NationStates Jolt Archive

November 12, 2007
09:54 GMT
Supercarrier Tortoise, ninety miles off the Perimeter Defense coast

"So it's all fucked then," Administrator Jackson Greer said gruffly in the carrier's bridge island tower. The aging equivalent of one of the common governments' senators, Greer was an old-timer of the military, having served as a tank commander in the Liberation and a supporter of military action against Bigtopian dependency, Mediumtopia (thirty or so years from now, this support would be dignified). This momentary burst of profanity was fairly unexpected in him, for he was talking to the man who called him and a whole bunch of higher-ups in the government and military for some kind of emergency meeting that demanded all of their presences. This man was Jerrod Bastion, a fellow Administrator and a fairly conservative man in most respects.

"Fucked? I wouldn't use that word myself, but I suppose for the situation, yes, it is appropriate. Yes, it's all fucked." Bastion was his usual matter-of-fact self today.

"Who else is coming?" asked Greer. He'd come early on an Osprey; he never had taken a liking to the tilt-rotor beast whose crash record was comparable to Babe Ruth's batting average, and thus was fairly a little rickety himself off from the flight.

"You mean who else is here." He pointed out the window to see a pair of F-35's landing vertically side-by-side on two VTOL-marked areas, followed by an IBH-60 Starhawk helicopter on the opposite end of the runway. "The F-35's are Directress Cain and Administrator Jamison. The Starhawk should be carrying the rest of them."

"You called Cain too? This is going to be one hell of a party, then..."

10:17 GMT

"You are..." Cain began. She was not happy at all. "You are goddamn joking. But this isn't April 1, and a joke like that isn't good as an early Christmas present. So give me the truth before I get back in my plane and atomize your ass."

"No jokes, ma'am. This is the real deal." Bastion pointed at the bridge's windows, which were transparent LCD monitors. Images of a large Leviathan submarine, schematics and other details, were being flashed. "November 10, 2007. 22:54 GMT. We lost a Leviathan
-class nuclear submarine twelve miles inside the Allanean exclusion zone."

"Shit," Administrator Jamison said. "We aren't exactly on good terms with them Boris people, now, are we? After the reckonings of that Questers place and good ol' Andie Lederman...the peace committees have been giving their government hell."

"We never participated in the War," Cain prodded. "What's her identification?"

"Formerly DDS Martinique, she was recently given a new name, Rapture."

"Someone's been playing a lot of Bioshock," Greer added.

"Irrelevant. What's the take on this thing?"

"She carries 54 Steamrunner ballistic missiles, 5 megatons each, but that's not the worst of it. From these inventory records, the Rapture had two prototypical, but launch-ready Assassin stealth cruise missiles. These things light up Aegis radar on launch point, but...well, after that they disappear off the grid. Low thermal release, low radar cross-section, LIDAR ineffectiveness....if the Allaneans knew..."

"If the Allaneans knew," Cain said, "then we'd have gotten a very nice official communique by now - in the form of a dozen superdreadnoughts depth-mining the thing, or a friendly ICBM on one of our major population centers. But we haven't gotten anything yet. What's Rapture's status? Tell me the whole story."

"The tenth, 23:19," Bastion began. "Rapture reported that as she was moving close to the ocean floor, underwater tremors triggered the detonation of a misaligned torpedo in its bays. Hit several compartments at once and blew another one some distance away. They got the leaks sealed but there's no way they'll be rising up any time soon...we lost contact on the eleventh, 01:45."

"And what the hell were they doing that close to Allanea?"

"That's...what we don't know, ma'am. Rapture was coming back from testing the Assassin missiles in the Davies archipelago when she cut a path straight through Allanean waters. She's not a stealth sub ma'am, and no one could cough up any orders---"

"You got that wrong, Jerrod," Greer pronounced. "Am I not right, Directress?" he inquired of Cain.

"Greer, you know that I never approved the Pique Interest operation. We don't have time for a war with Allanea, not with all this business with the Smalltopians in the Western Corridor."

"But you acknowledge that someone came up with the idea."

"That's right. It was CINCLOC Jacob Strzalkowski. I practically threw him out of my office when he suggested that."

"He may have done it anyway, without your precise consent. All he needed to show was that he went to you."

"And for this piece of shit he won't just get court-martialed. His head's gonna roll off his stump and it won't be pretty. IF he's responsible at all, mind. Now, Bastion, what do we have in the vicinity that could do something about this goddamn situation?"

"Ma'am, the closest thing we have is the 5th Solution Fleet, and that's a lot of battleships and carriers to throw inside the Allanean exclusion zone. There's nothing we can say to their government that'll excuse our ships into the area. And regardless of that fact, wherever we'll be, it's going to be over the submarine. They'll be watching, and they'll see a whole lot of nukes that just conked out very close to their shores. Particularly one that looks like it was designed specifically to penetrate ABM defenses..."

"But we have no other option, yes? I'm looking at the bridge screens, and I see a 120 hour timer before their scrubbers die. I won't ask how that damage managed to be sustained, but this looks like all we've got. Get me on FLEETCOMM to the 5th Solution Fleet. I'll be ordering them to sit outside the region."

13:58 GMT
The battleship PDI Allison, lead ship of the 5th Solution, came to a halt from 40 knots some 31 miles away from the Allanean waters' mapline. She was followed by two carriers, two other battleships and three destroyers, all menacing in the early afternoon sun. But whatever image of fear they projected was useless against hordes of naval defenses that came ahead. No, Cain was not going to order the 5th Solution inside Allanea...something else was to come..

14:05 GMT

"Seal that damn leak!" yelled Captain Dionisio Enriquez, hauling out a tank of foam and slapping a hose on one end. He threw the assembly at a crew woman, who had to dodge it before getting it. Another hole had burst into the Rapture's hull just moments ago, and ankles were already wet on the rapidly flooding floor.

Enriquez ran about the sections of the ship, giving orders as he went to the frantically acting personnel. They'd successfully drained some of the compartments that were originally flooded and righted the ship from its obstructive 45-degree tilt. They'd secured the rest of the torpedoes and disassembled some of the precariously-positioned warheads. Unfortunately, they weren't able to move the Assassin missiles, but thankfully these were close enough to the gathering point that they'd be relatively safe.

Enriquez made his way to the engine room. "Halley! What's our status? Comms to tactical!"

A woman shouted from across the room, "Engines still down, but we're working on getting a little thrust on the screws. Can't say for sure how long that'll be, though." Captain Jen Halley, the former captain of the Rapture, was to serve temporarily as Enriquez's first officer - of course, this accident extended her stay in the job.

"Any communications?"

"We can't say anything on the higher end of VLF, but that's what we need to talk to FLEETCOMM. We put up a detection buoy on the surface, though, and we may have a large friendly fleet incoming. We can't say anything this close to the sensor wall, though, without the Allaneans hearing everything we say."

"All right, keep me posted on the engine progress, and that fleet. I'll be in the tech room."

"Got it, Cap'n." Halley got back to helping an engine-tech work on the drive as Enriquez ran off to his announced destination.

Tag for interest. This open?

Northern Haven, Permanent Strategic Fort East

“Attention all personnel. This is not a drill. I repeat, not a drill, action code Black Arrow, repeat, Black Arrow. All anti-submarine warfare personnel will report to station immediately. All anti-air warfare personnel will report to stations within forty-five minutes.” - the message was pre-recorded. The actual man responsible for it would not be able to intone those words in an authoritative, calm voice like that. As a matter of fact, it was just another, rather overweight man who was not even wearing his uniform right, his shirt discarded in the corner, sitting in some god-forsaken underground warning room pushing different combinations of buttons, his once-white undershirt now 'decorated' with coffee stains.

Once the sonars detected the explosions aboard the Rapture, a series of effects was set in motion not at all unlike what goes on when a snowball is tossed off the side of a mountain. Pretty soon it's accelerating downwards in an insane pace, a full-blast avalanche roaring madly in the direction of those nice red-roofed country homes and Alpine resorts...

