NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: After several years of writing for Nation States, both on the NS forums and a private forum initially, I’ve come up with numerous little stories to tell about my nation that at the time, I didn’t think made for much of a role-play situation, but feeling that need to write them anyway, I did.

So I ended up with a number of small story series or one shot pieces that either shed a little bit of light on the inner workings of my nation, or merely served as a small bit of fun to write. Either way, I’ve decided to create this thread for use in a sort of ‘news’ style thread, so I can put some of it here and anyone interested in my nation, or are merely bored, can read.

Obviously this limits any sort of response, as most of it will be things here wont be ‘public knowledge,’ but that’s why most of what’s written here is coming here, because it didn’t have much opening. That being said, some of it will be mentioned news wise, and if you’d like to write up your own blurb of a news story to show your own nation’s opinion, I don’t mind. On the other hand though, if its more in the style of a threat, please contact me by telegram and we can discuss it, and give it its own proper thread, as I’d rather keep this one free for my little stories when I have the creative impulse, so don’t expect routine updates to this, though I do normally try to check for telegrams once a day, minimum.

I’d also like to keep this a strictly in character thread so as not to disrupt the flow, so please, no purely out of character messages, that being said, I obviously have no problems with little OOC notes attached before or after the IC message.

My first piece here is a short action segment originally planned to go into my Triari thread, however that appears to have died due to either lack of interest from the others involved, or real life events, either way I’m going to put it among the others here now. You can find map information for reference on the SFR region here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=529073), as well as for Triari itself if you’re interested in knowing the layout.

One last, but important note, I role-play strict modern tech, custom designs are acceptable, but things such as ETC, working and efficient rail-guns, and any other, “because I have a larger budget,” technological advances are unwelcome.



As the sun rose over a small, forest covered hill, the sound of a pair of shovels slamming into the earth echoed through a large clearing cut out of the dense and sprawling forest some distance away. There was more to this clearing through then just the two silhouettes highlighted by the early morning sun, as evidenced by several large, wooden structures and long fence lines, along with a moderately sized field of wheat.

To the Northeast of the clearing was a two story home, built with care and showing the signs age, yet the skill required to build it remained apparent, just as it did in the large barn to the East. A small myriad of animals could be seen contained within equally varied number of pens, which included cows, oxen, chickens and goats, all the usual suspects one could find on a farm.

This particular farm currently belonged to one Marat Kerimov, and served as a fairly accurate example for most Triari farms, especially those located to the Southeast of Marnisk. Small and unassuming, it was not unlike the old immigrant homesteads of North America, in that all work was done either with animals or by hand, for he owned no heavy equipment beyond an old truck he kept carefully hidden away.

His aim this morning was to get as much of a new well dug before the sun was fully out and beating down upon them, helping him just then was his eldest son, Sergius. Needing every hand he had available, his wife and other four children were spread out between the house and the barn, splitting all the morning chores between themselves.

As the blade of his shovel scooped out another portion of earth and he swung it off to his right into a pile, a dull roar growing to the South caught his attention and he snapped his head over to look while his son did the same. He could see nothing for the trees, but he recognized the sound a moment later, and without a word exchanged between the two, both he and his son dove head first into the hole they had been digging.

As they hit the ground, the roar changed in pitch as a fully laden, twin engine, Kilrany built Su-25 screeched overhead, just barely above treetop level, closely followed by a second. He didn’t bother to look up to see what they were, all he knew, or needed to know, were that they were Kilrany aircraft, and as the sound began to die down without an added explosion, they both calmly stood up, brushed the dirt off themselves, and looked around to make sure the animals weren’t running scared.

Had he cared too, and there been time to manage it, he might have been able to notice that while the two aircraft bore the markings of the Kilrany Imperial Air Force, it also had one added feature. Painted only in similar style as used to denote squadron number, these aircraft included the swooping eagle, denoting them as belonging to the 4th Division of the Kilrany Imperial Guard.

-----

Designated as Reaper One, Pyotr Lentulov didn’t notice the farmer and his son diving for cover as his aircraft buzzed the Triari farmer, nor would he have cared even had he, for he had more important things to worry about just now. Keeping close formation with him was his wingman, Vera Mashkova, designated Reaper Two.

The farmer had every reason to be concerned, the Kilrany were known within Triari for using the locals for live fire exercises, regularly taking shots at any vehicles they were able to spot. Most of the time however the Kilrany went after military targets, but again, the Kilrany were not always concerned with collateral damage, having always shown a willingness to seek out military targets even when surrounded by civilians.

Some might wonder as to how such action could be allowed to occur within the SFR, but given that technically the Kilrany were still in a state of declared war with the Triari, most didn’t complain. It also didn’t hurt matters that the Triari hardly had any moral high ground, as they well known for their drug production and poor treatment of women, as it was common practice to kidnap or sell young girls into slavery for use in prostitution in Triari itself and overseas.

The Kilrany currently posed the single greatest threat to the various warlords trying to maintain their power in Triari, but they weren’t the only threat. Sharing long borders to the Southwest with Valnari, and to the Northeast with Germania, the Triari often found themselves the target of military forces from both these democratic nations as a direct result of their drug and slave trading.

Both democracies used raids against the warlords as a political tool to appease their own populations, as the Triari always caused problems for both, especially in smugglings drugs across their borders. The Kilrany in turn would turn a blind eye to these actions, even outright aiding in their execution and letting the neighbouring nations take credit for a victory in turn for their own continued disregard for Kilrany actions.

Politics however was currently the last thing on Lentulov’s mind as he clicked the transmit key, “Reaper One to Falcon, what’s our ETA on target position?”

Designated Falcon, a Kilrany airborne early warning aircraft served as command and control for the flight as it orbited seventy kilometers to the South, just above the Kilrany-Triari border. The voice that responded to his inquiry was decidedly female, “On your current heading and speed you are approximately two minutes out, Romeo-Papa-Four reports still being hold up in cathedral, and that further militia forces appear to have arrived on scene.”

Lentulov cursed quietly as he kept an eye on his instruments and the treetops flashing past underneath him, “Copy that, we’re pushing these damned things as – hold on, I can see smoke up ahead.”

“That should be the village Reaper, I’ll relay Romeo-Papa to you and he can direct you from there.”

“Copy that Falcon.”

As a few seconds passed by, he had the time to take in several clouds of dark smoke billowing up from ahead, though still over fifteen kilometers away, it looked as though it was coming from the forest itself.

“Romeo-Papa here, could you kindly hurry your asses up here please?”

Lentulov was not surprised to hear another woman’s voice come over the radio, but he was slightly surprised at just how calm it was despite her choice in words, “Reaper One here, we’re about a minute out, what’s your situation?”

He already knew that Romeo-Papa-Four was a 4th Division light infantry platoon that had been conducting a deep range reconnaissance patrol into Triari when they bumped an unknown number of Triari militia, as such he hoped for more detailed information on the scene. She didn’t disappoint, “My platoon is all hold up here inside the cathedral near the center of this village, I’ve got at least a full company of these bastard militia all around us, maybe two, heaviest concentration of them appears to be on the East side. It’s the largest building here, you can’t miss it, so we’d all prefer it if you’d just blow the shit out of everything that isn’t us if you don’t mind.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle slightly, “Copy that, were should be overhead in ten seconds.”

He could now make out several structures on the ground, and one in particular appeared to have a large spire, but to be sure, he gave his rudder a momentary tap to the right before tipping his left wingtip down at a forty-five degree angle. Following this up, he pulled back slightly on the stick into a climbing turn, allowing him to look down into the village for several seconds; his wingman followed suit.

He wasn’t surprised to see that she had been quite right, the cathedral was the most prominent structure in the entire village, easily looking as though it could have held an entire company, and made of heavy looking stone, it was obviously built some time ago, sharing all the signs of a medieval style construction. It did however clearly show the signs of age, as whatever former glory it may have once had, was now replaced with a decrepit appearance.

Despite this it was still solid, and served as a decent defense against the amount of fire being unleashed upon them, though to their fortune, the militia forces were not exactly keen marksmen, most of the time. Had he more time to look at the situation up close, he might have found it odd that the militia forces were focusing a great deal of fire on the building’s tower as well, given that no Kilrany soldier occupied it.

The militia forces themselves were spread out around the village, and though he could not make out every individual position, he did manage to catch a few in amongst the various smaller buildings. A rather varied mix, the village was made up of numerous older looking stone houses and newer wooden ones, with some in better condition then others.

“Alright Romeo, I see you, we’ll start making a few runs,” swapping frequencies for a moment, he addressed his wingman, “Reaper Two, I’ll make the first run on the West side, you follow up on the East side when my run is complete. We’ll stagger our attack runs and see if we can scare the bastards off.”

“Copy that.”

Sweeping back in from the North, he lined up his aircraft, toggled his rocket pods, and then angled his nose down slightly before pulling back on his right index finger.

Smoke trailed out from behind him as a series of eighty millimeter rockets flashed out from their pods underneath his wings, flaring in towards their intended targets. He had only a second to see the explosions rip into the ground and through buildings as he pulled back on the stick and gained altitude once more, unable to tell how much, if any, damage he’d done.

Making another climbing turn, this time to his right, he prepared to set up a run along the South side of the village from a Easterly approach. As he finished banking around he could see Reaper Two finishing his first run, the line of explosions looking rather impressive from the barrage of rockets.

He almost laughed a second later when he heard Romeo, “Ha-ha, die you wee little bastards!”

As he banked in again and lined himself up, he switched over to his thirty millimeter gun pods, and pitched his nose down, “Reaper flight, we have trucks coming out of the forest on the North side,” he frowned slightly, but he couldn’t change his target now, thus he commited to his gun run on the South and pulled the trigger, “damnit, looks like they’re regulars,” he cursed slightly as he pulled back up on the stick, regulars were a whole other story from the militias, but he could still do nothing, instead he had to count on his wingman making a run on them.

“They’re-oh shit they have MANPADS, break off, break off!”

Not hesitating for a moment, Lentulov immediately broke into a split-S maneuver, snap rolling his aircraft first to the right and popping flares, which gave him a moment to look straight up out of his canopy to see the launch flash. Snapping back over he pulled hard to the left and popped more flares, all the while cursing over and over again quietly to himself.

On the ground, things were no less hectic, unlike Triari militia forces, regular forces; those fully committed to one of the local warlords, were far better equipped, and more uniformly too, gaining decent assault rifles and as evident in this moment, shoulder launched air defense missiles. These new arrivals however became immediate primary targets for the Kilrany infantry on the ground, especially their individual section’s designated marksmen, who readily attempted to take them down with their SVD-Ks, along with their machine gunners with their PKMs.

Nonetheless, they had cover, and at least one missile was launched as Lentulov heard his cockpit start screaming at him as he finished pulling to the left. A moment later he heard the rumble of an explosion detonate behind him as the missile had gone after one of his flares.

While the regulars had better equipment then the militiamen, their few MANPAD systems in this case were sorely out of date, especially given that these were Chuckhrai regulars. While Lentulov would never know it, the missile fired at him was an early model Strela; specifically the original 9K32, and was a good ten years older then the twenty-four year old regular who had fired it.

With no time to sigh in relief, he continued pulling hard to the left, which cost him airspeed, but he was intent on getting an angle on the new arrivals before they could get another missile off. He wouldn’t get that opportunity however, as before he could finish his turn, he noticed the figures around the trucks attempt to scatter before a stream of eighty millimeter rockets from Reaper Two tore into the area and masked it with fire and smoke.

Snapping back over to the right, to put some distance between himself and the village for a moment to regain some airspeed, he activated his radio, “I owe you a shot Reaper Two.”

“You’re damn right you do.”

