NationStates Jolt Archive

So, the Brits had taken their crack at France -in the Atlantic- and now half of India was steaming into it, rounding the Cape as Russian ships put out to meet them in a few days time.

But the Commonwealth's other half was desperately restless.

CSS Obelix, a submarine of the shiny new Ortiagon stealth class, was one of several such boats sent across the Bay of Bengal towards the Nicobars and beyond in response to the deployment of the US 7th Fleet.

Again, nothing had come of it.

The Quinntonians were heading back east, and while their comrades were looking on into the mire of battle, the thirty-two men and women aboard Obelix saw their undeclared enemy leaving before they had a chance to kick him out. Many Commonwealthers shared in this unreleaved resentment of the United States, a stumbling block to world revolution that was simply not being moved out of the way along with the petty European obstacle.

"Well, bugger it if we can't have some fun, anway!" Captain Ganguly's sudden outburst was just the sort that compelled his primarily Geletian crew to elect him in the first place. Obelix was soon running silent on course to intercept the departing Quinntonians as they left Nicobarese waters. The Ortiagon's sleek form, electric drive, and running gear suspended on uncoupled blocks made its slow approach -the Soviets let the Quinntonians do most of the moving, since they knew roughly where they had to head in order to exit these well-travelled and relatively enclosed Indian waters- extremely stealthy. Soviet propaganda of course called Ortiagon's quietness a waste of stealth, since it used far more than was supposed to be necessary to sneak-up on... probably the King of France on his horse in Versailles, or something of that sort.

Before long a young female officer, listening to a fleet carrier attached to the 7th, was able to report in an almost involuntary whisper, "8,500 metres to target."

"Well comrades" said the Captain, "Point blank. If this were the other war I'd be asking you to load tubes A, 2, and 3 armed for straight-running, and B, 1, and 4 to home on that signature, and presently a full spread would be quietly swimming out. As it happens... prepare to surface. Comrade Efyns, make the red flag ready."

One may now excuse a rare profanity from whichever USN sailor or aviator first identifies a Soviet patrol submarine running up the red flag within spitting distance of the USS Kitty Hawk*. Aboard Obelix all hands scramble for a turn up top and squabble over binoculars as they sing the Igovian Internationale and wave, grinning, towards the great hulking form of 80,000 tons in Quinntonian steel.

*Of course that's just an educated guess based upon reality, and I'm not sure that it'll be the same with Q, but I doubt it'll hurt, eh?

"Ha! Dumb bastards, we could've wiped-out the 7th fleet with thirty-two comrades!"

"Yeah" replied Tarang, slapping the day's broadsheet edition of Gadar! with the back of his hand, "but we didn't. They got away, again. They just waltz in, flex their muscles, and walk back out again untouched. They're involved in it all, throwing their weight around, forcing us to worry about what they'll do every time we try to resist their chums. And nobody can touch them."

"Yes, we can't go to war with them until it's over with Europe, at least."

"We could... if they wouldn't fight back."

Govind frowned, inviting the scheming Tarang to elaborate.

"We could..."

The minor upset in the Indian Ocean is reported in Germany in the well read Deutsch Christus Wochenblatt. Anton Krause writes,

“It is just the type of Soviet egotism to believe that if they rise up against the so called oppressors then the whole world will rise up with them. The root evil of their misguided paradigm is the propaganda from the state which forces all Soviets into a wicked secularist mold. Consequently they are unable to see the utter futility of their attempt to flaunt God’s people on earth. If the Geletians rose up against the Quinntopians the vault of God’s wrath would quickly be poured down upon the modern day Sodom and Gomorra, and even the unsanctified League would be used against God’s enemies. The Soviets will continue to rally against our greatest allies and how much longer will our government stand idle while the red scourge continues to advance? ”

Anton Krause was not alone in his condemnation of the Soviets and the report of this incident was enough to cause another riot in Berlin against the Soviets. As of yet there was no response from the German government.

The front page of Gadar! under his arm read something about Christian-European barbarism, complete with images of riotous Berliners. The expression on his face could be read by an expert, perhaps. By Siva, I'm glad to be finally doing something about these bloody Quints!

And, not much later...

Gulf of Alaska

"...All right, these are the co-ordinates, near as I can figure. Turn on the beacon, Govind."

"Done. Ah, there it is. Ahead port, less than a hundred and forty metres. Nice flying, comrade!"

The environmental conditions made it hard, but the fittingly-named comrade Tarang managed to set-down without major incident. The phalanstery's WIG bobbed on the waves as Govind, leaning from the passenger-side door, tried to snare a buoy left days earlier by comrades-in-arms who already had gone ashore in the distant Mexican states of the Quinntonian Union, and by now should have made their way north on Hindustani passports (several thousand Geletians did recently, after all, migrate to the INU, did they not?).

The fuel eventually captured and the little single-engined WIG's tanks filled, the two comrades take once more to the air, just about. The small machine, only a few feet above the choppy surface, is coated with radar-absorbant paint acquired with no more ease than the second taking of fuel since Govind and Tarang left Lyong, and the half anarchistic, half old-school Igovian duo hopes to go unnoticed as Quinntonia looms large on the horizon.

The WIG Varsha, belonging to a commune on India's east coast, is normally used in sub-state level trade with Bangladesh and South East Asia, but last week had journeyed to Spyr on account of Sithin's interest in WIG technology and had taken part in a minor demonstration of low-cost light WIGs that can serve as tools of low-level commerce, great personal entertainment and sport, and, evidently, espionage, for Varsha was coated in radar-absorbing paint even when it arrived in the Revolutionary Sea.