* * *

The two large, unwieldy Ki-1T ASW helicopters continued on their patrol. It was the usual – a whaling boat (sweep down, watch the sailors wave to you), a leaky boat full of Bigtopian illegal immigrants (sweep, two short bursts of cannon fire), and even a whale (radio the whaling boat). And then...

“Unit Six-Oh-Five-Gamma, this is Momma. There's been some weird explosions in your sector, last noted coordinates being... please check that out, Six-Oh-Five-Gamma, it's fifty miles off your normal patrol path, just give them a visit, over.”

“Sure, Momma, I'm going to be a good boy. Over.”

The helicopters turn North, making their way rapidly towards the last location of the Rapture.

“Yeah, it's here all right. Our metal detectors tell us it's likely a sub. Not a very big one at that, less then a furlong in length if you can believe that. Parts of it are splattered all over, really a bad sight. Oh, and they have detection buoy. Over.”

* * *

“Yes, Sir. No, not a Reichite or Doomani submarine, I'd have given the order to trash it to pieces already, Sir. It appears to be from Perimeter Defense, not sure of the model though.”

“Well, go contact their foreign service and ask them why the fuck is their submarine in our national waters, and while you're at it, go find out what kind of sub it is, and it better not be nuclear.”

"What's this?" Cain asked from the Tortoise's bridge. She walked over to the display glass. "There, right there...that's the feed from Sat Four."

"Coastline. We set Sat Four on the area near the Rapture's last known location. What do you see?"

"Increased activity, from the looks of it.."

***

Perimeter Defense Capital, Cyvils
Diplomatic Operations Element

Jasen Byron, DiplOps/General for the past nine years, saw on his desk a printout from the Eastern nodes that referenced a very formally-written inquiry from the Allanean government that said something about a sub...now, a sub in Allanean waters? No one would be so stupid as to - wait a second, yes there was.

The response was simple: "A Perimeter Defense submarine vessel in Allanean waters? I have not been informed of such an occurrence. Are you certain that it indeed belongs to us?"

"Get me the President. Tell her we have a suspicious sub in our waters. And get me on the phone with NATO and whoever else we've got."

* * *

"Yes, it appears, according to it's sensor buoy data, to be one of your subs. If it's not, we're just going to deep-bomb the vague location and call it a day. Must be some Reichie sub or something."

OOC: Won't be rather open until the point where the heat starts rising. Interactions between me and Allanea+affiliates for now, but when things start getting conspicuous, other nations are bound notice. In the mean time, you can use intelligence services or whatever...

IC:
"Yes, it appears, according to it's sensor buoy data, to be one of your subs. If it's not, we're just going to deep-bomb the vague location and call it a day. Must be some Reichie sub or something."

The nature of the response was as matter-of-fact as it could be. The last statement, however, was easily a demand for a quick response and explanation. It was their right to smash whatever was there, and if Byron failed to execute a proper response in time, the lives of the crew - and perhaps a massive international situation - would be in his hands.

"I'll make an inquiry to the military. Please expect a response within the day. Thank you."
***
14:30 GMT
"We just got word," Greer said. "Allaneans are asking about the sub."

"Christ, more bad news," Cain said. "Can we say training exercise?"

"She's inside the territory. No one would accept that as an excuse."

"Granted. What about the Fifth Solution?"

"Standing at 31 miles off the mapline. The Allison's still wondering what she's doing there."

"Don't tell them. The fleet is just for my worst-case scenario in mind. As for the statement on the sub, confirm that it's ours, and say that it was a minor accident that caused her to drift, eventually setting her inside Allanean waters. It's a bad reason but it'll have to do until the shit really hits the fan."

This response by Cain was relayed back to Cyvils, and in turn it was sent to the Allanean government. Who would believe such a thing, though? Twelve miles inside Allanean waters was an accident? The way the ship was positioned and post-processed tracking would later show that it had traveled a total of 47 miles inside of the territory, meaning that something fishy was really going on with this vehicle. Undersea reckonings were, of course, by nature rather clandestine; that was the whole point of staying in the big ol' conductor that was the salty sea.

14:41 GMT
"Captain! Passive acoustics indicate linear surface disturbances. It's very faint from here, but I think it might be helicopter wash."

Enriquez looked up from a console he was trying to fix. "Someone's dipping a sonar over us?"

"We're not getting any waves on our end; might be metal detectors on whoever's doing it."

"How many detection buoys do we have onboard?"

"Five, sir."

"Blow the one we have now; we probably won't live long enough to drop all five anyway."

"Aye, sir."

Observers from the Ki-1T would notice the placidly bobbing buoy violently detonate due to a 10-kilogram explosive charge, at 14:43 GMT.

14:41 GMT
(snipped)

Observers from the Ki-1T would notice the placidly bobbing buoy violently detonate due to a 10-kilogram explosive charge, at 14:33 GMT.

OOC: If the order to detonate is given at 14:41, how does it manage to detonate at 14:33GMT?

IC:

“Wait, they think we’ll actually buy that “accident” crap?”

“No. But it gets them along – plausible deniability and such.”

“Damn. So what do we do?”

“First of all, I want you to order, say, twenty-five USABM launchers reaimed in such a way as to be able to frag anything that sub launches immediately. Re-aiming in advance will save us, what, a half-second advantage, but it’s worth it.”

“At this distance, a three-second advantage. Probably nail the lot with the first rocket, right after takeoff.”

“Well, whatever. Any reports from the sub site?”

“Yes, they blew up their buoy or something. Likely scared of us.”

“Understandable really. I’d be afraid of us too. Go make a transmission to the Perimetrians.”

“What should it say?”

“Well, let me think of it. Ah! Type away.

* * *

“We at the Department of Defense are not quite buying that accident story. However, for the interest of not having reactor outflow all over our prime beaches and fishing populations, we will allow you to arrange a rescue effort. Your ships may now enter the area, but be aware that you are being watched and targeted by more firepower than you can possibly imagine, much less deal with. On the other hand, should you need assistance in the rescue effort, we will always give you a hand. “

* * *


And now I want you to make a transmission to the submarine. Tell the boys to check a few frequencies until they get a response. Tell them that we allowed a Perimetrian rescue team to proceed to their area. Give them logs of our exchanges with the rescue team. Ask for a status report once you establish communication. We need to know how much time they have left.

OOC: Sorry, that was supposed to be 14:43 GMT. Will respond a little later.

14:43 GMT

"Allanean rotaries in a patrol zone close to the sub's last known location. They're dipping some kind of sen- whoa!" The signal officer yelped at the bright light that filled his screen. Since he had switched from satellite to the new Watchtower high-altitude UAV that idly floated 94,000 feet above, there was a little more bang for every explosion that appeared on camera.

"What is it?" Cain and Jamison said in unison as they and Greer made their way over to his console.

"There was a buoy just there, lit up like a Christmas tree while those helicopters flew by it."

"Did they shoot at it?"

"That's the odd part. Looks like a self-destruct to me."

"The protocol is to leave detection buoys when the nation in question is neutral. Why did they blow it up?"

"Directress, something tells me that this sub isn't looking for rescue from us..."

"Greer, what do you have in mind?"

"Defectors, Greer?" Bastion poked from across the bridge. "You're not suggesting...?"

"Why defect to a nation with whom we aren't at war and with whose allies and affiliates we have never even met, save that incident with Questers where it was a single private individual who did all the talking? Sure, Lederman's book caused some shuffling of feet across the continent, but it was just a book that showed how bad war was. Everyone knows who the real good and bad guys were, they've got their own opinions."

"What's your damn point?"

"You never let me get to it. We initially thought that this thing was operating under the cancelled Pique Interest campaign, but we checked out on Strzalkowski's movements; theories on his involvement in this are starting to look more and more like blank speculation than valid hypotheses. I won't get into specifics, you'll see in the report later on, but I don't think this is op is sanctioned by any of the higher-ups."

