The FedCom in the Grand War

[Iverica]

OOC: I want to get started and add my bit to the Anglia/Grand War storyline. I'll start with this timeline and add in missing critical RP Posts as I go along. For now, I want to retroactively add the un-RP'd events using this thread. I will CC post links in relevant threads if I see any and later, update the wiki timeline. Edits to this may follow, subject to change.

 

**Note: have already checked with Seylos for any lore or event conflict.

 

2021

• May
  • Early Intelligence - Concerned by the start of the conflict in April, the Republican Armed Service (RAS) greenlights intelligence gathering operations via satellite and submarine collection.
  • Initial Protests - In an open letter, the Foreign Office of the Iberic Federated Commonwealth (FedCom) questions the formation of the  Occidental-Azanian Pact and protests the military action taken in Azania.
• July
  • The Anglian Connection - Tracking suspicious shipping, Iverican intelligence agency known as the Special Security Office (SSO) expands operations in Koudiland to investigate Anglian connections.
• September-October
  • Alertness - Following the expansion of hostilities in the Adlantic, Iverican military forces make preparations for future operations in the Adlantic. Half-strength Exersito (Army) divisions are reinforced with reservists and undergo increased refresher courses. The Armada (Navy) no. 7 Capital Task Group and the no. 8 Reserve Task Force undergo training in the North Oriental to prepare for Adlantic Deployment. Strategic Bomber formations, 200-Squadron and 260-Squadron are rebased to the Joint-TRIDENT airbase in Ferrefaaierhafen, Variota. Logistics infrastructure prepares for increased volume; Strategic Supply Facilities in Manille and Ferrefaaierhafen stock reserve munitions and fuel.

 

2022

• February-March
  • Missile Threats - The intelligence war in Koudiland escalates. Iverica discovers that Anglia is trying to arm Koudiland with strategic missiles. An incident involves the deaths of Anglian personnel and Iverican assets.
  • Reinforcing the Adlantic - The Iverican Armada forms no. 28 Mobile Strike Group based in Pharos Island, Corinium. The Armada also rebases no. 27 Mobile Strike Group to Delamaria.
• April 
  • Condemnation - The FedCom demands Anglia cease action in Koudiland. Anglia condemns Iberic interventionism.
  • Trade War - The FedCom announces a policy of escalating sactions with a pledge to totally embargo Anglian goods and Anglian shipping. Anglia responds by enacting a similar policy.
  • Consulate Closed - FedCom diplomatic missions are withdrawn from the OCA and from Anglia. Only the Iverican Embassy in Azanopa, Afropa remains active after a pledge of protection from President Pierre Panza.
• May
  • TRIDENT Emergency Session - The Secretary-General of TRIDENT calls an emergency session after the Gihon Incident in Bashan. As a result of the session, Iverica moves a naval, air, and ground taskforce in position to reinforce Bashan.
  • Laying Plans in Europa - Shortly after the TRIDENT emergency session, Iverican intelligence makes contact with anti-Imperial elements in Europa. Iverican command also prepares to move vast assets to Bashan and Diegro Gracias, in the Adlantic.
  • Bilateral Planning - Gallambrian and Iverican leadership meet after the TRIDENT session to lay the groundwork for a campaign in Europa. Given the escalating situation, both parties agree that proactive measures will have to be taken.
  • Joining the Treaty- The Federated Commonwealth's constituent states unanimously decide to sign the Tricontinental Treaty after reaching a consensus of the existential threat that a Koudish-Anglian alliance would pose. Vasqqan, Verdese, Narvic, and Galician militaries commence programmes to comply with TRIDENT-standardisation (STATAG).
• June 
  • Commerce Raid- An Iverican naval task unit is sent to interdict the vessels being used to transport strategic missile components into Koudiland. In response Anglia sends a task force to protect what it claims are innocent Suverine commercial ships
• July
  • Embargo & Collateral - Iverica responds by using a carrier group to the Sakspati Sea to embargo and mine the ports while launching a precision strike on Koudish naval infrastructure, delivering an ultimatum. In the incident, an Anglian Admiral is killed by mistake during a missile strike.
• August-September 
  • Threats - Anglian vessels seemingly withdraw to lesser Koudish ports but Anglia maintains it's presence and threatens to declare war on Iverica. In response, Iverican SSO and anti-Anglian Koudish political supports terminate or arrest Anglian intelligence assets in Koudiland. The SSO seizes missile parts and arrests several dozen Anglian civilian crewmen involved.
• October-November
  • Answered Call - The Federated Commonwealth sends a combined arms task force to Iwenland in an answer to the Seylosian's call for reinforcements.

2023

• January
  • Reprisal - Anglia launches a reprisal strike on Manille, Altaria, and Ultramares naval bases to weaken Iverican naval deployments. A simultaneous attack on Iverican flagship L'Republica deployed in the Oriental Ocean takes place. Meanwhile, a coup in Koudiland orchestrated by the SSO creates civil unrest and paralyses the government. Iverica launches a counter attack on Anglian vessels in the Mediargic Seas. 
  • War is declared - Iverica declares war on Anglia alongside Gallambria.

[Iverica]

OOC: This post takes off from the point above, July - The Anglian Connection. Tracking suspicious shipping, Iverican intelligence agency known as the Special Security Office (SSO) expands operations in Koudiland to investigate Anglian connections. 

 

A Grand War Short: Operation Whaler (Part 1 of 2)

 

02 FEB, 2022 | 0200 Quest (Quebec) Time

Aboard Armada Frigate FFG-226 Lucero,

East Sakspati Sea

 

The C-Deck Ops Centre onboard the frigate was cold and dimly lit. It smelt strongly of caffeine and faintly of buttery churros. A long table dominated the centre of the space. Atop it, a mobile suitcase computer tower had been set up and clamped down. Bundles of cables, like a root system, spread from the tower and tangled around pens, folders, tablets, manille envelopes and ultra-thin displays.

At 0200, most of the SSO* team occupying the Ops Centre had either retired to their berths on the VRI Lucero (FFG-226) or lay passed-out in the corners of the room, power-napping between bursts of amphetamine fuelled work sessions. Among the team of 5 Juniour Officers and Analysts, only 1 remained seated and awake. Joaquín Reyes, Analyst, poured over a fresh report from callsign Swallow- the lead SSO asset in-country. He had just started on the image appendix when the hatch lock clanged in release and the hinges rasped in motion. Reyes looked up, though his compatriots remained dead the world.

*SSO- Special Security Office, Iverican foreign intelligence agency.

In walked the SSO team lead, Senior Ops Officer Solano. She was sporting eyebags alongside a paper cup of double-shot espresso but nonetheless, she looked as sharp as the day she drafted Reyes into the team. 

Reyes knew that Solano didn't like to spell things out for her team, so he started off with an update the moment she had a seat.

 

"Last report from Swallow confirms our suspicions. The containers at Burgetounaz were empty but based on all available accounts from port assets and taking into consideration recent IMINT of the Koudish black site- these are almost certainly strategic missiles parts, likely for ICBMs", Reyes began.

"Any word on the payload?", Solano's tone was flat, tinged with the rustiness of a recent waking. She took a gulp of the espresso.

"Unknown."

 

The Ops Officer shook her head.

 

"Not good. Strat missiles may mean that the Koudish are violating the Goodwill Accords*. Despite that, Direct Action could still put us down a fait accompli path into a hot war", she commented, draining her paper cup and tossing it at a slumbering Junior Officer who had started snoring in a corner. The man snorted, still asleep, and rolled to face another side.

"We don't have a choice", Reyes replied, scratching his growing shadow of facial hair before continuing.

"This course is our only chance to find out before the quantity of parts in Koudish hands becomes more than what we can manage. A hot skirmish here will look like a slap fight next to another Argic War or Missile Crisis."

*Goodwill Accords- an agreement signed between Koudiland and Iverica at the end of the Second Argic War. One of the Accord's clauses mandates that Koudiland cannot develop, purchase, or in any way, arm itself with strategic missiles

Reyes was of course, referring to the course of interdicting and boarding the MV Rezina, a Suverine cargo ship. The ship had been used to ferry suspicous cargo between Suverina and Koudiland for months. The SSO had been tracking it since, slipping the VRI Lucero to tail it as it made for the capital of Koudiland, Burgetounaz- after loading more cargo from its home port.

 

"I know", the Ops Officer sighed. "We have 2 plays to choose from. Seeing as you're the only one that can rub 2 neurons together among this lot, I want your opinion".

 

Reyes leaned forward, curious and surprised at the closest thing he had gotten to a complement and acknowledgement from his team lead.

 

"One: we go with a black op, raid the Rezina. We'll have complete surprise and total deniability. If we find what we think is there, we'll have what we need to green light a strike on their assembly site", she paused letting that sink in before continuing.

"Two: we go with a by-the-book visit and board. No telling how the Rezina's crew will react and what they'll do. If we find what we're looking for, we'll have the integrity to wave this around in public and maybe use our political supporters to block the Anglians from inside the Koudish government", she finished, watching Reyes carefully.

 

Reyes swallowed spit to soothe his quickly drying throat. He breathed in and out.

 

"Two. It gives us more leverage with our Koudish allies."

"But then we lose surprise. We also lose the tempo to nip this all in the bud with one strike", Solano challenged.

"A false flag raid followed up by a swift strike would be the most expedient way to achieve missile security in the Mediargic but it would create repurcussions that we would have no foresight or contingency for. It creates too many radical variables-".

 

Solano cut him off.

 

"-because strat-bombing Koudish soil by surprise and showing our hand of kill teams in Koudiland would alienate our native supporters. It would likely plant the seeds for a future incident", Solano completed the thought for him.

"Right, with Option Two, we get to look like we're operating by the book. Things could get messy but we still have contingencies for a failure at this stage", Reyes surmised.

 

Solano reached over, extracting a file from under the tangle of cables. She pushed the prepared briefing packet to Reyes.

 

"Well then, Analyst. Green light."

 

Reyes nodded.

 

"I'll brief the DA* team then", he made to get up, ready to brief the SOAR* operators doing mission prep in the aft ready room.

"Not dressed like that, you won't".

*DA- Direct Action.

*SOAR- Special Operations and Aggressive Reconnaissance. One of the Iverican military's tier-1 special operations units.

 

Reyes stopped. He glanced down at his black Southface™ fleece jacket and his grey cargo pants.

 

"I like to know my team's talents. I read into you, obviously. Young Landsman* at 12 years-old, already a little war-pup and you hadn't even finished with puberty. At 16 fast-tracked into the 81st in their SB Squadron*, after 2 years, recommended for the Escuela Naval Militar* where you finished coursework in intelligence analysis. Another 3 years acting as a Naval intelligence staff attache to Tercio SF teams in the North Adlantic. How many boots-on ops did you tag along with? 15?