Govind was thinking of Spyr's skyscrapers and apartments, so different from the phalansteries of home, when a jolt told him that they'd arrived. He opened his eyes and saw for the first time Rally Point Revol, a small cove in the most remote part of the Washington State coast that any of the conspirators could find with the help of the Soviet intranet and GPS network. He was cold and wet by the time Quinntonian sand squeezed between his toes, but much encouraged by a shout from inland, spoken in Oriya, which very much indicated the presence of his comrades.

"This thing weighs a tonne!" He grumbled, shifting a crate from WIG to sand. "I'll never get it up to the truck if you don't lift a finger, comrades!"

"Well, I should think not. That's five anti-tank mines, Govi."

Jumping back and dropping the crate Govind caused many a gasp and exclaimed loudly, "Oh! My various gods! I thought it was rifle ammunition!"

"Ha! ...Wait, where is that?"

"It must be behind the RPGs." Shrugged Govind.

With six of them working together, the Indians soon had all of their stores ashore and loaded into a quartet of rental cars. Tarang saluted his comrades with a raised left fist and put back out to sea with a new cargo of unrelgulated Geletian wine, picked up from the shack in which the first four arrivals had been sheltering. He set off much faster than he'd arrived. If the Coast Guard had picked him up on the way in, travelling at seventy knots, and lost him when he landed, he would go at a hundred and forty until pulling away from the clutter of the shoreline and slowing again, hoping that the sprint would put him back on predicted course as if he'd never made the stop.

As Tarang turned away from the Quinntonian coast he rose up several metres, potentially detectable now, and deposited several casks of wine marked with a radio locator beacon. If it came to it, he'd try to give the impression that he'd been smuggling independently made and unregulated Geletian wine into the US marketplace. Better to be caught for smuggling dodgey drink than supplying RPGs, bullets, and landmines to radical communist infiltrators, eh?

Still, he'd make every effort to get away, heading for Costa Paz after one more fuel pick-up on the high seas.

OOC-No, it wouldn’t be the Kitty Hawk, and the ASW screen would be a few hundred kilos from an asset like that, so I am going to assume that you got that close to a Destroyer, instead, so you penetrated the outer web, but not that far.

IC-
The Vice-Admiral started screaming at his aides as the report of the incursion came in, and seconds later, two of the ASW choppers that were in the air already doing their patrols, swooped in and levelled their decisive weaponry at the sub. It was then that the F-22s flew over and a Las Angeles Class submarine moved in to take aim at the invader.

They were contacted, and shortly escorted out of the area, but the fear was in the air, though to the average sailor on the Destroyer that had come so close to being reminded of its mortality, and who actually lives in this sea, but some of the Seamen could be seen waving at the opposing submariners and taking pictures with their digital cameras t send home and post on facebook, of they were not caught by their commanding officers.


Elsewhere, a air of F-15E Strike Eagles who were on patrol in the Washington area, gained a report of a low-flying aircraft, a WIG, that was streaking away from the Quinntonian shoreline. Of course, with the paranoia that was going on in the USQ, they turned and bore down on their prey, in nervous expectation. AS soon as they came within weapons range, which was seconds, they radioed the WIG asking it to turn and be escorted t an isolated airfield where they would be detained by the proper Quinntonian authorities. If they chose not to respond and turn back within 20 seconds, they would be fired upon until destroyed.

Air Command immediately scrambled a few dozen combat aircraft to the area, and the local police was contacted immediately, asking them to investigate the incursion area. Of course, the Coast Guard was also contacted, and began making their way along the coast by chopper and patrol boat, as the entire coastline went on alert.

WWJD
Amen.

(OOC: If the screen were a few hundred kilometres from the carrier, well... even a rusty first-generation Hound Class SSK could get through a screen that far flung. So I'll assume that you didn't mean that. More to the point, if an archaic Chinese Song Class SSK can surface within five miles of Kitty Hawk in reality, a submarine two or three generations more advanced isn't going to have much trouble doing it in AMW :) Anyway, it doesn't matter too much, I just wanted a starting point for talking about the sort of frustrations that motivate Igovian radicals.)

North Pacific

If Tarang knew that his very presence had caused a major Quinntonian mobilisation and spread fear up the entire western seaboard, probably costing the Quints quite a few million dollars in the process, he might have flown by much sooner and without bothering to get involved in arms smuggling or anything else liable to get him locked up until who knows when.

For a few moments Varsha continues on its course as Tarang weighs up his position and wonders whether the Quinntonian jets have any significant surface-attack weaponry. He supposes that they probably have no air to surface missiles, but considers that a 20mm Vulcan rotary cannon is still more than he fancies facing down, and dismisses the idea of putting his WIG on the water's surface.

Still, the US and India aren't at war, and Tarang doesn't want to answer a lot of questions, so he resolves to make a run for it, being close to the limits of Quinntonian territorial waters. Varsha banks right and makes a course to leave Quinntonian territory.

The major problem with this course of action is that Varsha hasn't anything like enough fuel to make a trans oceanic journey, and Tarang will probably end up realising that he's got to come back to pick up more fuel waiting for him off the coast of California.

He probably hasn't thought this through...

