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Ground Zero: Bourgogne

Thaumantica

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Ouistreham, Contested Burgundy
0300 Dulwich Mean Time

Plane after plane, the West Engell Republican Combined Armed Forces were arriving and being shouted orders to organize impromptu squads and platoons to to guard the exterior of the airport. Without a doubt: this was the first cell of the Thaumantican virus to come, and any lasting presence would hinge on continued Cussian air superiority over the next days while Engellachian Army and Marines touched down by air or by sea.

In the darkness of night they made improvised barricades, stopped to brace from awesome flares of light and sound, and struggled to communicate to the desperate citizens seeking escape or refuge that they had to turn back home."They don't have homes, Dax . . Stop fuckin' telling them to go back to one," one Specialist Reinquist told his a soldier along a thoroughfare into the airport.

Each soldier carried one magazine a piece, locked and loaded, aware only that none were completely full and that if they were engaged in combat they should take cover, limit their fire, or prioritize support of a sharpshooter. This was doctrine for these fringe operations at least; in practice the Engellachians could only be trusted to defend their battle buddies in a firefight, rank and uniform slipped away and allegiance to one's self and comrades took precedent. Officers were not taken seriously until they drew the lot to be lead man in a squad, so when General Kentigern Hayes showed up beside the two specialists driving an imported pick-up truck not yet quite full of soldiers they were convinced.

"Ever liberated a Royal Palace?" General Hayes asked. Reinquist shook his head, "My Grandpa died defending one." Hayes raised his eyebrows, as did the other soldiers along for the ride, "Cynnist, eh?". Reinquist nodded, "Charlotte and Aleister fought to the death for their claim and kin. If you mean to say we're going to capture the Coward Charles' house, who abandoned his kin and country, then let's roll!". Specialist Renquist jumped into the pickup bed and packed himself between the other soldiers, some shivering he noticed not from any cold in this summer heat, but legitimate fear.

"Repeat after me," Renquist offered his compatriots, "Tonight I hunt! My ancestors run through my blood as wolves, the moon and the stars illuminate my target: the throat of my enemy. Bright red, dead, I howl and call out for my pack!"

"OoooOooooo" some of them let out, snickering and looking around uncomfortably. "Oooouistrehaaam, weeee'rrrreee hunting for youuuu-ooo-ooo - fuckin' losers!" a Private Pence screamed. Renquist flicked a rifle butt in to the boy's jaw instinctively, sending him over the lip of the speeding truck and into to a death roll. General Hayes in front was the only one to react, knocking on the window behind him and shouting out - "Almost there now boys, no more blue on blue, focus on the red!"

Thaumantican Square,
Vesper, West Engell Republic
2000 VST

"Our General took off in a pick-up trick?" Warrant Officer Haggard groaned, "Is that confirmed?". Sergeant McKenzie flipped the GPS on General Hayes's phone on the big-screen, it showed his and 8 other iBones dispersing and forming two groups approaching the front of the Royal Palace. One dot, a SFC. Evans, stopped moving in the middle of a field. The dots advanced, seemingly zig zagging up sets of stairs, another dot - PFC. Lang stopped, then slid back diagonally as if shot and falling back down the stairs.

"Check this out Chief, he's posting on bloody Twatter:"

Kent Hayes
@KHayes

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We hoist this flag over the Coward Charles' palace! Thaumanticans, Marpesians, and Burgundian Patriots all together now! The Centuries of Misrule are Over! Let Freedom Reign!



"Buzz the General's phone and tell him to get to the Neustrian Revenue Office," Chief Haggard ordered, shaking his head at the trailer park antics of his countrymen. "If we can capture their tax and property records, assuming they're not destroyed . . " Haggard began, but McKenzie finished in quotation of Aleister Rydell: "the Merchants and their Masters are brought down by their ledgers!"

"Precisely, and peace kept by police deputies from their ward . . well, parish?" Haggard and his skiff shared a chuckle, "Thaumantic Pounds, Chief . ." McKenzie snickered, "That's the lube, and if they won't take that: we can aim the Cussian boot at their ass!".

Warrant Officer Haggard knocked on wood regardless, "We need the police to take the money though. With the Revenue Records we can determine an increase, set a pension if necessary, and seize the streets damn it."​
 
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Kazansk

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Boro
Saint Etienne Army base , former Kingdom of Neustria

The Republican forces had descended on the base and were in the process of stripping it bare, everything that could be of use to the People's Republic was taken and sent east towards the heartland of the People's Republic. At least half of the bases inhabitants stayed and asked to join the ARN, political officers moved among the new recruits looking to root out any suspected enemy agents.

scenes like this were happening all over what had once been the Kingdom of Neustria, the Republicans were descending one all manner of military bases and government installations hoping to gain any advantage in the coming struggle.

Private Bernard Soult sat with the other Neustrian soldiers, they had been disarmed and herded into a square where a Republican would call out a s name and check it off a list, then whoevers name was called was he or she was ushered out of the square and and given back their weapons and embraced. Some when their names were called were not embraced as comrades, instead they were taken by Republican guards and roughly escorted onto waiting trucks and sent off to God knows where. Finally after what seemed like an age Bernard's own name was called, and when no one came for him he walked out and and was embraced.

" Welcome to the Armée Républicaine Nationale".
++++

Ouistreham, Contested Burgundy

So far they hadn't seen any Engells on the ground, they knew that they out there somewhere in the City. What had once been a bustling city full of life was eerily quiet. The leadership of the Burgundian People's Republic had ordered elements of the Insurrectionary Army of Western Bourgogne into the city to take key government installations and to secure as many funds for the Republic as possible. Many of the Republican soldiers making their way into the city proper were natives of the City and were making use of their local knowledge to avoid detection as they moved towards their objectives.
 

Beautancus

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Ouistreham, Disputed Western Burgundy
0325, Day 01
Team Sénéchal, Object: Prime Rib

The scent of a city aflame. The sights, sounds, the sticky humidity. The tension in the city must have been palpable for days already, if not longer. Must've been a strange thing, to be a Burgundian - going from the top of the Gallo-Germanian totem pole to a three way gangbang in under a year.

"Damn but what a good time to be alive." The eldest of their company drawled, leaning deeper into the shadows, and away from his boots, to send a stream of dark-brown tobacco juice to the battered floor.

"And making sure the other sumbitch ain't." Jasper Bragg, their CO, replied. The growling baritone of his Chicoran accent nearly matching the former, improved ever so slightly for not trying to speak around a plug of chewing tobacco.

A hushed chorus of "Hooah's" followed in turn, from the rest of their detachment near enough to hear the brief exchange.

Secreted in the night-dark halls and offices of the Operá de Neustrië, not terribly far from the center of Ouistreham's government district, "Team Sénéchal" of the Blue Stripes 4th Detachment was drawing very near to their primary objective. Two other teams had split off from their force not long after making landfall, one headed for the city's largest university, and the other down into the bowels of the city's sewer system.

With age and rank come privilege, Jasper reminded himself. Even with that said, Object: Prime Rib was the most critical single objective on the whole table tonight, matched only by the Engellexic efforts to seize control of the airport. With both of their goals achieved, everything else that would follow would be made exponentially easier. That, above any other considerations, had been why his team was on this far from moonlit stroll.

The relative calm of the last few moments clattered to an end not far away, a half dozen blocks at the most. A suddenly brief but ferocious burst of fire from a number of heavy guns - 14.5mm autocannons most likely - followed very shortly by a roaring explosion, loud enough to make the comparative safety of the distance between seem insignificant. The city's ill-fated defenders must have seized upon what seemed like an easy target, only to reveal themselves to the sky-bound hunters partnered with the bait.

Where ever those gun emplacements had been, they wouldn't be anymore, and neither would anything unlucky enough to be within a few hundred meters.

Jasper checked his watch, posted in a boarded-up window that offered him an acceptable view of the streets outside. Half past 3, by now the "regular" Airborne and Marines would be following in behind them, aiming to seize Ouistreham's deep-water port. Not as immediately vital as the airport, but nothing that followed would happen with ease or speed without it.

