NationStates Jolt Archive

The empty casings littered the blood soaked grass, craters aligned in a random pattern, pieces of flesh and metal resting in charred earth. From all directions you could only see a stale light, and the only thing one could smell was the death and destruction that was just now wreathed. A gloomy future was all that was left behind, a doomed past never to be forgotten...

Somewhere in the Miraky Sea, near the Nerotikan Controlled Seldan Islands..

He stood on a beach, over-looking the foggy horizon. Old in age, he sat and continued to watch. A deep intensity devoured his eyes whole, seeming as if he were lost in the hazy sunlight which still grasped his windswept face. Far off into the distance, though, the sound of a thundering brawl could be heard. As if in an orchestrated chorus were belting out thunder, it was somewhat of a symphony. In rows of 4, 3, 4, 3. It hit, then it hit, then it hit, and then it hit..and then it paused. Then again, it hit..louder..closer..and again it did this, repeatedly. As the sound grew closer, the outline of a large vessel could be seen..the sands of the beach it self vibrant in it's blasts. The old man stood up, and began to lean on a stick he had gathered from the woods. With only a blank expression, he turned..and he walked..

Persephone, Nova Nihon

"You..what?!!" The man was loud, and he was very upset. His voice showed a hint of fear, but at the same time it was not the fear that consumed it..more or less, a distrust. In front of him, a fully decorated man paced him self from either end of the office. Once his contemplations were over, he turned his gaze onto the man prior and began to speak.

"Prime Minister, it would be in your best interests to not be so upset about these..decisions. Besides, they are in the best interests of Nihon..and are as you ordered, it's only a matter of time now until these inferior Nerotikans begin sending their futile messages..and, once that has happened, we will use it in our advantage..so, please..I implore you..remain calm." He walked over to a book shelf, which held some personal belongings of the Prime Minister, and reached for one of his trophies from the old days.

"It's an amazement...I think, how one can be so...fathomed of himself, yet so..immobile." With that, the decorated man left the office of the Prime Minister.

Some miles off the coast of Selda-Pra

The INNS Kyo Battle Group finished firing off it's warning volley as it approached the Nerotikan Isle of Selda-Pra. It had been given the orders to seize any Fisheries and Ships as it neared the Island, and was to secure a safe amount of Nerotikan Waters until further notice. The crew aboard the ships were not fully aware of the scenario they were starting, though many were in the belief that it was a continuation of Nihoni Expansionism into the Miraky Sea. Which was correct, in some ways, but the true objective was not just that.

They were surprised to have broken into Nerotikan-waters so easily, that was until they began to pick up a radio transmission from a Naval Group some miles to the southwest... The Message was clear, however the Nihoni-ships remained silent awaiting their Commander's next orders.

Baersworth, Nerotika

The Chairman’s office was relatively quite that day, an almost ominous feel but that was ignored. In the chairman’s office sat an elderly looking man of 53, Chairman Darinsky was written on a placard that sat at the edge of the desk. Darinsky, as it would be assumed, was this elderly man. His facial hair was grayed and thick but not long and his top hair was a strange mix of black and grey parted to the side. He was reading a few papers that the council had approved of for his signature, laws and decree’s most of which seemed to be to long and elaborate for his taste. To his left there sat a coat hanger with a military uniform hung on it this being the chairman’s uniform for public addresses. Though he wasn’t a dictator or a military ruler he enjoyed wearing the uniform which made him feel more official, it also gave a good look to the nerotikan people who pride themselves on military duty.

The day had been quite so far and hours into the chairman’s reading a small read light blinked on his desk, a sign that someone had arrived and wanted to talk to him urgently. He pressed a small button next to the light and a buzz noise sounded opening a door at the end of his hallway.

“Whoever that is, let them in.” He said to his secretary, who obliged and opened the chairman’s door…

The message was presented promptly, almost immediately as if the attack was anticipated. A few simple words written on a small piece of paper delivered to the chairman by a general of the Naval Ministry.

