NationStates Jolt Archive

East Glacia, Port Royale
20:31 Military / Local Time
March 1st, 2010

Private Robert Dunero had just finished spit shinning the boots, the owner of one and the other claimed by the company’s commander. Captain Bitch, was the title he held with the other troops, although they never called him this in front of the commander, in part due to the chance of the commander thinking they were referring to him, and moreso due to the inexistent connection they thought the commander and Dunero shared. Truth be told there was no such connection, it would be more correct to say that the company commander, Captain Charles Winge, despised Dunero, and only allotted him the privilege to shine his boots and do other menial tasks because his own ass was simply too lazy for the tasks.

Captain Winge (Pronounced Wing) was briefing his platoon commanders at this point in his company headquarters, “… is’ll be where we land, two kilometers south of Port San Stand. From there we’ll work something out. Men we’re going to be leading the assault, first wave you guys’s, me and your men. Best enjoy the glory right now, because in about less then a week over half of us are probably going to be dead, fucking scavenger meat, got me?” He stated in his own special caring way. At that moment Private Dunero entered the room, “Fucking ass, get the fuck out! Leave the boots outside!” He yelled at the ineptness of the private, it was common knowledge not to interrupt one of the commander’s briefings with upper staff.

Private Dunero retired himself into depression as he placed the commander’s boots on the outside of the building. ‘Fuck, I can’t do anything, right.' He said to himself, his sadness growing with each moment, even the single steps he was taking to get back to his barracks seemed to be moving sluggishly, even those were moving too quickly, ‘As soon as I get back I’m going to have to take their shit too. Fuck.’ Finally after two minutes of eternity he reached his barracks, opening the door, ‘Fucking, oi.’, “Hey fucker, did the captain push your shit in good today, too!” The hole room erupted in laughter, and the insults kept bounding away at his emotional stability.

Dunero slid off his boots, the insults and laughter still at the previous volume, but their consistency allowed for him to place it as a background noise, ‘God bless my intelligence.' He laughed to himself, silently. He spread out his body, pulling his pillow under his head, no doubt one of his fellow patriots had made some kind of comment about him reminiscing about the intimacy he previously shared with the commander. As that last thought sparked through his mind he un-holstered his P99, placing it stealthily underneath his pillow, rubbing it against his head. “Peace you ugly fucks.” The retaliation was unexpected and as thus everyone listened in for further, but all they heard was the distinguished sound of their standard-issued pistol, crushing a skull. The first casualty of the undeclared war.

Seas Between West / East Glacia, 2nd Overseas Marching Group
04:26
March 4th, 2010

Corporal Lenard Smith hugged himself to his G36A2 as the shaking of the ship didn’t give him much to fix himself to, both physically and emotionally. However his gun, without the additional hand grip and new red dot sight, had fought besides him in the Glacine Segregation War, which split the old Monarchy of Glacia into the Independent Territory of North Glacia, United States of West Glacia and the Principality of East Glacia. The war was sanguinary and of the thirty-seven million original inhabitants of the old Monarchy only eleven million remained, two million, four million and five million, all respectively. The boat hit another hard wave, thrashing him about. The only response his body would enact was regurgitation, and what a good job it did at that.

Smith’s fire team prodded him about his weakness to the sea, but they were all careful not to tip him over the edge, he had a sorry habit of shooting those who pissed him off excessively in the back during a shoot out. He raised himself up and headed out to the deck to hopefully gain some air, or at least be able to puke over the railing and keep his living quarters clean. As he got up from his latest purging he saw that the first wave of enemy missiles had been launched towards them. Within several seconds the near dozen missiles had been ripped apart by the CIWS point-defense systems of the transport ship.

Another second passed for Smith and the shore rose over the horizon. After this a low roar came from his side of the battle, about fifty Tomahawk or similar missiles had been launched, most from Vertical Launch Tubes (VLT) as a reply from the enemy barrage. Then a massive roar came from behind the Corporal and men with large headsets and orange signals began waving off Apache Attack Helicopters towards the shore. In total about sixteen had been launched, and their job was to soften up the shore for Smith and his fellow patriots.

Smith ran down to his barracks, passing many others who were no doubt going to do the same. His rifle bounced up and down, once banging against his knees. This significantly slowed him down and caused him to hold his weapon more cautiously. He finally made it to his barracks, where his squad was housed and the three other men in his fire team were doing arbitrary tasks such as playing cards, gambling, even smoking the occasional cigarette, though this last one was usually only done on the deck unless the entire barracks was augmented of smokers. “Get your guns.” Even though he was excited over the foreshadowed confrontation he had just realized, almost instantly after his entrance, that there would be about twenty more minutes of calculated dueling before they were even told to be prepped. Any other kind of report would simply be met with aggravation as they all slowly realized this. He was a veteran, it was expected of him to know better, and he did.

