NationStates Jolt Archive

--S.S. Landson, Ganapatian Sea--

Lieutenant Jack Ward of the Avisronian Naval Special Forces Service (AVNSF) looked out from the bridge of S.S. Landson. The massive oil tanker was a jewel. It had been sailing for less than three years, and the owners had taken great pride in it. The decks were clean. The paint fresh. Every machine was in working order.

It's such a shame, Lieutenant Ward thought to himself.

Of course, it was probably for the best that the strategists had chosen a newer vessel. They Avisronian Central Intelligence Division, or ACID, had researched this ships background. It hadn't been in any war zone. The crew of it had thought they were totally safe behind their fancy electronic sensors and alarm systems. Hundreds of voyages on this brand new ship and no one had even taken a shot at them. What was there to fear?

It was exactly that clean record that had led to them being chosen.

The assault had been nearly a week earlier. During the night shift. The DART's had stormed so quickly that not even a shot was fired. It was the product of years of Avisronian military training. The operation was perfect. The crewmen below deck had no warning whatsoever. The operation lasted twenty four hours. The DART's simply kidnapped everyone from the shadows. The crew that had acted like a herd of sheep had been slaughtered like a herd of sleep. They now rested on the bottom of the ocean.

Then there had been the days of the electronic work. The vessels own high-tech wiring system was to be used against it. A few simple re routed cables and the devices were in place. A simple timer aboard a cheap notebook computer would be the initiator of the entire plot. It sat ready. It just needed a human finger to press the ENTER key.

And there were many of them. This bringer of destruction wouldn't be a single warhead which could suffer any number of mechanical failures. There were many of them. Independent explosives hidden throughout several insulated areas of the massive vessel. All wired back to a $500 notebook computer.

Lots of care, planning, and consideration had been put into this entire operation. The set up was complete. Everything was ready.

The sun was rising over the massive Londinium oil distribution center. Another routine day of operations awaited. Lieutenant Ward looked at the distribution center. Then the radio. Then the center.

Then he lifted the radio and said simply: "S.S. Landon, preparing to dock for standard refill. Where do you want us?"

Come alongside, the oil rig responded in reply. Same as usual.

"Acknowledged," Lieutenant Ward said after a few seconds of delay. He then set the controls of the massive vessel on an intercept course with the side of the facility. At this point he took one more look out at the massive deck, then quickly ran towards the stairwell at the rear of the bridge.

From there he descended down into the vessel. This entire orchestra had been carefully planned so that each meticulous event would have just enough time to unfold.

After several minutes of briskly jogging down the steps he reached a room. It was a small storage room in the very bottom of the vessel. The edges of the room were outlined by large, inconspicuous storage crates. There, two Avisronian DART's stood. There was a large, haphazardly cut square hole in the floor. Beside it was a short, wooden table. On the table was a cheap notebook computer.

"Is everything ready?," one of the DART's asked.

Lieutenant Ward said nothing. He simply walked to the small table and pressed a key on the computer. A timer began counting backward from 12 minutes. Then Ward looked at the man who had spoken, and nodded.

Immediately the two DART's who had been waiting on Ward climbed down into the hole in the floor. Ward was soon to follow. The three Avisronians were now sitting in a small, miniature submarine that had been cleverly positioned directly between the double hull of the oil tanker. Before the hatch was closed, Ward input a control from yet another notebook computer that was positioned within the sub. It was an order to open a door on the belly of the ship in 20 seconds. Ward then unhooked the computer from the ships wiring system, closed the hatch, and buckled himself into a the rear-most seat in the sub.

Shortly thereafter, the mini-submarine quickly began to descend. The engine wasn't fired immediately, however. Time was allowed for the stealthy vehicle to sink towards the bottom of the sea. This was to help prevent anyone on the surface from seeing a trail headed towards the open ocean.

High in orbit an Avisronian Central Intelligence Division spy satellite focused in on the oil distribution platform. A certain DART Lieutenant had specifically asked for a recording of the aftermath of his work...

"Watch out, Lieutenant," the man in the unmarked uniform behind Ward said jovially, "I'd like to get a look at this feed too."

He tucked the brand-new Hali-53 rifle SOCOM had gotten him around his shoulder using a strap and swung it behind his right arm, out of the way but still at hand, so he could lean in to peer at the laptop's screen from among the boys from ACID. He appeared to be in his mid- to late-thirties, but he was still as strongly and toughly built as many a younger man. His weathered face suggested he had become inured to the horrors of combat many years ago, and was now quietly carrying on in service to his country as a true veteran. He'd given years and years of his life to his country, beginning in a little desert shithole that was then called Saharistan...