“Seldan Isle’s under attack, request permission to retaliate.” Darinsky read this twice over, he couldn’t believe that in his time he would have to deal with this sort of business. Nerotika had for so long been peaceful, after the establishment of the Council State not a single Chairman had yet to deploy military forces and Darinsky cursed the idea that he would be the first. Knowing full well that he would have to grant permission to the 3rd Naval Battlegroup allowing them to enter the Seldan waters and return fire against the invading forces.

“Permission granted.” He said his tone low and with a glance to the general he wrote the words on paper and handed it to the uniformed man.

Miraky Sea, Nerotikan Waters

The battlegroup received the message within an hour of its delivery. They were already prepared to deploy and now geared up and moved out. Two lead battleships and several cruisers along with two transports that would load with troops on an island base near the Seldan territories. Artillery on the island chain would be deployed and aimed toward Seldan-Pra, if invaded they planned to blow the place to pieces. There wasn’t much military force in the area but what was there would have to be ready to fight an invasion. Beaches would be reinforced, machineguns and defensive walls of sandbags would have to be built, it would take time and they hoped the approaching battlegroup would give them that but they only had as much time as the Nihon’s gave them, it would be assumed that Seldan-Pra was lost already.

Seldan-Pra

The small base was busy now, the 420 men stationed there were now running back and forth preparing themselves for battle. No one knew what would happen next after the barrage of artillery but most could guess. The island was almost entirely jungle so any warfare fought would be long and drawn out. The base had no artillery to reply against the Nihon navy and even if it did it had no orders to retaliate. Most fishing boats along the coastal villages were returning in fear of being attacked or commandeered and villagers were preparing to greet the Nihonii force as liberators so as to keep their fishing industries and not be seen as threats. The soldiers on the island now felt like outcast as the villages were closed up to them when the units arrived to defend the coasts.

As to avoid any unnecessary innocent deaths, the Imperial Naval Department had decided to not authorize the use of heavy bombardment. As well, the 3rd MEU which had been activated and currently in-tow of the Battlegroup, had been ordered to not engage hostiles with use of Napalm or White Phosphorous. Of course, the Imperial Navy could obliterate the Island before the Nerotikans had a chance to respond, though they didn't want to appear as brunt and brash..not yet at least.

On-board the INNS Kuroshi

Imperial Marine Colonel Shibuzu "Ichi" Ichiro stood in front of a rather large audience, a rather young audience. Eying the fresh faces, and some of those scarred from years past, he felt competent enough that the men he would lead into battle today would win. Not only was this supported by reports of a possibly small Nerotikan Garrison, but because no other fighting unit was the better..the Imperial Marine Corps always won, and every Marine with-in it was the finest example of a Warrior known on the very face of this earth. Smiling broadly, he began to to speak.

"Gentlemen..Marines..God's Finest. Today we are faced with a simple task, a simple task indeed..but do not let that fool you. It may appear that our enemy is small in number, inferior in technology, and weaker in over-all strength. Do not let this fool you, Marines.. Our enemy is a ruthless sort. They shall give no Quarter, and I expect no less the same for them!" The effect was what he had wished for, a roar erupted amongst the men.

"Now now..It brings a joy to my heart that you are so eager to meet your counterpart in battle, however..I do not want you to forget this one important fact. Some of you will die, and this is an unavoidable repercussion of War. However, I do not want this to put a fear into your bowels..those who shall fall today, will be remembered for an eternity. Death on the battlefield brings the greatest honor to us all, and such is rewarded with the greatest of Heavens above.." The men were silently anticipating more of his speech as he paused to look into the eyes of, respectively, his three Captains below.

"But enough of my dribble drabble! I keep you away from preparations too long! Go, enjoy this small amount of time we have..for it is the last bit of peace we shall all see this day!." He finished, and the men began to roar louder than before. He turned, and walked through an entryway..away from sight, he leaned against a wall and began to gaze throughout the hallway. Today would be a fine day, but Tonight..Tonight you never know.