On cue, the "screen" for the larger force arrived - another few dozen cruise missiles. Scout planes and UAVs had been in the air long enough now to have identified any hardened targets that needed to go, that yet remained (largely a result of the Cussian air-cover coming with only a limited supply of ammo and missiles of their own). Within fractions of a second all of the missiles slammed down into the city, screaming spears of white fire from the darkness of night, briefly turning whole districts of the city from night to day.

"That's our signal, time to get on the road again - move out." The precision with which Jasper's orders were carried out was a thing of martial perfection, speaking to the professionalism of his men and the time they'd spent together. Their egress out of the murky bulk of the opera house was equally smooth, adapting and adhering to the newly reformatted shadows available.

Ahead of them by more than a block, and nearly a dozen floors up, their overwatch chimed in over the comms. "Contact, EI, bearing 135." Ice water flowed through Jasper's veins, despite the decades he'd been at this. Every man under his command was already frozen, behind the nearest heavy cover and their heads on the swivel without needing to be told. That's the benefit of working with true professionals, Jasper's inner asshole reminded him, not at all concerned with the lurking possibility of sudden and violent death.

Sure enough though, picking down the same street Jasper and his Blue Stripes were on, but from the opposite direction (the SE), he could make out what looked like an understrength company of Burgundian regulars. Their silhouettes were further darkened for the raging inferno behind them, but the outline of their rifles was plain enough to see. Nothing like an ASR. From their movements and speed, general lack of concern for what they might be running into, Jasper guessed they were probably fleeing from the airstrike he'd heard just before the cruise missiles.

Casting a glance back over his shoulder, double checking that his men were already as prepared as he expected - they didn't disappoint - Jasper made the hand-signs for 40mm. The men in their number equipped with underslung grenade launchers nodded, trigger hands sliding forward to their secondary armament. Another swift set of gestures, autoriflemen/machine gunners ready and open up after them.

Three gloved fingers did the rest of the coordination, and the murderous countdown was over. TNNKTNNK, and the grenades were away. Less than a second later, they were landing amid and on the Burgundian regulars, death blossomed wide across the whole of the street. Before their vision cleared from the flash and smoke, a half dozen heavy automatic weapons opened beside and behind him, tracer-less streams of fire ripping into the carnage before them for several seconds. Nothing moved in their bracket after that.

Scanning hard and long enough to make sure none of the cooling thermal signatures chunked and splayed across the asphalt would be getting back up, Jasper gestured once more and they bled down a side street as one long shadow.



0345

They'd managed to make it the rest of the way without finding anymore unlucky Burgundians. The staccato ripple of pops and thumps from much farther to the west told Jasper that the Cussian regulars had indeed arrived on time, and were actively engaged in the port now.

They were still in the affluent portion of the city, though several blocks removed from the direct seat of power, formerly. People likely spent the equivalent of his yearly earnings, just to live like sardines in this place. A place that was now a warzone.

This street was quiet enough for the mechanical hum of the drones rotors above him to seem truly loud. The little heli-robot was moving up and down, side to side methodically, peering into every window in the buildings face. Thermal imagery and low-light enhanced footage was returned to the operators tablet beside Jasper. The bottom floors had been almost full of people, huddled in their bathrooms and closets. The second floor was empty. Only three people were on the third. "That's them."

The older soldier, Hambone, lead the way to the apartment door, flanked by their team's most effective CQB specialists. Half of them wielded shotguns now, including Hambone. The oldest and most unchanged pieces in their whole arsenal, but a 12 gauge was still a 12 gauge.

Proving the point, it was one of the shotguns that opened the door, as well as blasting half of it and one side of the doorframe away. Hambone was in first, someone screamed something the glugluglug of Burgundo-Gallian and fired a small caliber pistol twice. Hambone was already ducking, his shotgun came up and lit the room. Silence followed.

Jasper was in the room with him a heartbeat later, neither of the .32s had found a home in the tough old soldier. Parallel to him, on the floor and part of the wall behind it - someone else hadn't been so lucky. Hambone had caught him in the upper torso, neck and face - very little remained to actually identify the man, with most of what could have been used now repainting the wall.

Carbine already up and leveled, Jasper found the other two people in the apartment huddled around the corner in the next room, holding each other and sobbing, collapsed into a heap on the floor. One of them was a woman, more a girl, and the scream that she let out when she saw Jasper's gun aimed in her direction was a thing of true wonder.

Hambone cut it short, a quick punch to the side of her delicate head silencing the shrill screech and knocking her out cold. The other person was a man, named Joffrey Segal. And he was why they'd come tonight.

"Monsieur Sénéchal," Jasper exercised the foreign language training the Air Force had paid for so long ago, "...we have come for you. No harm shall come to you, or this woman, or the other woman dear to you - so long as you come with us now and cooperate."

The traumatized Neustrian leader stared up at him, eyes reddened and shrink-wrapped by tears. Disgusting little yellow piece of shit, was all Jasper could think of the man now that he was in front of him. This man thought he could run a fucking country?

"Oui, but are you sure you will not kill me?" The Neustrian Senechal didn't mention, or even look at the unconscious girl at his side, his only surviving aid.

The only reply he got was a black bag over and an even harder punch to the side of his head. And so began the new life of a man that had once dared to dream of leading a reunited and reinvigorated Bourgogne.
 
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Kazansk

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Villacoublay Air Base, contested Bourgogne

Most of the old Grand Duchies considerable military had ended up serving in the successor state of the Kingdom of Neustria, yet despite this the Kingdom had fallen with barely a shot fired. Now many of the Neustrian military now lay in a state of limbo, belonging to a state that no longer existed, strangely the Neustrian military has outlived its own government. Lacking a purpose many men had left quietly for their homes, most simply stayed on base where life at least maintained a semblance of order.

Airman Luc Benoit was one of the many who had stayed, waiting for something to happen. On the third day the Republicans arrived, a convoy of trucks and jeeps full of men and women in a mix of military and civilian clothing armed to the teeth with automatic weapons. Their leader came walked out with a loudspeaker and a notebook.

" The Pretender has fled, the cabal of aristocrats and industrialists that supported him have likewise abandoned you, you have been used and discarded by your masters, I now on behalf of the Burgundian People's Republic offer you the chance to serve once more, not for a King or the nobility but for the people, for Bourgogne itself"!

Luc wasn't much for speeches or politicians for that matter, but serving the Republic certainly beat doing nothing, and at least he would be back in the air where he belonged, where he would be once again defending his country and where everything would make some sort of sense.
+++++++

Ouistreham, Contested Bourgogne

Most of the eastern half of the city still remained firmly in the hands of the Insurrectionary Army of Western Bourgogne, but the Engells control of the air made any large scale maneuvers difficult, still the Burgundians hung on making the invaders pay with blood for every part of the city they sought to conquer.

Private Bernard Soult scrambled behind a pile of rubble, thanks to the Engells there existed plenty of cover for a man to hide behind. The noise of incoming aircraft made him crouch even lower, till he realised that the aircraft weren't coming from the west like the Engells, but from the east, with Burgundian markings, Bernard watched as the Burgundian planes descended on the Engell positions strafing and bombing the invaders. Bernard and his compatriots cheered the planes, and yelled curses at the invaders. " About fucking time though" still now that the Engells didn't have total control of the air things were bound to be a lot easier.
 

Beautancus

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the Port of Ouistreham
Disputed Western Burgundy
0500, Day 01


The Burgundians had aircraft in the sky after all. Reports were coming in fast now, and on an ever-widening front. Engagements with Burgundian ground forces were picking up, as expected, with advanced elements of the 2nd and 68th Marine Rifles racing down the O17 highway through and now across the city.

As yet unaffected by the sudden appearance of Burgundian air support, the 62nd, 85th and 150th Airborne Cohorts were performing a wheeling, hooking action up, around and through the opposite side of the city (W/NW/N then finally hooking NE), closer to the port itself. Joining them barely a quarter of an hour before, the first Cussian armor to enter the city, albeit only represented by those pieces light enough to be flown in by helo or VTOL.

To the south/southeast, the Engells had Ouistreham International Airport under lock and key, firmly solidifying the League's Armed Forces' control of the coastal approach and face of the increasingly battered capital.