West Glacia, South of Port San Stand
05:14
March 4th, 2010

Captain Winge exited the CH-53 Sea Stallion, along with all of his command platoon, which consisted of twenty-one individuals, mostly comprised of communications and demolition experts. As an officer he was commissioned with a G36C, it was more for defense as he was expected not to die like the rest of his men, but instead to gain experience from his mistakes and to not make them again, and that was how it was exactly written in the Officer’s Manual. The cold calculation it took to be an Eastern Glacine Officer was embedded into his face, and he would do most of what it took to keep his command and complete his mission. “1st Platoon, once you’ve landed meet up with command platoon, 2nd Platoon I want your men to create a perimeter wherever my platoon and 1st Platoon form up on. 3rd Platoon, continue moving up from the beach and break off into fire-team sized patrols, penetrate up to six kilometers if you can.”

The entirety of his company reported in, over a hundred men. They would be the vanguard force, feeling out the enemy’s defenses. At this point the beach had been cleared of all visible fixed enemy positions, though it was a known fact that an infantry regiment in San Stand was being prepped for a counter-attack, and that several divisions were going to try to do the same thing against the East-West Glacine border. Eastern Apaches were still flying over Winge’s company, explosions could be heard far away, it was comforting for everyone to know that the battle wasn’t where they were at, in fact it sounded far off.

This falsity was soon corrected as Winge’s command platoon had made it about ten meters from the first thick patches of foliage. Soon a torrent of fire came from enemy AK-47s and RPKs all around his unit. Winge looked up, two men around him had been brought down by about twenty bullets, he raised his rifle, holding tight the hand grip, and opened fire at the three flashes of light that were bringing his men closer to god. “FUCKING WESTERN BITCHES!” He screamed, half uncontrollably, half to inspire his troops against the enemy. Within several seconds his magazine was empty, and so was the foliage ahead of him. He clicked the release and dropped the magazine, quickly replacing it. “Move up.” He said, quietly, over the radio.

Winge kneeled over one of the dead Westerns, surrounded by two other dead men and the remainder of his platoon. “Call up the 1st, get a head count. Bently and Ross, project yourselves ten meters ahead of us.” He was angry, but he couldn’t let the men see his frustration. His mind was speeding quickly, indecisiveness was one of the worst attributes of a military command ground level or up. Like the manual said, even a quick wrong answer is better then no answer. “Sir, we got three dead, two wounded.” The unwonted casualties were obviously due to the closeness of the ambushers. At this the remainder of men were uneasy, 1st Platoon had a delayed deployment and it would take them about ten minutes to arrive and reinforce their position. At the moment and for a bit longer they were sitting ducks for a Western counter-attack. “What do you want us to do, Captain?” The naïve and untested soldier asked him, regretful as he saw Winge’s angered face. He was going to give the orders, and he hated it when his men rushed him.

“Drag the two wounded closer to us.” Winge kept his eyes vigilant against the slightly wooded area around him as he ordered his men, he switched his radio to that of the 2nd Overseas Marching Ground Commander, “I need my 1st Platoon deployed to my location. I have two wounded men, and it looks bad. I also have to report that we got hit by ambushers, its expected that there’s more. The initial ambushers have been killed.” He was congratulated for his report, ‘No, shit. I should have expected this. Fucking bull shit, mistakes like this will make me lose my commission. Ah well, looks like the echelon idiots didn’t notice.’

West Glacia, Port San Stand
08:53
March 6th, 2010

Winge charged up the rubble, the enemy opening fire on him and his accompanying men, he replied with his own salvo of un-aimed fire. Six of his men dropped as they made it four meters down the street, “Cover!” he yelled to his men as he made a hard right under fire, his left calf impacted with a searing burn, but he kept pushing on, he knew if he screamed in pain it wouldn’t gain anyone anything. ‘Yes!’ He screamed internally as he made it to the alleyway. He looked around to process what had happened. Of his original company he had lost about half to ambushes after the landings, another quarter about yesterday, and now, at least before the charge, he had thirty-six. What he saw his seven wounded men around him, across the street was another ten, in the street he could clearly see four corpses. His radio had been cut off, due to the fact his helmet had been shot off his head. Continual scanning of his surrounding revealed a ladder that led to the top of the building.