Lentulov allowed himself a short, nervous laugh, but neither of them dropped their guard, fully expecting more possible MANPADS down below them. Even with this new threat though, they couldn’t break off, the infantry platoon still needed their cover, and they aimed to continue to provide it.

Sweeping back around a moment later, he chose to arm the FAB-250s he carried under his wings, and carefully lining himself up so as to completely avoid the cathedral, he aimed for the edge of the forest where the regulars had arrived at. A moment later and a slight flick of his finger, four, two hundred and fifty kilogram general-purpose bombs released from their pylons and began their free-fall to earth.

Flashing past overhead, he couldn’t see the Triari scatter and run for their lives as FABs slammed into the ground around them, with one in particularl crashing through a tree while another landed in damaged building. Despite the one-second delay on their fuses, no one had the time to think they were duds before they exploded.

Pulling away again and putting some more distance between himself and the position he just bombed, he keyed in his radio, “Falcon, what’s the ETA on their extraction?”

“They’re about eight minutes out Reaper One.”

Still relayed in, Romeo piped in, “Looks like they’re pulling back into the forest Reaper One, if you don’t mind, give them a few more runs to encourage this choice a little more.”

He grunted in amusement, “Copy that Romeo.”

OOC: And now on to number two, while the first one was for a now defunct thread, this one had somewhat grander aspiration. Originally I had planned this as an introduction to a fully-fledged character RP that would have let me expand my nation and show others what Kilrany is like in the process. After finishing this section however, and I gave the RP some more in depth thought, it dawned on me that I while I could easily use it as I had intended to, those taking part wouldn’t really have much of an interesting time, as no matter what they did, they’d ultimately always run into the brick wall that is 5th Division.

So this sort of ended up relegated to my files as a potential RP that I just couldn’t figure out a good way to get off the ground, as such it will now go here and serve as a simple information piece and possible story series assuming my creativeness keeps up. Like the last one, if you’d like to make an IC news report, or TG me to possibly make something of this, I’ve got no problems.

Minor addition; KDNP stands for the Kilrany Democracy Now Party.



At age forty-two he didn’t look too bad; Slavic in descent with black medium length hair, he didn’t have any particularly distinguishing characteristics, though he did have a few more kilograms on his frame then he would have liked. His name was Mikheil Vekua, and he was the representative of a large pharmaceuticals company based out of Strolenko on a business trip to the Kilrany Empire. It was one of many he’d been conducting over the past several weeks in order to facilitate opening a branch for his company in the strictly regulated, though opportunity rich nation.

He straightened the simple black tie about his neck as he stepped out of the washroom and into his tenth story hotel suite, grumbling as he did so as most men do when dealing with their ties. Despite this grumbling, he was in a rather excellent mood as his eyes swept along his large, comfortable looking room for his attaché case, which he found resting on its side atop a small desk next to his king sized bed, highlighted by the mid morning, early June sun that shone brightly in through his window. He made it a point to stay clear of the window as he moved over towards the attaché case as he was not particularly fond of heights, but was unable to get a room lower in the building due to some convention that he forgot the name of.

As it wasn’t his first trip to Kilrany; in fact it was his sixth in as many as two weeks, going back and forth from Strolenko in order to firm up the deal he was working on, he had stayed in several such hotels. This particular hotel was the third he had tried out, and while they all seemed to have the same level of high quality, he’d so far found his stay in this one to be more enjoyable, though he couldn’t quite place his finger on why.

Briefly he picked up the attaché case and set it down upon the bed next to him to check its contents. Within there was not a great deal out of the ordinary, a number of research documentation on his company for the reading pleasure of the Kilrany, a contract he was to get signed and a medium sized plain manila envelope containing twenty-five thousand dollars in non sequential Kilrany one hundred dollar bills. He grunted lightly in amusement as he thought about its contents, more specifically the name, finding it odd that in the Kilrany language it was called the Kilni, which in English translated as dollar. This suited him fine however not knowing how to speak the rather complex Kilrany language, knowing instead English, Russian and French.

Content that all was in order he reached over and picked up a small pre-paid cell-phone he had obtained at the airport upon arriving in Kilrany, set it to vibrate, and dropped it into his left coat pocket. He had his own of course, but he had quickly discovered that he wasn’t allowed to bring in a foreign cell-phone, which struck him as highly irregular, though he didn’t have much choice in the matter. In the end he carried his own phone all the way in through to the airport before having to leave it in a locker to pick it up on his way back out of the country, buying a disposable one that would last him for the few days he was in the country.

Reaching over on the bed he picked up his coat that would complete his simple and unassuming dark grey suit, pulling it on, he buttoned up the lower buttons. With that done he picked up the electronic card door key, slipped it in to his right pocket, then picked up his attaché case and left his room, checking to make sure the lock engaged before he moved off towards the elevators.

As the doors opened to the lobby he was humming to himself in the empty elevator, and as he stepped out he checked his watch, which read seven minutes past ten. His meeting with a deputy minister of Finance was supposed to take place at eleven thirty, and he knew it would take a fifteen minute drive to get there, so he smiled all the more broadly as he knew he had plenty of time.

Passing through the expanse that was the lobby, he walked up towards the main desk and smiled at the somewhat attractive Kilrany woman standing behind it who returned his smile warmly. It was something of a culture shock for him when he first came to Kilrany, they had a rather stark equality between men and women long established that took a little getting used to, mostly because the average Kilrany woman had a rather defined muscle tone, not one of a professional builder, but one who obviously worked out.

He addressed her in Russian, knowing that most Kilrany knew it as a second language given the difficulty most foreigners had with their native language, “Morning, there should be a car and driver reserved for me under the name Vekua.”

She nodded her head and replied to him in Russian as she looked down to check the computer in front of her, “Of course, one moment mister Vekua … yes, you have one for ten thirty, did you want it now?”

“Yes please.”

She nodded her head, picked up a phone next to her and dialed a short number, he figured most likely to their garage or parking lot. While she spoke quietly in her native language, which he simply could not follow, voices coming up behind him in another language drew his gaze.

Half turning he noted a half dozen well-dressed men, each of Slavic decent moving towards the counter behind him speaking loudly and laughing in a language that sounded similar to Russian, but seemed to flow together all the more readily. He noticed another half dozen exiting an elevator farther behind the first group, quickly he guessed they were Russkyan and turned back to the woman behind the counter as she hung up the phone.

“Your car and driver will be out front in one minutes mister Vekua.”

He had always found it odd how formally the Kilrany spoke, quite often using mister and miss quite readily in their speech, after his second trip here he had found out that it was a manner of showing respect, “Ah, thank you … one quick question, those are Russkyans are they not? Is it common to see so many here?”

She smiled again, and it was then that he realized why he enjoyed this hotel the most so far; the Kilrany staff seemed friendlier here, though it wasn’t that they weren’t in the other places he stayed, they all seemed to take their job so seriously, but here it seemed just right, “They are, yes. Common? Not usually in these numbers, but every so often one of their travel agencies sets up a bulk arrangement for those who wish to come watch the spectacle in the Coliseum.”

He acknowledged her explanation with a nod of his head and moved off towards the large front doors of the hotel, slightly unnerved at the thought of large numbers of non-Kilrany traveling just to experience their Coliseum. It wasn’t however because unlike other nations, the Kilrany had never grown out of the sport, in place of professional athletes who played baseball, football, or American football; though some of these existed, the biggest draws were professional re-enactors who would fight in mock battles, whether in one on one combat or large scale replicas of historical battles. What unnerved him however was the tendency for the Kilrany to publicly execute criminals convicted of capitol crimes as part of the Coliseum show, sometimes even fighting others to the death as a stay of execution. It often worried him that the death penalty was used so liberally in the nation, covering many crimes from murder, to rape and even pedophilia.

He put that thought out of his mind as he stepped out through the doors and on to the sidewalk, always marveling at the relative silence in their large capitol city, rather uninspiringly called Kilranograd. It wasn’t that there was no noise at all, but for a city of its size he expected more, however the change over from vehicles burning fossil fuels to electrically powered ones, spurred on by their government some years prior coupled with well funded public transportation systems had done wonders for the cities of Kilrany.

Standing out on the hotel’s ‘doorstep’ for all intents and purposes, he didn’t have to wait long for his car to arrive only a few moments later. It was a black luxury car that he recognized as being made in Kilrany, for it too had an electric engine and he heard little more then the tires running over the pavement as it pulled up to him. Quickly the driver identified him and exited the vehicle to let him in, a scant few moments later he was on his way.

He knew that his hotel was situated in what the Kilrany referred to as the new quarter of Kilranograd; an old city by Kilrany standards, it had once been a village home to the ‘Old Kilrany’, what modern Kilrany called their pre-Roman Occupation ancestors. It had then become the seat of the Roman governor and after the collapse of their Empire; it was renamed to what it is now.

One of the largest cities in the entirety of the Kilrany Empire, it was possibly only second in size to the port cities of Lom and Plovdiv on the Eastern coast of the nation. Physically divided in to the new and old quarter by an old city wall that still ran all the way around the rather large old quarter; maintained now as a historical artifact, averaging ten meters in height, and seven meters in width.

Unlike the old quarter of the city, the new quarter; which stretched ever more out around to the South, East and North of the old quarter, did not have any of the same zoning restrictions, and buildings of every type were easily seen as one traveled through it. Always he found it interesting to see mix of old stone buildings with modern looking high rises and the occasional skyscraper. These were not seen inside the old quarter, where no building was permitted to be taller then three stories with the only exceptions being the Kilranograd Coliseum, their national government building, usually just nicknamed ‘City Hall’, as it encompassed the city’s works as well, and the Kilrany Imperial Palace.

As the driver took him towards ‘City Hall’, he remained silent; which was just as well for Vekua as he enjoyed simply looking out his window, though the vehicle’s radio was on and playing a piece of light Russian rock at low volume, he didn’t mind this either. Kilrany often preferred to listen to music in a language other then their own, taking more to Russian and Russkyan as they would readily admit their own language did not lend itself well to song.

As the large defensive wall loomed up before them, they approached one of many enlarged gatehouses modified to accommodate vehicular traffic along with a large street cutting in under the wall, a rumble coming up behind the car he was in caught his attention. Snapping his head around to look out the back window, he spotted the glacis plate of a navy blue BTR-80A with a high angle thirty-millimeter auto cannon and a coaxial PKT.

The rumble of its diesel engine echoed off the thick stonewalls of the gatehouse as it followed them through, though it seemed to him it got no quieter upon exiting into the open again. After a moment it pulled to the side and came up upon the right side of the car before it turned off on to another street. With the vehicle gone he breathed a sigh of relief, only then realizing he had been holding his breath, never had he gotten use to the presence of armour in the hands of the Kilrany Internal Security Ministry; ISM for short, who served as national police force, and were treated much like a paramilitary force. Though they did have more conventional police cruisers, built with hybrid engines rather the purely electric ones.

They were a heavily armed force as he recalled seeing some of their standard three man foot patrols, all dressed in navy blue uniforms and body armour that reminded him of Western SWAT teams. They were even armed differently, while they had side arms, they also had Bizon submachine guns and Blackthorn semi-automatic magazine fed combat shotguns, not to mention the assault rifles carried by their assault teams who were transported around in their navy blue BTRs. He personally found them to be unnecessarily heavily armed, but it was simply the way they were in Kilrany.

The disturbance caused by the passage of the ISM vehicle was quick to fade from his mind however as they continued through the old quarter and historical buildings passed him by. Another few minutes of driving found them pulling up on the side of a street next to a large, wide-open plaza; nearly deserted due to the hour and was situated in front of the government building known as ‘City Hall’.