In the Port itself, there had been a brief but determined defense to chew through before the 39th Marine Rifles had even fully disembarked. Neustrians, former Neustrians? Patriots, one and all, and very nearly all had died for that Patria - no more than a dozen survivors had been taken prisoner by the time the last fire was exchanged. Teams were still sweeping the outer portions of the sprawling industrial complex, and likely would be for some time, but the primary harbor, offices and warehouses were firmly in hand.

Executing their next objectives immediately thereafter - the 39th Rifles were doubling as a Command, Communication and Coordination Element - tasked with deploying, operating and maintaining security for the invasions vital radio and satellite relays. The protocols and systems to facilitate easy communication between the Armed Forces of the Confederated Republic had been in place for nearly three decades now, having inspired the subsequent Engello-Cussian and now League wide iterations.

So it was the comm-techs of the 39th who received word of the Burgundian air support first. Though somewhat surprised by their presence, the Marines of the 2nd and 68th were far from unprepared or untrained for such an eventuality. One of the first strikes had just been unlucky, one whole squad and most of another had been all but vaporized with a single dumb bomb, of all munitions to die beneath. Even as this intelligence was relayed back across the waters between Neustria and NoCRER, the Domain's response was already inbound.

Screaming in low over the waters of the Engellsea, several squadrons of fresh and fully-loaded warplanes approached the Neustrian coastline. Representing the single largest contingent of non-Engell air power currently stationed in NoCRER, the 3rd Air Force Combat Wing - "Stormwing" - boasted the highest number of air superiority fighters and interceptors the League's military could put into action this morning.

Harpies, Stormcrows and Vipers burned through the approach at well over 1000 mph (1600+ kph), fanning out over a front three or four times the entire width of the city itself. They were still some dozens of miles out over the water when the lead elements fired their first missiles.

Lancing through the skies above Ouistreham exponentially faster than the jets from which they were fired, a dozen or more Air to Air missiles blasted towards their Burgundian targets. In that span of time, the first Cussian jets were already overland, and the next volley to missiles were off.

The Domain's nascent UTOC* planned for this "operation" to unfold beneath assured air superiority, and so they were putting the kind of force necessary to achieve that in the air, upfront. If the enemy was willing to dare the heavens on this early morning, they were willing to pay the entrance fee - and that was going to be mighty steep.






*UTOC = Unified Thaumantic Operational Command
 
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Thaumantica

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Ouistreham, Contested Bourgogne
Revenue Offices after Dark


The Engellechians of the First Army sought something the dictator insisted was more valuable than gold: names, addresses, and reported wealth of millions and millions of Bourgogne’s recently rich Kingdom.

Private Barnes popped a bottle of champagne off that sent a cork bouncing off of filing cabinets, and finally the back of a computer screen. “Knock it off, some of us are here to work” SFC. Macnemara barked, “Hell, take your battle buddy and find girls to take in those apartments across the way!”

“Is that an order Sergeant?” Barnes joked before chugging down some of the cheap champagne and burping. Macnemara was connecting cables to the servers, fighting the digital war he had been trained for over the last year. “Whatever!” SFC Macnemara shouted, “No ROE, so just don’t get yourself shot, and report back at sunrise!”

Barnes slipped out into the night with a Suonemaan dagger and pistol in search of a poke, while Macnemara and the more disciplined among them cycled paper rolls and data sticks through miniature satellites planted on the roof to be relayed back to the Thaumantic Dominion.



Welmonton, Beautancus
Domain Defense Planning Offices


Surrounded by brass and crisp uniforms in Welmonton, CW3 Crenshaw appeared before his Cussian, Clarenthian, and Engellexian allies in a moth bitten uniform. He had no intention of taking the new uniforms or anything the richer Engells could offer him until he and they, the great losers of Engellkind’s civil war, produced something crushing on the continent. Heydendahl was not of any help, a selfish idiot in the opinion of most army planners, racking up diplomatic failures like a drunkard throwing darts.

“I want to order a few hundred motorcycles, sniper rifles, and plastic explosives.”

Chief Crenshaw itched at his greasy beard and collapsed into a seat behind himself. “We wish to send marksmen ahead on motorcycles and light trucks to attack eastern infrastructure before borders are set and rescue. An amateur sniper can shoot out and disable electricity in a single shot, a pair of soldiers or mercenaries can do the same and blow bridges and dams with explosives.”

“We have confidence in our Cussian ally’s ability to speak with the Kadiki,” Crenshaw broached, “But if the Kadiki intends to undermine our mission electronically or through signals . .” Crenshaw shook his head and reached for the cigarettes his allies were supplying him with, “I want you and us to begin transmitting orders on the ground by courier and light flash the moment we know the Kadiki are supplying our signals data to the BPR partisans!”

Crenshaw shook his head wildly, millions and billions could be spent, but a well matched enemy from Kadikistan could turn their modem military tech into a burden rather than a benefit.

“The Thaumantican Guard units we were selling you on need more time,” Crenshaw admitted, “the Pathfinder Brigade ate each other up in the Cussian swamps, but the airborne and drone signal troops can be ready for deployment next month.” Crenshaw then stared up at the ceiling, getting lost in the spin of a ceiling fan combatting this southern nation’s overwhelming heat. He unbuttoned the first button in his jacket, but luckily the second was already gone and relieved him of some built up warmth.
 

Beautancus

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Ouistreham, Contested Burgundy
some crappy little rue
the asscrack of night's dark


On cue, there was that awful racket. The shrill, high, offended screeching of a Burgundian woman endowed with the pipes and bellows to make it really travel.

Cpl. Selvic sighed, Fucking stars above I hate this place.

Beside him, Spc. Rogers smiled, very nearly able to read the elder soldiers thoughts. "And we just got here."

Not more than three minutes ago, they'd watched their screaming catch another fly in the web, a dumb Engellachian trailerkind from the looks of him. Disappearing into the gloomy murk of her old apartment, lit at present by only a scant handful of candles. They'd both seemed happy enough about the idea at the time, the Hangman alone knew what was the matter now.

"Gun up, just to be safe. You never know about either of these kinds." Selvic knew he was being grim, but he didn't feel like having anything shot off either one of them. Rogers was a Melungeon kid, but not a bad one by any stretch, he already knew what he was about and might make a helluva soldier given some time.

As one, the two Cussian Marines came around the corner, assault rifles up and at the ready. Selvic growled orders in Engellisc, Salian and Teutonic, a rapid fire snarl as much as anything. "Halt, or both of you die this fucking second."

The big Burgundian gal was in her slip alone, training the Engellachians sidearm on him. The latter was still partly hunched over, one hand seizing the belt of his pants in a failed bid to haul them back up - the other hand and arm outstretched before him. Poor bastard looked as bewildered as either Selvic or Rogers had ever seen.

All the same, both of them stayed stock still.

Though still not prepared to de-escalate the severity of his own reactions, Selvic couldn't help but allow a crooked smile to split his otherwise stony-pale features. "Soldier, be real slow about it, but uh, finish hauling your trousers back up around that thing."

Rogers circled behind them, feet seeking out the best footholds instinctively. Melungeons might be the threebreed Gypsies of Westernesse, but damn me if they don't have feet like mountaingoats, Selvic thought, and not at all for the first time. The little Specialist, almost the color of butterscotch by nature, hadn't allowed his aim to waver from the gun-wielding Burgundian strumpet once.

"Mack, you gotta understand, Big Bertha here flagged me down! I was out looking for a piece of ass, for fucking sure, but I'm not out here to rape a bi-..." Selvic cut the Engellachian off. He'd found that for all their lack of morals or pride otherwise, Burgundian women didn't cotton to being likened to a female dog, for whatever reason.

"Non, this Boche motherfucker was going to rape me and steal my brandy!!!" Big Bertha spoke Engellisc after all then, after having professed not to possess a word of it for days already. At least it made things significantly easier, for the nonce.

"Be that as it may, Ma'am, I'm going to have to take that from you," Rogers was sliding closer to her now, deliberately and but quickly.

Something about the way her wrist twitched struck Selvic wrong, maybe it was the way her chubby cheeks rose as her overly-mascara'd eyes narrowed. Even as she began to swing the pistol down towards Rogers, Selvic already had his target and fired. There was a sharp report and huge metallic clatter - so close together they melded into one sound - and the pistol flew from her hand - along with her trigger finger.