"Close up, Bastion. We'll save these boys, and then question them later." Cain then saw a message light up on the bridge screens. It was the Allanean statement on a free rescue operation, but with a header that stated that they knew the accident story was a whole load of bullshit. "My response...show appreciation for their accommodating attitude, and say that we'll be fine. Nothing else. As much as we don't like their rather patronizing tone towards us, the Fifth's all we got in the region. Meanwhile, get me on FLEETCOMM-HSERV and patch me through to the Allison of the Fifth Solution."

14:49 GMT
The Fifth Solution slowly entered Allanean waters, wary of the eyes in the sky and along the coastline that watched their progress. So it did turn out that Cain used them to save the sub - what of her other plan to send in another set of submarines? Oh, those came along too...

***
14:49 GMT
"Buoy destruction confirmed. The wash was gone for a moment; looks like those choppers took up some altitude when we lit up our torch - hang on. Looks like we're getting something on VLF...we're too deep to see what's inside, but it might be a radio frequencies scan- okay, there's ELF. Yeah, confirming carrier wave test. These don't look like standard PD outputs; it may be the Allaneans. What do we do?"

Captain Enriquez didn't need a second thought. "We shut up. Don't give them any response at all."

"What if PD also pings us? I'd assume a rescue mission-"

"We'll shut up also. Engineer Brigham, status on the engine!"

Brigham replied. "We've got the electronics dried out, sir. Temporary resin in place. We can get very minor transiting power in eight hours. Five knots or so? Better than nothing."

"Good job. Internals! What's the status on the scrubbers?"

"Gone in a hundred and nineteen. Long enough to get somewhere in Haven, neutral drydock, but that's our worst-case."

"It might be our only case. Let's keep the repairs at full steam! And...Tactical, you say that our prototype Assassin missiles, the two of them, are launch-ready?"

"Yes, sir. Their warheads are empty, though, but theirs are standard IBWM platforms, so I think I can rig one of our other missiles to work."

"Good. Als-"

"Sir?"

"Yes?"

"I won't ask why you want status reports on the functionality of the stealth missiles, sir, but I should inform you that we actually have five of them."

"What?"

"The ordinance loaders disguised some of our other missile packages with larger shells. There were three such masked Assassins in our inventory. Each is fully functional, just like the other two..."

"And what is the maximum specification for an Assassin's warhead?"

"They can use HW-34 13-megaton fusion 'heads. We only have one of those, the rest we'll have to liberate from the Steamrunner rockets."

"Load the HW-34 onto one of the Assassins and mark it. Load the rest with the 5-em-tee 'heads. Keep them prepped for my orders, if they ever come. Again, I say, don't ask, don't tell."

14:50 GMT

“What was that? Unit Six-Oh-Five-Gamma, confirm your statement, over.”

“They blew up their decoy. There's no way it could have just blown itself up, over.”

“Damn it. Very well, Six-Oh-Five-Gamma, return to base, over and out.”

The Admiral shook his head in disbelief. “And here was me thinking they weren't answering the emergency calls because they were all dead. Clearly they aren't. Can you go and ask Radio Intercept Service if there were any communications between them and the Perimetrians?”

“Sir, I'm not sure we can hack into Perimetrian commos.”

“I don't care what they said, Nigel. Go and find out if there were any communications. It's far easier to detect any commo then to understand it.”

“Yes, sir.”

14:55 GMT

“No, Sir. No detected communications. They tell me that they could have been using a tightbeam, though.”

“Just great. Very well, do we have the USABMs reaimed?”

“Shuold they fire anything, we're going to touch off a bloody Christmas tree right in it's path... Admiral.”

“Good, but not good enough. I want you to order five nuclear-armed ASROCs aimed at the position of the sub. If the sub fires any weapon, and I do mean any weapon, fry it.”

“But Sir...”

“Don't you see it, idiot? What we have here is a possibly rogue atomic submarine. The last time this happened was during the Fourth Edolian War and the capital escaped by the slimmest of margins. And this time, a possibly rogue atomic submarine is the best of our choices.”


“What's the worst, Admiral?”

“This being a secret Perimetrian plan to fry us all... speak of the Perimetrians. Alert them of our suspicion this is a rogue vessel. Tell them we will fry the sub if it fires weapons at us. Don't tell them that we think they're planning anything, of course.”

“Naturally.”

“Oh, and reaim some killsats.”

14:59 GMT
"Brigham, you got something on the engines?"

"Aye. Looks like the damage is less extensive than we originally gathered. We'll be up to that five knots I specified in just under two hours, I estimate."

"Good job. Tactical, status on our missiles?"

"I rigged an HW-34 on one of the Assassins, and the others are stocked with the Steamrunner warheads."

"Good, good. Comms and Sensors?"

"Nothing, sir, we blew up our buoy."

"Well, get another one ready. We'll be rising it up later...just for a second, you'll see."

15:15 GMT
"We've got Allanean response," said a newcomer, SigOps officer Lt. Athenos. "They think it's a rogue sub. Might've checked for transception between Rapture and the Fifth Solution. Since there's none, it's a valid assumption that they're not working on our orders."

Cain, whose normally pristine, wavy blonde hair had gone mutinous when the news of the Rapture first hit her ears, shook her head at the news. "And they're not." She turned to Jamison. "What do you think?"

"Ma'am?"

"What the hell are they planning?"

"I honestly have no idea, ma'am."

And no one did, truly. Save that of some of the crew of Rapture... All would be enlightened soon enough.

November 6, 2007
01:32 GMT
300 miles off the Atlantic Island Coast
Carrier Darius, with Leviathan-class submarine Rapture

"My wife was Bigtopian," the man with ancient wrinkles said in his private quarters. CINCLOC Admiral Jacob Strzalkowski's good days had passed; once a sturdy man whose mere appearance was all he needed to convey his authority, his body no longer served that deifying purpose. But while his body was slowly crashing, his mind was still the same sharp Bowie knife that had cut through the worst of battles. The man in the same room, Dionisio Enriquez of the Rapture, seemed to agree.

"They're good people under a bad government," Enriquez said. "It's not quite fair, what they get, you know. What do we of Perimeter Defense do? We blow them up, bomb their cities, execute their citizens...our excuse of provocation is them wiggling their toes in the wrong direction. Lousy fucks."

"Don't insult your mother nation, Dionisio. She fed you, clothed you..."

"...sheltered me, educated me, let me live! Yes, I've heard it before, but what good is this life if the ideals that drive it are trampled upon and thrown to the wolves? And you should know better - Pique Interest was your idea."

"The Allaneans do the same to the Bigtopians. Routine coast guard patrols shoot up incoming rafts full of illegal immigrants...I hear they once stacked the bodies for fertilizer for a forestation project, but I can't say it isn't propaganda on Bigtopia's part."

"Back to the operation. The plan's good. Shoot in both directions, start a war, and cripple both countries. We'll end a lot of lives, but save more in the process later on."

"The ends justify the means? I'd never think you were one of those who followed that line of morality."

"It's more of, 'the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.' Watch some Star Trek, it gets a lot of diplomacy right, in a way. I got three extra Assassin missiles slipped secretly into our loadout, on top of the two already in tow. Perimeter Defense still can't seem to shoot down its own stealth cruise missiles, and we hope that Allanea won't be able to, either-"

"I'm canceling Pique Interest, Dionisio."

"What?" Enriquez suddenly said. He searched the Admiral's eyes for some hint of deception or humor, but none was to be found. He remained silent.

"It's not the right way. Mediumtopia will fall anyway, be consumed in the succeeding fiery blaze...we'll kill an equal amount of innocent citizens on both ends. What were we thinking?"