Washington State

Govind had by now made his way a short distance inland, and is attempting with his cormades to disappear into the area's dense conifer forest where they have established a short-term hideout, partially using tunneling skills learned by one conspirator during military consular service in the CPRD some years ago.

OOC-And, it wouldn’t have been the Kitty Hawk, but meh, it is just a plot point anyways.
I’ll just respond to the airspace incursion and then let you get to making a nuisance of yourself with your terrorists. Just assume that there will be rabid civilian, military, militia, and police patrols now scouring the area, so you will have to take that into account in your next post.

IC-The WIG seemed to be picking up speed and heading out, and so the lead F-15 and his wingman kicked in their afterburners and rocketed into close combat range, making the WIG look like it was standing still. It radios one final warning as it locks its cannon onto the ship, and realising that this idiot pilot is making an attempt to legitimately get away, he opens fire, fully covered by his wingman. He hopes to just take the WIG down, but will not shed a tear at destroying it. Already, search and rescue choppers are being dispatched.

WWJD
Amen.

The expletives that Tarang uttered on realising that the luntics were firing on him can't be translated directly from Beddgelen, a fluid slang that serves as the ugly esperanto of Soviet India.

Tarang swerves and rises sharply, his machine being actually far, far more agile than a Strike Eagle when high enough to behave like an aircraft rather than almost a hovercraft, and evades all bar one round from the initial burst. He considers for a moment continuing to evade both interceptors, but since they've already demonstrated a preparedness to kill a stranger and since there are two of them he is soon convinced to put his WIG down on the surface, a small hole scarring its port wing after being clipped by a 20mm round.

The Indian sits, bobbing on the waves, in a machine the size of a small bus driven by a turboprop. He looks around the cabin as he contemplates his situation, wondering whether he ought to destroy anything to save his own skin or to prevent the capture of Soviet technologies. Really, the WIG is not especially advanced by Soviet standards... it would be no different than the Commonwealth capturing a Lear Jet, and all of the contraband has already been sent ashore. He hurridly takes his lighter to a few notes and scribblings on the mission before chucking their charred remains out of the window, and opens a flask of Geletian wine as he waits for the coast guard.

The only notable piece of technology actually doing anything is a readout indicating the location of an electronic marker attached to a few barrels of unregulated alcohol (some containing trace ammounts of hallucinogenic compounds likely illegal in the US) floating off the coast.

(OOC: Sorry, haven't time to deal with the land bit today, I'm busy trying to sort out my Aussie visa for the next year!
I just used Kitty Hawk's name because in reality CV-63 -Kitty Hawk- is part of the US 7th Fleet operating out of Guam and Japan, so it seemed like an educated guess. Also it was the carrier surprised by a Chinese submarine.
Anyway, back probably tomorrow.)

The F-15E’s pilots, while surprised by the sudden mobility of the WIG, were not likely to miss twice, and especially not with the two of them involved. Of course, they would stay in the immediate area, just in close combat range, should anything go strangely, and they start to radio the situation back to their commanders. Of course, the choppers are there within a half an hour, at which time, four more fighters, F/A-18s carrying loads designed for this sort of thing, take over the covering of the mysterious WIG. Of course, the choppers come up on the WIG carefully, lest they be ambushed, but they do go into the situation as a rescuer, hoping that they can detain the Gelletian pilot peacefully before the Coast Guard cutter that has been dispatched arrives with some trigger-happy morons aboard.

A team of four rappels into the water around the WIG, and then the choppers pull off as the team swims to the WIG. The WIG has been informed of the operation in advance, with assurances that if he surrenders peacefully, he will not be harmed. They soon climb up onto and into the WIG, with only water-prepared sidearms at the ready, though not pulled. They simply place the Pilot under arrest, and put him in zip-strap cuffs, and then put a PFD on him and get him ready to be pulled up into the waiting choppers. AS they are preparing, the cutter appears on the horizon and they inform him that the WIG will be towed to the nearest port, where it will be held until such time as the authorities decide what to do with it.

On land, the incursion area under threat has been mapped and is bustling with activity, with everything from police and state troopers, to the Coast Guard and military units on the search. Of course, the mot dangerous would be the bands of local boys, using various forms of transportation: horses, ATVs, jeeps, etc.

WWJD
Amen.

"I am a Soviet citizen." Tarang protests, "I've just come from the technological exposition in Lyong... I wanted to take an opportunity to fly down the North American coast. I'm supposed to meet friends in Costa Paz before going home via Colombia with one of the convoys."

He gives the impression that he is surprised by the US reaction to his presence and overwhelmed by Quinntonian paranoia. When he hears of the massive and costly search operations along the western seaboard he laughs and utters exclamations of bewildered disbelief.

"I'm just sight-seeing!" He insists.

Govind and his Oriya and Geletian comrades continue to lie low for some time, listening on a portable radio to reports of the search operation. "Damn it, Tarang must have talked!" One mutters. "We're going to have to go easy on these supplies, let it blow over in a couple of days." "But if he has talked they're not just going to let us go." "Ah, he hasn't, they're just trying to whip up a sense of menace, it's all about the election! Moerike wants people to vote for stability in a time of danger. They don't have any idea that we're actually here!"

And so the deliberations continue.

(OOC: Sorry, I'm a bit pressed for time, lately.)

