NationStates Jolt Archive

Château Empoté, Bévue

Maquis Dominique Jean-Claude Yves Empoté buried his head in his hands.

"C'est impossible! Les Bévues ont de pouvoir, les Salauds ont de force, les Nigauds ont d'argent et nous avons rien!"

His wife gazed at him sympathetically and a bit dumbly from her divan.

"Ridicule! Nous avons des roches irréguliers et beacoup de médecins."

"C'est inutile. Nous avons besoin de pouvoir et force et argent."

Suddenly, the maquise's eyes glinted deviously. She bustled to the french doors leading out of the study and closed them.

"J'ai un idée géniale."

"Ouais?"

She glided across the floor a ways then tripped on the rug. She daintily picked herself back up and dusted off her frock before resuming her trip to the maquis' desk. She leaned over her husband and whispered in his ear. As she did so, a smile broke across his face.

Quartier Bévuesque

The large black van made its way through typical Bévue-Ville traffic– a mix of bad driving and, well, no, just bad driving, really– on its way to the outermost part of the quartier.

In the back of the van, Baron Christophe Nicolas Empoté was trying to explain the finer points of weapon operation to eight of the house's soldiers. The soldiers wore purple berets in addition to their white uniforms and carried Steyr AUG 9mm submachine guns. The baron wore a white pith helmet with the house's coat of arms emblazoned on the front.

"Éteignez la sécurité avant vous chassez!" Le baron screamed at the soldiers.

Comprehension played across the troops' faces seconds before several sprays of 9mm bullets hit the van's wall.

"Arrêtez! Arrêtez! Chassez seulement avec mon permission! Est-ce que vous comprendez?"

The men nodded sheepishly and lowered their guns.

Soon, the smell of dead fish filled the van and it rolled to a stop.

"Nous sommes ici. Est-ce que vous prêt?"

"Oui, monsieur." The soldiers said in unison.

The baron swung upon the doors of the van and the men jumped out, brandishing their weapons. The nobleman pointed his pistol at the surprised guard at the Moustierre embassy.

"Laissez tomber votre arme!"

Immediately, five of the Bévuesque soldiers dropped their guns.

The baron turned on them in a fury, "Pas vous, idiots!"

The sheepish soldiers stooped and picked up their guns.

The baron gestured towards the guard with his pistol and repeated himself: "Laissez tomber votre arme!"

Emmanuel Rancourt was startled when the van pulled up in front of the embassy. Situated in a little stone house between a fish cannery and prison, the area was not frequented by many Bevuesque. More startling than appearance of the vehicle was the vehicle itself. It actually seemed to be driving in a relatively straight line, something completely unprecedented in the development of the automobile industry in Bevue. Though such signs should have alerted him to the developments that were about to transpire, it had been a sleepy night, and the half-bottle of wine that he had drunk at dinner wasn't helping him stay awake. When the nine burly men clumsily clutching submachine guns jumped out of the car, he became instantly more awake. He moved behind the high hedges that bordered the embassy, clutching at his radio and his gun.

"Les Bevuesque, ils attaquent!" He shouted, his finger fumbling over the transmit button. Over the slightly garbled reply from the interior of the embassy, he heard the clatter of metal hitting pavement, as the Bevuesque dropped their weapons. "Les idiots" he mumble mirthfully. By the time the order for him to drop his weapon was repeated, he was already in position along the edge of the hedge. Rancourt leveled his pistol at the apparent commander of the soldiers, firing as the nine men unleashed a hail of bullets from the clumsily aimed SMGs.

The baron yelped as a bullet whizzed through his pith helmet and another struck the van behind him.

"Chassez! Chassez!" He screamed to his soldiers as he fired several rounds from his pistol. The soldiers responded to the order with a rain of bullets in the guard's general direction.

A nearby gendarme from the House of Bévue, dressed identically to the Empoté soldiers except he wore a blue forage cap rather than a purple beret, heard the yelling and shooting and rushed to the embassy, drawing his pistol.

"Stoppez ou je vais arrête tout vous Empotés cochons!"

One of the soldiers turned to the gendarme and shot him several times.

By this time, the other four embassy guards had responded to the sound of clattering bullets from outside. They took up places in the windows of the building, knocking out the glass with the butts of their pistols and firing at the soldiers grouped outside. In the basement, the Ambassador and the other diplomatic staff huddled against the wall, shaking as bullets clattered outside. Fearfully, the Baron Lévesque III, Moustierre ambassador to Bevue dialed the number of his superior in Moustiers City, Duke Duhame II, Foreign Affairs advisor to the Prince. After a few minutes of hurriedly bouncing through several government telephone relays, his phone finally connected

"Duc Duhame! Le Bevuesque ambassade en est à l'attaque!"