His driver turned to him then, “Would you like me to wait for you here?”

Exiting the vehicle he replied quickly, “Yes, here is fine.”

Halfway across the plaza towards the building, he glanced back towards the car to see the driver step out and take a little stroll off in the plaza himself, where he sat down on a bench and seemed to look towards the sky. The rest of his walk to the building, and up through it to the office of the deputy minister was fairly straightforward after passing through an ISM checkpoint at the door and being checked for any weapons.

Inside he did note one moment of interest when he saw a pair of 1st Division Imperial Guardsmen walking down a corridor towards him. They were dressed all in a black uniform that covered their whole body, including a balaclava. Over this went several pieces of what looked to be partially ceremonial armour and a ballistic helmet on their head. These sections of armour covered their forearms, their upper body; which also doubled as tactical vest, carrying magazine pouches among other things, and shins. Complementing this was the Kilrany long knife on their lower right leg and the hilt of a slightly curved, single edged sword visible over their right shoulders, in all it was a very impressive sight.

The blades though, did not make up their only weapons, quite the contrary in fact, for the blades were mostly ceremonial as well. A side arm was clearly visible in a holster, but they both carried heavier weapons, in this case they each had a KIAM built RK8 Lapinkoira, a Russkyan designed bullpup PDW; called the ERP07 by the Russkyans, that fired full assault rifle caliber ammunition, in this case 7.62x39mm.

He had learned in his brief stays in Kilrany, and his trips to this building that the 1st Division of the Imperial Guard was a close protection unit typically used to protect members of the Kilrany royal family. However interestingly enough, they were also tasked with protecting anyone of interest to the Kilrany Royal Family, which he knew was pretty much carte blanch for anyone, in this case they most likely were protecting one of the Kilrany ministers, as had become part of their standard operations.

As they passed him by on their patrol, he got a good look at their Division emblem, the spread winged hawk as seen on their national flag. He also got a good look at the Lapinkoiras they carried with their fixed vertical forgrips and the attached holographic sights they had added, though he did not recognize the model type.

A little over five minutes after he has seen the 1st Division soldiers, he was walking into the office of Larisa Bulanova, deputy minister of Finance for the Kilrany Empire, after he had identified himself to her secretary. If this had been their first meeting, he likely would have been surprised to see the lithe little redhead sitting behind the desk, both abnormal descriptors for the average Kilrany woman.

Bulanova half stood from her chair and extended her hand out as Mikheil came up to her desk, “Hello again mister Vekua, I see we are as punctual as ever.”

He met her friendly smile with his own and took her hand in his, giving it a slight shake; despite her appearance she still had a firm grip, “Yes, I like to think that’s one of my many good traits, that and my company is quite eager to open here.”

She chuckled as they both sat down opposite each other with the desk in between them, “That it is.”

Their conversation at that point turned to somewhat more trivial matters, as she was required to go over certain laws with him and ensure he understood them, along with confirming what his company wished to do. This went on for a good fifteen minutes before all was just about ready to be wrapped up and he reached into his attaché case and pulled out both the contract, and the manila envelope; he kept the second item out of sight for the moment and put the first on the desk in front of her.

As she reached over to pick it up, she added in slightly serious tone, “Now you understand Finance Minister Katinya will still have to sign off on this, so I can give you no guarantees.”

Vekua smiled, then lifted up the manila envelope and set it down on top of the contract as Larisa pulled it towards herself. Seeing the questioning look on her face, his smile didn’t falter, “Of course, but I’m sure a good word from her Deputy Minister would no doubt go a long way.”

She raised an eyebrow then and shifted her grip to the envelope and picked it up to check the contents; for just a moment she was about to ask what it was, but she quickly figured it out without having to open it first. She still took a moment to do so however, peeking at the contents she put on a smile, “Ah yes, I’m sure she wont have a problem with this contract mister Vekua.”

They both stood then and another handshake was given before Vekua turned and left the office. He didn’t get to see the smile disappear from Larisa’s face as the door clicked shut behind him, nor see her slowly sit back down and look at the envelope for several seconds, clearly in debate with herself. Finally, after half a minute had passed she reached over and picked up the phone on her desk.

Vekua’s trip out of ‘City Hall’ went without incident and he found his driver still sitting on a bench not far from where he had parked his car. Seeing him approach, he stood and addressed the businessman, “I hope all went well sir, do you want me to take you back to the hotel?”

Vekua was clearly in a good mood and smiled broadly at the Kilrany driver, “Yes it did, couldn’t have gone better in fact, and no, not back to the hotel yet. Where’s a good place to eat lunch at, I want to celebrate.”

It was about nine hours later that Mikheil Vekua slid his card key into the slot on the door to his hotel room, though he was still a little light headed from his ‘celebration’, he opened the door without problem. Stepping inside he set his attaché case down on a chair and started humming to himself as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the cell-phone.

A scant ten seconds later and a number of buttons pushed he was speaking in to it, “Yeah, its me, everything went great with the Deputy Minister … yeah, no problems at all … good … alright, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Content, he set his phone down next to his attaché case and closed the curtains on his room’s windows before beginning to undress; he then took five minutes to have a quick shower and crawled into his bed.

-----

Vekua blinked his eyes groggily a few times as he began to wake up, why the hell is it so bright in here damnit … I must have left the shades open, just as he thought that though, he realized he felt cold and reached blindly with his right hand for the covers he figured he pushed off, only to find none. It was only after his eyes began to adjust that he quite suddenly realized he was no longer in his hotel room, and he shot upwards out of the bed he was in. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he still felt groggy, but he also became aware that he was completely naked, and whatever bed he was in was right next to a concrete wall.

Horror creeping into his mind, he frantically looked around the new room he found himself in. Roughly ten meters square, there wasn’t a window to be seen on the obviously concrete walls painted in a bright white that seemed to reflect the florescent light coming from a caged fixture on the ceiling, which itself seemed unusually high, around three and a half meters. There appeared to be one single, heavy-set looking door on the left wall from him, with a toilet and sink directly across from his new bed, which appeared to be bolted to the floor and had only a simple mattress on it. Finally he did notice that lying on the mattress underneath him was a dark blue jumpsuit.

Fear overriding his feeling of being cold, he jumped off the bed and ran on his bare feet across to the windowless door and pounded on it for a full minute, all the while yelling, “Hey! Let me out of here! Hello! What’s going on?” Had he been familiar with building materials, he might have recognized that the dull thumping sound of his fists on the door indicated that it was sound proofed, and that not a single whisper of his voice was getting out of the room.

Dejected and a little horse, he fell to his knees as he struck the door one last time with his fist before he rested his forehead against it for a few seconds. Feeling cold again, he looked back towards the bed before going over and putting on the jumpsuit, which only made him more uncomfortable as it was nearly a perfect fit.

Not sure what else to do, he sat down on the bed and looked around the room once more for anything he had missed in his earlier, hasty sweep, and he found it. Right up at the ceiling in two corners of the room opposite each other, he spotted the lightly coloured domes of a pair of security cameras, clearly set up to easily monitor the entire room.

As he just sat there, he wasn’t sure how much time passed, to him it could have easily been a mere five minutes, or a half an hour, but he did notice that the grogginess seemed to finally be wearing off when the door to his cell opened inward. Looking up he saw three men dressed in black enter, instantly he recognized the uniforms as being identical to those worn by the 1st Division soldiers he saw at City Hall; he also quickly recognized that they wore the blood red dragon insignia of 5th Division.

As he stood up, he got a good look at them; all three appeared identical except in slight height difference, as each one appeared to be armed identically with their standard equipment. He did notice one difference however, the first two soldiers who entered carried long, solid looking batons, the metal tips on one end telling him quite clearly that they were electrical in nature, while the third soldier carried shackles in his hands.

Fear evident in his voice, he tried to sound indignant, “What the hell is going on, why am I here?”

Ignoring his questions, one of the soldiers holding a baton on his right, addressed him in a commanding tone with Russian, “Turn around and put your hands on the wall.”

Blinking several times quickly, Vekua once again demanded an explanation, “I demand to know why I’m here!”

The soldier took a single step forward and raised the baton as it he was about to strike Vekua with it, the business man recoiled in fear and hid his face behind his arms before promptly tripping on the bed and falling down on top of it.

Silence filled the room as he lay there in fear, waiting to be struck or electrified. Finally after a few more moments he slowly parted his arms and looked at the three men standing near the door, the one who had threatened him had his baton lowered again. The soldier spoke in his commanding tone once more, “Stand up and put your hands on the wall, now.”

Trembling, he did as he was told this time without further argument, and while the two soldiers with the batons covered him, the third placed the shackles on Vekua’s feet before taking hold of his wrists and locking them into the shackles behind his back. His movement now hindered, they lead him slowly out of the room and into an equally stark corridor, closing the door behind them.

The walk through the corridors was slow, and seemed to take forever to Vekua, but it didn’t help matters when every ten to twenty seconds he heard a either a scream of terror, or pain, echo along the concrete walls. He didn’t realize that they were recorded terrors; playing through the corridors so that when they transported a prisoner it would instill fear in their hearts.

Their final destination appeared to be yet another room only slightly smaller then his cell, while he and the third soldier entered, the two with the batons took up position on either side of the outer door. Inside was a rectangular table and two chairs, in the one facing away from the door, he was surprised to see a fourth 5th Division soldier sitting there casually and reading a paper.

A push from behind by the third soldier nearly caused him to fall forward, but it got the desired results as he continued towards the other chair. He noticed quickly that it was rather heavy in construction, and looked to be made out of steel, as well as being bolted to the floor. After a few moments he found himself sitting in it with his shackles locked in by hooks, preventing him from moving more then a few centimeters in the chair.

Silence fell upon the room as he sat quietly; too fearful to speak while the third soldier had taken up a standing position near the door and the fourth continued to read a Kilrany paper, and seemed to ignore him. Rather suddenly the soldier with the paper lowered it seconds later, looked right at him and addressed him in English, he was surprised by both the pleasant tone and the fact that it was female, “Good afternoon mister Vekua, so nice of you to join me, I trust you had a pleasant night’s sleep.”

He stared back at her incredulously for several seconds before he responded, “What … wh … what the hell is going on?”

Her tone didn’t change, “You are a guest of Fifth Division mister Vekua. You attempted to bribe a government official, you were reported, now we get to have a little conversation.”

“I demand a lawyer.”

“Oh really?” she almost seemed to laugh at his demand, “You want a lawyer, well you wont be getting one. Perhaps if the ISM dealt with espionage you would, but as it stands, you’re not that lucky.”

He blinked, “Espionage? I’ve done no such thing.”

“Oh you haven’t? Did you, or did you not give twenty-five thousands dollars to Deputy Minister of Finance, Larisa Bulanova?”

“I … I admit to doing nothing … you can’t keep me here, I have rights, I’m a citizen of Strolenko, I have committed no act of espion-”

She cut him off before he could finish, “Your citizenship is irrelevant here, and you have no rights here unless we give them to you. Though perhaps you are unfamiliar with our laws-yes, obviously, or you wouldn’t have attempted to bribe the Deputy Minister. Did you really expect her to accept it on the chance it would be discovered and cost her-her life?”

“What?”

“Shame, you’ve visited us six times now and you’re still ignorant of our nation. That’s an unfortunate situation you’ve put yourself in then mister Vekua.”

“My company knows I’m here, they will want to know what happened to me!”

“Tsk, tsk, now you’re just getting desperate,” folding the paper she still had slightly so a specific article came up on top, she then half tossed it over at him and it slid to a halt just shy of the edge of the table. He looked down at the paper, but the writing was in Kilrany and he couldn’t read it, though he did recognize his picture, obviously taken from his passport. Before he could say anything she spoke again, “Ah, but you don’t know our language either do you … I’ll summarize for you mister Vekua, it reports that a businessman from Strolenko was kidnapped, and is now being held for ransom by the KDNP.”

