NationStates Jolt Archive

For nearly a decade, Cantr has been in a state of Civil War. Although the nation came close to fully reforming two years ago, this was put to an end when the leader of the dominant faction, the old Cantrian empire, was assasinated by the Paladin terrorist organization and left no sons. His two brothers immediately began a war with one another for succession, and factions which had nearly been subdued were allowed to regain their foothold.

The corporations of Cantr remained strong in spite of the war, and because of the chaos several rival organizations were eliminated, leaving only a few highly militant survivors. Each company offered military services to various factions until recently, when two of them sold exclusive services to some of the warring factions for a one year term.

A more thorough brief on the status of the nation is contained below.

Factions:
True Cantr: Led by the oldest heir to the throne of the Cantrian empire, Daichi, this faction is primarily a benevolent dictatorship, though as of late it has picked up traces of excessive corruption due to its contract with Bendan Tactics Co.
Cantrian Empire: Led by younger heir Daemon (by virtue of the fact that he captured the capitol, Cantr City), this is a more corrupt military dictatorship which is being corrupted even more, and quickly, due to its involvement with the Sable Co.
Republic of Cantr: After the collapse of the Cantrian Empire, a major province of Cantr consolidated into the Republic of Cantr. The Republic would like to be pacifistic, but in a war-torn country this simply isn't possible. They have no involvement whatsoever with the corporations.
Adrian: A religious group that was thoroughly concentrated in the desert regions of the Cantrian Isle and which was once its own nation. Although they hadn't found life in the Cantrian Empire at all undesirable, they were left more or less unprotected after internal problems began in Cantr proper, and so formed a seperate Theocracy to protect themselves until the end of the war.
The Paladins: A highly militarisitc off-shoot of the Adrianic religion. Originally terrorists, they were later able to form their own nation by staging a coup within Adrian, and although the coup was not total, they were able to seize nearly half of the country for themselves.
Bedlan Tactics Co: A mercenary organization, and the spark that lit the flame of corporate war in Cantr.
Sable Co: Originally an electronics company. They eventually started a militant branch in response to Microcosm's hiring Bedlan soldiers to shut down their operations during the Paladins attack on Cantr city. Microcosm eventually withdrew (along with the Paladins), however there was by that point considerable bad blood between Bedlan and Sable.
Drakonat: Originally a corporate-run nation, after being conquerred by the Cantrian Empire during the Drel-Drakonat War, it became a corporation by unifying all the corporations that once made up its government into a super corporation. They have seperated again and are the only organization to claim territory for themselves, taking the former territory of both Drel and Drakonat.
Samson's Federation: Started by political leader Samson Pax, the Federation is a collection of relatively peaceful states on the Errenian Peninsula. Although the Federation is primarily pacifistic, it does keep corporate troops from Sable on hand to protect themselves.


Geography:
Cantr is located on an island. Cantr proper is situated in the north-center of the Cantrian Isle (as it is known), and is very mountainous to the far north. This area is easily the most thoroughly loyal to the older heir Daichi's faction, the "True" Cantrian faction, contains his headquarters in Sjoftich, its biggest city, and contains a baker's dozen major fortresses and bases for his army in addition to a multitude of secret bases and minor outposts.

The west of Cantr is occupied by the Cantrian Republic, a rebel faction that arose when the Empire collapsed due to the actions of the Paladin terrorists. It is mostly rivers and swamplands, similar to the US Deep South. The capitol is Bejunkan, and there are several small towns scattered throughout the region, as well as some villages untouched by time hidden deep in the bogs of the area. Further west of this region is the ocean.

Cantr's great eastern plain, which eventually dissolves into the desert wherein the Paladins and Adrianites have taken territory, is ruled by the Cantrian Empire. Near the fringe of this territory is Cantr City. This area was always thoroughly entrenched and ready for war with the nearby Paladins (whom, even before becoming a state, were always a threat), however it is even more so now that it has come under the iron grip of the Empire. The economy is rapidly being reduced to that of a third world country, even though this region is the bread-basket of the Cantrian Isle.

To the west of the plains is the oil-rich desert in which both the Paladins and Adrians take residence. The border here is constantly fluctuating due to Paladin activity. The south and east edges of this region are coasts. The Paladin capitol has not yet been decided, but the Adrian capitol is the ancient city of Messik.

To the south of Cantr proper is the wide, sloping plains occupied by Drakonat, and their headquarters at Drakonat city. Drakonat is bordered west and east by ocean. To the south is the Errenian Peninsula, which is very similar to Italy (mountains in the north, Meditarranean coasts pretty much everywhere else). While no state of the Federation has more power than another, their leaders meet in Samson's state capitol of Vedin to debate the issues, thus this could be considered the national capitol.

The Situation
Cantr and "True" Cantr are at war. Cantr is employing Drakonat partially, but mostly uses Sable troops, as well as (of course) the Cantrian army. True Cantr employs Bedlan troops in addition to their own forces. All of the armies use dated technology (Mig jets, AK-47s, WW II era tanks, etc.) except Bedlan, who is still a notch or two below state of the art.

Bedlan, Sable, and Drakonat will do anything to destroy one another and attain a monopoly on essentially every business in the region. Drakonat also wishes to conquer the region in name as well as in practice, but this is far less pressing for them than it is for Cantr and True Cantr, and if out-matched they are more than willing to submit to another faction...if they're allowed to continue acting as a super-corporation.

Adrian and the Paladin Territory are at war with one another. Adrian is willing to submit to anyone who respects their religion, their rights, and is able to stabilize the region, however the Paladins seek only to kill everyone who is not themselves a Paladin. Naturally, conquerring the Isle would be a good start.

Samson's Federation and the Republic of Cantr are independant and intend to stay that way, ecspecially the Federation (which contains Sable Co. HQ, ironically). The Republic does not wish to be subjugated by any kind of dictatorship, but is more than willing to submit to a sufficiently powerful Republic, Democracy, or whatever form of (more or less) free government can protect them from Cantr and True Cantr. Samson's Federation will not submit to anyone but will not attack anyone either.

Conclusion: There's a million reasons to get involved in this region (no, this is NOT an ad, I mean militaristically!), be it economic gain, conquest, or doing the right thing.

This brief is already anything but, so if you have any further questions, please ask.

0700
Five miles north of the True Cantr/Cantr border

Three light scout helicopters flew through the morning sky, scanning the ground beneath for any signs of enemy troops.

"According to our intelligence, they should've been here half an hour ago."

"Do you think there's been a delay?"

"I don't think so. Daemon usually plans for these kinds of things. He's never behind schedule."

"But Daemon's not God."

"He's close enough. Spread out this time and let's go for another pass."

The helicopters turned around and spread out further, looking for the enemy tank column that was supposed to be headed towards the Shortinazy and Longinazy Fortresses just thirty miles north of their location. The two fortresses guarded two vital chokepoints on either end of Strom Mountain, and only one major pass through the mountains existed, guarded by Ft. Alex, named after an ancient Cantrian conqueror who had united the mountain clans thousands of years ago.

"I think I see on the radar...something over in your sector, Andrew."

"It's really faint, probably either a glitch or something inconsequential."

"Those are famous last words. Check it out."

Andrew's helicopter flew down low near where he was getting the signal. As he drew near, the signal grew stronger, and several more faint blips appeared on his radar.

"Oh no...I think this is it...I think we found the tanks...They're in the tunnels!"

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"Are you sure this is safe, sir?" Lieutanat Colonel Seth asked of his superior. "These tunnels have been destroyed and rebuilt three times during the war. The lead walls and ceiling are barely even there anymore, ecspecially in this section."

"It is true, the 'stealth tunnels' are not what they used to be...but considering the outdated technology the enemy is using, I doubt they'll be able to pick us up even with our inadequate protection. And the only alternatives are to move the column over land or not to send support at all. If you're so worried, go gather reports from the officers in charge of protecting the convoy."

"Yes, Colonel Reth."

-----------------
"Transmitting in the blind, the tanks are in the tunnels, repeat the tanks are in the tunnels!"

"Captain, incoming helicopters."

"Ours or the enemies?"

"The enemies, sir."

"Oh, great..."

"Orders, captain?"

"Our numbers are even. Try to destroy them before they can report anything back to their base."

The three choppers flew towards their counterparts from the Empire, and let loose with their machine guns as soon as they were in range. Captain Abel let loose a rocket which slammed into an enemy and blew it away, while Andrew's hail of bullets downed another enemy. Abel and Andrew turned their attention to the last chopper just in time to see it pump both of its rockets into David's chopper. The enemy chopper turned towards Abel and evaded another rocket from him, while Andrew began peppering it with maching gun fire. The enemy began returning fire, but Abel shot his gun straight into the base of the blades on the enemy and it soon followed its comrades to the Earth below.

"Let's get back to base!" Abel called out, turning his helicopter towards home.
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The True Cantrian guards at the end of the tunnel were putting up a fierce fight to be sure, but they were badly outnumbered and the bombs they'd placed to collapse the tunnel had been defused by a Dagger spy the night before. They had been counting on this in order to stop an enemy attack.

The last of the enemy were cleared away by the machine guns on the Imperial tanks, leaving only corpses and rubble behind where an intimidating defense force over a hundred men strong had been.

"Move up and out of the tunnel and clean up any resistance left in the depot." Colonel Reth ordered, and the tanks lumbered up to the surface. Two Bendan men with anti-tanks were waiting on top of the tunnel exit when they reached the top. The old tanks leading the column were no match for the first two rockets, which demolished them and halted the column. The two men immediately scrambled off the roof and began making a beeline for the exit. One of them was shot down by the AK-47 of a support soldier before he could make it out. The other got away into the bushes, and five support troops were sent to take care of him.

"That was a bit too easy..." Reth thought to himself. The enemy certainly knew that the tunnels were here...and he also knew that this supply depot was a vital link in the supply chain between the sparse farmlands farther north and the Longinazy and Shortinazy fortresses to the south...wasn't it? Was the enemy truly just incompetent?

The wreckage of the column leaders was dragged away, and the rest of the old, WWII era tanks lumbered out. Some day... Reth thought to himself, When this war is over, we'll have a realarmy, and we won't have to rely on Sable and Drakonat to supply us with all of our tech that isn't at least three decades old. "Refuel and resupply the tanks with the supplies in this depot. Then we'll start sending the rest back to our own depot, and send our tanks ahead to the forts."

As one of the troops looking for the escaped Bedlan soldier poked around in the bushes, he found a corpse. He knelt down and checked the soldiers identification...It was the Dagger agent they'd sent in three months ago! Attatched to his ID was a message; "SEE YOU IN OBLIVION"

Lieutanant Colonel Seth pried open one of the crates labelled with the proper ammunition for their ancient tanks. "True" Cantr didn't have any more advanced tanks then they did. Seth's eyes widened as he saw what was inside the crate. This isn't a supply depot...it's a trap! he thought, before the bomb inside blew him away and triggered a chain reaction demolishing the entire depot and everything inside it.

Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, a group of Umbra Corporatum analysts move live a small hive after gathering information of Cantr's destabilizaed military state.

"Forces are fragmented, low technological advancement."

"Source terrain is rich in natural resources. Oil, gold, copper, iron."

"Lack of involvement from third parties. Possible clean sweep."

A hundred mechanically augmented voices sounded off in a choir of opportunities, all logic looping, spreading, and finally concluding on a single question, resounded by all of the voices in near-perfect unison:

"When does the invasion commence?"

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Skies over Francopolis Prime's grand desert, 0730 hours

As the aerial dome platform buzzed to life, faint glows could be seen in the central headquartes, the large platform's artificial intelligence processing distances and times, signals bouncing back and forth with blazing speed to logistics and tactical networks. The platform's rear turrets swivelled as learge weapons, similar to oversized fire and forget missile batteries, aimed towards the newly designated target.

Deep within the platform's belly, canisters containing hibernating units of 1st regimental transhuman soldiers, those stolen from society and robbed of thier humanity by the corporatum's will, stirred in their sleep, chemical inductions and artificial intelligence processes rousing the combat armored figures whilst numerous pods were lifted, one by one, to the loading mechanism.

Meanwhile, not too far from this storage area, heavier pods were lifted, containing walker armor, APCs, fortification hardpoint setups, and basic supplies. The platform's surface became a hive of activity, as subservient machines began proccesses to fuel and launch helicopter gunships and fighterbombers. In fact, the entire platform was a hive of activity.

But that was to be expected. A full scale war doesn't happen every day, you know.

(OOC: If you need images or anything relating to this, don't hesitate to ask...and if for any reason you don't want me here I can leave without hesitation. But I rather like the plot you've cooked up.)

(OOC: Oh, wonderful! I expected foreign intervention, but certainly not anything like this...this'll be interesting. If you aren't planning to attack everywhere at once, I'd suggest you start at Samson's Federation and move north. That'll give the main factions in Cantr at least a few days to prepare.)

0900 hours
Imperial Missile Caravan en route to Longinazy

Sigourney hid behind some of the wreckage she'd just created. Nearby Imperial soldiers scrambled to find out what, exactly, had happened. Sigourney waited until none of them were in her immediate vicinity, and then ran towards some nearby trees, making no effort to cover her tracks. They wouldn't be noticed in this frenzy. Safely out of earshot of the enemy, she whispered into her radio.

"This is Sig, the missile trucks have been hit."

"Savid reporting in, the tank column fell for the trap in the supply depot. Tunnel collapsed on top of them as planned."

"Ember here, I've taken out all of the anti-air near the enemies first and third supply depots. Moving in on the second."

"This is Prefect. Great job, team, I'm moving in on the enemy commander now."
--------------

Prefect eased his sniper rifle a little bit closer to his target. Warmarshal Rainen, nearly a half mile away. After having created a diversion by blowing up a few supply trucks on the other end of the camp, he had sneaked over to his current position with near super-human speed. The commander in the valley below was recieving reports on the situation from his tent, as he had done last night when Prefect had blown up another truck, and the night before. The commander was getting rather angry now at their consistent inability to capture the culprit, it seemed. Prefect pulled out his detonator, which was linked by an underground wire to a large bomb buried about two feet underground near some more supply trucks. Such an operation would have been impossible if the camp had moved every day as it was supposed too, but during siege this commander in particular had a tendency to stay put and lead from the far back. The very far back.

Prefect triggered the mine, and while the soldiers scrambled to react, he sniped out the commander. "Mission accomplished." He whispered into his radio, and then turned around to head back to the forest and set up a new hideout. He had not gone ten feet before he spotted an enemy soldier. The soldier had spotted him as well, and called to his comrades.

Cursing his carelessness, Prefect pulled out his AK-47 and prepared to take them on. About seven, plus the original, who raised his gun to fire, but was shot dead long before he could shoot. The others began going down long before they could so much as make his outline in the fog. Two dead...three...four...

Wait...where are the others? About four should be left...then he knew. He did not hear them. He heard them. Or rather, their guns. He flung himself into the air and dodged the spray of fire they'd sent his way and returned before he landed in some bushes well out of the way of their range of fire. Two of the enemy went down before he hit the ground, a third immediately after. The eighth had his gun shot out of his hands.

Then came Prefect's favorite part. He stepped closer to the defenseless soldier, who pulled out a bowie knife. He dropped it as he gasped in horror upon seeing the X just above Prefect's left eye.

"Soldier X!" he got out, before being cut down by Prefect's own knife. No need to waste ammo after all.

The Alfegos satellite EITS - 1 was passing slowly over the land. It could easily pick out the individual factions scrapping it out.

It would wait, moving to geostationary, butting out the way any satellite in its way. There, it would get some good locks onlarge Cantr resource pockets. Such as the Alfegos insatiable desire for Iridium, Indium, Yttrium and Copper.

(OOC: If this is just going to be "I have missiles and you don't so I blow your nation up and take your resources", then don't bother. I'll just ignore you.)

Skies obove the capitol of Vedin, 0920 hours

A hundred thunderous roars echoed as the drop pods ignited stabilizers, regimental forces awakened, tactical readouts flashing in visors as the pods struck the earth, boosters igniting with intense force seconds before landing to dampen the impact.

As the pods broke open, regimental units poured out, twelve from every container, weapons raised. As the red visor of the unit's captain stirred, pearlescent white carapace armor gleaming as he took his first steps onto foreign soil and spoke in a harsh, mechanically augmented voice:

"Initiate pattern 717 overrun of local sovereign forces."

More pods crashed to earth, receiving incoming fire as regminetal troops burst free from thier cages, firing upon those that dared oppose thier objective.

All hell was breaking loose.

(OOC: I'm not sure just how powerful your soldiers are, so I'll just have to assume the worst...)

0920 hours
Vedin, "Capitol" of Samson's Federation

Victor had just finished his rounds when the strange pods fell from the sky.

"What the...Sean, do you have any idea what that is?"

"I dunno..." Sean said, putting his binoculars to his eyes, looking at where the thing landed. "It hit the city, and its man-made!"

"A bomb! Look, more! ...They're all duds!"

"They're not bombs...they're transports! There's troops in there!

Victor grabbed his radio and shouted into it "Calling all Vedin troops, code red, we're under attack, the pods in the sky are hostile!"

Victor grabbed his AK-47 and rushed to start shooting down the intruders. His bullets richocheted uselessly off the enemy soldiers armor. He aimed his gun upward and fired a spray at head level. A few stray bullets made it to their visors, killing them. As the soldiers began annihilating nearby patrols, a voice crackled from the radio. "This is your Commander, Vedin troops. Anti-air soldiers, do NOT let those pods land as anything more than rubble and charred corpses. Ground forces in the south sector, pull back to defence point Gamma and keep the enemy at bay. Ground troops elsewhere, kill them before they get a foothold."

Victor and Sean left their posts and began running to defence point Gamma. As they ran, one of the strange, armored soldiers raised his guns in their direction. With one precise volley, he killed them both. It took all of three seconds at a range of nearly a quarter mile.

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0927 hours

"Captain Brentson, the enemy has penetrated deep into the city. We've managed to lock them into the southern quarter of the city using armor, but we can't do much else until we find out a way to fight them effectively!"

"Start shelling the area, and have some gunships make a pass too, see if they can't do some damage with their cannons and rockets. Are the other sectors of the city safe?"

"Relatively, sir, they're still under attack, but the anti-air soldiers and turrets are doing their job pretty well, and they still haven't used any form of APC or MBT."

"How much more of this kind of fighting can we take?"

"Perhaps a few hours, sir."

"Right. Begin the evacuation. Send two squads to the dam with the engineers, and be ready to burst it as soon as we finish evacuating what sectors we can." The Lieutanant gave a few orders to some comm officers to send on the evacuation orders to the Mayor and the soldiers. "Has the situation calmed down in the Merchant Quarter?" Brentson asked when the Lieutanant had finished.

Before his subordinate could answer, the Captains phone rang. He picked it up.

"This had better be important."

"It is." VP Jentunius answered. Brentson swore under his breath. As if being attacked by a bunch of stormtroopers with good aim and effective armor wasn't bad enough, now he was going to have to wade through some red tape with Sable's board of directors. "We at Sable are very concerned with the safety of our home city, ecspecially since the Mayor has just informed us that there is to be a full-scale evacuation."

Word travels fast in this town, Brenton thought while cursing his decision to work for Sable instead of going into the Republic of Cantr's army. "Well, yes, sir, in case you haven't looked out the window over the past couple of minutes, we are under attack."

"Don't get smart with me, Captain. We do not appreciate your unnecesarilly panicking the citizens who rely on us for protection. From my window, it seems that our anti-air emplacements are doing their job quite efficiently."

"Your window must be facing east. The rest of the city is under full-scale attack. The east side must have gotten off easy because of its proximity to the ocean. I guess our attackers didn't want to risk sending their soldiers into the water."

"We believe your actions to be no more than a panic-attack induced by the first full-scale battle you've faced in nearly three years, and the first attack on Vedin you've ever experienced, and that you are unnecesarilly undermining our clients faith in our ability to protect them."

"Mr. Jentunius, you can get angry at me tommorrow when we are not dead and this city has completely fallen into enemy hands. Until then, I will do my job without your help." With that, Brentson hung up.

Immediately the Lieutanat asked him "Any change in plans, Captain?"

"No. Now how're we dealing with that apartment building that was captured in the Merchant Quarter?"

Drosk, capital city of Droskianishk

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Hardzy, had been brought several interesting satallite photos as well as intercepted radio communiques all dealing with a Republic of Cantr, as well as several other Cantr factions. He had recently taken them to the Consul of Droskianishk, Mr. Nikako Jones who had approved communication with this small republic and possible aid to help it in the civil war which seemed to be ongoing there.

Official Diplomatic Note to the Republic of Cantr

The Republic of Droskianishk is interested in aiding the formation of Republics across the world, thus Droskianishk is interested in investing military aid in the Republic of Cantr, arms, training, supplies, etc.

Minister of Foreign affairs, Mr. Hardzy

The Grand Dictator had been in his office with the minister of war for the past two hours. Some of his staff had become worried, but any attempt to enter was rebuffed by the guards flanking the solid steel entrance. Inside the richly decorated office, the Dictator and his Minister of War read numerous intelligence reports on the situation in Cantr. The Dictator wanted more resources for the country's growing economy. The Minister of war wanted a chance to prove his war machine's worth, and justify the growing military budget. But they both agreed on one thing, this opportunity mustn't be wasted. It was time for Kleomenes to make a name for itself.
***
OOC: First off, I quite enjoy the plot you've set up so far. One thing i think we will need before this can really kick off though, is a detailed map of your nation (resources, terrain, cities and the like). Also, to make things a little easier: All of my infantry forces are armed with P90's, with ERYX AT spread liberally, but I won't use many tanks, mostly light vehicles for me. Also, I really don't care who you are, if your in my way, you'll find yourself at the wrong end of my soldiers guns. Now then, to victory!

P.S. If anyone has any critique or if I'm doing something qrong, I'd much appreciate it, as this is my first RP. :)

0948 hours
Bejunkan

"Droskianishk...It sounds distinctly North Cantrian." President Sumter said.

"The only similar town in the mapped world is Drosk near the border with True Cantr. Drosk, and, for that matter, True Cantr, has little, if anything, to gain from this ploy."

"Yes...send a message back informing them that we will accept whatever aid they will offer in the form of arms and equipment...and let's hope they're not lying."

Another aide walked into the stately office with a report in her hand. "Samson's Federation is under attack. The report is wild, outlandish...it claims the enemy are white-armored super soldiers who came from pods that fell from the sky. They sent a tape. It certainly seems authentic, but the enemy soldiers honsetly seem like they were pulled from a movie studio."

The aid played the video. It displayed about a dozen white suited soldiers, not unlike storm troopers, who were obliterating a barricade manned by maybe half a dozen perfectly human defenders. A few tanks rolled in just as the last few soldiers abandoned their defences and then the tape ended.

"Hmm...well, whether or not this tape is real, we should certainly go ahead with diplomatic relations with True Cantr. We've certainly got a common enemy in Imperial Cantr."

"Right."

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1003 hours
Ft. Shortinazy

"We're under heavy enemy fire and it looks like we might have to pull out!" Cpt. Manifeld shouted into his radio before chucking a grenade at an approaching tank. "The tanks never made it here, and we can't fight without their support."

"You will fight without their support. We have already had to pull out of the Longinazy area and sent their remaining forces to you. Can't you even capture one measly fortress?"

The captain had been running away from his previous location, which the tank promptly blasted, and ran into the cover of some nearby tree's. "Repeat, sir." Colonel Sefinus repeated his message. "This fortress is far more than what we're capable of taking on at this point sir. We're running low on rations and our supplies have been disrupted. On top of that, Warmashal Rainen was assasinated earlier today. Now, more than ever, we just can't keep our supply lines stable."

"The Empire of Cantr has never faced a military defeat in any signifigant conflict! We can't run away now!"

"We're not so much running away as performing a tactical retreat, sir. Better to lose the battle and win the war."

"Enough! I order you to seize that fortress. Do it fast and we'll get some supplies to you once you've secured it." With this, the Colonel ended the transmission.

How did he get into such a high ranking position? Manifeld thought to himself before running deeper into the woods and took cover behind a log, face down in the dirt. The morning had not been kind to Imperial Cantrian forces. After their main assault failed, Manifeld had pulled back and tried to put one of Warmarshal Rainen's myriad backup plans into effect. Unfortunately, each and every one of them was foiled. Soldier X, it seems was everywhere.

Manifeld could no longer hear any sign of nearby enemy troops and decided it was safe to sit up. It was the last thing he ever did. Soldier X was indeed everywhere.

"Sir," Supreme Commander Varistok said to the president, "the situation in the Cantr region has deteriorated rapidly."

"Indeed Namir, call a cabinet meeting, we shall discuss our actions."

"At once once sir."

=2300 hours, Coronith, Coronith Federal District, ASGP=

"Gentelmen, and lady, the situation in the Cantr region is deteriorating rapidly. We are here to discuss military action options against the factions to try and bring the region into calming down." Says a stern faced President Samuel Nelsonian

Special Forces Liason to the president, Joseph Jacobs stands, "May i suggest we first assest the situation in the capital? We could lands a reinforced recon unit on the outskirts to survy the city to see if an orbital troop drop could be possible."

"Commander? Your thoughts?" says Nelsonian

"It's do-able as long as Miss Mari is willing to go along?"

The only high ranking woman in the military, Space Fleet Commander Auna Mari takes the floor, "I can have the destroyer Gera ready within 24 hours and loaded with a battalion of Orbital Drop Troopers."

"Very well, Jacobs, get your best recon team together and get it done. I want a full report in 24 hours."

"Yes sir."

=Barrier Fort, 10 miles southeast of Barrier City, 0500 hours=

Captain Chang organized his 15 man recon team onto the Dragonfly-class long range transport. "Ok all this is your first engagment in a while but I don't expect anyone and I mean ANYONE to be rusty, got it?"

A collective reply of "Yes sir!" was echoed throughout the transport.

The tarnsport blasted off the takeoff plateform into the sky, just a mere 22 hour flight to the LZ, nothing the team hadn't gone through before.

=North Isle Military Spaceport, North Isles 2200 hours=

Colonel Masterson addresses his troopers, " Men and Women, you here represent the most crazy sons of bitches in this whole military. You are elite. And I expect nothing less than that."

One hour later the roar of the massive engines of the GPS Gera moved the ship off the platform and into low orbit.

Queen Lolan Observed what she say on the screen carefully she saw bloodshed, families losing loved ones, and above all destruction. Although she eyed one party in the cantar: The republic of Cantar.

"So my queen you see what this NAtion is turning into, we must send aid at once." Said a elderly senator.

"For once therus I agree with you, senators your queen asks you, we must send aid to the Republic of Cantar to stop these Imperialist Fiends from taking over this once beautyful nation, All In FAvor say AYE."

"AYE" The whole senatorial building shook with the sounds of approval.
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Offical Communication to The Republic of Cantar
From Her majesty queen Lolan.

Salutations noble republicans. I am Queen Lolan from the Monarchy of Oblivion2. We have watched your nation for quite sometime now and we wish to aid you. If you doubt our socitey for being a monarchy allow me to inform you that we are a democratic monarchy and that i rule with the aid of a senate.

Please anwser soon.

Vedin, 1019 hours

"Unit designation Ghost 2 inbound!"

"Heavy marine deployment inbound. Repeat: we have big guns."

"Sectors, 1, 2, 14, outbreak outbreak outbreak!"

Blasts and gunfire were heard from all around, the dull roars of Helghan pattern assault rifles and GAU SMGs echoing from the 1st regiment's lines. So far, the incursion had met what they excpected: a surprised and confused defense force. Citizens were rounded up and held in 'off limits' areas...to be processed and transported to the corporatum as 'human resources' once the city was held. The primary defense wall the local defense had constructed, however, was proving a bit trickier, as heavy artillery, howitzers and mortars, rocked the heavily armed marines. Commander Glenn, a high enough ranking soldier to have been givien a name and not a serial number, was displeased, the few of his men that cautiously advanced being thrown aside by the heavy guns.

"Zulu command, issue status." The pearlescent helmet turned, firing a suppressing burst from his rifle at one of the wall's defenders who had been foolish enough to raise his head. A series of clicks and beeps rung out in the trooper's helmet, followed by a staticky voice.

"Primary infantry movements held up at or near your position. Walker lances have been deployed. NavTac have located three emplacements of anti-aircraft weaponry near the enemy airfield. However, the concentration of force is far too much for armor to advance. Your orders are to relieve pressure on that situation by causing a diversion here. Artillery will be available once we can secure a landing." A heavy crackle of interference resounded as a heavy trooper's energy cannon shrieked out a warcry, letting loose a bolt of blue supercharged particles that collided with an enemy gun emplacement, causing a dramatic shower of sparks and a great deal of lead flying in said marine's direction.

"Roger that, zulu command. Orders received." there was a fraction of a second where Glenn manipulated the readouts of his visor with eye motions, changing the frequency of his communications. A harsh mechanical shriek echoed, a trooper falling with helmet caved inward, frequency lines being cut with a horrid sound. "Units romeo, x-ray, manta...initiate slow advance towards enemy primary wall. Minimize casualties...but do this full out. We want them to get the hint. Scout units foxtrot, alpha...move through the sewers, see if we can't crack some holes in the wall from where they aren't looking. Initiate pattern, go go go!"

