Pelasgia
Established Nation
And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
Exodus 3:2
Exodus 3:2
Kalina City, Central Himyar†
† OOC: The characters seen here are already established in my main internal RP, "The Lion and the Eagle". For further clarity, see that RP from around
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on."Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." These were the only words with which Constantine Mukumbi could describe his reaction to the changing of the guard that had taken place before his eyes over the last few days, since the Pelasgians, in their infinite magnanimity, had decided to make their imperial domination of his homeland ever slightly less flagrant, replacing the thugs of General Security and Aegis with the thugs of the Far Southern Company's PMC subsidiary—"Himyari Security Solutions", if memory served. To the Central Himyaris, however, the foreign troops already went by another monicker: Bluecoats, in reference to the blue clothes that they often wore under their khaki plate carriers and equipment. Blue was, after all, the colour of the PFSC*,
*Pelasgian Far Southern Company (also abbreviated PEAN, from its Pelasgian initials)
As a squad of these bluecoats neatly arranged themselves in rows in their provisional assembly point outside Kalina City's central railway station, Julius Ngoy instinctively spat on the ground. "What are they even supposed to be here for, boss? The Reds are done for, and the mercs are gone as well."
"New Ncuna City seems to think it prudent to keep them here for a few years, until we can be certain that the Reds aren't coming back," came the passionless, mechanical reply for Mukumbi. His eyes as dark as his skin, he looked on the as the bluecoats turned in unison at their officer's order, and then started for the train station, to be taken to the country's inland regions. Behind them followed three times as many non-Pelasgian auxiliaries, ranging from unmistakably Nethian Central Himyari natives to exotic Scanian, Toyouese, and even Urudoah soldiers of fortune. In the corner of his eye, Mukumbi caught Ngoy staring at him. Of course he knows I don't believe that bullshit, he thought to himself. But what difference does it make? The Pelasgians practically pay our government's wages—fuck, they pay my wage too. They say "Jump!", and President Kinuani will ask "How high?" Good thing we got rid of the Engells...
For his part, Julius Ngoy knew perfectly well what his superior was thinking—and yet, he could not bear to see him keep that anger inside him. Deep down, quiet and stoic as he tried to appear, Constantine Mukumbi was a proud man, and one who was not at all happy to see his country whored out to the latest colonial master from abroad. Himyari or not, the foreigner always came to Central Himyar to take and never to give—and what little he gave came with a bill a thousand times more expensive than the benefit given. It was for this reason that the detective never seemed quite happy when a new piece of equipment "gifted" to the CHPS* arrived, or when some new rail line built by one of the Pelasgian corporate groups that had poured into the country like rats was announced—he knew the price tag of the "gift" in question would be much heavier.
*Central Himyari Police Service
"Right then," Detective Mukumbi said, breaking the silence that had remained between the two men for a few moments at this point. "Let's get on with it: we're on duty. The fun part of arresting and extraditing Pegasus and Koressios bastards is done—now we have to go back to policing this open-air sewer of a city."
Ngoy nodded and turned to follow his superior and mentor into the car—but no sooner had he turned than he saw his shadow grow a hundred times longer and darker from a blinding light behind his back, the same back which he felt scorched as if it were touching the very surface of the Sun. The sound of glass shuttering all around followed as the two Central Himyari policemen fell to the ground—and the whole square shook and roared as the facade of Kalina City Central Station exploded into a flaming, shuttered ruin.
"Bomb!" Ngoy cried out, turning around pistol in hand; Mukumbi had done the same just an instant earlier, and, after verifying that there were no active threats, the two men checked each other for wounds."God is watching over us!" Ngoy added, upon making sure that they were both unharmed.