"Pardon? Je vais téléphoner au prince!" Said the Duke, hastily hanging up. Baron Lévesque sat there for a moment, holding the phone in his hand as it spat out a dial tone.

Outside, the battle was still raging. The guard that had been patrolling the grounds had retreated, under covering fire from the guards in the windows, to the recessed entrance door to the embassy. From that cover, he continued firing at the soldiers.

The Empoté soldiers stood dumbly across from the embassy, firing at the guards. The baron, on the other hand, had the sense to use the van's door for cover. Even when one of the soldiers was shot and fell backwards, a large red pool spreading across his white shirt, the men didn't move.

Suddenly, the soldiers stopped shooting. They looked at each other with a puzzled expression then cried in unison, "Baron!"

"Idiots" the baron muttered as he grabbed the nearest soldier's gun and, in exaggerated pantomime, demonstrated replacing the magazine. About a minute and one dead soldier later, the magazines were replaced and the soldiers as well as the baron (with a salvaged AUG) were back to returning fire.

Rancourt had continued firing in the lull effected by the bumbling Bevuesque. From his cover behind the door, he was very well protected from the sheet of poorly-aimed projectiles. Despite his hiding place, he was quickly running out of ammo. Of the 4 extra magazines he had been carrying before the madness started, now only one remained. As he slammed that last magazine into the pistol, he knew what he had to do. The idiotic Bevuesque would be totally lost without a leader. With a roar, he swung around the door, sprinting toward the grouped Bevuesque. He held the gun out as he ran, firing all the while at the Bevuesque commander taking cover behind the car door.

"Rancourt! C'est le suicide!" yelled one of the other guards from the upper windows. They had access to the interior armory of the embassy, and were well supplied with ammunition. As he ran, they redoubled their efforts. Shell casings danced on the stone below as they hit, falling from the pistols of the windowed guards. The pavement around the attacking Bevuesque was now riddled with holes from the bullets, chunks of kicked-up gravel flying in the air.

The baron popped Rancourt a good one and as the guard keeled over, he tipped his hat and proclaimed, "Jolly good, wot, wot!"

One of the soldiers turned to him, "Quoi?"

"Err...très bien, quoi, quoi!"

The soldier narrowed his eyes, "Il est un imposteur! Il est anglais!"

The six remaining soldiers turned their guns on the baron.

"Non! Je ne suis pas un imposteur, je suis bévuesque!"

Satisfied with the nobleman's plea, they turned back to the embassy and resumed firing. With his soldiers' backs safely turned, the baron removed a Union Jack handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow. "God save the Queen" he muttered.

Manville Beaupré fired his pistol one last time. The next time he clenched his finger, the gun clicked. Again he pulled the trigger and again it clicked.

"Merde" He said, fumbling in his pocket for another magazine. Shakily, he whipped it out, slamming the magazine into the grip. With a clatter, the magazine went spinning across the wood floor of the room, it having been thrown out of his hand by the misaligned attempt at a reload. He turned slightly, preparing to retrieve the magazine. As he looked behind him, a bullet tore into his left shoulder. The force of the collision spun him backwards, where he collapsed on the floor. As he lay there, a small pool of blood began to form around his shoulder.

He let his head flop sideways on the floor, the pain from his shoulder distracting him from almost everything else. Through the blurred vision of his half-closed eyelids, he saw the magazine, his last one, laying just a few inches from his face. With a surge of adrenaline, he reached forward, grabbing the magazine. He still held the pistol in his right hand, and he again pushed the magazine into the grip. This time, it slid in without incident. Shaking, he rolled onto his knees, half-crawling toward the window. He reached up, resting his arm on the sill, preparing to use it to lift himself up. As he did so, the pain in his shoulder blossomed. Still, he strained more, pulling his head above the sill. The next instant, there was a line of bullet holes in the wall behind his head, and the remains of his skull littered the floor.

The soldiers whooped as the bullets struck the guard's head. The act of pure chance had emboldened them (and given them a fair amount of false confidence in their ability to operate a firearm).

"Trois restent!" The baron cried, calling for a charge with an imperiously pointed sidearm.

The soldiers charged the gate. The six who were still alive several meters later (Henrie, a father of four, regrettably, was shot dead) began scaling the fence. The baron quickly strode to the gate and swung it open.

"C'est ouvert, idiots."

The blushing soldiers, put in their place for the umpteenth time that day jumped off the fence and rushed through the gate. Two began banging on the embassy door.

"Ouvrez la porte immédiatement!"