If Glenn's face still had the muscle memory required to smirk, he would have.

------------------

(OOC: here's an idea of what you're dealing with. http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/626/1stfrancopolisregimentyd2.jpg ...that'd be regular marines. The scouts, heavies, and elites have different setups, but that'll only come if needed.)

(OOC: The link doesn't work...tommorow I'll try it on a friend's computer. Too late to do it tonight.

Gaia, I appreciate your interest an everything, but if we assume that your second post was at 2300 on the same day as the rest of these posts, you just skipped the entire Battle of Vedin as well as the breaking of the Siege of Ft. Longinazy and the Imperial retreat through the Slopes of Tenkai, plus the first meeting between Daichi and the Republic's diplomats.

Long story short, life is easier if we assume you landed last night.)

Bulletins:
-The Republic of Cantr would be happy to accept any arms Oblivon2 is willing to provide. Unfortunately they lack the trust to accept soldiers at the moment.
-Angel, a member of Soldier X, has spotted the recon party that landed just outside of Cantr City last night, but lacked the manpower to do anything about it (she was on her own). Her orders are simply to pull back and weight.
-Generation 2 of Soldier X has been providing air superiority for True Cantr. Imperial Cantr's forces are in full retreat through the Tenkai Slopes.
-Drakonat's spies in Sable have seen first-hand the brutal efficiency of Francopolis' "Storm-troopers". As such, they have made an alliance and invited Bedlan to join in as well.

Vedin
1034 Hours
"Captain Brentson, they have armor, repeat, they have armor! The only thing that can penetrate those units are artillery shells or a well-placed 'copter rocket!"

"Launch every 'copter that isn't already clearing a path out of the city, and keep them at bay as long as possible. We need to evacuate the city! Is the board out of here?"

"Yes sir, they were evacuated ten minutes ago and they're on their way to a safehouse in Drakonat."

1556 Hours

"This is Hawk 3, I landed a hit on enemy squadron, target taken out succesfully. Moving in to clean out survivors." The Hawk 3 gunship moved down to clean out the remainder of the 12-man squadron that had landed in the North quarter of the city. If the north quarter fell, their primary highway out of the city would be blocked. Hawk 3 began opening fire on survivors with his cannon, which, thankfully, was able to pierce the strange armor these beings wore.

"This is Hawk 3, I've cleaned up the storm-troopers and I'm headed out." The Hawk's pilot sighed with relief. Two Hawk 'copters had already been shot down chasing these faceless soldiers of death.

"This is Hawk 2, I'm under heavy ene-" the radio cut to static. Speak of the Devil. the pilot thought to himself, glad he hadn't been shot down.

"Alright, Hawk squadron," Hawk Leader's voice came through the radio, "We and the other squads have cleared a path out of the city towards Denne. We need to keep that path clear while our refugees get out of here!"

(OOC: Yes, I'm speeding things up. We need to go faster. Vedin has, for all intents and purposes, been evacuated, and the very northern sectors of the city are most likely going to be the last resistance within a few hours.

Alright, let's try to keep track of this all...

True Cantr (fairly large army supported by the enigmatic Soldier X)
Imperial Cantr (large, though ineffective, army)
Republic of Cantr and allies (Apparently Democracy gets you friends!)
Adrian (One way or another, these guys are going to get owned)
Paladins (These guys might be the ones owning them)
Drakonat (Unlikely to be capable of stopping Francopolis' warpath)
(Bedlan effectively a part of True Cantr)
(Sable effectively made one with the Federation as of the invasion)
Samson's Federation (Doomed)
Francopolis Prime (Glenn? Been playing Chrono Cross lately?)
Kleomenes (I don't want to discourage you but...you'd better know what you're doing, entering a region consumed by war and under attack from an advanced, HALO-esque enemy, when you're using a light-weight army)

EDIT: Just did some research on all your nations...the Republic has some big allies!

And Francopolis Prime is actually pretty depopulated for a fully inhabited planet.

(OOC: Most of the populace are transhuman or atificially created, and large portions of the environment are desert badlands filled with all manner of desperados, mean wildlife, and tiny pink things called foppies that any Francopolis citizen would fear more than even the regiment's opression. Yes, I have been playing chrono cross. Dark masamune ftw. :P)

1558 hours

After the defensive wall's breach, after the airfield's capture, after the steady push into the norhtern portion of the city, Glenn watched over the quickly constructed fortification. The anti air batteries which the Cantr forces had so jealously guarded had now finished repairs and were being turned against the very craft they launched. Under normal circumstances, this would be cause for rejoicing, as the primary threat to the ground forces was being neuralized...however, refugees were pouring from the city...human resources that could be taken back home, integrated into the corporatum as workers...and if they protested, transhuman servants. It all came down to timeing as the scout marine malked towards Glenn with a swift gait. The communications frequency opened and a mechanical voice much like his own (albeit lighter) began to speak.

"Primary SPMA batteries are deployed. Slasher shells are ready."

"Open fire."

Before continuing, one must properly understand what a 'slasher' is. A slasher is a beast, a small, armadillo-like creature hailing from francopolis prime. If not for it's excessive claws and near-armored spines, it could probably be called cute. In the wild these creatures build dens called sandtraps...those unfortunate enough to step into them usually lose a limb.

The slashers in question were geneboosted: enhanced in such a way as to be more agressive, emitting poison from their claws and spines and obeying a series of ultrasonic noises the regiment 'stormtroopers' could emit with the proper equipment. They were a dark shade of purple, capable of tunneling through soft ground, and generally a menace to those encountered.

A perfect shock weapon in the right hands.

As the slasher shells carrened into the ground, the racks unfolded, agitated slashers awakening from forced hibernation distraught and furious at the environs presented to them. The only thing able to save those in the way would be the regiment and their calls to cease. If it all played out well, the refugees would BEG to go with the regiment.

This was human resource management at it's darkest.

----------------

OOC: I could provide images for slashers too...assuming you could see them, of course. I have no idea why it wouldn't display...is it your browser or something?

(OOC: Honestly, I feel kind of bad. That was really well written but not so well thought out...)

1600 hours
The tank column, the heavy helicopter cover, and the large amount of Sable troops protecting the refugee's, most of them armed with grenades or anti-air/tank rockets, are able to scare off the Slasher's with pathetic ease. All animals are afraid of tank fire, no matter how thoroughly they've been genetically engineered.

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/6938/sealfa0.th.gif

Official Communique, Hurfdurfistani Department of State

The Federation of Hurfdurfistan is apalled by the seemingly senseless acts of violence and aggression perpetrated by Francopolis Prime against the people of Cantr III, and as such would like to offer military aid to any of the factions willing to accept it. Any faction that accepts will have full access to our vast arsenal of state-of-the-art man-portable weaponry, as well as our orbital assets and intelligence division, and of course the renowned might of Hurfdurfistani light infantry. If any faction accepts, we can have soldiers on the ground within hours, using our prototype orbital deployment system.

how I shoot web?

how I shoot web?

OOC: It's HOW DO I SHOT WEB. Lurk moar. also, they weren't supposed to kill your tanks outright. they're more of a distraction...although I admit I wasn't sure how heavily armored your transporation was :P

As the waves of slashers diminished, resurfaced, and diminished again, the orders for the beasts were clear: keep the big shooty things busy. Surface, let them fire shots, then dig dig dig. Perhaps when they were finished they would get something to eat.

Such is the nature of animals, not realizing their true fate.

As air support crept forward, cicada gunships began strafing, energy cannon fire harassing the ground units, pulling down for a run, then pulling back. Just like the animals...short, distracting strikes.

Make them paranoid. Make them jump at the sight of thier own shadow.

Armored walker vehicles moved against the main line, being held at bay but trying to inflict maximum pain on the enemy's armor. All of it was to buy time until the next wave of artillery could be loaded, and the inferno shells could be launched. Just as soon as the time was right...

-----------

OOC: Prolly shoulda done my artillery the other way around. Ah well. I like making military units scared. It's incredibly cinematic.

1700 Hours
3 Oblivion2 Goliath Transport ships with and escort of 4 state of the Art f-22 raptor fighter/bombers headed towards the western part of cantr to Send a ship ment of 5000 ares assualt carbines (2007 model) And 20 LY4 Main BAttle tanks, as well as rations and extra ammo. These planes where due to arrive at 1930 hours.

OOC: You can attempt to attack my convoy but F-22 raptors are incredible dog fighters with targeting systems that can hit you from 15 miles away.

(OOC: That makes a lot more sense...but the Slashers still won't do too well for two reasons: 1)They're in foreign soil which is a lot harder to dig through as opposed to desert sand, which means they'll be slower, and then they'll be blasted to pieces, and 2)The convoy, as his been stated previously, is on a highway. An asphalt highway. As for those cicada's...)

1702 hours
Just outside Vedin
"We're under attack, Blue 4 has gone down!"

"Get rid of those gunships!"

"Bogeys left and right, send those things down!"

"We need to send a squad back to the front lines, they've got giant robots down there now."

"We've got our hands tied up here already, we can't spare another squad!"

"Bogeys, left and right-"

"Blue 3, I'm going down!"
--------------

A radio crackled in a hidden airfield near the northern fringe of Drakonat. "Seth, have you heard of the reports we've been getting from the Federation?"

"No. What's the situation?" the tall, teenaged black boy with the X emblazoned over his forehead responded.

"They're under attack from what appears to be an alien race. One of Drakonat's spies sent a video back home, and then one of our spies in Drakonat sent the video to us. We want to investigate the situation."

"What about Angel, and the recon patrol she found?"

"Let Angel take care of herself."

"Do you think the patrol she found is related to these invaders?"

"Maybe. But there's only one way to find out."

"Right...I'm on my way."

Ten minutes later a Mig fighter shot into the sky towards the Federation.

(OOC: After we figure out what happens to these refugee's, we'll skip ahead four or five days. Francopolis will need some time to attack the remaining provinces (maybe more than four or five days, actually), and I want to go faster. I don't want this war to last longer than a month or two real time. I want to actually unite my nation eventually.)

General Narcissus looked out over his troops. They were entering a number of transports, mainly the specialized APCs. They could travel amphibiously, even over open ocean, but didn't have a high tolerance to pressure. As troops piled into them, a small battle group drew away from the port, consisting of a Destroyer, 2 battleships and an Aircraft Carrier.

This was his job. This was his mission. This would probably be his death. In the back seat of the APC, Lucifer Anastos grimaced to himself. No one else could see him anyway.

The APC's thundered towards Cantr, each carrying around 20 elite troops. The Aircraft carrier launched a number of A-10's with JSF escorts towards the west coast of the island, the landing ground.

(OOC: Your going to be fighting these guys: http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z107/Kain1235/Carmine2.jpg)

///1900h- Thebes///

Military Central Command was in an uproar. A single photo was displayed on every monitor in the damp, subterranean building. It showed a single, towering soldier outfitted with outlandish armour. It also showed a small scout helicopter, plummeting to the ground in a shower of flame. General Demitrius strode into the room, and he was furious. "Information, now! What the hell are these things, what the hell are they doing here, and where the hell are they from!" The General turned to a junior officer, who visibly cringed. "I... don't know what they are. I don't know why there here. The only thing we have discovered is that they are from Francopolis Prime, and that they are spreading fast. We haven't found anything that could be used against them, but... but we're still looking."
***
///1930h- Near Adrian coastline///

Col. Callan stood near the front of the airplane, ready to address his soldiers.
"Our objective is to capture Hesse Ridge, in concert with the beach landings. If we fail to capture that ridge, we put this whole landing at risk. We will be heavily outnumbered, but we have weapons, discipline, surprise and our faith in the Emperor of Kleomenes. We cannot fail!" With that, Col. Callan opened presses the door release, and jumped into hell.

OOC: Yes, I realize that it'll be brutally difficult to fight off super soldiers using heavy infantry and light vehicles, but I have a plan. ;) But better that it be too difficult then too easy, and anyway, missile launchers are surprisingly effective.
Also, PLEASE put up a map, as alot of my fighting will be based upon terrain and military and economic resource location. Even if you have to get someone else to make (Not me though, I'm terrible at such things).

To Cantr III,

The Republic of Shiloba will be sending 500,000 Shiloban Basic Infatry Units and 50,000 Elite Shiloban Vanguards. These troops are to be used at your disposal. Feel free to fold them into your brigades. It is up to you to deal with the troops. I wish not to participate any further in the war, though I wish you luck.

From,
The Republic of Shiloba

(OOC: Um...which nation were those soldiers sent too, Shiloba? And why don't people seem to understand that there aren't any nations in Cantr who want foreign troops?

Francopolis, are we done with the refugee's? Or is that the purpose of Mr.s tall, dark, and gruesome mentioned in your last post (by the way, the photo's work now)?

And to clarify; the Cantrian Island consists of every faction in Cantr so far. A basic text-map would be something like this...
True Cantr Paladins
Rep. of Imperial Adrian
Cantr Cantr Adrian
Drakonat Drakonat Drakonat
Drakonat Drakonat Drakonat
Drakonat Drakonat Drakonat
Drakonat Drakonat Drakonat
Sam
son's<----- Vedin is right about there
Fede
ration

So the Cantrian island doesn't just contain the Cantr's.

Kleomenes, I'd put up a detailed map if I could make one, but I can't. My apologies.)

-----------

Hesse Ridge
1957 hours
"Are you sure we should go forward with our plan, given that we are under foreign invasion?"

"We are under orders from the Superior. Orders from him are as orders from Adrian himself. Do we dare contradict them?"

"Of course not, father." The small village on the ridge was in an uproar. Not much of the noise was blocked out by the thin walls of the cottage. Exploding mines and vicious gun fire tore through the air which less than an hour ago had been peaceful and still.

"You will have to be more careful. Remember, if you do not destroy your target, your sacrifice is for nothing. Now go."

"Yes father." The devoted Paladin ducked out of the cottage and sprinted along a secret side-route through the village. One night, the Paladins had cleared this path of mines for just such an occasion as this. The villages main road was crowded with civillians and the rest of the ground for five hundred feet in the village had been heavily mined within weeks of Paladin occupation (which had only been a few months ago).

The Paladin dashed into the small foreign garrison from Imperial Cantr. He was not the only civillian seeking shelter in the garrison. The guards rushed him in before continuing to return fire to the enemies outside. Ten seconds later they were obliterated by the many bombs strapped to the Paladins chest.

(OOC: Okay, Kleomenes, you chose the second or third hardest state to invade on top of being pretty sorely outmatched...though I suppose Adrian is far out of the way of Francopolis' warpath. I gave you a base of operations pretty much free of charge because hey, you're going to need it.)


Vedin Airspace
2032 hours
The Mig shot through the air and watched the havoc down below. The far, far north of the city still held out. A massive artificial structure in the nearby countryside caught Seth's eye. "That river's been diverted...and everything except the northern fringe of the city would ordinarily be under water. I wonder if they were smart enough to-"

They were. The dam was blown apart, presumably by Samsonite forces, and the river rushed back to its old course, obliterating everything in its path. The frontlines were out of harm's way, but no more than five-hundred feet behind the alien troops' line, the water washed away all of their soldiers, tanks, APC's...everything. Within ten minutes, the entire city and a good deal of the sorrounding country side had been submerged. Apparently Vedin had once been a lake.

Of course, a good deal of the forces in the country side and even in the outskirts of the city had escaped. Seth scanned the countryside again and found a large force of troops, presumably from one or more of the other five states in Vedin. Although the force occupying the city had been large enough, those who escaped the flood were a very small fraction, and were heavily outnumbered by the enemy.

"This'll be interesting..." Seth thought to himself, observing the ensuing battle. Tech against sheer numbers...of course, the storm-troopers would likely just re-target their pods at either the nearest state capitol (Renne), or else just in the countryside. Then again, no one on Cantr had the slightest idea just how many pods they had to shoot.

-----------
On Soldier X
If you've been following this so far, you're probably at least a little bit curious as to what, exactly, Soldier X is. Here's your answer.

Soldier X are genetically engineered super-soldiers. The Soldier X project was started before the Cantr Wars began, back when Cantr's government (if not their military and their people) was thoroughly advanced technologically. The project's first generation were genetically re-engineered to speed up the aging process, in order to get results faster. Generation One members of Soldier X age at approximately double the normal human rate. Having been created about 17 years ago, they are all 32-35 at present date. Members of Soldier X chose their own names after their first missions (see next paragraph), hence some names were real (Sigourney), some real but foreign (Savid), and some rather fake (Prefect and Ember).

Generation 2 was launched eight years ago after the success of the then-teenaged Soldier X crew in several Covert Ops missions involving a ring of pirate leaders from a foreign archipelago. Cantr never made good on their threat to conquer the archipelago, but the pirates were forced to withdraw and Soldier X had lost only one member and failed only one mission (a demolitions operation, which the young members of Soldier X were simply not ready for). Generation 2 also had their aging process sped up, and are now in the range of 14-17. Seth and Angel are both members of Generation 2.

Generation 3 was rumored to have been launched at the same time as Generation 2, however it was only weeks after Generation 2 were relocated form the laboratory they'd been re-engineered in that it was discovered and destroyed by the then-powerful Paladins, so this rumor is unlikely. Being a conspiracy theory, there are rumors that Generation 3 consisted of androids who were programmed with data collected from Generation 1 and which would be updated with data from Generation 2. Realistically, however, Cantr simply didn't have that kind of technology, even in their golden age. It is possible that they were planned to be genetically enhanced or trained on a higher level than the other generations, however if they existed at all they were almost certainly killed during the bombing of the Soldier X lab.

12:00, Zillian Capitol

"So they won't accept troops?" asked the Head of State from behind his desk.

"No, sir, but they will accept supplies and arms apparently," replied the Chief of Foreign Affairs.

"Well, offer them 250 AR-15's, some fuel and enough ammo to go with that. Maybe it was for the better not to send troops after all."

The Cheif of Foregin Affairs got the impression the Head of State had hoped for more trust from the Republic, but he knew that trust didn't come along by itself, it was something that had to be earned though hard work.

"Yes, sir, I'll get a message away ASAP. We can have the supplies ready to go within the day."

"Good, and be sure to tell them that we can supply more, but not in to big quantities."

"Yes, sir," said the Chief of Foreign Affairs and left the room.


Assault Rifle 15 (AR-15)
Uses 5.56mm rounds, hold 30 per magazine, is accurate up to 300 metres and easy to maintain, but prone to malfunction if not maintained properly. Only special issue variants can be issued with scopes of any kind, the same goes for grenade launchers and no variant can use a bayonet.

1126 Hurfdurfistan Standard Time, Hurdurfistan City, Capitol Building

"...and so, as the Assembly can surely see, the good people of Cantr are being mercilessly slaughtered by soldiers from Francopolis Prime. Military, civilians... it doesn't matter to them, it would appear. We must intervene, if only because it is simply the right thing to do." Praetor John Blackwell stood before the General Assembly of Hurfdurfistan, pleading for the assembled men and women to support his proposed efforts to fighting off the invaders and perhaps, if all went well, finding some kind of middle ground that all of Cantr could unite under.

"Praetor, your compassion is admirable, but Hurfdurfistan stands to gain nothing from this. You are asking us to get involved in a war not our own, to throw away so much patriotic young flesh, and for what?" queried Consular Margaret Mendelson, "Which is of course beside the point. The communique you so... rashly had our State Department send to the various Cantrian factions has thus far received no response. They might not want our assistance. What then? We simply cannot afford this war, and honestly it's not our place."

Arguments began among members of the Assembly, the volume in the room slowly increasing. Blackwell held up his hands, calling for silence. "Lowry," he called to the projectionist, "Bring up slide D7." The image on the screen behind him suddenly changed, the flag of Hurfdurfistan instantly becoming a satellite image of a barricade in Vedin being overrun by Francopolis' transhuman soldiers. "If not us, then who?" he asked, "Whether or not this Assembly approves of it, I am going to mobilize military forces. I've got Secretary Kastle working on the finer points of our battle plan as we speak. I am your Praetor for a reason, and I've made a decision. The responsibility for it is mine alone. Now, here's what we're going to do..."

2341 Local Time, Space Station HNS Centurion, Geosynchronous Orbit above Cantr

"Alright, suit up! We're moving out!" called Sergeant Marcus Ramirez. The Orbital Drop Shock Troopers around him were a flurry of activity, pulling on uniforms and armor and rushing to the armory to arm themselves. To be honest, the troopers didn't need Ramirez's encouragement, but it was his job, and he was good at it. He chose a few select insults for an ODST who was lagging a bit behind the others, trying to embarrass him into working faster. He didn't.

The ODSTs stood assembled before their drop pods, clad in their black ablative armor, lightweight and flexible but still firm enough to stop most anything they'd see in Cantr. Their uniforms were emblazoned with the Hurfdurfistani national emblem on the back of their helmets, just under their names. If they had any edge over Francopolis' soldiers, even with their nanite-enhanced strength, speed, and agility (all of which would probably be matched by Francopolis' augmentations), it was that they retained their individuality. Each man held an MA19K carbine assault rifle, loaded with 6.6mm APDS (Armor-Piercing Discarding-Sabot) rounds. They pulled down their visors, tinted blue on the outside, and awaited the order to load and launch. They were a damn fine sight. (Image (http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/9172/odstxi8.jpg))

As soon as the loading alarm started wailing, the soldiers rushed into their drop pods, ceramic-plated teardrops large enough to hold one man safely through descent. As the pod doors sealed, the ODSTs activated the HUDs within their helmets, displaying a countdown.

Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
The soldiers checked their weapons.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
Ran mentally through the plan.
Four.
Three.
Two.
Braced for descent.
One.
Zero.

The pods released, dropping into the inky blackness of space. From the ground below, they might have seemed a meteor shower. As the pods began to superheat due to the air resistance, the pods glowed red, then white. At one kilometer above the earth, the pods deployed a drag chute while simultaneously activating the thrusters on the bottom. At one hundred meters, the pods thrusters began burning harder, such that the pods slammed into the ground at a mere 200 meters/second, a vast decrease. The doors blew off the fronts of the pods. The dozen soldiers contained therein rushed out into the surrounding clearing and established a defensive perimeter, while the commander sent to oversee the entire campaign, Imperator Daniel Gottshalk, began waving a white flag, attempting to let the True Cantr know that he was a friendly.

OOC: Sorry, Gaia, for stealing your ODSTs. It was kind of a tl;dr thing. I think we've both been playing too much Halo, though.

planes landed in republic of cantr's territory to give supplies to defend themselves with.

(The slashers are our swarmy throwaways. Basically they're around so you have somethign to shoot at that isn't our gunships and whatnot...the threat of them getting close to infantry is enough to make them a target. Also, I'm probably going to secure the south coast, strip mine it and relocate the populace back home as either working-class citizens or transhuman servants, and then evac. Unless another opportunity arises, we're basically doing the equivallent to a massive scale smash-n-grab. XP)

The second volley of SPMA artillery let loose. Liquid fire spilled from the rounds as they cracked into the enemy armor, tearing into tanks and heavy infantry with relative ease. As the defenses began to soften, the gunships began more agressive passes, pinpointing the military personell on the ground and eliminating them in roars of flechette missiles or nailer bursts.

The third volley brought with it more slashers, and with that more pressure. with armor moving up from the south with less argument, and more slashers putting the squeeze on the ground units, the entire situation got a fair bit hotter. As the regiment marched forward, supporting the walker heavy armor that sought to bring the tanks to thier knees, the gunships poured more fire into the remaining ground and air patrols.

The fourth volley brought another wave of thermoplas explosives, the remaining armor to fragments. As the now battered and distraught slashers squeezed inwards, defensive lines held and ruptured to batteries of the vicious predators now had infantry support. One message broadcasted on the enemy military airwaves: Give in, and you will not be slain.

There was no fifth volley.

------------------

0130 hours, five days forward, occupied south shore

"Acquisition status?" Glenn communicated to the scout marine adressing him.

"Natural resources are moving slowly. Biomass acquisition in controlled regions is only at 43%, and 80% of the mining operations are still on full-crust or thin crust resource collection. The remaining 20% are very little better, most are only beginning shallow core mineral collection, and only 1% is in final phase deep core acquisition."

"Move faster. We have word that Hurfdurfistan's orbital shock troopers are landing and gathering, and we don't want our resource acquisition equipment to be on this planet too much longer. How is the defensive parimeter setting up?"

"Well. Ever since the south shore was fully occupied, the local inhabitants from the 'Drakonat' faction are even helping things. Due to thier preformance I'm betting most will not go offworld without citizen benefits. aerial superiority Platforms are not online as of right now...we still have a good 10 hours to wait."

"Good." Glenn, peered out the control center's windows. To most, the terrain outside would appear frightening: clack, charred rocks, gaping holes of fire cut into the earth as the gnashing utilities of the magnetized colloection units sucked the crust dry of anything valuable. Loaders sped back and forth, taking canisters of raw natural resources for soting and storage until evac. And finally, a TOWERING black metal structure in the distance, glowing red veins seeping through it...the storage area for everything collected, the resource monolith, heavily guarded on all sides by the draggons, the best of the best. "Local humanoid population relocation status?"

"Probably the most advanced process so far. Postcitizens and citizen initiates have been sorted. They're getting the idea of what WON'T happen when they behave. Not many more to process before we can safely freeze them for transport."

"Thank you, 46Y-91b. Give the regiment my orders to move up...keep the northern forces entangled until we can fill up the resource monolith. Thier success will show us whether or not to begin construction of a secondary monolith once this one has been completed and transported. If a foothold cannot be maintained, we will cut and run. I'm sure the corporatum will reward us as long as one monolith makes it offworld. You are dismissed." Glenn was mostly pleased with progress, the only thing worrying him being the slow collection of the shore's natural resources. Now, there was but one matter to attend to: the transmission of the corporatum's message to the enemy forces...

------------------

Screens the world over showed a single, un-augmented figure. A human, male, with slicked blonde hair and red eyes, supreme tyrant of Francopolis Prime, emperor Piers Bel Draconiam.

**BEGIN OPEN-BURST COMMUNIQUE**

Greetings, citizens of Cantr and all loyalist forces. I will start by heartily congratulating those citizens captured in the regiment's conquest. You will all make fine members of our nation's populace, and if not, excellent transhuman servants. What concerns me, however, is those that pursue the ideal that your best interests are not within the umbra Corporatum's hands. To them, I make a simple offer:

Stand down. It's that simple. We do not ask for unconditional surrender or any more bloodshed at all. The southern coast is a resource-rich environment: enough so to fill one of our awesome monoliths to full capacity. And while you continue to batter yourself against our defences haplessly like moths to a flame, I offer you the option to stop such a pointless course of action.

Allow us to fully harvest what is now rightfully ours, and take it to our homeland. We will leave you in peace with nothing to show from our invasion but a bit of scorched earth and a few people better off in our hands. Continuing your resistance will only force us to take more, and simply put you do not have a whole lot more to offer to us safely.

Stop this madness. Make the right choice. Stand down.

**END OPEN-BURST COMMUNIQUE**

------------------

(I dunno if I'm overstepping my bounds here, but you said you wanted things sped up...)

///0200h- Base Camp Alpha///

"Right, get those APC's off that transport, they need them in sector 7!" Col. Callan had been directing base operations all night. Hundreds of vehicles and thousands of soldiers needed to be unloaded from their ships and organized before the enemy could mass a counter-attack. Callan turned to seargent Kress, who was helping direct traffic. "Goddamn flyboys where the hell are those gunships!" Before Kress could respond, several dozen Hermes Gunships passed overhead, and landed neatly in a nearby field. Callan didn't have time to reprimand them for their lateness, there were still a few hundred thousand grunts who needed placement.

///0205h- Oil-field D12, Adrian///

Lieutenant Zanthes watched silently through his binoculars, observing the Adrian activity around the oil-fields, finding their defenses weaknesses and plotting his attack. "Sir," whispered seargent Hall, the comms-officer, "We gotta attack soon, Adrian forces are already moving on Base camp. They need a distraction while the troops unload."
"Dammit, I know! Okay, heres what we've got to do," Zanthes grab a small twig and started drawing in the sand, "From what I can tell, the best gap in their trenches is here, where the oil line is. The gunships will smash their trenches here, and here. Then we move. Radio it in." seargent Alexis Hall grabbed the comm and began whispering directions. In seconds, the entire force started moving in unison. The squadron of 20 gunships rained death on the Adrian trenches. All 1700 soldiers of the Berges 17th Regiment, supported by a number of APC's and TOW armed Light Combat Vehicles rushed towards the enemy lines, bullets and missiles streaked from both sides. The screams of death and destruction echoed through the air, and great explosions lit up the night. Suddenly, Alexis was splashing through oil. She looked towards the smoking enemy trenches, and saw a lone soldier leaning over the flowing stream with a match. She opened fire, but it was too late. Lieutenant Zanthes observed the fireball consume at least 100 of his soldiers. "Shit."

OOC: Really? I was under the impression that Adrian was one of the easier opponents, being in the midst of a civil-war within a civil-war and all.

