The Black Reich
15-09-2007, 04:42
OC: Attached is the thread that relates to this one here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=538046)
The day was the same as any other along the border provinces, it was hot, it smelt like an arid bushland plain, with all the scents and breezes, and somewhere up ahead could be smelt a barbarian settlement.
Trooper Erik Hawson listened intently to his friend Damien McRaddige talking about nothing in particular – the last big night on the town he had had before being posted to the Provincial Force Surveillance Unit.
“…Man, you should’ve been there!” Damien said, it brought Erik back to the present and made him focus on Damien good and proper, he’d just got past the part where he mentioned being let out of the base lockup after urinating on the staff sergeant’s personal vehicle, which to Erik meant that this story was almost finished – again. “Yeah, maybe next time D” he said dismissively, Damien, oblivious to the fact that his friends ‘intent listening’ had been anything but, grinned and went back to patrolling.
Erik, for some reason, felt that something was amiss with today, as a matter of fact, something had been amiss with the whole month, in layman terms something was dead-set wrong about the place recently. The PFS unit he and Damien were designated to – the 357th regional reconnaissance unit, was an accepted part of life around these areas of the lawless plains, and were actually in some ways, accepted by both the semi-permanent bushmen dwellers of the lands, and the local warlord.
However, the last few weeks had seen a sort of distancing from the 357th by the locals. The women who would wave whilst hanging their laundry in the sun from their brick and log houses now cautiously glanced out at the passing men and vehicles – the elderly man who often met them at the sole crossroads on their journey to peddle his wares hadn’t been seen for a number of days now, and more surprisingly, the local warlords few troops he kept stationed in the region had gone, just literally disappeared overnight.
All these little items, in of themselves suspicious enough to warrant curiosity by most ‘switched on’ patrolmen, had all intermingled within the minds of the recon troops, making a number of them extremely nervous.
A small automobile lay abandoned by the side of the road as the recon unit advanced, naturally caution took precedence as the team advanced. Even in friendly barbarian territory there were those who hated the so called ‘Imperialists’ from over the mountains, and the chance to off a few using a bomb in someone’s ‘liberated’ patchwork car was something they would love to do.
However, today didn’t seem to be a problem, and for a moment, as Erik’s own half-track began to move past the abandoned vehicle and away from its chassis, he let himself relax.
It was about that same moment that the lead light tank guarding the column struck the first AT mine embedded in the ground, and all hell broke loose…
…
The fighting was down to its last few small contacts, one Reichan, armed with a veritable arsenal of weapons he had acquired from his fallen comrades, was proving to be a serious threat to the nimbler cavalry mounted Jorghurn raiding party, and only now was being flushed out of his position.
The man was pinning down one group of infantry quite effectively with a sustained fire machine gun that had been positioned at the last moment of the contact, yet as he did this two troopers armed with satchel charges crept around the side of his position.
All of a sudden though, the firing stopped and, whether he had known he was about to be flanked or not, the trooper got up from his position and began to run, an automatic rifle barked from the grip in his hands, and on his back swung an automatic grenade launcher. Despite their best efforts, the lucky man lived to fight another day... all the man needed to do now was survive in the arid bushland he was stuck in, the next town was almost a hundred kilometres away...
General Hasrim Mar Darkesh looked at the scene of carnage below. The troops had performed admirably, with their new weapons, new tactics, and new leadership, they had done something that no one had done in this area for an absolute age – they had made the Reichan dogs suffer, and suffer greatly.
As the group began to salvage what they could from the wrecked vehicles, and try to repair those vehicles that looked like they could drive away, Darkesh walked over to a man dressed in strange mottled brown combat fatigues.
“Verso – san, your training and your skills have rubbed off well on my men, for this I thank you.”
The New Dawn man looked over at him and turned back to the scene below. “Your men have no need to thank me, they are doing that whenever they accept the Dynastic creed. But yes, your Khan will be pleased with your efforts, for it is the first strike of many. Plan locust will prevail, and when it does, the tide of judgement and justice will sweep over Reicha and their tainted allies as overpowering as winter is to fall.”