“Men, hold position! I’m going to take those fucking Wen bastards!” Wen was a new slang for Westerners, it had been showed that saying their old name took a bit too long during a high intensity battle. Winge began climbing up the ladder, a task that was exponentially increased in difficulty by his most recent wound. Gratefully after two minutes of adversity he had finally reached the top, limping towards a chimney. *bing* A bullet ricocheted just less then an inch from his foot, he began to run, dodging more bullets that kicked up all manner of material. He searched for his grenade, “Got you bitch!” He yelled as he found the grenade, pulling the pin. Quickly after he tossed in down towards where the enemy had previously been, estimated, and kept running as the bullets chased him.

*ploof* Winge heard the screams of several men and a depraved grin was plastered on his face. At this point he had the wits to notice that the bullets all had their origin to his right, and with this weapon of knowledge he rammed his body onto the left-side of obstruction on one of the buildings. The enemy kept up a suppressive fire against him, ‘He’s either got more men, or he’s a lone fucking infantrymen trying to get a kill.’ Even a quick wrong answer is better then no answer. He raised himself from his hiding as the first pause of fire happened, he saw a flash from a rifle about fifty meters to his left, *ping, ping, shoof* bullets hit all around him, he raised his red dot towards the flash, squeezing the trigger twice. *ping, shoof, ping* And then there was silence…

Out Of Character / Sign-Up Thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=586539)

[OOC: TG me if you want in. What you don't need a TG for is to enact an embargo, diplomatic sanctions, political statements, humanitarian aide.]

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g20/Xavier_Solis/EastGlacia-1.png

[OOC: Blue = East Glacia, Red = West Glacia, Yellow = North Glacia. Any questions can be asked and answered via telegram.]

OOC: Holy Cow. Excellent opening post, if I may say so myself, Beyond excellent, exempliary. You've earned my respect in 5 paragraphs!

OOC: Amazing, can I join in? It might take me an hour to write something of this category but you noted as semi-open.

OOC: Im not good enough to join this post but I just wanted to say Incredible, very Impressive

West Glacia, Port San Stand
01:47
March 7th, 2010

Fifteen men all huddled around in a circle, each one being grazed or scared by a bullet or a shrapnel from everything and anything that could do so. It had been wrong for them, going in a hundred fifty strong, now huddled in this room cold, not physically as they wore several layers to keep themselves from such a condition in the naturally frosty climate of their home region, by psychologically. Winge was somewhat traumatized by the bullet that ripped his right ear from his body, the duel with the enemy rifleman had taken it. The loss of his ear wasn’t something that would have affected most men so, but Winge had loved his ears, beautiful in their arc, the lobes as symmetrical as possible for any imperfect human anatomy. They had been his one find adornment that he could flaunt, not publicly, as an officer was expected to be of higher caliber, but personally it cheered him in situations that a man unlike him could never understand. “So what you guys’s take on this shit pan?” Winge bellowed out, his voice coarse from the combination of exerting activities no water to replenish the lost hydration.

The question was a valid one. Each man only had about a magazine left, every single one of them had taken some kind of wound, and not the kind you get from landing hard on your knee, all their head sets had been lost to intense fighting with an odd number who were lucky to have nearly missed a head shot. Outside the streets were desolate, the emptiness would mean one or the other; their side had broken threw the city and was now advancing on the Wen flank, or on the reverse the Wens could have broken down the intruding force and was now counter-attacking the beach head, or perhaps the beach head had already fallen. This left their predicament into a very weary one. If their fellow patriots had already pushed far ahead returning to the original landing site would prove un fortuitous and they could be swallowed up by a mass of ambushers which still remained behind, ‘fucking paramilitary gun humping hicks.’ Winge thought to himself, or they could exit the city only to find an entrenched enemy fortifying the beach. “I say we surrender, sir.”

The outrageous comment was let loose by Private First Class Kyle Loveland, no doubt at least half the men were thinking similarly. This was an out rage against the supposed ‘grand honor’ of being in the military. From the day they entered professional service, and it should be noted that it was also the same for conscription, they had the constant barrage of a string of military victories, and if there was a defeat it was due to monumental proportions, such psychological indication had its side affect. When such a high expectation was given to a common man, who was by no means the gem of the empire, it drains his self confidence during a time of true testing, where his training, his wits, and even to the rest of the world it could be seen as also testing the true purity of his soul, when he is forced to second guess himself, for fear of making a mistake, for fear of failing, for fear of disgrace, is reduces their effectiveness. However there is one common and notable solution to this problem, and this was the one that Corporal Smith reached, and it was fear.

