Ground Zero: Bourgogne

[Thaumantica]

The Dead Zone Between Dulwich & Londinjou
Operation Elkhorn Pierce

Karl Heydendahl woke up to the buzz of drones overhead, a thousand these little birds took the sky for routine diagnostic flights – dancing in predetermined formations for the Thaumantican Guard’s attentive Drone Corps. An orderly by the name of Petrov stumbled in with a toasted block of bread, egg, and salmon as Karl fished for his boots in the dark of his fog moist tent. “General Hilliard told me 08,” Karl complained as he consulted his watch, “It’s 05, explain?”.

The orderly was an enlisted male, Specialist Rankin of average build and brown hair. “There was no prior warning, sir, the order went out twenty minutes to commence Elkhorn Pierce at haste!”.

Karl quickly tied his boots tight and stood to meet the Engellachian soldier, an Engell and Gunn mix he guessed. Without thinking he reached for his pocket and produced a few pounds, tucking them into the palm of the Specialist who tried and failed to refuse. Dictator Heydendahl was still very new to the world of government, willfully carrying the private world of Engellachian bribes to his conduct in public office.

Angrily he pushed through the canvas flaps of his tent, marched through the wet ground of an Engellexian morning, and pushed again through olive drab flaps to a situation center headed by General Wesley Hilliard. “Up to no good?” Karl asked of the Combined Armed Forces (CAF) and Kinist General.

“From ancestries reach, we retract now to the island of the progenitors . . “ Hilliard recalled from some Kinist text, to which Karl Heydendahl shook his head and sighed. “And what, you Kinist dullard, why would you get away with it this time?”

General Hilliard ignored the dictator, instead shuffling from computer screen to computer screen to watch and correct small details of a developing battle picture. A few thousand small drones had left their test patterns between Dulwich and Londinjou, and now took predetermined paths to the homes of Engellexian politicians and military officers. Hundreds went to the homes and known locations frequented by the Northern Lady President, a woman especially despised by the Engellachians prior to and now ruthlessly from this Burgundian conflict.

“What do you ugly Engells say, bloody hell?” Karl inquired, rubbing his eyes angrily. “Are your men for sale?” Wesley Hilliard asked, a cousin of Sheriff Alton Pike who was negotiating a deal with Natalian Mercenaries south and a long way across the world.

“My men can end your awful operation on my order,” Karl reminded, “I’ve just sent a text to my mercenaries to surround this command center.”

"I stand as flesh, blood and bone, of a million year legacy" General Hilliard replied, still tending to every aspect of moving units on the map.

"And how will you deal with the Cussians, you Kinist Idiot?" Karl sneered.

"A message has gone out: we will make he North Engells fight, by bayonet if need be, and they must make the South Engells fight" Hilliard replied with a shrug, "this Soiree precedes you, Herr Dictator, focus on your peace if you will!".

 

[Beautancus]

Encryption Key...
...
...
...
ACCEPTED​

<Coriolanus>,


Operation: "Bleak Resolution" underway, apparent success in coordinated deployment of <Cavalier> and <Snowshoe> PMC forces. <Colonels> on board. Should secure <Borealis>? Arrangement with <Snowshoe> unavoidably necessary.

For tomorrow.


<Vulpes I.>

 

[Thaumantica]

Festival of the Free Goddess
Hammersmith, City Center

The Eisgart-Engellachian Dictator smiled and accepted a microphone from a Vesper 24 functionary who had just finished orchestrating Domain-domestic press to raise their cameras to follow Karl Heydendahl being helped on to an Engellachian tank by a female tanker who smiled, but quickly retreated to the hatch of her tank to lock herself away from the Engellachian mass of green uniforms harassing the streets. Karl looked back down at the cameras confidently and addressed Engellkind: "Our Free Goddess Thaumantica is Triumphant in both War and Peace!" Karl bellowed into a microphone, selling the concept like a nativist swamp preacher by stomping down on the tank excitedly.

Engellachia's Thaumantican Guard continued to roll down the historic streets of Hammersmith, Engellex throwing down or snatching up flower petals. Their rifles and weapons were holstered or stowed away, instead engaging the Constituent Republicans with hands in an invitation to dance or share food and drink in worship of the return of a deity to the progenitor island of all Engellkind. Far flung from the Kinist's bizarre wolf and ancestor cult, the Thaumantican Guard was introducing a near Nativist concept; an undying embodiment of the Engellexian feminine form of freedom through the body of Thaumantica.

