Fryske frijheid

[Fryslân]

OOC: This is a back dated story to introduce everyone to the back idea.


Keninklik Paleis
Grins, Fryslân

It was a fine and unusually sunny day in Grins. General Bootsma had just risen from the stately chambers of the fine 18[SUP]th[/SUP] Century palace that he had seized from Prince Durk some thirty years earlier. Deep in his heart, General Bootsma felt himself as the Sovereign Prince of Fryslân and had convinced himself that the former Prince and his family had to be dealt with and removed from the equation.

General Bootsma went to the dress chamber where the servants quickly dressed him in his freshly pressed and polished military uniform. The servants were terrified of him, a position he enjoyed them to be in. He had their families under watch in case they ever tried something improper around him. The fear for family was an effective way to rule and destroy dissent. This was a lesson that Bootsma learned quickly and early having nearly seen his revolution crushed by degenerate “democrats” who tried to get the Prince released and restored. It was after this that Bootsma had the Prince and his Family executed and the Geheime Steatsplysje was formed to monitor and remove these cancers wherever and whenever they formed. The only regret from that time was that he had been unable to capture Princess Inka and Prince Floaris who fled to Frescania during the chaos of the Revolution. His foreign agents only hear whispers of where, first in Danmark and then in a variety of states they were but never got close enough to execute a strike against them. They were always one step ahead. It made Bootsma so mad that he had executed three BGT (butenlânske geheime tsjinst) heads over their failures to kill the errant Prince. Still, the Prince was on the run and his position was secure.

Fyskmerk
Ljouwert, Fryslân

The fishmongers were out selling the freshly caught herring and cod from the days catch. The women of Ljouwert were out waiting for the fish since under the ideals of the Bootsma regime, women were not permitted to work outside of the home. It was the role of women to cook, clean, take care of her Frisian husband and have Frisian babies. The price of these staples of Frisian food had gone up 150% over the past two years. Every time the fishmongers would come out with the wares, the price would go but the salaries of the men had not increased in years as the economy worsed. The women of Ljouwert had had enough of this. The protest started with the defiant act of Jeltsje de Vries who stole the first fish and was soon followed by the rest of the women on the Market. Naturally this act of dissention prompted a swift reaction by the Geheime Steatsplysje who were quickly at the Market and demanded that the women surrender and give themselves up for punishment for their defiance. This time, they didn’t acquiesce and a standoff was started. Not before long, the word had come out and many more housewives of Ljouwert had come out to support them. Quickly outnumbering the Geheime Steatsplysje agents who were at the scene; the situation was now a powder keg at could easily explode.

 

[Fryslân]

Fyskmerk
Ljouwert, Fryslân


Within a few hours, nearly 20,000 housewives and their children had come out and filled the Market. This situation was clearly worrying to the Geheime Steatsplysje, it was the first public and brazen act of public dissention since the Troubles. The young commander of the Ljouwert division of the GS had never himself dealt with public dissention more than a dozen or so vagrants who regularly occupied the wharfs and his detail were all young recruits. He called to Headquarters in Grins for instructions.


Geheime Steatsplysje Haadkertier (GSHK)
Grins, Fryslân

Kommandant Abbe Reijnders received the phone call from the District Commander of Ljouwert about the disgraceful actions of the women of Ljouwert. Still, given the size of the problem Reijnders decided it was better that the General would be in the loop about the situation and make the call on what should be done. He instructed his secretary to bring the car around. He walked down the main staircase of the imposing functionalist building that housed the GS. He stepped in the black oversized car, built especially to be imposing and garner respect and fear amongst the populace. He instructed the driver to take him to the Royal Palace. The car raced down the streets of Grins with little respect for the traffic lights and other drivers/pedestrians. Such was the life of the near gangster lifestyle of the head of the most feared organisation in the entirety of Fryslân. The car pulled into the front gates of the Royal Palace and went to the Minister’s Entrance near the back. Reijnders stepped out and was quickly ushered into the room were General Bootsma was enjoying a mid-afternoon snack. The years of gluttony had added many additionally kilograms to Bootsma’s once Adonis like physique. Inside Reijnders could not believe such a man was still head of the regime but he knew the price for any sign of disloyalty was not only death but destruction of your family. He shoved down those feelings and headed into the room.