Big Bertha collapsed into a heap, curling around and clenching at the missing finger her idiocy had cost. Surprisingly, she wasn't screaming this time, her only sounds were one long hiss that seemed as much a feral snarl.

"Secure that weapon Rogers. Where is your service rifle, Northman?" Selvic kept his ASR on Big Bertha, but glanced up at the stunned Engellachian.

"N-n-name's Barnes...and it's, uh...it's somewhere back in there." Barnes motioned back into the darkness of Bertha's apartment, fiddling with his belt while already half shuffling in that direction.

"Retrieve it. Now."

Rogers trotted up, gleaming white smile shining in the half-dark of the street. He proferred the Engellachian's ruined sidearm, hole drilled neatly through the pistol grip just a centimeter or two below and behind the trigger mechanism. Just as sure as the world, Big Bertha's fat finger was still there, cut as clean as if a knife had done it.

Barnes was back now, with his rifle, and smart enough to have it pointed down. "Fellas, I am not going to lie, I thought you were gonna shoot the shit out of me."

Selvic gave the Northerner a wan smile, and glanced back down to the quivering fat lady. "This cow has been a problem for us already, bad enough our Sergeant posted us to watch her tonight. Aren't you fuckers under orders to be on the watch-out for this kinda game? There ain't no telling what kind of cameras her cousins have up in these windows, just waiting to catch "the terrible Engells" in something just like this. It'd be on mandress-wearing Gunnish news to-fucking-morrow."

The pale Cussian nodded up to the dozens of gaping maws in the face of the apartment buildings lining the street in both directions. "You gotta fuckin think man, we're in this for more than us and what we can get out of it. This is the rest of history."

Barnes nodded, and then noticed his sidearm, features sagging noticeably. "Oh man...hey, I'm not going to tell you anything but thank you, you saved my ass with this...but I am going to be fucked over that pistol."

Selvic understood, or at least he thought he did. The Engellachians weren't blessed with the resource pool any of their more Southerly kindred were, and being Engells all the same, were too proud to accept handouts they didn't feel like they'd earned yet. For men like Selvic, that earned them a place at the table as much as anything.

Rogers too, seemed like. The little Melungeon unsnapped his own sidearm, a slick little P341 like everyone else in the same uniform, and offered it to the Engellachian grip-first. "Here man, take this. It won't be a thing for me to find another one, and you might need it before I do out here on your own like this."

Barnes was floored. He looked back and forth between Rogers and Selvic for a few seconds before reaching for the pistol. He stopped just short of taking it and looked back to Selvic. "You sure about this Corporal?"

Selvic nodded, thankful for the respect the Northerner showed his rank without knowing he'd wanted it. "Yeah, fuck it, why not. It's a song and dance to get a new one."

Barnes took it without a second thought then, nodding his thanks for the spare magazines Rogers forked over next. "I really appreciate this guys. You've saved my ass three ways to Sunday tonight, and I really mean that."

Rogers beamed at his new pal and shrugged. "Hey, we're all in this together." Selvic nodded his agreement, and glanced back down to Big Bertha. She was just staring at them, eyes wide with pain and terror.

"That said, you probably out to get out of here, we're gonna have to deal with this beached whale somehow." That drew a response from the Burgundian woman - made her mad enough that she spit at them.

Rogers was just before shooting her himself but Selvic waved him off. "Enough paperwork as it is, friendo."


Some while later, after Big Bertha had received medical attention - and had been slipped a discrete stack of Thaumantic £s, Selvic slinked off into the darkness of a side alley. "You get that?"

The smile the intelligence man responded with was almost enough to light the alley. "Absolutely Corp...no, Sergeant. We'll be able to make a good clip or three off of this, hopefully keep some other dumb bastards from making us all look bad. You properly compensated the fat girl, do you think she'll keep her mouth shut?"

Selvic nodded, looking back over his shoulder. "Yeah, I told her we'd kill her and everyone she ever knew if she crossed us."











 
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Beautancus

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The Best Carolina
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Altaturra
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Beau
Welmonton, Confederated Republic of Beautancus
Domain Defense Planning Offices (Provisional),
Panopticon, DoD HQ


Happily for Chief Crenshaw, the man present before him on behalf of the Cussians was also a chief, albeit of a somewhat different kind.

Ancient beyond most comparison, aged features more resembling the trunk of an old oak than the handsome cast of his youth, infamous for wielding a mind sharper than most combat knives - Lord Captain-General Soyektowa Jimason Amoadawehi (of the Uctené Dynastic Amoadawehi clan) affected the sort of patronizing smile that only an octogenarian could.

The Uctené warchief envied the Engellachian, more than anything. It had been so many years since his own body had contained the rage and vigor necessary for a Blooded-Brave to live a life on the warpath, but the old noble's mind refused to cede the memories it cherished with every bit of the strength his body now lacked.

"Done, Chief Warrant Officer, with our compliments," General Amoadawehi answered, voice confident and practiced, but as hollowed out with age as one might expect. His body language made it clear to his counterparts on the advisory board that their primus inter pares was not yet done speaking. Crenshaw picked up on it as well, and remained waiting at attention.

"Regarding the Slavians, Chief Crenshaw," Amoadawehi paused to tap his pipe on the rim of the gleaming obsidian ashtray before him, an incredibly fine and long-stemmed specimen of ivory and brass. He leaned close to the South Engell to his left, an exquisitely beautiful Naval officer that was by now apparently very well trained, and waited for her to strike a match to relight his pipe.

Satisfied with the performance of both, the redskinned war-sage turned his attention back to the shabbily garbed Engellachian reaver. "...on the matter of the Slavians, do not concern or worry yourself. Even I know little of those workings - I am as yourself and quite unlike my more famous brother, a warrior and not a shaman or Senator."

"If I were though, I would tell you to put it out of your mind, even so. We, meaning all of us now, may indeed be able to bring the Prison of Nations to some settlement down the line a ways - but down the line, make no mistake. Our words will mean exactly chickenshit to them if they don't think we have the steel to be worth listening to, and shaking hands with." Amoadawehi drew deeply from his pipe then, as if that were how he would regain the wind to speak again.

It must have been too, because General Amoadawehi went on, "That is why you are here, and will get everything you ask for. Both the League of Four Nations and the Kadiki Union will enter discourse from a position of strength, no matter the outcome of this Burgundian trifle. The question is, Chief Crenshaw, just how strong a position will you leave us in, when the whole shooting match is done?"

 
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Thaumantica

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Nilshanks
Welmonton, Confederated Republic of Beautancus
Domain Defense Planning Offices (Provisional),
Panopticon, DoD HQ


“Why I reckon I’ll leave here with an eye for the next war and the next and the next,” Warrant Officer Crenshaw divulged, “Though next time as a contractor perhaps, they make a helluva lot more money than us in uniform” he declared from inside his proudly tattered garb.

“I have a lot of ideas, the Engellachians all have ideas, but finally we have some backing from our friends here to see if they will work or not.” Crenshaw continued, “Denying stability and comforts of infrastructure to the ‘patriots from Pilau’ is my big idea right now, so if we can achieve that then I do reckon I’ll leave here with a smile on my face and without any shame suit up in a new uniform!”
 

Beautancus

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The Best Carolina
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Altaturra
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Beau
Welmonton, Confederated Republic of Beautancus
Domain Defense Planning Offices (Provisional),
Panopticon, DoD HQ


Amoadawehi chuckled, a gurgling, phlegmy, raucous sound. He liked the Engellachians, they reminded him of his own people quite a bit. The wise General appreciated they may not take kindly to the comparison, given the differences in the way their own history with Indigenes had gone.

Waving his beautiful "partner" away, and reviving himself and his pipe simultaneously, the Cussian General ventured one ahead - "What if I had some of the young women from my clan stitch you up something? They must do this anyway, to earn their own stripes in the Relief Society - so it will be no skin off the teets of the taxpayer - pardon my frankness, Sweet Colonel," he winked at the South Engell. "It would have to match regulations, but given the disposition and elan of your unit I think a bit of character to express that esprit de corps, as the Frogs call it, is in order. Forget the plates from your battle-rattle if you wish to earn your feathers in fully blooded honor, unfettered as your ancestors...but for the sake of my own honor, and that of our stars above - and since you now take my salt and eat my corned beef and smoked ham - you are all now my Braves. And my Braves bear the colors."
 