Mukumbi raised his pistol anew and shook his head. "God had nothing to do with this." Sligthly crouched, he started for the station, checking on random civilians who lied the square, most of them alive, but many injured and a few dead. "Call for backup! We need half the ambulances in the city!" the detective barked, before pausing in front of the point where the Pelasgian mercenaries had previously stood: it was the epicentre of the blast, that much was certain, for only a crater remained. And on the far end of the gaping whole in the middle of the square, close to the charred and broken facade of the otherwise largely intact station, the blackened fragments of the bluecoats' bodies remained, some with remnants of their torn namesake uniforms; beside these were the equally mangled remains of the auxiliaries who had been following the into the station. "Fuck me," Constantine Mukumbi said out loud as he holstered his pistol. "New Ncuna City was right—but not in the way they wanted to be."
*Pelasgian Far Southern Company (also abbreviated PEAN, from its Pelasgian initials)
As a squad of these bluecoats neatly arranged themselves in rows in their provisional assembly point outside Kalina City's central railway station, Julius Ngoy instinctively spat on the ground. "What are they even supposed to be here for, boss? The Reds are done for, and the mercs are gone as well."
"New Ncuna City seems to think it prudent to keep them here for a few years, until we can be certain that the Reds aren't coming back," came the passionless, mechanical reply for Mukumbi. His eyes as dark as his skin, he looked on the as the bluecoats turned in unison at their officer's order, and then started for the train station, to be taken to the country's inland regions. Behind them followed three times as many non-Pelasgian auxiliaries, ranging from unmistakably Nethian Central Himyari natives to exotic Scanian, Toyouese, and even Urudoah soldiers of fortune. In the corner of his eye, Mukumbi caught Ngoy staring at him. Of course he knows I don't believe that bullshit, he thought to himself. But what difference does it make? The Pelasgians practically pay our government's wages—fuck, they pay my wage too. They say "Jump!", and President Kinuani will ask "How high?" Good thing we got rid of the Engells...
For his part, Julius Ngoy knew perfectly well what his superior was thinking—and yet, he could not bear to see him keep that anger inside him. Deep down, quiet and stoic as he tried to appear, Constantine Mukumbi was a proud man, and one who was not at all happy to see his country whored out to the latest colonial master from abroad. Himyari or not, the foreigner always came to Central Himyar to take and never to give—and what little he gave came with a bill a thousand times more expensive than the benefit given. It was for this reason that the detective never seemed quite happy when a new piece of equipment "gifted" to the CHPS* arrived, or when some new rail line built by one of the Pelasgian corporate groups that had poured into the country like rats was announced—he knew the price tag of the "gift" in question would be much heavier.
*Central Himyari Police Service
"Right then," Detective Mukumbi said, breaking the silence that had remained between the two men for a few moments at this point. "Let's get on with it: we're on duty. The fun part of arresting and extraditing Pegasus and Koressios bastards is done—now we have to go back to policing this open-air sewer of a city."
Ngoy nodded and turned to follow his superior and mentor into the car—but no sooner had he turned than he saw his shadow grow a hundred times longer and darker from a blinding light behind his back, the same back which he felt scorched as if it were touching the very surface of the Sun. The sound of glass shuttering all around followed as the two Central Himyari policemen fell to the ground—and the whole square shook and roared as the facade of Kalina City Central Station exploded into a flaming, shuttered ruin.
"Bomb!" Ngoy cried out, turning around pistol in hand; Mukumbi had done the same just an instant earlier, and, after verifying that there were no active threats, the two men checked each other for wounds."God is watching over us!" Ngoy added, upon making sure that they were both unharmed.
Mukumbi raised his pistol anew and shook his head. "God had nothing to do with this." Sligthly crouched, he started for the station, checking on random civilians who lied the square, most of them alive, but many injured and a few dead. "Call for backup! We need half the ambulances in the city!" the detective barked, before pausing in front of the point where the Pelasgian mercenaries had previously stood: it was the epicentre of the blast, that much was certain, for only a crater remained. And on the far end of the gaping whole in the middle of the square, close to the charred and broken facade of the otherwise largely intact station, the blackened fragments of the bluecoats' bodies remained, some with remnants of their torn namesake uniforms; beside these were the equally mangled remains of the auxiliaries who had been following the into the station. "Fuck me," Constantine Mukumbi said out loud as he holstered his pistol. "New Ncuna City was right—but not in the way they wanted to be."