"We were thinking of the only right way, Jake! There's nothing else-"

"There is. There is so much else that can be done in place of starting a nuclear war between two heavily-armed nations! The situation would be both mad and MAD! Both die! And do you think it's going to stop there? No, it'll let off a chain reaction that will end up at only God knows where! And you can bet your bottom ABM turret that Bigtopia and her dependencies will follow up in the carnage."

"No! We planned this, and we're going to finish it!"

"WE WILL NOT!" Strzalkowski bellowed, and for a moment his ancient aura of control flared like a new protostar emerging from a cloud of dead gas. Enriquez momentarily stepped back, and there was silence.

"You may not like it, Jake, not anymore if you ever did. I don't know why you got me into this if you'd change your mind later on. But here's a chance to make a difference through this military. You're a man of ideals and action; I'm a man of ideals and action that stick."

"Don't do this."

"You can stop me, Jake. It'll only take a bullet for mutiny, or a call for security, and everyone will believe what you say later on. But I am gonna walk out this door, my back turned to you, and you won't do shit, because all that's happening is that you're too afraid of the consequences. Well, I'm not. I'll face them, to serve the greater good. Remember that? The greater good? Deep down, you still want this to happen. Don't you worry; I'll make it happen." Enriquez did turn his back to Strzalkowski, did walk out the door, and Strzalkowski didn't do shit, because Enriquez was right about everything.

November 12, 2007
15:42 GMT
"Okay, detection buoy two is on the surface- whoa, that's a lot of detector radiation in the area. Radar, light consistent with LIDAR specs..."

"Satellites don't use that. What's the possible source?"

"Perimeter Defense must have switched to UAV's for surveillance. They still fly in the atmosphere. 90-kay feet or so."

"It should be here, then, right over us. All right, Tactical - missile status for a Steamrunner?"

"One and two are ready at the ports."

"Good. Launch a Steamrunner in this general direction on my mark. Doesn't need to be accurate; we'll be hitting a fragile Helios surveillance UAV with a five-megaton warhead. Now!"

15:43 GMT
"Missile launch!" Athenos screamed. "Steamrunner-type missile engaged at 15:33 GMT!" All heads turned to the same screen, and saw the horrible sight of a Perimeter Defense missile rising up towards the heavens, its motor burn bright even in the afternoon sun.

"Damn it! What's the azimuth on this thing?" TactOps Miriam Land said.

"Still heading straight-up vertical. That's strange; should be going towards a relative direction by this time."

"Why the hell haven't the Allanean ABM's done anything?"

"The missile is still going verti-"

"Shit," Cain observed. She looked at the figures for some time.

"What is it?"

"It's still going vertical. Does anyone know the ceiling of a Steamrunner?"

"110,000 feet, ma'am. Still won't hit a satellite," Greer said.

"That's the problem, we're not using a satellite! Bastion, status on our surveillance UAV?"

"We're still receiving, but there's this rapidly moving speck on the optics that looks like- comm dropout." Static filled the room as the UAV was shattered by the pressure wave from a nuclear explosion in the upper atmosphere.

Meanwhile, the Rapture, in the midst of the chaos, had made two knots undetected, leaving its last known location for missiles to hit - and miss her entirely.

IC:

15:44 GMT
“All units, this is red alert. There has been a strategic nuclear detonation inside the borders of the United States. Suspected source is a rogue Perimetrian submarine, last known location is in sector… please activate solutions.”

15:45 GMT

At the ground-based defense centre, there was a brief commotion.

“How far could it have gone?” – cursed Captain Formix. He was a grey-haired man with an immense moustache, removed from naval command after way too many sailors filed complains about his overbearing manner and sadistic meticulousness. Now he was commanding an anonymous missile launch system somewhere on the North Haven shore.

“Not very far.” – replied Ensign Stepford. He was wearing thick-framed glasses, and his hands shook a little as he reviewed target coordinates one last time.

“What do you mean, not very far? Give NUMBERS! It’s a goddamn nuclear sub we’re talking about! I need to know where it is!”

“Even it magically took off at thirty knots per hour, Sir, it couldn’t have gone more then a klick in any direction. Even then, it’s gonna be covered by the babies in their standard launch pattern.”

“Hit it.”

The ASROCs took off.

Their targeting pattern has been chosen already an hour ago. One of them would dive straight into the last recorded position of the Rapture – the one where the Rapture was trying to moving away from. The other would fall in a cross-shaped pattern – one each two miles to the East, North, South, and West of the last recorded location. The idea was that even if the sub was completely uninjured and immediately took off at top speed – a rather brazen assumption – it would still get nailed by at least some of the shockwave of the five ten-kiloton depth charges.

15:50 GMT

“Someone raise me the Perimetrians! Explain to them that their stupid sub launched a fucking nuke in Allanean territory, and then we fucking nailed the entire area! I want you to put stealth bombers in the sky, get it? Stealth bombers carrying fucking nukes! And then get me motherfucking satellite coverage! And Khan the area! Go!”

And so a polite message was sent to the Perimetrians, with a polite apology of course – right as a squadron of Kestril stealth bombers was scrambled into the sector where the submarine was supposed to be – or rather, to within ten miles of the area.

The Admiral had a back up plan.

It was no longer dominantly blue, the apparent hue of the waters that surrounded the sub, but now a deep shade that seemed closer to black than anything else. Rapture indeed made two knots and accelerated further, by 15:49 GMT; contrary to what the prior narratives have implied, she did not transit in any particular horizontal-plane bearing, but quite downwards, really.

An old Russian submarine tactic was, in the presence of ASW charges, to dive deep down and dampen the blast damage. Now the Rapture had a pretty average service floor but this would be sufficient for the purpose involved, as seen in---

"Detection buoy confirms cessation of signal transmission by UAV candidate. However, we also have incoming missiles from the coastline. We can't get a good trajectory-check with what we have but it's safe to assume that they'll be blanketing a certain radius."

"ETA?"

"Minutes. We don't have much info right now."

"Navigations, dive. Dive real deep."

"At our current position? We're damn toast is what we is."

"Logistics! Remember the foam we put to seal the hulls?"

"Aye, cap'n, she's still holdi-"

"Blow them out. We'll be sinking!"

"Sir, with all due res-"

"With all due respect is following orders! Take out the foam!"

"Got it, sir."

Masses of bubbles blasted out of sections of the Rapture's hull as her submersive trend continued at an increasing rate. Pressure was rising at an exponential rate, and there were eerie creaking sounds on the metal walls, but things were holding together pretty well, all things considered.

The ASROCs hit their designated targets - a 360-degree envelope and a central charge detonated in succession, causing shockwaves that thrashed the water. Massive waves struck the sinking submarine's hull, breaking the link between her and the detection buoy, ruining electronics across the board, and aggravating the damage on torn-up sections of hull, causing even more water to flood into the thing - all the while pumping casualties into the crew rosters. Soon the impellors ceased to move again, perhaps permanently this time as the mechanism behind their functionality was shattered and twisted by violent strikes.

But the crew survived. The Rapture's primary missile launch ports were still active - save one which collapsed into itself - and they could still carry out their purpose, the crew's purpose. The "Good" purpose.

Dionisio Enriquez bent down by the body of the former captain, Jen Halley, impaled by a wild bulkhead that had pushed through a wall. Her eyes were still open, a remainder from the shock of seeing a big beam of metal piercing her abdomen. Enriquez closed them, and had a crewman cut the beam in order to cleanly remove her body.

"Any more dead?" he asked after a long silence, of no one in particular.

"We have six more killed down in Three, and another lost in the waters. Twenty injured critically."

"Engine status?"

"Screws are...screwed. I'm not sure if we can get anything out of this."

"Tactical?"

"Torps are working, but the tubes are caved in. We can fix that, I think."

"You think?"

"Our torpedo men are...well, they're locked in a watery grave by now."

"But the missiles?"

"Mostly intact. Nothing blew up. We have a broken launch port but the other two are still working."

"Then we're pushing through."

OOC: This one is going to be pretty short.