This thing, the Free Goddess and veneration there of, had been his deal of compromise with General Wesley Hilliard and the awesomely armed Cussian armies, armadas, and air fleets. Hilliard and the Kinists had been willing to torch Hammersmith and the entire damn Domain to capture the Old Country, Vesper could have been firebombed thrice and they would have never cared, they had an eye and fixation with this generations spanning plan to repatriate Dulwich and Hammersmith.

"This was a day of reckoning for Thaumantica," Karl continued atop the tank as soldiers and civilians of all Domain extracts joined him on the rolling machine, "she has seized the reigns peace from the jaws of mayhem . . She stood with me in spirit in Ouistreham, Thaumantica did . ." Karl lied through an atheist converso's mouth, "She tapped my shoulder and said, 'We're not ready, brave as my million man Thaumantican Army is, a Continental Horde of a billion ghouls unites against me to molest my children!' . . "

Somewhere in the corner of the screen for some viewers an Engellexian soldier could be seen raising his rifle at Dictator Heydendahl, but he would be tackled and snuffed out, and his image blurred out for re-broadcasts later. Karl was the Dictator of the Deal, but with every rung of the ladder climbed he continued to make seriously motivated enemies. The Sylvanians, Cussians, Pohjan, Engellexians, and nearly every type human both distrusted and disliked the Dictator and the Thaumantican Alignment Committee on some public or private level, but here he was on an Engellexian tank in Hammersmith and no one could get off a shot quite yet.

Karl felt a tap on his ankle from a mercenary who jerked a thumb back telling him to get down, "May Thaumantica Bless her Domain!" Karl blurted with a wink before jumping down from the tank and scurrying down a gangway with a team of mercenaries.

 

[Beautancus]

Hammersmith, City Center
No.C.R.E.R.,
Engellexian Republic -
Thaumantic Domain


As happy to make the most of Thaumantica's sacred rites and observances in Old Engellex as anywhere else, the powers behind the Domain's curtain judged the present moment to be most ideal, for springing the next phase of their plans into action. The Kinist gambit had not begun under their auspices, but it had not long unfolded before their blessing was given - asked for or not. Where lesser nations or orders might have buckled or dithered, a coterie of headlight-shocked deers, the Domain adapted and refused to let that which was on hand go to waste.

Taking advantage of what was already a media circuses as much as the ongoing chaos and uncertainty across the Engelsea, the "Burgundian Candidate" himself was to be trotted out before both the teeming multitudes and all those untold millions more watching from their homes or offices. Having only made a pair of public appearances since being taken into "protective custody" by the Cussians, Monsieur Senechal, Joffrey Segal himself, was on hand on the First Republic's capital today.

To perform what was likely to be the single greatest, certainly the most important action he'd ever undertake, ostensibly. More particularly and precisely however, the former Neustrian HoG was present to follow the dictates of the programming so meticulously encoded and reinforced into his psyche.

Though Segal had endured much since falling into the hands of the Cussians, he scarcely recalled even a hint of that horror. All that the Senechal felt in these moments - listening to the Engellachian Dictator's remarks far more intently than he ever would've before - was the familiar rush endorphins, the semi-ecstatic exaltation of knowing he was about to speak before a numberless crowd.

When at last Heydendahl brought his speech to a close, Segal was so caught up in the moment that he could only join in with the thousands of other pairs of hands of the gathered mob. His handler, officially an aide assigned to him by the Cussians, had to gently clasp the fallen Neustrian politician's shoulder to cue him on.

Sheepishly, Segal chuckled. "Oh, pardon me Njorun, I am so caught up in the moment I have nearly forgotten my own reason for being here!"

"Njorun" returned a smile of her own, and after nodding to the microphone wielding Engellachian to make his introduction, leaned in close to the Senechal. As far as Segal was concerned, she spoke only a few words of encouragement, but they were in fact far more.