He looked back and forth between her and the paper several times while he opened and closed him mouth as if to say something, but nothing came out. Finally she spoke again, “So you see mister Vekua, you are going to be here a while. Now if you cooperate with me and tell me who you’re really working for, we can keep this a pleasant conversation.”

“I .. I don’t know what you’re talking about, I work for the-”

Again she interrupted him before he could finish, “Please mister Vekua, we are not fools, we know full well that’s just a front, we had intended to let you open your little branch so we could gain access to your files, but you had to go and attempt to bribe Bulanova and forced our hand. Now, are you going to cooperate, or is this conversation going to have to get extremely unpleasant.”

He remained silent, fear taking hold as the tone of her voice became dark and menacing towards the end of her last sentence. A few moments passed and she spoke again, though suddenly her voice was pleasant once more, “Perhaps you would like some time to consider your ‘options’.”

While he tried to figure out what that meant, the seated operative stood up, and with the third, quickly left the room, leaving him to sit there, barely able to move.

-----

As the heavy door shut behind them, the two 5th Division agents who had been in the room with Vekua turned to the right down the corridor and walked away, leaving the other two still standing on either side of the door to stay where they were.

After a moment and a short distance from the door, the third operative, a man by the sound of his voice addressed the woman who had been speaking with Vekua, “Nice. If I hadn’t known better I would have believed you when you accused him of being a spy, and the whole cover bit.”

The woman smiled under the cover of her balaclava, “Serves the bastard right, he shouldn’t have tried to bribe the minister … he could really be one though, wouldn’t be the first time they tried to put their foot in the door like this. We’ll have to make sure either way.”

“Indeed, it’s quite possible, though he seemed all to ready to wet his pants just about his whole time here so far.”

“Could be an act. If not, we’ll find out.”

“Quite. Now then, while he stews there for a little while, where do you want to have lunch, I suggest the Blue Estate, good service there.”

“Hmmm, they do, but we ate their yesterday, why don’t we try that new Russkyan restaurant that opened, I hear they have excellent steak.”

“Sounds good to me.”

OOC: Next up on the list is another short little one also for a now defunct thread, this one involving peacekeeping in Khurzav, located to the Southwest of Kilrany. Originally this was to tie in with another piece that was to potentially open up a real can of worms for those involved, but sadly that didn’t get a chance to happen.



After two weeks cooped up inside a warehouse watching his men train on their new equipment, the still night air was a refreshing change of pace for Nikolai and the six of them with him now, even if they were still in a suburban area. Technically the weapons weren’t new per say, as they dated back over thirty years in their construction, but they were in excellent condition, having been hidden away for the exact purpose that some of them were now being used for, to arm the populace in the event of a Kilrany occupation.

Much to Nikolai’s distaste however, very little of the general population was opposing the Kilrany at all, and those that were, were either incompetent, or didn’t go far enough as far as he was concerned. As leader for the Loyalists, those who remained loyal to the former government and royal family, he aimed to make up for the discrepancy in their numbers.

Careful to remain in the shadows and out of any light cast by the lampposts on the main streets, they all moved carefully through the backyards and small alleyways that also happened to connect the homes in this upper class neighbourhood. While his full group of Loyalists weren’t ready to conduct an operation just yet, Nikolai felt they had been quiet for too long, and a low-risk operation would be just the thing to break the monotony and send a message at the same time.

Each of the seven men were dressed in a odd assortment of dark civilian clothing and military surplus that gave them their own unique, if still somewhat uniformed appearance, as an addition, they also wore black gloves, and balaclavas to mask their appearance. Older style Soviet webbing and vests could also be seen upon them, courtesy of the hidden arms depot they had retrieved their current AKMs from, thought Nikolai himself carried a Saiga 12.

Leading his small unit from the front along another small alleyway, he raised his right fist up in a classic hold order as they reached a specific fence that marked their target home. Opening his hand up he then slowly lowered it in their direction, indicating to them that he wanted them to go low and wait where they were.

Creeping forward alongside the solid looking, shoulder high fence, he sighed slightly at the knowledge that those three hand signals were about the only signals he had been able to teach to those few with him, as none of them were soldiers, with the exception of one, however he was merely a former logistics clerk. Coming to a stop near a gate in the fence that opened out into the alley, he stood up slowly, and letting his weapon hang by a sling, he carefully took hold of the top of the fence and lifted himself up just enough to see over it.

Fairly large in size, it could have easily held an in-ground pool and still had room for a decent amount of yard space, but in this case it was mostly barren grass with a stone walkway and a number of well kept flowerbeds. Before peering down to see what sort of lock kept the gate closed, he did note that there was a small shed near the back with a few small trees next to it.
Letting himself back down slowly, he turned towards his men and gestured with his hand for them to join him; the last of the hand signals they knew.

As they reached him slowly, he addressed them quietly, “Isaac, it’s a simple latch, hand your weapon to Ilya, and he and Orest will quietly help you over.”

Two nodding heads and a quiet, “Gotcha,” from Orest followed his order, and promptly it was carried out with a little less noise then Nikolai expected from the men he had with him. Hefted up by Ilya and Orest, Isaac was careful not to get his vest caught on the top of the fence, and with a barely audible thump, he dropped to the ground on the other side before quickly releasing the catch on the gate.

Moving through the now open gate in a simple column, Nikolai led them carefully to the back door of the somewhat modest looking two story home. Moving up to the right of the door, he turned to look back at his unit, mentally taking note that Isaac was now reunited with his Kalashnikov, “Isaac, Orest, Ilya, when we get in, you three cover the front and watch for anything, but try not to be seen from outside. Ivan, Leonid, be prepared to break off from us if the upper level requires it,” he paused for a moment to make a slow chopping motion with his right hand, “I’ll do this in the direction I want you to take. Alek, Mikhail, you two stay with me, and for God’s sake, don’t anyone talk if you don’t have too, at least until after we get our targets, then it wont matter.”

A chorus of bobbing heads followed his hushed words as they nodded in understanding before he turned back to the door and gave the handle a cautious turn. Unsurprisingly the door was locked and he fought back a grumble, he had hoped to keep everything quiet up until they were inside, but none of them had any lock-picking skills.

He did however have a backup plan for this that didn’t involve merely kicking in the door, and letting his shotgun hang by its sling once more, he slid a crowbar out from a loop on his belt. Slowly he jimmied it in between the door and its frame just below the handle before applying significant force to test the strength of the frame.

He suddenly grimaced underneath the cover of his balaclava when the frame proved to be in poor condition and snapped unexpectedly at his first attempt. While it hadn’t been extraordinarily loud, it had been loud enough to concern him, and he listened carefully as he slowly returned the crowbar to its makeshift ‘sheath’.

Hearing no noise from above, he took his weapon in hand again and slowly pushed the door inward before stepping inside himself. It was darker inside the house but his eyes were already adjusted to it decently enough, as such little except for the fine details escaped his notice as he took one cautious step after another, all the while continuing to listen for any noise from the upper level.

The rest of the house proved to be of superior construction then the doorframe as they swept through the first floor with nary a creaky floorboard to be heard, this proved especially useful when they split up at the bottom of the stairs. Regardless of the quality of the workmanship, Nikolai continued to move slowly, testing each step before chancing his full weight upon it. As he reached the top, it was clear that he wouldn’t need to split his second force, at least not to head in separate directions, as there was only one to take, and unsurprisingly, it was lined with several closed doors.

Checking the first door, he opened it to see a modest sized bedroom with an empty, but cleanly laid out bed, making it clear that no one had been sleeping in it this night. Closing the door with a click, he moved on to the next one, which turned out to be an almost identical bedroom with a few minor esthetics differences, along with the fact that someone was sleeping in this bed.

Closing the door quietly, he turned and made sure the rest of his men were looking at him before he gestured towards the door in a slow chopping motion, then held out his hand in a stop motion before pointing towards the other two doors in the upper hallway. Moving on again, he checked the next door and found it to merely be an empty bathroom, but before moving on to the last door, he turned to ensure Ivan and Leonid were waiting as he had instructed them too, he was pleased to see that they were.

Approaching the last door, he turned the handle and peered inside to see what was obviously the house’s master bedroom, where two sleeping forms lay in a large bed near the center of the back wall. Taking mental note of a holstered pistol sitting on a desk near the bed, he turned and gave a ‘thumbs up’ signal towards Ivan and Leonid, at which point many things happened very quickly as speed took priority over stealth.

With Alek and Mikhail right behind him, Nikolai entered the larger bedroom with speed and made straight for the pistol on the desk. Just as he reached it and knocked it off to the floor with his hand, muffled screaming erupted from the single occupied bedroom behind them, which was just loud enough to wake one of the two occupants of the bed next to him.

The man didn’t snap awake however, and as he groggily sat up he suddenly became aware of the three men in his room just as the muffled screaming fell silent. Before he could move, Nikolai spoke loudly and clearly, “Don’t move Captain, or your wife and daughter die.”

Around forty-two years old, the Captain was a member of the Khurzav National Police Force, and the local detachment’s commanding officer for the small town they were in, one not patrolled by volunteers from the Kilrany’s national police force. As far as Nikolai was concerned though, he was a traitor helping the Kilrany in their occupation of their homeland, and through him, he intended to send a message.

This wasn’t the first time a Khurzav resistance group had gone after a collaborator, the Khurzav Resistance Group, more commonly referred to as the KRG, had done so over a month before farther West, when they used a power drill to remove the sight from a lower level government official. In this case however, Nikolai had slightly different plans in how to deal with this particular collaborator.

Less then a minute later, which included some more muffled screaming, the KNPF Captain found himself kneeling on his own bedroom floor with his hands restrained behind him. Next to him in the same situation was his wife, also in here early forties, and one of his fifteen year old daughters, both of which where also gagged.

Flipping the light switch in the room on after making sure the blinds were closed, Nikolai stepped over in front of the man he saw as a traitor, and resting his hands behind his back, he addressed him, “Where’s your other daughter Captain Mellar, I know you have twins, better you tell me now then we find her here and she does something stupid that gets her hurt.”

For a moment the officer looked torn as though he would say nothing, but ultimately he responded with disdain in his voice, “She’s not here you bastard.”

“Where is she then?”

This time the officer merely glared at Nikolai who waited patiently a moment before taking a step over towards his restrained daughter. This unsurprisingly prompted him to speak up rather quickly, “Don’t you touch her!”

“Or you’ll what, curse at me? Spit at me? You’re not in any position to dictate terms ‘Captain’,” Nikolai’s otherwise even tone was broken by the sheer level of contempt he had as he said Captain.

Mellar fell silent, but his expression was of pure hatred as he continued to glare at Nikolai, who noted the contrast of fear and outright terror on his wife and daughter’s faces. Releasing a sigh, he took a step back and spoke again, “Nothing to do about it I suppose, we’re not about to go hunting after her, especially since you’d likely lie about where she was anyway. We’ll just have to settle for the fact that she’s not here then, but fortunately you are.”

“What do you want?”

“To send a message Captain Mellar. People seem to have forgotten that we’re at war with the Kilrany. They need to be reminded that collaborating with the enemy is treason, and you Captain, have been collaborating.”

“What are you talking about, I’ve done nothing but try and keep the peace.”

Anger crept into Nikolai’s voice, “And that is exactly the problem. It’s bad enough that most people have simple rolled over and are letting the Kilrany do whatever they want, but you’re actively helping them by arresting those who do stand up to them.”