Smith raised his rifle to the man, but it wasn’t rhythmic or drilled, it was a flick of the wrist, calculated in the scope of a second and ended in a resounding two part bang, one to the lower abdomen, the other to the heart. Loveland fell softly against the ground, his gun not sharing his quality and banged harshly around. Everyone looked at him, astonished, all of a sudden the thought of surrender was replaced by a fear of death, by a comrade. “Any other one of you fuckers who wants to surrender, I got this gun here that would make that a bit easier.” The one survivor of his fire team, Private Josh Red, was caught off guard in the immediate time following the death of one of the few survivors, but in retrospect he should have expected such a thing from his fire team leader. “You all know what those fucking Wens will do to you if they capture.” He spit against the ground, notably towards the corpse of Loveland, “I did that shit a favor. He still has his glory, and his limbs.” The air was still and cold, there was no retaliation, it was informally, subconsciously, unanimously agreed: no one wants to mess with that crazy fucker.

West Glacia, South of San Stand
10:11
March 7th, 2010

Private Leslie Olde was a man of normal physical arrangement, normal childhood, teenage years were the same. Even in training he received straight C’s threwout his time there, he was not excellent in marksmanship, but he had one gift. The unmistakable gift of a complete absence of unnecessary addendums. Many could see this and believe it to be simple, not a gift, perhaps even a handicap. However this was the exact opposite for it granted the few words that he spoke significance to his fellow troops, and it made everything he said clear, with no confusing language, a blessing from his farming birth and raising. He held his G36A2 relatively far from his body compared to the other soldiers, he preferred due to the comfort and extra space it gave him.

The previous day an attack had been launched by three companies from the forward battalion, all of which the 2nd Overseas Marching Group lost contact with, they were all labeled MIA. As of now the 2nd had deployed sixteen companies, excluding the three mentioned earlier, and was conducting guerilla sweeping manuevers to cleanse the area of the paramilitary units reported in by the most forward company in the group. Apparently the guerillas had moved out as two days of searching revealed nothing to any of the men, not even a booby trap was encountered. Several helicopter sorties were sent towards the city, however these revealed nothing as it was believed that the enemy regiment stationed there during the attack had pulled back entirely during the night. With this information Olde’s company, along with two others, was sent to investigate the city.

West Glacia, San Stand
19:29
March 7th, 2010

Olde, along with two other troops, was pinned down behind a bullet riddled SUV. The enemy had waited for all three companies to enter the center of the city. Cutting them off from the rest of the group that had been deployed and leaving them to fend for themselves. The Wen M16s had low-density rounds, which while they were effective at farther distances, didn’t have the stopping power to penetrate even the side doors of a metal framed car. Olde raised himself to meet the incoming enemy fire, bullets pinging constantly around him, the sound of bullet cutting air was ringing in his ears. However he identified the hostiles, two combatants, one on each side of the street. Olde began to contemplate his next move as he ducked underneath the shelter of the car, the other two men who he was bunking with behind the car looked at him astonishingly, not only did he just expose himself to enemy fire, he also did so without returning fire, a very rare occurance. As he thought, he noticed that the street was two lanes and the distance between both gun men was about six meters, give or take a few. Defienetely in range for the shrapnel from his grenade, which he uniformly took out, unpinned, and lobbed towards the enemy that was about ten meters down the street.

Olde leaned over rather quickly as the shooting had stop to see the Wens falling back with shouts of screaming, understandable to him from the distance, they were screaming, ‘grenade, grenade!’ it was an adorable sight to behold. Less then a second before the explosion Olde ducked down again, the grenade exploding, there was no way the enemy could have escaped the shrapnel while they were running in the open. Dumb bastards. Olde pulled out a standard issue Malt-brand Cigarette, which he lit with his again standard issue Malt-brand Zippo lighter. He used his once mighty lungs to take a hit that lasted two second, ignorantly destroying his lungs further. The dangers of tabacoo use was not something preached to farmers or their kids, and even if it was Olde was too far down the road of addiction to stop, even if someone took a live picture of his black and gray lungs, as cancerous cells had already begun tearing away at his lungs. Despite all this tear on them they still continued to soldier on, performing at the same level, if not better, then many of the non-smokers in the military.

The men next to Olde continued their astonishment, he looked equivelant to a god in their eyes, despite his own humble view of himself. “Get up.” He stated plainly, obviously referencing their very horrid defensive position, hugging the side of a car. They soon raised themselves up, lining their guns towards where the enemy had previously attacked. “You.” He pointed blatantly at the man to the left, “Go take up position in the building next to us. If you see anything yell down to us.” The man he was reffering to was Private Mario Mendez, who was just fresh out of recruitment camp and had not distinguished himself with any stunning or unexpected abilities, except a deep understanding of the necessity to understand and follow orders, and this he did efficiently as he began to run into the building to their left. Once there he could set up a position on the balcony on the third floor and warn of any possibly incoming attacks.