He saluted the General and the General acknowledged his presence. Reijnder went right to the problem. The General was furious, swiping off the table many pieces of priceless 18[SUP]th[/SUP] century china and porcelain than shatter on the floor.

“Reijner, you have destroyed my afternoon with such news. I was going to enjoy the gardens but those plans are over,” said Bootsma.

“I am sorry General. But the matter is progressing and getting more and more serious and I need orders,” replied Reijnders in a groveling manner.

“You pig and coward!” yelled Bootsma, “You really are pathetic and unwilling to make hard decisions. I want you to deal with this matter with whatever force is necessary. I will not have a repeat of the Royal Disaster.”

“Yes Sir,” yelled Reijnder.

He hated that Bootsma talked down to him so. He had been there since the beginning when he was a lowly Lieutenant and stormed the Palace with Bootsma. He believed in the vision of a strong and conservative Fryslân. He wanted to fight against the modernisation and liberalism of the late Prince Durk. Now, he had no idea want it was for but he did love the power.

Reijnder called the District Commander of Ljouwert and instructed him that he had orders from Bootsma to take care of the situation with whatever means were necessary.

 

[Fryslân]

Fyskmerk
Ljouwert, Fryslân

With orders in hand, the District Commander ordered his men to order the increasing crowd to disperse or there will be consequences. Within seconds, the ordered were blasted over the loudspeakers. However, the effect was just the opposite. The crowd just got louder and angrier and began to move on the GS locations on the perimeter. It was clear they were trying to break out from the Market and onto the streets. The District Commander ordered that tear gas be shot into the crowd to disperse it. The tear gas canisters began to fill the crowd with the acrid smoke. Again the opposite happened, the crowd began to get violence and chaotic and began to clash with the GS agents. One young agent panicked and shot a protestor which panicked other agents who thought they were under fire and soon the square was under fire from the GS agents. Chaos broke out and people tried to flee the market while the shots rang out. When order was restored 10 minutes later it was clear that many women and children were dead and water on the Market was red with blood.

The District Commander panicked at the scene and put the revolver in his belt in his mouth and took his own life. The shame of seeing his friends and neighbours dead at his failure was too much. The Red Cross ambulance rushed into the scene along with the Military Police who took over the scene from the GS. Paramedics began to take survivors and the wounded to district hospitals; many would not survive the trip. Investigators estimated that 85 women and children were killed in the confusion.

Keninklik Paleis
Grins, Fryslân

General Bootsma was enjoying the Garden when his personal assistant ran out.

“Sir, Sir!” he yelled in a hurry, “there has been a massacre at the Fish Market in Ljouwert. GS agents panicked and open fired on the crowd. 85 women and children are dead and many others are injured. The officer in charge already committed suicide.”

Bootsma went silent in thought. Why did today have to be such a f*@ed up day, he thought to himself. Clearly, the families would first need to be take care off, then any news of the event would have to be suppressed and finally food aid would need to be increased for the short-term to keep the housewives happy. Happy with his plan of action, he turned to his aid and instructed that he get on the phone with Reijnder and tell him to clean it up the families and keep the story suppressed or it’s his head on the plate.

Bootsma dismissed his assistant and continued to stroll through his beloved gardens unaware of forces of changes churning underneath.

 

[Fryslân]

Geheime Steatsplysje Haadkertier (GSHK)
Grins, Fryslân

Kommandant Reijnder was sweating a little under the collar with the news of the total shitstorm that had broken loose in Ljouwert. He could see the writing on the walls and nearly shit a brick when the orders from Bootsma were to intimate the families of dead into silence and keep the story suppressed. He didn’t know what Bootsma was thinking, this would just enrage those who lost their wives and children more and would just fuel the fires more but orders were orders. He ordered in his Sub-Kommandants into his office and instructed them to ensure that each family of those involved were visited and persuaded into silence and that the state media should only air completely positive stories for the entire news day and to ensure that foreign press are kept unaware and that no news leaks out. They stated their understanding of the orders, most knowing that they were entirely futile and would only make the situation worse but Bootsma’s orders were a law unto themselves and exited the room to execute them with swiftness and precision.