Kadikistani Union

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Nov 2, 2006
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2,841
Location
Belgium
Capital
Ivar
Nick
Spelev
Tirlemont Forest
70 kilometres North-east of Agneaux
Burgundian People's Republic


Summer heat had reached even the thick Tirlemont forest with about 32 degrees Celsius in the shade. In the open fields it felt a lot warmer, even the insects apparently fleeing to the shadows that the concentrated pine trees of Tirlemont provided. The needles of the pine trees itself and all that dwelled below them already providing enough nuisance without the constant presents of mosquitos, flies and other pests. At least the pine trees would provide visual cover in all four seasons because this kind of tree never lost all of its needles. That brought little consolation to the leading Shlebuchya operative in the war-torn country, Slavko Stojiljkovic. The tall, muscular Kadiki was preoccupied not only with coordinating the All-Union 'solidarity efforts' in the Burgundian People's Republic, but also fighting a running battle against the many small, six-legged creatures with a taste for blood or dead skin. 'At least back home the Winter's are still strong enough to kill most of these fuckers.', Slavko thought, giving himself a few moments to think about his parental house in the North of the Socialist Republic of Ruskastan while smacking an unidentified blood-sucker in the back of his neck.

Slavko had just received the recently decrypted inventory of this week's weapons and supplies shipment from one of his sweaty subordinates. While dozens of even sweatier Burgundian 'cadettes révolutionaire' were doing jumping-jacks a dozen metres behind him as part of their endurance training he couldn't help but smile as he saw what was on the list. Indeed one of the weapons included came by his personal request to his superiors back in the Rurikgrad Operational Control, sanctioned by Ivar. A weapon that could give the Red Burgundian cause some much needed relief after the initial onslaught of the Domain forces. Slavko, wearing his most comfortable track suit above his unlaced military boots signalled his second in command to come closer. Despite his function Slavko was a man of little words, mostly relying on subtle hand gestures for the less complex communication. While it caused stress with those only recently in his service one would quickly be informed on all of them or face the wrath of Slavko's irritation.

"Are the vehicles prepared?", Slavko enquired as he flipped the page of the cargo document in his hand. "Affirmative, Comrade. Three local ambulances, two commercial vans and a pair of suitable vehicles from both the fire department and the local police.", his second in command, Uzakbay Aytiyev, stated proudly. As ordered these vehicles were stashed in various location in the periphery of Ouistreham and would carry the weapons to the front line upon delivery from the BPR controlled inland. The Kadikistani-Azeijani second continued his report, "The Burgundians are keeping us updated on the shifts in the front line. If the primary location has been compromised we will know before arrival and adjust with consecutive locations." Aytiyev handed Slavko a map of Ouistreham with an oversight of the weapons placements, including secondary, tertiary,... locations. "The local Burgundian commander agreed to launch a modest counter-offensive in one of the eastern neighbourhoods as a distraction while our vehicles infiltrate the city. Along with traffic decoys."

The content of the vehicles were Burgundian, but the plan was of Kadikistani design. The weaponry used at this stage not outmatching similar weapons formerly belonging to the Ducal Army of Burgundy was still deemed. Again all effort was taken to avoid any direct links with the Kadikistani Union. The vehicles itself were driven by Kadikistani-trained Burgundian members of the 'Secours Rouge' organisation. A semi-underground Marxist-Leninovist relief group that mainly supported members of the Party of Candles behind bars back in the days when Chagny still ruled these lands. This fringe organisation had long been an instrument of the Shlebuchya. Secours Rouge was made up out of dogmatic fanatics, but useful through their devotion and training. The vehicles carrying the weapons would serve as suicide vans if apprehended, however unlikely, the explosion itself intended to erase immediate identification of the weapon.

Meanwhile the Kadikistani operatives spread across the country were also working towards a different objective. The cargo's arriving from the Kadikistani Union would not always go back empty, in fact that was avoided as much as possible. Before its collapse the Grand Duchy of Burgundy was a leading nation on many fields, modern military, industrial processes and even space travel among a wide variety of other endeavours. Despite the fracturing of the Grand Duchy the industrial plans, blueprints, prototypes, studies,... had not evaporated. A special Shlebuchya detachment was in full motion tracking down and collecting information, instruments, materials and such from across the country to be send back home for further study. An opportunity of war that could not remain unexploited.
 

Beautancus

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somewhere in NoCRER
the first week of the Intervention


"Good afternoon Monsieur Sénéchal, very nice of you to rejoin us."

The voice roared in Joffrey Segal's ears from what must have been a dozen loud speakers in every direction, sudden stimuli where they had been only the blank void of unconsciousness a moment before. It forced the Neustrian Senechal to blink fast, not realizing he'd been squeezing his eyelids shut - the lights above him were so close and so bright!!!

Too bright, far too bright for Segal's beleaguered and completely overwhelmed senses. With a lurching heave, the Burgundian politician hauled himself forward and vomited profusely.

"Now, now Monsieur Sénéchal, it can't be all that bad. You are alive, after all." The voice again, this time closer and spoken aloud without the speakers. Wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve and carefully peeping in the direction of the voice, Segal noted the tug at his other arm for the first time. There was an IV in his arm and trailing back up to a rather complicated looking, multi-bag pump.

Holy Mother of God, what are they pumping me full of!? Segal tried to regain control of himself, but this was so far outside of his comfort zone that he simply could not cope. The last thing he remembered was being in the apartment...the Cussians had come, it had to be the Cussians - Oh God, the Cussians have me - they had killed Robard - I tried to stop him, oh God knows I tried to stop him - he had been sure that they were going to kill him and Celise...but no, here he was.

"W-w-where are you keeping me? Why are you doing this?" The words burbled up and out of his mouth before he'd truly considered whether it was the best idea or not.

"We are not in Burgundy, and you will refrain from further questions unless told that they are appropriate. We will be asking the questions."

Segal had no idea how they were doing that, he could still sense the person in the room with him, and not that far away...but it was like a thousand people were bellowing so close and loudly that they were inside his ears. The urge to vomit hit Segal again, but sank away fast.

"Do you understand, Monsieur Segal?"

The Neustrian Senechal nodded but couldn't bring himself to look at the speaker, capable only of cradling his face in his hands. It was literally everything he could not to begin sobbing.
 

Thaumantica

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Nilshanks
Northeast Ouistreham

Few and far between, Francophone capable agents of Engellachia’s Thaumantic Civil Service were about to be thrust into the civilian garb of Ouistreham and pressed into apartments, occupations, and the daily routines of what their handlers perceived to be the typical lives of the city’s denizens. Some carried connections to the coming tide of a Westernesse’s prolific recreational drug industry, though most had the primary mission of observing and reporting on suspicious activity or outright calling in the movement of enemy troops. Called ‘SALUTE’ reports, agents simply observed targets then proceeded along to an appropriate stopping point to transmit the ‘Size - Activity - Location - Uniform/Designation - Time - Equipment’ over cellphone by text or phone call.

“Sierra: Fower

Alpha: Suspicious boxes with foreign markers offloaded in back alley

Lima: NE Ouistreham near city edge *GPS

Uniform: Plain clothes, blue and black

Tango: 201907**0500

Echo: Dark colored vans, east Bourgogne plates unconfirmed”

Agent Sean Massey, going by Cedric Maret by papers, jammed into a text message after cycling at least a mile away and into another dark alley. Still on the bicycle Sean leaned into a brick wall, cool but wet with a blanket of morning fog. Cussian jets were screaming in the night’s sky, but not for him or the men he observed Sean knew, and for a moment closed his eyes. When he opened them he was met by those of a feral cat, staring as if judging the clandestine invader for intruding not only their land but his own alley.

“Don’t blame me, Puss - I just work here . .” Sean whispered out in Engellsh to the feline defender. The cat blinked then sauntered off as King of his own domain, largely unconcerned with the conflict of mankind taking place around him. A woman who used to leave him dry food was missing, but no matter - he merely fought away another cat from another front door where food was still being offered faithfully to strays.

