenades were in pouches in their webbing awaiting use as well.

It took a while before they reached the tree line that separated the town from the vast sprawling forest that seemed to make up the majority of the country. The two men with SG552’s peeled off to the left and lay down, spreading the bipods and peering through their scopes which were augmented with nightvision monocles. The assault team knelt down, their kneepads taking the strain as they raised their M4’s to begin their move across no man’s land with the two guests. Melinikov was informed that it was best not to use his AK by one of the troops simply releasing the magazine from it and putting his finger to the man’s lips with a barely audible sshh. Whether or not he got the message they didn’t know.
Jonas and his team signalled the snipers who gave the all clear and the six men dashed across the empty terrain towards the village. No sooner had they done so but two local guards appeared near where the assault team was running to. One sniper informed the other and they both swivelled towards the targets. They each fired a subsonic round and the brass cases made a soft thump as they hit the ground near their position.


Meanwhile Jack was moving the locals forward. He was in constant radio communication with his assault team and the two guile suited snipers that were moving forward to cover the main attack and his own team. The locals all looked fit a healthy and most of all awake, despite the time of day. They moved quietly, not as silently as he would’ve liked but well enough for the moment. The men had been briefed on the change and hadn’t seemed too bothered; they would resume their positions and basically carry on as normal. Jack wondered if it would be that easy.

OOC: No problem, it is that time of year for it and all. I am going to have to diverge from your last post however in regards to Melnikov.

Had the mercenary actually had the audacity to remove the magazine from Melnikov’s weapon without prior warning, he would have quickly found a bayonet thrust upwards through his throat, fortunately for all concerned it never got that far. As the commander of the support company, and being equivalent to the rank of Captain had the Triari held much stock in ranks, Melnikov had not been expected to go anywhere near the town or their objective, and he certainly had no intention of doing so himself.

As it was, when Jack appeared to make it clear he expected to take him along, he merely shook his head and responded as respectfully as he could while still annoyed with their contact, “While you command those volunteers, you do not command me, I am here provide support with my company, not conduct this attack for you. If you need a Russian speaker, you best have one among your team to deal with this fool.”

While their farmer turned contact didn’t understand English, he did recall the mention of sending him in, and he addressed Melnikov in Russian, “Like hell I’m going in there while you attack the place, that wasn’t part of the deal.”

In a flash Melnikov angrily took hold of their contact again, “You will do as this man says or I will kill you myself, am I clear?”

As the farmer nodded his head quickly out of fear, half of Melnikov’s personal section from his combat platoon came creeping forward into the small clearing as quietly as the best of the mercenaries could, while the other half stayed just out of sight within the woods. Unlike the Triari soldiers Jack and his mercenaries had been training, the company from the fortress would not accept any orders from the mercenaries unless Melnikov told them to do so, as such, not only did his section ignore the orders to stay put, the other sections and platoons did not respond to the orders to set up until Melnikov quickly passed it along over the radio provided when Jack had spoken into his own radio; though it wasn’t exactly the same as Jack had initially wanted.

Slowly the support company began moving towards the tree line facing the Western edge of the town of Ballan; here the heavy machine guns and recoilless rifles would be established with firing arcs across the field and into the town. To make them a little more defensible, their crews would use their entrenching tools to quietly dig impromptu and shallow firing pits, to provide themselves with some protection against any return fire. Behind them, some five hundred meters back in the forest, the light mortars would be dug in, giving them clear reach on both the warehouse district and the Eastern barracks compound; though their rounds lacked the power to significantly damage the heavy stone structures, they would decimate anyone out in the open. Melnikov’s combat sections intended to set themselves up as local security for these emplacements to their North, South, and West, ensuring no one came upon them unannounced. All of which Melnikov made sure to inform Jack of.

Before Melnikov allowed their contact to move off, as Jack wanted, he quickly asked one more question, “What the hell are they making in this factory?”

“I don’t know, big trucks with long covered trailers come and go, anyone in the village who comes to close risks being beaten or shot.”

As the mercenaries did their thing, and Jack saw to the locals that followed his commands, Melnikov intended to take his section near the center of his line along the trees, and from their command his company, issuing priority targets and waiting to see if his opportunity would arise through a battered pair of binoculars. However as time went on and he watched the mercenaries in action, he began to feel less and less inclined to try and double cross them, especially with the attack going on at night, as the mercenaries held a significant advantage with their suppressed weapons and night vision equipment.

The Western edge of town was mostly taken up by what was easily coined as their warehouse district, and around this section ran an old stonewall, somewhat decrepit in certain positions. While the rest of the town was sporadically lit by small oil burning lampposts, the warehouse district was lit by a number of electric lamps, indicating the existence of a generator somewhere within, which also clearly lit the interior lights on several of the factories even now, including their target building, which was lit up from within. Occasionally this interior light on the high windows was amplified by brighter light sources, however they were inconsistent, suggesting the use of welding torches.

Through the benefit of their night vision equipment, Jack and his men would have also been able to see a large number of pole and wall mounted flood lights in and around the warehouse district, mostly aimed outward, but currently off. Most of the poles were under the light of the smaller lamps also within the compound.

Neither militiamen stuck on the thankless job of sentry duty had any warning before they were struck by the subsonic rounds, having been rather carelessly walking slowly around the outer district wall.

Gradually, Nicholas and assorted students moved further and further away from the converted freighter. Having tired, the remaining project members sat on deck and watched the comings and goings on the waterfront.