"14."

*Young Landsman- Iverican: Tiero Joven. A graduate of the Iverican Marine, or Tercio, Cadet Summer Academy. In order to earn the Young Landsman tab, cadets must finish a harsh gauntlet of challenges.

*81st Tercio Regiment, Special Boat Squadron- are an elite amphibious unit specialising in green and brown water operations, VBSS operations, and assisting other special units with infliltration and exfiltration. The SB squadrons within the 81st are consider part of the Armada (Navy) special operations units.

*Escuela Naval Militar- is the Iverican Navy's premier officer academy, located in Manille, Nou Stille. The academy also trains Tercio (Marine) officers.

 

She shook her head. 

 

"15. I know about the Amka Raid*."

"I'm an Analyst now."

"You are, but you're also part of the SSO. Being flexible, using your past experience comes with the pay grade. Kit up, I need someone with knowledge of the weapon systems to lead SSE*. You're the most likely among the team to survive if this goes pear-shaped. You'll also be the least annoying to the operators. SOAR is good but ICBM parts aren't their territory. We couldn't get SWS-1* for this op. Short straw, Reyes."

*Redacted

*SSE- Sensitive Site Exploitation; collecting information, material, and persons from a designated location and analyzing them to answer information requirements, facilitate subsequent operations, or support criminal prosecution.

*Special Weapon Security Team 1- a Special Operations Command unit trained to secure, transport, or extract hazardous materials and strategic weapon systems in chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear contaminated conditions.

 

Reyes' stomach felt tight. Her earlier questions about courses of action were nothing more than a psych play to get him motivated to prime his brain to form a positive connection with the plan- easing him into the imperative that he would now be in the line of fire... again.

 

"Stop wasting time. Op Whaler is a go."

 

---

 

TLDR: After finding signs that Anglia is shipping ICBM parts to Koudiland (an NPC state on the ballsack part of Argis, east of Aendoan on the map), the SSO makes plans to interdict one of the cargo ships suspected to be trafficking parts. Analyst Joaquin Reyes is picked to accompany a boarding team of special operators.

 

[Iverica]

 

OOC: Disclaimers and warnings: somewhat graphic death and gore. If you can't stomach bleeding and combat injuries, don't read this. I wrote this with the intent of balancing some realism with action novella spectacle.

 

A Grand War Short: Operation Whaler (Part 2 of 2)

 

02 FEB, 2022 | 0312 Quest (Quebec) Time

East Sakspati Sea

 

The bastards weren't stopping. In fact, they sped up, flogging the container ship's diesels as far as they would go. The Rezina's lights, twinkling in the early morning dark, winked off one by one.

The Suverine container ship, MV Rezina, had been hailed a quarter of an hour ago after the Lucero had snuck up within gun range, darkened and at top EMCON*. The moment the Lucero started broadcasting a visit and search order over civilian commercial frequencies, the vessel began its mad and futile dash. Even at flank speed, the bulky container ship suspected of carrying ICBM parts wouldn't be able to outrun the Lucero, a cutting-edge Armada frigate fresh off Manille yards. At flank speeds, currents permitting, the Lucero could engage its gas turbines and rip by at 30-35 knots.

*Emissions Control- wherein a ship reduces its electronic footprint. Radar and radio emissions reduced.

 

The Rezina running from the Lucero was- put quite blandly- ridiculous. It was comparable to a garbage truck trying to outrun a brand-new grand tourer. A minute after the Rezina sped up, marked by the increased exhaust and growing white wake from its screws, the Lucero's bridge crew marked it as a potentially hostile vessel resisting a visit and search order.

Lucero carried extensive EWAR, or electronic warfare capabilities, including a massive shipboard jammer that took up the entirety of its aftward CIWS mount. Brought to bear, the jammer spun up, instantly jamming communications and overloading several radio-electric receivers on the Rezina*. At the same time, the high-intensity spotlight mounted on the bridge opened up on the Rezina, creating a rather unpleasant experience for anyone looking out on the deck.

*A powerful jammer may damage radio-electric receivers. Jammers are not normally used for maritime interdiction. Used here due to the special nature of the operation.

 

Meanwhile, the SOAR teams plus their rather out-of-place SSO attache had already been prepped and waiting in RHIBs* on the boat decks and in the NH-90 on the helo deck. The moment EWAR was engaged, the NH-90 went wheels-up and the RHIBs lowered. The helo made to circle the Rezina in a holding pattern, stabbing at its darkened form with a bright searchlight and covering its open decks with a door-mounted machine gun. Using a long-range acoustic device, the NH-90 blasted demands to cut engines and prepare for boarding.

*RHIB- Rigid-Hulled Inflatable Boat. Small watercraft usually carried on warships for utility, like boarding other ships.

 

It had struck the SSO as a possibility that the Rezina's crew would try something. As idiotic and improbable as trying to run away was, the SOAR teams had been prepared even before the Rezina was in visual range. For Analyst Joaquin Reyes though, the enemy action was quite curious.

Reyes had expected the crew to come quietly given that there was little they could do but hope the visiting authorities found nothing. Even inexperienced merchantmen knew there was no chance of outrunning a warship in an old container tub. Going flank speed only meant 2 things- either the crew was very stupid and very scared. Or... their goal wasn't getting away at all. But rather, to buy time.

Reyes had that sinking feeling in his stomach. The same one he had a year earlier right before his pointman tripped an explosive door trap. There was something on the ship they didn't want them to find.

Perched at a crouch and looking out the flank hatch of the NH-90, Reyes surveyed the ship, illuminated by a waxing crescent moon and the dancing ray of the searchlight from the circling helo. She was 300 metres in length and stocked about 3-quarters to its capacity, the ship was quickly gaining speed- struggling along at 18 knots and climbing. The faster it went, the longer it would take for his RHIB teams to board. Given the distance now, the RHIBs would take another 5-10 minutes. Reyes cursed, though the expletive was drowned out by the wash of rotors. There was a decision he had to make and he had to make it now, rash and stupid as it might seem. Reyes keyed his radio.

 

"All Queequeg callsigns, this is Ishmael"

"Ishmael, Queequeg Actual. Send it."

"Queequeg Actual, Harpoon is in effect. Repeat, plan Harpoon is in effect."

 

There was a short pause on the line. There were 3 action plans prepared for changing operational needs. The original plan, the safest and most by-the-book one, was for SOAR teams Queequeg 1 and 2 to board while Ishmael team covered them from the helo. Only when the bridge was under control and the Rezina brought to a full stop would the NH-90 loiter to insert Ishmael team via rappel lines. Harpoon was a contingency plan in case something happened to the RHIBs or in case boarding over the sides was impossible due to water cannons or other reasons. Harpoon, on the other hand, meant that Ishmael would go in first- rappelling onto a speeding container ship with no direct cover. Queequeg RHIB teams would only board when able, meaning that Ishmael would be a single team of 8 on a ship of 30 or possibly more unknowns. Put plainly, Harpoon was a plan they never expected to use.

 

"Ishmael, Queequeg Actual. Interrogative: what's your oscar-eye* of the objective? Over."

*Oscar-eye- an internal proword referring to the observable situation & evaluation of operations-relevant conditions

"Queequeg-1, Ishmael. Objective has gone darkened-ship, no observable deck activity. Break. I emphasise that exigent circumstances have now shortened our time frame. Harpoon necessary. Over."

"Ishmael, Queequeg Actual copies all. Harpoon in effect..."

There was another short pause.

"Break. Ishmael, I hope you know what you're doing. Those are my boys with you. Over."

 

Reyes copied and terminated the exchange. He did doubt his course of action. What if the crew was just drunk and stupid? He shook the thought off. They'd been casing the Rezina for months now. There was most certainly something of interest in it. There wasn't another course of action that put boots on deck in time to stop whatever it was the crew were trying to buy time for. If the ship just happened to empty this one voyage, he'd look damn stupid. If there was something worth hiding, the crew was likely armed with a motive to resist them- which made the Harpoon play far riskier.

There was one trick he could pull through. He raised Pequod on comms, callsign for the ship's ops centre.

 

"Pequod, Ishmael. Requesting Snow Cub support to hold over the objective. Load for guns."

"Ishmael-", came the voice of Solano. She sounded pissed, likely having heard the change of plans over comms and wondering what the hell he was trying to pull.

"-Snow Cub support approved; ETA, 10-mikes. Callsign Tashtego. Freq 130. Break. Ishamel, proceed with caution."

 

Damn. She was trusting his calls. MQ-8C Snow Cub was an unmanned rotor used for recce, fire support, or mine countermeasures.  Larger than its sister variants, it could mount a 20 mm gun pod and had been brought up earlier as a possible contingency fire support resource. No one in the room had thought it would be necessary though. It was looking like Reyes would have something to fall back on albeit 10 minutes away. A lot could happen in 10 minutes.

Steeling himself, Reyes gave the word to the pilot. The NH-90 went from orbiting the Rezina to bearing down on its bow. Reyes felt it, the jitters before the shooting started. A feeling he had hoped stayed behind with his time in the Tercios.

 

---

 

 

Salty sea wind rushed upwards from the open flank hatches as the NH-90 rapidly descended over its infil zone, a patch of even-levelled containers towards the fore of the ship's cargo deck.

Around Reyes, SOAR operators from Ishmael team checked their weapons again, already cleared for condition 1. Others swabbed their night-vision devices and thumbed their helmet-mounted infrared strobes on. They had let Reyes borrow some extra kit, sans markings and patches. Identical to what Reyes was wearing now, each man sported gear in midnight blue, looking almost black. Cloth-shelled highcut ballistic helms were worn with integrated ear protection and over black woollen balaclavas. On their chests were PlateFrame Level IV body armour rigs strapped with a bodycam. Below the cam were pouches for magazines, grenades, and utilities- front and on back panels for teammate use. The armour was an Armada variant favoured for maritime ops; it had 2 clasps on each side for quick release and was typically worn over a lifevest which could be inflated by ripcord. Under all of those was a hydrophobic and fire-resistant combat uniform. The uniform's extremities were trimmed in patterned IR reflective strips to help distinguish friendlies from unknowns.

The men were all similarly armed with suppressed carbines chambered in 6.8 SPC; on the carbines' rails were IR laser devices, angled foregrips, and wide-angle holo optics. Leg holsters held their sidearms- pistols chambered in 9x22 SS. On their belts hung CBRN-rated gasmasks and horizontally sheathed combat knives. The breacher carried extra gear; most hatches on ships like this were steel, so he carried a cutting torch. Teammates carried extra breaching charges and thermite grenades. All had an excess of flashbangs and teargas grenades.