(OOC: The US thought the same thing about Iraq. The trick here isn't conquerring the nation (Adrian's federal army consists of a dog named Jasper; they rely on militia's for defense), it's keeping it conquerred. Also, I'm positive I spelled 'conquerred' wrong, but I'm way too lazy to spell-check it.

And concerning that map I put up a bit ago, it's not a very accurate one anymore, because the stupid forum ignored all my extra spaces. Here's a better one.

*********True Cantr /Paladins
*******Rep. of /Imperial/ Adrian
*******Cantr /Cantr/ Adrian
**Drakonat Drakonat Drakonat
***Drakonat Drakonat Drakonat
***Drakonat Drakonat Drakonat
*Drakonat Drakonat Drakonat
**********Sam
**********son's<----- Vedin is right about there
*********Fede
********ration

And if Francopolis is going to pull out, I'd better hasten the obligatory climactic battle between man and machine...)

Daichi's imperial office
Immediately after the Communique

"I guess that's the analagous Emporer Palpatine." Daichi said to his gathered aides.

"They claim they just want to strip mine a piece of Samson's Federation which has never actually been a part of Cantr to begin with," one of Daichi's more pacifistic aide's offered hopefully.

"Yes, but are they telling the truth? Do these mechanical monsters, who are at once super-human and sub-human, have any reason to tell us the truth? Maybe they've been spooked by the flooding of Vedin. But maybe they're just trying to lull us into a false sense of security."

Seven of the aides immediately concurred, leaving only two undecided. "If they are going to pull out, why should we waste our resources fighting them when they're on the other side of the continent?"

"We won't have to...Stakli?" One of the aides answered "Yes?" "We have a Soldier X in Samson's Federation, do we not?"

"Yes."

"Tell him to take care of it." Stakli left the room briefly to send the message. The aides left, but Stakli returned soon after. "Stakli, what is the situation in Cantr City?"

"It is going well. The enemy's electronic early warning system was easily circumvented, and we believe we can sabotage their communications and throw their defence force into chaos via the same method. After that, the city should fall with minimal damage to our forces and to the city itself."

Good, Daichi thought to himself, Cantr City is an important cultural symbol for the collective peoples of Cantr, and if it were destroyed it would most likely usher in several more decades of chaos and war.

"What about those aliens who dropped down into our own territory? They claim to be friendly, correct?"

"Yes sir."

"Hmm...give them as many details as you can about Soldier X's attack on that Monolith, and tell them to help."

"Yes sir!"

Occupied south shore
Two days past Open-Burst Communique
2441 hours

Seth looked over the dead Storm-troopers. "I wonder if that armor would be safe to wear for other people...or if it could even be removed." He it said out loud, so the Samsonite guerilla's could hear him. I'll have Valkyrie figure that out later, he thought to himself.

"Alright, troops, experience suggests that it won't be long before another patrol comes knocking. Squad A, ambush position, Squad E, with me to the airfield, everyone else, get to your attack positions and pray to whatever god you think is most capable of protecting you that this will work."

Seth and the rest of the guerilla's, excepting Squad A, hopped into very light, very fast all-terrain Sungri jeeps, and sped for their various destinations. Squad A covered their Sungri up and prepared the ambush.

The trip to the airfield was mercifully uneventful. Seth and his squad hopped into the planes. Seth's old Mig was now in the hands of one of the other pilots, and Seth was piloting an F-15 they had stolen from a Samsonite airfield half-an-hour before it fell to the storm-troopers' onslaught.

Within five minutes the monolith was in sight. Of course, the monolith was always in sight, but the base of it and its defences were now visible. "Squads C, B, and D, launch your attack." Bombs went off all around the fringe of the defenses, taking out key aircraft and AA installments. "Squad E, stay on the edge, we'll worry about the deeper defences later. Squad A, you still alive?" No answer. Apparently not.

Seth dove down into the hornet's nest. The gunships he had grown to hate were everywhere. They never proved to be a whole lot of trouble for a member of Soldier X, even in numbers, but they used up valuable ammo and were known to down valuable pilots and aircraft. On the entire continent of Cantr, there were maybe a hundred fighter jets. Losing one or two everytime one got engaged in an important battle was simply not practical.

Seth had been relying primarily on his machine guns to gun down the gun ships by targetting their sweet spots, but his comrades, nowhere near as competent as he, had been using their ATA missiles liberally. One of them went down. Only thirty seconds into the attack and I'm already one fighter down. This bodes ill. Seth thought to himself, before turning his attention first to the thinning gunships, then to the ground forces. Another two fighters went down by the time the gunships in the immediate area were taken care of. Seth's six remaining wingmen were running out of missiles and began relying on their machine guns more. Unfortunately, barring one man who could occasionally down an enemy gunship with bullets, none of them were capable of killing anything other than infantry with cannons.

The ground cover started thinning out again as more gunships from nearby sectors flooded the the airspace around Seth and his pilots. Another fighter went down. And another. That last one was the one who was good with machine guns. Seth himself was beginning to run low on missiles, and no one else had any at all. Another fighter went down. He checked the ground. The ground squads were making little better progress.

The artillery support that had been expected to clear out the ground defenses had apparently been compromised, as it none of the artillery had fired for the past minute. Where're those commando's Daichi promised? Seth wondered to himself before taking down two gunships with a pair of well-aimed missiles.

Bulletins:
-True Cantr and the Republic of Cantr have entered into an alliance in order to defeat Imperial Cantr, unite the Cantrian people, and, with any luck, fend off all these foreign invasions and restore Cantr's borders to where they were previously.
-Adrianic forces have crumbled before Kleomenes' advance, and the government has sent them an offer; if they can clear out the Paladins, they can have the nation. Unfortunately, the Paladins have been inflicting much heavier casualties than the Adrianites through their guerilla attacks and suicide bombings.
-The Repubic of Cantr is wondering if Oblivion2 could give them some of those F-22's. A good air force of any size would give whatever faction in Cantr that possesses it total air superiority.
-Angel of Soldier X has disabled Cantr City's comms and the city was captured by True Cantrian forces soon afterwards. Although Daemon had already relocated to Brolm, the bulk of his army was invested in Cantr City. After being flushed from the city, they fled through the grasslands attempting to make it to their base on the Jentai river. Unfortunately, they found the forces of True Cantr headed up by Soldiers X Prefect, Sigourney, and Ember had sorrounded them already, thoroughly mined the grasslands they were retreating across, and were constantly coating them with artillery bombardment. This True Cantrian army is now moving towards the Jentai River themselves, knowing that bringing this base to its knee's will bring them to Brolm's doorstep. During their march through the farmlands, they will merge with another army from the Republic of Cantr, the combined force of which should be enough to deal with Jentai's considerable defences.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Encrypted Status report to Republic of Cantr
From Brig General Samson
Encryption security: Max

Infantry is standing by to aid in the conquering of imperialist forces, Air support is granted just say when and where, Elite Commando divisions are standing by and supplies should arrive by 23:00 hours

///Encrypted Transmission///

From: General Demetrius, under authority of Grand Dictator Wallok

To: True Cantr

CC: Republic of Cantr

To the noble leaders of True Cantr and the Republic of Cantr, I have been authorised to send both of your nations a large supply of weapons, aircraft and 300 personnel to help train your forces. We offer you this gift in hopes that you will use them against the rebels in Imperial Cantr, and in the hopes of peace between our nations. Also, to specify on the subject of personnel, as I'm sure you would be somewhat uncomfortable with any number of our soldiers within your nation, they are all Training personnel, and not members of our army. (Training Staff are not members of the military, but a seperate organisation in our nation.)
///End Encrypted Transmission///


///Encrypted Transmission///

From: General Demetrius, under authority of Grand Dictator Wallok

To: Imperial Cantr

To the noble leader of Imperial Cantr, I have been authorised to send your nation a large supply of weapons, heavy aircraft, supplies and 300 personnel to help train your forces. We offer you this gift in hopes that you will use them against the rebels in True Cantr and in the Republic of Cantr, and in the hopes of peace between our nations. Also, to specify on the subject of personnel, as I'm sure you would be somewhat uncomfortable with any number of our soldiers within your nation, they are all Training personnel, and not members of our army. (Training Staff are not members of the military, but a seperate organisation in our nation.)

///End Encrypted Transmission///

///Alpha Base///
"Sir, sir! Adrian has surrendered!" Col. Callan burst into Gen. Demetrius' office, waving in his hand a transmission from the leader of Adrian. "Umm... something about pressure on multiple fronts... war with the Paladin... asking for protection... but it's a surrender!" General Demetrius stood up. "Send a message to the dictator, one enemy down. Colonel, send out the order for all troops to deploy to the Paladin border. There's is a storm coming, and those terrorist heathens will bear the brunt of it."

OOC: Now do you see my plan! (Well part of it anyway)

Cantr City
0107 hours

Angel cautiously peered around the corner of the comm center, spotted the guard just down the hall, and pulled her head back before he could see her. He was patrolling the door at the end of the hall. She glanced at him over the corner again, measuring how far two of his steps took him before again dissapearing behind cover. Memorizing how far each of the guards' steps took him, Angel figured out exactly where he was at each moment. She waited for the next footfall, and when it came, she leapt from behind the corner and shot the guard with her silenced pistol, straight between the eyes. She rushed up to the door and opened it with her stolen keycard. Inside were a half-dozen guards whom she had already strangled. They had been watching the loop she had fed their security system an hour ago.

Now that she was in, Angel was going to scramble the radar and jam the radio so the attack could commence, but as she stepped towards the radar's control panel, a hand grabbed her foot. The guard she had shot! He was alive again, pulling her down. She wanted to shoot him, but her gun was gone. She wanted to fight him, but her body fell limp as he and the six dead guards in the control room all began to throttle her...

"Angel," a voice said, causing Angel's eyes to shoot open. They were wide with fear, but no sound escaped her. She was far too well-trained for that. Angel secretly hated every mission she had ever gone into, and these nightmares were the reason. Every time she went into battle the people she killed came back in her sleep, taking revenge over and over.

"Yes?" Angel answered to the voice. It was coming from the intercom of the military complex.

"Get down to the control room ASAP. We've intercepted an encrypted message to the Republic, and the commander wants you to decrypt it immediately."

Oh great, Angel thought, Just my luck that I go to the control room five minutes after being killed there. "I'm on my way," she said, and pulled on some boots before stepping out the door and heading towards the control room.

It was a block down the street in the military sector of Cantr City, which was located almost exactly in the center of the city. Every industry, every home, every culture in all of the continent has a hand in this city. And at the center of it all is the military sector. How symbolic.

Angel stepped into the room. "Well?" The commander asked as Angel scanned the lines of code. "Honestly," she replied, "I'm surprised you even managed to intercept this thing without me. It's going to take at least a few hours to decrypt. Maybe a day or two." The commander made some response about the value of time in war, but Angel was barely listening, coming as close as she was capable of focusing all of her attention on the code in front of her.

"Code 1199! Code 1199!"

"Unit 3 designated anticitizen one contact. Isolate and destroy."

"Outbreak! Code blue sector twe--AAH! Prosecution compromised, PROSECUTION COMPROMISED!"

Glenn scanned through the frequencies in anger, attempting to find one without bad news. The people of Cantr had showed just how effectively they dealt with defensive walls, and at the least opportune time, as well.

"Fifty-two minutes until monolith reclaimation." the automated security voice chimed in a cold, feminine voice. Fifty minutes of holding off an assault when half of the units in the field were stowed for transport. Glenn knew he was not going to get off of this planet. The trillions upon trillions of dollars in natural resources were far more valuable to the corporatum than himself.

"All slasher confinements released..that should slow them down. Secondary defenses now up and running. Delay code 437 active."

Glenn picked up his GAU assault rifle, pushing a fresh magazine in as he stepped from the command center, booking it to the secondary defenses nest, rifle shots colliding like rain against his armor, explosions going off around him, the brilliant pearlescent white of the commander suit becoming scarred and scratched by the time he slid into the defensive nest.

"Status." the word was spoken as if in a boardroom during a meeting, not a warzone. Between busrts of fire, the nest's officer spoke up. "We're holding them, and we're slowly fighting back for air superiority, but this is an uphill battle. We're relying on quadmech lances and heavy nailer emplacements to keep them at bay, but they're creeping up on us."

"KEEP OUR EMPLACEMENTS GOING. We lose the defensive ring, we lose the monolith."

At that moment, two scout squads burst from the gate leading to the south acess tunnels. "South tunnels are in complete overrun. We've barricaded them and we're flooding them with manhacks to take as many of the enemy down as we can. We don't have a lot of time here..."

Before Glenn could respond, his tactical display popped up with a message, one sentance. a message that made him hope:

Dragoon squad alpha: Deployment initiated.

-----------------

In the facility just outside of the monolith's inner defense line, there was a flash. Six figures, in armor much more ornate and re-enforced than most regimental soldiers, began to stir. Light pulsed from all of thier tactical readouts as the initiation sequence began.

>JUMP JETS TESTING...

The lower legs of the armor flared, small metal rims expanding around the surface, each a miniature jet engine, each giving a short gout of flame before folding back into the armor.

>SHIELD GENERATOR ACTIVATING...

A sphere of colored light brilliantly burst into existance around each soldier, slowly fading to a slightly translucent distortion of the air around them, and eventually into near transparent states.

>CLOAK FIELD ENGAGING...

The same flash of light that erupted from the shields of the warriors nor took over the armor itself, slowly fading away to a nearly invisible state, and all that was heard was a light hissing noise from the suit itself.

>INITIATION COMPLETE. NEURAL STRUCTURE DEPLOYING...

The red of the visors appeared for a split second before fading, leaving each soldier in the same state of invisibility as they were before. Raising thier arms, cloaked cannons attached to the right, cloaked power gauntlet to the left, they all chattered at near whispers over the private communications line. they leapt into the air, leaving the small building, leaping over the primary and secondary defensive walls, now crouched behind the wreckage of a quad mech. Despite the small number, these were the finest.

They were not designed to dissapoint.

(OOC: One member of Soldier X vs. six Dragoons...this won't be easy to get out of...

And for the purposes of decent RP, I've decided those force-fields aren't totally impervious to anything outside a nuclear bomb)

Monolith base
0139 hours

Seth barrel-rolled around a pair of missiles which had been following him for the past minute and a half and pulled up, barely missing the ground. He checked his radar. The missiles had either activated stealth mode (unlikely), or had hit the ground, hopefully incurring some casualties on the nearby storm-troopers.

Having lost the missiles, Seth returned his attention to taking out the gunships. Another fighter went down. He had only two wingmen left, but both of them carried one more missile, each of them carried the ability to win this battle in a second...unless, of course, that monolith was made of some virtually indestructible material. If those missiles didn't work, nothing short of a nuke would do the trick.

"Okay, bombers, follow me, we're attacking the Monolith." Seth said into his radio.

"But we're supposed to wait for ground troops to clear out the enemy forces!" One of the bombers protested.

"The ground troops will never make it that far, not without the commando support Daichi promised." Seth wondered briefly if Daichi had promised the support only to ensure that Seth carried out the attack as planned. Daichi may have had the good of Cantr in mind whenever he gave an order, but that didn't necesarilly mean he wasn't willing to lie to his soldiers to secure peace.

One of the bombers blew up, and what's more, neither Seth nor his radar could detect a culprit. No AA rockets had fired, no gunships were within range...had their been some internal problem? Seth decided not to worry about it as he and the bomber made their way, diving and weaving through the hail of rockets that came from below. Seth spent the last of his missiles attempting to clear out some of the AA, but he wasn't slowing down and this impaired his accuracy.

Seth caught a glimpse of something, he wasn't sure what, which distracted him for the split-second it took for an AA missile to slip past his safe zone. A split-second later Seth noticed the missile and dived to the side, but his wing was blown off in spite of his incredible reaction time. He activated the special bomb in the fighter before ejecting. It would be two and a half minutes before it went off. As he fell, he noticed the bomber fighter launching its bunker buster bomb into what might have been a weak spot in the monoliths hull, about twenty feet off the ground. Seth released his parachute.

He saw the thing which had distracted him again. Well, he didn't exactly see it so much as he noticed it. It had blended in perfectly with its background, leaving nothing but a shimmering outline. If the thing hadn't been moving, it would have been completely invisible. Seth watched it touch down and jump towards him again and raise what appeared to be a gun. He fired his desert eagle straight at where the enemies head should be, hoping to strike through the visor, but it swerved out of the way with inhuman speed. At least he'd been able to prevent it from shooting him.

He touched down and dived immediately out of the way as the flying enemy fired a quick round down where he'd been a matter of seconds ago. He fired off another shot and the thing dived out of the way once more. Two more shots, and he started to see the pattern in his enemies dodges. The entire time he kept on the move, hoping to avoid the enemy attacks. His struggle paid off as he fired two shots, one immediately after the other. The enemy dodged out of the way of the first and was nearly hit by the second, but changed course in mid flight, taking the shot to its arm, which didn't faze it in the least.

As Seth dodged another volley of machine gun fire, he noticed two more shimmering outlines headed his way. He would be unable to dodge the volley's of three of these things at once. He checked the location of the original flying monstrosity. It was preparing for another volley. Seth jumped over the volley and landed just to the side of the thing, rolling in order to dodge the second volley of fire. By the time he was on his feet he had dropped his gun and pulled out his bowie knife, attacking the thing with a vengeance, it fighting back using its gun as a club. He had only seconds to kill the thing before its friends arrived.

It attempted to blast away from him, but he leapt on top of it before it could get higher than two feet off the ground. The jump-jets couldn't bear the weight, and stalled, leaving the two of them hovering unevenly two feet off the ground. Seth stabbed his knife into the vicinity of the things visor, killing it just as his 'sixth sense' informed his that there was a presence about twenty feet to his left and right. He left his knife where it was, leaping off the slain enemy as its two comrades ripped it apart with their volley's. He landed next to his desert eagle, which he picked up and fired at one of the enemies.

It was empty. Seth dove for cover behind the wreckage of one of his wingmen and reloaded before returning fire at two new enemies, which fired their jump jets, dodging the bullets and getting on the other side of his cover. Seth was barely able to leap onto the other side of the downed fighter before unfriendly fire hammered his previous location. The enemies fired their jets again, apparently just waiting for him to wear out. He didn't give them the chance, firing four bullets at them. The first one prevented the left enemy from shooting. The second prevented the right one from shooting. The third forced the right one to swerve again. Dodging the fourth was physically impossible.

Unfortunately, Seth was simply not capable of keeping up with both of the enemy. The volley from the second enemy left him very little dodge time, and mauled his left arm. And then the EMP blast from Seth's downed fighter went off.

(OOC: If your troops use electronics to power all their high-tech abilities, then this just might turn the tide of the battle. Otherwise, Seth is dead-meat. Also, how would the monolith be affected by that bunker buster bomb that slammed into it about five paragraphs up?)

(OOC: Hello, all. As the name implies, I am Cantr. This nation's UN vote, endorsement, and everything else UN beneficial is officially first prize for whoever wins the Cantr Wars.)

To: Republic of Cantr/True Cantr Alliance
From: Zillian Chief of Foregin Affairs

The Zillian government are willing to send the Republic of Cantr a shipment of AR-15 assault rifles to aid in the struggle against their foes, along with ammunition and fuel. A total of 250 AR-15's can be sent, along with some 15000 5.56mm cartridges and half a ton of fuel.

Should you accept, please let us know where to drop the supplies (this can be done by either paradrops or by ship). The Zillian Head of State also wishes to say that we have a division standing by should you need aid in this struggle.

AR-15
Assault Rifle 15, the standard weapon of the Zillian forces, it chambers a 5.56mm round, and holds 30 per magazine. It is easy to maintain, but prone to malfunction if not properly maintained. It has been proven accurate up to 300 metres with iron sights. Only special issues variants can be used with anything but iron sights.

OOC: Hey cantrIII does the Rep OF cantr trust me enough to land soldiers in there turf to aid in the war? or should i just send more ammo n stuff?

(OOC: For now, just keep sending supplies.)

One Kilometer from Monolith Base
Sniper Team Sierra, position six

First Lieutenant Michael Apollonov watched through his scope as the battle for the monolith raged. Clad in a mimetic polycarbon poncho, he was practically invisible, and had been watching the battle for its entirety. His spotter shifted his weight, trying to remain comfortable yet quiet. Apollonov activated his cochlear implant, calling in his status report.

"Sierra six, Sierra Actual. Have a SitRep for you."
"Sierra Actual. Go ahead."
"Looks like a pinch just went off. EMP blast. If that's the case, the shields on that monolith should be down. Requesting orbital artillery bombardment on my target."
"Let us run a scan to ensure shields are down, and patch you through to Imperator Gottshalk, but it should be a go on the artillery."
"Copy. Sierra six, out."

Space above Cantr III

The satellites were quiet, dormant, motionless. Suddenly, a light blinked on, followed by another, and another. The orbital railguns had been activated. The satellite loaded a round, a 1000kg ceramic-plated tungsten dart, into the gun's "chamber", if you could call it that. The rails became electrified, millions of amperes of current running through them. A Lorentz force propelled the round down the rails, ultimately reaching a speed of 13 km/s by the time it reached the end. By the time the round hit the monolith, it was going almost 40 km/s, the impact releasing about one-tenth of the energy of a nuclear blast. (OOC: Circa 400 billion joules) With each of the sixteen satellites firing a shot, the monolith was in for a beating.

Seth turned his attention to the third flying trooper. It was too late. The trooper's gun was pointed straight at him. And for some reason the trooper hesitated. Seth leaped to the side as it fired a spray of bullets where he'd been a split-second before. Seth reloaded his gun and fired a single bullet at the soldier, who was now considerably slower. The soldier wasn't able to dodge it.

Seth turned to the monolith, which was in the process of being annihilated by what appeared to be orbital fire from a fleet of military spaceships. Blessing his amazing luck, Seth began cautiously making his way out of the base...

(OOC: For the curious, the trooper hesitated because all of his targetting/aiming aids suddenly short-circuited, messing up his aim, not to mention all of his comms went down and he lost control of his jump-jets.)

A Oblivion2 supply plane landed in Republic of Cantr territory and began unloading 25000 ares elite carbines, and ammo for 5 clips per weapon. As well as 25 Ly4 Main BAttle tanks.

New supplies to be brought in later today.

(OOC: Really, Oblivion2, a decent airforce (some F-22s) would help a lot more than a bunch of assault rifles)

Monolith Base, Post-Bombardment
Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Mitchell cautiously moved his squad forward, toward the entrance. Hurfdurfistani military high command had been slow to issue the orders, but Mitchell's ODSTs were, at the last possible second, moving in. Their highest priority objective at this point was to attempt to secure and evacuate the Cantrian Soldier X they were told was still in the area. After the vicious battle, he was surely wounded, and Francopolis' dragoons would surely soon be upon him. About a kilometer behind him, a small fleet of transport dropships waited to evacuate any remaining friendly personnel in the area.

Mitchell just hoped there were friendlies left.

(OOC: Sorry about the delayed response. I've been busy lately.)

4 hours after supplies landed in Republic of cantr territroy, a new form of supplies where screaming inbound to Republic of cantr territory. This new supply was 25 F-22 Raptors, and 30 Longbow tactical Bombers, as well as 5 Cargo jets with enough men, materials, and ammo to make a air control base and a Refueling area.

*This is captain huesalius requesting permission for the fllet to land over*
*Captain you are clear for landing*

The captain and the rest of the fleet landed and moved out all the supplies so the Republic could begin construction.

OOC: Is it ok if the pilots where oblivion pilots but they took orders from the republic?

///0400h- Command Center, Beta Base, Adrian desert///
"Updates!" General Demetrius strode into the cramped room. Though still intimidating, he seemed to have lost some of his energy. Then, most of the command staff hadn't slept in days. A weary seargent handed the general a stack of papers, intel updates on the situation across Cantr, reports from the frontlines and death counts. "Heavy losses throughout. For the most part we've crushed the Paladin army, but their militia are causing casualties. If we don't do something big, this could very well turn into a war of attrition, making our training and equipment useless. No response from Imperial, True or the Republic of Cantr as of yet." The general looked some of the reports, and turned to the seargent. "You see these villages here, the ones that have been giving the heaviest resistance?" He pointed to a group of seven villages, "I want them annihilated, as well as any other village that holds rebels. If these militia try to hide among the civilians, we will destroy the civilians. And when they no longer have a place to hide, we will destroy them. And order a general advance, it's time to beat these heathen scum once and for all. Understood?" With that, the general marched out of the room.

///0450h- outskirts of village A57///

"You know, I feel sorry for these poor souls." Pvt. Passen muttered. The 7th platoon and the 23rd artillery brigade were stationed on a hillside outside village A57, the first village to be wiped from the face of the planet. At the same time, six other platoons, and six other artillery brigades had targeted six other villages. "Don't Private. These guys have been killing off our soldiers left right and center. It's called war, and we are fighting it." Major Aphra grabbed his comms-unit, spoke briefly and marched off to his APC. He didn't even stay for the fireworks.

OOC: Sorry if I haven't posted lately, I was busy, and trying to think of what to do about these crazy fanatics.

OOC: It may help near the end of this post to know that Adrian is the deity of the Theocratic State of Adrian, and is the most widespread religion in Cantr.

For maximum effect, read this post while playing tense, dramatic music.)

Seth continued towards one of the side entrances that his forces had made on their way in. When he had been in his fighter, the east 'entrance' had been the most clear, so that was where he was headed. He encountered scattered storm-trooper resistance, but with all their tech EMP'd, they weren't much of a threat even to a wounded Soldier X. Seth's primary method of staying alive was his legs.

Seth was pretty sure he could make out his own forces...on the other side of a defensive nest of storm-troopers. They were fighting a vicious battle, more so because the storm-troopers had unleashed sand-sharks and, if they'd ever had a method of controlling them, it had gone out with the EMP. Seth had discovered that so long as he kept moving, the things couldn't catch up with him. Whether this was because they were in alien soil or if they were just slow was unknown to Seth.

Seth began demolishing the enemy forces, shooting their backs to get their attention and taking them out through the visor afterwards. Seth's aim was no longer perfect, as he was shooting with his off-hand, but his ability to dodge enemy fire was as good as ever, ecspecially now that the troopers were EMP'd and thus suffering from severe Stormtrooper Effect.

There was enough cover to have a proper fire-fight, but Seth was trained to be unpredictable, and so randomly switched between that and leaping between the fire of his enemies. When they seemed to be getting the hang of shooting without tech-sights, he leaped straight into their mist, drawing his bowie knife, and began battling them melee.

Seth found fighting them up close to be as easy as fighting them from far off, until what appeared to be an elite unit, whose armor was pearlescent, attacked him. He seemed to be several measures more intelligent than his comrades, and certainly much more adaptable. He might even be human.

Seth, his attention caught between the commando and the stormtroopers, was outmatched except in that he had a proper melee weapon. It was impossible to use the bulky rifles the stormtroopers carried in such close quarters; any attempt to do so usually resulted with Seth jumping out of the way and the stormtrooper behind him getting shot up.

Seth landed after dodging a burst of fire from one of his enemies. Some of the others opened fire while he was in the air, but he was far too fast for that. When he landed, he was immediately clubbed from behind. Starbursts covered Seth's vision, but that didn't slow him down much. He tried to take out the culprit, only to have his knife blocked by that white-armored commando, who had been stubbornly resisting death.

Seth took out the last two stormtroopers in the nest and began fighting the commando one-to-one. He was able to match Seth blow for blow, primarily because whenever Seth was able to land a grazing blow on his arm or leg, it simply slid off the armor. On top of that, this white-armored soldier was several measures more competent a fighter, ecspecially melee, than the normal, government issue stormtroopers.

The commando threw his gun aside and began using some foreign variety of martial arts against Seth, leaving Seth even more thoroughly outmatched. Seth compensated by leaping out of the nest and waiting with his Desert Eagle for the commando to poke his head out of the nest.

The commando emerged, but dodged the shot Seth fired. The enemy had apparently retrieved his rifle, and the two began shooting at one another. While Seth was far faster, he was also a worse shot as he was using his right arm, and the only target-area that had any effect on the enemy was a fairly thin visor on his head.

The enemy looked up behind Seth at...something. Seth didn't have time to wonder if it was a bluff, and dove to the side while firing off a shot at his momentarily distracted enemy. He missed. The something was an artillery shell, which sent both of them flying. The commando was perfectly fine, but Seth's already wounded body was cut in a half-dozen places by shrapnel.

Seth was incapable of moving at the super-human speeds he ordinarily pulled off with ease. He was barely capable of moving at all. I'm going to die, Seth though to himself as he watched the commando raise up his rifle, seemingly in slow motion. Adrian, please don't let me die...The commando made sure he was aiming straight at Seth's head, made sure there would be no mistake this time. Please, Adrian...The people I'll leave behind...Prefect, and Angel, and Tempest...Adrian, don't let me die...The commando made one final adjustment to his aim, raising his hand a few inches to shoot straight between Seth's eye.

It saved the commando's life. A sniper blasted through the armor on the commando's hand, which had come between his head and wherever the sniper was firing from. With his enemy on the ground, Seth felt a new surge of energy. He could see out of the corner of his eye two men clad in green armor vaguely similar to that of the stormtroopers running to him. He walked forward to the commando with his Desert Eagle and pointed it at his head, through the visor. The commando seemed to be looking back at him. Seth dropped his gun.