Household of Friso Dijkstra
Djipswâl 21
Snits, Fryslân

Friso Dijkstra just arrived home from a day at the steel factory just outside of Snits. It has been a thoroughly unpleasant day with outdated machinery and broken parts hampering work. His wife Bet had prepared some herring on pumpernickel bread and a stamppot. Hardy food for a hardy day of work, something Friso was sure the regime would enjoy. Friso was a low level “agitator” according to the regime. He had been caught once as a student distributing pro-Prince literature and was stripped of his studentship and forced to work in the steel factory. It was disgraceful; his father was a well-known artist under Prince Durk. He sighed, such was the fate he was dealt.

The door knocked, Friso rose to the door and opened to see three uniformed GS agents at his door.

“Are you Friso Dijkstra?” demanded the tallest one.

“I am,” stated Friso.

“Please come with us, we need to have a word with you,” the agent replied in a cold manner.

Friso objected, “Look cannot I enjoy dinner with my wife before you take me off.”

The agents shook their heads and grabbed him under the arms and escorted them to the car. Friso couldn’t imagine what they were here for. Since the incident in university, he had kept his nose out of politics permanently.

The agents were totally silent as they drove out of town. The drove and drove until the stopped on the edge of a field and dragged him out of the car. Friso prayed for his wife that they were not going to execute him.

They barked at him, “Are you the brother of the traitor Elke Dijkstra?”

Friso retorted that his sister was not a traitor.

They smashed him across the face with the butt of their gun for his insubordination. They then put the cocked gun to his head and said that if he ever told anyone that she was dead, they would hunt him and his family down. He should only say that he had not talked to her in a while and were estranged. He nodded his head in understand and they put some cover-up on his face to cover the bruise and drove him home wishing him a good evening.

Throughout the country, this scene was being played out to all those who had anyone killed or injured the incident on the market.

Omrop Fryslân
Eksmoarre, Fryslân

At the state news channel, news of the massacre on the market had begun to arrive. That meant the GS agents would be here soon to put the fear of god in the editors to keep mum about the news and more than anything keep quiet to the pesky foreign journalists.

Head Editor Heiko Jenssen was working quickly with his team of journalists to prepare to go live to air with the news about the “Fish Market Massacre” before the agents arrived and shut down the broadcast. He had already knocked out the two GS agents assigned to the station to keep the government line. He knew that his team was taking a big risk to themselves and their families to publish the news of the massacre but after incident after incident of government violence and repression they were tired of it and willing to make a stand for the good of the nation.

The tech crew signalled that they were ready to go live to air, the two presenters were in position and the cameras went live. Already the agents were at the barricaded doors and trying to knock it down. He could hear their threats as they smashed against the door. He started the countdown and the news went live.

“Ladies and Gentlemen of Fryslân, we interrupt your regularly scheduled programming with this news that 85 of our compatriots. Women and children were killed by GS agents today at the Fish Market in Ljouward. This is not the first time and it will not be last unless we as Frisian rise and take back our government and nation from this band of crooks…”

The doors burst and the GS agents poured in, Jenssen and his team tried to block their movement to the news room. The agents shot each of them one by one as they resisted, only temporarily heading to the control room. They entered the control room and shot the two controllers.

The presenters could see it was over and yelled out “Long live Fryslân and her Prince” before the feed was shut off and they were dispatched by two GS bullets. It was clear the Revolution had begun.

 

[Fryslân]

Westmooreland House, Knightsbridge
City of Dulwich, Great Engellex

Prince Floaris, now in his 28[SUP]th[/SUP] year of exile from Fryslân had sat down for the evening news from the Omrop Fryslân. He had paid an Engellexan techie to hack the signal from Fryslân to keep an eye on murderous regime in Grins. He was moderately bored with the usual lines of increasing wealth and production from various Frisian industries and shots of “happy proper Frisian families” when his attention was bolted by the surprise and shaky announcement of the massacre on the Fish Market in Ljouwert. He called his mother into the sitting room in their modest Engellexan flat that they had been in for the last six months. They sat in horror as they could hear the commotion in the station and the final ending of transmission followed by the eerie static that just continued unabated. Floaris looked at his mother.

“Mother, I think it’s time for our return to Fryslân,” said Floaris with noticeable anticipation in his voice, “Bootsma’s regime has gone too far this time and it’s to put ourselves on the line and either get change or die trying.”