The NH-90's door gunner covered the superstructure's catwalks and open decks, sweeping his .338 machine gun over as the NH-90 slowed and the crew chief loosed both flanks' rappel lines.

Below them, the tops of the sheet metal containers pitched and rolled with the motion of the ship. It took no small amount of skill for the pilot to hold the bird steady against deck motion and wind while matching the Rezina's speed all at once.

The team clipped onto the lines and went over with nary a word to another, each man knowing his place. Their movements were drilled, precise, and mechanical. Foot insoles and arms clasped the lines as they zipped down them with their carbines slung and tucked parallel, under their dominant arm.

Reyes was the last man out. He had just clipped on and hugged the line when muzzle flashes burst from the bridge windshields. Impacts spattered on the metal airframe of the NH-90 and onto the containers below. The response from Ishmael team and the door gunner was instantaneous and deafening. A stream of tracers lit up the bridge as the unsuppressed .338 roared a hasty response.

 

"Puto!", cursed the pilot over the intercom.

"Hold on sir!", he yelled as the NH-90 rolled and banked towards the Rezina's starboard flank. The manoeuvre came just in time as the shooter, undeterred by the earlier suppression, corrected his burst and let loose where the helo had been hovering an instant prior.

 

Ishmael team on the deck had already displaced using fire and movement. A single fireteam bounding for cover while another maintained suppression. Once the first fireteam was set, they rattled out suppression from cover while the second team slipped away from the exposed container tops.

Reyes clung to the line, his fingers, thighs and feet clasped as tightly as he could weld them. There was a sickening feeling of inertia and nothingness as he twisted and swung over the blurry night deck.

 

"You're going to have to jump", the pilot remarked, almost casually.

"What?!"

"Jump or stay clinging to the bird, your call. No time for a chat, sir. When she swings- remember- like a pendulum. You'll know.

 

The pilot rolled the helo as it was banking away leeward, to the wind. Reyes swung like the pendulum of a grandfather clock, hanging precariously and asshole-puckeringly high over the choppy black waters. All of a sudden, he was swinging to his right, the promenade of the ship accelerating into view. Reyes didn't know how but his body let go of the line.

 

He crashed back-first into the bulkhead. He felt several segments of his back and neck click in a strange manner. Looking up through this night vision, he watched a stream of accurate machinegun rounds erupt from the NH-90, shredding the front bulkhead and windshield ports of the bridge. Through the side window, he thought he saw the pilot give him a thumbs up as the helo distanced itself further astarboard while peppering the superstructure with suppressive fire.

Groaning, he stood, bracing his carbine and checked the promenade to his front and rear. Briefly backing into a support beam for cover, he updated Pequod and Queequeg on the situation. Making his way aftward, he contacted Ishmael team for a rendezvous at their designated breach point- a starboard hatch at the base of the aftward superstructure.

 

---

 

"There you are, sir. Thought you'd gone for a cold swim instead", Ishmael's team lead, SWO-3* Ignacio "Nash" Prythein whispered.

*Special Warfare Operator, third level- equivalent to NCO, OR-5 or OR-6.

 

The team was at the starboard catwalk at the base of the aftward superstructure, stacked up by a hatch. Each man covered an angle, a ladder or the hatchway.

 

"I would have, Nash, but it wasn't worth it without your sisters to keep me warm", Reyes jabbed back.

 

Nash just smirked.

 

In the distance, trailing behind the wake of the Rezina, Reyes could make out the IR strobes of Queequeg 1 and 2 in their RHIB teams, precious minutes away still.

Just then the breacher hand signalled. Movement inside, unknowns.

Reyes knew the seconds counted. There wasn't enough time for an abundance of caution. The crew were armed and the SOAR team was currently outnumbered, with the Snow Cub UAV still spinning up at the Lucero.

 

"Go explosive", Reyes whispered over comms, taking his designated position towards the rear of the group.

 

The charges were set, shaped blocks designed to breach steel doors with the Munroe Effect.

The breacher counted off with his fingers... 3... 2... 1.

The charge went off like a thunderclap, followed a millisecond later by the rush of displaced air and reverberating metal, like a note from a dull gong. Pings of ricochetting metal rang out as bolts and bits of metal from the hatch were thrown around as spall. The hatch was blasted open, swinging violently on its hinges. On the opposite side of the hatchway, another team member bounced the stun grenade he had prepped.

It went off with a crack, followed by a flash of searing bright light from the portholes. The operators on the immediate left and right of the hatchway forced in, working their respective slices of entry. The sharp, echoing report of their carbines echoed out of the ruined hatchway as teammates behind them pushed forward in and ahead on either side of the interior passageway, stepping over enemy KIA dead from the breach.

The SOAR team worked methodically, clearing cabins in pairs while pointmen and rearguards covered either end of the passageway. Barred hatches were blown open, blasted through, or had their locks melted out by thermite charges.

When a pair entered an unlocked cabin, its hatch was opened by one while a second member covered, leaning slightly out of the hatchway. Armed contacts were dropped- 2 shots to the centre of mass. After a split-second check for traps, the pairs would force in deep after carefully pie-ing around the hatch frame. They worked from end to end of the space first, then top to bottom, checking over and under bunks.  Lastly, they cleared lockers and closets as a pair. Several crewmen were found huddling under bunks or inside closets. The procedure was to drag them out, get them on the ground, check for weapons, and then secure their wrists and ankles with thick cable ties. Ishmael team left the detained for Queequeg to secure. RHIBs carrying Queequeg 1 and 2 were now alongside the Rezina, matching its speed and getting into position to grapple a ladder onto the railing of a low promenade deck.

Queequeg-1 would secure the detained while Queequeg 2 would secure the top container deck before working to clear the lower decks. Ishmael pressed on, racing for the topdecks, where the bridge, wardroom, and berths were. It was imperative that they capture the ship's officers- their only key to finding what the Anglians were trying to hide.

Ishmael cleared much of the superstructure one deck after the other without so much as a scratch. Resistance was stiff- crewmen of Suverine and mixed Europan origin. Armed with dated but effective carbines, they were stubborn and unusually motivated, but also blind as Queequeg-2 cut the power to the rest of the ship. The team left bodies in the wake of their ascent up-deck, gurgling corpses leaking pooling fluids that slipped and sloshed as the ship rocked in the sea.

Reyes brought up the rear, paired with a SOAR operator. Together, they protected the rear, while sweeping for objects of interest the team may have missed. The two dropped several contacts that had come from all manner of uncovered access points; crawlspaces, secondary ladderways, and portholes from a catwalk. In CQB this tight, adversaries could and would use any crafty firing position or flanking point to wear down the entry team. This reality could not have hit harder than when Ishmael reached the ladderway just before the officer berths, a deck before the bridge. The passageways that fed the ladder landing had open space on the left and the right. Ishmael had cleared the whole deck but there simply wasn't the time nor the spare manpower to cover its entirety at once. A situation like that was ripe for the enemy to manoeuvre.

None of the team had heard 2 pairs of armed adversaries drop from deck hatches above. They landed stealthily onto a section of the deck's external catwalk, which was concealed from the vigilance of their orbiting NH-90 by sheet steel. They operated quickly and silently, with skill above any regular thug or merc. Edging slowly towards the porthole, they braced their rifles. They sighted in, seeing the team's rearguard just beginning to ascend the ladderway steps. Night vision was sometimes tricky if IR light sources were bright and constantly reflecting against glass. IR light from 8 helmet-mounted IR strobes, even when dimmed, shone brightly against the porthole glass. Neither Reyes nor his partner could see clearly out the portholes.

Fire erupted from both panes of circular glass, raking the team from the end of the left and right passageways. Reyes and the operator paired with him were hit in multiple places at once. The PlateFrame armoured rigs were light but tough, with Level IV protection that could shrug away .308 rounds- yet they lacked side plates.

The first burst spun Reyes' partner as his right torso, left arm, and right hip were hit. The next rounds sheared off bits of his ballistic helmet and shattered his front plate. The ballistic plate was powder now, chipping off and coming away as the next burst went through the ruins of the armour and into the man's chest. He was dead seconds after hitting the deck, spasming in his death throes.

Reyes had been luckier. He saw a flicker in one of the portholes and turned to cover it. The reaction had saved him from the worst of the fire. Several rounds went into his front and back plates, cracking them and pulverising chunks of the ballistic ceramic. Some mag pouches ripped, slugs bursting the magazines and sending ammunition clattering to the floor. Reyes slipped and fell from the force, winded and heavily bruised as his armour came apart. As he fell, he was hit a few more times, one on the edge of his forearm and another one into his helmet. The round stopped just short of his skull but had opened up a wide gash in his scalp.

As the landing erupted into furious suppression, the SOAR team stuck to bulkheads at the ladderway and fired back at the porthole shooters. 2 other operators received multiple ricocheting hits from rounds spanking against the metal decks. Despite being hit in extremities, armour, helmets and parts of their faces, they fought on, firing back in short, sharp bursts.

A grenade was dropped from above. Nash, behind the pointman, kicked it, sending it bouncing down 2 levels below where it detonated with a bang that would have shattered eardrums if not for their integrated ear protection. Nash and the pointman returned fire, one of them lobbing a flash grenade up and over to the next deck in response. A moment later, another detonation came as an enemy's primed frag grenade was dropped as the flash blinded and disoriented him. The clumsily dropped frag detonated, causing flakes of paint and chips of rust to fall from the ceiling. Echoing shouts and screaming followed. Nash and 3 other members of the team then attempted to push forward up the ladderway but were rebuffed by the volume of enemy fire. Evidently, there were still more up there.

Reyes stayed glued to the ground, rounds ripping the air above him. He sucked in air, winded from being hit in so many places at once. He writhed on the deck, his uniform dripping with blood that had begun pooling from his downed partner. This was a killbox. They were being squeezed from 3 ends.

Reyes took a tight gulp of air and fought the sudden dump of adrenaline injected into his system. He forced his shaking hand to move and keyed his radio.

 

"Break-Break. Ishmael to all callsigns. Ishmael is p-pinned. Superstructure, Deck 03. Need immediate support. Break. Casualties. Over", Reyes knew they needed support sooner. They were several decks up from Queequeg-1.

 

Reyes fought through the fog of his shocked senses and remembered the one thing that might still save them. Tashtego, callsign of the drone operator on the Lucero. If they could just get the rotor UAV to open fire, Ishmael just might get the breathing room they needed.

 

"Tashtego, Tash-Tashtego. This is Ishmael", Reyes coughed and wheezed. "Interrogative: What is your ETA?".