"No," he said, "I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to let you go back to your superiors. You let them know that you failed. Totally. And let them know that if you or anyone else comes to Cantr again, you will fail again." Seth fell over sideways, unconcious, and one of the green-armored men picked him up and headed towards the nearest exit, a recently made hole in the wall from the earlier firefight. The other man fired off a quick volley at some approaching reinforcements before following the first man out.

(OOC: So it's true what they say; there are no athiests in fox holes. And yes, the commando was Glenn.

Kleomenes, I'll start posting for Paladin forces tommorow, now that we've got this Monolith attack behind us. Oblivion, yes, you can use your own pilots. Hurfdurfistan, do you mean 'busy' as in 'playing HALO 3?;))

OOC: I get the feeling I'm getting ignored. If you don't want me around just say so :cool:

(OOC: My apologies. No Cantrian state wants any foreign aid in the form of actual troops simply due to trust issues (we've been invaded twice and two other nations have 'invaded' and never made a follow up post, so we're not in the trusting mood).)

(OOC: Okay! No more monolith! Time to move on.)

Va'Henna Village
0752 hours

Ader (Ah-dehr), seven years old, had just walked in the door of his two-room house to ask his parents about the men with guns outside the village. Ader had been considering asking them himself, but he would have to go all the way around the minefield. He knew there was bad news, however, because his father was holding his own gun and talking in a low, quiet voice to mother.

"Ader!" his father said, noticing his entrance, "Stay with Rebekah!" Rebekah was Ader's thirteen year old sister. She was sitting on the floor looking very scared. Ader sat down beside her and asked "What's going on?" as their father dashed out the door. "Those men don't look like soldiers. Are they from Cantr?" Ader had heard of Cantrian soldiers who dressed very differently from the Adrian soldiers or the Paladins. His father said that some day they would come to attack them, as soon as they were done fighting each other. He didn't say when that was, though. Was it today?

"No, they are not from Cantr," Rebekah said to him, "They are not from any country that I know about."

"Does mother know?" Ader asked, glancing at their mother, who was staring out the window at the battle which Rebekah and Ader could hear. The gunshots sounded like they were coming from the edge of the village.

"No," Rebekah answered, "No one in the village knows." Suddenly an explosion went off in the street outside the house.

"Shells!" mother shrieked. "They are shelling the village! This is not an attack, this is genocide!" she cried out. "Rebekah! Take Ader to the city and find Ali Makam, he will help you. But you must get out of this village!"

"What about you?" Rebekah asked.

"I must stay with father, you must go!" mother said it forcefully. Rebekah hesitated, then looked at Ader, whose face was a mask of fear.

"Ader, come with me," Rebekah said, "We will go where it is safe!" Ader and Rebekah fled the village. They were not alone. Nearly a hundred women, children, and old men were fleeing the village. Explosions went off around the two as they fled. Ader clutched Rebekah's hand for fear of getting lost in the throng. He closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to see the explosions and held one hand over his ear so he wouldn't have to hear them as much. He couldn't cover his other ear without losing track of Rebekah.

By the time they made it to the outskirts of the village, it wasn't as crowded as the street had been. "Rebekah!" Ader cried frantically, "That's the minefield!"

"I know, but we must get out! There are not many here!" Rebekah responded, running through the desert sands and keeping an eye out for the small black dots which would trigger a mine. Ader had to open his eyes to look for the mines himself. It was hard to avoid them when they were running as fast as they could. Ader couldn't tell if the explosions going off around him were from the mines or from whatever had been destroying the village.

Suddenly, Rebekah screamed and pushed Ader down and away from her. Ader looked up at her and saw, for a split-second, a mine being propelled into the air straight in front of her face, before it went off and take her head with it. Ader stared at his sister's decapitated body, transfixed on the image with horror. He stood there for almost ten minutes before someone picked him up and began running for the edge of the minefield.

It was a Paladin. They had fled the village and were being chased by the foreign soldiers. The Paladin came to a ditch and set Ader down in it, and said to him "Don't leave this spot until the soldiers are gone!" Then he turned and ran away. Ader crouched in that ditch for a half an hour.

When he emerged, he saw an image of death and destruction. Ader had never seen a dead man before. When someone had accidentally strayed onto a mine a year before, his parents had made sure he did not see it. With so many Paladins in his village, it had rarely fallen under attack.

Ader stared in horror at the gruesome corpses of the soldiers and Paladins, and then turned and ran away from them. He didn't know where he was going. He just wanted to get away from the battlefield.

-------------
0700 hours
Cantr City

"Soldier X!" Prefect called out. The gathered members of Soldier X turned their attention to him. They were gathered around a table in an unused conference room in Bedlan headquarters. The room had been thoroughly debugged and sound-proofed the night before, while Angel had been hacking and decrypting messages to all three Cantr's. A few members were absent; Oblivion, Tempest, and Chris were still in Brolm, and Seth was in Samson's Federation. He was supposed to return today, but his Mig may have been damaged on his mission. Having to hijack a new plane would no doubt slow him down a few hours.

"No doubt you're wondering why we're here. About half of us are being re-assigned. Me, Ember, and Sigourney are going to keep weeding out Imperial ambushes in the farmlands, but Savid is being reassigned to Adrian to deal with a foreign power that's gotten involved there. You'll be going with him, Angel." The next ten minutes they got more specific information on their assignments. After the meeting, Angel asked Prefect what had happened to Seth.

"He's MIA after an attack on an enemy installation known as the Monolith last night." Prefect said. He was trying to sound indifferent, but he was as attatched to Seth as Angel was. Neither of them would have seemd fazed by it to an outsider. But it had been ten years since the last member of Soldier X died.

That attack on the monolith might still be going on right now, Angel thought to herself, Seth isn't dead. He's just caught up in the chaos. By this time tommorow he'll be back.

But if anyone could kill Seth, it would be the near-invincible aliens. Ecspecially in massive numbers. With advantage of terrain and fighting on defense. He can't be dead...

Brolm, current capitol of Imperial Cantr
2133 hours

The apartment was small, cramped, stuffed with electronics and guns. Fortunately, the police rarely, if ever, investigated these crime-infested places. If they did, they probably wouldn't consider finding a hacker's nest too unusual.

"You got that message off to Command?" Oblivion of Soldier X asked.

"Yeah." Tempest responded. He had been re-assigned to the Adrian theater, and was filling his pack with guns and rations for the trip. Chris, headed for the Jentai River Base, had already left, taking with him a good deal of explosives and one of their sniper rifles. "Godspeed." Tempest said to Oblivion before heading out the door.

Oblivion wished he could keep his two friends by his side. Although he had been trained to work alone, he'd discovered over the past few months that he rather liked having partners. Not only was the company rather comforting, it meant that if he got in over his head he'd have someone to help extract him.

At least, however, Oblivion's missions were no longer very difficult. The occasional assassination, stirring up the odd riot, but nothing that involved facing down massive numbers of enemy forces single-handed (a feat referred to by Soldier X as One-Man Armyism). So long as he was careful, he wouldn't be in harm's way until the front reached Brolm.

News bulletins:
-Although the Paladins 'forward attack base' in the seven villages targeted by Kleomenes was taken out rather thoroughly, this heartless attack on civillians has caused an upswing in Paladin sign ups among teens and young adults. All Paladin VIPs in the area escaped to nearby hideouts in the middle of the desert, and Paladin fortresses in the nearby mountain ranges have been put on red-alert in case they fall under attack from Kleomenes' advancing army.
-The True/Republic of Cantr alliance has decided to accept the offer made by Kleomenes and will await the arrival of the supplies and advisors in Cantr City.
-Imperial Cantr has also decided to accept Kleomenes' offer and wishes them to send their advisors and supplies directly to the Jentai Base, as it will no doubt be under attack within a week, and maybe even less time than that.

OOC: I'm not trying to send troops at the moment, just arms and supplies, and since you said an airforce would be good, gunships (you already got the fighters).

The Armed Republic of Zillian hereby offers the Republic of Cantr/True Cantr Alliance twenty (20) "Striker" GAR Gunships (Ground Attack/Recon), along with the aforementioned supplies and arms and instructors to teach True/Republican Cantr how to pilot the Strikers.

Ground Attack/Recon Gunship "Striker"
Crew: 2 (pilot and gunner)
Arment:Two rocket pods, each holding 20 40mm High Explosive Fragmentation Rockets, used on soft vehicles.
6 160mm Armour Piercing Anti-tank Rockets.

(OOC: Um...would those be helicopter gunships or fixed-wing gunships?)

(OOC: Those would be choppers. Might not be what you want, but as you got the fighters already. You could get the same number of Hellcat air superiority fighters though.)

OOC: If you need Oblivion air support contact Oblivion High command that way I don't end up bombing the wrong people or think that you want me to bomb it.

After 36 hours of Intenseive work The Aircontrol Base and Refueling station had been completed. The Officer in charge of the base was Colonel Ragid Of the Oblivion2 Air forces.

"Sir we have incoming Zillian Craft headed tpour location, they request permission to land as they are allied with the Republic of Cantr." A Tech officer said through the comms Channel
"Right then send word to the Republic, that we will let the Zillian Aircraft land in the Airbase." The colonel said. After a quick pause he Grabbed a comm Box and radioed in to the Zillian air forces "This is Colonel Ragid of Oblivion2 Airforces, you are clearfor landing on airstrip 17."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Offical Message to the Republic of Cantr
From Oblivion high Command

Our Airbase in the Republic of Cantr Would Gladly hold the Zillian airforces, for the time being. We also have additional air units on standby at Oblivion2 Just in case.

These air units include:
25 f-22 Raptors
50 Longbow Tactical bombers
5 Atlas Cargo ships fitted to drop paratrooper units
15 top secret stealth fighters*

*:Name undisclosed.

///Encrypted Transmission///

From: General Demetrius

To: Imperial Cantr

We are pleased that you have accepted or offer of aid against the rebels that threaten your great nation. 200 Heavy Gunships (rotary winged) have been dispatched to Jentai as per your request. We have also sent 30 All-Purpose Cargo Planes with large numbers of weaponry, ammunition, equipment, food and supplies and our 300 training personnel. They should arrive in Jentai by noon.

///Encrypted Transmission///

From: General Demetrius

To: Republic of Cantr

CC: True Cantr

We are pleased that you have accepted our offer of aid against the rebels that oppose your great nation. We have dispatched 70 Heavy Gunships (rotary winged) to your nation. We have also sent you 10 All-Purpose Cargo Planes with weaponry, ammunition, supplies and 300 training personnel. They should arrive in your territory by noon, at which time you should direct them to the desired destination.

///0200h- Beta Base///
"The equipment is ready general!" A young technician knelt beside the Mobile Broadcasting Station. "Good. Begin Radio Jamming Procedures." The general gripped the microphone attached to the machine. The technician pressed a button, and the large machine came to life. Lights flickered to life, it began to make a loud whirring sound, and suddenly every radio station across Adrian and the Paladin Territories became static. "Begin broadcasting." The MBS whirred louder still. "Followers of Adrian, Brothers of the Paladin, I know you see me as an enemy, but it is not so. I do not wish you dead, but if you do not lay down your arms, this will be the result. I do not wish to hurt you, I don not wish to burn your temples or destroy your towns, but if you resist this is what will happen. We are a benevolent country. We will not stop you from worshiping your God. Lay down your arms, and all the riches of this beautiful land shall be yours! Make peace with us, and you shall know such freedom as you have never dreamed of! But make war with us, and yours shall be a grim fate. Message repeats." General Demetrius turned off the microphone, and turned to Col. Callan. "I meant what I said. I want an attack on all fronts. Let's see how they respond."

OOC: Are there any major cities in Paladin? I've been itching for some urban warfare. :)

OOC: Kind of. I've played a bit of Halo 3, yeah, but mostly it's been classes and studying. I'm sure you'd never have guessed it from my railgun post, but I'm a physics major... lots of work lately.

Monolith Base, East Entrance

Mitchell's cochlear implant buzzed as Sierra Four checked in. They'd caught sight of the Soldier X... Seth, was it?... and tried to bring down a commando he was fighting, but managed only to shoot his hand. Fucker moved it just as they were firing. Mitchell recognized, however, the urgency of the situation.

"Bravo squad!" He yelled, throwing the signal to regroup, "We're moving up! Push forward!"

Bravo squad rallied and move forward, firing accurately into commandos they could hardly see through the smoke and fire of battle. Body counts mounted, with Bravo losing three men of their original twelve. Two were just wounded, but one took a phased energy shot directly to the face and hadn't stirred since. But after a furious firefight, they broke through.

"Seth! We've got an extraction waiting! Hurry the fuck up if you want to get out of here alive!"

(OOC: First off, why on Earth did you broadcast at 2 AM? Second off, Ren'allar is a (relatively) major city not very far from your last attack. There's another one farther north, Malaka. They've each got about a million inhabitants (it might sound like a lot, but compared to, say, New York, it isn't.) But before you send that attack, remember that the future of young boys like Ader is in your hands.)

0427 hours
MASH in Vedin, near Drakonat border

Seth opened his eyes and nearly shut them again for all the light. He blinked a lot and slowly looked around. Looks like a MASH...and it doesn't look like it's being run by the green men, so they probably pulled out. Most likely they're only concerned with beating out the stormtroopers, either because of morality or as part of a greater war. So if them and the stormtroopers are both gone... Seth's head was hurting rather badly by this point. He judged that he was safe in the MASH and let sleep retake him...

1608 hours

Seth opened his eyes again. He felt considerably better. He most likely had been asleep for days. A doctor was jotting down notes on another patient nearby. "Doctor?" Seth asked, after determining that if they'd brought him to the MASH, they weren't likely to try and interrogate him when he woke up.

"You're awake," the doctor said, turning his attention to him.

"Apparently. How long have I been here?"

"You just got here earlier today. Very early." the doctor responded. It surprised Seth. As a Soldier X, he healed a lot faster than most people. But he had been cut all over by shrapnel and had his left arm shot up to the point of potentially permanent incapacitation. Seth's arm felt like it had just finished mending a broken bone...apparently the green men had applied their own treatment before dropping him off here to complete his recovery. Seth had no idea how long that may have taken.

"What's the date?" he asked.

"The twelth of October." the doctor answered. So the green men had me one day and then dropped me off here, apparently before dawn. They were probably the source of that orbital bombardment on the monolith, too. I've got a lot to thank them for. So...now what? I need to get back to Cantr, but I can't just cut and run or else the people here in the Federation will think I'm some kind of war criminal, and it's fairly obvious from the X printed above my eye who I'm taking orders from. The X normally wasn't terribly prominent, but surely the doctors had examined him and thus would have noticed the thing.

"Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?" the doctor asked. The doctor could have asked Seth to donate his lungs to a dying patient and it would have caused less anxiety. Seth didn't have much to fear from answering some questions from an allied doctor in the wake of an allied operation...unless they suspected that he had been raiding their airfields.

"Go ahead, I haven't got anywhere to go for at least an hour or two." Seth responded. Letting the doctor know that he was anxious about being questioned would draw up all the wrong suspicions.

"First off, how did you get in the region?" the doctor asked. This question would be easy.

"I'm with a foreign military organization. I was sent to help protect your nation from the invaders."

"You're rather young to be with the military."

"I recieved elite training from a very young age. Younger children learn a lot faster than men." Another fairly easy question, although Seth was afraid it might reveal a bit too much information about the Soldier X program.

"What nation are you working for?"

"A nation interested in protecting your sovereighnty. I can tell you that it's located on this island, but beyond that there's not much I can say."

"I see...that's all for now. Try to get some rest." With that, the doctor left. Seth lay on his bed...Worst case scenario, he would have to admit to the existence of True Cantr's Soldier X program and threaten to break out of the MASH if he wasn't allowed to leave. He'd be in Cantr again within a few days...

October 15th
0800 hours
Cantr City

"Soldier XB-1 has returned from the Federation, sir." Stakli reported.

"Excellent news," Daichi said, "Was he detected by Samsonite forces?"

"Yes, sir. After the battle at the monolith, he was severely wounded. He reported that he was extracted from the base sorrounding the monolith by green-armored friendly soldiers, and that he's deduced that they must have healed most of the severe injuries he sustained during the battle, then left him to finish recovery in a local Samsonite MASH."

"What happened there?"

"He was questioned and eventually forced to reveal that he was a member of Soldier X in order to secure a peaceful release from the MASH. He reports that he didn't want to be held there as a prolonged questioning might reveal that he was behind the raids on their airfields. Of course, the militia he assembled might leak that, but he made quite clear that he while he was working with the militia, he was not leading it."

"Well, that's good. We get brownie points with the Samsonites for sending one of our best to defend their nation in its darkest hour, and the militia takes the blame for the raids. About the Kleomenic supplies and advisors...they're all where they need to be?"

"Yes sir. Thanks to Kleomenes' offer I think this war might get a lot shorter."

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/6938/sealfa0.th.gif

Upon receiving reports from our officers in the field, we are interested in training some of your elite Soldier X in our orbital drop techniques, as we believe that although they are already incredibly powerful assets, True Cantr could win this war much more quickly if they had the capability to deploy anywhere within minutes.

That, of course, would be beneficial for all involved, as we do not intend to unilaterally interfere in Cantrian affairs any longer than is necessary. With that said, of course, we are in for the long haul, and have every intention of assisting True Cantr in reuniting the country.

To: Hurfdurfistan
From: True Cantr

We'd love to be able to re-deploy Soldier X at the touch of a button, however barring Seth we haven't got any undeployed Soldier X's for training. We're also operating under the assumption that you'll provide us with orbital drop equipment, as the concept our putting together anything orbital is laughable, at least until the end of the war.

((OOC: I take it Cantr accepted the fighters.))

Cantr Airspace 11:00AM

First Colonel Jake Ryzza checked the readings of his Hellcat once more to make sure everything was in order before giving order to the wing leaders under his command.

"Keep your eyes peeled boys and girls, don't want anyone shot out of the sky first time out, do we?"

"This is Colonel Ragid of Oblivion2 Airforces, you are clear for landing on airstrip 17," sparked the radio suddenly.

Jake was surprised to be greeted by a representantive from another country, and not from Cantr, but he was a soldier, and as such he was trained to adapt.

"Copy that Colonel Ragid, this is First Colonel Jake Ryzza, commander of Zillian Fighter Squadron Eagle. We're comming in with 20 Hellcat fighters and two cargo choppers with fuel. Make sure you have alot of sapce down there will you, colonel?"

///1200h- Outskirts of Ren'allar///

"Fire!" With one word, a thousand machines of war launched their munitions at the city below. A great scream filled the air as missiles flew from their launchers. Overhead hundreds of bombers and gunships, releasing their payloads into the city. The battle for Ren'allar had started.

Great blooms of fire and smoke rise from the city, buildings collapse and streets explode in clouds of rubble. As one, the army moves forward, light vehicles leading the way. Shots crack out from both sides, bodies collapse like puppets with their strings cut. As the soldiers moved into the suburbs, the battle degenerates into into room-by-room fighting. Paladin fighters fortified houses, turning entire streets into valleys of death. Machine guns tear into soldiers, vehicles, men and children. It was hell.

"Get a grenade in there!" Capt. Rios shouted the order to his squad as he dashed behind the rubble of a bungalow. "Move, move, in here! Get out of that machine gunners line of sight!" Rios kicked down the door and threw in a grenade. Their was a sharp scream, a loud bang and a flash of light, then silence. Rios' squad charged into the small house, as bullets chased them to the door. Rios threw open a door. It was a small, damp kitchen. Bullets ripped through the air beside Rios as he ducked, putting the rest of his clip into the Paladin's as he did. He ran up the stairs and found a window facing the street. The machine gunner was still there, oblivious to the fact that he was now in Rios' crosshairs. Rios steadied his aim, prepared to fire. Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement, he turned but it was too late. Rios was flung from the top floor through the hole caused by the explosion.

OOC: I broadcast at two in the morning because the message was on a loop. Basically, the only broadcast anyone, military or civilian, in Adrian or Paladin can recieve is my propaganda.

1400h
Five miles east of the Imperial Cantr/Paladin border

Angel stood up and walked to the edge of the Huey. The mini-guns in the walls rattled death down to Imperial Cantrian vehicles below her. She was supposed to meet Savid and Tempest, but, in a stroke of horrible luck, their position had been compromised. Now they were being chased by some scout 'copters and a few AA trucks. She really wished she'd decided to bring some of those new gunships with her.

She took out her sniper rifle and sniped out the pilot of a nearby helicopter, then turned to the other side of the Huey and sniped out the other. They both went crashing to the ground after the death of their pilot. There were still the AA trucks, of which there were about three, but those wouldn't be targetting Angel.

Angel jumped out of the Huey and pulled her parachute strings, grateful that, for once, there weren't any infantry shooting at her. She hit the ground running and took cover behind some nearby rocks. Within a few minutes the enemy had chased the helicopter that had dropped her off into the distance. No doubt they'd noticed her drop and reported it. She'd have to get out, fast, without leaving tracks. Fortunately the area she was in was rather rocky.

She pulled out her radio and turned to the secret channel set up specifically for Soldier X.

"Soldier X? Are you there? Savid? Tempest?" For a few seconds there was static. Angel repeated her message. A few more seconds of static, and then...

"This is Soldier X, identify yourself."

"This is Angel, passcode goldminer. Where are you?" Angel pulled out her map so she find their location relative to her own. If she was right she herself was located somewhere in the northern area, near Malaka, and about seventy miles from Ren'allar.

"We're located about fifteen miles north and five miles east of Ren'allar. Where are you?" It was Savid's voice.

"Somewhere in the area of Malaka..."

"If you can get to town I'll meet you with transportation at noon tommorow. Meet me in the lobby of the Sharad Hotel."

"I'll be there. Angel out." With that, Angel set off for Malaka...

Interim

News bulletins:
-The Paladins have proven that while they leave much to be desired in open-field combat, they excel in urban combat, and have managed to defend all major Paladin headquarters and VIP dwellings, most of which are in the center of the city. Control of less vital area's of the city fluctuates constantly.

October 16th, 2200h
Soldier X hideout, Adrian

Angel and Savid stepped into the small bunker, lit only by an electric lantern. "We found this place just a few hours before you called, after hijacking a Sungri from some Paladins headed towards Ren'allar. The foreign forces have opened fire on it with everything they've got. They haven't made a whole lot of progress since the initial attack, except in that they've managed to get about a quarter of the city turned to rubble."

"What?" Angel responded. It didn't seem to be a very sound tactical decision when fighting terrorists. "That'll bring in enough Paladin recruits to double current forces in Paladin territories at least, plus if news of this gets back to Adrian the Paladin cells there will go from 'annoying' to 'deadly' overnight."

"Yes, but as far as we can tell news hasn't gotten into the south...much. They've established a monopoly on all communications but ours, and even we had to fight with the radio to take our airwaves back. We don't think they've noticed." Savid said it all very calmly, even though Angel knew the situation must have unnerved him. This was a very different enemy from the one they'd expected to fight. Specifically, this was a much more ruthless enemy.

"Hmmm...so what's our plan?" Angel asked.

"Before I tell you what me and Tempest settled on, give me your idea's on the situation."

Angel thought about it for a few seconds before she spoke. "Well...I suppose we should make allies out of our weaker enemies and bring down the bigger ones...so we should unite with the Paladins. At the same time we need to be prepared to stab them in the back very efficiently so that once Kleomenes is no longer a major threat we can start our war on them with a head start."

"We agree...for the most part. The only difference being the part about back-stabbing. If we help the Paladins fight off Kleomenes, we think we may be able to convince them to join Cantr as a vassal state. Basically, they'll have an all Adrianic government and they'll pay some insignifigant tax to Cantr so it'll look like a conquest for the newspaper. Our only fear is that the Paladins might be able to gain total control of Adrian in the wake of a foreign invasion, and then they'll prove to be a signifigant threat to Cantr. And if we manage to unite Adrian and beat out the foreigners before Imperial Cantr falls, then we can apply pressure on two fronts."

It made sense...a lot of sense. In fact, Stakli seemed to have planned for such a situation; every member of Soldier X in Paladin territory was a Disciple of Adrian. The Paladins would be unlikely to accept aid from heathens. Being members of Soldier X, they weren't able to fulfill all their duties as Disciples, but few Adriannics did, and at least Savid, Angel, and Tempest were trying their hardest. That would have to count for something on judgment day, and for the Paladins.

"Where's Tempest?" Angel asked.

"He's in Ren'allar." Savid responded. "Right now he's under orders not to attack anyone, and to return fire only if he's shot at and can't retreat, so when we go down there tommorow we should still have a mostly blank slate to start 'negotiating' with."

Angel knew what he meant by 'negotiating'. They were going to start helping one faction or another, most likely each of them going to three key skirmish areas to spread the effect more, and then they would start actual diplomacy with whatever faction they'd chosen to side with, in this case, the Paladins.

Tommorow was going to be a busy day.

Ren'allar
October 17th, 0633h

"Tempest, what's the situation?" Savid asked. There were no bullets in the air, no explosions going on just outside. They were in a restraunt in the center of the city. The last minor skrimish within half a mile had died out ten minutes ago.

"Where's Angel?" Tempest asked.

"In the west edge of the city, sniping Kleomenic leaders. She's scored two already. Now what's the city look like?"

"The center is calm and firmly in Paladin control. The southern edge is a calm and in Kleomenic control, not to mention in ruins. Their attacks have taken a huge toll on the city and the city is fighting back. Half the able-bodied population have taken up arms, particularly in the west and east fringes, which are the major warzones. North is also in combat, but not nearly to the extent that the rest of the city is." Tempest reported. "What's our plan?"

Savid was silent for a moment. "We need to stabilize both the east and west simultaneously or else their commander will catch on and then, most likely, he'll concetrate his forces on one theatre or the other. The only reason we're here is to save the city. If this turns into a siege, we can't do that."

"So...we spread our attack across multiple fronts?"

"No...we take out the bases supplying the fronts. We sabotage the convoys, we take out the leaders before they give a single order, and we keep hacking at their operation until either they've got nothing left or their entire operation is nothing more than scrap metal."

"Right...so we head to the south sector and trace their operations from there."

"I will. For now, I need you to head to the east sector and keep them focused on the battle. Make sure they don't make any gains. Between you and Angel they're unlikely to advance very far...you two need to buy me time to take apart their logistics. It'll be about a week at least before I can totally dismantle their supply train."

Tempest and Savid left the restraunt and made their way towards their objectives, and Tempest began thinking on a tactical level...

He needed to get in communication with Angel.

Together they needed to establish a base of operations within the city.

Then they would have to scout both fronts in spite of taking fire, likely from both the Paladins and the invaders, all the while gathering intelligence on how best to undermine enemy activity in each front, operating with only one man on each front and within a day using only what weapons they could scrounge or steal from the battlefield.

Then came the hard part.

Oblivion2 Air Base, Republic of Cantr, 16:30

Jake Ryzza tweaked the radio to get a slighter better reception.

"Would you repeat that, sir?"

"You are to remain in place, and to take orders from the Republic/True Cantr Alliance for the time being," replied Zillian Chief of Military.

"But sir," said Jake, somewhat confused, "I though we were to give 'em the Hellcats and tell 'em how to use 'em."

"Change of plans, colonel," the reply was as sharp as it was short, "Zillian Head of State and the Joint Chiefs feel that we need a military presence should things go out of hand the wrong way. Also, two Alpha Eagle teams are on stand-by."

"Alpha Eagle?" Jake was truly surprised, "But sir, that could provoke hostilities, they've said that they don't want any foregin troops running around!"

"They are only on stand-by as of now, but all of this is above your level of clearence, colonel. And one last thing, another batch of aircraft is on its way, twenty 'Striker' gunships. They'll be put under your command for the time being."

"Of course, sir," said Jake, "First Colonel Ryzza over and out!"

Jake shook his head and took the headset off. Alpha Eagle, the best the Zillian military could offer, rumor had it they had even been bioengineered. If they were on stand-by, Zillian High Command really took this civil war seriously.

///0700h- Temporary command post, Ren'allar///

Col. Callan carefully studied a map of the city. "Major Mezzy, attack up this street, they've fortified this hotel, and are using it to coordinate their forces all along the line. Someone get Seargent Ispen on the radio, we need him to lanch a diversionary attack down this street, here." Col. Callan continued to study the map, outlining his attack plan while a Private tried to find Seargent Ispen through the chatter. "Sir, sir. Ispen is... dead." Callan sighed heavily, "Then Major Peller, he'll have to move fast, but he can still get there." He's dead too, sir. The Paladin have snipers all along that front, any attempt to advance has been rebuffed."
"Fine. Get me the commander of the artillery." Callan grabbed the comms-unit from the Privates hands. "This is Artillery Commander Hanson, what can I do for you Colonel?"
"Hanson, target all your weapons one the east quarter. We'll drive those snipers out of that part of the city, along with anyone else!" Callan turned to Mezzy, "Move all of your forces to the west side, we need to trap them in the center. Good luck and..." The rest of the Colonel's sentence was interrupted by the screach of missiles over head.