Animated with the certainty and vigor of a man half his own age, and altogether unburdened by the tragedies of the Summer months, Segal climbed atop the tank vacated by the West Engell Dictator, steadied by four pairs of hands. Waving off the thunderous recognition washing over him with all the practiced grace earned in his many years of schooling in the Burgundian political theater, Segal already felt more empowered and validated than he'd ever before known.

Microphone pressed firmly into his hand, and a wink from Njorun steadying him even further, the Senechal began.

"Thank you my friends, thank you! You welcome me here today as warmly as I have ever been welcomed in my own beleaguered fatherland," Segal's free hand swept to the direction of the Engelsea - across to what had been Neustria. "I thank you now as what you have come to be, Champions of Liberty, each and all of you alike. I see you and know you for the heroes you are, no matter the hypocritical and self-indulgent prattling of Gallo-Germania and Sarmatia, powers greedy to claim yet more territory for their own proletarian empires!"

The crowd he'd inherited from Heydendahl was eating from the Burgundian Candidates hand by this point already, energized even further by the glory heaped upon them by this good foreigner. "The Birth of True Freedom has come to us from The West, purchased with the bloody sacrifice of thousands of willing martyrs. I salute you, and your commitment to Civilization. Most of all, I salute those who have fallen, in honoring this commitment!"

Having had some idea of the response he would receive for these lines, Segal did not bother to shout against the roar. On the contrary, the Senechal allowed it to rise and grow louder as the raucous Engellkin wished, well aware he was not equal to such a task as bending these men to his will. Once it had at last quieted enough to continue, Segal held an open palmed hand forward to the crowd, perched atop the Domain tank as much like a living war memorial as anything now.

"So many around our world have raised their voices over the conflict in my homeland. So many have voiced their opinion on what the future holds for my homeland." The look of utter contempt and disgust Segal allowed to wash over his Gallic features told as much of the tale as did his words.

"So many voices, and where were they when they would have actually mattered!? Where was the outrage when my own former countrymen incinerated Ouistreham? Where were their voices when those same men, those butchers from Pillau, began their invasion of my fatherland, plunging all of what was once Burgundy into chaos. Chaos that would, has now claimed the whole of Gallia, and threatens to drink in the rest of the world as easily!" The Neustrian politician was fully red-faced now, his thickly accented Engellisc pressed to its limits by the rising fury he felt with each word.

"It saddens, has very nearly maddened me, to find that the only nations on the face of the planet with the might and wisdom to both know and do what was right were not my former countrymen, nor any of our numerous sibling-states on the continent." Segal spat, dramatically, making his thoughts on the matter even clearer.

"No, it was the nations of the Thaumantic Domain - whence came the only aid for abandoned and brutalized Neustria, you Champions of Liberty - my liberty!" The roar returned, but Segal waited only a few seconds before waving it back this time. "The forces of crowned self-interest, proletarian dictatorship and chimeric nihilism can and will claim what they like about your motivations, but I am here now, today, to speak truth to those insidious powers."

The growling hiss creeping over and through the gathered fighting men in response to his careful leading was rewarded with deliberate nodding. "More than them, I am here today to speak the truth to my own countrymen, so many of whom have been lead astray by the lies told to them by that pack of opportunist thugs in Pillau!"

Face gloomy, pained even, head hung very low for a few seconds, Segal's own experience and recent conditioning acted here in concert. Countenance springing back up just as fast, carefully schooled hatred lighting his eyes, his next words dripped with all the venom he so desperately intended. "Pillau, on my Mother's grave, I hate the word. Ever has that shithole, if you will excuse the use of so typically coarse a Gallic expression, been a front for the interests of the arms industry. An industry that is itself merely a consolation prize for some royal bastard or another, in years so distant they are all but forgot."

A mournful pause, head shaking while he glared over one shoulder, generally in the direction of Burgundy. "These same men who now so willingly fling back their sheets to allow Ivar to crawl into bed - my bed, our bed, damn them all! These men who now claim to represent my country...a country I was forced to flee as a result of the death-squads dispatched from Pillau! The very same death-squads we and all the world have seen firing on Ostmark, the Communard allies and benefactors of their criminal regime!"

Segal motioned for a cigarette, ceasing in his rhetoric only long enough to stoop down to retrieve it. Exhaling a furious gout of smoke, the Senechal resumed the tempo as if without pause. "Pillau claims now to represent the former Duchy of Ouistre - Neustria. Now that they have forced the legitimate government of that - my - country to flee abroad or underground for fear of their lives. Those of us that they have not outright slain." A pious bow of the head there, for the hypothetically fallen.