"Ishmael, Tashtego. Tashtego is approaching initial point for holding pattern, ETA less than 1 mike. Repeat, ETA less than 1-mike".

 

Reyes had no time to copy the message. He changed freq and keyed Starbuck, callsign for the NH-90.

 

"Starbuck, Starbuck, this is Ishmael. Calling for close air support, danger close. I have no visual, n-no means to direct 9-line* for Tashtego. I clarify-", Reyes gasped and grit his teeth.

*9-line- refers to the 9 "lines" of communicated info used to coordinate aerial support.

"I clari-fy... direct. 9-line... for Tashtego, freq 130. Danger close. How copy? Over".

 

Starbuck had been circling but could only roughly suppress enemies on the outside with his machine gunner. The enemy shooters were behind outer steel bulkheads and close to friendlies.

 

"Ishmael, Starbuck. I copy. Starbuck will direct 9-line for Tashtego, danger close. Mark and call targets, over."

 

Reyes reached into the ruins of his rig to retrieve a glowstick before realising how stupid that was. More sounds from around them came now, the enemy taking advantage of Ishmael's immobilisation. They displaced from the portholes and were now taking potshots from the ends of the passageway, advancing every time the operators took cover. Reyes dropped the unlit glowstick and instead, ripped the strobe off his helmet and cranked its intensity and pulse as high as it would go. He took one breath of air and flung it through one of the portholes. It went through the hole, bouncing on the sheet metal outside and landing somewhere further afore. Nash looked down at him. Understanding, the SOAR team leader threw his own strobe out of the other porthole.

 

"Starbuck, Ishmael. Deck 02 and 03, forward compartments. Target is obscured from view but the vicinity is marked by a fast-flashing strobe. Do you have visual? Over", he rasped

 

Starbuck replied, confirming their visual. Over freq 130, Reyes heard parts of the 9-line.

 

"-tego, put guns on Decks 02 and 03...-ward compartments, marked by fast strobes-... danger close... cleared hot"

"Starbuck, Tashtego copies all. Tashtego has strobe in sight, target compartments in sight. West to East.... In from the West, in from the West... Cleared hot."

"Get down!", Reyes heard Nash roar. All 6 remaining operators still standing hit the deck.

 

Reyes couldn't hear the chop of the Snow Cub's rotors through the gunfire but the rip of the 20mm gun belching death spoke louder than everything else. Reyes heard the crack of rounds breaking the sound barrier before he heard the hissing shriek of the cannon's report, sounds separated by distance and wave travel time.

20mm slugs ripped through the forward compartments from port to starboard, shredding metal into orange hot sparks and daggers as rounds ripped into bulkheads. Enemies not hit directly were shredded in multiple places by spalling and splintering metal, hacking them into gore and offal.

Reyes' ears started ringing- the ear protection not doing enough to drown out the sound of multiple short bursts and a long burst sending the compartments ahead of them into an infernal chorus of popping and screaming metal.

Outside, the Snow Cub rotor UAV banked passively, its gimbal gunpod cannon throwing muzzle flashes across its flat, stark grey, glassless canopy. It flowed along the ship's port side, West to East, firing its shrieking bursts perpendicular across the forward compartments of Decks 02 and 03. Armour-piercing rounds tore through bulkhead and deck, starting small fires where hot metal passed through curtains and textile upholstery. Throughout it all, a single bulkhead and 4 metres of dead space separated the team from the hailstorm of high-velocity hell.

Then, as abruptly as it started, the shooting stopped. Tashtego announced the end of his run and moved to reposition his Snow Cub drone into a holding pattern.

Reyes and Ishmael team picked themselves up off the deck. Everyone on the team was wounded in some way. There were grazing hits, lacerations from flying spall and metal splinters, bruises, and gunshot wounds in a variety of non-critical areas- and yet each man was on his feet in seconds, taking turns reloading or quickly slapping field dressing onto larger wounds. Reyes had barely finished binding field dressing to his forearm and scalp when Nash shouted for the team to get up and reconsolidate.

Forward security, provided by the pointman watching the ladderway going up had never faltered. Throughout the barrage of autocannon suppression, his carbine muzzle remained set firmly towards the enemy position. The team stacked up behind him, leaving 2 of the worst wounded to link up with Queequeg team, which was coming up to help with casualties and security.

Reyes took a quick look behind him and surveyed the destruction that was Deck 03. The whole place looked somewhere between the inside of a cheese grater and a car chopshop. The scene was backlit by the glow of a few small fires as curtains, seats, and loose clothing smouldered.

 

"HVT* capture is a priority. Ready gas", Nash ordered as the team donned their masks, the pointman last as he donned his while an adjacent teammate covered him.

*HVT- High Value Target. In this case, the Rezina's officers.

 

The operators behind the pointman prepped teargas grenades as he resumed his position. Nash counted his fingers down and the grenades were thrown. They hit metal deep in the deck above and deployed their hissing payloads of 2-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile. A pregnant few seconds of stiff silence passed, the team holding their poses like killer automatons as the gas was given time to deploy fully. Then, Nash signalled the team and tapped the pointman on the shoulder.

The team strode in a quick beat, carbines sweeping as they split into 2 fireteams first moving laterally to the corners closest to the landing. The moment the last man in each fireteam was set, they advanced into the deck passageways, reminiscent of an old-time skirmish line of light foot infantry stalking through enemy ground.

The atmosphere was hazy through the green hue of night vision. The gas had spread and while not a cloud of fog anymore, still hung about as a haze that permeated the edges of Reyes' night vision picture and gas mask visor. Furniture had been kicked over. A few dead lay in the corner, one with his foot blasted off beside the scorch mark of his own dropped grenade. The passageways connecting to wardrooms and cabins were a mess. 20mm penetration holes were punched into the metal bulkheads here and there. The team stalked through, following blood trails and the faint sound of coughing and wheezing.

A crewman stood at the end of one passageway, on all fours, trying to breathe through the cloth of his sleeve. He put his other arm up in surrender as he coughed violently. As the fire team approached, trying to keep the coughing man covered while the rest cleared the cabins that fed into the passageway, several things happened.

A hatch slammed open and a man ran at Reyes in the hazy space of the passageway, his eyes glowing madly in the display of his night vision.

At the same beat, shouting came from within the cabin as another man rushed out, wheezing and babbling incoherent Suverine. His hands up, his eyes streaming with tears.

Then, the kneeling, coughing surrender at the end of the hallway reached for something out of view on his hip.

Reactions happened all at once. Reyes instinctively jabbed out with his carbine muzzle and struck the man rushing him in the windpipe. The fire team shouted for compliance, trying to cover the newly emergent unknowns from the cabin on the right. The man at the end of the passageway pulled something from his hip.

The pointman could scarcely see the kneeling man at the end of the corridor. He made a decision with only a millisecond to process what was happening. A shot rang out from the pointman's carbine. The man at the end of the passageway dropped, revealing a kerchief in his hand. Chaos erupted.

The wheezing, babbling man screamed and tried to run down the passageway, away from the fire team. The man who'd been jabbed in the windpipe grabbed at Reyes' leg, his fingers closing towards his pistol holster. Another hatch at the end of the passageway was thrown open, revealing a man with a rifle.

The rifleman got a single burst off before the pointman and the operator behind him dropped the shooter with a pair of rounds each. The rifleman's burst struck the fleeing crewman in the chest as he ran straight into harm's way. Reyes struck down, his carbine stock striking the grasping man's head with a loud crack. He quickly kicked the man aside and followed up with a 3-round burst into the now-supine man as he shouted for compliance through his gas mask and cleared the opened right-hand cabin with a partner.

It was less of a cabin and more of a wardroom converted into a storage room of sorts. Reyes and his partner cleared it quickly before Reyes turned on the items strewn about the room. There were paper files, computers, and drives- most of which appeared to have been in the process of destruction by the crew. It almost seemed like they were moving the contents of an office in here. But it was the corpses in the corner that gave Reyes the most pause. About half a dozen unarmed men and women in civilian clothes. All were executed with a single pistol calibre shot to the head. Reyes documented everything. Getting their faces, prints and dental to run through the database. The blood pooled underneath them was already congealing so they had probably been killed far earlier, at the first sign of trouble. The corpses were also already beginning to seize into rigor mortis, though not completely. This made proper dental impressions difficult to get and required a hasty and unsavoury bit of prying to get at. On Reyes' chest, his body cam streamed, the cold crystal lens recording everything live for the Ops Centre.

 

---

 

Reyes would later secure and search some 4 intact drives and a few kilos of unburnt paper files in addition to discoveries made in the lower cargo decks that confirmed the SSO's fears. There were parts for rocket engines, 3 stages of them. However, there were no re-entry vehicles, no warheads, no fissile material... and yet, the contents of partially destroyed files pointed to guidance on the creation of nuclear enrichment infrastructure.

The implications were quite clear. Though much of the facts made little sense to Reyes. The Anglians had no nuclear weapons- there was not even the faintest shred of evidence to support that idea. If they did and were sending valuable skillsets and knowledge over, wouldn't they have taken greater care to put their eggs in different baskets?

The attempt to delay the boarding, the resistance, the attempt to destroy critical evidence, the mercs- ID'd as veterans from various Europan nations; all normal signs for the level of value transported on the Rezina.

Things didn't quite connect but if Reyes' experience was anything to go by, reactions and contingencies by Iverican command were already in motion.

Solano, his Ops Officer, had been watching the whole thing from the Lucero and had no doubt issued a priority warning the moment the hints about the intended payload came to light. It was likely that the FedCom governments were already in a heightened Defensive Condition. If Reyes could guess the knee-jerk reaction this would elicit from Corregidor*, plans were likely being approved strat bomb all possible enrichment and missile assembly sites.

Reyes had to review and come up with a thesis, fast. He had to draw better conclusions before the situation spiralled into the fait accompli he feared from the start.

 

---

 

OOC: Radio protocols were shortened here as putting the entire dialogue in would have just made this unnecessarily longer. There are some things that wouldn't have happened in ordinary circumstances but I adjusted for entertainment value. At the very least, nothing impossible happened. The oddness and inconsistency of their findings is a plotpoint of the larger narrative which will be explained in future shorts. For now, this concludes the short story, Operation Whaler.

TLDR: pew-pew bang-bang, whooooosh. Oh no, dead people DD: The SOAR team boards the MV Rezina. Reyes finds that there is evidence supporting Anglian-Koudish plotting to arm Koudiland with nuclear weapons. Encountering unusually stiff resistance, the team finds ICBM parts but no warhead or nuclear material. They also find what appear to be dead nuclear-development personnel and files linked to nuclear enrichment plans. Reyes is highly suspicious of the motives and the bigger picture as certain details do not add up.