///0720h- Ren'allar, east side///

"Get behind that wall dammit! Where the hell is that sniper!" Another shot rang out, and another of Seargent Hess' soldiers collapsed. "How the hell can they see us?" Hess shouted, squinting into the dust storm that was passing through the city. Dust and sand swirled and twisted through the air, limiting vision to a few feet. Another shot rang out against the wind, the bullet passing a few inches from Hess' head. "Lieutenent, what's the ETA on those reinforcements!" A brigade of infantry and two APC's were supposed to reinforce them. "They were delayed, they won't be here for at least an hour!"
"Dammit, if we don't get help soon, we're done." As if on cue, a missile flew over their heads, turning the street before them into rubble. Chunks of concrete and shrapnel soared into the air. The missile was followed by dozens more, collapsing buildings and destroying entire formations of soldiers. "Go! Go! Before they recover!" Hess sprinted down the street, dodging rubble before ducking into cover behind the remains of a car. His eyes were hollow, his face streaked with dirt, grime and blood. This war truly was hell.

Cantr City
0800 H, October 17th

The Hurfdurfistani dropship landed in the courtyard of the True Cantrian Capitol, disgorging diplomats making signs of peace. Accompanied by Hurfdurfistani marines, the diplomats made their way into the Capitol, asking for whoever might be in charge. Although initially skeptical, the Cantrians led the diplomats to Daichi. The Hurfdurfistani diplomatic corps laid out a plan wherein Hurfdurfistan would take Seth (and any other interested True Cantrian soldiers) for the two weeks it would (theoretically) take to train soldiers in orbital drop techniques, then leave a shuttle in True Cantr's control, allowing their soldiers to access Hurfdurfistan's orbiting Centurion Station, and more importantly its drop facilities.

It would allow for faster redeployment of soldiers than currently possible, by a wide margin. And all True Cantr had to do was make Seth available for future Hurfdurfistani special operations in Cantr. He had earned the respect of many of the Hurfdurfistani soldiers, after all, and the morale boost to allied forces would be immeasurable.

But, of course, it was up to the True Cantrians.

October 17th, 0700h
Cantr City

Daichi looked over his message before he sent it to Zillian.

We appreciate your aid, but it is not an invitation to keep forces in our territory. Remove them immediately or we will remove them by force.

It would do nicely. Daichi turned his attention back to the Hurfdurfistani ambassador. "We'll accept your offer, and in addition to Seth we'd like you to train a special unit of 100 elite commando's. Also, when the remaining members of Soldier X return from their missions we'd like them trained as well. So long as your future operations do not involve operating against True Cantr or her allied states, we will be happy to accept your offer."

0720h
Ren'allar, east side

Angel picked her target carefully from the sniping hole she'd punched in the flimsy apartment wall. The dust didn't make it easy, but she had been trained to snipe outlines and her eyesight had been genetically enhanced along with the rest of her. The man was definately an officer, but what level Angel wasn't sure, nor did she need to know that much. Killing him would slow up operations, and that was all she needed to do.

Then a missile screamed into the street not more than a hundred feet from the apartment base. Time to leave. Angel thought as she sprinted for the window. Angel slid down the rope she had tied there and hit the ground as the building above her exploded. She dodged a piece of rubble and rolled into a ditch. The lethal pieces of rubble weren't big enough to fit in.

Angel stuck her head out of the ditch. The enemy was moving in quickly, looking to weed out survivors. That meant Angel. She began crawling through the ditch away from the enemy advance. She peered over the edge of the ditch, barely showing her eye. The enemy was moving faster and closing in...a kid who looked like he might be seven was directly in their path, and maybe five feet from the ditch Angel was hiding in.

Angel leapt out of the ditch, grabbed the kid, and pulled him in, dodging a spray from the enemy. That was really stupid. she thought the herself. I shouldn't have saved him. I should've let him die. He's not nearly as important as my mission. Too late now. The kid was screaming in fear and fighting to get free. Angel let him go and said to him in Adriannic "I'm on your side, stay with me!" If I'm going to save him, I may as well do it right, after all.

The kid calmed down a bit and Angel returned some of the enemy fire. They would be in the ditch within a few seconds. "Stay low and get out of here!" she shouted to the kid, "Out of the ditch!" She looked at the other side of the ditch. From between the rubble and the intact buildings of the other street were coming Paladin reinforcements, firing AK-47s and RPGs wildly. She grabbed the kid by the collar and pulled him back down, saying "Never mind, bad idea."

She spread her fire out to keep the Kleomenic soldiers out of the ditch. The Paladins did the same and jumped into the ditch, taking cover, returning fire, and blowing apart the enemy with a slightly disproportionate concentration of RPGs. The Kleomenic soldiers started retreating to their original positions. Angel turned to her new ward and said "Come with me." Together they ran to the cover of nearby buildings. Angel left her Ares rifle in the ditch so the Paladins wouldn't consider her a threat.

The two found cover in a ruined apartment building two blocks away from the battle. Angel wondered what she would do with this kid...she'd have to get him to the center of the city, where it was safe. That could take all day and possibly compromise the east sector. I can't abandon him now. That would be just... two voices in her head simultaneously answered 'smart' and 'cruel'.

She turned to the kid. He was absolutely terrified. "Don't worry," Angel said to him, "We're safe for now. I'm going to take you to the center of the city where you can stay."

"Who'll take care of me?" he asked.

"You can...we'll find someone." she responded. After a moment, she added "I'm Angel, what's your name?"

The boy responded "My name is Ader."

Cantr City
0810 H

The ambassador smiled wide, "Of course. We would only be too happy to train your elite in our combat forms. Why, we've got a hand-to-hand form that-"

A marine cut him off, "What the ambassador is trying to say is that we've got a deal."

"Quite," came the ambassador, "And as to the possibility of our operations being directed against True Cantr, well, to be blunt, our leading political figures have a vested interest in seeing True Cantr win this war and reunite Cantr. It would be bad for their credibility if you didn't win. So, barring a military coup, you've got our full support and backing."

The ambassador's military attache spoke, "We can begin training in orbital drops immediately. I'll call in transports. Have your people ready within the hour."

Oblivion2 Airbase, 14:00

Jake had seen it comming, he had even told the Chief of Military just the other day, hadn't he? They didn't want any military aid, they had said so. They would leave, just as the Alliance had told them to, but the Chief of Military had made it very clear he didn't like it. Even more so that the Alliance would get to keep the fighters and gunships.

He entered the transport chopper and took a seat at the far end, next to the door to the cockpit, and put on the comms helmet, and began chittchatting with the co-pilot, just to pass time.

Nort of the Cantr coast, 21:00, the same day
The three zodiacs made their way towards the shore, almost without a sound at all. Aboard were men and women wearing dark uniforms, their faces smeared with camo-paint, their weapons scanning the shore for anything out of the ordinary.

As the zodiacs hit the beach the soldiers wasted no time and had a defensive perimiter setup in a matter of seconds. Colonel Fredrick scanned the area ahead, but the darkness revealed nothing, so he assumed that their approach had gone unnoticed.

"Okay, David, report that we've made on shore and are moving inwards," said Fredrick without taking his eyes of the preimiter.

David followed the order without a sound, whispering into the headset.

"Alright guys 'n gals, one-by-two formation, first team take point. Remeber to keep your eyes peeled for anything that might be of value, and keep in mind, do not engage unless fired upon."

With that, the nine troopers took off, three at a time, into the darkness.

(OOC: In short, Zillian special forces have entered the northern area, their orders are to report any valuable finds they might make.)

///2100h- Alpha Base, Hesse Ridge///

Kress watched from the ridge as the army came ashore. Thousands of boats were on the beach, troops vehicles, equipment and supplies were pouring onto the beach. 200,000 soldiers in all, including 25,000 elite Vanguards were unloading as fast as possible. If they didn't reach Ren'allar within the week, the situation could collapse. "Sir, we're almost ready to move, another hour and we should be ready."

///2130h- Temporary Command Post, Ren'allar///

The Command Post was until the attack a large high school. Now the roof was near collapse, and an three classrooms had been turned to rubble. It was located in one of the few quiet sections in the city. Inside, however, it was anything but quiet.

"Sir, the enemy still holds the east quadrant! We just received a transmission from Seargent Hess that they failed to make any serious gains. Apparently, the Paladin moved reinforcements in from the center at the last second." Callan pondered what to do. He couldn't push the attack in the east until Kress arrived with the 3rd Army. "Tell Hess to hold his ground. How is Mezzy doing in the west?"
"He has made gains, sir. He is meeting heavy resistance, though, and has asked for reinforcements." "Tell him to find a good place to fortify, and to stay there until we can get him more soldiers."

///2145h- West Quadrant///

"There! That's our objective!!" Captain Ulan pointed to a deep trench occupied by Paladin forces. Three Light Combat Vehicles sped forward, flinging rocks and small rubble in every direction. In unison, their machine guns opened fire, sending bullets into buildings, defences and enemies. Two of Ulan's soldiers, both armed with Light Anti-Tank Guided Missile Launchers ducked behind a large piece of rubble. Paladin gunfire raked the street, taking down at least thirty soldiers. As Ulan neared the defensive wall in front of the trench, two missiles spiraled by, one slamming into the wall, blowing a hole through to the other side, the other just missing and landing in the trench, sending a Paladin flying. Ulan turned to his men. "Into the trench!"

OOC: People from my country are Kleomenian, not Kleomenic.

(OOC: The Cantrians don't know that.)

2208h
Between Beta Base and Ren'allar

Savid opened up his radio comms. It'd been difficult, but he'd managed to clear out some of the propaganda with makeshift jammers. "Paladin forces, do you read? This is Savid of Cantr, I am here to provide aid, Paladin forces? Paladin forces, are you there? This is Savid of Cantr, I am here to provide aid, where are you? Paladin forces?"

Something crackled in from the radio in Adriannic. "This is the Paladin Cell from Revan Village. What's your message?"

"Where are you? Where are you headed?"

"We're headed to Ren'allar to provide support to our units there."

"Listen, there's no way we can save that city if we just keep pumping troops into it. I have a plan that can take out the entire Kleomenic operation. I'll just need about thirty soldiers."

"All we've got is twenty eight, counting our leaders."

"That'll do. We're going to strike the enemy at the root. Where can I meet you?"

"We'll give you the co-ordinates to our hideout. But I warn you, if you bring anybody but yourself, we'll blow you to kingdom come."

"Don't worry, you won't have to."

News bulletins:
-Drakonat has poured troops over Samson borders. They've been pushed back to the northern border, however it is unlikely that the already suffering Samson's Federation will be able to repel repeated attacks by Drakonat. The reason for the attack is unknown.

///2330h- Temporary Command Post, Ren'allar///

The cold night wind blew in gusts, dirt and dust swirling majestically. The full moon cast silver light and long shadows over the small hovels below. The occasional cat or rodent scurried by, scavenging for food. The sharp chirp of the desert birds were occasionally drowned out by the thunder of artillery and crack of gunfire. Captain Leland sat by a radio on the second floor of the Command Post, staring blankly into the night. Suddenly, the radio crackled to life. "This is Lieutenant Holland, thirteenth Vanguards. Does anyone read?" Leland grabbed the radio transmitter. "This is Captain Leland, Command Support Staff. I read you Lieutenant."
"We have three regiments. Our location is 17.33-17.98. Our destination is 24.54-24.98. Our ETA is 2400h."
Leland could hear the beat of gunship wings in the background.
"We copy lieutenant, command will be informed."
Leland found the co-ordinates on his map. Holland, as well as ten thousand others were about to jump right onto the enemy.

(OOC: Zillian, please stop making such huge time leaps while the rest of us are in the middle of pitched combat. Now I've got two plotlines going simultaneously; Angel and Ader's in the middle of the day and Savid's later at night, which means that I have to write all the rest of Angel's plotline for the day in this post. It's really annoying, so consider what the rest of us are doing before you skip an entire day.

Concerning your recon, your troops aren't going to find anything valuable that isn't being guarded by at least a small outpost (meaning 20-ish men), and if it's actually valuable enough to go to war for, then it's probably going to have a fortress on top of it. Cantr is, after all, a thoroughly militarized nation right now, and it's had a solid decade to put up a defensive network on every resource it's got up north.)


1240h, October 17th
Ren'allar, east sector

"Ader, are you all right?" Angel asked. They had just emerged from a firefight between the Paladins and a Kleomenian spear-point platoon. They'd made a signifigant stab into Paladin territory, but the Paladins had apparently cut them off from the south sector and the unit, thus isolated, was a much easier target. Even so, Angel had sent Ader to hide in the cellar of a nearby unnocuppied pub while she sniped out Kleomenian leaders.

The boy nodded and took Angel's hand as she helped him out of the cellar, the stairs to which had been destroyed by a grenade during the firefight which had, unexpectedly, come inside the pub. The two of them started off towards the center of the city once again, and every step of the way Angel wondered why she didn't just leave him and continue with her mission...


2345h, October 17th
Ren'allar, south sector

Savid took a look at the enemy forces before turning to the Paladins gathered behind him. "Alright, the Kleomenians think that there aren't any Paladins left in this part of town, and we have to make them think that it's actually swarming with Paladins, and we've just been lying low. With any luck, they'll withdraw forces from the rest of the city and then we can focus on getting them out of the country."

The Paladins nodded in consent. "In order to get them to believe that we have a strong presence," he continued, "We need to convince them that our attacks are a coordinated effort between multiple cells, and in order to do that, we need to take out their leadership and communications. Specifically, we need to take out that." He pointed to the command center.

"A school?" One of the Paladins asked.

"It was," Savid replied, "Before it was shelled out by the Kleomenians and turned into a military headquarters." The Paladins faces took on a hint of anger at this latest atrocity against the youngest of Adrian's Disciples. "Alright, to your positions, and stay low, we don't want to attack until we're all ready."

1834, October 17th
Outskirts of Central Ren'allar

Ader looked down the road from his hiding spot behind some rubble. Beside him, Angel said "The Paladins have put up a road block and it's under attack. We're going to have to sneak past the battle." Ader looked at the barricade. A small Kleomenian squad was attempting to blow it up with bazooka's, but the barricade was made mostly out of ruined cars, jeeps, and tanks, and they were already blown up. Most of the time, the Paladins behind them were able to get out of the way before they were hit.

Angel said to him "Alright, I'm going to clear us a path, just stay back here and you should be safe."

"Wait!" Ader said as she started to leave for the battle.

"What?" she asked, a little frustrated.

"I wanna help." he said.

"No." Angel responded. "This is my job." She said it rather forcefully, but Ader was undetterred.

"Why can't I help?" he asked.

"Because, you're way too young. You've got to be at least my age before you go into battle. If you can, you should wait longer." Angel threw a furtive glance over her shoulder. The battle was starting to go sour for the Paladins. She was starting to run out of time.


"How come? I can fight!" Ader said defiantly, and urgently, as he wanted to get his chance to fight the Kleomenians before the battle was over.

"Maybe you can fight, maybe you can't, Ader." Ader spoke in protest to this, but Angel went on over him. "But the important thing is that you shouldn't fight. It's not fun, or exciting. It's scary. It's scarier than watching it."

"I'm brave!" Ader said.

"I know you are." Angel said. "But you shouldn't have to be. You shouldn't have to be afraid. You shouldn't have to be a soldier. It's not what Adrian wants for you. He wants you to build things up for the world, not shoot them down."

Ader struggled with this for a few moments. Then he looked over to the battle. They needed Angel pretty badly now. Feeling rather proud of himself for foregoing his chance to fight so that Angel could go save the Paladins, he said "Okay. But when I'm old enough, I'm gonna fight!"

Angel didn't answer. She turned and ran towards the fight. Ader followed her from afar as she used her sniper rifle to shoot the enemy leaders. Whenever the enemy started figuring out where the shots were coming from, she moved. After she finished all the leaders, she got out her rifle and began shooting the Kleomenian soldiers. She always started with the ones who had big guns, then the ones with smaller guns. Slowly, the tide was turned and the remaining Kleomenians eventually fled into the buildings behind them. Ader ducked beneath the rubble as they past. He wished he had a gun so he could shoot them as they went by. He could shoot them from his hiding spot, just like Angel did, and whenever they got too close he would move. But he didn't have a gun. He would have to find one.

"Come on, Ader." Angel said. She had returned for him. "I have a hideout in the safe zone we can use for the night. Tommorow we'll find some place you can stay." The two of them walked into the city, and as they did, Angel thought to herself I hope we can. Because if we can't, I'll have to leave him. I can't keep dragging him around.

And next to her, Ader thought I hope she doesn't. I want to stay with her, and learn how to fight so I can make sure no one's sister ever gets blown up by a mine ever again. I wanna fight and be like Angel and like Dad. Grown-ups always think I can't do anything.

2450h, October 17th
Temporary Command Post, Ren'allar

"Now!" Savid shouted, and began pouring the bullets from his Ares Assault Rifle into the guards around the post. At the same time, a half-dozen RPG's shrieked out from the positions Savid had sent them too. It's all going too well, Savid thought, The sentries were silenced without raising alarm, the enemy seems to have been taken by surprise...Murphy's Laws of Combat suggests it's an ambush.

It was far too late to do anything about it at that point, however. Savid and a baker's dozen Paladins rushed towards that Command Post as the Kleomenians began recovering from the RPG's.

///2450h- Temporary Command Post, Ren'allar///
"All available personnel armed on high alert, this is not a drill, this is not a drill."

The command center was in a state of panic. One second there was quiet, nothing but the distant thud and crack of fire, then suddenly the building shook, walls crumbled, and the building was ripped apart by RPG attacks and gunfire.

Colonel Callan ducked behind a collapsing wall, armed with only his personal pistol. Machine gun fire tore through the wall beside him, killing three of the colonel's staff. An RPG screamed over Callan's head, the vapour trail leading into the second floor, sending another soldier tumbling onto the street below. Callan spotted a radio lying in underneath the splinters which had once been the central command room. He darted out of cover, firing a few shots into the darkness before diving towards the transmitter. "Mezzy! Mezzy! Get your... shit," bullets whizzed over his head, shattering a window and killing another soldier who had just arrived. "Mezzy get your ass over here, we have a..."
Another voice crackled over the radio, a voice that was certainly not Mezzy's.
"Colonel... this is Lieutenant Holland, Thirteenth Vanguards. There is no Mezzy here." Dammit, thought Callan, thirty billion dollar budget and we can't get working radios! "Holland, have you disembarked?" There was static, and Holland's voice was momentarily blocked by another explosion, followed by screams. "Holland, if you haven't disembarked, get your men down here ASAP. We have a concentrated attack by Paladin forces, we can't hold them for long."
"We'll be there in five."

Callan sprinted to cover behind the second line of make-shift defences. The Paladin had already breached the first line, and if Holland didn't show up fast, this would be a very short battle. Another RPG crashed into the wall near Callan, throwing him to the ground. Callan scanned the ground around him. At least fifty of his men were dead, many of them he knew well. Callan, jumped out of cover for a second, firing a few more shots into the darkness before him. Just as he ducked back into cover, he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder, he had been hit. The last thing he heard before blacking out was the sound of Holland's gunships.

2452h
Command Post

Savid considered the situation rapidly. He didn't have a lot of time in the thick of battle, after all. The enemy was pretty decently entrenched behind their second line. He needed to end this battle fast. He'd have to send in a charge. He'd take heavy casualties, but he'd lose all his men if they didn't breach the line within minutes. "Savid! Savid!" Savid's radio crackled a message from the eight or so Paladins he'd left behind at three checkpoints to watch for enemy reinforcements. "I'm reporting from check 2, enemy choppers about a minute away from our position! Can't tell how many, but it's a lot." Scratch 'within minutes'. He needed to breach the line immediately.

He spoke into his radio "RPG's, fire one more valley on my mark. Sentries, start harrassing those reinforcements, slow them down and thin them out as much as you can. RPG's, mark!" Six more rocket propelled grenades slammed into the enemies second line of defense. "Charge!" Savid shouted out, and his men charged into the fray with him. "RPG's, get your rifles and get in here!" he shouted into his radio, jumping out of the way of a burst of enemy rifle fire that took down one of his Paladins. He was losing men fast. He had lost the element of surprise and the enemy still had something like twice his numbers, with at least a few hundred more coming in.

Savid saw the commander pop out from behind some cover and shot a burst towards him. He hit him in the shoulder. Of all times and of all places to be innaccurate, now?!? Savid thought to himself. "Valan, get your men and get out of here!" Savid shouted to the Paladin commander.

"We can't just leave you!" he shouted back.

"Are you going to get all of your men killed just so that you can be a hero? We've got gunships coming down on us fast, get your men out! I'll finish this!"

Valan looked torn for a few seconds before he shouted "Paladins, pull out to check 3!"

Savid leapt out over the enemy rifle bursts. He could hear the enemy choppers approaching in the distance between the explosions of grenades. He had about twenty seconds. He showered the enemy with bullets. The commander was directly below him. Savid filled him full of hot lead, taking out him and a few more enemy soldiers, and landed behind some rubble. The choppers had arrived, and immediately began disgorging soldiers about fifty feet away from the building. Savid leapt through a window behind him and began sprinting for cover. He found some and dived behind it, but was almost immediately sorrounded by Kleomenic soldiers. There was no way out of their net with just one man. Not even a Soldier X could feasibly make it out.

Savid shouted out "Adrian!" as he flung himself out behind his cover and let loose his assault rifle on the enemy soldiers and they fired a storm of bullets at him. Savid fell to the ground, bleeding from a hundred holes punched in his body. Adrian, Savid prayed as he died, Forgive the sins of a soldier on the battlefield...

237h, October 18th
Paladin hideout outside of Ren'allar

Valan looked at the Paladins sorrounding him. There were only seven of them. "We've contacted another Paladin cell to replenish some of our losses, so our comrades will soon be avenged." Valan said, trying to sound strong and confident. It almost worked. "We still have the plan Savid made, so we'll be able to carry on his work without him." Valan's voice picked up some strength as he continued. "His death will not be in vain, nor the death of any Paladin. We will force these invaders from our shores under the hand of Adrian! With His aid, we are invincible!" His Paladins gave a half-hearted cheer. They looked much less sorrowful and far more determined. The Kleomenians would feel the wrath of Adrian!

///0105h- Temporary Command Post, Ren'allar///

Colonel Kress' APC finally rolled into Ren'allar, and stopped outside the Command Post. The sight turned Kress' face white. Bodies, both Kleomenian and Paladin were strewn around the street. The building itself had lost almost the entirety of the wall, and the roof had caved in completely. Kress sprinted into the building. "Callan! Where is Colonel Callan!" There was silence. Someone pointed to the corner. Hunched against the wall, riddled with bullets, was Col. Callan. At that moment, Lieutenant Holland returned with a patrol. "They were too fast, we got one of them, but the rest escaped." Kress looked back at the street. A great column of soldiers and equipment was streaming into the city. Kress then looked back at Callan. With these men I will make your killers pay A grim smile crossed Kress' face, I will make them pay, old friend.

///0110h- Above Ren'allar, west quadrant///

"We jump in five, so listen up!" Major Io held a transmitter in his hand. The 8,000 Vanguards of the 4th and 5th regiments were now silent, listening to the words of their trusted commander. "Our job is too come in on the rear of the Paladin lines so Major Mezzy can move to support us, while simultaneously assaulting the Helm Hotel. From their we will secure the west side with Kress' reinforcements. This is going to be one hell of a fight, so get ready. Vanguards to the fore! Now let's get them!" With those words, 8,000 of the Dominions most skilled soldiers jumped into the surrounding night.

OOC: Is/was Savid a soldier X?

((OOC: Sorry 'bout that, no harm intended, will try too keep to the timeline :headbang:

About the recon, you said that norhtern Cantr was unmapped, and now they've got fortresses and all that? Could be I got it wrong though. Also, if there are any finds of uranium ore, which cannot be found in Zillian soil, it might be worth the risk of going to war over.))

0120 Hours, Northern Cantr

Fredrick looked at the small mine through his binoculars, the five or so visible guards slowly pacing back and forth.

"Looks like an iron mine," he said to David, the comms operator behind him, "Some five visible guards, could be more nearby."

"Team two has reported several finds like this one, all guarded with some twenty men. They also found a rather large garrison gurading a larger mine complex," replied David as he took mental notes on what Fredrick said.

"Well," said Fredrick and put the binoculars away, "Anything that well guarded is worth taking a closer look at. Let's go!"

Fredrick, David and the third team member dissapeared back into the shadows.

(OOC: I might have let slip in something that wasn't meant to make it past concept level, but yes, Cantr is fully mapped, inhabited, and militarized.

Yes, Savid was a Soldier X. I'll post some actual RP when I get home...)

OOC: Score! one genetically modified freak down! Also, USUALLY when there are genetically modified freaks, they change side. Just sayin... :)

If the Praetor was the hand that guided Hurfdurfistani military policy, then Epsilon was the blade that enacted it. Epsilons answered to no military authority save for the Praetor himself, were immune to the trivialities of law, and were officially denied by Hurfdurfistani authorities. True, they were few in number (only the very best of Hurfdurfistan’s elite became Epsilons), but Epsilons were regularly granted unlimited operational expenses, the best nano-enhancements and gene therapy money could buy, and state-of-the-art weaponry most special forces only dreamt of wielding. Simply by virtue of being Epsilons, they could commandeer any Hurfdurfistani military asset. They were assassins, saboteurs, spies, agents provocateur, or elite light infantry… whatever the Praetor required. They were the very best Hurfdurfistan had to offer.

And they were in Cantr.

A group of four Epsilons, clad in simple, lightweight torso armor over loose black clothing, watched the fighting in Ren’allar through a complicated system of surveillance drones, hacked camera feeds, binoculars, and scopes. They sat inside a ruined home, where a family had once lived, taking occasional shots at any Kleomenian soldiers foolish enough to wander into their line of fire. Targets of opportunity, after all. The one codenamed John received a message via his retinal implant:

*****URGENT: ORDERS ARE TO OFFER MIL. ASSIST TO REMAINING CANTRIAN FORCES.*****

John gathered his comrades (Codenamed Jenny, Mike, and Leon) and ordered Mike to broadcast a message offering aid on channels known to be secure.

*****ATTN CANTRIANS
ELITE HURFDURFISTANI FORCES IN REN’ALLAR OFFERING ASSIST.
RESPOND W/ ENCRYPTION.
MESSAGE REPEATS.*****

With the message sent, and artillery fire drawing dangerously near, John gathered the others, set a tritium charge, and moved quietly down the street, weapons at the ready. A mere minute later, the observation post was vaporized in a massive explosion, erasing any evidence that the Epsilons were ever there.

///0145h- Ren'allar///

The full moon was bright, and the stars were shining. It was the first clear night in weeks. Corporal Rab squinted as explosions temporarily outshone the stars.
"Beautiful night, eh Gren? You can see every star in the sky. You writing another letter?" private Gren quickly glanced up at the sky, and returned to his sheet of paper. "Oh, uh yeah," he replied, while adjusting his lamp, "Just writing to my wife, you've met Alexis? She just gave birth to... our son." Even as he spoke these words, his voice cracked. Rab could tell that Gren was crying. "Congratulations, Gren!" Rab paused as a gunship passed overhead, "Now turn off that light, your shift's almost over." As Gren reached for the lamp, a crack rang out. Not from inside the city, but from the hills nearby. Gren screamed in pain. "Shit, everyone, cover! How the hell did those Paladin get out there? We've got this part of the city surrounded!" Rab dashed over to Gren, pulling him into cover and inspecting his wounds. Another shot ripped through the air, and another soldier collapsed. "Unless they've gotten armour piercing bullets and high-powered rifles and night vision, those aren't Paladins!" Another bullet put another hole in one of Rab's soldiers. "If those aren't Paladins then who the hell are they? The only other people in this part of the country are the Cantrians, and we're helping them!" Suddenly, the bullets stopped."What on Earth was that?"

OOC: Shit, man, now I feel bad about it. It's all too easy to forget that wars are fought by essentially good and likable people, I guess. I'm confused, though. If your men are in Cantr aiding the Cantrians, why did they just kill a Soldier X? Soldier X are True Cantrian assets, after all.

(OOC: Soldier X teamed up with the Paladins to remove Kleomenes from the region. Also, Kleomenes has (rather cunningly) made an offer to both Imperial AND True Cantr, both of which have been accepted. If you take a quick look at Soldier X's priorities in the area, however, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out that True Cantr either intends to stab them in the back or else they saw through the ploy.

And Kleomenes, I liked that post...I don't like forgetting that wars are fought by essentially good and likable people.

Also, I'm getting totally paranoid about the intentions of every nation I don't personally run...just now, I wasn't sure whether those Epsilons were on my side until Hurfdurfistan said so...)