Tsavo District, Central Himyar
Robert Banza was a happy man. The son of a poor fisherman making his living on the banks of lake Tsavo, one of southern Himyar's two largest inland lakes, he had not had a particularly easy life. Disease had taken six of his siblings even before childbirth had taken his mother; education had been scarce at best, and of healthcare or modern comforts Robert did not even know. It was almost a miracle that he had even landed his job as a Border Guard—steady government jobs, especially those with the authority to extort bribes from others and protect oneself and one's family from other's extortion—were a valuable good in Central Himyar, and they were only reserved for those who were in cahoots with the local lackeys of whichever party dominated the country's sham of a democracy at that point in time. Police jobs were better than Army jobs too—for the Army dealt with rebels, terrorists and enemies, who had guns to shoot back, while the cops needed only concern themselves with unarmed strikers and the like. Poachers and smugglers and other such scum abounded, but it was only recently that the CHPS had started to pretend to care. Their foreign advisors expected results, and since the foreign aid from which the CHPS's bosses drew their bribes depended on those results... "Business is business," as the saying went.
At any rate, and fortunately for Robert Banza, there were various postings a member of the CHPS' Border Guard Directorate could be assigned to. The western border was glorified customs duty at the port—plenty of bribes, almost no danger, but prying foreign eyes and a lot of government oversight; in short, bad business. The southern border lied next to @Serenierre, a serious country by all accounts, and thus one which again begot much oversight from superiors. The north was next to the failed state that was the so-called Himyari People's Republic, meaning that it was a land of opportunity; unfortunately, this Wild West of a frontier was were most terrorists, rebels and other criminals chose to make their way into the country, so it was also the only place were Border Guards actually needed to use their military-grade equipment—sometimes to the death. The Eastern Border was by far the easiest and calmest, being mostly peaceful thanks to @Azraq's harsh border security and the relative prosperity of the towns on the coast of lakes Tsavo and Kalamba (and their namesake cities).
Being a native of that region, Robert would normally have been legally required to be assigned to a different region, in order to minimize corruption and to dissolve tribal loyalties... however, this was overlooked, as were many other legal requirements, due to the manner in which Robert got his position: his father had saved the local Regional Customs Director from drowning when the boat he had been on had sunk in Lake Tsavo. To show his gratitude, the Director offered Robert's father any favour he wished... and there was only one favour the man with four daughters to marry and only one remaining son to help him gather a dowry could think of. Though today such an arrangment would appear impossible, those were different days—days before the previous dictatorship had fallen, when Central Himyar did not even have to pretend to live up to international standards against corruption in the police force.
"I am grandfathered in," Robert would always joke when asked about his joining the force when he could barely read. That he was. It was this line that Robert repeated to his colleague, David Yumba, as the two of them patrolled the country's eastern coastline on a
"At least you can drive!" David joked at him, as Robert sped into a turn and drifted. "Fuck, did you learn to turn like that on a fishing boat?"
The two men shared a laugh—only for a ripple of gunfire to interrupt them. A hail of bullets landed straight into David Yumba, killing in an instant. One of the rounds grazed Robert's right shoulder, causing him to swerve right and to crush his vehicle into the side of the newly paved road. His heart racing so fast he could feel every vein in his face, the short but wide-shouldered Nethian pulled out his service pistol, almost ignoring the pain in of his bleeding shoulder wound. Rushing out of the car, he took cover behind the driver's side door, before radioing in for backup.
"Dispatch!" he shouted. "I am near Exit 117 of Tsavo Highway toward Johnstown, taking fire! My partner's dead, assailants have automatic weapons! Advise!"