In a remote part of the Quinntonian coastline:
“Well Jack, there is that old abandoned hut up here, we might as well check it out and make sure that no kid are up there making trouble while the search is going on. “
“No problem Sheriff, but we should probably check out the complaint by crazy old man Jenkins.”
Earlier...
“Shurrif, them aliens ur runnin’ up in the hills, I sawed them! They wuz walking around the other night when I was walking Rusty at midnight.”
“Were you drunk, Jenkins?”
“Youse’re missin’ da point! They wuz talking that alien language and settin’ up a satellite dish!”
“OK listen, we were going up into the hills to check out the abandoned mine huts and we will check out the area that you saw them when we go up there, how about that?”
Later...
As the jeep rolled up the hills, through the barely used hunter’s path up the hills they two policemen chatted to each other and the sun dipped to the treetops. The engine roared and the two men talked of unimportant things as they neared the area of the last of the abandoned mining huts. The jeep finally pulled up and the two men got out and turned on their flashlights as dusk slowly settles in.
“Jack, I have to piss, you go on into the hut and check things out.”
“OK.”
The Sheriff then turns off his flashlight and walks a little ways into the woods to take car of business, and just as he is about to commit, he sees a flash of light in his periphery. Knowing that he can hold it for awhile, he takes a short jog down the hill and up the next one where he sees the oddest sight he had ever seen, and he was a veteran of Kurosian’s Rage it looked like a big barbarian warrior from like Conan or something, complete with a sword strapped to his back and a braided beard, but with a sub-machinegun set against a tree twenty or so feet from him as he stared into a dimly glowing laptop, with a thick set of wires that seemed to run to a tree on top of the hill he was on and had a silver dish pointing from it to the sky. He started to snap out of it and pulled his sidearm as he crept closer. When he was thirty or so feet away he yelled “Freeze! As he aimed for the big, really big, man’s forehead. He was comforted in this situation only by the fact that he was an excellent shot.

WWJD
Amen.

Áed ap Haradog hissed a curse under his breath in an old Geletian dialect just the tiniest instant before the Sheriff called out. A member of the Tolistobogii tribe, Áed -fire-, had grown up in one of Celtic India's most traditional communities, a genuine iron age hill fort, and was as such far better a hunter and warrior than technobug, and as such had been quite perplexed by his Indian comrades' communications set-up, but detected the intruder's presence, and perhaps even his hostile intent, before even laying eyes on him. Unfortunately, fumbling with the pipe he'd repeatedly been told not to smoke at night in the open, he failed to level his workshop-produced Sten gun on the Sheriff before hearing the sound of a pistol being drawn. He cursed again.

Áed put his flipper-like hands out away from his sides and called back in a thick Celtic accent, "Don't shoot, Officer! I got lost!"

Of course what he'd be doing lost in the woods with a submachine-gun and satellite communications set-up was to be anyone's guess, the purpose of the response was merely to alert his comrades.

Govind, crouched behind the satellite assembly on which he was working, heard it loud and clear, and drew his 9mm Auxiliary-issue sidearm as he waited for the Quinntonian's next action. If he approached, either Áed would pull him limb from limb, or Govind would reveal himself with weapon trained and the pair would attempt to induce the Sheriff's surrender. If he stayed back and tried to call for help, Govind felt that he would have little choice but to take a shot.

Not far away, two of the remaining half-dozen comrades were quietly heading back after poaching a couple of birds and other small animals when they noticed the jeep and exchanged an, "Oh, shit, that shouldn't be there" sideways glance. Crouching down they dropped their catches as one took out a sidearm and satellite phone -he would call the hideout and see what was going on- while the other slowly unsheathed his Kirpan -the knife worn by what few baptised Sikhs remain in Soviet India- and began to stalk around the jeep and near-by rundown hut, looking for trouble that his mastery of the gatka martial art might alleviate for his comrades.

The last two conspirators were below ground in small tunnels akin to those dug by the Drapoel and in the Roycelandian war on Vietnam, one still sleeping when the other picked up his satellite phone and then immediately began scrambling about in the dark for a submachine-gun.

There was at this early stage a real danger that the whole campaign could be ruined, and most of the six would rather face death than suffer absolute failure.

The Sheriff’s head was spinning as he looked at the fantastic mixture of themes playing out in front of him. He yelled, “Put your hands up high where I can see them and get down on your knees! No sudden moves now or you’ll suddenly develop a serious case of lead poisoning!”

As he said that, his free hand reached for his radio, he wouldn’t be able to reach HQ; he would need the jeep radio for that, but he could call hi deputy.
Near the jeep, the other two would catch sight of a flashlight in motion as the musty old mining hut near them got a once over, just prior to them hearing the radio in both the jeep, and on the belt of the officer within the hut crackling to life requesting back-up.

WWJD
Amen.

Comrade Mankaran Singh Nagra, creeping around the back of the hut and hearing the radio come to life, is careful to listen in as he edges towards the doorway. He decides to wait for the deputy to exit, having heard nothing to make him believe there is more than one person inside. Schooled in the gatka fighting form and hopefully having surprise on his side he hopes to have his knife at the deputy's throat before anything can go wrong, and, in the moment, is unlikely to have any idea better than drawing the blade across his windpipe on the spot. It's not like they can take prisoners, nor let law enforcement officers go free after finding them. Better to do him in now than leave him to starve, or be rescued.