[b]0115h, October 18th
Ren'allar, Angel's Hideout
Angel was woken up by the crackle of the radio. "Angel? Angel, are you still awake?"
She opened here eyes and responded "Yeah, I am now. What's up?"
"I've intercepted a few comms from Kleomenes. It sounds like they're about to come down hard on the west sector. You'd better get ready for a fight, now! I'll come over to help you, but it'll be a bit as I'm on the other side of the city." Tempest spoke through the radio.
"Right. I'm on my way." Angel grabbed her Ares rifle and headed for the exit of her little hideout. Ader's voice stopped her.
"Are you leaving?" he asked. Angel didn't have time for this.
"Yeah, but I'll be back in about an hour. Go back to sleep." She rushed out into the street, and spotted a car. It was, of course, locked up for the night. Angel broke the window open, setting off the alarm, climbed into the car, and hot-wired it. It took all of fifteen seconds. Soon she was headed to the west sector. It'll probably take at least a couple of minutes to get there...more, if there's a barricade and I have to continue on foot. Angel hoped it would be long enough and floored the gas pedal.
0122h
West sector
Angel had arrived. So had the Kleomenians. She had already occupied a snipers nest in a nearby apartment building, after clearing out its previous occupants with a grenade. Now she was firing down on the Kleomenians below as they engaged the Paladins. The Paladins had lost a good portion of the sector, pushed back to a small rim covering the entrance to the center of the city.
Angel continued firing down on the enemy. She needed to do more. She needed to stop the enemy...If I could bring a few buildings down I could slow them up... Acting on this, Angel rushed down the stairs and checked the bottom floor for enemy troops. She spotted a pair of Kleomenian soldiers who had taken cover inside the building. Angel took them out from behind, planted a C4 in the base of the building, and left through a window. Crouching in an alley about a block away, she set it off, and the building collapsed onto the road.
Angel turned her attention to the enemy headed towards her position from the main street. There weren't any vehicles in the enemy formation, and so Angel was able to keep them at bay with accurate rifle fire, well-placed grenades, and by continuously moving from one place to another, with a dose of One-Man Armyism keeping her alive in between.
Angel leapt from behind a pile of cinder blocks, let out a volley in mid-air, and landed in a window in a nearby apartment. I can't keep doing this for the entire Kleomenian Army, she thought, I need a plan...

Brolm
0150, October 18th
The normally pitch black room was lit now by a bright light-bulb. Oblivion, chained to a metal chair which was bolted to the ground, was still bleeding from the dozen or so cuts on his face, which was badly bruised, and he was bleeding still more from where a pair of his fingernails had been ripped out. Oblivion knew that the Imperial Cantrians could and would get nastier if they didn't get the information they wanted. After they ran out of fingernails they'd start breaking various bones and when that didn't work they might start amputating pieces of him. Then leave him to recover from what injuries he was capable of healing and then do it all over again...he'd have to hope that another Soldier X would break him out before then, as he was in no condition to make a breakout in his current state. Sure, actually running away from the compound and hiding out in the city wouldn't be too difficult at this point, but escaping before they started breaking bones was just about impossible, and then he'd be stuck.
There was a sharp knock on the door and the man who had been inflicting these horrors on Oblivion went to the door and opened it. Oblivion recognized the man immediately. He was True Cantr's public enemy number one...he was Daemon, Imperial Cantr's supreme leader.
"Hello, Soldier XB-3. I hope you haven't found my accomodations at all uncomftorable." Oblivion didn't respond. If he wanted to throw James Bond cliche's at him, Oblivion wasn't going to sink to his level and throw any cliche's back. Besides, he couldn't think of an appropriately witty response. "No doubt you've got all kinds of thoughts going through your head right now, about the situation you've put yourself in. Perhaps you're feeling noble for being a good little Cantrian and keeping your peace, protecting the secrets of your emporer..." Oblivion remained silent. "Have you ever considered that I have as much right to the throne as my dear half-brother Daichi? Why do you owe your alliegance to him and not to me?" Oblivion remained silent still, but thoughts flew into his mind. Why am I keeping my peace for Daichi? Why is he more worthy of my alliegance than Daemon? But then, why should I give my alliegance to Daemon over Daichi? Just because he's torturing me? What kind of loyalty is that?
"I see you're the strong, silent type," Daemon continued, "And so you're unlikely to ease your own suffering any time soon. So let me add to it a bit more." Here, Daemon held up a disc. "This escaped your little pyrotechnics display back in the apartment. We found some very interesting information on it..." Oblivion looked at the disc in horror...he couldn't have found the one disc that contained Oblivion's report to command, could he? The disc that contained a summary of all the information he'd gathered over the past two weeks, plus the document he'd recieved from command? The one he had meant to wipe immediately but hadn't because the odds of imminent capture seemed so unlikely...The one disc that survived out of a hundred...that couldn't be it, could it? "Let me guess...you're wondering which disc it actually is. Let me tell you some of the things I've learned from this...Soldiers XA-1, 2, and 5 are stationed in the farmlands on the approach to the Tenkai military base, Soldier XA-3 is in Adrian, along with Soldiers XB-4 and XB-2. Soldier XB-5 recently departed for Tenkai Base itself." That was it. The disc he should have wiped. "Lieutanant General Stakli has just been promoted to Field Marshall and sent to take command of the force headed for Tenkai, Soldier XB-1 is currently MIA, our Kleomenian friends are, it turns out, sending you aid as well as us, True Cantr knows this too...I daresay I've found the one disc you didn't want me to find." Oblivion hung his head. Of all things, not only had he been captured, he had been tortured, and all along he could have revealed everything he knew and it would not have made a bit of a difference...
"Kill him." Daemon said as he left the room. Oblivion welcomed the bullet.

0208h,
Ren'allar

Angel planted a C4 on the APC, leapt off of it while raining death down on the enemy below and landed in an unoccupied window in an apartment. She detonated the C4, destroying the APC and throwing the nearby soldiers to the ground. She didn't give them a chance to recover. Nearby Paladins rushed in and finished the job. Another step closer to winning the battle...but I have to find the leaders. Angel pulled out her binoculars again and began scanning the battlefield for commanders...she saw one in the distance, a thin outline in the dust kicked into the sky. She pulled her sniper rifle off her back, took careful aim, and fired.

((OOC: Okay, got it!))

0220, Northern Cantr

"Looks like this just might be what we're looking for," said Fredrick as he overlooked the foretress from comfortable distance, "Let's gather more info on unit size and such before doing anything more. Also, tell Team Three to check out coastal defences, the Admiral will need every piece of info on it he can get, if this stuff goes down. Tell 'em they've got 'till 0400 to gather as much as they can, then meet at site A."

David nodded and once again turned to his headset, whispering orders in code.

"You don't think they might intercept the radio?" asked Lieutnant Hannah without taking her eyes from the sniper rifle scope.

"There's a chance, but the code should slow them down a bit," replied David, "Even if they do. we'll either be outta here by morning, or have the First Marines to back us up."

The same time, outside Zillian waters, Zillian Military Vessel 'First and Stongest' en route to Cantr

First Admiral Nicolas looked at the fleet under his command from the bridge of the carrier 'First and Strongest', some twenty ships, including another carrier beside the 'First'. Also the fleet hosted the 1st Marine Division, along with a squadron of Hellcat figthers and a squadron of Hellfire multi-role fighters. All in all it summed up to 2187 marines and some thirty aircraft, ready to strike at norhtern Cantr, once they got there of course. Nicolas had said that it would take some twelve hours to make up a battleplan, once he and the air and marine commander had the information from the Alpha Eagle platoon that was.

"How long untill we reach our destiantion?" he asked, although he already knew the answer.

"We should be there at 0700 hours at full speed, sir," replied the navigator.

"Full speed it is then," replied Nicolas.

(OOC: How did a nation of your size and economy get an aircraft carrier, with enough cash to spare for twenty other ships, presumably of at least gunship class, not to mention all your fighters?)

0301h
Farmlands, 5 miles from Jentai Base
About twenty Imperial Soldiers walked through the paths between the fields of wheat, the sounds of battle not more than half a mile away. Prefect watched them carefully from his hiding spot twenty feet deep in the wheat. Not yet...he thought as the soldiers moved past the first pair of ambushers. Just a little farther...he thought as they passed through the center. Then, when they were only five feet from the end of the net and the soldiers to Prefect's left and right were getting nervous, Prefect ordered out "Now!" As one they attacked in a flurry of bullets. The enemy, caught off guard, was taken out in seconds.
Prefect got out his binoculars and began looking around. Bullets and on occasion explosions sounded throughout the fields, slowly getting closer to Prefect's position. "Sir, shouldn't we move before the main battle swallows us up?" one of the soldiers asked.
"Not yet." Prefect responded, still scanning the horizon for the enemy. Suddenly, the number of explosions doubled. Tripled. Artillery...where's it coming from? Prefect spotted a hill, maybe a mile distant, with a farm house, barn, and a half-dozen other farm buildings on it. Perfect cover for some artillery pieces. He spoke into his radio, "Ember, there's some artillery up on that hill, hill, uh...49, take care of it."
"I'm on my way." he responded through the static of the radio.
"Sir?" the soldier asked. An artillery shell landed ten feet away from them, and they all leapt to their stomachs.
"Move out! Get out of the artillery net!" They all started running, staying low as they did, away from the explosions. They won't be stupid enough to send soldiers through their own artillery to flank us, so there's no reason to stick around.

Hill 49
Fate must have something against me, thought Ember as he crept up on the hill. He had already had to go through three patrols. Taking them out quietly was getting harder. They were guarding something. No matter what assignment I take, I always end up right next to some vital, and thus ridiculously well-guarded, enemy position. "Prefect?" he whispered into his radio.
"Yeah?" Prefect responded, keeping his voice low as well.
"There's definately artillery here. If I don't report in five, the guards got me." If Ember lived through this, Prefect would probably mock his caution again. "You're a Soldier X!" he'd say. "You're one of the best One-Man Armies' in our unit!" Ember would make his usual response. "Just because I can dodge a bullet doesn't mean I can dodge six coming from different sides, and if I'm not careful I'll get in a situation and then I'll be dead." Ember wasn't quite sure whether or not he didn't want to be dead, but even if he did, he certainly didn't want to leave his comrades behind. Without his caution holding back their suicide assaults, they'd all be joining him six feet under in a week.
Ember began sprinting from behind the rock he was hiding behind to another one about thirty feet distant. From there he could get rid of another patrol and then, God willing, make it to cover behind the farm house on the summit.
His suppressed rifle took out the patrol in under three seconds. The faint outline of another patrol was approaching. Had they heard something? They'd stopped. They'd detected something that was wrong. Real clever, Fate. Ember thought to himself as he let out another burst that took one of them out. At this range it was going to take a lot longer to kill them. And they would have a chance to return fire...very loudly. The expected volley came. Ember finished off the remaining two soldiers and rushed up to the farmhouse. He had to get rid of that artillery.
Farmlands
Prefect scanned the fields for another flanking patrol. They were getting bigger, which made them easier to spot but harder to take out. The one that lay dead at his feet had been thirty men strong. The one in his sights looked like it might be fifty. How long before they brought a tank?
"General 'Takli," Prefect said into his radio, leaving off the 's' in order to be less audible, "We're going to need more troop. We're now outnumbered by more than two to one by these patrol, and give a few AT while you're at it. They'll likely be bringing in armor. Where can we meet 'em?"
"Meet them at check 1. They'll be there in two minutes." Prefect nodded and started towards checkpoint 1, motioning to his allies to follow him. They needed to be there ASAP in order to stop that patrol, but they also needed to remain unseen or else they'd all be killed. They couldn't do both...
"Head to check 1, I'll meet you there in a bit!" Prefect said, and turned his attention to the patrol. He shot down a few men from the back. He'd have to pick away at them from a hidden location until their forces were cut in half...

Hill 49
Ember was hiding behind a pick-up, returning fire to the half a hundred or so enemy soldiers who were pouring out of nearby buildings to kill him. Shouldn't there be some artillery in sight by now? he wondered. But he didn't have time to puzzle it out, the guards were coming in fast, and he needed cover bad...he planted a C4 on the pickup, shot up the wall of the barn behind him and dove through it. As the enemy rushed on to take him out, he detonated the C4, slowing them down and giving him time to find cover behind some hay bales. He pulled one more on top of one of them so that he could crouch behind his makeshift sandbags and return fire without exposing anything other than his eyes and his gun.
I guess the artillery are on the other side of that farmhouse, mostly...but then wouldn't Prefect be able to see some of them? Unless there's only two or three, but then it wouldn't be much of a priority, would it? A grenade soared through the air towards Ember. Ember knocked it back towards the enemy before it hit the ground. It went off, wounding a few of the fore-most troops from shrapnel and pushing them back a bit more. Ember sent two of his own grenades their direction. Suddenly, a door thirty feet to his left opened up and two soldiers burst in, whom Ember immediately gunned down. He leapt from his current cover to behind a stack of un-baled hay. Now he was in a corner. He'd lost his chokepoint. The enemy could come at him from any direction, and he couldn't escape...

Farmlands
Prefect gunned down about five oncoming soldiers in a single volley and sprinted through the gap in the enemy net it created. About eight soldiers fired at him from behind. He rolled on the ground and spontaneously switched direction as he did so to avoid the volley, and tossed a flash-bang grenade back in their direction. After the blast, he was able to kill half the soldiers remaining while they were still stunned. The remaining fired off a poorly aimed volley in his direction and ran away. There were about five. Prefect shot them as they ran, to a man. Prefect got out his binoculars and scanned the battlefield quickly. He needed to check out the situation before he ran off to check 1 so he could act immediately upon arrival. Then he something in the flats to the south that made his eyes bulge.

Hill 49
"Ember!" Prefect's voice came through the radio. Ember shot down a few enemy soldiers, shot up the wall behind him, and dove through it again. "Ember, are you there?" No enemies on the other side. Ember ran from the oncoming horde of soldiers who poured out of the exit he'd just created behind him, finding cover behind some nearby rocks, and returned fire. How long can I keep doing this? he thought to himself. "Ember, are you there?" Prefect asked again. Ember didn't stop shooting, thinking to himself I'm a bit busy right now...
"Ember, transmitting in the blind, there's no artillery on Hill 49, it's a trap!" You're tellin' me... Ember tossed a grenade towards the enemy to scatter them a bit. He didn't have anywhere else to run...
Okay Fate, now you're just cheating. Ember brought down three or four soldiers who were moving to flank him on one side before turning his attention to those flanking him on the other, and as he did so, more started flanking him from the side he'd just cleared out...There's no place left to run, I can't stop them from flanking me forever, and even if I could, eventually they'd shoot me in spite of my cover. He managed to stop both flanks and hurled a grenade towards some of the enemy who'd taken cover. What am I supposed to do, spontaneously become bullet-proof?

Checkpoint 1
"All right, troops, let's go, we've gotta move fast!" Prefect was already sprinting towards the hill. I really hope they haven't mined this part of the field... Prefect thought as he rushed towards the hill. No time for caution. Ember could be dead already. "Sig!" Prefect shouted into his radio.
"I know!" Sigourney shouted back. "I been listenin' to the radio. I'm on my way!" Prefect turned his attention back to his current location...there was a patrol of about thirty or forty men up ahead, slightly less than Prefects current force. No time for subtlety. "Kill 'em fast!" Prefect shouted as he opened fire on the enemy patrol, still running forward. The rest of his unit dropped down and started killing the enemy, and the enemy dropped down as well. Prefect jumped into the air and rained death down on the enemy below, where they had only made themselves bigger targets by lying down. I need to move faster. Prefect thought as he landed on the other side of the patrol, diving out of the way of an enemy volley.

Hill 49
The enemy had apparently decided to start using the big guns. Soldiers carrying RPG's began moving to the front. Ember shot them down as fast as he could, tossing a pair of grenades towards his two flanks to keep them clear in between volleys. You think you can kill me, Fate? I'll show you just how much of a survivor I am!
Ember continued gunning down the RPG's, but not fast enough. One of them fired in his direction, but the innacurate grenade missed and blew up a patch of dirt off to his left. Ember ducked behind his cover as another grenade soared past where his head had been a minute ago. He poked his head out and found he'd been pretty badly flanked on his right. He took out both the RPG's who'd shot at him and then turned his attention to the enemies on his right, as more took up position to his left. They'd had time to find cover, better cover than Ember had...this was it. No way he could take them out faster than they could take him out...Now he'd get to find out whether or not death was better than life...I wonder if Prefect will start taking better care of the team once I'm gone? he wondered. Probably not...but hey, maybe Fate likes them better than me. An RPG struck the ground three feet from him, blowing him back, towards the left flank. He stared at the left flank as they raised their guns to shoot him, watched them take aim, and then watched them be consumed in a ball of flame.

Foot of Hill 49
Prefect looked up the hill. Sigourney was already at the top of the hill, shooting at something. He couldn't see Ember. "Half of you, get up there and give Sigourney some aid!" he shouted to his soldiers. "The rest of you, follow me!" Only a few more than a dozen actually ran up the hill, but Prefect didn't have time to worry about it. He started climbing the hill diagonally, so he'd be able to catch the enemy between Sigourney's fire and his own.
By the time he reached the top of the hill, he could see Ember lying on the ground, whether he was dead or alive, Prefect couldn't tell. He fired at the enemy, who were headed towards Ember, presumably to finish him off, and the soldiers behind him fired at them as well. The enemy dove back behind their cover, losing about a half-dozen on their way back.
Prefect targetted the RPG's, looked for the officer in charge of it all as the enemy troops headed towards them were scattered by an AT rocket. Prefect spotted him, he wasn't in a special uniform, but he was giving orders. Prefect shot him down. "Charge!" Prefect shouted to his soldiers, and as one they rushed the enemy positions. Prefect leapt over them and hit them from above and then behind as his soldiers hit them from the front. In ten seconds they'd all been killed.
The enemy started pulling out. Prefect let them go and rushed over to Ember. Prefect didn't know if it had happened before or after he'd arrived, but Ember's chest had three bullets embedded in it, and he was coughing up blood. "Ember!" Prefect shouted. "Ember...I'm sorry-" he started.
"Don't worry, it wasn't your fault...It's like I always say, Fate just has it in for me." Ember responded. "You can't outrun Fate forever...I'm just glad I made it as long as I did...An' now I think maybe Fate did me a favor...Prefect?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't let anyone get shot, alright? I'm not gonna be around to stop your suicide assaults anymore...Godspeed..." They were Ember's last words.
Prefect stared down at Ember's corpse, and removed one of the two dog-tags on his neck.

Soldier XA-5
Ember

Prefect pocketed the dog-tag and turned to Sigourney. "Sigourney, the artillery is down there." Prefect pointed. From the hill, they were fairly easy to spot. "Go take care of 'em. I'm going to take the soldiers and hit the enemy front from behind. Good luck." Prefect shouted out to his soldiers to follow. The enemy soldiers had been pushed back by Stakli's troops, and were fleeing to what they no doubt thought to be friendly defenses on the hill. Prefect's soldiers occupied the machine-gun nests on the hill and prepared. Fifty entrenched troops and a Soldier X against a thousand fleeing soldiers...The Imperials didn't stand a chance.

((OOC: Good point, I stand corrected yet again :headbang:

I feel really stupid now, and feel like I've just been a pain in the rear, so I'll withdraw from this whole thing before I cause any more annoyance. At least I've learned a few things from it all, so it wasn't all bad. So consider all forces from Zillian departed as of now.

Sorry for all the annoyance I've caused and all that, next time I'll think ahead a little more. See ya around sometime!))

(OOC: Feel free to drop back in if you want to.)

News Bulletins:
Valan and his Paladins have bolstered their forces to something like sixty or seventy, and have turned every major entry into the south sector of Ren'allar into a minefield. Most of the mines are anti-personell, but a few of them are capable of taking out jeeps or APCs.

OOC: Shit, man, now I feel bad about it. It's all too easy to forget that wars are fought by essentially good and likable people, I guess. I'm confused, though. If your men are in Cantr aiding the Cantrians, why did they just kill a Soldier X? Soldier X are True Cantrian assets, after all.

OOC: I killed a soldier X because he was attacking and killing my forces. It was him who attacked me, after all. My goal is to capture the oil and resource rich deserts of Adrian and Paladin, I'm aiding the Cantrians too keep them away from me, and hopefully so they won't turn on me the second I'm done in Paladin.

Also, Cantr, how many Soldier X's are there, not including those killed?

(OOC: Well, Daemon just listed them all of when he was interrogating Oblivion, but here's the list again (with real names instead of numbers).
Prefect and Sigourney are the remnants of Generation 1 (Ember, Spider, and Savid are deceased Gen. 1)
Seth, Angel, Chris, and Tempest are all Generation 2 (Oblivion was also Gen. 2)

So there's two left in your theater and six left in the world at large. There may also be a Generation 3, but if there is it'll be at least a year or two before they're combat age.)

///0340h- Temporary Command Post, Ren'allar ///

Land mines? Colonel Kress had just been informed that the enemy had mined the main entrances to the city, Land mines? These must have taken hours to lay! Kress looked at the lieutenant, "If they want to waste good soldiers, I'm not one to stop them, but we need the streets cleared, you know what to do."

Two gunships just along the outskirts of the city. A hail of light missiles splashed across the ground, detonating mines in it's wake.

///0345h- West Quadrant, Ren'allar///

Captain Henn slid silently down the abandoned alleyway. The seven men in his squad followed closely, directed by subtle hand signals. They had been chasing the Paladin super soldier for the past few days. They had heard reports that the soldier had died in the South Quadrant, but then miraculously reappeared shortly after. Just when they thought they had lost the trail, she had been seen near the fighting in the West Quadrant. Shortly after, an entire building collapsed, flattening an entire squad and stopping the advance just short of it's objective. Just then, a shadow fluttered by, passing quickly and noiselessly out of sight. Though he only caught a glimpse of her face, Henn knew who it was. They had caught up to her.

OOC: Cantr, while land mines were effective in the days of the cold war, in modern day they are relatively ineffective. They require much time, resources and manpower, and once discovered they are easily disabled.

(OOC: Yes, I know, but the Paladins have lost Savid's direction and thus will not be acting very intelligently until they make and learn from enough mistakes to be effective. They are used to fighting the much more poorly equipped Adriannic army (which consists, you may recall, of a dog named Jasper, and which therefore could be rendered completely ineffective simply by shouting "Down, boy!").

I must wonder, however, how your men could possibly have been chasing Angel for the past few days when she just got in Ren'allar yesterday and you have no presence up north where she dropped in the day before...nonetheless, it is time to show them just how foolish it is to send anything less than a small army at a Soldier X.)

0351h
West Sector, Ren'allar

Great, I'm being followed. Angel thought as she ducked out of the alley and into what appeared to be a thoroughly looted store. Now I'll have to kill these guys and that'll take more precious time away from my effort to stop the Kleomenian advance. Angel ducked behind a window and peered out at the squad following her. They didn't seem to know exactly where she was, only the general direction she'd gone...good. She carefully raised her assault rifle to the window and shot a spray of bullets into their midst. About half of them went down and the rest dropped to the ground. It's a good thing they're following one another so closely, otherwords this might've been difficult. Angel ducked behind the window and rolled away from it as the surviving stalkers fired into it. From their current position, they couldn't shoot her, but if they came too much closer to the shop they'd be able to kill her, and the only way to cover was through the flurry of bullets coming in through the window. She'd have to discourage an advance, which she did by tossing a grenade out the window. The bullets stopped, but whether it was because the stalkers had been killed by the grenade or simply dove for cover, Angel didn't know. She tossed another grenade out the door to keep the enemy from getting close and peered over the top of the counter. Three enemies left. Her grenade went off, and one of the slower soldiers had his legs cut up by shrapnel. Angel finished the job with her assault rifle. Just two more...but they've got cover and they're blocking the only exit from this shop...I don't have enough room to set off a C4 without blowing myself up so I can't make another exit...so I'll have to beat them in a firefight... She attempted to kill the two remaining soldiers, but found they had too much cover. It was a stand-off, at least for now...But then a third party began firing down the alley. Angel couldn't see who it was, but he'd killed the two remaining stalkers...as he approached, Angel fired a warning shot about a foot above his head, and he dropped.

"Angel, is that you?"

"Tempest!" Angel shouted, glad she wouldn't to fend off another enemy attack. She emerged from the shop. "It's about time. What took you?"

"I had to go through a warzone just to get here, plus I had to find you and comms are out for some reason. But I still managed to find you in this labyrinth, all in two hours, and you're annoyed because I've been two slow?

Angel responded with "Well, yeah. I haven't been able to slow down the Kleomenian advance much, let alone repel it. We've got to hold the city at least until Savid gums up their logistics, which will probably be two weeks. How do we do that?"

"I dunno...I'm really not sure how much anyone could do to stop this thing on their own, even a Soldier X. If we had control over all Paladin forces we could repel the attack, but there's no way they'd trust a pair of Cantrians they've never met before with vital defenses."

"Well then," Angel offered, "Let's just do what I've been doing; blow up and shoot up as many of them as we can before they reach the front lines."

///0350h- West Quadrant, Ren'allar///

Major Io scanned the assembled soldiers in front of him, 30,000 in all. As he observed the grime streaked faces, he noticed two similarities. Every one of them bore a mask of fear, and one of equal determination. Everyone of these soldiers had been to the fiery depths of hell and back, and now he was about to order them back in. "Men, this is a great day in our history. this day will be remembered for centuries, in books and poems, songs and fairy tales. But most of all, this day will be remembered by your children, and friends children, and their grandchildren. To them, this will be the day that you made a difference in this world. Do your duty men," a tear leaked from Io's eye, "and good luck." At once, more than 100,000 soldiers, and 100,000 Vanguards charged towards the enemy lines, guns blazing.

(OOC: 300,000?!? Do you have any garrison in the rest of Adrian? Besides, the front isn't big enough for that many soldiers, it's physically impossible to deploy them all unless they're going to shoot at an angle and hope the bullets land on Paladins. Keep in mind that the grand total population of this city is around a million, if memory serves...)

OOC: oops, wrong button. I really should pay more attention when I type! Also, that's spread out across the line. And i corrected the other post, I wasn't paying attention.

(OOC: But still, this sector of the city is only capable of containing about 200,000 civillians without having half of it reduced to rubble, let alone the tiny piece of it that's currently conflicted, not to mention there's Paladins and probably refugee's in there too.)

Angel positioned her sniper rifle carefully...some high-ranking officer was giving a speech to a horde of soldiers about a half-mile distant. Angel wasn't sure, but she guessed that if the soldiers had been on their side of the officer instead of on the other side, they'd reach all the way back to her position. There's got to be thousands...she thought to herself, and then, with a grin, There's no possible way they can all hear him.
The speech seem to have concluded. One way or another, they were moving out. Angel couldn't wait any longer. She pulled down the trigger and killed the officer.
"Angel!" Angel, surprised, reflexively whipped around and tried to hit the source of the word. Tempest dodged under it.
"Tempest..." Angel let out, relaxing. "What is it?"
"Comms are back. And listen..." A message from some country with a Dr. Seuss name played, offering aid.
"Well," Angel began, "We could definately use aid, but I've never heard of these guys before...How do we know we're on their side? And given our current resources, how are we supposed to give an encrypted response? Send them a radio broadcast in Pig Latin?"
"I don't know. I've never heard of them either and I'm not sure how we're supposed to encrypt our responses. And since they claim to be offering aid, the most we'll take is an opportunity loss for ignoring it." Tempest responded.
"Given our current situation, we can't afford an opportunity loss." Angel said.
"True, but given that taking the opportunity is beyond our means, it's a bit of a moot point."
"Yes...listen, I'm going to keep trying to snipe out commanders, you'd better help the Paladins hold the front line. And we'd better scram," here she pointed towards the mass of soldiers in the distance, "It looks like they're starting to look for the assassin."
Tempest nodded, and the two of them split up and headed for the front, Tempest taking the most direct route and Angel going the way which large troop movements, and their leaders, would have to pass through. Without direction, this army may not even be able to find the front lines.

OOC: any need for air support yet or not for awhile?

After days of watching the situation in Cantr Detirorate, Major kemler just could'nt take it anymore. "Get me High command" He said into the red phone label "do not use" on his desk. "Major what do you want i'm in the middle of a meeting here?" asked a gruff voice "sir" the major said back "I've been watching the situation in Cantr and I think it's time to send in some troopers, but not just any troopers we need to send in the spartans,"

"major, do you know how many of the Republic of Cantr's laws we'd be braking, besides why would we want to send in our best unit?"

"Two words sir... Soldier X!"
"Soldier X?"
" Yeah Soldier X true cantr's commando force, they could use the reinforcements besides, the spartans could use the excersise."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Encrypted message to the True cantarian High Command
From Oblivion2 High command

After surrveying the damage caused to your unit soldier X the queen of Oblivion2, queen lolan, has decided to send in a elite unit of commandos, known as the spartans to aid the soldier X unit.

Please reply swiftly.

OOC: sorry if my writing is sloppy im pretty sick right now.

(OOC: I've been so wrapped up in the goings on at Adrian that I forgot about the air support...I'll have Daichi send out a call for some as soon as he's actually awake (it is, after all, something like three in the morning).

Oblivion2, get well soon.)

The Glorious Conglomerate of Kathria (GCK) offers a proposal to the government of Samsons Federation.

We, the Board of Directors, representing the will of the People of Kathria, in concert with Karina Dalma, Chief Executive Officer of the Glorious Conglomerate, representing the political and financial interests of the state, offer to subsidize your national government's funding, to the degree that both parties shall conference on pending approval of this proposal.