OOC: *= assumed GPS coordinates, **fill in a date


Old Burgundian Revenue Office
OR
Engellachian HQ


General Kentigern Hayes spent the afternoon hours taking short naps so the rest of the evening and early morning could be invested in the Battle for Ouistreham. Masters of pen and pound in Vesper had promised the West Engell Combined Armed Forces as blood and flesh sacrifice to the Thaumantic Domain, and Mungo Hayes was merely the jolly butcher.

Over and over he ordered the Engellachian Army and Marines to jolt across the city to respond to every outbreak of violence. They were the Domain’s skirmishers, and could be expected to sustain a casualty on every dash across town and engagement. If their bodies could be reached, their belongings and armaments were quickly stripped the same as they would enemy combatants. Rarely though were the bodies themselves retrieved or returned, there would be no sanitary way of storing or returning home.

“The meat grinder goes only one way,” General Hayes told his Cussian counterparts, “forward from head til toe until our debt is paid.”

Still the miles on these men would begin to show after at least a week he predicted, the selfish inhumane exterior of the poor and desperate greens would harden into a corps of veterans loyal to one another if not the mission or the General. Hayes did not hold out hope for the latter, but prayed to a spirit or two for the former every time a truck or squad came up dead or “missing”.
 

Kazansk

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May 9, 2019
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197
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Pillau
Nick
Boro
Pillau, Burgundian People's Republic

Even though Pillau was far from the front line things were going far from smoothly, the missile attack on the city had severely damaged the city's centre and had killed or wounded many of the Republic's leadership leaving those left to scrabble for power and influence. Bertrand Murat was one of the Republic's old guard, an avowed Republican the ascent of von Goltz to the rank of provisional chairman did not sit easily with him, after all what good was it to simply have another aristocrat in charge. To save the ideals of the People's Republic von Goltz would surely have to go.


Edouard deSalle the late provisional defense minister had also mistrusted von Goltz, perhaps it would pay to reach out to his remaining lieutenants for support within the military.

++++++++

The influx of former Neustrian personnel into the ARN made background checks almost impossible to administer.And even with most of the Neustrian police and civil service defecting to the Republic the workload was too much. The threat of enemy infiltration was such that a brand new agency was being established The National Security Committee headed by the Provisional Minister for the Interior. It would be tasked with monitoring the armed forces and government for any signs of subversion by foreign powers or anti-republican sentiment.
 

Thaumantica

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0000, Southeast Outskirt of Ouistreham

Private Barnes lodged himself alongside hundred or more exhausted Engellachian troops along small stone fences and dirt shoulders in the road. They were on the edge of the city they had come to love and hate, fuck and kill, and were now being asked to launch the ground attack beyond where aerial and armored cavalry attacks had yet truly soften.

Barnes' ears perked up at the lurch and screech and roll of the West Engell Republic's elderly Missile Cars, a rogue product of the 1950s war with the Great Northern Empire, somehow being fielded at the front here despite Clarenthia and the First Republic's supposed wartime capability.

"I'm kinda'fraid my self, to be honest!" Barnes confided aloud, but no one could hear him over the roar of the diesel trucks being buoyed in mud or blocks in the ground. Their engines fired on as Barnes and others were shouted into a ready crouch. "CHARGE NOW MEN!" Captain Blaine ordered, "Barnes held back as his squad ran up and were mowed down by Eastern rifles and artillery. The Engellachian Hellion Missiles then began firing, screaming in burning in the night sky to drop violence in the general direction and anywhere they landed. "NO REALLY GUYS, NOW!!!" Barnes shouted, and the larger force huddled down followed him with wild rockets over head.

In this climate the Engellachians engaged their partisan enemy as equals, at this point unsure the First Republic or Clarenthia's willingness or ability to field forces. These were men who's fathers and grandfathers had fought in forests and trenches, the same rocket trucks had arrived to fire for their offense, and much the same rockets fell from the sky and blew their own forces to bits. Barnes tripped and took a chin full of rained in mud in the field.

"Fuck this!" he shouted, then shoved down and stepped on by other soldiers charging then slipping down in the mud themselves. Rockets continued to scream over, and some of them went limp themselves in its angry terror. "UP, UP, UP!" Barnes ordered, holding the pistol of a trampled officer, "CHARGE AND FIRE, WITHOUT PREJUDICE! FIRE FIRE FIRE!". Everyone around Barnes followed his call actively, accompanied by actively replenished rocket rounds overhead deep into the enemy frontline and beyond.
 

Beautancus

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The Best Carolina
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Altaturra
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Beau
Joint-Service Station Horsa - "BURCOM"
Naval Support Facility Revsec,
Engellexian Republic


The days had passed swiftly within JSS Horsa, with an almost surreal quality of constant mental engagement and hyper-vigilance gripping very nearly the entirety of the Coordination, Network, and Theater Command staffs. Somewhere along the way, someone had decided Horsa would be called BURCOM -Burgundian Command - but that seemed a bit much like putting the horse before the cart for General Percival Preston.

As the most senior Cussian general officer at Revsec/JSS Horsa, overall command of the Confederated Republic's contributions to the operations in former-Neustria had naturally fallen to him. It was a rare peculiarity for the Air Force to take primacy over Army or Navy, and was sure to have curled a snarls out of the brass in Hammer Bay - even more so when Preston had risen to the challenge.

At least I took the time to build relationships here in Revsec before all this happened, Preston mused, rubbing his temples while taking a moment away from the blinding glare of the command center's legion of monitors and tablet screens. Being able to work easily with the Engells had made his life easier the whole time he'd been in NoCRER, and certainly no less so since this responsibility had fallen to him. Glancing at his watch and draining the last of the most recent in a very, very long line of Clarion-infused cups of coffee, anticipation mounting again.

The man with whom Preston had worked the closest in his time at Horsa, Marine Corps General Leopold Bridger, was across the Engellsea and on the ground in Ouistreham to coordinate the next phase of the Domain's intervention in Burgundy. The pace with which the forces on the ground in the fallen capital left something to be desired, for both Preston and his superiors - it was expected that Bridger's presence would go some ways to remedying that.

A particularly critical push through to the far-side of the city was underway now, had been for several hours. Word had been scarce from the Engellachian commander, General Hayes, for a significant portion of those hours, very nearly driving both Bridger and Preston mad in the process.

It wasn't that the Cussians didn't grasp the self-flagellating penance that the West Engells were seeking through tackling the assault on the Burgundian port-city only with what was available from their own arsenal. It was that their insistence on that complicated coordination between Cussian and Engellachian units on the ground - and that just was not something General Preston had time for today.

It is time to be done with this damned city. And if Preston had his way about it, they would be after this push. Glancing at the bigscreen projection of the battlespace, his eyes sought out two formations of pulsing markers in particular.

The 121st Armored Cavalry and three Airborne Cohorts were tracking around the NE/E perimeter of Ouistreham, wheeling southward on a track that would bring them down on the Burgundian lines in the city's eastern fringe - and block off any possible route of retreat for those that survived what was about to come down on them. The Engellachians had managed to pull off their rocket-car assault per the last situation report received from the front, and the other part of the Cussian compliment to this action should be underway any moment. Bridger had a clever plan of his own, and the Marines under his command were hellbent on ensuring the Burgundians were finally driven out of the city as an effective fighting force.



The second marker of interest for General Preston actually wasn't anywhere near Ouistreham on the bigscreen, and it - they - were making much, much faster time. Labeled "Stormwing 5/65," and cruising above the ground several thousand feet at just a hair under full Mach, components from two of the 3rd Combat Wing's Aircraft Groups had blown past the approach for Ouistreham several minutes ago.

Stormwing 5/65's marker was dividing on the screen, two halves becoming distinct triangles of their own and peeling away from each other. Both halves retained the varied force composition of the greater whole, fast-movers and armed UAVs in escort and acting as screens for enemy AA, electronic warfare planes to baffle, confound, defy and outright dominate enemy radar and electronic countermeasures. The only difference in the formations composition was a matter involving the two largest and heaviest-hitting airframes serving in the Domain at present.