[Iverica]

Operation Harpoon (Part 1 of 1)

Context

 

15 June, 2022 | 2000 Quest (Quebec) Time

Keelpijp Passage

 

On the morning of the 16th of June, 2-Fleet Command issued an urgent Operations Order to Task Force Melville, composed of ships from the no. 17 Minewarfare Group and the no. 18 Submarine Group. TF Melville* was to immediately cease its assigned patrol duties near the northwestern mouth of the Keelpijp and divert to interdict the Suverine cargo ship, MV Midia, also known as Target Epsilon. Originally a patrol and mine warfare contingency group*, Melville was composed of 2 Verde Sea class multirole frigates loaded for mine warfare and mine countermeasure ops. The frigates were supported by a Tiburón class diesel-electric submarine and 2 Andalé class corvettes.

*The Armada would occasionally express its interest in various authors of nautical literary genres by naming callsigns after them. In this case, finding the Lysian-Aurelian author of prolific whaling fantasies as an appropriate choice.

*Minewarfare ships in the Armada are often deployed around the Mediargic as leverage that Iverica can and will mine the waters of actors threatening shipping lanes and Iverican interests. In contrast, the multirole ships also serve as countermeasure ships to remove mines should any opposing force get similar ideas.

 

Epsilon/Midia was believed to be carrying ICBM parts to Koudiland in violation of a post-war treaty. Anglian Destroyer, DDG-090 "INS Lord Harrowe" was sent to escort Suverine Cargo ships after the boarding and impounding of the MV Rezina by the Iverican Armada during Operation Whaler. Alongside the Lord Harrowe, Anglia has taken on Azanian Armed Merchantmen on contract to act as escorts. The Lord Harrowe was a guided missile destroyer capable of a wide variety of roles; from surface warfare to air defence and anti-submarine warfare. The first of the Lord Harrowe-Class Destroyers fresh from her refit at Plumuth yards, she would be a formidable opponent in any engagement. The 3 armed escorts were Yienite private contractors or privateers in this regard. Their vessels were a mish-mash of repurposed hulls; from naval dry cargo surplus to commercial whaling. They were armed with a variety of weapons, including light 76mm deck guns, 25mm chain guns, and a brace of retrofitted 324mm torpedo tubes. One of them even had commercial radar recalibrated for air search to cue a dated but still serviceable Rapier SAM launcher.

 

Target Epsilon itself was MV Midia, a container ship measuring 300 metres from bow to stern. TF Melville's flag officer knew that caution and craftiness would have to be employed to take her. Fleet Command's orders were to board and capture Midia, not sink her. They needed proof of the ICBM parts if they were to justify a military operation in the Keelpijp. TF Melville had little time to prepare.

 

Quickly, a plan was devised. The Task Force put itself right at the mouth of the Keelpijp, where the passage narrowed between 2 headlands in the northwest. This was one of the most congested segments of the passage and might grant Melville the opening it needed. Head-on, with a destroyer and 3 heavily armed privateers, chances were dicey... but if they were cut off- Melville's officers surmised that there might be a chance at taking the prize intact. 

Melville knew that civilian traffic in the AO they chose was high- and it would serve their purpose. A nearby harbour control had a queuing system for high-density periods and often, large groups passing through could be separated in the chaos of transit. Persuaded with sufficient cause, the local channel authorities were coerced into complying with Melville's plan. Adding a further advantage; the Anglians, however ambitious, were not outright villains. The presence of civilian ships would give them pause from the immediate use of their superior firepower against Melville's few ships. 

 

The execution was decided. Preparations were made.

 

At 2018 Quest time, corvettes VRI Celer (FS-35, Swift) and VRI Ferox (FS-36, Fierce) hauled alongside 2 Iverican merchantmen pressed into compliance. At passive emissions and shrouded by their radar-absorbent, low cross-section hulls, the pair of corvettes waited for their opening and swiftly descend upon the target cargo ship at flank speed. With the glare of the setting sun behind them and a modular RF jammer blocking the Midia's comms, their gas turbines flared sharp white wakes behind them.

 

To prosecute the Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure (VBSS) Operation, Special Operations Command had flown in a team from Special Weapons Security Team-1 (SWS-1), a tier-1 special forces unit that was trained to handle WMD-related materials. The moment the corvettes began their interdiction, the NH-90's parked on the corvettes' aft deck lifted off, making to fast-rope their SWS teams onto the Midia. The jammer on one of the corvettes was used to buy the VBSS teams as much time as possible before the escorts were to be alerted.

 

Quickly executing the VBSS, the teams worked through the container ship quickly while the twin corvettes surrounded the Midia and formed an orbiting perimeter. Their Rules of Engagement were to give a single warning shot at any approaching vessel with their 57mm autocannons before releasing batteries with the intent to kill. 

 

Simultaneously, VRI Mare Verde (FFG-200, Verde Sea) and VRI Strecho Sant Francisco (FFG-215, Saint Francis Strait) were both lying in wait, with their radars on passive and their lights darkened. The moment channel control radar reported the Lord Harrowe's position as 25-clicks away from the frigates, both ships went active radar. They hailed DDG-090, INS Lord Harrowe, issuing a warning that their ships awaiting the suspected commercial vessel to conduct a lawful search; in compliance with ANCLOS and with probable cause. 

 

A moment later, the Lord Harrowe responded. Both frigates received lock-on warnings from their radar warning receivers, indicating that Lord Harrowe had acquired a firing solution on them. The Harrowe's commanding officer then proceeded to issue FFG-200 and FFG-215 with their own warning, claiming that the task force was using conjecture to unlawfully harass and endanger the lives of Suverine merchantmen. The commanding officers of both Iverican frigates considered the lock-on and message as threats to their mission and their ships and proceeded to acquire fire-control radar solutions on the Lord Harrowe.

 

For a moment, it appeared that the frigates were successful in locking up the Anglian destroyer. That was, until the privateer escort alerted the Lord Harrowe that they were under fire.

 

Cut off from their principal charge, the Armed Merchantmen made to close with the Midia, heedless of channel transit protocols. They soon made visual contact with both the Celer and the Ferox. The Ferox quickly fired a warning shot over the bow of Armed Merchantman, track 1296. The privateers interpreted this immediately as hostile intent and warned their lead ship, the Lord Harrowe. Still, 5-clicks away from the Midia, the trio of ships were outside of the corvettes' jammer range. Lord Harrowe responded immediately, modulating its frequency and boosting its powerful search radar output. Cleaning its returns, it found both corvettes not long after and changed its heading to bear down on the Midia and her assailants.

 

VRI Escull (SS-190, Reef Shark) had been on radio silence the entire time, hiding at periscope depth and listening in. Escull had been posted as a contingency with orders to sink the surface combatants with its 533mm heavy torpedoes if hostilities were engaged. It watched as Lord Harrowe charged towards the corvettes, the Iverican frigates following closely in its wake. The Escull's commanding officer watched as the Lord Harrowe closed into guns range and opened fire, landing a glancing hit on Celer and missing Ferox by a scant few metres with its 127mm main gun. FFG-200 and FFG-215 opened fire with their own guns- all surface ships unwilling or unable to use missiles given the extremely close quarters and the presence of a dozen vulnerable civilian ships. At that moment, the Escull's CO made a choice. The frigates' smaller 76mm guns would not be able to kill the Lord Harrowe in time, they were at the very edge of their engagement range. In contrast, the Lord Harrowe was closing with the corvettes at blistering speed. Its next few salvos would sink the unarmoured corvettes.

 

Escull's CO weighed the situation. Hydrophones reported that no civilian ships were in the immediate line of fire. The decision was to hold and let 2 crews die or fire and possibly start a war.

 

The Escull broke radio silence, reporting its intent to open fire. 3x TSU-48 Arpon heavy torpedoes were launched at shallow depths. There was little time to dive further and fire from a greater depth. Escull's Arpons were wire-guided in the initial stage of launch and locked onto a designated wake signature from a target's screws. 

 

Knowing full well the retribution it could beget, Escull fired from three of its forward tubes and initiated an emergency dive. Given their range, the torpedoes would take less than 5 minutes to reach their target.

 

Tearing out of the tubes in a fizzing shroud of vapour, the torpedoes' were initially steered by weapons control officers on the Iverican submarine. Halfway to target, they immediately transitioned to midcourse guidance, locking onto the Lord Harrowe's wake, a markedly distinct signature going flank speed and using variable pitch screws. Nary a minute passed when the Anglian ship's hull sonar picked up 3 subsurface contacts. The submarine warfare stations immediately cued several acoustic decoys and launched 6 light interceptor torpedoes in the direction of the ping.

 

1 of the Arpons was successfully intercepted by an Anglian defensive torpedo. Another Anglian torpedo detonated alongside 1 of the remaining 2 Iverican Arpons but was unable to destroy it. The 2 Arpons found their way under the Anglian destroyer, their wake-homing guidance far too discriminatory to fall for acoustic decoys. The pair of Arpons ignored all countermeasures and slipped right behind the column of white water thrown up by the Harrowe's screws. They detonated right below the keel. 

 

The pocket of water created was enough to lift the destroyer several feet higher than its nominal waterline. Then, the brief void of air collapsed on itself, bringing the damned ship crashing back down. The Harrowe's keel, hull panels, and several athwartship bulkheads immediately buckled under the sudden stress. Lower compartments flooded quickly. The ship's spine was broken. The INS Lord Harrowe sank in under 20 minutes. 

 

---

 

In the chaos that followed, the Iverican corvette Celer was sunk by the trio of armed merchantmen before all three were engaged and destroyed by combined gun and torpedo fire from Celer's sister corvette and the approaching Iverican frigates. The SWS-1 team fought a quick and surprisingly low-intensity VBSS operation. However, the results of their search or lack thereof bode ill for the tensing situation in the Mediargic.

 

There were no warheads on Midia.

 

Nor were there any ICBM parts. Despite all intelligence indicating the contrary, the Anglians and Suverines had somehow baited the Ivericans into becoming the aggressor in a potential act of war. According to still classified sources, the cargo had been swapped and instead, had come by air freight. The entire escalation had been bait. Very expensive but very, very believable bait. Analyst Joaquin Reyes' thesis had been correct.

 

In its official statement post-incident, the Iverican Ministry of Foreign Affairs released all documentation of the previously seized MV Rezina, showing clear proof of rocket parts typically used in the construction of ICBMs. The Anglian Office of Empire declared that the story and evidence were maliciously misconstrued, insisting that the parts were to help develop the Koudish space program, an alibi that was corroborated by several Koudish government sources. International media opinion, which had initially been understanding of Iverican interventionism in the Mediargic was now hesitant to continue painting the Republic's actions in a positive light. Overnight, the court of public appeal around Argis and Alharu -and most importantly- in Koudiland, seemed divided when it was once firmly on the Iverican narrative.