Darkesh mumbled something in agreeance, bowed his head, and turned away wondering exactly what the heck this quasi-religious militant was on about… all he knew was that what he had done would please the new Khan, and that was all that mattered…
…
Within Reicharia – the capital city of The Black Reich
“Ladies and Gentlemen of the Supreme Counciletariat, as you are aware our recent alliance with the nation of Tremarendakia is proving to be of great benefit to our nation diplomatically, but at the moment is proving an economic downturn.” Lord Minister Nathan Carroner sat silently as he listened to the conference on “Operation Forged Path”. The Reichan supreme counciletariat was currently the most guarded building in all of Reicha – HRMSAGE specialist guards mingled with the Lord Minister’s own Ministerial Guard, and Carroner knew of two Shadowsouls openly patrolling the Counciletariat chambers dressed in common HRMSAGE uniforms…
The reason being was simple, at this one point in time all of The Black Reich’s most important individuals, the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the major services, the Counciletariat itself, and the Lord Minister as well, were packed into the Counciletariat discussion chambers.
Ground Marshal Frederick Turant continued on with his part of the meeting, “…the problem is distances involved… between us and our new ally is a whole swathe of land controlled by Barbarian elements, then after that is the problem of establishing a Sea Line of Communication from the mainland to our ally through this land…” Turant pointed to a stretch of coastline on a huge map at the centre of the table, “…but that’s the concern of the navy for the time being so we’ll leave that be. If we could somehow remove this threat from the Barbarians and develop away from the Mt Toroba range and up along the coast past the Dynastic regions, we’d not only develop a physical link to our ally, but we would also kill two birds with one stone in that we would also cut off the Dynastic Empire from its barbarian recruitment pool and its regional barbarian alliances.”
The supreme counciletariat began to argue amongst themselves and with the Joint Chiefs of Staff over the merits and credits of the argument for military action. Although such action had been proposed by the Lord Minister to both Chieftan Kalo of Tremarendakia and to his own Counciletariat, it too had to be critically assessed by a panel of peers to determine what sort of response would come from the empire.
The vote pretty much ended the way it always did… the Upper Reichan province, fearing the resurgence of violence from a encircled Dynastic Empire, naturally stated it wouldn’t support such a venture if it destabilized the combat front too much or increased New Dawn attacks too much...
The Helmarric Dominions and the North Reichan Council, both highly militarized and politically disaligned to one another, naturally ended up agreeing with the Lord Minister, then promptly turning to disagree with why the other would agree...
West Reicha, essentially the overseer of the other states, naturally stated its willingness, and the Empire of Manderos, seeing as its islands were often the point of conflict for both the NRC and HD, simply said yes in order to keep receiving HRMS military assistance...
All in all, the motion was carried – Operation FORGED PATH – the establishment of an overland trade route between the two nations, would begin to be developed in earnest…
The day was the same as any other along the border provinces, it was hot, it smelt like an arid bushland plain, with all the scents and breezes, and somewhere up ahead could be smelt a barbarian settlement.
Trooper Erik Hawson listened intently to his friend Damien McRaddige talking about nothing in particular – the last big night on the town he had had before being posted to the Provincial Force Surveillance Unit.
“…Man, you should’ve been there!” Damien said, it brought Erik back to the present and made him focus on Damien good and proper, he’d just got past the part where he mentioned being let out of the base lockup after urinating on the staff sergeant’s personal vehicle, which to Erik meant that this story was almost finished – again. “Yeah, maybe next time D” he said dismissively, Damien, oblivious to the fact that his friends ‘intent listening’ had been anything but, grinned and went back to patrolling.
Erik, for some reason, felt that something was amiss with today, as a matter of fact, something had been amiss with the whole month, in layman terms something was dead-set wrong about the place recently. The PFS unit he and Damien were designated to – the 357th regional reconnaissance unit, was an accepted part of life around these areas of the lawless plains, and were actually in some ways, accepted by both the semi-permanent bushmen dwellers of the lands, and the local warlord.
However, the last few weeks had seen a sort of distancing from the 357th by the locals. The women who would wave whilst hanging their laundry in the sun from their brick and log houses now cautiously glanced out at the passing men and vehicles – the elderly man who often met them at the sole crossroads on their journey to peddle his wares hadn’t been seen for a number of days now, and more surprisingly, the local warlords few troops he kept stationed in the region had gone, just literally disappeared overnight.
All these little items, in of themselves suspicious enough to warrant curiosity by most ‘switched on’ patrolmen, had all intermingled within the minds of the recon troops, making a number of them extremely nervous.
A small automobile lay abandoned by the side of the road as the recon unit advanced, naturally caution took precedence as the team advanced. Even in friendly barbarian territory there were those who hated the so called ‘Imperialists’ from over the mountains, and the chance to off a few using a bomb in someone’s ‘liberated’ patchwork car was something they would love to do.
However, today didn’t seem to be a problem, and for a moment, as Erik’s own half-track began to move past the abandoned vehicle and away from its chassis, he let himself relax.