This proposal is not a loan; we do not wish to enslave you in our debt. We request, in exchange for this subsidy, the governance, subordinate to the federal government, of the two lower states, having previously been ransacked by the aggression of the forces of Francopolis Prime. We will control the aforementioned states for a period of time, also to be agreed upon by the two parties pending approval of this proposal, building infrastructure and securing the interests of the people of Samsons Federation. Any profit, in material or in credit, of these two states of Samsons Federation will, if produced during the government of the GCKP, be the property of the Glorious Conglomerate to do with as the Board of Directors sees fit.

This is our proposal. We await your response.

-Karina Dalma, Chief Executive Officer
Chairman, Board of Directors
Glorious Conglomerate of the Kathria

The will of the Glorious Conglomerate of Kathria (GCK), embodied in the Board of Directors and executed by Chief Executive Officer Karina Dalma, demands Sable Corporation explain their lack of ability in defending representatives of the Glorious Conglomerate. Said representatives were pursuing legal ramifications in the fallout of Sable Corporation mercenaries' employment during the Rabaraci Civil War, recently concluded. The loss of Kathrian soldiers' lives in aforementioned conflict due to the actions of Sable mercenaries must be legally and financially accounted for by Sable Corporation. Considering Sable Corporations' ability to protect its leadership in the relocation to Drakonat, we have sufficient grounds to accuse Sable Corporation of knowingly allowing the death of our representatives in the Francopolis Prime invasion, a crime which carries significant consequences before any world or regional governing body.

In addition to this, we are currently holding upward of 100 Sable Corporation employees captured in the ensuing insurgency in Rabarac in our custody as prisoners of war; a situation we would like to be able to rectify with Sable Corporation's leadership.

We are not interested in inheriting debts that Samsons Federation owes the Sable Corporation already, seeing as the Federation government has no foreseeable ability to pay any of its debts. Instead, we demand that a majority of the shares of Sable Corporation be purchased by us, in exchange for the lives of Sable Corporation mercenaries in Kathrian custody. Such a restructured shareholder base demands representation on your board of directors, and Kathria will appoint delegates to said board in proportion to the shareholders belonging to Kathria, in short, a majority of your board will be replaced by Kathrian appointees. Sable Corporation will become a division of the Kathrian Conglomerate.

Should you refuse these terms, we shall exercise our full right to pursue justice for the people of Rabarac, a colonial division of the Glorious Conglomerate, whom you have so wronged. Your soldiers will be denied the mandated 'humane treatment' of the Geneva Conventions and finally executed once they have fulfilled various experimental purposes. The Silver Admiralty, a division of the Glorious Conglomerate, will blockade the Cantrian Island until our demands are accepted by Sable Corporation, ending the trade and flow of goods and capital, as well as aid, to and from the island. We do not wish these eventualities to fall upon the people of the Cantrian Island, but we can not ignore the crimes against the people of Rabarac, a division of the Kathrian Conglomerate. We do not wish to enter into a prolonged violent engagement of any variety; we desire only that justice be given where it is due, in this case, the union of an unstable mercenary army into the security of the Glorious Kathrian Conglomerate, a beneficial arrangement for all parties involved.

We await your prompt reply.

-Karina Dalma, Chief Executive Officer
Chairman, Board of Directors
Glorious Conglomerate of Kathria

(OOC: In case you think I'm being awfully presumptuous, I have worked out the details of Sable's involvement in Rabarac with Cantr III already)

///0430h- West Quadrant, Ren'allar///

The APC rumbled down the street, the heavy cannon scattering the few remaining Paladins on the street. Soldiers, at least a hundred, poured down the street, some set up temporary defences in preparation for the next push, while others cleared through the buildings along the street. The soldiers were exhausted, they had been fighting non-stop for what seemed an eternity. This was to be the last push, the last attempt at taking the West Quadrant today. In the APC sat Colonel Kress and his small command staff. Set on a table was a single radio. "Strike A, ready." A few minutes later another voice crackled, "Strike C, ready." Immediately followed by, "Strike B, ready." Io spoke firmly into the transmitter, "All commanders, issue attack order Alpha-Beta-Final." The roughly 90,000 soldiers remaining launched the final attack of the day.

Angel positioned her sniper rifle carefully...some high-ranking officer was giving a speech to a horde of soldiers about a half-mile distant. Angel wasn't sure, but she guessed that if the soldiers had been on their side of the officer instead of on the other side, they'd reach all the way back to her position. There's got to be thousands...she thought to herself, and then, with a grin, There's no possible way they can all hear him.
The speech seem to have concluded. One way or another, they were moving out. Angel couldn't wait any longer. She pulled down the trigger and killed the officer.


The APC rumbled down the street, the heavy cannon scattering the few remaining Paladins on the street. Soldiers, at least a hundred, poured down the street, some set up temporary defences in preparation for the next push, while others cleared through the buildings along the street. The soldiers were exhausted, they had been fighting non-stop for what seemed an eternity. This was to be the last push, the last attempt at taking the West Quadrant today. In the APC sat Major Io and his small command staff. Set on a table was a single radio. "Strike A, ready." A few minutes later another voice crackled, "Strike C, ready." Immediately followed by, "Strike B, ready." Io spoke firmly into the transmitter, "All commanders, issue attack order Alpha-Beta-Final." The roughly 90,000 soldiers remaining launched the final attack of the day.

(OOC: Shucks, didn't realize Kleomenes had rez technology figured out. Maybe I'll reconsider getting involved. J/K, but I do think Cantr intended for Io to be dead.)

(OOC: For starters, Kathria is correct (how many officers giving speeches to thousands upon thousands of soldiers could you possibly have?). Second off, please, slow down a little, you are not the US army, you cannot conquer the whole of Adrian in two weeks.)

From: Sable Board of Directors
To: Karina Dalma, CEO, etc. etc.
GCK

We must admit we are somewhat alarmed by your preposterous demands and infringements upon our rights as a legitimate tactical corporation. First off, we preformed a full head-count after our military action in Rabarac and have found that none of our soldiers have been found missing from our rosters. Due to the GPS trackers implanted in all of them, we are capable of keeping track of them all and are quite sure that none of them are in your custody, let alone a hundred.
As to our becoming a part of your Conglomerate, we find this proposition laughable at best, as you have no method whatsoever of enforcing this, as not only does the data we gathered from the Rabaraci War and the fact that you called upon our support imply that we outclass you militarily, we also find that with our new alliance with Drakonat you will not be capable of enforcing any 'justice' for your horribly abused Rabaraci people upon us, as indeed you do not even enforce any justice upon them.
Therefore we refuse all of your demands and would like to assert once more that you have absolutely no power in this region.

From: Samson's Federation
To: GCK
Considering that our current status in warfare with Drakonat, we will have little if any chance to rebuild those two southern states. Therefore we are willing to turn them over to you for the time of two years for the purposes of reconstruction, and any profits gained during this time period will, of course, go to the effective government.
However we would like to add an amendment to this agreement, that being that your military presence in this region never exceed 5,000 soldiers. Seeing as how we are already involved in a war, we cannot afford to be stabbed in the back by any foreign powers. We cannot trust anyone at the time, you see.
If you have any disagreements with these arrangements, we would be happy to arrange a meeting with you this afternoon, as only two of our state leaders are even awake at the time, and that only because of Drakonat's invasion. At 5 PM we will all be awake and, God willing, well rested. We will meet in the State Capitol Building in Renne, the temporary convocation of state leaders due to the flooding of Vedin.

From: Sable Board of Directors
To: Karina Dalma, CEO, etc. etc.
GCK
We have recently been informed that you have been offered the bottom two states of Samson's Federation. This does not change our stance towards you in the least. Further, in case you believe that you may have won a foothold in this region, we would like to remind you that we effectively run the Federation, and that we therefore would not allow you anything we do not believe will threaten us. Your military forces will be policed heavily by our military forces, and ours will, as per the agreement, be far greater. You have been warned.

OOC: Perhaps my soldiers are equipped with walkie-talkies! And maybe, just maybe, Io had... a transmitter! Also, I have spent the last few posts in one, so I've hardly conquered the entirety of the country in a couple weeks. :rolleyes:

Anyway, yes I didn't notice that Io had been shot. I've been rather busy, an had the next posts already outlined. i will change the offending post now.

(OOC: You're missing the point. I don't care who wins or loses this battle in the end, I really don't, I just don't want it to all be over in a single night. Not only is it unrealistic to take out the city in a single night when almost every man in it has a gun and a will to keep you out, it's also just plain bad story telling. There's simply no reason to end the battle that soon, and allowing the battle to drag on allows for a lot of 'city under siege' plot.

Unless, of course, you're just in this to win. In which case, go play an RTS.)

OOC: The battle has just started! So far I have captured a bit of the southern section of the city, and perhaps half of the western quadrant. That equates to less than a quarter of the city. My soldiers have a long way to go, many victories, many defeats ahead of them. My goal here is not necessarily to win, but to have fun doing it. My attack during the night was to get a good battle going, because other than small skirmishes we haven't had any real clash of arms.

(OOC: Excuse me for moving the story along amid this great dialogue)

0620h
Kathrian Conglomerate HQ
Raphian City, Kathria

The Speaker of the Board stood and reported the transmissions from Sable Corporation and Samson's Federation. After fifteen minutes or so of laughter rippling through the Board of Directors, the Speaker sat down.

"GPS Trackers? How did we miss those?! Tell 'em to dissect another one and find it, ha!" said a certain Director.

"Do these incompetent Cantrians even know who is employing them these days? Kathria? Employ foreign mercenaries?! Sounds like a lame joke, eh, gentleman?"

"Nevertheless," cut in Karina Dalma, the icy CEO and Chairman of the Board who sat without even a trace of a smile on her lips, "They are right about one thing: At this point we have no power in that region." She turned to a Senior Manager in a pristine military uniform with every award Kathria could offer pinned on his chest and said, now with a hint of amusement, "We can, however, rectify that before this day is out. Can't we, Manager Archan?" Ivino Archan, Military Operations Manager (MOM) and President of the Directorate Of Tactical Commanders (DOTCOM), who may have exceeded even Ms. Dalma in iciness, or what the Kathrian's call, 'professional manner', moved his head slowly until his eyes, beneath his obnoxious, government issue sunglasses, met the CEO's. "We'll have men on the ground before lunch break, and the monolith base will be in our control by dinner break, my lady." Returning her gaze across the assembled Board members, Dalma declared, "Inform Samson's Federation that we accept their terms, and get a RAT to formalize the agreement with the proper language." She stood; the other Board members followed. "Gentlemen, the next meeting is scheduled in two weeks; I realize that's very close, but when the Conglomerate is at war, every employee must be willing to sacrifice, or victory will be withheld from us." With that she walked out of the room, followed by her security detail and finally by the aides who frantically packed up her files and information which she hadn't touched.

East Ying Capital, Fintoy

"Sir, Sir!!" The secretary of international defense wailed, running after Linyo Ying, the president of East Ying.
"Yes Mr.Kinsho?"
"Sir, we have just received word that a Civil war erupting in the far, far, far west, apparently civilians from Central Ying were hurt."
"And why would i care about the interests of Central Ying, do i not have enough trouble managing my own civil war?"
"Yes but-"
"Don't 'yes but' Jint me!"
"Can i explain sir?"
"You have 10 seconds."
Quickly he explained the trouble in the Cntar empire.
"I shall think about it, until then I will carry on my duties, goodbye!"

Lon-stee city
Rrring Rrrring. The phone rang as the president called the secretary of international defense back in Fintoy. "Hello, secretary of international defense here, how may i help, kill, or talk to you?"
Gruffly the president choked back his laughing and calmed down again.
"Hello Jint" The president said, knowing the reply from his friend wouldn't exactly be calm.
"O-Oh-Oh! Mr. President... i-it's you!" He said, stuttering.
"Hi" The president said sarcastically, and before the secretary could add something the president said "I've reasearched this, this place off to the west, and I have decided to send the international defense army, I heard they are not on the keen side of technology, so I would like to send the elite force, they'll need all the advanced technology they need, save the reserves for our civil war, and tell them, help is on their way!"

(This is a request to have permission to send my elite international defence team(s) to the aid of the True Cantr. My forces are of elite technology, and have things such as;
Force fields
Plasma guns
Hover craft
Sadly they, they are all easily destroyed by some heavy fire, for they are made to protect from high tech., not low tech like yours (no offense).)
Sincerely,
Linyo Ying
President of East Ying. To see more on the Ying War, look for my post "Ying War"

2300H Local, Space Station Centurion

Seth, John decided, was a capable student. Ever since John's Epsilon team in Ren'allar had been recalled to Centurion to train the Cantrian elite in orbital tactics, Seth had worked harder to master the complicated techniques and difficult mathematics involved in orbital combat than any of the other Cantrian students. His mastery was almost complete, truth be told, and in such a short period of time. John was impressed, and told him so. Seth had only shrugged, but John, perhaps mistakenly, sensed that the young soldier was proud.

But now it was time to put it all together. HFIS Hannibal-3 satellites had detected anomalous movements in the northern section of Cantr for some time, but high command considered it a negligible risk, and thus far had not taken any action. At John's request, however, his Epsilon team, accompanied by Seth and seven other Cantrian commandos, those who had gotten farthest in training, were going to drop in front of the projected path of the anomalies and observe them.

Hopefully, there wouldn't be combat, but... best not to take that chance. John perused the armory, stopping in front of a case of precision assault rifles. He disengaged the locks on the case, then selected two M46A7s, complete with high-power scopes and suppressors, and picked up a box of match-grade tungsten DS ammunition. These he carried to Seth's temporary quarters, dropping a rifle and four magazines on his cot. Seth wasn't in, however. Probably working. The Hurfdurfistanis had set up something of a lecture hall in a vacant mess area, and if Seth wasn't training or sleeping he would probably be found there, listening to one of the drop technicians drone on and on about astrophysics. John didn't care for the material, himself. Hell, he hadn't really ever learned it, per se. His knowledge was generally the result of mental conditioning and neural enhancements. He considered it secondhand learning, if there was such a thing.

Two hours later, John, Mike, Jenny, and Clara (Leon having other duties planetside) joined up with the eight Cantrians they'd selected to drop with them. They ran through their safety checks and armed themselves, John calling for suppressors on all weapons. The gathered soldiers stepped into their pods, and were released into the sable void.

0200H Local, Northern Cantr

The drop had gone reasonably well. One of the Cantrian elites had panicked and broken a rib upon impact, but Clara had bandaged him and set the rib such that he was still combat-ready, in theory. Shortly after the team made landfall, their transportation arrived. Two Hoplite-class dropships, already planetside, landed near the team's position, unloading two large trucks, old gasoline-powered ATLFVs. The trucks were only armed with top-mounted M97A2 HMGs. But they looked relatively inconspicuous, and with the team dressed in civilian garb, as they were, the could pass for mercenaries, or a militia. True, the disguises precluded body armor, but then, it wouldn't be needed, John hoped.

The teams loaded into the trucks, six to a vehicle, with five inside and one manning the M97A2. In John's truck rode Clara and Seth, and in Jenny's truck rode Mike. They started the engines and drove toward the anomalous positions' last known position. With the Hannibal-3 readout synched to the dash, and a thermal imaging overlay active on the windshield, the team couldn't possibly miss the target, whatever it was.

OOC: the monolith base will be in our control
Buh? I obliterated the Monolith Base a while back, man.

(OOC: In your post you said you were targetting the monolith itself...had you been targetting the base, Seth, who was in it at the time, would be ash right now.)

0700h
Sable Hideout, Drakonat
"Judging by this transmission, I'd guess that they didn't buy a word of it," the speaker for the board said, pointing to a transmission that had come in just a few minutes ago.
"In defense of our ghost writer, it was 4 AM." one of the board members said.
"Our ghost writer? He was your idea!" The board roared in agreement before being quieted by the speaker.
"So what do we do? We don't have the resources to stop them now that our troops are fighting a war against Drakonat. Why, after this meeting we're going to have to flee the country again!"
"We're going to have to...find a way too..." The speaker struggled for words. What could he say? 'Beat them'? 'Get more soldiers'? 'Acknowledge the obvious and give up'? "I suggest we all create a committee to come up with new ways to deal with this Kathrian problem, the first of which being getting rid of the first ghost writer and getting another to undo his mistakes." That would shift a lot of the blame from him, the leader, to the one who had suggested the ghost writer. "We'll meet again in Renne in a week to discuss our results."
"Do we have a week?" one of the board members asked. "Shouldn't we convene sooner, perhaps three days from now?"
"We need time to foster good idea's. A week is rushed enough when it comes to innovation. We now adjourn this emergency meeting of the board. Good luck."

0730
Ren'allar

Angel relaxed slightly. Another enemy officer down. These last couple had been lower in rank, field-level officers, but then, those were the ones who counted when you were trying to stop the enemy on a tactical level. "Tempest?"
"Yeah?" Tempest said.
"About how many soldiers do you think are in this sector of the city?"
"A couple hundred thousand, maybe." Tempest responded.
"A pessimistic estimate as always. How many soldiers do you think are in the entire Kleomenian army?" Angel asked.
"I don't know the size of Kleomenes' population, so there's really no way I can tell." Tempest responded. "What're you getting at? We're horribly outmatched? I'd figured that out already."
"Let's assume they've got a population of about a hundred million. Their grand total army can't possibly exceed a few million and the number they're willing to concentrate in this one theatre isn't likely to exceed a million. They're going to need a few hundred thousand to garrison Adrian, they've got a couple hundred thousand more here in the west sector...so how many could they possibly have in the east and south sectors? Especially since they've only had a few days to unload soldiers without any modern ports?"
Tempest thought about it. Counting the problem with the ports, they couldn't have more than a few hundred thousand...for once, Adrian's lack of infrastructure was working to their advantage.
Tempest thought about where Angel was going with this. "So the east sector isn't likely to be very well defended and, Adrian willing, we can seize it, and the south sector, which will isolate Kleomenian troops in the west sector, at which point they will either flee or else spend all their resources trying to fight their way out and not devote any time at all to taking new ground..." Tempest said.
"Exactly. We need to find out just how many troops Kleomenes has in the east sector. Most likely, not very many. So find the local Paladin leader, help him figure this out, and we've got a decent shot at winning this battle." Angel said. Tempest saw a hole in her plan. He'd have to negotiate with a Paladin leader.
"Angel, I'm not a good diplomat. You know that. We both know that we'd be better off if you went to talk to the leader."
"True, but there's more to this than just diplomacy. This is a Paladin leader. Paladin politics doesn't entail a lot of smooth-talking. First off, you're a guy, I'm not. Adriannites in general don't care that much anymore, but Paladins do. Second off, your skin is the right color. That's another thing Paladins tend to put a lot of stock in. You look like you're from this desert. I don't."
"So I have to be the one to talk to this guy because he's probably a sexist, racist bigot?" Tempest said.
"Yeah, that's it in a nutshell." Angel responded. Tempest sighed. He hated diplomacy. If he had his way, 'diplomats' would all be purely logical beings who didn't have to be sucked up to at all.

(OOC: To East Ying, feel free to join in, but don't expect to get a warm welcome from True Cantr. They won't be hostile, but they'll likely be annoyed.
Also, Hurfdurfistan, if that disturbance is supposed to be Zillian, he pulled out. If not, carry on.)

OOC:
Buh? I obliterated the Monolith Base a while back, man.

OOC: Like, incinerated entirely? You evaporated the full mineral wealth of a third of a nation with a gun? I was going under the assumption that you just blasted big holes and dents in it, rendering it, you know, broken, maybe even collapsed, but not obliterated. But, if you did vaporize it, tell me soon so I can re-arrange my strategy.

IC:

0750 h
Airspace just south of Samson's Federation
Inside the drop bay of the Kathrian C-130 Hercules, General Jonathan Klausovich sat beside the rest of the men he had met that morning. The Cell Captain, named Deviro Millia, addressed him, "You graduated first in your class at Training, kid?" Jonathan replied, "Yes, sir." "Well, that explains how you got here. Normally, they don't attach medic units to these cells, but you must be an exceptional General, I guess." Jonathan wasn't sure what he meant, but he decided to sound gracious just in case. "Thank you, sir," he said. Millia chuckled to himself and held out his hand to the general, saying, "Welcome to the Special Operations Assault Patrol, general." Jonathan shook the man's hand as firm as he could manage, and as his hand returned to the rifle on his lap, he realized something. "SOAP, sir?" The Cell Captain replied with an air of annoyance, "Higher ups demanded it spell something." A buzzing alarm went off for a moment, then ceased. "All right, kids, that's the signal to get set! Everyone up and make sure you're pack is secure this time, General Han!" A ripple of laughter shot through the bay which Jonathan joined, though he had no idea what it was about. After all, the way up in the world was by assimilating the nuances of your comrades and, more importantly, your superiors. Plus the occasional convenient death of a higher officer.

Red lights began flashing and the alarm sounded again. Millia shouted as the bay door opened, "Go time, boys!" The cell replied with gung ho cheers. When the door was fully open, the one named Han was the first to take a running leap and jump out, crying, "LEEEEEROOOYYY!!" Jonathan couldn't hear if anything followed. Two other soldiers followed shortly, then Millia nodded to Jonathan, who took a breath, sprinted a few paces and jumped into the cool morning air.

The cell descended rapidly, until, one by one, they pulled the rip cords of their parachutes and began a slow descent towards the water below. Not more than two hundred meters away was the shore of Samson's Federation. Jonathan looked at the parachutes with some curiosity; Han's had a large, purple soft drink depicted on it and the slogan, "Taste Sanc-cola! Taste Heaven!" The second troopers parachute depicted the main characters from the current summer's highly anticipated blockbuster, with the release date for the film underneath, and the third trooper's, just below Jonathan, read "Don't Forget to Drink Your Ovaltine!" Jonathan pulled his as the waves neared, and in a few more seconds, he pulled the second cord, releasing the parachute from him, and he plunged the few remaining feet into the ocean.

OOC: 'General' is actually the lowest non-commissioned rank in the Kathrian army. I thought that actually made some sense. Hope no one has been too terribly confused.

OOC: Like, incinerated entirely? You evaporated the full mineral wealth of a third of a nation with a gun? I was going under the assumption that you just blasted big holes and dents in it, rendering it, you know, broken, maybe even collapsed, but not obliterated. But, if you did vaporize it, tell me soon so I can re-arrange my strategy.

OOC: No, I was operating under the assumption that you were going for the structure itself. Of course I didn't destroy the full mineral wealth of a third of a nation with a single orbital bombardment... that would be ridiculous. I had assumed that I collapsed the monolith and assisted True Cantr in seizing control on the ground. So, I guess it's still there, if inoperable.

More OOC: Dammit, it was supposed to be Zillian. Guess I'll write something to the effect that they're gone and the mission failed? Either that, or you can put something interesting up there.

(OOC: In your post you said you were targetting the monolith itself...had you been targetting the base, Seth, who was in it at the time, would be ash right now.)

Yet more OOC: Psh. Technicalities. The dominant structure in the Monolith Base was the monolith. Without it, what's really there? Some bombed-out barracks? Maybe a fuel depot? With that said, however, I stand corrected, and the base (what's left of it) is still there, whereas the monolith itself is collapsed.

930h
Jentai Base

"The True Cantrian forces have made signifigant progress. They will likely be laying siege to the base by nightfall, tommorow morning at the latest." Mekon reported. Sebezk wasn't happy.
"Why have our stalling efforts not met with any success? What happened to the force we sent out?"
"It was destroyed, sir. The artillery was taken out early on, and the flanking maneuvers failed. Without those we were beaten from the start. The failure of your plan is believed to be due to the actions of Soldier X."
"Soldier X..."
"Yes sir, but we were able to kill one of them. His dog tags identify him as Ember, sir, Soldier XA-5." Mekon noticed that Sebezk's expression softened a great deal at this. Soldiers X were in short supply, as recent intelligence had informed them, and the death of even one was at least a small victory. Perhaps he wouldn't have such a bad day after all.
A series of explosions went off, intended, it seemed, to destroy the wall on guarding the portion of the base on the opposite bank, the side the True Cantrian forces would be attacking...
"What's going?" Sebezk asked.
"I don't know, sir!" Mekon replied, and while this was true, he had a very good idea of what it might be...It's Soldier X! Soldier X is here already!

Chris watched as the enemy scrambled to react to his attack. Just as they began assembling on the far side of the base, he set off another explosion close to the bank, destroying a good deal of the tanks stationed on his side of the river, and the enemy began scrambling between both attack points. A minute later, Chris detonated the bridge connecting them to the other side of the river, taking the reinforcements being sent over with it. Perfect. Chris thought to himself.

OOC: soo uhhh cantr? anyway i can send in my commandos legally without getting true cantr pissed?

1307H Local, Central Cantr

Corporal Annika Douglas sat at the door-mounted MP50 heavy repeating cannon aboard Hurfdurfistani dropship AX0042, bored. AX0042, a gunship conversion of a normal C60 dropship, was on routine patrol above central Cantr, watching for threats that High Command deemed significant enough to warrant Hurfdurfistani intervention. Douglas watched the desert below, the featureless waves of sand ever shifting in the warm wind. Every once in a while, AX0042 would chance upon a small city or village, but ultimately there was nothing here worthy of the firepower the AC60 could bring to bear. Douglas sighed and slumped in her chair. She reached into her tactical vest for her novel and started reading.

About an hour later, and several chapters in, the pilot reported a malfunction. "Nothing major," he said, "But in the event that we have to aba-" Proximity alarms suddenly wailed in Douglas' ears, and the gunship rocked from a blast to its left. Was it enemy fire, or was the AC60 malfunctioning so badly that parts were starting to explode? Ultimately, it didn't matter, as the dropship plummeted from the sky into the dunes below. Then, impact. All went black.

1657H Local, 34km west of Ren'allar

Douglas awoke hours later, aching horribly. She checked herself for breaks and fractures and, miraculously finding none, checked her comrades, but to no avail. The rest of the dropship's crew was dead, and Douglas, the sole survivor, was stranded in the middle of the desert with no food or water. She stumbled to the cockpit and turned on the comms system. Nothing. Critical Error, the screen above the comms read. Douglas keyed her cochlear implant. Static. Must've been damaged in the crash, she thought.

She pulled a submachine gun from what was left of the arms locker and pocketed her novel. From her vest, she pulled a demolition charge, placing it in the cockpit. Then she stood, for a long moment, just looking at the slain gunship. It had once held friends, comrades. She bit her lip as she thought of her fallen fellows. She fought off tears, then resolve overtook her. Douglas started walking east, where she thought she last saw a settlement, the afternoon sun blazing down on her mocha skin. She could only hope that whatever she saw wasn't too far away. A blast sounded behind her as the demolition charge detonated, throwing up a plume of sand visible for miles in any direction.

OOC: I would prefer that somebody shot the gunship down, rather than it simply crashing, so whomever wants to take credit for shooting it down is welcome to, so long as you do something about it and about Corporal Douglas. Also, Cantr, if Douglas were to perhaps stumble across a small village or a farm/ranch/encampment or friendly force, we could have an impromptu cultural exchange as opposed to a combat RP in this storyline. It's your call.

1143 h
Several miles inland of the southern shore
Samson's Federation

Jonathan leapt over yet another heap of rubble that had fallen off of the Monolith's Base tremendous tower. The orbital bombardment from Hurfdurfistani space forces had just begun to deal damage to the monolith when one blast knocked out enough of the monolith's footing to send the rest of it on a sideways descent. The remainder of the bombardment thoroughly obliterated the tower as it slowly fell to the side, revealing the whole length of it to the fire of the celestial blasts. When the tower impacted the ground, the structure's integrity finally gave way, creating a fantastic rubble field along the ground as long as the tower had been tall. All Jonathan knew was that they were somewhere along said rubble field, hoping they were headed towards the base itself.

Their mission objective was to secure the base facility; while there was no evidence of organized forces, early Kathrian recon did show evidence of enemy activity. Without knowing hardly anything about leftover Francopolian forces, they had been instructed to drop in, secure the beach if need be, then find the monolith base. The beach had been empty, and Captain Millia had sent a communication to the detachment of the Kathrian Navy en route who was to assemble a make-shift dock, seeing as all such infrastructure had been thoroughly eradicated by Francopolian forces. With a dock on the beach, Kathria would then begin importing a fleet of excavation teams to remove the super-concentrated amount of ore and other valuable minerals from the wreckage of the monolith, strewn about on the surface as it was. Kathrian surveyors had estimated the value of the monolith to exceed the Kathrian GNP.

"You see that?!" exclaimed General Tien Moto, the group's marksman and scout, pointing in the distance. Jonathan looked. Rising up from the flat, barren land around the monolith wreckage, about a half mile from them, was a wide, short compound. While the side they were approaching from had collapsed and been entirely crushed by the monolith itself, the rest of the ring of the monolith base appeared relatively intact, if somewhat buried in the earth that the monolith had kicked up upon impact. "SOAP, that is your target. Occupy that, and we can then drop in more troops and set up a base here ourselves. Then this monolith is as good as Kathrian. Let's move!" declared the captain. Regardless of their heavy packs, the cell began a steady jog towards the base, weapons in hand.