West Glacia, San Stand
23:17
March 7th, 2010

It was pitch black, and the tension Olde had was un proportional to the rest of the group. He stood in his position, seeming to not even recognize the change in dictatorship between the sun and moon. The enemy had cut off power to the city, leaving the only light to be the moon and other extraterrestrial entities, and what a beautiful sight it was. The farmer in Olde allowed him to give the occasional, satisfied, glance at the star. With one of these glances he noticed movement on the roof of where the trooper he had stationed was, immediately however he knew that this was one of his men, as the enemy wouldn’t give him any time to reply or identify them.

Olde continued to look down the street after this occurrence, which made him ten fold more vigilant as his casual gaze of the cosmos was replaced by the need to stay alive, and the infantry manual clearly stated, … the more on guard you are, the more likely you’ll react correctly. Reacting correctly clearly increases your chances of survival no matter what the situation. So he maintained his unbroken line of sight, except for the unnoticeable moments of blindness when he blinked. *din, dig, poo, poof* A chorus of enemy fire ran towards him and the man next to him, ricocheting sporadically off the walls and off the ground, basically off any surface. Olde ducked quickly, as Mario and the other men stationed on the roofs retaliated for him. He looked to his left, seeing that his fellow patriot took a bullet right above his foot. ‘Damned wild turkeys!’ he aggressively told himself.

*wild turkey is country term for sporadic or ricocheting bullets, and sometimes circumstances depending on the situation and person.

West Glacia, San Stand
07:17
March 8th, 2010

Sporadic gun fire had surprised the men, though they did miss the entrance of allied forces because their movement didn’t involve gun fire, thus not loud enough to cause suspicion. It could be told from their current position that the fighting was a ways off, but as their previous experiences on the beach had told them this did not necessarily guarantee any form of safety. The men looked at Winge hungrily, physically and intelligently, they want to know what to do. They were all hungry, all tired (the constant fighting and skirmishes made it difficult, not due to noise by excitement) and they all wanted to leave. Winge understood this, not due to some book he read every other week, but because he saw it in their eyes, that had told him what they wanted.

Winge quietly put the butt of his gun on the floor, using it to push himself up, his back cracking as he did so. “Gather round.” He said, his voice grew worse than the last time he talked, which was nearly ten hours ago. The men were scattered threw out the room, though non left to investigate the rest of the housing complex, they quickly converged on him, in a uniformed circle. “We’re going to move towards firin-” He spit out a dry cough, “We… ‘ll go threw the roof.” Following this a loud salvo of weezing was ejected out of his mouth, but the men were no longer pugnacious as they uniformly exited the room and headed towards the ‘emergency’ stair case, many of the men remarked in their minds at what a coincidence that they would be using a stair case by that name, given their present circumstances.

Even the death of Private Loveland sank into the recesses of every man’s mind as their primal instinct began to perpetuate threw their nurtured teachings. It would soon be proved without a doubt that any man can be broken from a social norm when his survival was slowly taken from him, where he was given time to think about what he needed, not what had happened. As the men made their slow steps to the roof they all came unified in one rationale. ‘I’m quitting this bull shit, as soon as I get the chance. No pay, nothing it worth this.’ This is where they met mentally, unbenounced to any of them, and as thus they kept it to themselves. Even the venerable Winge had been broken down to the same rationale, though his facial expression portrayed no such cognitive.

These thoughts were somehow beaten as the melancholiness of the building’s inner walls had been defeated by the angelic view of the sun beaming down upon the entire group. The men were all happy, with the exception of Winge and Smith who were continually thinking about the survival of the group. “Let’s go.” Winge pointed towards the gun fire, which was directly north of them, and as thus had an unobstructed route via the roofs. The men leaped from building to buildings, with out incident. The men’s moral had begun to rise, even their primal instincts for the necessities was over-run by the new data that was flooding their brain.

This amicable situation was broken as they finally made it about ten minutes away from the irregular gun fighting and one of the Privates made the hellish report, “Sir, we got a Wen bastard commander under us. He’s got a squad with hi-” Private Renald’s voice was also coarse and worn like Winge’s, no doubt due to the situation they shared, and now he would ask the question that Winge did not want to hear, “Should we attack, or just skip it, sir?” The question left resonance as the men all turned to Winge, some throwing a disgusted look at Renald, as many of them had seen the enemy position before but choose to ignore it. They didn’t want to fight anymore.