IC:

Aboard Aircraft B-1006 Happy Simon

“Momma, this is Simon, I'm approaching target, over.”

“Remember, Simon, you're point. Prepare to hand over the Christmas gifts.”

Minutes later, the first aircraft – a Brettonian Arbiter II stealth bomber – released it's weapons. These were Aiglos 4-ton rocket-accelerated glide bombs, fifty in number. They made their way over approximately ten mies from the drop point, falling apart over the vague location of the Rapture as estimated by the Allanean anti-submarine network.

The submunitions were computer-fused to detonate after entering the water, at a depth of 50 to 500 meters. And all of them – all 500 munitions – were full-powered W-85 warheads. The total payload was approximately 200 megatons.

Then four more bombers passed over the area, delivering their own payload – two five-megaton nuclear weapons each – into where they suspected the Rapture to be.

Nobody knew for certain if it was alive whne they dropped the first nuke. They were making sure, anyhow.

"Detection buoy three up, captain."

Enriquez looked at the feed from the buoy that had just surfaced. On the optical eyes, he could see faint specks in the distance that were probably all sorts of incoming munitions. Radar prophesied death via all manner of large and small weapons that would clusterfuck the damaged submarine with no hope for survival.

"Sir?" The crew had been silent otherwise; it had been almost five minutes since "Detection buoy three up, captain" had pierced the air of quietude like a knife, and nothing else was uttered in the place before that. Now, "Sir?" had just popped up from a young ensign who had no place in this metal tomb.

And so we commend our brothers to sea... Enriquez thought. "What is it?"

"I never knew our orders were to die." He spoke freely now as all did; command structure collapsed when there was no "submarine" to command.

"Our orders were to sail. My orders were to bring peace."

"By nuclear launch?"

"By war. Peace by war. Sounds funny, doesn't it? But they're smart; they'll stop soon enough, but by that time the BT's and the MT's will have been saved."

"The Bigtopians are wrong."

"Allanea and we are wrong too; much more than they are - if they are at all, even."

"They commit terrorism galore for misinterpreted ideals. They murder and steal. Their citizens become a quarter illegal immigrants across the world. They loot and p-"

"They're humans. They're not target practice for patrol boats, or free fertilizer for the soil. They've got families and friends, they love and hate, suffer and enjoy life. And no one has the right to deprive them of that."

"They don't either, Captain. They don't have the right to intrude into our lives and kill us bit by bit."

"Why are we having this conversation?"

"Because we're dead."

"That we are. So are the Bigtopians, as it is. We've failed to start a war, we got too early in and were stupid with Perimeter Defense's efforts at a rescue. We snubbed them and paid the price. We were to die anyway, I should say, one way or another; now it'll all be useless, though. I would have had it any other way."

Enriquez was silent again, but calm as was not the attitudes of everyone outside of the submarine. The detection buoy lost contact again as some machinegun fire took it out, but all its last words conveyed sufficient meaning to underline what was to happen.

As the little pinpricks of light shone above, causing wave of bubbles and invisible variations in pressure across the water field, all personnel in death's question closed their eyes as a total yield of 220 megatons erupted in their midst.

The last person to die was the engine man, who was one of the few who were unaware of the whole mission. His thoughts comprised an accident that colored his opinions on Allanean handling of military operations - a little belligerent and overtly aggressive, he thought. It was a thoroughly mysterious occurrence for him to first feel the massive thuds against the hull that killed crewpersons with the kinetic damage alone, and then the water rushed in, in a manner that resembled the reverse of what happens when a hole gets punctured on the hull of a spacecraft. He saw this, and was seriously considering fleeing in another direction, when he laughed to himself, saying, "What the fuck am I doing?" and gave the world a hearty belly laugh before the warmth and coldness enveloped him at last.

***

"That was a big explosion," observed Cain of the point where the glidebombs had struck; she discerned it as a single individual detonation rather than multiple warheads going off at once. "Let's assume they're dead, then. Too bad about the Leviathan-class sub, but otherwise this is a fair turnout. I hope.

"Send a message to the Allaneans, asking them about status and all that diplomatic/operations standard shit."

“Sir, this just in. Sensor feeds have confirmed the Rapture to be dead in the water. Radiation level is... god I don't know, ten times normal? A hundred times longer? And there's a cloud of radioactive steam and God only knows where it will end up. Did we have to do it that way, Sir?”

The Admiral blinked. “Ensign, you fail to understand. That submarine had already launched a thermonuclear weapon within Allanean territory. It refused to communicate with us, or with it's own commanders. There was a very high chance it would have fired nuclear weapons at us.”

“But, Sir...”

“Listen, Ensign. It is my duty – and your duty, I might add – to protect civilians in Allanea from being direct targets of a thermonuclear attack. Even one nuke blowing up in Port-Allanea would kill upwards of five million people. I shudder at the very thought of twenty SLBMs hitting. And while we can take them down with ABM, it is best that they are destryoed before they are launched. It is, I say again, our fucking duty to prevent them hitting our cities – at any cost, and if we need to kill every blue whale in the ocean, then so fucking be it. Fuck Greenpeace, I say.”

“But the fallout...”

“Yes. Some people will be affected. Some will die. Some will sue the Army and win. But you know fucking what, Ensign? This is much fucking better then having Port-Allanea glow in the dark. Are we clear, Ensign?”


“Yes, Sir.

* * * *

“And now we need a statement from the Perimetrians.”

“I thought we need a statement for the Perimetrians?”

“No, damn you, I know what I'm saying, we need a statement from the Perimetrians. I want to know what the hell was a goddamn Perimetrian sub doing in our waters. Tell them we demand an investigation! And yes, we are entitled to a good, honest explanation, when their sub turns up, refuses to communicate with us, and then touches off what amounts to a giant nuclear firework in our territroy. They can't just... do that! That is an act of war!”

“Should I write that?”

“No, no, you fool! Just write that that was a very bad thing, and that we are definitely not amused and want to know the truth. Be polite and firm. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Then get to typing! And tell them we killed the sub dead.”

16:23
"Allanean message," Athenos called, taking the attention of the whole room, who had been otherwise watching the foam from the explosion subside.

"What's it say?" asked Jamison.

"Investigation request, summary explanation, dead submarine."

"That's pretty comprehensive. What do we say, Directress?"

"Tell them everything," Cain said without a second thought.

"What?" voices overlapped.

"It's not our fault, is it? We just got a hold of Strzalkowski. Popped him a single 'do you know anything about this?' question and he spilled the beans. The guys were 'topian extremists. The plan was Jake's but he disowned it after some thought. Pique Interest was a cover for shooting missiles in both directions, start the Allanean-PD war. It was a shitty thing - the Allaneans don't have ICBM's to hit us with - but it would certainly be the start of something really fancy and highfalutin."

"No fucking way. Start a war that big? Kill millions! What the hell for?"

"They didn't like the way we...ahem, rightfully waste the Bigtopians and their relatives. Plan was to give the BT's a chance to survive while we waged war."

"So we tell the Allaneans all of this."

"Send them audio transcripts and the whole detection log-" Cain was interrupted by the entry of a man in a very neat suit - one of her advisors.

"Directress," he said. "A minute, please."

"Yes, George. I'll be back in a moment." "George" and Cain left the bridge.

"So," Greer said. "Let's get that message going. Nothing here was barred for transmission to the Allaneans, so send them everything anyway. They might like us better for that. Remember to emphasize the fact that we ourselves had nothing to do with it; the bastards acted independently."

"Got it, sir," Athenos said.

"They certainly nuked that sub bad, didn't they?" Bastion frowned. "Should we expect some form of compensation?"

"They had every right to turn that sub into debris," Greer responded with some distaste. "They may even argue for salvage rights. Let them offer compensation, if they ever plan to give it."

"I guess you're right."