At the hideout, Áed, strikingly turquoise eyes fixing the Sheriff throughout, slowly sinks to his knees in his own time, letting his Sten hang from his neck by its sling as he puts his hands out from his sides. Still hiding behind the satellite set-up, Govind takes several painful seconds to quietly thumb back the hammer of his pistol and then moves his finger on to the trigger.

Just as the Celt's knees hit the ground, Govind moves a final few inches from his crouched position and fires over Áed's lowered head, the Celt immediately throwing himself to the ground and rolling forward towards the Sheriff on hearing his comrade's sudden action.

Unfortunately, back at the hut, the two rapid 9mm reports sound just as the deputy is exiting the hut and Singh drawing himself up beside the doorway to strike. As the deputy reacts, Singh curses, startled, and impulsively lunges at the Quinntonian, blade drawn.

Within seconds the other three comrades will be on hand, two coming from the hide near the Sheriff armed with submachine guns, the other with pistol in one hand and sat-phone in the other rushing towards the jeep to investigate the radio sounds there.

The Sheriff barely felt the burning lead as it went into his shoulder, unfortunately missing his Kevlar vest and ripping a new hole in shoulder where there was none before. As the force of it spun him around he pulled the trigger of his 9mm which probably sent a bullet harmlessly into the woods, as he fell onto his knees, and recognizing his situation, dropped his gun and raised his hands.

The deputy had fortunately pulled his gun when he heard the call for help and though the shock of the shots ringing through the air stopped him, the knife drove harmlessly into his Kevlar vest as he fired three shots into the belly of his attacker and fell onto the ground with the interloper on top of him.

WWJD
Amen.

Áed ap Haradog, now crouched inches from the Sheriff and once again staring eye to eye with him, allowed a smirk to creep across his face, which was red from excitement and alcohol, as he regained his feet, tossing the Quinntonian's pistol back towards Govind with a few words of congratulation to his comrade.

"Come on, you" he said, pulling the Sheriff up roughly and prodding him with his Sten gun. "Let's go and see about that partner you were calling, shall we? You two, stick around here and watch the stuff, eh? Govind's with me."

At the hut, Mankaran, still trying fruitlessly to push his kirpan through the deputy's armour, was now wide eyed and dripping blood from his lips into his thick beard and on to his opponent. Gasping, he said something about justice for the defenceless and was clearly expiring when his cormade, pistol and sat-phone in hand, came scurrying around the corner of the building.

"Got him? Nice work, comrade!" He said initially, before frowning and raising his weapon. "Nag?" He asked, repeating the nickname of his now motionless comrade in raised tones as Áed and Govind approached with the Sheriff.

The deputy was in full on panic mode now and simply pushed the lifeless corpse off f him, retched at the gushing blood all over him, and lifted the pistol and opened fire on the new target. Four ore shots broke the serenity of the woods, as the deputy sprang to his feet and sprinted for the jeep, now yelling, “Sheriff! Sheriff! Where are you?”
WWJD
Amen.

Singh's friend reacted much the same as the deputy, firing several times in reply and flinging himself to the floor before scrambling back behind the hut. Govind and the Celt, on the other hand, were a bit more steady as they arrived on the scene with the wounded sheriff, responding to the first three shots. As soon as it became apparent that the situation was still very much alive and kicking, Áed put a 9mm round into the base of the sheriff's skull and then emptied the rest of his Sten's 26-round load in the direction of the deputy while Govind fired two more controlled shots at the fleeing man.

The conspirators were likely to land themselves with at least three bullet-riddles corpses before they'd even had chance to put their plans into action.

The second Soviet interloper flung himself to the ground with eough time to realise that he had been hit hree times out of four shots that the deputy had rung out. The deputy had been hit three times, with two imbedding themselves into the kvlar armour that he was wearing, and the last one hotting him straight in the butt. He still scrambled to the jeep where he witessed his boss getting taken out execution style and brought the Ithaca pump action shotgun to bear on the situation as bullets flew all around him. He got a single slug off at Govind, hiting him squarly in the chest before taking almost a half dozen shots that took him down.

WWJD
Amen.

Despite the deputy's belief that he'd got the better of several Soviet militiamen and their submachine-guns, by the time Áed -who seemed to have taken charge- confirmed that he was satisfied in the security of the area it was apparent that Govind and the second poacher were not so badly hurt. The deputy must have been in quite a state by the time he got all the way to his shotgun, and Govind, though he looked rather shaken, seemed to be unscathed, while the poacher was just regaining feeling that alerted him to a stinging fleshwound.

"No time to fuss over that now" said Áed, "we can't stick around here now. Bind it quickly, Govind, for feck's sake pull yourself together, I need help dealing with the afters."

Before daybreak the radical Igovians were gone, driving the jeep some distance before sending it into a body of water and continuing along a slightly different course on foot. The poacher had become quite pale, possibly hurt more badly than they initially believed and losing blood internally somewhere, and Govind still seemed out of sorts... and half deaf. Only three of the original six comrades were really unharmed after their encounter with local law enforcement.

Back at the hide some equipment had been burned -that which couldn't be carried- by an incendiary device that went off quarter of an hour after the group had set out, but that was unlikely to hold people's attention for so long as the rest of the scene. Both the sheriff and his deputy would be found without their heads, nailed in standing positions against two adjacent trees, empty weapons clasped in their cold hands which were posed as if in combat. The Sikh was burned, but owing to a pressing need to flee the area the process was rushed and a significant part of his body was intact when he was cast into the same waters as the jeep. None of the others knew the night time or final prayers, so instead sang a few bars from the Igovian Internationale before pressing on.