 

Less than a day following the sinking of the Lord Harrowe, the Anglians issued a formal protest demanding that the Iverican Foreign Ministry and Armada answer for the sinking of an INS ship and the "illegal" seizure of a civilian merchantman. Within the week, the Anglians had dispatched a small surface and submarine taskforce to the Mediargic; apparently, at invitation from the Koudish.

 

The Iverican public, media, and Ministry departments were outraged at the response and promptly released all records on the incident- but it was too late. Half the Koudish public was incensed. The other half was uncertain. A civil war was brewing in Koudiland between the pro-Anglian Nationalist Party and the pro-Iberic Coalition. Despite the sensitivity of the situation, official directives from Intreimor were clear- match the Anglians in force. Giving up the presence in the Mediargic- out of the question.

 

Tensions in the Mediargic were at a boiling point. Come July, they would burst.

[Iverica]

A Grand War Short: Classénalia (Part 1 of 3)

 

21 JAN, 2023 | 2001 Iverican Standard Time

The City of Manille, Iverica

 

“If my lord's neighbour should be confronted, he must be crippled. If a middling blow is dealt, he may yet have the strength to retaliate;

But if such a blow is struck that his constitution is left ruined, your lordship should expect security thereafter.

Thusly, your excellency must deliver an injury so grievous that your adversary is utterly unable to retaliate—so terrible that vengeance cannot be feared.”

-Nicolás Malclavello (1532). L’Princeps. Translated by J. Dei Valparaiso for the "Encylopediae Adaptonna: Great Books of the Occidental Wurld"; University of Intreimor Press.

 

 

On the 15th of June, 2022, the INS Lord Harrowe was sunk in the Keelpijp Passage after a rapid escalation of tensions in the Mediargic. With tenuous evidence that the Anglians were helping the Koudish government breach the missile-building restrictions of the Goodwill Accords, the Armada Iverica torpedoed the Anglian destroyer during a boarding operation of a Suverine ship under the Harrowe's protection. Outraged by the incident, the Anglians only increased their presence in the Mediargic. After relations continued to deteriorate, the Armada launched a large-scale missile strike on a Koudish military harbour controlled by the country's nationalist faction. An Anglian Admiral ignored the Iverican warning to evacuate the harbour and was subsequently killed by the missile strike.

In the months that followed, Great Anglia effectively severed its ties to the Iberic Federated Commonwealth, beginning a period of tense silence.

On the 21st of January, the silence was broken.

 

 

---

 

 

Carlo Garcia, Freshman

University of Sant'Erasmo

 

Carlo panted as he took the worn stone steps up two at a time, his phone clutched in his sweaty palms, his backpack slamming against the back of his drenched hoodie with every leaping step.

 

"Hey Carlo, come on! The new carriers are coming up", his friend called out from atop the stairs.

 

Gasping for breath as he bounded the last steps, he heard a loud cheer erupt from the assembled students and faculty of the University of Sant'Erasmo. Flashes of firework light lit up the darkness of the promenade, flitting through the silhouettes of the crush of bodies gathered at the railing. Half the student body had gathered on the university's hill promenade. The crowd congregated along the stretch of railed platform mounted on the crown of a hill overlooking the famous Manille Bay. It was the best view in the whole city and open only to students and university staff.

 

The gathered throng milled about. Many among the rear ranks were trying to get their phones overhead for photos. Others either tried to push through the press of bodies or slip through gaps for any stretch of the open railing. Still panting, Carlo ran down the promenade after his friend. Miraculously, they found an opening further down the lane. Carlo wiped his palms on his jeans and hurried to start his stream—and not a second too soon.

 

The whole city had turned out into the Roxas Boulevard over yonder to the left, little specs below them. The rest who couldn't get to the already crowded boulevard or the piers, jetties, wharves, and quays packed themselves into whatever side street or rooftop with a view of the bay.

 

This was Classénalia—this was Fleet Week.

 

It was the biggest celebration of Manille's shipbuilding industry and Naval might in Argis. Only once every three years did the Republic and now, the Federated Commonwealth, gather their newest ships and aircraft. Lead by the crème of the Manille Naval Academy, the ships were paraded through Manille's vast expanse of bay and hilly headlands and coast in an aero-naval display that, ton-for-ton and pyrotechnic-for-pyrotechnic, was one of the most raucous and impressive in the wurld. Lavish street parties ensued, with floats and marching bands showing off the top graduates from naval programmes around the FedCom, dressed in full white regalia. Food and drink were free-flowing as festivities would go on for three nights. Tonight was the very first of three, and it promised something special. It promised the first full-sized aircraft carriers built in the Federation in over 30 years.

 

The Federation class.

 

Just as viewers began to hop on, the big event started. Majestically parting the still black night waters, emerging from behind the lighthouse hills at the edge of the bay—there she was. All 52,000 tonnes. Fresh from the Manille Yards.

 

Vessel of the Republic of Iverica, CV-34, Federation Class. L'Peninsula Iverio. Named for the very region of Argis the Iberic diaspora chose to seat their new realm. She was massive, more than 280 metres in length. She was also slim and mean, her form like the head of a lance, cleaving through the waters with ease and belying a preternatural grace unexpected for a ship that size.

 

There was a stunned silence as she revealed herself, lit into chiaroscuro by bright spotlights on a squadron of tenders, gathered around the mighty steel lady-like handmaidens, doing nothing but drape her rays of light and shadow. A silence had taken the crowd at the promenade as they gaped in awe. A score more viewers had joined the steam but Carlo was too engrossed with the carrier's debut to notice.

 

Just then, puffs of smoke and tongues of fire erupted from her decks. Hidden behind black sheets, a battery of saluting guns revealed itself. 20 cm guns went off one after the other, in perfect sync, muzzles aimed high into the sky, saluting the port and people of Manille with pyrotechnic rounds arcing through the night sky and trailing bright smoke in the blue, white, and gold of the Federated Commonwealth.

 

The crowd's cheering had risen to a fever pitch at that. Though the din from the boulevard resonated all the way uphill, it was nothing to the ear-splitting roar from the students watching around Carlo.

 

As the drumbeat of guns began to die, L'Peninsula sounded her horn, a deep baritone note that echoed around the bay. The energy coming from the entire city of Manille was palpable. To feel a city of millions project this much excitement and pride was entrancing. Swept up in it, Carlo looked on, ignorant of the flurry of reactions his stream was getting from his rare perch.

 

The eyes of the masses now turned skyward, waiting for the F-4 Thunders pledged to make their debut.

 

 

---

 

 

Alberto Garcia, Audante - Surveillance Radar Operator

310th Monitor Group, No. 043 Sector Air Defence Operations Centre

 

The slightly plump monitor group NCO sat with his booted feet on the console. His back reclined over his chair with his phone propped onto his belly. He scratched the sides of his rumpled navy blue duty uniform and yawned as he watched his nephew's stream of the Classénalia. He took a fistful of pistachios from the open bag on his console and munched noisily.

 

His viewing was interrupted just as the L'Peninsula came into view. A chirp came on his headset. Great, an aerial contact. Again.

 

Miscellaneous aerial contacts were quite common—especially near civilian airspace. On a regular day, the scope registered dozens of helicopters, airliners, cargo craft, and whatever else. But tonight? One came and interrupted him every couple of minutes. Consequently, the backlog of reported flight plans grew longer as the night went on. Civil Air Control usually kept the list tidy but with the sudden amount of civilian flight requests, their updates became infrequent and messy.

 

Grunting, he put his phone down and sat up to log the contact. As the operator on watch, Alberto had to log every registered contact and pass it through Sector ADO Command, which would back-check it with Civil. The process would ordinarily take a few seconds. Tonight, however, every facility ran on a skeleton crew. Most personnel were either taking leaves to watch the festivities or going on break and never returning—like his station's supposed Watchstanding Officer. By the time Alberto's shift started 2 hours ago, the updates were taking minutes to come in and often did so faulty. 

 

 In Alberto's eight years in the surveillance theatre, he had only once had a red contact. It was a drug-smuggling single-engine prop that had lost its way. That was three years ago. In his line of work, 99.99% of contacts were innocent civilian or friendly military aircraft with the correct IFF return. Tonight, the constant air traffic from all the civilian flights trying to get a view of the show made his work a ton of useless reporting on a spreadsheet a klick long.

 

Grabbing another fistful of pistachios, Alberto grunted and logged the new contact—which had failed to return positive IFF. The monitor group's dated systems often mismatched the more modern Armada IFF. This problem became exacerbated by the chaotic RF environment of Classénalia night.

 

He typed it in:

 

Contact. 0-4-7 true, 3-1-6 klicks, speed point-8-0-0.

 

He consulted his secondary terminal, which contained a list of approved flight plans. Alberto snorted. The contact checked out. It was flying in the same grid, bearing, and altitude of an Armada Air flight plan in the system. It appeared that the newly purchased F-4 Thunders were coming in slightly early. 

 

However, Alberto felt a twinge of confusion.

 

He quickly glanced at the radar scope again. There were supposed to be more. Odd. He modulated his radar frequency and cleaned the return. The rest popped up a moment later. Alberto shrugged mentally. It must just be that new radar-absorbing stuff. The rest of the contacts following the first were coming in spaced up and in a staggered formation. Though they appeared to be closing fast, the speed still matched the flight plan. They'd do a boom-and-zoom over the bay with pyrotechnics before rounding back for slower passes and aerobatics.

 

The contacts were well inside Manille Airspace now. Were they... Speeding up? The number of returns on screen was fucking with his old terminal. Well, he'd try to contact ADO Command for clarification. This was a clusterfuck of comms probably.

 

As Alberto took his headset off and rolled his chair to the RTO's console, the radar's scope flashed with several new contacts bearing down on No. 043 Sector Air Defence Operations Centre. Alberto's attention had already gone to the radio by then.

 

 

---

 

 

Maria Vives-Deibassols, Contra-Almirante - Armada Intelligence

Naval Intelligence Attaché Office, Sotavento- Manille Maritime Command

 

Admiral Vives walked passed the drunken officers revelling in the open square of Plassa Sotavento. Though she'd just entered her 50's, the Rear-Admiral kept a trim form and a strong stride on the uphill cobbled roads. The old district, Anglish for "Leeward Plaza", was the Armada's home. The plaza district consisted of a cluster of neo-classical Aromanesque revival architecture built at the height of Iverican colonial power in the early 1800s. Its grand parks and fountained squares were bustling with officers, junior and senior, who were heading to and from various parties around the plaza. Many had a decent view of the Manille bay from various rooftop gardens, balconies, and overlook platforms on Sotavento's hill.