Winge looked at his men quizzically, for the first time in front of the men he seemed to be broken down…

West Glacia, San Stand
08:03
March 8th, 2010

Olde had been holding his post for the past few hours, neglecting to allow anyone else to take up his position. The on and off fighting had claimed the life of the man next to him, whose name he had coincidentally learned was Charles McDougal. At the current pace the enemy was set to attack again in about five minutes, though Olde was ignorant of this fact because he lived in the moment, he would respond when and how it was necessary, not before or after. As of now, he was happy smoking his cigarette and having his gun pointed down the street, waiting for the enemy, though previous fighting had warned him against this, as usually the first wave was from the roof or one of the windows.

The first shooter were as predicted, and as thus the mildly wounded Mario and his higher altitut-ed counterparts quickly dispatched them. The next second was when the unexpected had occurred, several metal can had been thrown from behind different angles, some from the windows other farther down the block. Several booms subsequently followed the canisters that been launched. More booms were heard, and Olde’s previously jammed brain had been able to process the events, and he ducked down, which was followed by a hissing noise and continued bangs that seemed to be in rhythm. ‘They threw a grenade, and now they’re opening mortar fire. It’s the main assault.’ Was what Olde believed what was happening.

Olde was seemingly proven wrong as the hissing noise had continued, as did the bangs. He raised his head to investigate and noticed that there was now a different in lighting. There was smoke everyone, which also served to remind him that he had lost his cigarette during his process of thought, which served to aggravate him even more. Instinctively he defaulted to his grenades, which he now owned two of, and pulled one out, which was then un-pinned and thrown into the smoky abyss. The explosion, which was noticeably different from the consistent ones, which are also getting louder, was followed by several shrieks. Several seconds later a drone of moans were being echoed from the smoke, no doubt casualties of his grenade.

Finally there was a simultaneous plethora of large explosions, which sounded like they were breaking concrete. Olde immediately ran to his left after this, finding shelter in the same building that Mario and the other men on his side had. He set himself up adjacent to the window facing where he had previously been, using the cover of a check out station. Another few seconds past and gun fire erupted, screams heard, followed by cursing. But this time was different, he could distinctively hear grenades, but these were unlike the ones he had heard before, these ones were being tosses towards his side of the battle. In more time a grenade had been thrown where he had previously been staying, and with that he ducked behind the station, the shrapnel from the grenade breaking the glass of the building he was in.

Olde looked up afterwards, this time seeing a body added to the scenario. The color of it was a darkish brown, which, along with the audible decrease of fire power from his side, led him to believe it was Mario. Following that an enemy exited from the smoke, he was wearing light body armor with a patch synonymous with West Glacia and an M16, his position was crouched looking forward. Following him there was two more men, who were scanning the area for enemies, the gun fire around Olde’s sector was quiet, but the gun fire from other section of the perimeter could be heard continuously.

Olde held the grip of his gun tight, aiming decisively at the front-most man, holding the trigger for a second, then caring his aim to the grouped up two men, and held the trigger down for another two seconds. All the men in his sights had been laid out with a resounding sound of fire. His estimate was that he had lost six rounds, in truth it was only five, a good omen for him. Quickly the downed men were reinforced by four more, two of which seemed to be medical as they quickly attended to the several downed men. This time Olde began pulling the trigger while he was aiming at the rear-most individual and then, without releasing the trigger, drag it all the way to the front-most, pulling it down as he passed over the medical personnel, they were armed.

Luckily Olde’s one tracer round was at the end of the line, and the next group of men, which numbered in five, didn’t see it. These men were scanning the area much more pervasively than the last two, and with this Olde decided that the best choice would be to duck for cover. He had been waiting about two minutes, before he heard the distinct noise of someone’s boots hitting marble flooring, which happened to be the flooring used in the building that he had hiding. He got up and again dragged his gun in the general direction of the intruder, this time after only three second his clip was empty. The men outside looked inwards straight towards him, all of them raising their guns…

West Glacia, 2 Kilometers North of the Eastern Border
11:56
March 9th, 2010

Lieutenant Commander Daniel von Burec sat around his command bunker, surrounded by men who were not on par with his rank, yet they served their purposes administratively. “What’s the situation on our battle, gentlemen?” His uniform was flawless, a straight blue suit with gold trim trailing every chance it could without becoming a dominant color. His hat was black and red, an odd contrast to the main theme of his clothing, and it also brought irregular desire to look at the topper portion of his body, most notably the hat, but somehow your eyes eventually receded to his face, no doubt a direct result by the stern contrast in his clothing.

The first man to answer was Lieutenant Colonel Carl Marx, no relation, who had never once proven himself in combat but his arm-chair commanding and ability to understand the importance of logistics had allowed him to go quickly threw the ranks without incident in field combat. “Well, sir. The main combat seems to be going on in the Burrin Plains, it’s pretty desolate but it’s also situated close to our borders with Azbakhistan. We have ten thousand troops currently fighting along the area, with attached armor of a hundred fifty Leopard 2A4s. Air superiority is currently contested, the situation is the same all along the front. The enemy has an estimated twenty thousand infantry, along with two hundred of their Abram 1A1s, attempting to push up the front.”