Áed was quiet for some time. Others assumed it was a mark of respect for Nag, but the big Celt was busy worrying about how to complete the operation with half of one team dead and the other half wounded, and half of a second team apparently having blown a fuze. The conspirators were supposed to act in three pairs, but now they were bound together by the infirmity of Govind and the poacher.

"Why hasn't that damn Mexican kid contacted us about the vans, yet?" Asked one of Áed's comrades. He got no reply.

OOC-You are going to have to kee this one moving, I am not sure where I would get involved here, unless it is to bring the wrath of the military down on your guys right now, looking for their lost sherrifs. I need you to keep moving so I know where to jump in again.

WWJD
Amen.

Just hoping that there will be some more movement...

Some days had passed, and Áed ap Haradog was satisfied that the five had covered enough ground. It was time to reorganise.

"You're going to have to take him. I know he's in no state to replace Nag, but he needs to go somewhere." The Celt looked his comrade in the eyes most seriously as he handed off the wounded poacher, now almost constantly quiet and deathly pale, before turning to the other healthy man and stating similarly, "And Govind's with you. He might snap out of it, but if he gets the operation in to trouble, well, you know...

"I'll hit Number 1 on my own and find some way out of it or send a few more after those fecking cowboys."

The five parted in three directions, making for pre-determined points on the Quinntonian railway network. It took another eighteen hours before everything was ready, by which time another two hour wait was necessary, so research indicated. Govind spent most of the time sitting dead still or shaking his head and blinking as his mixed-up mind tried to put the world back into order, while the poacher did his best but was unable to contribute significantly to the digging. Áed worked hard enough for two men, and was ready before his distant comrades, but waited for the right time none the less.

Over night some two full days after the altercation in Washington State, the Igovian radicals struck their first deliberate blow against the United States.

Within minutes of one another, three explosions resonated through largely desolate landscapes at distances of many hundred kilometres apart, their purpose to ruin track as iconic mile-long freight trains rolled through and were blasted from the rails taking thousands of tonnes of assorted freight with them. The intention was to destroy said freight, worth millions, along with similarly valuable engines and scores of wagons, temporarily crippling three different parts of the national freight network and spreading panic through the authorities and the normally confident national economy.

The Indians all fled, hoping to make good distance before significant help could arrive at any of the remote sites, and even perhaps before any central authority was able to coordinate a response to what was evidently some manner of nation-spanning conspiracy. Áed took longest in fleeing, noticing that several large flammable tanks had only come partially from the rails and failed to explode as he expected. The Geletian made use of an Indian RPG-7 knock-off to settle that matter, launching from as close as he dared get bearing in mind the scale of the resulting blast. He too was soon away, on a motorbike taken from a gang member missing since he left his club house last week.

Before news had even broken nationally, LAX received a call from a payphone four kilometres from one of the train derailments warning of similar attacks on national and international airports and services. Details were vague, but the caller had a foreign accent and knew about all three railway incidents -at least the attempts, if not the results of the two furthest from where he called- before they'd made the headlines.

OOC-I just need to know how you were moving around, in the (2-5?) days after the firefight. Are you on foot? In which case, your diameter would be very limited for the attacks, but you could probably get by without having been noticed. If you are using vehicular transport, things get a little dodgier, and you seem to mention both being in a larger urban centre (biker clubhouse) and vehicular transport (bike). I just need to know the context so that my response makes sense.

WWJD
Amen.

(OOC: Well, I was just trying to cut to the chase, but anyway the implied plan was to use vans acquired through a dodgey -possibly Mexican-based- contact, I just threw in a reference to some delay or problem with that necessitating Aed's theft of a motorcycle. The other two teams have proceeded using vans rented by a third party. Presumably there's some chance that said party could later rat-out the Indians, but they don't plan for their campaign to last very long, and want to have done the damage by then. They're of course an extremely radical bunch, come dungeons dark or gallows grim as the Beddgelen anthem says, and may not expect to get away with it so long as it gets done.)

OOC-OK, it's just that a bunch of Soviet Gelletians with no Quinntonian cultural training are not exactly going to keep a low profile. So, it might be difficult to not get seen/confronted at least in some part prior to the bombing.

WWJD
Amen.