"I would wish for a cash back on those, especially with the loss of the Assassin missiles. Do I recall rightly the Assassins having some kind of underwater capability? You know, launch them out to sea with the battery-powered impellor, then rise them up and boost stage activate?"

"Christ, you're not thinking--?"

"Of course not, ha! And even if Rapture's crew tried to do that, the missile would have been torn up anyway by those nukes. Simple as that-"

Cain burst into the bridge with her advisor, carrying papers and tossing a small PDA on a desk, while saying: "...Stay sharp, whoever did this, I want his fucking head on a platter."

"Ma'am?" Greer stood up.

Cain didn't respond and instead flipped one of the consoles to view the satellite TV feeds.

"...was called Rapture, and our source claimed to be one of her crew members. Judging from what we have just seen-" a satellite-based video appeared of the Rapture's position being hit by bombs- "since we lost contact with him at approximately the time of this sight, we may possibly consider it authentic, or at the very least by someone with very high-level access. The Rapture had apparently intruded into Allanean waters and was summarily attacked by coastal forces..."

12:00 GMT - flashback

"Joy Castro, SHN cable."

"This is Dionisio Enriquez of the Perimetrian sub Rapture. I'm calling you from inside the Allanean exclusion zone, and we're armed with a lot of nuclear missiles. This is all you're going to have to work with for now, so listen carefully."

The woman named Joy Castro knew instantly and without a doubt that today was special. Today she woke up early, today her boyfriend's efforts resulted in her climaxing quite conspicuously, today she did not get stuck in traffic for an hour and a half, and here was the apparent beginning of the greatest story since the Questarian shitpile. She would become the next Andie Lederman! Well, not really, and she could never write as well as that lucky bitch, but at least she'd get some manner of fame.

"Okay, Mr. Enriquez. I'm listening."

15:46 GMT - flashback
"Jen?" Enriquez called to Halley.

"Captain?" she replied.

"You know the drill. If we fail to launch the missiles, we'll at least let the world know what we did. We have classified documents on PD cruelty to Bigtopian citizens and prisoners. Kill reports on immigration control teams. Hell, we have information on what the fuck is happening now."

"I understand sir. I'll get right on it. Any particular news service in mind?"

"Sidner-Hayley Networks has a good deal. Send it also to CNN if they still have it. And I have a few typed-up docs in the folder. Give them to the Associated Press interlink."

"Aye, sir."

16:24 GMT

"With reports on Perimetrian and Allanean cruelty against Bigtopians being replicated across the satellite networks, one can only wonder what sort of effect this will have on both nations' reputations - outside of them, and within them..."

"While Bigtopia and her dependencies are certainly less than friendly to most nations, the general consensus of morality does not include murder and mindless slaughter!..."

"Word's out on the street that Questers disapproves of Perimeter Defense's treatment of Bigtopians! Are we looking at economic and military sanctions here?..."

"...so I says to them, 'My wife's a Bigtopian! She could kick your wife's ass!' Hah! 'Well, my wife's an Allanean,' the other guy goes. 'She WILL kick your wife's ass! And cut her torso off, and hang it by the sidewalk for kids to use as a pinata!' Now guts don't taste quite as good as candy, but they certainly look nicer than candy when they splatter all over the asphalt! Whoo!"

"Jesus H. Christ," Cain said. No one else spoke.

Fox News broadcast

http://www.donnafiducia.com/images/DF4.jpg

Greetings, and this Fox News' On the Hour. First of all, the Perimetrian U-Boat Crisis continues. The Allanean government will be raising the Rapture, but they told the Perimetrians that after it gets decontaminated, the Perimetrians will be allowed to inspect the boat and remove all of the surviving sensitive electronics from it – that is our gesture of goodwill. After that, the hull proper will undergo another decontamination process and will be mounted at the Naval Academy of Allanea as a giant monument.

There is a large amount of discomfort at Congress at the discovered data regarding the tactics used by our immigration control services. It appears already the Anarchist parties threatened to leave the coalition and no longer support President Reynes' budget proposal unless she promises immediate border reform. On the other hand, conservatives have disagreed, and it appears the Republicans and the Constitution Party will back the budget proposal – if Reynes makes them concessions on the armed forces budget of course.

In the meanwhile, the Subdepartment of Explanation teamed up with the Border Patrol and the Secure Borders Foundation of Allanea to create an ad on the border tactics issue. Here is that highly-controversial ad.

*

The camera pans to the image of a muscular Allanean in camouflage, leaning on a rifle and wearing a camouflaged uniform, his face obscured.

“Greetings. I am a Senior Marksman. I am a sniper with the Allanean Border Patrol, under the Department of Justice Special Operations Unit, Team Theta. Our job is immigration interdiction and control. No, you cannot know my name, nor are you allowed to see my face. Even in Free Allanea, there are limits. One of them is classified military data.”

He pauses, and points to the flat desert terrain behind him. “We are now fifty furlongs away from the Azahan border. On the border proper, the ABP maintains a four-yard tall concrete fence that also goes two meters deep and is festooned by CCTV cameras and motion sensors. It is constantly patrolled by Border Patrol vehicles and by private militias of various types.”

“Now, Allanea doesn't oppose immigration. Any citizen of any nation can apply for, and often receive, a visa or even a refugee status. On every border, we have offices to which you can arrive and ask for one. But if you try to fence-hop... well, following straight behind the fence are fifty furlongs of the most treacherous terrain of all time. Sure it's desert – but it's desert criss-crossed with minefields, obstacle patterns, and of course more patrols and Border Patrol camps. We make it a rule to allow dangerous animals – desert wolves, jackals, snakes – to flourish there, too. And finally, after that, are farms.”

“Farms that we normally allow the most, well, extremist men in our society to possess. Trespass on a land of some Stop Immigration Now member – and the SINner is more likely then not to just bury you in his back yard.”

“At any rate, where was I? Ah yes. All of this for a good reason. After losing the war against us, Azaha has a shitload of deserters and other assorted fucknuts trying to cross our border. They're armed. They're dangerous as all get-out. They shoot at us. They kill people in Allanea and assault their wives – the bad kind of assault if you know what I mean.”

“And this is why we have this policy – it's like a door policy. Knock on my door politely and I will let you in, or at least open it and ask who you are. Break into my house...”

Suddenly, several figures appear far behind the operatives back. The camera focuses and zooms in on them. They're Azahan deserters – still armed, still wearing the tattered remains of their uniforms. One of them is bandaged. It's clearly been a hard journey for them.

And then there is a loud BANG. And another one. And another. We see the Azahans fall until none are left. And then the camera shifts to the Allanean.

“Break into my house,” - says the Operative as he lowers his rifle - “And die.”

This has been a broadcast by the Allanean Border Patrol, the Subdepartment of Explanation, and the Secure Borders Foundation of Allanea

20:32 GMT
It was a day of incident for everyone in Perimeter Defense, and the action did not let up in the evening. No one was granted reprieve from the awesome flurries of activity that encapsulated every major office in the country; former desk slackers would jump at every set of footsteps that entered close proximity to their cubicles, thinking that another walking bunch of orders was headed their way. And in most cases, they were right. By this time, everyone who was awake enough was doing some form of analysis of the battle, or suppressing the media, feeding them nonsense or hope, and all those who weren't awake enough were working just as much anyway - only they were probably face down on a stack of papers.

And then there was the Diplomatic Corps, each member of which having frayed nerves and hoarse voices for all the concession-a-minute action and the marathons across the nation to represent the military for that damned incident. Yes, it was their job to walk up to that podium whenever shit like this happened, but this time it looked like someone inside the military had been responsible. Directress Cain, who had flown over on her F-35's afterburner, was trying to hold down the hatches, but not even the Directress herself could handle over a hundred global news stations pummeling both Allanea and Perimeter Defense for answers and explanations - this doesn't even mention the other organizations with their own questions and reactions. So the DiploCorps had to clean up the PD Navy's very, very personal mess, and they didn't like it one bit.