Save for a handful, who were slowly learning from the hired crewmen how to properly unload palletized supplies. With the help of a massive crane, which whirred back to its stowed position as a distribution point was set up. A lot of the students remaining on deck or working at the supply distribution point were becoming increasingly nervous given the attention they'd begun to attract from the heavily armed locals.

Nicholas knelt down infront of a small group of elementary school aged children shepharded by three adolescents and offered a smile and chocolate bars. His companion Ben tried opening with "Good day, how are you?" and hoped his accent wasn't making his Russian completely unintelligable.

If the truth were to be known, the Chuckhrai regulars were not quite the threat they appeared to be on the surface, at the very least, not these regulars on the dock. To that end, if they had the money and the belief it were possible, half of those armed men would have dropped their weapons right then and there and sought out passage on the nearby freighter, readily willing to leave Triari; the other half likely would have shot them.

For Chuckhrai, the morale and loyalty of his men were at an all time low, and the battle for Inara was costing him dearly as he continues to be forced to send his most fanatically loyal forces, backed up by drug addicted militia to hold the city against Tsetaeva’s forces, leaving him spread thinly in the loyalty department. Making matters worse for this warlord was the overall unimportance of Inara strategically, as he stubbornly held on to it at tremendous price for little gain while on the orders of her confidential allies, the Kilrany, Tsetaeva maintained her own assault, not out of a true desire to take the city, but to bleed Chuckhrai dry while using her less loyal and potentially trouble making soldiers to take the brunt of the grinder. For the last thing the Kilrany wanted for the moment was a unified Triari; one that was fractured and fighting with itself was far more valuable to them until they had more manipulative power over their neighbour.

-----

Nicholas found himself readily swarmed by the younger children with their hands out as they readily accepted the free gifts, all quite familiar with his type, though even in Triari, they were too young to understand the full reason why these foreigners always came. The older children however did, and they watched as their younger siblings took unintentional advantage of the strangers, knowing they would pilfer a share later out of sight.

Addressed by Ben, one of the children, a young girl carefully watched over by an older brother, replied with an innocent smile and a far more fluent Russian despite her age and her lack of education, “You talk funny. Are you from over the water?”

A short distance off, as the child was speaking, Alexis walked casually towards the small group of foreigners and slightly larger group of children, doing his best not to look suspicious. Dressed somewhat raggedly like most of the lower class Triari, he had marked the rather affluent looking visitors from afar and approached them now from behind them.

Ben smiled - it was something he did often - and tried more of the Russian he'd learnt on the voyage 'across the water.'

"I am. Where are you from, devushka?"

Nicholas, meanwhile, sidled up to the older siblings and offered them a bar of chocolate as well. He had both older and younger brothers and sisters at home and knew the tactics of both age groups well. That, and the freighter was loaded to the gunwhales with supplies: not yet understanding the enormity of their self-assigned task, the hippies weren't being stingy. The University would come to regret this later.

After handing two thick bars of Hershey chocolate to the elder siblings, Nicholas pulled a tin of cigarrillos from his pocket and flicked open the lid with a practiced motion. The adolescents would have had a glimpse of Che Guevara's face embossed in red on the aluminium. Ben continued to be effusive with the young children, all smiles and a pleasantly playful tone of voice borrowed from a children's program in De Vliggenplaat while Nicholas offered a cigarrillo to each of the young children's minders.

The older youths smiled wryly at Nicholas as he began handing out additional chocolate bars to them specifically, unaware or their full supply or the origin and caring little either way. Readily they took the cigarrillos and even added a thank you, even if it wasn’t truly sincere as they mentally wondered how much money they could hock the product for to the right person.

The little girl laughed lightly, despite her surroundings and her lack of education, she’d thus far managed to experience a decent life, relative for the average in Triari. As she responded to Ben, one adolescent in particular kept close to her, eyeing him suspiciously, his appearance indicating a blood relative and a possible age of fifteen, “Here in the city, your voice is funny, but your words are clear, where did you learn to speak?”

The adolescent edged a little closer, ensuring he stayed within earshot, extremely protective of his much younger sister, fully aware of the dangers they were in just being alive. To that end his right hand hovered near a rough leather holster concealed under an old and worn military jacket of some kind, which held a well maintained Basic Para-Ordnance P14-45.

Not much farther behind them, Alexis closed the distance between the small group of foreign university students, most of whom were surrounded by children and their escorts with a small blade concealed in his right hand by his arm. Picking out one in particular, he shifted slightly as he approached the woman, but not seeing anything else of value, focuses on a camera attached by a strap. Suddenly moving quickly, he firmly took hold of the strap with his left hand and pulling on it slightly, slashed it with the small blade before shoving the student towards one of her colleagues and taking off into a sprint.

Pushing himself at a hard pace down the side of the street, he barely managed to swing the strap around to catch the camera in a cradle like hold as he moved. Glancing behind to see how any pursuers might be progressing, he missed a trio of Council regulars notice him no far to his front, and he looked back forward in time to meet the stock of an SKS to his gut.

A strange noise erupted from his mouth as the solid wooden stock impacted and loosing his balance he tripped and fell to the ground, landing hard he rolled several times, before coming to a halt, still clutching the camera. Before he could move the three regulars had him surrounded and a second, holding an AKM slammed the stock into one of his arms, prompting a cry of pain and finally made him release the camera, which was quickly scooped up by the third regular.

Stepping away from the thief, the third regular carried the still intact camera towards the students as the other two proceeded to beat Alexis right there in the street, using their weapons and their feet to inflict damage upon him. Repeatedly he cried out in pain before screaming several times when the two regulars who were actually mocking him and laughing as they beat him, broke several of his bones, one in his arm and the other in his leg.