Burec raised his arms above his shoulders, not to convey dominance or to silence anyone, but to crack a stern part of his back that had been bothering him for the past several days. “I know we have one battery of M270s in the area. We can use those to take out a few tanks, and with that upper hand we should be able to keep up the momentum.” He rubbed his clean-shaven face thoughtfully, and smiled. “Alright, see if you can fit some of our new RBS-15s… make them Mark Four models.” He smiled at his self-perceived intelligence, again continuing the rub his face, it was a habit that got on most everyone’s nerves, but they allowed it, if not only for his rank. After all, they were all just rear echelon mother fuckers.

West Glacia, 1 Kilometer South of the Burrin Plains
12:31
March 9th, 2010

Technical Sergeant Greg duMont had been in charge of the maintenance crew that had to modify the M270 Multiply Launch Rocket Systems to fit the newer RBS-15s. It was a simply task really, pull out the two standard issue launch tubes and replace them with two launch tubes that were compatible with the RBS-15. Luckily they had them in stock. The only problem with the Mk. IV of the same missile was that it had its targeting system optimized for air targets, a fact that the self-proclaimed ‘brilliant’ Commander von Burec failed to realize, and it would be a serious issue for the whole war.

First Sergeant Nathaniel Batruski was sitting comfortably in his M270, awaiting the orders to launch over the radio. Finally after waiting for nearly half an hour a voice came over the radio. “Personnel of Cardinal Battery, prepare to fire.” Random yells of joy shot out from the four other vehicles, the loudest one coming from the man next to him, Corporal Zack Daniels who quickly adjusted the angle of the launcher to around ninety degrees. The joy wore down as several minutes passed before the radio came alive again, but eventually it did, “Cardinal Battery. You are clear for launch. Aim for the enemy tanks.” And with that the flood of targets came into their vehicles database, every single one had aimed for a tank.

Zack quickly pressed the launch button, which sent their first RBS-15 against an enemy tank, it would soon claim that target. The next target they acquired was another enemy M1A1 that was just meters from the Azbakhistan border, this time Sergeant Batruski had beaten Zack to the button, and the second missile flew from the launcher. Both of them watched it closely, cheering as they had acquired the battery’s first hit, but the second one was lost mid-way into the flight. There were many questions running threw their mind, but the most prevalent one was: Where did it land?

OOC: Pre-agreed with Glacia. Posting from alternate account.

Base No. 3, near Gudauta, 10 kilometres from the Azbakh-Glacine border,
01:34, 10th March, 2010

If there was one thing that Private Leto had learned in the course of his eighteen months with the 77th (Gudauta) Airborne Regiment, then it was anything that didn’t involve being shot at was training. Except, of course, for combat training itself. The other thing he had learnt was how Junior Sergeant Rahmon relished coming into their K-span at the most ungodly hour to rouse the platoon from their cots and load them into smelly and dirty URAL trucks for a nighttime march to bumfucknowhere. Such was the fate of the conscript soldier in any man’s army, Leto mused, and the Azbakh army in particular, as on this evening he shrugged into his battle dress to the soundtrack of Rahmon bellowing loud enough to be heard all the way in East Glacia.

Running out of the k-span into the crisp night air, weighed down by a full winter battle kit including bed roll, entrecnhing tool, his AKM and loaded magazine magazine pouches, Leto collided with another soldier. Blinking with wide-eyed confusion the conscript was clearly a cherry and a new join by the lack of his parachute wings, barely a boy-man in Leto’s eyes even though all that divided the two could only have been an extra candle on the birthday cake. “What’s happening,” the confused boy-man asked as he struggled with his kit.

Grabbing ahold of him Leto tightened the straps of his bergen and the sling of his AKM, snapping back, “Training,” before dissapearing into the night.

Just as on every other occasion a dozen URAL-375 trucks had been provided from the motor pool as the company transport, their headlights burning bright enough to light the way across the parade ground. With sergeants barking the conscripts formed up into files to the side of each truck, their forms backlit by the truck lights casting long shadows across the asphalt. Leto double timed to where his squad had already assembled waiting for the order to load up. “Good of you to join us,” the private in front of him mumbled in thick-accented Russian, Leto unable to help cracking a grin before killing it as Junior Sergeat Rahmon passed by blustering in his usual manner and then finally gaving the order they were all waiting for.

“LOAD UP!”