“Are you sure Floaris?” questioned his mother Princess Inka, “The Engellexans has provided us with a relatively safe life. Do you want to throw that all away for what could be a dud in Fryslân?”

“But mother!” the young Prince interjected, “We have been waiting for years for that RIGHT moment. I’m through waiting. My people need me and I need them. I would rather have my blood spilt than sitting in this velvet cage waiting for our enemies to find us and kill us like caged animals!”

“Very well Floaris,” said Princess Inka, “I will instruct our Engellex hosts that we plan to leave on first light for Fryslân. I am sure their services can smuggle us into Fryslân. We should get packing.”

Floaris for the first time since a child felt like he was a man and that he was alive. He was itching for the fight.

Geheime Steatsplysje Haadkertier (GSHK)
Grins, Fryslân

Kommandant Reijnders sat in his office playing with his custom made revolver, spinning the chamber around and around thinking. He had watched the national news during the most popular time slot announce the now dubbed “Fish Market Massacre”. Already the GS network of informants was totally overcapacity with threats. The nation was on a brink of insurrection and worse still there were rumours that the Prince himself was planning to return to Fryslân. No doubt, he would be hailed as a hero and General Bootsma would be forced out of office or worse. Reijnder thought and thought … do you stick your head out for the regime and snip the rose bud at its head and risk being totally tarred with the regime; do you switch allegiances now and be seen as Hero or the possible wrath of a vengeful and betrayed god; or finally to take one’s life and avoiding the situation all together and go down as a coward. It was hard decision and one that needed to be made now. Reijnder thought of his wife and his two daughters, could he stand watching Bootsma’s henchmen do unspeakable things to them for his crimes or his betrayal? He started to cry as he put the revolver in his mouth and pull on the trigger ending the decision and concern permanently.

Keninklik Paleis
Grins, Fryslân

General Bootsma was nearly on the edge of a total breakdown, within the period of a day everything began to crumble around him. He could smell the insurrection and now was not even sure if he could trust his bodyguards. Blasted, he thought, keep the paranoia at bay. This is just a test, it will past you would will emerge stronger and victorious, he reassured himself. Then the news of the suicide of Kommandant Reijnder, who had blown his brains out with his specially made Franken revolver. The voices of the paranoia creeped back into his mind. He again tried to mediate and clear his head.

As he was about to retire to his chamber for the evening, one of the intelligence officers came into the waiting room.

“Sorry sir to disturb you at such a late hour,” the Agent said sheepishly, “but I have grave news…”

“Spit it out then boy!” barked Bootsma.

“We have reliable rumours that the Prince will try to sneak back into the country within the next 48 hours,” said the Agent expecting to be shot. The General had a habit of shooting harbingers of bad news.

“WHAT?!” yelled the General. “Get me my War Council!” ordered the General to his Personal Assistant. “If that young brat wants war with me, then I will destroy him. I will destroy this entire nation if I have to. No one is pushing ME out of power!” the General blurted out defiantly. The Agent was excused with his life but was kept in the Palace for “safekeeping”.

 

[Fryslân]

Undisclosed location
Near the Great Engellex – Fryslân Border

The darkest of the night was all pervasive; it was nearly a new moon in the sky which made it an ideal night for the daring attempt to cross the border in Fryslân. The Engellex has been good to their word about getting the Prince to the border undetected. At the last minute, the Prince had decided that it was too dangerous to bring his Mother with him and returned her to the safety of her Engellexic handlers.

The Prince made this hard choice to depart with his mother since his contacts in Fryslân had told him that Booksma was aware of his intentions but only had a general timeline and was barking mad about it. The services were in disarray he was told and the border while it would be tight, the Marches would be a relatively safe route. The Engellex has supplied the Prince with swimming gear to hide in the marches, a pistol and a few days of rations to make it through the Marshes to the agreed contact near Snits in the south of the country, just outside of the inhospitable Marches. From there, the plan was to move him to a safe house undetected and rally the opposition.

The Prince took a deep breath and made a run for the border and the Marches just a few hundred meters inside.