“That’s not what-,” Nikolai didn’t let the officer finish, instead he snapped his right hand around from behind his back, and using Mellar’s own service pistol, fired one shot into his wife’s forehead. Taken completely off guard by Nikolai’s sudden action, Mellar fell silent as his mouth opened and closed several times as though he tried to say something while his daughter screamed rather loudly despite the gag.

While Mellar was still in shocked silence, Nikolai looked over at his daughter in annoyance and was tempted to shoot her right then, instead he addressed her loudly, “Be, silent!”

Absolutely terrified, her muffled screaming turned to muffled sobbing as her father snapped out of his shock and shifted to rage. Despite having his hand restrained behind his back, his feet were not restrained, and shifting his right foot forward, he charged Nikolai in a blind rage.

With relative ease, Nikolai knocked the officer to the floor with a strike to the head with the help of his own pistol. Looking at the officer now lying on his side; cursing and mumbling in pain, with nothing but contempt, he gestured to Mikhail, “Hold him,” before moving over towards his daughter.

Unceremoniously Nikolai grabbed the teenager by one of her arms and literally dragged her kicking and screaming over towards her father, who was now being held down by Mikhail. Kneeling down, he put the pistol to the side of her head and forced her into a position so that both father and daughter could do nothing but look at each other, and just as Mellar’s eyes widened in realization, Nikolai pulled the trigger.

Mikhail and Ivan both looked away a moment earlier, their balaclavas hiding their unease as Mellar screamed incomprehensively in grief and anger. Nikolai on the other hand continued to look at Mellar with contempt as he let his daughter slump to the ground and stood back up.

Mikhail shook his head slightly as he released Mellar and stood up himself, turning away from the whole scene as the officer rolled over in a vain attempt to reach his daughter as he babbled on through tears. Nikolai continued to show a complete lack of sympathy from under the cover of his balaclava, and after a moment of letting Mellar suffer, he raised the officer’s pistol one last time and fired a round into the prone man’s head.

Silence filled the bedroom as all three of their targets lay prone and unmoving, and for a moment Nikolai did not move, leaving Mikhail and Ivan to feel extremely uncomfortable with the actions of their leader. Nikolai didn’t waste too much time however, and before turning to leave the room, he released Mellar’s pistol, letting it fall on top of man he held so much contempt for, Message sent.

-----

It wasn’t until the next day that the events of the previous night became known, happened upon by their other daughter coming home from a friends house, she was unfortunate enough to see the results and be the one to call the police. No one had heard the shots or the muffled screaming during the night, a solidly built house, much like the others in the neighbourhood, the sound had not carried enough for anyone to take notice.

It wasn’t long before the Khurzav New Network picked up on this, and word of the killings spread across the occupied country, along with the fact that the Loyalists were publicly taking credit for it, claiming the murders as being justice served on traitors.

ISM Investigates KFIA
Ivan Kandinsky | August 14th, 2009

Employees of the Pleven branch of the Kilrany Food Inspection Agency could face charges as serious as criminal negligence after detectives from the investigative branch of the Internal Security Ministry confirmed reports today that they were, “looking into allegations of misconduct,” after a complaint was filed last week.

The complaint was filed by Grigory Stukov; grandfather of Sasha Stukova and Isaac Stukov, ages three and five respectively, who both made headlines along with several other children last month after contracting an bacterial infection, allegedly from tainted juice. In it he claims that the KFIA, “failed to do their job, and doctored records to cover their mistake.”

Stukov and his daugther, Natalia believe the bacterial infection afflicting her and the other children came from several juice boxes, which Stukov brought to the attention of the KFIA after noticing they were bloated and leaking, with one containing a maggot. Stukov claims that after they took the boxes for testing, they failed to send him a copy of the results and their report, which he eventually had to gain access to through and official request, which he claims they stalled on, and took over month to finally hand over.

The report indicates that while they tested the container and the maggot, which they identified as non-threatening, they did not test the liquid contents, instead conducting a simple 'sniff test'. What's more, a full page of the report was wholly blacked out; an illegal act on a public document.

In support of the ISM investigation, agents from a another branch of the KFIA have been called in to examine files and investigate the warehouses of the foreign owned company that produces this brand of juice, something the Pleven failed to carry out.

OOC: Here we have another advancement of the situation in Triari, Kilrany's northern neighbour.

In the still night air within a particularly dense stretch of woodland roughly one hundred and sixty kilometers West of the city of Tiana; principal stronghold of General Marina Tsetaeva, two full companies of Tsetaeva regulars made their way Southwest with little but the sounds of nature to be heard around them. Slowly they moved through the underbrush with the skill and experience that rivaled even a Russkyan soldier, something of a requirement for staying alive in the vast forests of Triari.

Among them was thirty-three year old veteran, Kazimir Serov, who had readily sacrificed his depth perception for the extended vision offered him by a pair of early generation night vision goggles. So accustomed to the low tech approach as a result of the scarcity of reliable batteries in Triari, he found the visibility provided to him now extraordinary, despite numerous long nights spent training with them.

It’d almost been twenty-two years since he’d first been drafted into a local militia, and during that time he’d been in his fair share of night-battles, battles for which he now readily wished he could have possessed the relatively simple device he had now. Normally vicious, bloody affairs, night-fighting in Triari often took place at ranges less then twenty meters, when two patrols bumped into each other, it was not unusual for both sides to take exceedingly heavy losses with high fratricide rates, especially if militias were involved in any way.

The night vision goggles weren’t the only recent change for him since his unit had been withdrawn from the contested city of Inara, battleground for those loyal to warlords Elem Chuckhrai and Marina Tsetaeva; or those simply looking to make some cash. In fact there were several, the least of which was his promotion from the equivalent rank of Sergeant to Lieutenant after the death of his previous platoon commander in their last firefight.

Standardization of equipment down to the section level also came about as a result of their induction into one of Tsetaeva’s more trusted, and thus better supplied, regular units. Replacing the FN FAL he had selected from the general stores months before, he now carried an unusually high-quality AKM; a sign of which he noted was a milled receiver rather then a stamped one, one far superior to the more common and cheap, Triari and Chinese knock offs.

By far the most telling of all as far as Serov was concerned was the distribution of field radios down to the section level, which was normally a futile effort due to the habit the Kilrany air force had of either jamming the signal, or bombing the source. While certainly not the first sign he’d seen in the past few years, it alone was enough for this Triari veteran to believe the rumours that Tsetaeva was in fact either working for, or with, the Kilrany Empire.

While he certainly didn’t like his Southern cousins, having fought long enough to have been in their gun sights more then once, there were those far more deserving of his hatred then them as far as he was concerned, and if he was in a position to benefit from their support, he wasn’t going to complain. Topping his personal list would have been Genrich Kvasha, notably the most powerful of the Triari warlords, and The Council, a closely nit affiliation of rich families aiming to stay rich.

“Kazimir, Orest wishes to speak with you.”

Not entirely used to the idea of having a radioman right next to him at all times, it took Serov a moment to react to his comrade’s quiet announcement, and take the phone like handle to speak with his company commander, “Kazimir here, what do you need?”

“Can you hear our damned support yet?”

Located near the South of the entire formation, closest to the narrow road that cut through the underbrush, Serov listened for the sound of vehicles before he replied, “No, I don’t hear them.”

Orest was less then pleased, “God-fucking-dammit, they should at least be close by now, the bastards said they were only ten minutes out,” for a moment there was silence on the line before he continued, “contact me the second you hear them … God dammit I still don’t see how we’re expected to pull this off with what we were given.”

Serov barely managed to simply acknowledge the order before his superior was gone, and passing the headset back to his own radio operator, he simply continued on, listening for the low rumble that would announce their support.

The support Orest was referring to would come to them in the form of a reasonably large vehicle column, mostly comprised of two companies of mechanized infantry mounted in BTR-152s, modified to offer slightly more protection. The lead infantry elements however could be found in vehicles that used the BMP chassis as a base, but were heavily modified to both replace equipment damaged over the years and to up-armour the vehicle, leaving them looking little like the originals in a makeshift manner that would make any design bureau scream in horror.

Accompanying the column were a number of vehicles intended for direct fire support, the majority of these being BTR-152s with either recoilless rifles or quad-mountings for the KPV rigged upon them. In a rare move for any Triari warlord, the column also included a number of tanks from Tsetaeva’s limited supply, which in this case was a platoon of four OT-34-85s, and a pair of IS-3Ms, each of which were modified in the usual improvised Triari fashion, and included wire ‘baskets’ to help protect against RPGs.

Despite the additional forces and the display of armour that was to assist them, Serov shared Orest’s concern that they lacked the firepower to achieve their objective, which now lay less then a kilometer in front of them. Spread over nearly ten square kilometers, the town of Ivilda had a population of around four thousand, and was home to the Estadi militia.

Arguably one of the more powerful militias in Triari, they exerted a considerable amount of control over several smaller villages around them, and sat atop the single best road from West to East in Triari. Rather numerous, and quite clannish, they were considered a sizable threat to any force that could normally be brought to attack them, and for the moment, Tsetaeva could claim their loyalty.

This loyalty however came at a rather substantial price in both money and supplies, something that had been critical to her survival early on as she consolidated her power, but was now more trouble then it was worth. It also didn’t particularly help their cause that they would regularly accept bribes to allow drug runners and slavers; whose services they also made use of, to pass by on the road along with scouts from rival warlords, none of which sat well with Tsetaeva and the reforms she brought to her sphere of influence.

Tsetaeva had always known she would need to deal with them eventually, but it was only in the last year that she had been able to lay the groundwork for their removal. Making use of the bitter cauldron that the city of Inara had become, she used the forces they gave her to lead assaults on heavily defended positions, hiding the true extent of their casualties from militia leaders and leading them to believe the bulk of them were deployed elsewhere.

Despite this, estimates still placed militia strength in Ivilda to be at least a thousand men strong, which was still no small number by any reckoning in Triari. To further complicate matters, unlike most Triari militias, most Estadi forces were as much of a threat as any Triari regular, as they were both well armed and experienced, even possessing their own armoured vehicles. What’s more, because of their clannish nature, they were particularly fanatical; especially in defense of what they believed was theirs.

Because of this known factor, Serov expected the battle to turn into a recreation of Inara’s bitter street fighting, leading to heavy casualties as they advanced house by house. The only way that he could see to avoid this would’ve been to strike at their heart near the center of Ivilda, killing their leaders and the bulk of their most experienced men before any alarm could be raised; something he did not consider possible given what they available.

It was nearly fifteen minutes after his brief conversation with Orest; as his platoon approached a tree line that opened up on the East side of Ivilda, that Serov finally heard the low rumble of engines. Slowing to a stop with the rest of his unit still well within the forest, he half turned to his radioman for a moment to have him inform Orest of their position and the approaching support column before turning back to survey the area as best he could while he had the opportunity.

From what he could see of Ivilda, the town’s buildings weren’t densely packed together with narrow streets and alleyways, which told him that it had most likely sprung up after the original Kilrany withdrawal. The town also clearly had generators, as a number of floodlights served as makeshift streetlights throughout the town, which also helped to highlight the shape of Ivilda castle some three and a half kilometers from his position.

Though not an immense structure, the castle was large in comparison to those that had sprung up around it over the centuries, standing nearly four stories in total height. Long used as headquarters and barracks for the Estadi militia, it had seen a lot of repair work over the years, as prior to Tsetaeva’s rise to power it had been a target for the Kilrany air force.

Creeping forard to the edge of tree line, he glanced to his left and right and frowned slightly as he estimated there to be nearly two hundred meters of open ground between the tree line and the Eastern edge of town. He didn’t particularly relish the idea of advancing across the as of yet untilled earth, but he knew it was better then the alternatives to the North and South, where large swaths of forest had long ago been stripped away for farmland.