In the formation now deviating most from the original flightpath, the 5th Aircraft Group, were Thunderbirds. The smaller of the two aircraft this mission was built around, the warplanes still obviously dwarfed everything in their small flock of much faster escorts. What the Thunderbird lacked in carrying capacity and range, it made up for with handling, having a smaller radar cross-section and being all around harder to take out of the sky. It also boasted top speeds its even larger sibling could never hope to achieve, making it the ideal choice for the nearer objectives.

Intel had identified a number of Neustrian military installations within medium operational distance of the Ouistreham beachhead that would need to be taken off the board, and the 5th had drawn that straw. This select number of irresistible targets was included a major airfield from which sorties had been flown against Cussian and Engellachian infantry - it would take the hardest pounding.

The 65th Aircraft Group - the formation most conforming to the original flightpath - included a slightly higher ratio of escorts to bombers, but the ghastly bulk of the Firehawk more than made up for the disparity. Built to fight wars over vast distances, wars that the House of Burgesses of the time had argued Beautancus would never see, the Firehawk had been used in active combat a mere handful of times before today - and even then, mostly by the First Republic. Today would be the day the heaviest heavy weight in the arsenal finally got to stretch her wings.

The tremendous firepower the Firehawk could bring to bear against an enemy was legendary among the Cussian military, despite the scant few opportunities they'd had to employ them. That firepower necessitated the impressive size of the plane, as well as bringing its maximum speed down to under Mach. Being subsonic reduced the big bird of fire's radar cross section at least, and with a moving target like this one, that kind of thing mattered.

The 65th spread their formation out even farther as they progressed North/Northeast, UAVs racing ahead to engage AA and AAA emplacements identified from intercepted communications and by Sentinel satellites far overhead - in low orbit. Less than a minute later, the first of the Stormcrow and Viper escorts peeled away to engage targets in the air and on the ground, air to air and air to ground missiles streaking away from the hardpoints under their wings. Never straying far from the larger 'hawks, the crews of the electronic warfare Starhawks were beginning to really earn their pay as well.

Air defenses and resistance from the enemy during this mission was expected to be as intense as they would face for the entire war, for good reason. They were aiming to visit Pillau itself with more than 210 tons (190,000 kgs) of military-grade high explosives, after all.


 
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Clarenthia

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May 4, 2010
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1,148
Capital
Alaghan
Nick
Jurzidentia
Ouistreham International Airport

The Cussian-built angler’s tires hit against the tarmac of Ouistreham International Airport. Despite the area being secured by the First Republic’s initial attack, the choppers weren’t taking any chances. With the blades still spinning at full speed, Supervisory Special Agent Ashur J. Cross jumped onto the tarmac and followed his teammates at a hurried pace to the tents that had been erected on the sides of the runways.

Opting for the traditional garb of an agent, he looked slightly out of place from the men and women fielding the Engellexic and CDF uniforms. In terms of protection, all he had was a black, standard issue bullet proof vest with “CBHT” printed across the shoulder blades and the seal of the agency across the lapel. As he approached the tent, a soldier emerged to greet him.

“Supervisory Special Agent Ashur J. Cross, Commonwealth Bureau for Homeland Tranquility,” he identified himself.

“Captain Matthew Conway,” the soldier replied “We’ve been expecting you agent, please come with me.”

The group of men, after exchanging their pleasantries, followed the soldiers into the tent. The tent was, in the most forgiving of terms, hurriedly put together. It served no other purpose than to provide a barrier to the night sky and keep prying eyes from looking in. Though, that was all it needed to do.

“How many do we have, Captain?” Cross asked.

“Seven of particular interest,” he answered “There are others but we can handle that. The one we’d like you to talk to first is a man named Franck Girard. The intel we’ve gathered from the others would suggest this guy was in charge of running supplies into the city. No doubt we find where they are we can learn more about their supply lines generally.”

“No doubt,” Cross examined the dossier the soldier handed him “He’s resistant?”

“Very, sir.”

“Of course,” Cross closed the dossier and handed it back “Where is he?”

The soldier pointed down toward a row of makeshift cages that were holding prisoners captured during the attack. Cross walked up to Girard and stared him down, he looked up at him with an exhausted look. His face had many cuts and blood trickled down from beyond his hairline.

“Franck Girard?” Cross asked.

“Are you here to torture me?” he muttered back.

“That’s entirely up to you my friend,” Cross knelt down to go to eye level with the man “I’m only here to ask some questions.”

“What makes you think I know anything?”

“There’s enough here that you have my attention.”

“What makes you think I’ll talk?” Girard challenged.

“The way I see it is you have three options. You either continue to deny that you know anything and I have no choice but to determine that you’re not valuable…at which point you’re just wasting valuable space on this base – and I’ll put a bullet in your head. Second you tell me what you know and you might live long enough to see a truly free Bourgogne,” he paused.

“Or?” Girard asked.

“Or I determine you do know things, find it abundantly clear you won’t talk, and then I’ll hand you to the Cussians. I hear they don’t do a lot of talking. What do you say?”
 

Thaumantica

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Nilshanks
Southeast Outskirts of Ouistreham

After half an hour that felt like half a day of running, diving, and fighting combat, Private Barnes stopped in the relative silence of his ears ringing. Men were screaming out in agony somewhere, in their language or his was indistinguishable, yet most screeched and groaned in a universal language which requires no translation.

The rockets which had aided their advance where now long out of range, or more likely out of ammunition, and on foot he and others had chased down enemies off of their specific objective and into fields, or in his case an entirely different village - though Barnes could not be sure, he was alone with the officer’s pistol he had yanked from a dead Engellachian, and now a wood furnished rifle won wrestling in a small crater with the formidable enemy.

Barnes was standing alone in a street panting uncontrollably, looking from window to window and corner to corner of every periphery for something else to explode or jump out and shoot at him. For the slightest moment he thought he heard something overhead but dismissed it out of hand, though a second later an explosion on the other side of the buildings to his right shook the ground and sent random bits of stone and earth raining on to him. These were light enough to ignore and power through, so Barnes raised the eastern rifle once more though now with the intent of retreating to regroup with the Engellachian frays.

Instead another explosion went off closer this time, shattering and collapsing the corner of a corner shop. Then more and more and more they fell in this same concentrated area until without notice Barnes’s vision went black, slipping motionless and without pain into nothingness. He had advanced unknowingly on to a Cussian artillery bombardment target, and had thus been consumed by its vicious wrath.

After as much time or less than his battle that night began, Barnes awoke to a shots of pain and aches in places inside and out, his head throbbing and eyes failing to reveal who precisely was manipulating his body and rolling him into stretcher. “Take a load off son,” a Cussian voice grumbled down at him, “If you fight me I won’t feel nothin’ to knock you out cold again, ya hear?”

Barnes made a sad attempt to rise, but broken bones and contusions robbed him of the desire to knock his ally out first. Instead he groaned and allowed the Cussian Combat medics to strap him down to a litter and load him up with them. “Ya ain’t gonna die or anything, well - not no more now that you’re with us.”

Barnes did not even feel an intravenous needle prick his arm, though was rewarded for not fighting by splits applied to both of his legs that he had still not yet seen himself through blurred vision. To those to the medics began to clear with simple saline, music - their music, started to bleed through his rocked brain. “Will I be healthy for tomorrow’s round of advance?” Barnes asked hopefully.

“Son, your war is over I’d wager - on the battlefield at least, because the way I see it you might walk again, but you ain’t ever gonna run into one of our artillery strikes on your own again!”
 

Socialist Commonwealth

Establishing Nation
Joined
Oct 30, 2006
Messages
4,691
Location
Germany
Capital
Svetograd
Nick
Revy
Deliverance
Socialist World Republic


Major General Sarah Parker was the highest ranking female officer in the military of the Socialist World Republic. An amibitious and determined woman, she had often faced extraordinary hardship during her career and found she had to work at least twice as hard than any of her colleagues to succeed. She would have hid the glass ceiling headfirst long ago, had it not been for the sponsorship of one of her superiors, Bertrand Hartt, who had made sure that his protegé rose along with him through the ranks. Hartt was now a General in the army, part of the General Staff and determined to achieve that last step to become Marshal of the Army.