The squad had by now learned the trick of putting the largest and strongest of their number at the head of the file. In their case it was a Private Saskyl who owed his amazing physique either from spending his formative years on a farm in Central Azbakhazia, or from the abuse of anaerobic steriods while competing as a weight lifter for his old highschool. Whichever the case it was a simple matter for Saskyl to leap into the truck and then lean out offering an arm to haul aboard the next man in the file. And so it would continue until Leto’s turn at the end of the stack, half-jumping and being half-hauled into the dark and sweaty interior.

As Leto settled at the end of the bench with his fellow conscripts looking out he could see a BMD-2 airborne fighting vehicle thundered past nimbly before shuddering to a halt. The sight caused the young paratrooper to begin to develop an ominous feeling that grew from the pit of his stomach. High Command, as every conscript new to their detrimient, was never in the practice of informing the common grunt in advance of what was happening. Clutching the stock and foregrip of his AKM tightly Leto couldn’t help wonder: what if today they were not being sent on more training?

Gorski, 2 kliometres from the Azbakh-Glacine border,
11:23, 9th March, 2010

Trading had been good over the last few years, Sabine had reflected, while setting up her stall ready for the day’s midday market. A war widow from the ‘92-’97 civil war with South Azbakhazia it had only been when the new government of President ? had come to power in 2001 that war windows pensions were increased to a living amount and grants given to businesses. Sabine had turned the meagre grant of just a few hundred rials, barely a 60 or 70 universal standard dollars, into her current business that grossed more than that on just a bad day.

Helping Sabine this morning was her eldest daughter Derrida, now blossoming into a young woman of nineteen years. Both still wore the black dress of mourning even after these fifteen years following the death of husband and father Ahmed in the civil war. Sabine quietly held contempt for all Glacians, for in part the war had been triggered by the Glacian minority. The irony that, after she had been evicted from military married quarters in the north she would find herself living just a few kilometres from the Glacian border was beyond ironic. Even worse, it would be fate.

What had help rebuild Sabine’s life had been vegetables. While not a farmer at heart, being a city girl from the capital Esfandar, the grinding poverty since the formation of the republic, and then the civil war, had forced many to find eek a living however they found it. For Sabine, she had grown her own vegetables in a way which, she would later learn was considered in the more affluent West was organic. In the tower blocks many had window boxes, but Sabine had improvised her own hydroponics using a bathtub and whatever equipment she had found abandoned or thrown away, even scavanged from rubbish tips, and sterilised and lovingly assembled. A window box couldn’t feed a family of five with no bread-winner, and desparate straits required desparate solutions. By luck the bathroom was in permanent sun throughout the day, and as such she could cultivate and grow her vegetables in the middle of a sterile concrete city.

Today the family could afford the buy the best Western imports - well, at least as a treat. Sabine had turned her 60-70 US Dollars into a series of hydroponic farms that produced vegetables that were not only fresh but tasted exquistely. In a more developed nation a genius such as hers, given a few million US Dollars in funding, might have achieved anything. Just fourty-five minutes later that life was extighuished as an artillery rocket fired by a M270 MLRS battery across the border hit the market killing a dozen stall owners and patrons, and maiming dozens more. Derrida, considered a cute if not a raging beuaty, would loose her left leg and be permanently scarred from burns and shrapnel.

It would be several days yet before news of the attack would filter out across the country as the state-owned news stations waited for their political masters to allow them to break the news, and editors and executives fretted over the public reaction. It would take just hours for President ?, facing re-election and a surge in popularity by the opposition, declared war against East Glacia.

Azbakh-Glacine border, 02:07, 10th March, 2010

The brutal regime to which conscripts in the Azbakhistan army were subjected to was considered good preparation for actual combat, or so the logic went. Whether Leto and all his fellow conscripts appreciated that they had been bullied, assaulted and treated little better than unpaid labour to toughen them was not something they would ever be asked, least of all by Lieutenant Kolar.

Their commanding officer had the bushy eyebrows of a Russian, and the brusk manner of an officer who didn’t care much for the welfare of those who served under him. The 77th Airborne had been given orders to sieze a key mountain pass to allow massing troops, respectively a motorized rifle brigade and tank brigade, to push across the border into East Glacia. Their heaviest weapons were RPKs, RPG-7s and SA-7s, but they would have the BMD-2s and 82 mm mortars to support them and a barrage from D-30 122mm howitzer guns and BM-21 Grad rocket artillery from their side of the border. The way Lieutenant Kolar deployed his troops revealed his thinking - he was a man seeking glory vicariously though his troops. They would fight and die for the pass, and he would take all the credit and metals when they succeeded.

“AIRBORNE FIRST!” the platoon cried with a single voice once the orders had been given. Within minutes the barage - and the offensive - would begun.