It was at this point that he caught sight of his first sentry, though in this case it was four, and they lay prone and unmoving in the field halfway between the tree line and the edge of town. It didn’t particularly surprise him that they were already dead, he had known that there were some specialist units moving ahead of them with some rare suppressed weapons to deal with any sentries in their path. Most of them though were to clear the road in advance of the column, as it was more heavily guarded numerous checkpoints set up by the militia who liked their ‘tolls’.

From behind him, his radioman addressed him quietly; “Orest says we’re to hold here until everyone else is in position.”

Serov had to refrain from rolling his eyes and commenting with, “No shit,” instead he remained impassive and simply went with, “Tell him we acknowledge and are standing by.”

Normally a patient man, the next few minutes passed painfully slowly for Serov, as it gave him ample time to once again dwell on his misgivings about the coming battle. Not even the knowledge that the majority of militia members would have been sleeping, and thus not currently high on the Triari form of Khat could help ease his mind then. Only the knowledge held by a select few participating in the operation could have asuaded his doubts.

After what seemed like an eternity watching the edge of town and listening to the ever growing rumble of engines, Serov finally heard his radioman speak again, "Everyone reports in position, everything is a go."

A grim smile came across Serov's face as he looked to his left and watched as the first OT-34-85 seemed to break from the trees as it drove out into the open upon the road before turning off at an angle into the field to its right. Quickly it was followed by three others, forming a line with a pair on either side of the road with around fifteen meters between them.

The plan was fairly simple, taking advantage of the darkness and their night vision equipment, the tanks would hold near the tree line and cover the initial advance of the infantry across open ground. Once the infantry were across, the armour and mechanized assets would move up and and they would all advance into the city.

Several of the fire support BTRs were also moving out to form up with the tanks when Serov's radioman spoke again, "Move order has been given."

Shouting for the first time that night, he called out to two of his nearby section leaders, "Vasily, Daniil! You will cross first and we will cover, go!"

He heard their shouts of acknowledgement as he ordered the section he was with to move forward with him and set up to fire on the edge of town from the tree line if needed.

Widely spread out along the tree line, similar orders were being given, and almost simultaneously, a full company worth of infantry were breaking from the trees and advancing across the open ground over half a kilometer wide. As they did so, the four T-34s and six BTRs that had set themselves up opened fire upon the buildings lining the edge of town, ensuring that any armed militiamen watching the area would be focused on them as their weapons tore through buildings with ease, rather then the dark shapes moving up towards them.

While a salvo of eighty-five millimeter high explosive shells followed up with coaxial machine gun fire was fearsome in its own right, it was the BTRs outfitted with ZPU-4 that was truely terrifying. Their quad mounted KPVs loaded with MDZ rounds; high-explosive incendiary, lit up the tree line as their gunners raked their fire across the edge of town, mercilessly gunning up
houses made up of wood, cheap concrete, and even heavy stonework, with ease.

Watching their advance over the crosshairs of his weapon, Serov figured his own men were just over halfway across the field when he heard an increase in engine noise to his left. Glancing in that direction, he caught sight of the four modified BMPs racing over the road towards the edge of town in a column, followed closely by four of the infantry carrying BTRs.

Looking back foward, he continued to watch for tell-tale signs of movement or muzzle flashes near the edge of town while the line advanced. None seemed to come as the first advance neared the edge of town, but as they did so, he caught sight of several large fireballs that in quick succesion suddenly seemed to engulf parts of the castle in the distance.

A mix of confusion and concern flooded his mind as he quickly focused on the distant castle rather then the edge of town, momentarily at a loss. Understanding quickly set in though a moment later a rain of fire descended upon the castle, which he traced back to the sky above them. Somewhere between two and three kilometers above Ivilda, two Kilrany Ares-II flew in a wide orbit opposite each other and unleashed their firepower upon the hapless target below.

A further refinement of their gunship project, the Ares-II; also know as Malenkoye Brat by pilots, was a more economical attempt at a gunship then the original Ares, which used several AN-124s as prototypes. Kilrany air force officers were also more willing to deploy the newer gunship to hostile areas now that it used the smaller, IL-76MF fuselage.

As a result of the smaller fuselage, the Ares-II had a reduced weapons package in comparison to the Ares, which could carry ten AO-18K, six barrel thirty-millimeter autocannons. Opting then for a more varied loadout, the Ares-II was armed with two AO-18Ks, two Yak-Ks; a Kilrany variantion of the Yak-B that used fifteen point five millimeter in place of the twelve point seven millimeter, and a pair of 2A70 rifled one hundred millimeter guns.

Of course Serov didn't know the kind of aircraft that flew above him, nor that on their opening salvo they had used several optically guided missiles fired from their one hundred millimeter guns armed with thermobaric warheads, but he didn't care either. All that mattered to him was that they were receiving fire support from Kilrany aircraft, which immediately caused a wicked grin to appear upon his face at the thought of the destruction they would bring on his behalf.

For nearly half a minute he and those who still lay in the tree line simply stared at the castle as it came under fire from thirty-millimeter high-explosive incendiary rounds, fifteen point five millimeter armour-peircing incendiary rounds, and one hundred millimeter high-explosive fragmentation rounds. It was an awe-inspiring sight that outshinned their ground fire support, who ceased firing in order to avoid hitting their advancing comrades.

His radioman snapped him out of his reverie a moment later, "Vasily and Daniil are reporting they're across and in position to cover our advance."

Mentally he kicked himself for loosing focus before he shouted out the order for the rest of his platoon to advance, and focused his vision once more on the edge of town. Quickly they broke from the trees and made at a jog for Ivilda, followed not long after by the remaining company of men.

As he approached the edge of town, he could see the fire shift from the castle Westward and out of his sight, no doubt causing a great deal of chaos for the militia who wouldn't know where the attack was coming from anymore.

OOC: Simple little 'day in the life' style piece to explore Kilrany some.

With a low grumble, Vitaly Nemov; age twenty-seven, opened his brown eyes to his darkened room and the blaring sound of his alarm clock as the red digital numbers showed the time as six in the morning. Stretching out to the head of his bed, he almost slammed his right hand down on top of the small electronic box and hit the snooze button in the process.

He didn't remove his hand immediately though, instead he let out a sigh, and with his index finger snapped the switch over from alarm, through off, and over to on, for the radio option. He didn't pay any particularly attention to the content as the announcer read off a list of sports scores, more specifically he used the volume to merely keep him from slipping back to sleep without it being as obnoxiously loud as the alarm.

A minute passed before he sighed again and rolled over out of his bed, he had never been a morning person, and never would be as far as he could fathom, but he had little choice in the timing of his shift. Snapping the radio off, he went about his usual morning routine, which consisted of a quick shower, shave, and a light breakfast of some left over pizza from the night before; though not quite his usual morning meal, it did him for this day.

Feeling more alert then he had less then a half hour earlier, he went about properly getting himself ready to leave for the morning by changing in to some light jogging clothes. With that done, he went over and unlocked a drawer in his bedroom and removed a small German designed pistol, a P5C, and placed it securely in a concealed holster above his right ankle.

His morning routine essentially complete, and no reason to stick around, he set out from his relatively small, if still comfortable apartment on the second floor of a three story building, at a comfortable pace at around quarter to seven. To his fortune, his employer had a tendency to own nearby apartment buildings in larger cities, which they rented to their employees at a lower then average rate. This allowed him to cover the distance in fifteen to twenty minutes on foot, and thanks to generally mild winters, he could do so year round.

He thought it a pleasantly cool morning as he moved along, skillfully avoiding other like-minded pedestrians out to beat the morning rush, which he would have readily admitted was not nearly as noticeable in the Old Quarter of Kilranograd as it was elsewhere in the city. Living up to the name, most of the buildings he passed were made of heavy stonework dating back several decades and even centuries, but it was not unusual to see a few more modern structures in places where the more historical structures had finally succumbed to age, and it was simply cheaper to rebuild then refurbish.

Not a one was above three stories in height however, as unlike the rest of the city beyond the old city wall, everything within the Old Quarter was under strict building regulations. There were only three structures exempt from these rules, and in each case, only because they had been built before their inception, and were owned by the state. In fact, had it not been for these three important structures, and the positioning of ‘Embassy Row’ within, the Old Quarter would have been little more then apartment buildings and small shops, which would have drastically reduced vehicular traffic.

Though he had to bring himself to a full stop for several moments at a set of lights, Vitaly took that time to subtly admire the form of an attractive fellow jogger with dark black hair. Seeing a sly smile come across her face as she in turn noticed him, he gave her a slight nod of his head in quiet greeting before they were both off and jogging again. Though she was clearly of Slavic descent, he pondered for a moment whether she was a native Kilrany or not, as she had a trimmer build then he was accustomed to seeing, in the end though, he decided that wouldn't have mattered anyway, as she was attractive nonetheless.

Passing through the intersection and continuing straight on, he went another half a block before his destination loomed up on his right side, and while it was no taller then the other buildings around it, it was larger, and made of very heavy looking stone. Most those who worked there simply referred to it as the one-six, but its proper name was Kilranograd Internal Security Ministry Barracks Number Sixteen, a rather extended name for what was essentially a police station.

It was just about five minutes passed seven when he slowed to a walk to move up the steps and pass in through the building's solid wooden doors, inside he stopped for a moment to greet several officers at the front desk. Less then two minute later he was standing before his locker in the dressing room where he promptly began to change out of his jogging clothes and into his uniform for the coming shift.

He had barely finished putting on his navy blue pants when one of his comrades, Anya Muratova, came strolling in towards her own locker, greeting him with a smile and a slightly sarcastic tone, “For the love of God Vitaly, do you have no life at all or do you just sleep here?”

He chuckled as he pulled on a dark undershirt, “Good to see you too Anya.”

Unlike his fellow jogger from the intersection, Anya's build featured a defined muscle tone that was more readily associated with the average Kilrany woman; though her current street clothes did nothing to show this. A good four years older then Vitaly, she had green eyes and short brown hair.

Without any concerns towards privacy, they both continued to go about preparing for their shift and as more officers came in to do the same, they began to swap idle small talk, though Vitaly chose to remain mostly silent. Mostly this amounted to discussions about what each other did the previous night, continued light-hearted arguments on the outcome of a sporting match the week before, and general comments on three convicted criminals scheduled to be publicly executed that evening, with most amounting to, “I hope they burn in hell,” or other, less pleasant words to that effect.

As Vitaly was reaching for his body armour, one topic of conversation quite quickly became the dominant subject in the entire room, this one regarding a particularly cruel crime. It also happened to hit close to home for these officers as it had happened within their district less then two weeks earlier, and the detectives had yet to find any good leads after a twenty-two year old had been raped after being slipped what was thought to be a date rape drug.

The fact that she had been raped was a severe enough crime on its own in Kilrany, but the true cruelty of the act came after doctors realized she had been slipped a chemical normally used as a horse tranquilizer, which had the added effect; whether intentional or not, of leaving her sterile. Needless to say this had stirred up a hornets nest of outrage throughout the city, with many crying for blood or demanding something harsher then public execution for those responsible.

Unlike the other topics of the morning, Vitaly chose to remain silent in this case, unwilling to waste his energy cursing those responsible as he pulled on his body armour and assault vest; the latter already containing his spare magazines. In the end though it didn’t help, as he was just as angry as the rest of them, and would have liked just as much to personally carry out the sentence when those responsible were caught.

Pushing the thought aside, he pulled on a black balaclava before taking out his navy blue ballistic helmet and strapping it on, giving him ready access to the back of his locker and his issued firearms. Before reaching for them however, he pulled the balaclava down slightly so it didn’t completely conceal his face, feeling it unnecessary for the moment.