OOC-When hearing their voices, think “Fargo.”
Officer Billy-Joe Stead of the Minnesota State Highway Patrol had pulled over to get some wake-up juice with his partner Steve. As he walked up to the counter, he was struck with the fact that the guy in front of him was just huge and had long, hippified hair. That didn’t cotton in the small town of Seed Potato. He was about to say something when he saw Steve through his mirrored sunglasses spitting his tobacco juice into the dirt and looking into the window of the white windowless van parked by the pumps. He saw Steve slowly pull his nightstick from his belt and knock on the window. He looked back at the person in front of him, who was watching intently the scene unfolding outside and noticed that he had a bulge inside his leather vest, right where a hidden holster would be, and that his hand was slowly moving there. Well, Billy-Joe wasn’t going to take chances, especially with the stories circulating about those cops in Washington who were missing. So, he dropped his coffee and drew, yelling. “Ya better be puttin’ doze hands in the air, or I’ll be spraying your gosh-golly brains all over that wall over dere, don’t ya know?” Knowing he was beat, he put his hands up and surrendered, but what the hell were these people saying? If he didn’t already, he was really starting to hate Quinntonia. It almost made him think that there might be a God, with morons like this being the pre-eminent power in the world.
Steve then burst through the door, yelling, “Aw geez, I think that feller in dat van over dere isn’t lookin’ that good, Billy-Joe.” The big Gelletian just shook his head and sighed heavily.
In the interim, bombs went off outside Denver, Colorado, and in Oakland, California. Then all hell broke loose in Quinntonia.
The trains that were bombed leaked oil, dropped car that were damaged beyond recognition, and even had chemical seepage, something that Aed would be paying for in cancer treatments for years to come should he live to tell the tale. In Denver, the damage done was financially more costly, with more consumer goods being shipped on that particular train. But in California, the damage was environmentally more dangerous, prompting the massive evacuation of nearby communities, and the voluntary evacuation of Oakland by its citizens at the urgings of its mayor. The National Guard in both states was called into full alert and brought in to deal with the damage, as well as secure the borders of the states, and between the police, state patrols, National Guard, regular military, and the cooperating officials in the same in all of the neighbouring states, as well as the massive mobilisation of the local community militias, these areas were closed down tighter than an Quinntonian Idol’s judge’s t-shirt. Immediately the borders to both Canada and Mexico were closed, with the Mexican government actively participating and closing their coastlines and borders as well, seeing as they were now almost Quinntonian. The NATO allies in Canada placed their military on high alert as they tried to string the noose a little tighter.
Announcements started to come out of Washington, “All commercial and non-military private air traffic is officially grounded, all branches of the military in all places in the world is now on high alert, the Pentagon has moved to Defcon 4, all highways are closed until they can be cleared by regular authorities, every community is urged to place roadblocks at every entrance to their community and search every vehicle coming through, etc.”

During all of this, reports of strange occurrences start to fly into the FBI and NSA for them to sort through, including the centralisation of the WIG pilot, whose interrogation takes a decidedly more physical and intense aspect, and the recently arrested Gelletian who had a van full of weapons and explosives, who is flown to the nearest military base for interrogation, and then interrogated on the plane on the way to Washington, D.C. Information should be forthcoming.

WWJD
Amen.

(OOC: I'll get to this as soon as I can, though this is just a quick warning that I've had more frustrating news on the visa front and could be distracted for a bit (maybe not, we'll see), anyway I just wanted to alert you to another incident, this time in the Germany Liberates Portugal thread. Quinntonians are amongst the targets. I haven't tried to say for sure that any are VIPs, but the aim is to involve some of the movers and shakers -even just minor church diplomats and international businesspeople- related to German developments in Portugal, immediately after the coronation. Anyway, it's the closest thing we've got to a follow-up on the threat to US air traffic, even though it's not in the US, or on a US-owned plane.)

In Minnesota, as one of only three really healthy survivors, Oscer ap Reagan is tempted to try his luck against Billy-Joe but, inexplicably for a Geletian, does not. If this had been Áed, things may have been different, and Henbeddestr, the only other fit and free conspirator, would almost certainly have drawn and dropped the Officer before he could flinch, but Henbeddestr had that name for a reason, and Oscer was not the fastest man.

He surrendered, but his face retained a stern, somehow superior expression as he looked down at the relatively little Quinntonian.

In the van, the Oriya poacher had awoken with a start from his fitful daze, and tried desperately, almost unthinking, to detonate some of the explosives on hand, but breathed his last shallow breath in the process and passed away with one of the spare, unwired detonators clasped in his clammy hand, the switch successfully depressed to no avail.

Already in custody, Daruthenga Ajit Tarang Das (known usually as Das, Tarang, or, more often, DAT Das) maintains his innocence for as long as he can bear, before finally breaking, apparently, after prolonged waterboarding, and admitting to smuggling unregulated Geletian wine, commonly held to be made with some hallucinogenic ingredients. He says that a radio marker will identify the location at sea of a large barrel weighted to the bottom and released electronically when someone comes to pick it up.

He insists that the deal was arranged by someone back in India, whom he knew by a nickname, which is not at all uncommon in the south, and so he can't say who in Quinntonia was supposed to collect the contraband, or when. He claims to have already dropped off several barrels further up the coast, and doesn't know whether or not they would have been collected by now.

"(Working) Hours are longer under War Communism, but wages are frozen for the duration in most sectors. The Commune has raised prices on nearly all consumer goods to discourage consumption of resources that could be used for the war effort... I'm just trying to make enough to get my own appartment and move out of the common dorms!" He repeats, trying to appeal to a capitalist's sense that communist economics must be failing on some level, so as to convince his interrogators of the likelihood of his story.

On the run, Áed posts a letter from Colorado addressed crudely to the council of bishops taking credit for recent attacks in the name of the Indian Red Army and then heads for New York, stopping only for a good shave and a haircut... and to steal some clothes that will fit him, and, he thinks, will fit in.

And so Linas Kleiza of the Denver Nuggets boards as Greyhound bound for the big apple, explaining his strange accent with a convincing, "I'm from Lithuania, apparently!"

A still not-quite-right Govind and his comrade Henbeddestr, meanwhile, are back in their unremarkable beat-up old van and driving to LA. For now Govind takes the driving seat and the Hispanic name Goyo.

(OOC: Damn it, there just isn't enough time in the world, these days!)