The desert sand whipped at his face as the scorching heat pounded down on him. The ground actually shined up at him from two hundred feet up, its glassy surface a legacy of the suicidal nuclear holocaust unleashed by a man named Musab al-Zarqawi, the man who had held the people of this godforsaken land in the thrall of his iron-fisted dictatorship. The Blackhawk’s rotors drowned out almost all other sound…

“Tangos at two o’clock!” he heard his gunner cry out. The 7.62mm minigun roared to life, much louder than he remembered it…

The bullets took only a fraction of a second to travel from the Blackhawk’s side-mounted minigun two hundred feet up to one of the armed terrorists closing in on the aid workers below. The man’s chest was ripped apart in a hail of bullets, his blood spraying through the air in a fine mist before settling on the unnaturally smooth ground like the morning dew next to the ruined body from which it had come. Then, a blur of action -- the report of AK-47s, their bullets ripping past him; his own fire and that of his men violently flung back at the attackers; the mangled body of a terrorist flying through the air, propelled by a grenade blast…

Silence. Five men laid face-down on the glassed-over earth, their keffiyeh covering their faces, keeping them modest before Allah even in death…

Colonel Jack Whittier, veteran commander of many a covert campaign with the Halberdgardian Special Forces -- now including this one -- was yanked abruptly back from those desert wastes by the jostling of his Avisronian comrades. The rest of his men were waiting out with the remainder of the Avisronian strike teams, housed on a single Cuirassier-class submarine under silent running conditions. All he had to do now was wait for the shit to hit the fan.

--The Ganapatian Sea--

An Avisronian Scion-class SSN moves through the sea at a slow but steady speed of 7 knots. This vessel, AVN Astute, is the only Avisronian naval vessel assigned to the current operations within British Londinium. While several of the strike teams for the upcoming ground offensive are based on the Halberdgardian submarine, the Astute also played a critical role in the mission.

Upon receiving confirmation that the team from the tanker operation had been recovered by their Halberdgardian counterparts, the crew of Astute moved into action.

Several moments later, missiles began to launch. The VM-23 was the newest missile in the Avisronian arsenal. It was designed for maximum stealth, something that was becoming increasingly valuable in modern conflicts. Its mode of attack was simple: It would skim the surface of the ocean like any other missile, then the surface of the earth, and then plow into refinery facilities up and down the British Londinium coastline. Of course, the missile was made of materials that absorbed an insane percentage of radar signals.

The warhead of the missiles contained fuel-air explosives, rather than simple explosives. Upon detonating in the middle of refineries, massive clouds of a highly flammable chemical would engulf the facilities, then ignite, creating a firestorm hot enough to incinerate nearly anything.

The Scion Class SSN carried 36 of these weapons, and within a few moments all of them were inbound to British Londiniums' six largest oil refineries.

Kensington Palace
Kensington, British Londinium
0342 hours

The lavish palace that had housed the consuls since 1745 was silent, shrouded in the dark veil of night. Sir Alistair slept peacefully in his bedchamber, wrapped lovingly around his wife, Victoria. Another typical night for this Consul - so he thought.

The peace of the night was harshly interrupted by the the clipped sound of shoes clacking against the marble floors of the palace. A figure in a violet suit snuck into Sir Alistair's bedchamber, and, with the flick of a switch, the whole room had been submerged in light.

"Wha?" asked Sir Alistair groggily, as his wife rolled over and placed her head underneath her silk pillow. "James, do you know what hour it is?"

"I'm terribly sorry, sir, but this is absolutely vital," Deputy Consul James Azzopardi said, clutching a leather padfolio. "Please, you must come with me forthwith, Consul."

"Aight, aight," muttered Sir Alistair in response, hastily throwing on a pair of imperial purple pyjamas. He kissed Victoria's cheeks and dimmed the lights as he exited the room.

"So, what's the big deal?"

"Well, Consul, I'm afraid a terror attack has struck our oil platforms," Azzopardi said. "One of our distribution centres was bombed in the Ganapatian Sea, whilst a dozen or so sea-based cruise missiles managed to penetrate our defences and strike our refineries."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Sir Alistair asked, barely able to contain his rage. "How much oil was lost?"

"Can't say yet, sir," James replied. "But the MBE [Ministry of Business and Enterprise] and the MSS [Ministry of State Security] are saying somewhere in the five million to ten million barrels. We've barely restarted international exportation of petrol, which is why it's so little. Fortunately."

"James, let me tell you something," Sir Alistair stated. "Do you know what this means? It means we need to get Operation Hadrian implemented, now. I want every square centimetre of our waters scoured for enemy vessels. Every fucking centrimetre needs to be pinged with sonar until you'd think a symphony was playing, damn it. I'm betting ten squigs it was the Sovereign League. Probably still pissed off from [former Consul Phillip] Sinclair's repatriation of their fields."

"I'll inform the War Ministry of Hadrian's reinstatement at once, sir," James replied timidly.

"For the last time, James, call me Alistair."