A ripple of gunfire burrowed its way into the car, bursting two of its tires; the vehicle's white exterior was now blood-red on two spots: outside the window from where David had been shot, and at the spot where Robert's shoulder touched the opposite door. Still ignoring the pain, Robert kept shouting into his radio. "Dispatch! Need backu-
A single shot silenced the lone Border Guard officer, finding him dead in the forehead. As he collapsed on the ground, the muffled radio chatter from the opposite side of the radio still relayed commands and asked him for updates. No response would ever come from the officer.
At any rate, and fortunately for Robert Banza, there were various postings a member of the CHPS' Border Guard Directorate could be assigned to. The western border was glorified customs duty at the port—plenty of bribes, almost no danger, but prying foreign eyes and a lot of government oversight; in short, bad business. The southern border lied next to @Serenierre, a serious country by all accounts, and thus one which again begot much oversight from superiors. The north was next to the failed state that was the so-called Himyari People's Republic, meaning that it was a land of opportunity; unfortunately, this Wild West of a frontier was were most terrorists, rebels and other criminals chose to make their way into the country, so it was also the only place were Border Guards actually needed to use their military-grade equipment—sometimes to the death. The Eastern Border was by far the easiest and calmest, being mostly peaceful thanks to @Azraq's harsh border security and the relative prosperity of the towns on the coast of lakes Tsavo and Kalamba (and their namesake cities).
Being a native of that region, Robert would normally have been legally required to be assigned to a different region, in order to minimize corruption and to dissolve tribal loyalties... however, this was overlooked, as were many other legal requirements, due to the manner in which Robert got his position: his father had saved the local Regional Customs Director from drowning when the boat he had been on had sunk in Lake Tsavo. To show his gratitude, the Director offered Robert's father any favour he wished... and there was only one favour the man with four daughters to marry and only one remaining son to help him gather a dowry could think of. Though today such an arrangment would appear impossible, those were different days—days before the previous dictatorship had fallen, when Central Himyar did not even have to pretend to live up to international standards against corruption in the police force.
"I am grandfathered in," Robert would always joke when asked about his joining the force when he could barely read. That he was. It was this line that Robert repeated to his colleague, David Yumba, as the two of them patrolled the country's eastern coastline on a
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gifted to the country as part of a foreign aid package sent by the Pelasgians (and a jobs programme for Pegasus' factory in the industrial heartland near Aspropol, no doubt). It was a good deal, in the long run—cars like these helped keep the rare earth deposits needed for Pegasus and other European car manufacturers' supply lines open and cheap, by making sure that Central Himyari law (if such a thing existed) was enforced. Mostly, that meant breaking up strikes and keeping bandits at bay. "Over here, I only have to worry about cigarette smugglers—and I always let others do the fine math. That way, nobody can blame me if we get caught overcharging offenders.""At least you can drive!" David joked at him, as Robert sped into a turn and drifted. "Fuck, did you learn to turn like that on a fishing boat?"
The two men shared a laugh—only for a ripple of gunfire to interrupt them. A hail of bullets landed straight into David Yumba, killing in an instant. One of the rounds grazed Robert's right shoulder, causing him to swerve right and to crush his vehicle into the side of the newly paved road. His heart racing so fast he could feel every vein in his face, the short but wide-shouldered Nethian pulled out his service pistol, almost ignoring the pain in of his bleeding shoulder wound. Rushing out of the car, he took cover behind the driver's side door, before radioing in for backup.
"Dispatch!" he shouted. "I am near Exit 117 of Tsavo Highway toward Johnstown, taking fire! My partner's dead, assailants have automatic weapons! Advise!"
A ripple of gunfire burrowed its way into the car, bursting two of its tires; the vehicle's white exterior was now blood-red on two spots: outside the window from where David had been shot, and at the spot where Robert's shoulder touched the opposite door. Still ignoring the pain, Robert kept shouting into his radio. "Dispatch! Need backu-
A single shot silenced the lone Border Guard officer, finding him dead in the forehead. As he collapsed on the ground, the muffled radio chatter from the opposite side of the radio still relayed commands and asked him for updates. No response would ever come from the officer.
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