Uniform complete, he reached in and pulled out his service pistol first, a Yarygin PYa, to which he snapped in a loaded magazine he had set next to it after manually loading a single round into the chamber. That done he slipped the weapon into a holster attached to the right side of his belt and went for his primary weapon, a black AK-74M.

Pulling out the rifle, he first attached a tactical sling before racking back the bolt and slipping in a single 8N4P round into the chamber, much as he had for his pistol. Last but not least, he snapped in a fully loaded magazine of identical Russkyan designed ammunition before closing his locker.

Five minutes later and just shy of a half passed seven, he was seated alongside several of his section mates in what amounted to the barracks roll call room after a brief stop to acquire his radio for the day, which was now in its designed pocket with an ear-piece going up to his left ear. To the front of the room, their platoon Lieutenant waited as the last of the stragglers walked in, filling the room to its comfortable capacity with a total of twenty-five officers.

While the role of the ISM was to act as a national police for the Kilrany Empire, they were still technically a division of the Kilrany Imperial Armed Forces, thus they shared similar structuring in the form of sections and platoons for foot patrol teams and assault squads, and pairs and squadrons for patrol cars. As an additional feature, they also benefited from access to heavier weapons and equipment then most police forces, as well as a unified training requirement for all officers.

Their structuring permitted slightly greater flexibility then regular force counterparts however, as while all foot patrol sections had a minimum of twelve men in three man fire teams, and patrol cars operated with a minimum of two men, the exact number of sections or patrol cars in a platoon or squadron could vary based on the needs of the area they were operating in. In the case of Vitaly’s district, the one-six had a platoon of foot patrol officers numbering six sections strong, allowing them twenty-four men per eight hour shift, though under normal circumstances, not all would be deployed at once in this case.

With the one-six being primarily a foot patrol barracks, they had no squadrons attached to them, instead another nearby barracks with better parking area was used for that purpose, covering a wide swath of territory that overlapped theirs and another foot patrol barracks. Like all barracks though, it did still include a number of detectives from the investigative services on an upper floor.

By twenty to eight, everyone was gathered for roll call, and his platoon Lieutenant took it quickly before he went over a few bulletins and the fire-team patrol sectors for the day. Quietly Vitaly listened, having little to say or ask questions about; their district was a quiet one relative to others outside the Old Quarter, the most they usually had to regularly deal with were domestic disputes, the odd car accident, and an occasional shoplifter.

There was no denying that this made for a rather dull routine, but it was one he personally didn’t mind over his first assignment, which saw him working in the city of Vidin for five years. It wasn’t that he afraid of action, but his stint there coincided with the height of the Virinov Insurrection, when even the ISM were being targeted by snipers and car bombs on an almost regular basis, which unsurprisingly made for a very stressful working environment.

With ten minutes to spare before eight o’clock rolled around, Vitaly was following behind Anya as he passed through the front doors of the barracks once more, and started the day’s patrol. Also with them was officer Ilya Radoff, who was somewhat newer to the ISM then either Vitaly or Anya, but having served five years already, he was no raw recruit.

A mere two years younger then Vitaly, Ilya had the fortune to avoid an assignment as hazardous as one in the province of Virinov, instead he had found his first stint in the port city of Plovdiv. There, the biggest threats came from off duty sailors, including Russkyans on liberty, something that was an all-together different sort of hazardous.

In keeping with his platoon’s current provisions on weapons, Ilya was armed identically to Vitaly with a black AK-74M, while Anya carried the fire-team’s Blackthorn. The Blackthorn being a joint, Kilrany-Russkyan semi-automatic, magazine fed, twelve gauge shotgun designed to replace the Saiga.

Not long before their automatic weapon would have been a Bison sub-machine gun, but several units of ISM foot patrol platoons had been given surplus assault rifles after the Imperial Guard had shifted over to the RK8 series; a Kilrany build of a Russkyan design. The desire was to apparently let the ISM judge for themselves whether they preferred carrying the assault rifle over the sub-machine gun, as rumour had it that the regular forces were also considering switching over to the RK8, which would leave a significant surplus of the Kalashnikov variant.

Vitaly himself was somewhat torn on the idea, he had a good many years carrying a Bison, the high capacity magazines had certainly proven their worth to him in Vidin on several occasions. At the same time though, having the greater stopping power, almost non-existent recoil, and excellent accuracy of the five forty-five by thirty-nine in the assault rifle, was a powerful determining factor.

In any event, he had no decision to make just yet, and he focused on the street in front of him rather then the weapon he held loosely before him. There was little activity to note as far as he could see, much like an hour earlier, there were a few pedestrians about, though their numbers were growing, as well as the traffic on the street. While most pedestrians went about as if they weren’t there, some gave them a customary nod of the head in greeting as they passed by.

As they continued on, Anya spoke up from in front of him, “I’m glad it’s starting to warm up a little, fall can kiss my ass for all I care.”

Vitaly chuckled lightly as Ilya responded to his left, “If only the season could be held back that easily, as to threaten it so.”

Anya replied without turning around, though despite her words, her tone was amused, “Someone’s looking for a stock-strike upside the head now aren’t they?”

With mock seriousness Ilya spoke again, “Don’t get me wrong, I mean it’s a fine ass, but I still wouldn’t want to kiss it … just not my thing.”

Vitaly stifled a laugh as Anya merely shook her head slightly, amusement still evident in her voice, “If I have to turn around Ilya, we’re going to have to call a bus for you, keep that in mind now.”

“Alright, alright, no more comments about your ass, I understand.”

Such mocking banter was not uncommon to the pair, much to Vitaly’s amusement, a benefit of their own good-natured humour and several years working together. Normally he might have added his own remark, but he didn’t particularly feel much like taking part in idle banter just then, something Anya noted and chose to call him on.

“There a problem Vitaly? I’ve barely heard you say a word today.”

Keeping his tone light, Vitaly replied after a moment, “Bah, just been a long month. I’ll be happy when this week is over and we get a day off again.”

Anya merely shrugged, “Can’t argue with that.”

Frustration seeping into his voice, he went on again in a low tone as a bit of anger grew within him for a moment, “Damned foreigner had to get kidnapped, God damned KDNP had to rear its fucking head again.”

There wasn’t much for the other two to say in regards to Vitaly’s last comment, ever since it had been reported that Mikheil Vekua; a corporate representative from Strolenko, had been taken hostage by the KDNP and held for ransom almost a month before, ISM officers had been pulling overtime to increase patrols. No one was particularly happy with the thought of 'the specter of the KDNP rising again,' least of all themselves.

For nearly two years the terrorist group calling themselves the Kilrany Democracy Now Party had been curiously silent within Kilrany itself, with many in the public holding on to the faint hope that they had dissolved due to infighting. With this apparent return though, many now grew concerned of a return of more high profile attacks, such as the successful assassination of the previous Kilrany Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Continuing on with their patrol, it was about an hour after leaving their barracks that Vitaly heard the first call to concern them come over their radios, “Central to any available one-five or one-six units, we have a twelve-fifteen on Petipa street, civic number seven-seven-six-five.”

All three of them came to an abrupt stop and looked to their left, each one taking note of the three story apartment building across the street from them with the matching numbers. Slightly amused, Ilya spoke first before Anya activated her radio, “My, how convenient.”

“One-six-echo to central, we’re on scene and responding.”

“Copy that one-six-echo.”

Within a minute of the call and a quick jaunt across the currently quiet street, the three officers passed through the front door of the apartment complex and into a small entry lobby. Ten minutes later they came walking back out, only now allowing the amusement they felt to show upon their faces.

Inside they had found two youths waiting for them, who Vitaly assumed to be around the age of sixteen or seventeen, and at first the situation had seemed a bit more serious. As it turned out, one was the brother to the girl the other was dating, and there had been a misunderstanding, leading to an assumption by the brother that the boyfriend had insulted his sister in a certain manner.

This had unsurprisingly led to some initial difficulties, and the call for what the ISM referred to as a twelve-fifteen; to the general public this was better known as a challenge. While the concept and procedure for the challenge system were more complex, in essence, it was a legal means for two individuals to beat the crap out of each other in order to quell a dispute that didn’t quite fall under the category requiring courtroom proceedings, and in some cases, could be used as an alternative to said proceedings.

The origins of this practice could be traced back to the pre-Roman Occupation era, during a time in Kilrany history when the area was still relatively sparsely populated, and open warfare was an as of yet unheard of event. At the time, a challenge was typically only called upon as a last resort when a dispute between two villages couldn’t be resolved peacefully.

As part of their duties in regards to the modern form of this practice, the three officers had delved a little deeper into the details of the situation, as it was up to them to authorize the level of the challenge based off the severity of the ‘insult’. Simply put, this meant that they ultimately determined the conditions of victory, and whether or not weapons could be used, though typically it was not far off what was requested by the parties involved.

In this particular case however, they had rather quickly solved the problem a few minutes in when Anya had asked a simple question to the brother, “Is you sister a reserved person, I mean is she a pacifist?”

His response had almost brought a smile to Vitaly’s face, but he had fought it off, “Oh God no.”

Anya had then continued with an even tone, “Then if he had actually done what you think he did, would he be standing here without any mark on him, or would they both be in the hospital having beat the crap out of each other.”

The look of realization that had come across the brother’s face had made it even harder for Vitaly to keep a straight face, but somehow all three officers had. It was not the first time they had encountered an over protective brother who had jumped to the wrong conclusion and acted upon feelings of anger, rather then common sense.

It was almost ten o’clock exactly as the three ISM officers turned onto the sidewalk to continue their patrol, and though Vitaly felt some sense of satisfaction at resolving the situation, he couldn’t help but feel just a little bit of disbelief, “You know, I don’t remember being that foolish around that age, but then again, I didn’t have any sisters.”

Anya grunted lightly in amusement as she shook her head slightly, “Everyone likes to think they weren’t stupid sometimes when they were young Vitaly, I doubt any of us were any different.”

Before Vitaly could say anything else just then, he heard Ilya speak up, “Personally, I’m going to chalk that one up to the suspicion that’s been kicked up since that girl got drugged.”

Anya’s amusement was gone in an instant, and following a quick sigh, she spoke quietly, “God dammit, way to kill the mood Ilya.”

Ilya merely shrugged, “You would have made the connection yourselves soon enough anyway.”

Begrudgingly Vitaly and Anya accepted the fact that Ilya was more then likely correct, though they said no more on the subject as they continued on.

With their shift going so quietly thus far, they decided to stop at a small café around noon to have lunch, taking seats outside and ordering something light and quick in case they got a call. The few fellow patrons took little notice of their presence with the exception of one older gentlemen seated next to them who noted their armament.

Somewhere between his late sixties and early seventies, he addressed the trio inquisitively, “When did you fellows get issued the Kalashnikovs? I thought you were still using those little pea-shooters.”

A small grin broke out upon Vitaly’s face as he turned his head to look at the older gentleman and saw a small smile on his face, “I resent that remark, the Bison is no pea-shooter … it’s at least a rapid fire pea-shooter.”

The older man chuckled lightly as Vitaly continued, “Got them last week as part of a trial run, Imperial Guard and Naval Infantry switched to that Russkyan bull-pup, so they have some excess Kalashnikovs lying around.”

The man grunted, “Pah, bull-pups, you can’t smash in a man’s skull with one of those and still fire it … then again, it is Russkyan, and if the Imperial Guard is going to use it, it must not be all that bad.”

This brought a series of light chuckles from the trio, and growing curious himself, Vitaly leaned out and offered his right hand, “Vitaly Nemov, what unit were you in?”