Farmer’s Field
15 kms from Snits, Fryslân

The call from the resisters of the regime came in just after the startling broadcast that the Prince was going to make a run on the border this evening. The plan was that the Prince would try to enter in the daylight and force the Regime into action but with the reported instability on Booksma’s mentality, the call was made to do it covertly and at night to prevent complete chaos breaking out should the Prince be killed. Durk Dijkstra called his brother Friso to see if he could borrow his car to smuggle the Prince to the safe house in Snits.

“Hey Friso, it’s your brother. Are you cooking cod or herring at this late hour?” said Durk in code. If there was danger then they were cooking cod otherwise if they were safe and the house free they were cooking herring.

“The cod is boiling right now. It was not so fresh today,” replied Friso.

“I see, do you want to come to my place for a nightcap and Emma can give you something to take to work tomorrow?” asked Durk.

“Sounds lovely, on my way,” replied Friso.

Friso got into his car; he checked the car throughout for any tracking devices. He found none, so he head out of the garage. He drove a really strange route to the farm at a high speed to ensure he was not being followed. Confident he was not being tailed after his dinner time visit, he headed to his brother’s house.

He stopped the car in the back of farm house and got out. He could see the glee on Durk’s face. It was strange; he could not understand why he would be so happy. Elke was dead, what was there to be happy about…

Durk couldn’t keep the excitement in, he was sad about Elke’s death but she would not have died in vain in the events of the night were a success.

“The Hawk is coming back to its nest this evening,” said Durk. The Hawk was the traditional symbol of the House of Hierosolymita of which the Prince was the Head. “I need your assistance tonight to retrieve it when it appears in the Marches.”

Friso nodded his agreement and they headed to a vantage point near the drop point to wait with anticipation.

Great Engellex – Fryslân Border

Floaris could feel his heart in his throat has he crawled for the border in the long grasses that surrounded the Marshes. He felt and any moment a guard or a guard dog could discover him and provide Bootsma with a PR coup and leverage to crush the swelling opposition movement in Fryslân. He shut those thoughts out of his mind and just focused on making into into the Marches, one slight body movement at a time. For what felt like hours he slinked across the ground under he felt the water creep up his body. He stopped for a moment, quickly put on the snorkel and moved into the dark waters of the Marches. Thankfully, the noise of the crickets and other life in the Marches would mask the sound of his strokes through the water. His GPS unit was set to the rendezvous point and so he just moved along the route it planned. He had not seen any guards so far and was beginning to wonder if he had to be so cautious. Within minutes of the thought, he heard the shouts of guards and moved into the reeds along the water bank and waiting for them to move along. They moved closer and closer until he could hear that they were right on him. He took a breath and submerged himself. He waited under the water for what felt like the entirety of his life. He moved slowly; bring the tip of the snorkel to the edge of the water taking a small breath. When he rose to the surface, they had moved on. He was lucky this time. He looked at his watch and it was 3:30am and only a few kilometers from the site. He would have to make up time to ensure he was out of the area before sun-up at 05:12am.

Within an hour he had made his way across the Marches and to the drop point. As promised, two men were there waiting for him with a car. They quickly covered him up and pushed him the back of the car speeding off to the safe house in Snits.

 

[Fryslân]

Household of Friso Dijkstra
Djipswâl 21
Snits, Fryslân

The clock hand ticked slowly as the seconds, minutes and hours went by. The fear that the GS would just burst through the door slowly subsided as the confidence of time creeped forward. Prince Floaris could not believe that he was in the land of his birth, the land his father and his brothers and sisters were executed for. For the vanity of a single man, who desired what was and should not have been his. Throughout the nights and days that passed, the Prince had grown close to the ironworker Friso and his eccentric farmer brother Durk who dropped by from time to time with fresh food and other supplies so they could stay in lock down.

The TV was clearly in lockdown too, with government propaganda pieces now on constantly 24/7. Things were not as rosy as the telly would make it. The resistance movement was feeding information throughout the day and night. Protests were increasing with the rumour that Prince Floaris was in Fryslân and the crowds were getting restless. Prince Floaris could remember the stories told by his mother of the precarious nature of power. Floaris wanted to act but Friso and the other leaders in the Resistance put him on ice. Things were not ready to play there hand. The Regime was definitely in peril but pinned tigers are the most dangerous. And so they wanted…