It was about that same moment that the lead light tank guarding the column struck the first AT mine embedded in the ground, and all hell broke loose…
…
The fighting was down to its last few small contacts, one Reichan, armed with a veritable arsenal of weapons he had acquired from his fallen comrades, was proving to be a serious threat to the nimbler cavalry mounted Jorghurn raiding party, and only now was being flushed out of his position.
The man was pinning down one group of infantry quite effectively with a sustained fire machine gun that had been positioned at the last moment of the contact, yet as he did this two troopers armed with satchel charges crept around the side of his position.
All of a sudden though, the firing stopped and, whether he had known he was about to be flanked or not, the trooper got up from his position and began to run, an automatic rifle barked from the grip in his hands, and on his back swung an automatic grenade launcher. Despite their best efforts, the lucky man lived to fight another day... all the man needed to do now was survive in the arid bushland he was stuck in, the next town was almost a hundred kilometres away...
General Hasrim Mar Darkesh looked at the scene of carnage below. The troops had performed admirably, with their new weapons, new tactics, and new leadership, they had done something that no one had done in this area for an absolute age – they had made the Reichan dogs suffer, and suffer greatly.
As the group began to salvage what they could from the wrecked vehicles, and try to repair those vehicles that looked like they could drive away, Darkesh walked over to a man dressed in strange mottled brown combat fatigues.
“Verso – san, your training and your skills have rubbed off well on my men, for this I thank you.”
The New Dawn man looked over at him and turned back to the scene below. “Your men have no need to thank me, they are doing that whenever they accept the Dynastic creed. But yes, your Khan will be pleased with your efforts, for it is the first strike of many. Plan locust will prevail, and when it does, the tide of judgement and justice will sweep over Reicha and their tainted allies as overpowering as winter is to fall.”
Darkesh mumbled something in agreeance, bowed his head, and turned away wondering exactly what the heck this quasi-religious militant was on about… all he knew was that what he had done would please the new Khan, and that was all that mattered…
…
Within Reicharia – the capital city of The Black Reich
“Ladies and Gentlemen of the Supreme Counciletariat, as you are aware our recent alliance with the nation of Tremarendakia is proving to be of great benefit to our nation diplomatically, but at the moment is proving an economic downturn.” Lord Minister Nathan Carroner sat silently as he listened to the conference on “Operation Forged Path”. The Reichan supreme counciletariat was currently the most guarded building in all of Reicha – HRMSAGE specialist guards mingled with the Lord Minister’s own Ministerial Guard, and Carroner knew of two Shadowsouls openly patrolling the Counciletariat chambers dressed in common HRMSAGE uniforms…
The reason being was simple, at this one point in time all of The Black Reich’s most important individuals, the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the major services, the Counciletariat itself, and the Lord Minister as well, were packed into the Counciletariat discussion chambers.
Ground Marshal Frederick Turant continued on with his part of the meeting, “…the problem is distances involved… between us and our new ally is a whole swathe of land controlled by Barbarian elements, then after that is the problem of establishing a Sea Line of Communication from the mainland to our ally through this land…” Turant pointed to a stretch of coastline on a huge map at the centre of the table, “…but that’s the concern of the navy for the time being so we’ll leave that be. If we could somehow remove this threat from the Barbarians and develop away from the Mt Toroba range and up along the coast past the Dynastic regions, we’d not only develop a physical link to our ally, but we would also kill two birds with one stone in that we would also cut off the Dynastic Empire from its barbarian recruitment pool and its regional barbarian alliances.”
The supreme counciletariat began to argue amongst themselves and with the Joint Chiefs of Staff over the merits and credits of the argument for military action. Although such action had been proposed by the Lord Minister to both Chieftan Kalo of Tremarendakia and to his own Counciletariat, it too had to be critically assessed by a panel of peers to determine what sort of response would come from the empire.
The vote pretty much ended the way it always did… the Upper Reichan province, fearing the resurgence of violence from a encircled Dynastic Empire, naturally stated it wouldn’t support such a venture if it destabilized the combat front too much or increased New Dawn attacks too much...
The Helmarric Dominions and the North Reichan Council, both highly militarized and politically disaligned to one another, naturally ended up agreeing with the Lord Minister, then promptly turning to disagree with why the other would agree...
West Reicha, essentially the overseer of the other states, naturally stated its willingness, and the Empire of Manderos, seeing as its islands were often the point of conflict for both the NRC and HD, simply said yes in order to keep receiving HRMS military assistance...
All in all, the motion was carried – Operation FORGED PATH – the establishment of an overland trade route between the two nations, would begin to be developed in earnest…