 

While the entire Almirantasgo had been focused purely on organising private clique parties for the Classénalia, Maria herself was one of the few that kept in mind the FedCom's proximity to open war. Just last July, things in the Sakspati had reached a boiling point, culminating in the Armada crossing the point of no return. With Koudiland divided into 2 factions, the Armada had elected to lay the entire pro-Anglish side of the Koudish Navy to waste. Following an embargo and a 2-hour warning given to Koudish naval personnel, the full force of an Armada Capital Task Group laid waste to 14 warships and more than 50 military structures.

 

Unfortunately, there was collateral damage. An Anglian Admiral and a few of his staff had defied the warnings and remained in the kill zone. Lord Admiral Grimston had been a casualty of an Iverican cruise missile.

 

Needless to say, the Anglians had been apoplectic with rage and despite the sinking of their destroyer in the Keelpijp in June, decided to send an entire task force to reinforce their Koudish allies. They called it a criminal act and had summarily enacted every sanction and denunciation imaginable short of a declaration of war. For the past 8 months, the Mediargic waited with bated breath. It was Anglia's move.

 

Vives, lost in thought, narrowly dodged a gaggle of bottle-carrying junior officers as she made her way down the cobbled streets to her office in the Almirante Narro building in Block D. The boom of fireworks going off was deafening as Sotavento put up a grand show of pyrotechnics between every ship's turn around the bay.

 

With her cloaked form backlit by explosions of azure and gold light, she dusted her feet before the oak doors and slipped in as a Tercio NCO trying hard not to look drunk admitted her.

 

"Almirante!", her aide stood and snapped a sharp salute. Subteniente Rico Fonss-Carrillo stood from his desk in her office antechamber, ramrod straight and in his crisp duty uniform. Rico appeared entirely sober, which was a rarity tonight. He had his laptop and a stack of dot-matrix papers a foot high.

 

"At ease, Subteniente. I got your message".

 

"Yes Almirante- err- I apologise if I interrupted the festivities for you", the young officer began.

 

"No matter, I've seen 8 of these in my career, I hate crowds, and I've got far too much to do", said the Almirante, ungloving and de-cloaking. In truth, she hadn't been working. Maria had been at the hospital, visiting her niece, who'd come back from Estaria broken. The girl was hardly in her 20s and was already on a long road of rehab and recovery. She poured herself a glass of spiced wine from the decanter at the end of the antechamber and took a slow sip.

 

"Now then. You said the collections team reported an anomaly?"

 

"Aye-aye and it wouldn't be your problem ma'am—but I followed up with them, then their section lead... then their division CO... they're not responding. Based on what I've seen, our feeds for Western Argis are backlogged now. We've got all these naval intel reports coming in and sifted by AI but the rate of human verification is a trickle. It's just me and like 6 others from Intelligence Command looking these over—and I'm not even supposed to be handling this anymore!"

 

Maria snorted and leaned over to the kid's laptop. Rico was a hard worker, unlike many of the pampered Hidalgo brat officers. He was excitable and jittery but a good aide who kept one ear to the ground at all times. His role wasn't supposed to be keeping tabs on Armada Intelligence's hundred different feeds but he applied his Zoomer multitasking ADD well and was constantly scanning channels on his secure phone, tablet, or laptop like a NEET checked social media and anime streaming sites. Maria had little use for an aide, she preferred to do appointments and scheduling herself but when Rico came along, she found that he was perfect for doing every else. He kept her fed with updates that she didn't have the time to look after and filed most of her reports for her while she busied herself at meetings or handled new projects for her department; Data Processing & Analysis, Home Shore Collections, Armada Intelligence.

 

Looking at the AI-cleaned report now, she could see why Rico had been alarmed. His had been misfiled on normal priority but was destined for Peninsular Fleet Southern Command, Mediargic Operations. It was related to a sensitive situation regarding Anglian presence in Koudiland.

 

It looks like an unvetted asset had reported submarine sightings and snapped pictures, showing submarines in a Koudish port one day and gone the next. Vanished, about 36 hours ago. The report should have gone straight to the SSO and Southern Command the moment a human operator verified the AI-spotted mismatch between Armada Intelligence SATINT and the photos... clearly, someone in collections was behind the curve.

 

"Collections reported the mismatch of info 8 hours ago, Admiral. So not entirely their fault. It's just that we're getting flooded with unvetted reports from the Mediargic and half the processing staff are on leave. So I've only just gotten to this."

 

Maria paused. Missing submarines. Where would they... wait. Would the Anglians be so bold? Then she recalled Lord Admiral Grimston. The late Lord Admiral Grimston. Splattered into an even smear by a land-attack cruise missile. Shit.

 

By the time Maria and Rico had alerted Home Shore Air Command, the very same contacts on Surveillance Radar Operator Alberto's scope picked up were already well within Manille's airspace.

 

 

---

 

 

Santino Mondragon-Palou, Subcabinero - Cadet Midshipman

VRI L'Peninsula Iverio, currently on shore liberty - Roxas Boulevard

 

 

The Roxas Boulevard street party was a crush of merry-marking. Everywhere, streamers, flags, and pennants fluttered in their bright Armada colours. There were sparklers, strobe lights, and live bands playing Armada shanties and ballads. Across the boulevard, the crush of bodies—carefree and wildly exuberant.

 

The young Cadet-Midshipman Santino, or "Santi", had his tiny 13-year-old frame pressed between his fellow fresh-grads and civilian revellers. Strangers in the crowd handed them food and (mostly) non-alcoholic beverages. Every so often a group of older Mids or civilian youngsters would yank him from his cluster of mates and snap a few selfies with what they were calling, "the youngest Mid in over 2-decades".

 

Being one of the youngest ever to secure a cadet's study post on an aircraft carrier had earned Santino something of a minor celebrity status among the gathered public and junior officers. Especially after the Armada-periodical Cañamasso ét Cañón had run a cover on him. Unused to the attention, Santi found his brain overloaded. It felt good, in a way. But it was mostly unexpected and quite frankly, scarier than the live Damage Control- Fire, practical segment of their exam.

 

Said exam, of course, had been the Subcabinero Exam. The cause of countless sleepless nights, minor anxiety attacks, and endless fretting over textbooks. Most high schoolers failed it- and yet, the challenge had not found him wanting. With hard work, precocious discipline, and the right amount of mentoring, he'd somehow aced it. The relief at finally conquering the object of his night terrors and the locus of his time since age 11, was palpable. While he was just relieved for the most part, his parents had looked to be brimming with pride as they watched their son and the top 5 of his cadet class march along the procession of top graduates from other Armada programmes.

 

Out of all of the classes, the Subcabineros were the most junior and out of them, Santi was easily the littlest. The next youngest was at least 2 years his senior. He supposed the public found it endearing to see his small frame in an Armada uniform- a point that he despised and one which his mates never failed to remind him of as they playfully jeered and ribbed him about it. Though the fact remained- none of them scored high enough to land the carrier posting. Santino had topped the minimum by a margin of over 10%.

 

During the procession just minutes before, Santi's eyes had anxiously scanned the horizon, searching for his ship to be, the carrier L'Peninsula, which had yet to take its turn around the bay. The study posting, while a short one lasting only for the duration of L'Peninsula's shakedown voyage, was a posting only given to the most promising cadets. Having been aboard her for the first time that morning, he'd found his thoughts orbiting the memory of her. That morning, he'd also met several of the junior officers who would be his mentors for the next 3 months. Much to Santi's surprise and relief, they treated him like an adult, seemingly blind to the fact that his head only came up to their breast pockets and that his voice cracked on occasion. They gave him a tour of the ship, never once sounding condescending and fully expectant of his competencies as a Mid, cadet though he might be. Perhaps he'd see them when the ship had her turn.

 

The parade's festive procession of floats, marches, and bands had quickly given way to the street party. The crowds closed in again, curtaining Santi's view of the bay. The wild riot of street dancers, performers, costumed reenactors, and free-flowing food and drink quickly wrapped around him. A skewer of assorted grilled meat and vegetables was thrust into Santi's hand followed by a wrap of some sort and then followed by a paper cup of Cortovino which his class's petty officer chaperone snatched away from Santi's confused grasp with a smirk.

 

Not particularly fond of alcohol (yet), Santi was quietly relieved. Until of course, he realised why the crowd had suddenly opened up and why there were two columns of dress-uniformed officers afore the fresh graduates. Composed mostly of their Armada instructors, the gauntlet had bottles of sparkling Cava in hand. Massive, 2-litre bottles were being uncorked.

 

Too late, Santi realised this was a "wet-down". In other navies, the new commissions might just be hosed down with water. That was boring. In the Armada, the hosing was done with copious amounts of alcohol. Given their age, Subcabineros were often not given anything to drink. Instead, they were simply hosed in it- technically, no adult ever offered the minors alcohol.

 

Should the youngsters ingest any, that would be a mere misfortune of happenstance.

 

While older officers often had to pay for their wetting-down, Mids with little to no pay would find themselves covered by their immediate seniors but totally at the mercy of said senior's choice of drink. In this case, Cava, a highly carbonated wine would be applied similarly to a hose spraying off a dirty deck; i.e. liberally, with great force and gusto.

 

Santi tried to backpedal the moment he saw the bottles. He was too slow.

 

Someone, likely a classmate, pushed him forward first. He got it full in the face. Then, everywhere else. The crowd of officers, rankers, rates, and revellers cheered.

 

Santi sputtered as he was pressed forward by the surge of his fellow Cadet-Mids. It had gone up his nose, in his eyes, and he'd been forced to down quite an amount. His fine midnight blue and white dress uniform was thoroughly drenched. While everyone got hosed, it seemed like his instructors were singling him out for a right dousing- and it was probably going to end up online.

 

Eventually, at the end of the gauntlet, someone pulled Santi up by the shoulder and raised his arm in some congratulatory gesture. He forced a thin smile half out of expectation and half because the giddy haze of alcohol was hitting his unaccustomed bloodstream hard. He was slipped more food and given back to his mates who steered him by the shoulders to enjoy the distractions of the boulevard.