"Sarah, you know I've always considered you more than just a talented subordinate, that I always thought of you as a friend."

To become Marshal, Hartt would have to push aside a number of competitors who had risen through the ranks long before him, old men, who held onto their positions with unflinching determination. Men, who had joined the army during peactime, rose through its ranks during peacetime, have let their asses grow fat and complacent during peacetime... and who had learned that quiet and stability had served them best. Hartt, as well as Parker, were a different breed. Impetuous, aggressive and determined, they longed to prove their mettle. It was this shared character, that had formed the foundation of their friendship.

"It's thus that I advise you that you can reject the following proposal. That what I am about to suggest is dangerous and difficult beyond measure, that if you fail at this task, you could easily end your entire career in doing so. Just as me."

Older, more frightful men had tried to sideline both of them throughout their career. Unsuccesfully, one might say, looking merely at the ranks both of them held. Succesfully, if one considered the amount of influence both held over the shape and future of the military. Yet things were changing. A new president sat in the Red House. One that felt, not unlike them, that calm and quiet had bred complacency, which had bred neglect. That the World Republic was woefully underprepared for any military confrontation. And that its enemies had not slept all that time.

"The President has ordered a secret mission to Burgundy. I think it comes without saying that anything mentioned here to you is to be treated with utmost confidentiality. Either way, we are to dispatch a group of officers to the Burgundian Peoples Republic, along with supplies and materiel, to help them repel the invasion by Dominion forces. I suggested you as commander of this mission and while the rest of the General Staff was less enthusiastic, they had hardly anyone they'd trust to take on such a personal risk to their careers," Hartt snorted derisively. "The President furthermore seemed very content with you as the obvious choice."

"I'll do it," General Parker said without hesitation. And just like that, she had traded command of her division, a prestigeous and cushy job in a peaceful country for a risky command with unclear implications for her career and no guarantuee of success.

"Very well. Your main duty will be to organize the training of new units for the Burgundians and to serve as advisor to their military command. You may or may not command a group of volunteer fighters, as well, as the President requested such. If we can find enough within the SWR to form a unit..."

Santee Mountains Army Depot

The sun had been relentless throughout the last weeks, turning the entirety of the Santee Mountain range into a giant red spot on the forest fire warning maps. For the men and women of the Santee Mountains Army Depot, however, this was less of a concern still than the choking conditions within the barracks and storing halls, where the air stalled and heated up beyond what a human could readily endure.

So it was unsurprisingly received with little enthusiasm by the personnel on the base when orders were issued to reorganize parts of the stockpile and have portions of the ammunitions stockpiles delivered for permanent disposal. "Why now, why not in winter?" was a common question asked around the base, albeit with significantly more swearing. The truckers from the logistics corps picking up the storage had no answers to that either and all of them together generally chalked it up to beuraucratic incompetence and continued to do their duties.

But while such incompetence should never be ruled out in such a giant and byzantine organisation as the military of the World Republic, there had been a good and concrete reason for this order. Contrarely to what most of those involved had been told, the stockpiles retrieved from places like the Santee Mountains Army Depot were not to be destroyed. They were to be delivered, gifted, to a foreign cause.

Ammunition and weapons, artillery shell and guns, but most importantly and above all surface-to-air missiles would be loaded unto planes and airlifted to Gallia. They were intended for the defense of the Burgundian Peoples Republic against the Engell offensive.
 

Beautancus

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 1, 2008
Messages
2,341
Location
The Best Carolina
Capital
Altaturra
Nick
Beau
South/Southeast Ouistreham
Disputed Western Burgundy


From this vantage point, some ways outside of the city-proper and with enough elevation to count, it was possible to get an admirably clear view of the outer rim of this thrice-bedamned city. Captain Glisson Morton hoped so, at least. Like most of the Cussian Army units now in-country, he and the 121st had only just arrived, And I hate the sight of this trash-heap already.

Columns of greasy black smoke rose, curling and writhing, beyond the reach of the roaring fires that were feeding them. Here and there, different shades of colored smoke rose to join the unremarkable black, red and white and even a little green - Domain forces covering their advance out of the city, marking positions occupied by the enemy or marking their own positions to avoid being struck by allied fire-support.

Not far away, down the hill several hundred yards, the outer wall of the city's famous Citadelle de la porte, the Citadel of the Gate, took a direct hit. Masonry and fire belched up, a great cloud of many colors, and an entire portion of the retaining wall sagged inward and collapsed. No more than fractions of a second later, another half dozen direct hits followed, and an entire section of the wall was simply gone.

Vindicator IFVs, their guns nothing like as heavy as the modern-armor eating main gun of an MBT, had been deemed perfectly suited to "negating whatever superfluous cover or obstructions the enemy has made of the city's misbegotten landmarks."

Negate the cover they had. Capt. Morton couldn't help but grin, thinking of how satisfied those rooster-crowing sumbitches would be with themselves after this. The Vindicator and the men lucky enough to crew them were victims of their own fearsome reputations more times than not, and didn't see as much action as they'd have liked - Cussian preference being to avoid the appearance of overkill. No such concern was evident here today, nor would it be for some weeks and months.

Another volley from the IFVs finished off the remaining "obstructions," as well as reaching into the Citadel itself. More gouts of masonry, tinged heavily with grotesque grayish-pink mist, signalled their success. A few seconds passed, long enough for the smoke and fog of annihilated plaster and stone to clear, and the crews of the armored vehicles were able to survey the carnage they'd wrought clearly enough.

Morton's radio squawked beside him, the commander of the IFVs voice coming over clearly. "Thermals look clear Captain Morton, think they've all got their heads pulled in for now. Blanket and advance?"

"Affirmative Buck, blankets away. And good shooting."

TNNKTNNKTNNKTNNK, the Vindicators responded to Morton's command with mechanical precision, smoke-rounds arching up from their defilade and down to the open ground between their hillock and the shattered Citadel walls. The field was one large bank of seemingly impenetrable white smoke in seconds.

Neat and orderly lines of infantry raced down the hillock now, around the Vindicators and into the expanding cloud of white smoke, spreading out as they went. Sporadic gunfire popped off within and on the far side of the cloud, though none of it seemed to be heading back up the hillock. Invisible to Morton, or anyone else observing with the naked eye, the Cussian infantry paused only long enough to ensure proper organization, and darted into the yard of the Citadel.

One of the Vindicator's secondary machine guns opened up, raking high across one of the Citadel's towers, followed in turn by two more of his armored comrades. Morton had no idea what they were firing at, but they were the ones with the thermal rangefinders, not him.

The air was split with an incredible screeching cacophony, jarring and loud enough that Morton actually hit the dirt. Some seconds passed before the realization dawned on him that the terrible noise had come from behind their own position - made by Cussian forces. Gorgon Self-Propelled Guns, 155mm artillery, and Basilisk Multiple Rocket Launchers made up a large portion of the 121st's fire-support - the very thing they were now providing.

Some distance away, well within the outer neighborhoods of Ouistreham, a swath of ground covering five or six blocks simply disappeared. The destruction wasn't perfect or precise, rapidly staggered scoops were taken out of structures as the heavy rockets landed and detonated. It was all fast enough that Morton was amazed his eyes had even kept up.

A piece of Neustrian light-armor, a troop carrier, raced out of the side streets not far from the target zone, trailing a cloud of pale dust as it went. Which wasn't far - one of the Vindicators had begun to track it immediately - a short burst erupted from the IFVs main gun, chewing into the side of the panicked APC.

The APC stopped moving then and there, no hatches were flung open, nobody tried to get out. Within seconds, it exploded.

A richocet snapped Capt. Morton's attention back to the Citadel. The smoke between his position and the ruined wall was dissipated well enough to see a bit of what was happening down there again. The Burgundians had found their fight again, and seemed to be unwilling to easily surrender the once glorious old edifice. Gunfire echoed through and out of the stone enclosure almost non-stop now, punctuated as two men toppled from one of the high windows of a tower. A Cussian and Burgundian regular, grappling and furiously punching, stabbing clean out the window - all the way to the unforgiving ground below.

Neither man rose again.
 
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