But on this dark night, which at the capital of Cyvils, was quite stormy as well, one particular office within the Annex of the Second Citadel exuded an anomalous silence and air of restitution from the events of the day. The oak desk was certainly nice, but normal enough. The golden, soft LED room lighting was a good bit of ambiance but in the end it was nothing special. No, the curious aspect of this room was due to its possession by CINCLOC Jacob Strzalkowski, who sat at his console having just finished sending some files to the AP Interlink.

15:49 GMT - flashback

"Jake," said Enriquez.

"Dionisio," came Strzalkowski's reply. It had been a few days since their face-to-face meeting, quite. They hadn't communicated since, at all. This was a low-res video transmission coming out of a buoy relaying via satellite, but clear enough it was that Strzalkowski could see the flooding of the decks, the sparking equipment and the blood and corpses strewn about randomly, so that he knew what was going on. "You went through with it."

"We tried, but looks like it's not going to happen after all. We're disabled to hell."

"I-"

'Stick it. You're about to hear my dying wishes, so remember this well."

"Why are you using the public relays? You'll be traced to me. And...I'll be traced to you. Is this some kind of revenge, Dionisio? Am I being tracked down by Perimeter Defense as we speak?"

"I'm too smart for revenge, Jake. We relayed it off a Questarian satellite with a collect modem call. This is what I want done. I'm sending files now."

"Received - oh my God."

"You got that right."

"I- you did it. This is...perfect. We won't need a war; this will collapse their treatment of the 'topians for sure. This may even...I can't believe it."

In the deep red hue of the emergency lighting, Enriquez's lips formed a smiling crease. "Send it to everyone. Relay as much as you can. Our bandwidth is massively limited here, can't give it to as many as we'd like, but if we channel it through you..."

"I'll do it. This is what we've been working for, Dionisio. You did it."

"I only hope it's the right thing to do..."

"What?"

Dionisio looked down. "I've had a few days and the rest of my life to think about what we talked about before. Crippling countries, killing innocents..."

"Dionisio, this is it. A nonviolent method of wiping out their violence. It's ironic; I know they deserve the violence - I had a lot of time to think to, you know."

"So we've suddenly exchanged opinions since that meeting on the Darius, huh?"

"Appears we did."

"So you'll do it."

"I'm doing it as we speak.

"Thank you."

"Thank you."

20:39 GMT
Directress Cain didn't knock, but she came into CINCLOC's office with a tray of food. "Brought it in myself; no one's around who can get it for you without being mobbed by the reporters downstairs. I can drive them off."

Strzalkowski stood up. "Directress Cain."

"Hello, Jacob. As you can see, your dinner's here."

"Thank you, quite thoughtful."

"Not really. I was on the way up anyway." She set the tray down on Strzalkowski's desk. "And as I said, this would never have gotten up here if it weren't for me." She laughed.

"Please, take a seat." She did. "So what's new? Status and all."

"The Allaneans are decontaminating their waters and will let us in the sub to retrieve electronics ASAP. They're getting the hull as a monument, but that's perfectly fine."

"You see that new ad the Allaneans made?"

"Hell yeah. It's pretty damn hardcore for my public TV tastes, but what's most impressive is how quickly it was put together. One wonders whether the footage of the killed stragglers was spliced in with new video."

"Indeed."

"So. Main question at hand: You really were involved with Captain Dionisio St. Maria Enriquez, weren't you?"

Strzalkowski's heart skipped a beat. "Excuse me?"

"You were good friends."

"Yes. A student of mine at the Academy. We go back and back. He was my best."

"And you two shared a lot of ideals in common."

Strzalkowski flared up mildly. "I dislike the treatment of Bigtopians, Directress Cain, but I am infinitely adverse to the prospect of millions of innocent deaths."

"Of course. I never made any proper insinuations, Jacob." In sharp contrast to Strzalkowski's sudden outburst, Cain was smiling and perfectly calm, her heterochromic blue and green eyes never losing their staggering gaze.

Strzalkowski knew that he had fucked up, but quickly covered it up. "I'm sorry for my outburst. There's a lot of blame to go around, and I'd rather have none of it."

"Neither would I, Jacob. Hey, I haven't seen what the dishes are for tonight. Let's have a look at your meal."

Strzalkowski took off the metal cover on the tray to reveal some chicken soup, mashed potatoes, a platter of grilled chicken, fried rice, and a stick of beef barbecue. "It looks good."

"Definitely is. Go ahead, eat. We can talk while you do; I don't care much for manners when it's just the two of us."

"Thank you." He started on the rice, with deliberate movements of the hands for scooping and consuming. "It is good."

"I'm sure. So what do you make of the satellite transmissions that we traced to the Rapture?"

Strzalkowski nearly spat his food out. "I was unaware of those."

"Ah, of course, we kept it quite secret. Rapture used many of her detection buoys as communications setups for use with government satellites and some other offset non-terrestrial relays. We never focused on what the buoy was sending, because we only checked radar frequencies. Radio waves and some microwaves were there but the content wasn't looked into."

"Have you determined this content?"

"Oh, yes, but in the reverse order. We first found the information, and then traced it back to them. It was a whole lot of information, really - Allanean border tactics, Perimeter Defense BT/MT kill records, photographs and rosters. Enough to send the media and the rest of the world upon us like dogs. So much information, in fact, that given that they were using a connection with bandwidth that was probably equivalent to weak ISDN...Six hours, with substantial breaks in between, would never have been enough."

"I see."

"What's even more interesting is that only some of the information was traced directly back to Rapture. The rest was relayed by something else. We have reason to believe it was one of their associates within the government."

Strzalowski was visibly shaking now; he tried his best to conceal it, but Cain was a genius at this stuff. "Who?"

"Liquidated a bunch already. Jordan MacDonald, Kassidy Lee, Heinreich Wiene...mostly old names. The traces were fine. Some of them were sending as they were killed."

Strzalkowski mentally sighed, relieved. While he mourned the death of his allies, they knew what they had signed up for when they volunteered to be decoys for the information traces. For what is good!

"That's good to hear. It's a pity they died, somewhat."

"They served as a good example for enemies of the state. Especially really big ones."

"Agreed." He tasted the beef. "This food is good."

"Are you good, Strzalkowski?"

"Pardon?"

"Good person."

"Well, not to be proud or anything, but yes, I suppose I am."

"Then you are what you eat." They laughed together. Jacob ate some more of the barbecue. Then, he noticed his hand twitching. "Huh." The jerks became more vigorous with each passing second, and it seemed to move up to his arm. His breathing became harder, as though each breath was insufficient. Suddenly his head was assaulted with throbs of pain. He became dizzy, and stood up to get to the sofa, but collapsed before he did. He was sweating hard; he was so weak now, and his vision blurred. He vomited much of what he had eaten, along with a fair amount of blood. Soon, he began drooling, and clutching his chest and arching his back in the intense pain that had just overcome the rest of his body. Cluster headache saw its victims describing their pain as being repeatedly stabbed in the eye with an ice pick - Strzalkowski now knew what they meant, but he was too much in pain, too delirious with the stress, to think about that.

Another minute of this, and he stopped moving entirely. Cain walked over to his body, and whispered in his ear, "You are what you eat. Your beef is a dead cow. What are you, Jake?"

She walked out the room, making sure to dump the beef in the trash bin lest some greedy idiot take some of it and die just like the good CINCLOC did.

***

Associated Press Interlink 2007:4431:43b0:abcd:abcd:babe:::9223
November 12, 2007
(EXCERPT ONLY)

By the time of this writing, Directress Cain will have addressed the nation of Perimeter Defense, but let's take a recap of what she said.

Cain assured the public that the rogue submarine was operating entirely outside of true government orders, and rumors of high-ranking internal accomplices have been debunked by her. Several inside sources confirmed the liquidation of former government personnel, but Cain asserted the lack of ties between said personnel and the primary administration.

