Beyond the Impossible, Commandry-EDF Summit

[Caelia]

Yakutsk, Sibir Special Administrative Region, Commandry of Kyiv and Novgorod

General-Adjutant Artem Rakovsky silently cursed the sky. Yakutsk, the capital of Sibir, had been chosen as a compromise between a location suitably high profile for their guests and one out of the way enough to avoid unwanted attention. In this respect it was ideal. The weather however left much to be desired.

With the temperature hovering just a few degrees above freezing the city had been blanketed by powerful storm. With rain and hail pounding the city there had been no choice but to have the incoming dignitaries land outside the city. A meeting of this caliber simply could not be canceled or relocated at the last minute and a special train had been arranged to take them to the city. Unfortunately the delay meant all non-essential functions had to be scrapped from the agenda, including the costly dinner reception and orchestral performance. This meeting would be pure business.

Only a handful of reporters from state news agencies would be present. News of the meeting was not to break until the day after the meeting was concluded. The dignitaries would be taken directly from the train station to the meeting place in the Regional Command Headquarters through a covert underground passage. Everything was in place.

All that was left to do was wait.

 

[Großlausitz]

Yakutsk, Sibir Special Administrative Region, Commandry of Kyiv and Novgorod

A trip to 'Kiev', as it was pronounced and spelled in German, was something utterly exotic to Foreign Minister Robert Beaumont. Despite his good knowledge about the past of the Auswärtiges Amt he couldn't recall whether anyone of his predecessors had ever been to the Commandry. The ties between Kiev and Franken were maintained by its embassy. Working there wasn't quite the first choice for members of HM Diplomatic Service. It was probably the most closely scrutinized and infiltrated embassies of all Franconian ones. No matter how hard Franken's counter-intelligence tried, the Kievans devised another way how too peep.

When he left the train at the helm of the Franconian delegation and the other EDF missions, he shuddered. Minister Beaumont wasn't used to these temperatures at all. Nonetheless, the meeting was worth the cold ordeal, since the Kievans had recently forwarded the EDF an offer they could hardly refuse. The Commandry offered an alliance, which would earn them a stable range of partners, whereas the EDF would have a perfect partner to do the wetwork and additional firepower.

To sell the deal to the Franconian public, the Foreign Minister had brought HM Goverment's chief spokesman, who would be tasked with spinning the piece of news.