As they neared the base, the captain gave them a signal to stop jogging. Jonathan welcomed the command. Millia began approaching cautiously, his weapon raised. "Pentagram Formation! We'll stick together and neutralize any enemy. Rifles ready!" he ordered. The group formed a star-shaped formation with one man, Oni Mitsuda, the cell's machine gunner, in front, Jonathan and Han to the left and right of him, Millia and Moto in the rear. Moto was officially the rearguard, Millia just stayed in the rear for tactical purposes. They entered the base through a hole in the circular structure that had been ripped out by some falling debris from the tower, and began creeping through the blighted base. The power would occasionally flicker on and off, and the green-tinted lights would power on with a slight hum for a second, then die again, like the croonings of a hundred ghosts. Jonathan preferred open battle to suspenseful investigative jobs, but the honor of being assigned to a SOAP cell was enough to keep him focused. He kept hearing clanking sounds off in the distance, but imagined that he was the only one. Even if he was hearing something, the place was probably falling apart little piece by little piece, and it was likely just a metal plate losing hold of the ceiling and hitting the floor. Nothing could still be here after all this time, he thought trying to calm his nerves. Then Moto's rifle went off just behind him, shocking Jonathan, who spun around to see the enemy. Something in the darkness was moving beyond the group, and Jonathan opened fire at whatever it was. After it collapsed on the ground, Moto shined the flashlight attached under the barrel of his rifle on the corpse of some animal with huge claw-like appendages. "What is that?" Jonathan asked, rather disturbed at the terrible creature. "It probably won't be the last of its kind," Millia reported. "Reports from our men in Samson's Federation during the carnage said they were using a lot of biological specimens as troopers of different sorts. I guess this is what they meant." Jonathan couldn't take his eyes off of the creature; not that it was disgusting, but it was so foreign it had a dazzling effect on his mind. He began to wonder how it went about all the bodily processes, how it oxygenated its circulatory system, what form of contraction gave it the ability to move, or perhaps it was hydraulic? Millia chuckled and quipped, "All the advanced technology to create the monolith and they fight wars with bugs on steroids. C'mon, let's keep moving." The group reformed and continued.

About an hour later, after passing large batteries of cracked and oozing energy cells, empty barracks with strange glass pods inside, and panels with what must have been entirely touch-screen operated controls when the power was on, they knew they were getting close to where they began on the other side of the base. Mitsuda halted in front of Jonathan, and the cell immediately stopped. They could hear movement around the next bend in the ring. They readied their weapons, and Millia signaled a certain basic plan of attack. The cell stealthily moved to the sides of the structure. Millia plucked off one of the M67s clipped to him, activated it, and lobbed it around the bend. They heard some frantic scuffling before the grenade went off and shrapnel pounded into the metal walls. While the blast was still ringing in their ears, several troopers in the strangest of plasti-armor uniforms came towards them and opened fire, apparently having no trouble seeing in the dark. The cell, of course, was ready for them and immediately mobilized while returning fire. But the troopers were tough blokes! It took several rounds to bring a single one down at close range. Moto was shot in the leg by a high-impact round. Jonathan guessed it had probably shattered his femur. He rushed over to help him, and felt a bullet graze his shoulder. He clenched his teeth together as the pain radiated from his small wound, but he attended Moto diligently. Neglecting his own pain, his mind allowed his training to operate almost automatically. A second later and Han had his machine gun set up and a belt of rounds clipped in. "Hit the dirt!" he screamed, and after the cell ducked to the ground he let out a wide volley of suppressing fire into the armored soldiers. Still, not all of them were stopped, and he had to train the gun onto individual soldiers before they were finally all on the ground, dead. He released the trigger of the gun and it slowed to a stop. Millia got up and rushed to Moto and Jonathan. He could tell from the pain and stress in his face that Moto was forcibly holding back the howls of pain he wanted to elicit. But that wouldn't be very professional. "Good work, boys. Stay here and take care of him, Klausovich. Han, Mitsuda, with me, let's see if there's any surprises waiting to ambush us."

(OOC: Try as I might, I can't seem to come up with a good farm/ranch/village/whatever for Annika to run into. I seem to have run out of characters for the time being. And I can't further the Ren'allar plotline until I get word from Kleomenes on how many troops he has in the east sector. When I get home I'll post something about the war with Imperial Cantr.)

News: Daichi has sent word to Oblivion2. The attack has begun. Send all aircraft to Jentai and give us superiority. You may encounter some token airborne resistance, but the main threat will be Jentai's extensive AA.

1204h
Jentai Base
Prefect scanned the enemy fortifications through the fog. What was left of the fortifications. I hope Chris didn't give himself away wreaking all of this havoc. Prefect was going to be part of the charge into the base. Sigourney was acting as back-up. The battle was so simple right now. You just go through the enemies demolished fortifications, hope your air superiority gets here on time, and shoot the bad guys. He knew it wouldn't last. No plan survives contact with the enemy, after all. With any luck, though, the recon posts outside the base would be able to keep him and, more importantly, Sigourney, updated.
Prefect looked into the base up ahead. The skies remained clear. Well, either the air support was coming or it wasn't. Prefect could wait no longer. He spoke into his radio on the main airwave. "Attack, you know the plan." A deafening roar emanated from the soldiers behind Prefect, and he joined into their war cry. As one they charged forward. The rockets fired by the army had, for the most part, don their job. Only the occasional mine was there to disrupt their charge. It didn't even slow them down. Prefect could hardly even see the enemy, firing blindly into the mist, trying to shoot towards the bursts of light which he knew to be an assault rifle going off, hoping he wasn't hitting friendly soldiers.
I need to get into that base where there's some cover. Prefect said to himself over and over again, as he charged forward. Once more into the breach. So much could go wrong here. If Chris hadn't gotten out they'd find it all but impossible to capture the eastern shore and, after losing their momentum, difficult to hold the west shore. It could throw them back to where they were yesterday, but with far fewer soldiers. It may eventually drag them all the way back to Fts. Shortinazy and Longinazy.
Prefect dove into a ditch about ten feet from the remnants of the perimeter wall. From his original scan of the area, Prefect knew that there had been enemies using the rubble as cover, to set up snipers posts, to make a machine-gunners nest, and, he had noticed, quite a few AT troops. This was fortunate as had the main line been manned primarily by anti-infantry units, their WWI style charge would no doubt have been mown down by them. They still took heavy casualties, but not enough to stop the first wave from charging on, finding cover in or near the remnants of the wall, and preparing for a fight. In ten minutes the second wave would begin their charge to support them, and if they hadn't pushed past their current position by then, they would do so at the second charge. A third wave was held in reserve in case anything went wrong.
Of course, without air support, they'd all be mown down by 'copters.

A young ensign sat at his computer station looking very bored when suddenly his computer gave a smal beep. His eyes brightened up at once. He printed the screens contents, grabed them from the printer and ran to the high command board room. "You can't go in there sir, theres a meeting." A marine stationed by the door said
"This is urgent" The ensign said.

"What is the meaning of this ensign?" A Officer asked
"Sir I have a report from Cantr sir, They need air support!"
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!5 minutes later Oblivion2 Airbase
Republic of Cantr

Captain's husealius and Gammit prepeared the aircraft for air support at Jentai Mountain. CaPtain Husalius was in charge of the 22 Longbow Tactical bombers, while gammit was in charge of the 35 F-22 Raptors. These as well as 12 apache Helicopters enroute From Oblivion2 were to support Jentai mountain.

(OOC: Jentai is a river. We were out of the mountains by the time we hit Cantr City.)

1215h
Jentai Base
Chris looked towards his handy work from his hiding spot near the bank of the river. The west bank of Jentai was isolated now, except for transport copters. Even if the Oblivion planes never made it to the base, the enemy would still be vastly hindered in their ability to deposit troops. Cantrian forces were pouring into the base now, and the enemy had been pushed back almost to the destroyed bridge. That bridge was going to turn from an advantage to a disadvantage as soon as they captured Jentai's west bank, but given that 90% of the bases defences were concentrated on the east bank, thus making its capture unlikely in any event, securing the west bank would have to do for today.

(OOC: Okay Oblivion, what're your priorities? What're you going to be focusing on taking out?
And Kleomenes, where the heck are you?!?)

(OOC: Try as I might, I can't seem to come up with a good farm/ranch/village/whatever for Annika to run into. I seem to have run out of characters for the time being. And I can't further the Ren'allar plotline until I get word from Kleomenes on how many troops he has in the east sector. When I get home I'll post something about the war with Imperial Cantr.)

OOC: That's fine. I'll put that plot on the back burner for the time being. I'll probably do something with John's Epsilon team and Seth pretty quick here, but I need to think of a reason to rebase them, seeing as Zillian pulled out.

(OOC: We could have them go deal with Kathria, though honestly it really wouldn't be very fair to sic a Soldier X and commando's from the next century on him this early on. He hasn't even got a base camp really, not yet.)d

1222


Elena did another head count. The seven members of her squad and a small squeamish man that looked uncomfortable in his jumpsuit. Then she heard the pilot on her head set 4 minutes until we reach our drop point. She held up four fingers to the rest of her team and pulled on the straps of her harness. She said a final silent prayer and watched as the soldiers did one last equipment check before they would be airdropped above Ren'allar.


(OOC: If you'd rather I didn't join just shoot down my plane:D)

///Hesse Ridge///

"Sir, what's going on?" Seargent Napoli had finally found the general on the ridge, watching as troops and vehicles embarked on ships and planes. "Orders from the Grand Dictator. We are to completely withdraw from Cantr. This war has cost us too much already, more than can be gained from it. Get to a boat, seargent." General Demetrius observed his army. It is unfortunate that they were involved in this mess. A column of injured soldiers on stretches passed. Fortunate that they got out alive.


OOC: My apologies for my absence. Due to computer issues I will not be able to continue this thread. Consider all of my forces withdrawn.

As the Oblivion2 airforces moved in to Jentai Base a spaceborne Detatchment Of the Oblivion2 Spartain commandos descended from the autmosphere Inside 3 hammer atmospheric dropships.

"alright boys this is it, the moment we get involved in this war. Here's our Target, Jentai Base, Located Near Jentai River. We do not have airsupport until most of the enemy's AA guns are taken out, once thats done The F-22 will move in and take out the enemy copters, but before they get there we have to thin out enemy air support by attacking the Airstrip. Any Questions Gentlemen?"

"Sir no sir."
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The Commandos Landed about 15Kms outside of the west walls jentai base, just far enough not to be noticed. Like they excpected 4 striker APCs Where waiting to take the 33 Comandos into the enemy base.
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"Sir the commando's have landed and are ready to assualt the Base"
"good work ensign, Tell Gammit to ready the f-22's" Adimral Laurence said to the young ensign.
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12Km from Jentai Base
"this is a encrypted Radio Broadcast adressed to any republic of Cantr or True Cantr forces in the vicinity of Jentai River, We are the Spartain commandos we are here to reinforce you, give us your location so we cant assist you in your assualt agaisnt this imperialist base."

(OOC: Pity about Kleomenes. We were just getting some good action started in Adrian, but at least I can have some fun with his retreat.)

Jentai Base
1219h

"Prefect, we've got some Oblivionite commando's incoming. What's the situation on the front?" Prefect checked the east bank. The make-shift bridges they'd been attempting to set down in the water had been destroyed. Not that a succesful bridge laying would've helped much, considering the defenses on the east bank.
"We've got the west bank, but the east bank still needs work. There's a bit of a lull since we've got an entire river between us and the enemy, but it won't last. We have to make sure we make the first move. Tell those commando's to go up north and then across the river and see if the enemy is looking for a flank. Sigourney is already headed south with Chris."

Ren'allar, east sector
1223h

Though it had taken him hours and he'd had to pull off Paladin clothes off a dead soldier, Tempest had finally won an audience with Rakaran. Judging by his burly form, he'd won his status as one of the grand leaders' lieutanants by beating up the other candidates. Or perhaps by beheading them with the large, ancient scimitar strapped to his back.
Tempest would have to rely on diplomacy for this meeting. The small bunker was far too cramped to dodge fire from four different assault rifles at once for longer than a few seconds, if that, and besides, no matter how much intel they had or how competent they were, Soldier X was only a special ops unit. With only two soldiers, they couldn't turn the tide of a battle back. Not at this point. Given control of an army, maybe.
So Tempest would have to convince Rakaran to make a blitz for the south sector which, if Tempest was wrong, would result in losing most of the Paladin army and the east sector, which would bring the center of the city under attack and possibly the north as well. The fact that Tempest was a sleep-deprived fifteen year old didn't help.
"So, you are here with a proposal for my grand strategy? And what makes you think a boy is worthy of giving advice to the Maros Rakaran?"
Because I was selected soon after birth specifically for having near-genius intelligence? Tempest thought to himself, but what he said was "It is not actually my plan, Maros, it was the plan of my commander, Savid." Tempest kept his eyes averted, but his voice strong. Attempting to project near total confidence and utter deference to his superiors at the same time was difficult.
"Why, then, did Savid not send anyone more likely to make it intact to my bunker?" Rakaran asked.
"Because he needed his best soldiers on the front line." Tempest said. Would subtley claiming incompetence help or hurt his case? Claiming superior competence would certainly be seen as arrogant, but would going in the other direction help?
"So, you, then, are less skilled than your comrades?" Rakaran asked. Before Tempest could figure out an answer, Rakaran aimed a kick his way. Tempest reflexively ducked under it. Oh no...what if he realizes I'm lying about being a bad soldier? Then he'd probably suspect me of lying about everything else and all is lost. Rakaran continued attacking him. Tempest had already proven his competence. Better to stay alert and hope Rakaran wasn't going where Tempest thought he was.
Rakaran seemed to be getting frustrated with his incapability to land a blow on Tempest. He just wants an ego boost! Tempest realized. In the midst of a potentially crushing defeat, he needs some confidence, so he's attacking what he sees as a weak target, which is why he didn't attack until I mentioned that I wasn't a terribly good soldier.
Tempest responded to the Maros' attacks. Tempests' body was apparently running low on adrenaline. He was finding it difficult to keep up with Rakaran. Fortunately, that suited his plan perfectly.
Tempest ducked under the Maros' fist, and aimed a kick at his stomach, which Rakaran blocked, and Tempest let his guard slip a bit. Rakaran slammed a fist into his face and Tempest let the blow carry him to the ground, resisted the instinct to roll with it, and instead scrambled to his feet after he came crashing to the ground.
When he regained his footing he was ready to fight, but Rakaran was laughing. "I can see you are a rather determined boy, in spite of your inability." Just keep telling yourself that. "During our bout, I have decided I will accept your commanders plan." I'll admit I didn't see that coming. "And you should probably get back to the front lines. If you are the least competent soldier in Savid's jeesh, then he will no doubt see many successes. Few men can claim to have lasted more than a few seconds with me in single combat, and you, a mere boy, lasted much longer." At least this is over. "You may go."
"Thank you, Maros." Tempest said, and left the room, then the building, keeping his face blank instead of bursting out laughing at his luck or even worse, falling flat on his face, fast asleep.

The Hurfdurfistani military liason glanced at the reports he was getting, then picked up the phone, dialing Daichi's secure line. As soon as he picked up, the liason started:

"So you're finally taking on the Jentai base. That's good, it's strategically vital... but you already know that. What you don't know is that I'm authorizing the use of one of our orbital artillery platforms for you. Just lase targets as you would for a gunship strike; our sensors are sensitive enough to detect it. But the platform only has nine shots left, and can fire maybe once every ten minutes. Don't waste ammo, and time your lases correctly. Oh, and do remember that each shot will level several city blocks, so be careful of friendly fire."

And with that, he hung up the phone.

(OOC: Just go ahead and RP it yourself if you choose to use it. I'd prefer not to have you call for artillery, and me not respond for two days, or something.)

"okay boys I got word from Cantr, we have to head north and across the river to watch for flankers."

The four striker Apcs Moved in to the north.

Occ: If theres enemys and crap let me know sorry about the terrible post im really tired.

1228h
Jentai Base

"They're up north, as expected." the soldier said. Mekon smiled a bit. "But their markings aren't from anything on the continent."

"Huh, must be one of the Republics myriad foreign allies." Mekon turned to his radio. "Execute the ambush."

North of Jentai Base
Dozens of troops popped out of their hiding spots at once. AT weapons and machine gun nests popped out of the ground where moments before there had been nothing. An ambush in broad daylight...the Cantrians had spent hours putting the ambush together. It had been flawless. Sebezk had planned it himself.

After the initial twenty second volley, the hundred or so soldiers moved in closer, slowly choking off all possibility of escape.

107h
Ren'allar, west sector

Fighting had grown less intense. The enemy were sending fewer soldiers, but whether that was because they were running out or just because they were regrouping for another push was unknown to Angel, but she was taking the opportunity to get some sleep. In the past thirty six hours she'd had a grand total of three hours. Soldier X could potentially go for days on three hours a day, but it wasn't pleasant. But for Angel, neither was sleep. Nonetheless, she needed it.
Ader...I hope you're all right...I'd come back for you now, but I can't just leave a warzone...Great, now I'm talking to him in my head. I really need to sever my attatchment to this kid. This stupid maternal feelings are eventually going to get me killed, I know it. The ironic thing is that this is the one thing I swore I wouldn't let happen, back in Sjoftich during training. I swore I wouldn't fall behind the boys because of compassion or love. Soldiers X can't afford those emotions...but Soldiers X can't afford fear either, and I've been dreading and looking forward to this rest at the same time for the past few hours because of fear. And fear of what? I've been dodging bullets for twelve hours, but a nightmare scares me. That probably says something deep and psychological about me, but I haven't read a psych book since...August, I think, was when I left for Cantr City. That's also the last time I saw Oblivion and Chris. That's when Tempest left too. But Seth, he left before. He'd been gone since February...

It was the last coherent thought Angel had before she slipped into sleep.

Cantrian base camp, near Jentai

"We just got word from the Hurfdurfistani. We've got their orbital strikes on our side. They're extremely powerful, which is good for enemy troop movements, but not so good for the base." Stakli took it in. Daichi knew what he was talking about. They needed the east bank of Jentai more or less in one piece so that when the counter-attack came they could dig in. If they lost the base immediately after gaining it, they'd be thrown back just as if they'd never had it...except it would be more costly to the country, take longer, and kill more people.

Nonetheless, some extra firepower couldn't hurt...much.

One moment everything was peaceful and quite. The next a Flawless ambush had taken place.

"Heads down." Yelled captain Elendil
After the twenty second or so volley the firing stopped.
The driver of Elendil paricular APC looked ready to floor it.
"hold it." The captain said.
"Any true cantrian forces please respond we have been ambush and are about to face capture please send reinforcements. Ok boys turn on the armor."

After a few seconds the familiar Hiss of the SaintB Spartain light power armor, woke elendils senses, A few seconds later a shot of Adrenialene and Electrolights
Made the captain feel ready for anything.

"Ok Boys time to teach these Imperialist Bastards why they call us spartains."

The captain kicked open the Back door of the APC, jumped out and with the other 32 Commandos opened fire on the enemy,

"Driver, fire the cannons."
"Roger that."
In a few seconds Four 55mm Autocannon shells smashed into the enemy troops.

"Command," Elendil said as a few bullets richocheted from his suit, "Send airsupport to sector 22, Jentai river, we need air support reapet, we need air support."
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"This is not a drill I need 2 Flight teams to run air support for the spartains move out." Shouted a voice on a loudspeaker.

"Captain Neiobe and here team will answer the call."
"Captain Jogern will answer the call."
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Momments later 4 f-22 screamed from the Oblivion2 Airbase to Jentai river.

"Appraoching Mach 2.3" Said Captain Neiobe
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By the time the air strike arrived only 19 of the origanal team of 33 spartains remained.

4 f-22's screamed over head and dropped missles and rained bombs on the Imperialist forces.

(OOC: Cantr, from Seth's and my Epsilons' position, how long would it take to get to Jentai base? Is it realistic to lend support to the Oblivionite forces? If so, they're en route. If not, I'm going to extract them via gunship and fly them in, which will take longer, but is plausible.)

(OOC: How so many of them managed to survive a concentrated attack from AT (anti-tank) weapons when they were all in APCs is a mystery to me, but oh well...
Hurfdurfistan, it's about a days journey to Jentai Base, assuming we're close to Jentai river and we follow it (any overland route, even if it's straighter, will take more time because it's mountainous.).)

Checkpoint C
1241h

"Sir, they survived the initial assault and they've brought in air support." Mekong grimaced. How had they survived the initial assault?

"Tell them to pull back to checkpoint A and make use of the flak cannons we have there."

"Sir, the enemy are piloting F-22 fighters, flak cannons aren't likely to do be very accurate."

"Well, fire at points in the sky, not the fighters themselves. Given the random spread of a flak cannon, even if its position is static, the planes are going to take heavy damage eventually. If the flak cannons are reduced to a neglibile force, pull back to checkpoint B and make use of the GTA missiles." If that doesn't slow them down, nothing will.

West bank of Jentai
1244h
Chris checked the east wall quickly before ducking behind the remains of an enemy jeep. There were a couple thousand too many bullets flying in the area and Chris had no intention of getting shot. There was one spot that was, at that point, guarded by only a machine-gun nest, its crew, and a few other troops. If Chris could clear them out without making it look like he was clearing them out, he could swim the river and scale the wall with a good chance of not getting shot.
Chris just needed a quick air strike...he called into his radio "Hey fly boys! You listening? I need you to clear out sector..." Chris counted over from where the bridge used to be, "Seven, and fast. Just send one plane. Make it look random." Chris fired a spray of bullets at sector five of the wall, where all the bullets were coming from. The more of them he cleared out, the easier it would be to make it to the bank adjacent to the walls weak spot without getting shot.

---------
"Prefect, this is Sigourney, passcode jailer. I've got the enemy position down south scouted pretty well. It's pretty light. I'm surprised, I thought Daemon would have this sector covered."
"Really?" Prefect said into his radio while ducking under a few bullets. "He'd usually put down an army there to stop a flanking maneuver on Jentai. Did you find anything at all?"
"Just some abandoned trenches." Sigourney responded. Her next words were rushed. "I'd better get going." And then static. Prefect had understood for some time now. Sig's been captured, the transmission was a ploy by the enemy. They have trenches and, if they captured Sig, lots and lots of troops. No time to stage a rescue. That ploy transmission will give us a few hours before the flank guard will send any of their troops up to Jentai Base because they'll be expecting a flanking attack. If we give them one, it'd take longer, but manpower is worth more than time right now. We've got them covered...still, if we make it look as though we fell for the ploy but, out of sheer luck, dodged it, we'd be able to stall them longer and, with luck, keep Sig alive long enough to extract her.
"Stakli? Send the third wave down south, but be careful, there's definately a large enemy force entrenched down there." Prefect looked around at the battlefield. He noticed something in the dirt...was that a hatch? It was out in the open. If Prefect went to investigate, he'd be shot to pieces.
Prefect fired off a solid clip at the enemies on the wall before one of the machine-gun nests on it turned its attention to him.
Prefect looked towards the water. The pontoloon bridge was, surprisingly, finally doing all right. The enemies' AT weapons hadn't managed to blow up the most recent one, and soon it would be able to take troops to the opposite bank where, with any luck, they could scale the wall and get a foothold.
An artillery shell landed about ten feet from Prefect, drawing his attention. Prefect hated artillery. Not even a Soldier X could dodge a random artillery shell. Again, that piece of dirt that looked like it just might lead to one of Cantr's underground tunnels caught Prefects eye. He decided he'd have to keep one eye on it while using the other to find and shoot targets on the wall. With any luck this patch of the wall would thin out eventually and then he'd be able to figure out if it really was a hatch.
Prefect turned to his radio. "Air support, on sector five, just thin these guys out a bit for us." He switched the frequency. "Stakli, don't send in any tanks just yet. The west bank might not be completely secured and besides, there's enough AT on that wall to take out the entire battallion."
Another artillery blast landed nearby. Prefect hated artillery.

OOC: Most of my troops surived cuz of the SaintB spartain light power armor. But if im being unreasonable I can edit it.

"sir this is Captain Neoibe enemys are retreating."
'Captain watch yourself the enemy have flak cannons up ahead, save the Tomahawks for them, use your vulcans on retreating troops."

"roger that sir."

The 4 F-22's made strafing runs with there vulcan machinguns on fleeing enemys while drooping the occaision 100 Kg bomb to do some damage.

"Captain Neoibe you have new orders A soldier X needs air support and your gonna deliver it, make it look random though, so use a tomahawk not a bomb am I Clear?"

"Yes sir commencing Attack run on sector 43."

Neoibe's f-22 screamed by the enemy positions in less than 15 seconds, in that time she mangaged to fire a Tomahawk missle and Fire a few vulcan rounds.

"Hey soldier X area Clear! GoGOGO."
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Captain Elendil Gathered the rest of the surviving Spartains, "ok boys whats left of the APCs are pulling out, its our job to Infiltrate Jentai and destroy those AA emplacements lets move." If Elendil had the numbers right the enemy still had 80ish men left from the Ambush, not the best odds but he could pull it off, Like the spartains of Old these men where trained from birth to fight any enemy there king or queen deemed worthy.
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"Captain Neoibe new Objectives we need you to run a new airstrike for soldier X codenamed: Perfect in sector 5."
"Right away sir."

Captain Neoibe Flew over Sector five and fired vulcan rounds and A few missles just to make things fair for X. But as she was about to return to base to rearm a random flak shell caught her engines.

"this is Captain Neoibe Of Oblivion2 Airforces I am going down reapet going down."

Neoibe managed to Eject from here cockpit with time to spare, but it was'nt the crash that worryed her it was an eagar sniper that was looking for some easy pickings.

OOC: If you want u can attempt to kill off Neoibe.

(OOC: :headbang: In that case...)

Northern Cantr, 1300H Local

As the ATLFVs sped towards the extraction, where the two AC60 gunships would pick up the soldiers within them, John called for his Epsilons and their Cantrian allies to armor up. What they had on hand wasn't much... just lightweight vests designed for maximum comfort and flexibility. They'd still stop all but armor-piercing rounds, but John would've felt much more comfortable in, say, an ODST's armor. Still, he had what he had, and he'd make it work. Besides, his Epsilons were the product of a program with a 95% dropout rate. In training. They were absolutely the best Hurfdurfistan had to offer, and they knew how to fight. But, really, it was never about training; he'd lost soldiers to stray shots, ricochets, and friendly fire before. It was part technique, part equipment, and part luck that dictated how firefights turned out.

The gunships were waiting at the extraction when the commandos arrived. John's team climbed aboard, being greeted by a squad of ODSTs that were planetside when John called for extraction, and were thus assigned to his command. That brought John's total command to... two dozen. Not enough, he worried. A Private Rosenberg expressed what an honor it was to serve with an Epsilon squad, and that he wanted nothing more than to kill some Imperialist scum. John just shook his head. He had always been taught to think of his enemy as a human enemy, as someone who probably had a girlfriend or wife, who hoped to own a house and have a decent job. John might've thought that his enemies ways of attaining those goals was misguided, even in the worst way, but if he lost sight that his enemy was a human being...

John clapped Rosenberg on the shoulder and told him to calm down, that it wasn't all about body counts, then took his seat with the rest of his squad.

The gunships lifted off, screaming into the sky, aided by scramjets. Within forty five minutes, if all went well, they would be touching down at the Spartans' position, ready to drop their passengers into the heat of combat.

(OOC: So, then, I've got four Epsilons (John, Clara, Jenny, and Mike), a Soldier X (Seth, obviously), seven True Cantrian elite commandos, and twelve Hurfdurfistani ODSTs en route. Cantr, how do you want to handle Seth's presence? Would you prefer to RP him, or should I? And if you're going to let me RP him, TG me something about his personality (How he interacts with others, his thoughts on the foreign intervention in Cantrian matters, etc...).)

1247h Southern Rodina


Mikhail Ivanov watched as each of the 30 personal in the control room worked to organize a fleet of 18 c-130 Hercules. Looking at his watch he realized that it had been nearly 78 hours sense the order came from the Czar. "The Kleomenes nor any of the other Cantr factions can be allowed to take Ren'allar. We must assist the Paladin forces in any way possible." Once they realized that the Kleomenes had jammed the frequencies Mikhail hadn't hesitated in simply sending the diplomat and a squad of Spetsnaz commandos to make direct contact with Paladin high command.


Ren'allar,Northern Sector

Capitan Elena Popov watched as her team made it's way up bombed out street. They had left their jumpsuits at the landing site and were now dressed in civilian cloths and from the look of some of the Paladin refugees they didn't stand out to badly, but she was still worried about the plan. Even if the Paladin militias didn't shoot them what was the chance they'd be taken to the paladin commanders.

(OOC: I'll RP Seth.)

(OOC: Fair enough. I guess what's probably going to happen is that the Oblivionites will run the show, with our forces there for support.)

OOC: Hey guys im back my cpu wuz dead for a while, wuts have i missed since last time?

(OOC: Nothing. Cantr hasn't written a response yet, so the plot hasn't moved.)

OOC: come on cantr make a move