The death of CINCLOC Strzalkowski was tragic, she said, but not unexpected; later test results that noted a mix of symptoms including myocardial infarction simply revealed the end of his battle with diseases that he had kept from the public for many years, in order to remain in office. "This was a coincidence," she said, "and nothing more. Sad, yes, but unrelated."

To the Allaneans, she thanked them for their ongoing support in the crisis at hand and for the salvage of technologies, gave them assurance that an investigation was not only in progress but was on the verge of completion, and agreed to the use of the Rapture's hull as a monument within the Naval Academy of Allanea. She also offered to provide decontamination assistance.

Finally, she requested that questions concerning Perimeter Defense's inhumane treatment of the Bigtopians be redirected to Defensive Services and the Diplomatic Corps.

Relaxation Airways, Flight 980

Flight 980 was a normal 8 hour flight on the aging 737. It was supposed to be a quick overnight hop to fanciful Allanean resorts where they could enjoy pleasures like promiscious sex, firing of large bore weaponry, and even shooting at illegal immigrants if they got a package deal with a few 'extremist ranchers'. Of course all of this was possible in mainland Leafanistan and even more possible in Saharistan but sometimes you just didn't want to have your neighbors watch you come back from "Mister's Amazing Dongtastic Dildo Depot and All you can Eat 24 hour Shooting Range" after church.

The warnings had come when they got a direct cable from the Ministry of Transportation saying to immediately land on vector 280 which would take them to another airport far away. The crew protested before they were shouted down by an official whose rank meant he could legally have them all arrested for murder and held for 3 years before a trial was even conceived for them.

They began to turn and were getting ready to land. It was the final approach, they were so close to the airstrip. Then a bright flash enveloped the airplane, and it all went to hell.

16:02 GMT Allanean Coastline, 79 km away from last known position of Rapture

The plane's electronic voice had ceased. The engines had wound down. The in-flight movie was gone and all that was knowable was that the plane was rocketing toward the earth. The massive jet filled with electronics, people, fuel and cargo was now a oversized metal glider.

They were too close to the ground. They had been descending to land and that only exasperated their problem. The pilot grabbed the stick but it was dead, he pulled at it only to have nothing respond. He told the co-pilot to get this plane started and told everyone else to brace for impact.

900m from the coastline they restarted the engines and power flowed back into the plane. The pilot grabbed his stick and pulled up. The plane responded sluggishly as the ground filled his cockpit window. He put down the landing gear but they didn't respond. He told the co-pilot and navigator to get into the crawlspace and put it down manually. He knew they couldn't make it.

The plane slammed into the beach directly in front of the airfield at a shallow angle. The 737 careened through a pile of private bungalows where no doubt afternoon orgies were occurring. It sliced through a dirt roadway and headed toward the runway at the end of the beach. Only one problem, a cheap hotel near the airport was directly in front of it.

From the crunch upon landing the pilot knew the co-pilot and navigator were dead, only the front landing gear had come down manually. The pilot prayed, first time in his life, not to his God or Gods, but to his co-pilot's God. He knew the man was Catholic and prayed he would make it to heaven. He had one more second of life before he realized how absurd it all was.

The 737 made contact with the concrete hotel and exploded into a ball of fire. The left engine easily punctured the structure, it was still turning as it rocketed into the air and skidded to a stop on the runway. The right one lodged itself into a honeymoon suite. The lack of fuel meant the rear of the plane was mostly intact. Too bad the impact had been great enough to completely smash the spines of anyone in the rear, and anyone still alive would have viewed in abject horror as the hotel forced their seats out of their bolts and sent them flying toward the flaming wreckage of the first part of the jet.

OOC: So as of now, the thread is officially open. The primary crisis between Allanea and I is over, and the real "Minor Inconvenience" surfaces, that of tension concerning treatment of refugees, border patrol abuse, human rights issues with the Bigtopians, and whatnot.

Affiliates and interested can enter to participate in the issue. Leafanistan did a clever issue with a passenger plane over the Rapture's location - although why the government would allow any other planes over such a critical location may be a question upon which to ponder.

For those who are, sadly, too bored, busy, or lazy to read the whole thread, here's a brief recap:

Nuclear submarine Rapture breaks down in Allanea (North Haven) waters. Allanea finds out and investigates. PD asks for permission to retrieve sub. Sub makes no contact with either nation. Sub turns out to be loaded with defectors, people disgusted by PD and Allanean treatment of Bigtopians and other such individuals. Plan is to launch nuclear weapons in both directions, at both nations, to start massive conflict.

Sub shoots down very high-altitude PD UAV with a nuclear weapon. Allaneans get goosed and try to destroy sub. Sub is destroyed. Several flashbacks reveal that documents, videos, and information were sent to major news agencies across the world, from the sub, which contained deadly information on PD and Allanean border tactics, slaughtering of Bigtopians, etc.

PD and Allanean try to stave off the sudden influx of inquiries, attacks, debates, etc. against them. PD's leader kills the discovered leader of the whole operation.

Supplemental: Leafanistani passenger aircraft is destroyed when the nuclear ASW weapons intended to hit the sub are detonated.

Characters (PD): Directress Adrianne Cain, leader
CINCLOC Jacob Strzalkowski: Leader of the operation to send Allanea and PD into war.
Captain Dionisio Enriquez: Skipper on the Rapture, close associate of Strzalkowski.

November 13, 2007
7:15 GMT
Associated Press Interlink (Qserv)

It's been about fifteen hours since the world began receiving information concerning the Perimetrian-Allanean U-Boat Crisis, and then the latter transmissions from various individuals across the world detailing both nations' crimes against humanity. The claims of cruelty to immigrants have now been verified through deep checking of the transition records at the Perimeter Defense Border Passage Registry, and the Allanean Secure Borders Foundation database.

In response, PD's Directress Cain made a lengthy statement addressing Allanea, the death of CINCLOC Strzalkowski, and some important questions on the matter of border control. Allanea, in turn, began an advertising campaign that served to delineate the actual immigration control process and its own homeland security system for its national boundaries.

The international community has expressed much distaste for both nations' actions, and activist groups attuned to human rights and implementation of such have begun calling for boycotts and sanctions on many sectors of both countries' economies and international trade routes.

In related news, the crash of RA-800, its damaging of several Allanean coastline hotels and the total destruction of the Adderley, have been linked to the nuclear weapons used against the Perimetrian defector sub, Rapture. The total loss of life is uncertain as of this moment, but it is generally accepted that there were no survivors on the aircraft itself.

The Word

In the confusingly consequentialist conflict with all sides seemingly in the wrong. The disaster of RA-800 due to nuclear depth charges has polarized Leafanistan's discussions.

An informal internet poll (requires registration, click here to vote) on our website has ruled that nearly 50% of Leafanistanis have had a full blown argument with a friend/coworker/associate and 30% have had a full blown argument with a stranger on this issue. Improper flight handling and the sheer range of EMP's from the nuclear charges are to blame in the disaster.

The incident was started by the rogue Perimeter Defense submarine Rapture who tried to start a covert nuclear war with Allanea. The response was overwhelming and crushing and resulted in collateral damage in the case of RA-800.

RA-800 was turning away from the site to do an emergency landing on orders of the Ministry of State when a nearby nuclear depth charge set off an EMP which knocked out the electronics of the 737 and sent it on a collision course with the ground. The plane's black box recorded the the pilot ordering the co-pilot to put down the landing gear manually when the engine does not restart.

As the plane impacted the sandy beaches at a shallow angle killing the copilot . The aircraft's black box then recorded the pilot making a short prayer for the copilot when it collides with a beachfront hotel. It is believed all 157 passengers and 22 crew were killed on impact.

The families of passengers meanwhile have filed a class action wrongful death suit in the local City court system against Perimeter Defense claiming that it was the result of incompetent psychiatric screening on their part for allowing such an unbalanced crew to serve.

[END]