Leaning forward, the man returned the greeting with a firm grip before answering, “Isaac Hakanov, formerly of the fifty-sixth mechanized infantry regiment, only thing I regret is getting too old for it before we finally went in to deal with those bastard Khurzav. Dealt with enough of their shit on the border over the years as it was.”

“I can only imagine. I never served down near the border, only heard of the raids in the news, Vidin was bad enough though when I was there.”

“Oh shit son, you were likely shot at more times then I was.”

A grin came across Vitaly’s face as he shook his head slightly, “I wouldn’t go that far, but she was certainly no walk in the park. Made me appreciate that Bison though, but then those bastards weren’t wearing body armour.”

“You’ll be singing your praises to that Kalashnikov soon enough, though to be honest, I preferred the heavier round. You’d have had to be Svyet or Tyemniy themselves to not feel that hit you, no matter how much body armour you had on.”

As they ate their meal, Isaac continued to provide them with an enjoyable conversation, which came as a welcomed distraction to the trio of officers who had little better topics to bring up amongst themselves. After some all round introductions, they learned from Isaac that he’d never surpassed the rank of Senior Sergeant, as according to him, “Officers had too much paperwork,” but in passing they also learned that his son, who was somewhat more ambitious, had attained the rank of an officer.

Twenty-two minutes passed noon, just as Vitaly was finishing his meal, a new call pertaining to them came over their radios as central reported a car accident a scant two blocks from their current location. Hurriedly they tossed some cash on the table to pay for their meals and provide a tip for the waiter as they stood to leave.

Just before turning away, Vitaly addressed Isaac, “It was a pleasure meeting you mister Hakanov.”

Isaac gave a quick nod of his head, “As it was for me, now get your ass into gear and get to work.”

A grin could be seen upon both men before Vitaly turned to jog off with his colleagues, pulling his balaclava back over his face as he did.

Within due time the three arrived on the scene to see that it was both worse, yet better then they expected it to be, as it appeared that a car had skidded through a red light; as suggested by the marks on the street, and been struck by a city bus. Already a patrol car from the one-five was present and as the trio relieved the pair from directing traffic, an ambulance arrived, followed moments later by a fire truck.

While the accident was by no means a pretty sight, fortune would have it that the bus had struck the passenger side of the car, and none of the passengers in the bus appeared injured, though they were being check out anyway. The driver of the car did not fair as well, but he was by no means in critical condition, regardless, he was rushed to the hospital.

For the next half an hour, Vitaly found himself directing traffic alongside Anya and Ilya while the patrol car unit took statements from eyewitnesses as they awaited a tow truck to remove the damaged car. The bus had faired better, and its driver was able to drive it off back towards the depot to get it properly checked out.

He didn’t have to wait much longer, as after he waved through what he figured must have been the fiftieth car, he could see the tow truck coming up along the street. Ten minutes later and one-six-echo was resuming their patrol.

As one thirty in the afternoon rolled around, the street they were on ended in a T-shaped intersection where the city just seemed to abruptly end in a closed off park. This was however deceptive, as they had just arrived on one of four streets that cut around the Kilrany Imperial Palace, and the four and a half square kilometers of ground it rested on.

Turning to the left to move along the sidewalk opposite the street from the Palace’s outer grounds, Vitaly turned his head, always curious to see if he could catch sight of something interesting. He rarely did though, as by design, the Imperial Palace itself was not visible from the streets.

From this position, Vitaly could see the cast iron fence rising two and a half meters up out of a half meter tall concrete base, marking the outer perimeter of the Imperial Palace grounds, which her knew created a nearly perfect square two and a half kilometers on each side. Additional visible protection for this line came in the form of dragon’s teeth, which ran around the inner side of the fence a full fifteen meters deep, ensuring that any vehicle could enter only through the main gate.

From the fence line inwards was three hundred meters of open ground, where only grass was permitted to grow by a small army of groundskeepers, before it abruptly ended in a carefully spaced and maintained tree line. Three hundred meters deep itself, the small forest that ran around the grounds like an inner wall, ensured no one could get a clean line of sight on the Imperial Palace.

From that point inward, all Vitaly knew was what little he’d seen on history specials covering this all-important Kilrany landmark. From those, he knew that there was another four hundred meters of open ground between the inner line of trees, and the Imperial Palace itself, which was a large structure over four stories tall with impressive architecture.

Continuing on with his comrades, he looked back forward to see the main entrance through the outer fence, which appeared to be a simple cast iron gate, though to limit possible attackers, there was no street opposite it, forcing those coming or going to turn left or right. Running inwards from the gate was a simple looking paved road that ran straight up until it reached the inner line of trees, there it curved in an sideways V pattern to make full use of the cover provided by the tree line.

Even from a distance he could see that the gate was actively being guarded by at least one full section of 1st Division Imperial Guardsmen, along with a pair of Hades armoured vehicles, which shared appearances with the later generation eight wheeled BTR series. Further up from them, he could also make out was appeared to be another pair of Imperial Guardsmen being led along the inner side of the fence by a large German Shepard.

Though he couldn’t see it from his position, he did know of a secondary entrance through the outer line, which could be found on the other side of the palace grounds. There, one would find a relatively large two-story structure that closely resembled a warehouse with several doors for both delivery trucks and personnel to enter from the street. This building acted much like the first security checkpoint, as it was where most of the employees, such as cleaning staff, cooks, and the groundskeepers, as well as foodstuffs and supplies, all came onto the grounds.

Vitaly found it curious though that there were no other entryways from the building other then those facing the street, nor were there any paths running from the building to the Imperial Palace. In the end this had led to Vitaly’s belief that a tunnel ran the distance as yet further attempts by the Imperial Guard to ensure the security of the Kilrany royal family.

All to soon though he found that they were turning back onto another street away from the Imperial Palace to begin their trek back towards the one-six. Always he had found himself dreadfully intrigued by the Imperial Guard, he often wished he were capable enough to join their ranks.

For the next few hours, the rest of their patrol went without incident or interest, and a mere ten minutes past four, they rounded a corner on to the street in front of the one-six. Immediately they saw an unusual sight, as parked across the street from the front of the barracks was a dismounted assault squad standing around their navy blue BTR-80A.

While the sight of an ISM Assault Squad was not unusual in and of itself, it was odd to them to see one parked outside their barracks. For a moment they considered simply crossing street to ask their fellow ISM officers as to why they were there, instead they opted to ask their colleagues inside given the current flow of traffic.

Passing in through the front door moments later, they walked up to the left side of the desk, and Vitaly watched at Anya addressed one of the two officers stationed behind the desk, “What’s with the big guns out there Alek?”

Given his current assignment inside the barracks, Alek was dressed more lightly then those in Vitaly’s fireteam, and after a quick glance at the door, he replied, “Oh, them. Yeah, crowd control if it comes to it,” he paused for a minute, then seemed to realize he needed to elaborate, “Tulikov and Gerdt brought in a couple of guys, and there was some concern that we could have a problem if it leaked that there was even a chance that we caught someone for that rape.”

From his right, Vitaly heard Ilya speak up, “They think they did it?”

Alek seemed to think it over for a moment before he shrugged slightly, “Hard to say, word is they were being evasive with their answers, so Tulikov asked them to come down here. Could be they did it, could be they’re just a little terrified of being wrongfully accused given the temperament out there,” he shrugged again slightly as he finished.

For a few moments they stood there in silence before turning to head to the left towards the dressing rooms. They didn’t get far before the sound of the door behind them caught Vitaly’s attention.

Twisting around for a moment, he caught sight of two black clad soldiers, their distinctive armour and weapons identifying them as belonging to either the 1st or 5th Division of the Imperial Guard. As they approached the front desk to show Alek their ID, he caught a glimpse of their insignia; the blood red colouration confirmed for him immediately that they were 5th Division.

After a moment checking their ID, Alek cleared them trough and they began moving off to the right, towards a staircase that would take them up to the section of the building set aside for the investigative branch.

His delay caught the attention of Anya, who he hard call to him a second later from further down the corridor, “You coming Vitaly?”

Rather quickly he emphasized with his left hand, “Be along in a minute,” before moving back towards the front desk to follow the two 5th Division soldiers.

It wasn’t so much that he was curious as to why they were in the barracks, that seemed all to obvious given the high profile nature of the crime. Instead he was more interested in what they planned to do.

They were halfway up the first set of stairs by the time he caught sight of them again, and careful to keep a respectable distance, he followed up behind them. If they noticed him they made no sign of it as far as he could tell, though given their location, his presence was far from out of the ordinary.

It wasn’t long before they were passing by the desks used by the detectives and approaching the far side of the office space where the interrogation rooms were located. A relatively small branch, there were only the two rooms, with a third, smaller space, much closer to a corridor between them where one could observe through one way mirrors, and listen in through means of an intercom.

Without hesitation, both soldiers opened the center door and passed into the observation room while Vitaly came to a stop well clear of the door, suddenly feeling that following them may not have been a wise decision.

He almost jumped when he heard someone address him from behind, “Can I help you mister Nemov?”

Turning, Vitaly saw Viktor Alferov; the officer in charge of this particular investigative branch, standing with his arms crossed, “No … just curious with Fifth here.”

Viktor grunted slightly, “I bet you are,” then paused for a moment before taking a step forward and past Vitaly, “So am I.”

As Vitaly watched Viktor approach the center door, he saw the lead detective give him a gesture with his right hand that he could follow, which he quickly acted on with perhaps just a little too much enthusiasm. Once inside after following just about on Viktor’s heels, he figured the observation room couldn’t have been more then six meters long and three meters deep.

Stepping off to the left side of the door to keep out of the way, Vitaly noted that both 5th Division soldiers were standing side by side, but looking in towards either interrogation room. Glancing through either ‘window’ himself, he could see that one of the suspects sat alone in the room to his right, while Tulikov and Gerdt appeared to be having a quiet conversation with the one to his left.

Quietly, Vitaly watched as Viktor addressed the two soldiers, “So I suppose we’re relieved here are we?”

With their features hidden by their uniforms, the best Vitaly could do to differentiate the two 5th Division soldiers was to take note of their height when the taller of the two spoke up, “No. We’re merely here to observe.”

Vitaly forced back a slight chuckle in order to hold a straight face, but Viktor made no such attempt, grunting slightly in what he figured was either amusement, or disbelief, he wasn’t quite sure which, “Oh really, now why do I find that hard to believe?”

The soldier replied simply, “I have no control over what you wish to believe detective, we came merely to observe."

The second of the two soldiers spoke up then with an almost indifferent tone, "Though we can save you some time detective, they aren't directly involved in your rape case."

From his position, Vitaly couldn't see Viktor raise an eyebrow in curiousity, but he could hear it in his tone, "Oh really, and what exactly do you mean by that?"

"Simply, they were at that bar that night; you no doubt would have noticed them when you reviewed the security camera footage again, but they were still there when the victim was raped."

Viktor cursed under his breath, "Dammit, back to square one," he paused for a moment and let loose a slight sigh, "I doubt I'm lucky enough that these two saw something."

The taller of the two soldiers spoke again, "Indeed, though it is unlikely they will be of help. You do however have them for falsifying ID to enter the bar, they're only seventeen after all, something you would have found out soon enough when you checked their records. Good day to you detective."

For a moment Vitaly thought the 5th Division soldier was going to say something else, but they merely started past them and left the room, though he did notice a parting glance from the taller of the two. Looking back at Viktor, Vitaly quietly watched as he seemed to look at the floor for several moments before he turned to enter the interogation room with Tulikov and Gerdt.

Vitaly decided to take this oppertunity to slip out and head back to the locker rooms to change, his curiousity about the two 5th Division soldiers hardly satiated.