After receieving his first confession, the interrogators take action to make sure that the places that he indicated are searched, and then leave the room that he is being held in. At that point, s small East Indian man comes in, with a coastal accent and explains that his name is Dr. Ada Bussi, and he will be taking care of the interrogations from this point on. His assisstent, a ridiculously large man with a buzzcut in a bad grey suit and a crucifix tattoo on his left cheek starts to set out his equipment, mostly medical in nature, though jumper cables don’t quite qualify, and the pliers are questionable. Dr. Bussi loads a syringe with his own mixture of sodium pentothal and some new things that have been developed to make the “truth serum” work far more effectively than on its own, and settles in to do his work.

Oscer ap Reagan is transported from Minnesota quickly to North Dakota, where the military maintains much of its ballistic strength. There, his interrogation begins in earnest as well, with the waterboarding being skipped and the men with the crucifix tattoos reviving some of the more “medieval” methods that have so worked for retrieving confessions for the church in the past.

Aed finds himself sitting next to a diminutive Jewish couple on a tour of the capitols of many of the states that they have travelled through, and on their way back to New York. Immediately they start up a conversation, asking one of the most common Quinntonian questions for smalltalk, “Where to do you go to church?”

Govind and Henbeddestr, are driving along for about an hour and half, when they are going across on the 92, headed for the I-5, are stopped by a line of vehicles just outside Livermore at a police and local militia vehicle search and checkpoint. They are about thirty cars back, and as soon as they pull in, two more cars pull up behind them, blocking them in. There is about 50 militia members and maybe 10 Sheriff’s Deputies, with a couple of State here doing their best to keep things moving, and they are searching every vehicle.
WWJD
Amen.

D.A.T. Das may not be delighted to see Dr.Bussi and his associate, but he does not dwell on their potentially intimidating bag of tricks. Das, in fact, his head finally above water, is making his way into a certain meditative state. Certainly it is far less obvious than may be the case if he were reciting a mantra and sitting in a lotus position, but the still-alert Indian's body is pre-emptively activating its best pain response, flooding his system with dozens of chemicals, endorphins the least of them, that might just get him through the rest of his ordeal. Das is fortunate to be amongst that significant portion of any given population with the physical potential to exercise such control, and amongst the smaller portion (not quite so small in historically spiritual and now fiercly scientific Soviet India) that knows how to turn it on.

The syringe doesn't worry him too much, either. He can't be sure that he won't talk, but there's no certainty that he's going to reveal anything important.

North Dakota

Oscer, meanwhile, takes a different route to resistance. He also clearly takes grave offence over his treatment, and is not quiet about expressing it. Oscer is alike with Áed in representing Geletian tradition and indeed stereotypes, and hurls every imaginable threat and insult at his captors once the pain becomes too much for him to maintain his earlier silent defiance. Certainly if there is even a moment in which he is -while still anything like able bodied- in which he is not securely restrained, Oscer, a typically experienced Geletian wrestler and general ale-house brawler, will not hesitate to snap limbs and necks or to tear flesh and smash heads.

In time, one suspects however, Oscer may become more forthcoming than Tarang. It is unlikely that he will break in the conventional sense, but the furious and offended Geletian may be driven to declaring elements of the plot simply to boast of his comrades' achievements and perhaps to frighten the Quinntonians over more to come. Eventually he may claim that breaching US security, killing law enforcement officers in Washington, and blowing-up Quinntonian infrastructure was easy, and that the US deserved it. Perhaps he will say that it'll happen again, but getting him to give useful details about his still-free comrades will be tougher. He is not unlikely to exaggerate their numbers, equipment, and plans. Perhaps they will in his confessions even end up in posession of one of the more than four-hundred low-yield nuclear warheads that the Commonwealth recently removed from its Agni missiles!

The bus

Áed makes what in the witnesses' hindsight may appear to be an unsettlingly good show of being at ease and in good spirits. He smiles broadly when anyone's line of sight meets his own, and tries to humour the couple seated near him.

He tries to protect himself by playing the European immigrant whose English is still very limited, nodding and saying, "Yes!" more often than is called for by conversation directed at him.

"Church is..." and he gestures with his arm to indicate perhaps a flattening of a structure, "...when I am boy in USSR. I don't know."

He adds, "I think is not many Orthodox in USQ."

Livermore

"A thousand curses!" Govind mutters as he leans over the steering wheel this way and that, looking ahead and behind the van.

Henbeddestr is methodically active in the back of the vehicle, however, which his comrade soon notices. "What are you doing? There's three-score of them if there's one!" Govind hisses at the Celt, who, as it turns out, is loading and sighting a scoped .303" Ishapore Enfield bolt-action rifle.

"Sit down and act Mexican, comrade!" He says, leaning over to wind down the passenger side window before settling back to rest his rifle on the seat, below the adjustable headrest. The group's fastest draw and far its finest marksman whispers a Celtic melody under his breath, giving Govind the impression of an eenie-meenie-miny-moe like affair.

"Fifty, sixty, a thousand, don't worry so much, one shot will do! Nid hyder ond bwa, Govind. Just get ready to look afraid and start driving when everybody panics. An exploding policeman's head and the sound of gunfire will tend to cause panic, and if it's just one shot they won't know from exactly which direction it came. Just remember, you don't know where it came from, and you're just as scared as everyone else."

A target's head in his crosshairs, Henbeddestr fell silent and squeezed the trigger as Govind tensed up and clenched his hands around the wheel with all his might.