"I abide though, beyond their reach or that of their Marxist overlords. I draw breath yet still, and so long as I do, so shall the reality of a free nation in what was once West Burgundy. Pillau has played its hand, their pernicious associations are laid nakedly bare...and that is well, they are not the only Burgundians who can make friends in quarters heretofore undreamt! And I will take my friends over theirs, any day!!!" Free hand sweeping out to the crowd with all grandiosity, beaming broadly at his Cussian, Engell and Engellachian "friends," Segal even felt the truth of his sentiments, explicit or implied. Somehow, the roar grew louder.

Something rooted far deeper than even the SSB could reach spoke without words, the moment had arrived, at last, and with it came the point. "I cannot allow this to stand without challenge. They still sift the ashes of Ouistreham, pick through the cinder and ruin of my beloved city, in search of some meaning to this horror. To simply cede the day to the men responsible for these horrors is beyond me, I cannot and will not suffer it."

He drew from his cigarette one last time before thumping it down on the cold, hard metal of the tank turret, not entirely dissimilar from how one might have approached the firing squad. The once and future leader of the West Burgundian successor state gathered every bit of resolve available to him - through nature or conditioning either and alike - and took the plunge.

"I am therefore compelled to provide my countrymen with a more suitable alternative than surrender to the arsonists of Ouistreham, or their Rurikgrad Pact patrons. Here, today, before the men and women who have already pledged themselves to the cause of liberty in my country, do I declare the formation of the Provisional Government of the Ouistrian Free State." Though there must have been some idea in their minds, as to why Segal had even been talking to them atop The Dictator's tank, the crowd still responded with silence. A very, very attentive silence.

As much for the cameras as the crowd, the Burgundian politician continued. "In light of the actions taken by the so-called regime in Pillau against their former countrymen, it should come as no surprise to the nations of the world that the people of the historical Duchy of Ouistre can no longer express any form of confidence in such leadership. Therefore, with the support of those nations of the Domain who have already come to our aid, and effective immediately, the Ouistrian Free State declared here today can and should be considered and dealt with as the only legitimate, legal successor to Burgundy in the west."

There, returned the roar. With it came a sensation of gravity unlike anything the Senechal had ever experienced, or at least remembered experiencing. There was a moment of fleeting weakness in his knees, but it proved not be even half as strong as the Cussian drugs coursing his veins. "I will represent the interests of the Ouistrian Free State at the recently called peace talks in the Azraqi Jugol, whereupon further information on the structure of this Provisional Government shall be made available. I thank you, my friends, once more. Your efforts, your great sacrifices, have and shall continue to ensure that Liberty does not descend into an age of crimson-cloaked darkness. There are no words to repay this, I can but hope that the fidelity we return will be a start. Good day."

 

[Rheinbund]

Chagny-Bourgogne

Eiffelland-Retalia had contributed two brigades to CONPROFOR. Two standard brigades as defined by the Eiffelloretalian armed forces. Each brigade consisted of 8700 soldiers with equipment. Furthermore, the air force had dispatched 60

You must be registered for see links

planes in various configurations, and a couple of transport planes and transport helicopters. The air force had decided to send in the Fallwinds in order to get more experience with this new plane. The Fallwinds conducted reconnaissance and surveillance missions, together with an AWACS plane.

The government had also decided to have an AWACS plane in the part of the Retalian Sea betweeen Serenierre and Lars. That plane made sure that it stayed well out of the air spaces of Serenierre and Lars.

A third mission conducted in Chagny-Bourgogne by the Eiffelloretalians was a secret service mission. Eiffelland-Retalia would do everything it could to prevent Serenierre or the Rurikgrad Pact from getting a too large foothld there. About three months ago, the ambassadors of Elben and Chagny-Bourgogne rejected support from Eiffelland-Retalia, despite warnings that groups were trying to win Chagny-Bourgogne to either Serenierre or the Rurikgrad Pact. Now it was time for the Eiffelloretalians to take actions and make sure that Chagny-Bourgogne remained part of the Northern Tiburan Empire.