Phase Two - Queue the Serpent's Sting

Lt. Colonel Shughart of the Bere-ketsueki 9 had been given an 20-minutes to prepare himself to leave. He had only been home for two months, barely enough time to be introduced to his new daughter..and definitely not enough time to repay the grief he had caused his wife months ago. His gear had been as he'd left it, packed up and ready. He had given it to the Agents who had arrived to pick him up, and was spending the remainder of his time before he would have to leave.

"I love you..so much..I'm sorry..so very sorry, but I have to go." He said, holding his sobbing wife. She clenched onto him tightly, almost as if she expected her grasp to overwhelm the world around her..but she let go. She picked up their infant daughter, Anne, and handed her to the Lt. Colonel..the infant's father.

"My..my..you're such a beautiful girl, you know that? You've got your mother eyes..and nose..wow, thank the Gods you've got nothing obviously from me.." he started to laugh a little, which put a smile on the infant girl's face..and his wife's as well.

"Now..daddy gotta go somewhere for awhile, and he doesn't know when he'll be back..but he promises, he'll come back..and if it seems like a long time, he wants you to know he loves you..very much. In fact..." he reached into a jacket pocket, and pulled out a metallic object..

"This is something very important to your daddy, it..saved his life once. I want you to keep it, and hopefully it'll bring you some luck some day as well." He smiled, and handed his daughter back to his wife..just as that happened, an Agent walked in.

"Lt. Colonel, it's time to go."

-----

1550 Hours, South Iwo Hiroto

A group of 11 members of the Elite BB-9 sat in a briefing room, finishing a battle plan. They were to be inserted into a Nerotikan Island which had reportedly been housing some long-range Arsenal for quite some time. Their objective was to sabotage any Artillery and Long-Range Missile Systems they'd come into contact with, and were instructed of the same old..same old. Cyanide pills if they were to be captured, and suicide if they ultimately failed their mission. Their entry? They would paraglide under cover of night, and the regional fog. Use of Lethal Force - Authorized; only when Necessary. They would covertly take out any Nerotikans, and Civilians, that posed any sort of a threat to the mission. Once they are successful with the mission, their orders are to make way to a specified area near the Northeast and await for Nihoni Marines to land.

The Operational Name had been given the title - Serpent's Sting.

Phase 1 - Spitfire Engage

The MEU, or Marine Expeditionary Unit, had arrived at their Point of Operations on time. The Battlegroup had finished it's shelling, which had targeted key beach defenses. The Marines were prepared, and awaiting the order to disembark..which they finally got. Anxious to see Battle, Imperial Marines loaded onto their respective transports and began to ship out in groups of 3. As the transports got closer, the Nerotikans apparently ordered to fire. This is what the Nihoni Marine Pilots were waiting for, and the roar of three A-10s was soon over-head. Strafing various pill boxes and the sort, the A-10s returned to their home carriers. However, the gunfire had not yet stopped..

The first Marines made their landing, and casualties were reported immediately.

Sgt. John Peirceson starred out at the sea and the oncoming enemy ships. This was it, the moment he knew was coming and he lifted his XM-8 rifle up and aligned the sights at the ships. Waiting patiently the seven men under his commander also had their rifles raised and ready. The company commander, Commander Andrew Wills, had ordered that not a single shot was to be fired until they entered the shallow waters which were 45 feet out reaching a depth of 17 feet and shrinking to the beach. Once that area was breached the guns broke loose twenty MG’s and 110 FN2000 rifles firing various rounds, 7.62 or 5.56. Once the Nerotikan guns fired it was like signing a death wish, immediately afterward they were returned an even heavier amount, not only from small arms but from 3 A-10’s that screamed across the sky and bombarded their positions with its powerful cannon exploding the ground and blowing the pieces anyone unfortunate enough to get hit.

The island was ablaze of gunfire, screams of pain and the barking of orders echoed throughout the jungle near the beaches. It was a small resistance but the forces would not give their enemies anymore land then had already been given, but with the A-10’s soaring above doing unimaginable amounts of damage it was inevitable that the infantry would be on the retreat soon. The defending unit had already reported forty casualties of the 130 men listed and more were coming as the Nihonii’s crowded the beaches and pushed to their defensive positions. The sand was soaked in blood and bodies, both sides saw the loss of men but the Nerotikans would soon loose every soldier if they didn’t order the retreat soon.

