Operation Hachi-Ni-Go

[Touzen]

"Mh."

The man sipped on his cup of coffee. Pitch black coffee, as was needed when you were woken up at 3AM in the night and were to report in 45 minutes later.

"Do you remember the Hachi-Ni-Yon Plan?"

"The Hachi-Ni-Yon plan?", the man repeated, confused, while downing the rest of his coffee. "Wasn't that a study of the general staff back from sometime in the 60s?"

"Correct." The other man nodded in surprised approval.

"From 1966, to be precise. It detailed the cause of actions that were to be taken in the event of a pro-Levantine coup in Ratomkira or a takeover of Communist powers. A distinct possibility back then. However, the plan had been forgotten and resigned to the archives as a side note of history of humoristic and maybe speculative qualities for historians, but of no relevance to the real world anymore."

"Until now."

"Until now. Thank the heavens that Imperial bereaucracy is the Moloch it is and that nothing ever gets discarded of. Ever. It took the clerks a bit to unearth this folder, and it took them even more time to get the permissions to hand it out, and if it hadn't been due to the more than supreme memory of some...", the man gave a quick nod of appreciation towards the direction of another figure, "..it would likely have been forgotten forever. This saved us precious time. Sure, the orders of battle are not up to date anymore, but we can work with the general topography and such."

The man paused and walked over to a coffee machine. He pressed the button for coffee without extras. Except extra strong.

"And I assume you will present Hachi-Ni-Yon on the meeting in...", the first, now coffee-less figure interfered, "10 minutes?"

"No I won't."

Both the silent man with the good memory and the coffee drinker gave the other man a questioning look.

"You won't?", they almost said in unison.

"No I won't. This is not the Hachi-Ni-Yon plan anymore. We revised it to fit this situation. Thus it must accordingly become the Hachi-Ni-Go plan. So says the protocol for Imperial bureaucracy in regards to military operational planning."

"You ever wanted to work for the statistic bureau by chance?"

"I just think order is important. The source of success." He downed his cup of coffee in one go.

"Let's go."

 

[Touzen]

The night was mild. A slight breeze rushed through the leafs of the thick jungle and a mild rain shower created a muddy mess out of the ground. From somewhere strange animal noises could be heard, but it was impossible to make out the exact origin.

One of the border guards lit his cigarette, throwing the match out of the window of the small guard booth, while the other man was busy watching reruns of second-rate Oikawan game shows on a small black and white television that had been mounted in one of the corners of the booth so that you had a perfect view when you put your feet onto the table and pushed your chair slightly to the back.

"Nothing ever happens here. I am so fucking tired of it."

"Mh", the man watching television replied, half-asleep and half concentrated on the boring entertainment he had chosen for himself. "At least we aren't stationed in Jizhou. You know my cousin is stationed there. In the last two months alone they lost ten men to partisans. Some of the others went insane. Thank the heavens he is out there next week. Although it is only a matter of time till those commie insurgents will hit here as well I guess."

"Mh", the cigarette smoker said, exhaling. As he looked out of the window, the road in front of the small booth slowly began to be illuminated.

"Somebody's coming. I'll check", he said, not wishing to argue with a guy who was busy watching TV and whom he considered to be a sloth whom you could never convince to do work voluntarily anyhow. He smashed the cigarette into the ash bin and reached for his rifle that was loosely hanging around the corner of one of the unused chairs.

As he stepped outside, he heard the sound of diesel engines of tanks as they made their way over the main road. One tank after another they lined up in a perfect parade, with trucks carrying infantry between them and jeeps going ahead. There was a sound of busy chatting coming from all along the road, as orders were being yelled and engines roared. From one of the jeeps, a man in an uniform with a lot of badges and medals emerged, quickening his pace as he walked towards the booth. Instinctively, the young recruit straightened and gave a salute.

"Ten Thousand Years", he said, greeting the man in the rank of a Lieutenant.

"Ten Thousand Years", the other man replied, returning the salute.

"At ease. Raise the gate. We got orders from above."

He held up a piece of paper with the seals of High Command in front of him. The eyes of the young men only focused on the first two lines.

[CENTER]Operation Hachi-Ni Go
Intervention in Ratomkira[/CENTER]