Cmmdr. Wills sighed heavily, he had just received several requests for retreat from the unit he had placed to defend the beachhead and had no choice but to allow it. Peirceson got the call through the NBN (Nerotikan Battle Network), a system designed specifically for the Nerotikan soldier that allowed him to stay in contact with every soldier’s position. “Retreat, abandon all positions and retreat into the forest. Your no good to us dead.” The men jumped over the small wall behind them and suddenly the 70 or so living Nerotikans stood up and began running, a cowardly move by any militaries standards but there would be a reason for forcing the battle into the jungle.

Lance Corporal Harold Gertz was one of the first Marines to hit the beaches unscathed, and had been taking cover in a crater made from the shelling before. He had taken a slight pause to view the battle around him, some of his fellow Marines were hit, and Nerotikan gunners were falling from their Machine Gun posts. He looked over the edge of his Crater and raised his modified M4.

He looked through his Acog Scope and began to start shooting. His first bullet embedded it self into the skull of a Machine Gunner, his next successful shot effectively decommissioning an Officer from his duty. He continued to shoot until he finally realized that the Nerotikans had already began to retreat. He let his grip loosen a little bit, and began to look around him. The Golden Sandy Beach from before had been literally warped into something far more identifiable with death.. Bodies lay here and there, blood had turned the sands red, and some feet to his left lay some unlucky git's hand. He sighed, and waited a while to stand up.

Once standing, he surveyed the make-shift Defenses he had just before been firing on. Bodies, bullet casings, and rifles littered it. As he leaned to grab the exposed dog tags of one man, he could hear yelling from a bit of a distance.

"ONE OF THEM IS ALIVE!"...

"Fall back, god damnit move! Move! Move!." Peirceson had become frantic in the retreat, his men kept up with him but those not under his command he could not bear to see left behind when he could hear the enemy approaching.

The unit moved into the jungle, not deep but far enough to hide in. They were a small group now broken into several squads with Peirceson leading one made up of twenty-three. The squad gathered itself around Peirceson as he spoke to them in a hushed tone, anger in every breath.

"I suppose were stuck here, we cant continue deeper or we'll get lost. I suggest we man up and challange this invasion head on. We may not have alot of power here but we have more honor and pride then their entire army, we are Nerotikan and its time we act like it come on men time for a counter-attack." His NBN mic was open and every soldier in the jungle heard the transmission, whether they would fight was up to them but Peirceson and the squad around him had made up their minds and were turning back toward the beach.

Quitely they crept, a line of them left to right almost knelt but walking along the bushline hidden by the overgrown plant life. Their guns tightly gripped and fully loaded and their minds clear of any thoughts. Every man there knew this was suicide but the only thing they cared about was getting revenge for their brothers who lay dead at the feet of their new found enemy. The Nihonii's were deployed across the bloody beach like crabs, running back and forth a few of them searching their fallen comrads as well as the nerotikan bodies. Peirceson raised his hand and the line halted, right at the edge of the treeline the entire squard was still hidden by large bushes and the tropical tree's. Eye's glared at the Nihonii, targets were being picked out when a sudden gunshot broke the silence. A still living Nerotikan had managed to reach his rifle unnoticed and had almost gotten a shot off before someone made his presence known and he was shot instantly, and at that moment once that shot was fired the squad jumped and the treeline broke into a volly of muzzleblasts.

Peirceson had put two Nihonii on their backs and a few more running for cover, his squad's retaliation was almost a success if not for the fact the entire beach was controled by the enemy. Return fire sprung up and Peirceson could see his men falling dead where they stood and so with the release of a few grenades he shouted for his squad to follow and behind him twelve men obeyed, the rest lay dead.

As they moved the gunfire did not cease, it seemed the unit had returned in response to Peirceson's words and now the jungle and beach was once again a battlefield where tracers and soldiers crossed each other. The retreat seemed to have taken the Nihon by surprise, so much so they didn't really follow through with a chase. This faluire gave the Nerotikans enough room to return almost directly to their old defensive positions only now they were just about in close-combat range.

As quickly as the man shouted, a gunshot emerged. Stupid ass Private, not checking if the survivor was with-in reach of a weapon or not. Gertz stood behind, technically in front of, an abandoned sandbag wall. He was just checking a magazine when suddenly pot shots started to hit around him and others on the beach. Someone shouted that they were firing from the Jungle, and 30 or so men began to fire. Nearly a hundred men were at the beach, and a 50 more had split either way to patrol. Gertz felt the heat of a bullet as it whizzed on by, obviously it having to of been a tracer, and he raised his rifle and fired. With out making much of an effort for precision, and began to fire left to right and started each Nerotikan down through his scope. Soon the survivors retreated again, then they came back seven-fold. An officer, using the very crater Gertz had emerged from, had picked up his radio and began to send in a request.

"REQUESTING AIR SUPP.." a bullet entered through his right chest cavity, through the lung, and out his back and through the radio. He was gasping for air as a Medic ran by, how the bullet came through no body would've guessed. Pinged off of something, it went through the sand roughly a few inches and through his body. Odds are, it was from a heavy machinegun. However, instead of A-10s this time around, five UH-60s responded. The front two strafed about the jungle line, firing with it's vehement cannons as the rest of the UH-60s rappel-dropped men from the 7th Special Forces Battalion. 25 Men in all, they joined the fire fight and began their own separate push into the jungle line. The two patrol parties, 25 men each, were soon ordered to enter the Jungle and pincer what they could of the Nerotikan force.

Soon to be boxed in, the Nerotikans would have no choice but to surrender..or die.

OOC: For those reading -

150-men landed at the Beech in the first wave, which pushed the Nerotikans back. 80 more in the process of landing. 50 of the 150 divided into two parties of 25, now emerged into the jungle. 25 Special Forces.

Behind the squad the humming of helicopters could be heard then the unmistakable whiz of its weaponry. The cannons reduced the line of soldiers into a mix of body parts and splattered blood. The once green jungle now shined in the red of the nerotikan blood. Peirceson had realized now it was useless running, he turned only to take a bullet in his shoulder. It seemed the Nihonii had gotten into the jungle now, his unit was now most likely entirly dead as most nerotikans would rather die then become a prisoner. The only trait the Nerotikan's and Nihonii had in common, honor and pride was worth more then their lifes.

They had to know that the Nerotikans would not surrender, Peirceson's arm lay limp at his side with his right arm holding his rifle firing random shots and he walked backwards. The men in the squad were fighting desperatly with an almost invisible enemy then suddenly they broke into a clearing and in the middle sat a small hut of which they rushed into and began to fortify all the while taking random shots from the forest.

The command base on the island now recieved an urge for air support as well, the single airbase was one miles away but the commander delievered the request anyway. At the airbase though preparations were already underway to defend the approaching battlegroup and the request was delievered then ignored, the island was basically on its own and that became apparent minutes later when the commander recieved no reply.

The little maneuver had worked, and it had left the Nerotikans in a great disarray. What little was left of the force had been able to sneak through the Nihoni Formation and into a little clearing, where a hut randomly lay. With the cover of the jungle-wood's foliage, the Marines and the small amount of Special Forces began taking up positions to hopefully surround the hut. They had received special orders straight from Command, and that was to capture the leader of the Beach Defenses. It was obvious to the troops that none of the bodies they had come upon so far weren't of a higher ranking, and so it was only to be assumed that whoever was in charge was taking cover in the flimsy hut before them.

Three men of the Bere-ketsueki had made it around, and found a weak spot to the rear of the small structure. A window, or a hole nearly the size of one, had been poorly covered. A cloth was put over it, though the wind which swept by proved that no solid object was behind. One of the men had been given a special weapons attachment, one that was modified to fire a flash-bang similar '203' round. He took careful aim, and pulled the attachment's trigger. With-in seconds, a loud bang was audible and from all directions Bere-ketsueki emerged.

Serpent's Sting
1950 Hours

OOC: I'll post this a bit later..