 

Time seemed to spin out of control shortly thereafter. There was food. Santi tossed some of it up after that, eliciting laughter and cheers from his mates when he sprayed it on a nearby officer. They had to run after that. Santi wasn't sure how long had passed but pretty soon the small group of 5 Cadet-Mids found themselves dangling their legs over the edge of the boulevard's promenade. Santi wasn't sure when the L'Peninsula had come out—perhaps he'd spaced out? But it was there now, completing its turn around the bay, passing harrowingly close to them. At this range, her decks loomed like a titanic wall above them, spotlights illuminating her sheer bulk against the night black. Saluting guns parked on her flight deck firing harmless pyrotechnic rounds high into the sky. The young officers he had met earlier were now assembled on the promenade rails, waving at the crowd. He'd be among them soon. That was a nice thought.

 

"Hey! Look, on the horizon there, it's the F-4's!", one of his mates shouted.

 

The Gallambrian F-4 Thunders, newly acquired by the Armada, were the best and newest fighters the wurld had to offer. A flight of them were scheduled to make a short teaser flyby before their main show the next morning. At night, they'd scarcely be visible but would likely be trailing some kind of illumination for a spectacle.

 

Santi's eyes were unfocused but he could sort of make out a glow in the distance. He wasn't sure he imagined it but it seemed to suddenly grow brighter before darting into a streaking line toward the north side of the coast.

 

A flash followed. The crowd was silent. Then, a thunderclap as the sound waves caught up. There was clear confusion among the crowd—like they were waiting for the spectacular part of the act.

 

The boy was still blinking and processing what had happened when a pressure wave shook his teeth and made him deaf. The wall of force that crashed into him slammed the boy savagely backwards from the bay. In the milliseconds that passed, the young cadet-mid caught a glimpse of his new ship's fate. Listing from the impact, the ship twisted violently toward the boulevard, looking briefly like it would squash the reeling and stunned masses before it. A storm of shrapnel had burst bulkheads and hatches and swept the promenade decks of the carrier L'Peninsula where just moments before, her proud officers had stood.

 

 

---

 

 

OOC: The draft for this has been sitting around for months. Still follows the timeline in the original timeline post up there^. This one's going to be quite brutal. 

Some notes:

Classenalia - "Fleet Festival" is celebrated every 3 years or so. Generally, the biggest street party in Iverica that celebrates a massive congregation of the Armada's might. The whole city is virtually on holiday. Lots of civilian flights are in the air- news helos, political officials flying in, pleasure craft trying to get a nicer view. Everyone turns on on the boulevard and roof tops to watch.

Cadet-Midshipman - or Subcabinero as mentioned. Yes, they sometimes are minors with parental consent. It's not the majority of young midshipmen but the few that are usually end up getting posted on vessels doing routes close to home and generally far from a hot combat theatre. They're also closely chaperoned by a rating or NCO from the Naval Academy.

The Federation Class Carriers - as written on iiwiki

The Monitor Groups and the Home Shore Command - the event of a surprise attack like this is quite unlikely all told. It's more likely that a force as significant as was mustered by the Anglians would have run into 2nd Fleet elements like the no 18 Submarine Group. After that there are also sonar surveillance cables south of Greater Galicia and lastly, other radar stations in the Iverican Integrated Air Defence System would have likely been able to respond and fire interceptors. However, the scenario is not entirely implausible. Something I'll discuss in later notes.

There's probably a bunch of notes I've forgotten to add but will edit in later.

[Iverica]

OOC: First part is just above this one

 

A Grand War Short: Classénalia (Part 2 of 3)

 

21 JAN, 2023 | 2022 Iverican Standard Time

The City of Manille, Iverica

 

---

 

Santino Mondragon-Palou, Subcabinero - Cadet Midshipman

VRI L'Peninsula Iverio, currently on shore liberty - Roxas Boulevard

 

There were audible murmurs of confusion amongst the crowd. Something like this had certainly not been expected or advertised. Someone in the crowd said that the flash and boom must have been the afterburners kicking in and the Thunders going supersonic. Santi, befuddled and fairly tipsy by then, just started, clapping and cheering along with a few drunker revellers in the press of bodies along the boulevard.

 

A second later though, their chaperone petty officer was at this shoulder with a serious look on his face. Shit. Santi blinked stupidly, did he look that drunk? The old rating opened his mouth to say something but was promptly and violently cut off by another cheer from some of the crowd.

 

A series of flickering glows were spotted dead ahead in the distance. The F-4s were coming in for an overhead pass it seemed. They were awfully low.

 

Nobody on the boulevard understood what happened next. One moment the L'Peninsula was calmly floating not 30 metres from them, making a turn to circle the bay. The next, it disappeared in a hyper-candescent flashbulb as a single beam of star-born light seemed to lance across the bay and right into the amidships centre deck.

 

If the crowd made a noise, Santi couldn't tell. The banshee shriek and boom that followed a millisecond later drowned everything out. The invisible wall of force that slammed a curtain of searing hot air into him knocked his breath away. Santi fell onto his back, his head striking the pavement with a crack. He was confused, his eyes forced skyward as he struggled to process things from his supine position. Another light streaked overhead. Santi's eyes dumbly tracked the light, more out of reflex than effort. They lagged behind the streak, catching the afterimage left in its wake. There was a whoosh of displaced air like a hurricane gust. Before Santi's stunned and clouded eyes could trace the path properly, another shockwave came, this time sending a wave of dust into the bay side and the boy's eyes. He scarcely heard the explosion as the sound waves caught up, his ears playing a bass drum and microphone feedback ring that was growing louder by the second.

 

The boy coughed and struggled to wipe his eyes, but his hands were filthy too and caked with some blood from where he'd skinned them trying to break his fall on the cobbled stones. A glimmering interjection, more of an afterthought than anything flitted through his brain. Even before blearily glancing through his muddled eyes and seeing the hilltops afire, Santi knew that the thing had hit Sotavento.

 

---

 

Carlo Garcia, Freshman

University of Sant'Erasmo

 

 

Years later when he thought back to that evening, Carlos Garcia, a freshman student at the time of the Manille Bay attack, would reminisce with a vivid clarity that still brought pins and needles to the tips of his toes and fingers. It was a chemically etched reel of negatives in his memory, constantly refreshed by the recording of the livestream he had never turned off since he arrived at his perch at his university's hilltop promenade. 

 

The moment marked 21 minutes and 32 seconds into the stream would become historical footage, preserved in stills and video snippets echoed by news broadcasts and publications the wurld over. A scant few minutes that echoed the time when Manille's festivity had turned to fire. Frames froze the scenes showing how the bay had been alight with the fires from the burning hulk of the CV-34, Federation Class. L'Peninsula Iverio. When just moments before, it had been the object of adulation, the new carrier had quickly crumpled under the mass of an 8-metre-long anti-ship missile detonating a 250-kilogramme warhead into its central compartment. It had listed hard to its port during its close pass of the boulevard, rolling so severely that the 2 tugs keeping it clear of the bay-side masonry were crushed beneath 52,000 tonnes of Armada steel. Even from his perch, Carlos had seen the cabin light go out of one's wheelhouse as the small boat was popped like an overripe grape in a wine press. The carrier's sides all but burst the flimsy craft against 4-century-old masonry.

 

The memories of that night were overwhelming. They rendered his brain imbecilic and mute to witness the effects of technical sorcery utilised for the speed and violence of information-era warfare. The untrained human brain was a low and crass intelligence when it was forced to stare, unblinking at a scale of violence usually witnessed in piecemeal bites and behind the sterile safety of a screen. Seldom were they witnessed in the barrage that they were, and even rarer still, in so short a time. For even as the young man remembered the death-throes of the carrier celebrated with the namesake of the Iverican Peninsula and the hapless scores crushed in its fall, there had been bursts of light in the sky, fireballs and starbursts as interceptor missiles weaved a tango with attackers. There had been frigates and destroyers in the distance, fresh from the yards and awaiting their turn to salute the crowds, only to be struck by missiles cresting the horizon; the impacts marked by the tell-tale fairly light bulbs, small bright balls appearing like pinpricks of light at that distance. There had been afterburner glow trails of Fuersas L'Aire TA-201 air superiority fighters racing toward the sea, There had been frequent blossoms of fire and smoke from the metropolitan area, as a missile would strike or crash somewhere in Manille, the city of sailors, the home of the Armada.

 

Among the first missiles that had gotten through the weakened integrated air defence system was one bound for Sotavento. A cruise missile narrowly slipped the blast radius of an exploding interceptor and spun, damaged, and out of control, into the 340-year-old seat of Iverican naval power. On its drunken terminal spin down, it decapitated the belfry of the Cathedral of Stella Maris, where every newly minted officer swore their oaths before taking a commission.

 

The Aromanesque-revival tower had been wrought of natural red and pink coral stone, the labour of 2-score artisans working night and day for 3 years. It housed a set of 4 gold-trimmed brass bells, each 2.62 metres in diameter and weighing 12 tonnes. All four were inscribed with the names of those who had made the greatest of sacrifices during the Gran Viatge and had been rung to welcome home every ship and crew of every war, crisis, and national struggle the Republic had ever fought in its 373 years of Argic existence. Its corner pillars were borne by 77 hand-sculpted marble seraphs each bearing a nautical instrument used to carry the Iberic exodus to the shores of the New Wurld. As half the belfry tower fell onto scattering citizens below, the rest of the missile deflected from its original target and spun into the Almirante Narro building in Block D of the Headwind Quarter, where Sotavento housed its centre for Naval Intelligence.

 

---

 

 

Maria Vives-Deibassols, Contra-Almirante - Armada Intelligence

Naval Intelligence Attaché Office, Sotavento- Manille Maritime Command

 

 

"Where did the building go?", was the Rear Admiral's first thought after a deafening screech outside led to an ear-splitting bang that did the windows in and made the floor give way. There had followed a dull thump on her head which had brought a fuzzy, throbbing sort of sleep.

 

Maria thought the same thing again, followed by, "Why am I prone?", as she stirred. She coughed, a puff of dust blooming out from in front of her mouth. It was dark. Power had gone out. Still, she could see some. There seemed to be some dim lights from the sky which came and went erratically. An attack. Despite being smacked on the head by a falling section of the ceiling, the Contra-Almirante realised that it was very obviously, an attempt at a saturation missile attack. Scheduled perfectly to coincide with a time when Manille's airspace and air controllers were constipated and clogged with more contacts than lice on a street mutt.

 

"Clever fucking bastards", she muttered to no one in particular. The delayed intel she and Teniente had been 36-hours old—which was the slimmest time gap to get set for a stand-off strike package delivered by naval assets jumping off from Koudish ports.

 

If she had to guess, Armada Home Shore Command stations in Nou Stille had been hit first, with cruise missiles on GPS guidance slipping in with the vectors of most civilian traffic approaches... and/or with the boom and zoom air show demonstrations scheduled to take place around this hour. With the staffing issues the Armada faced in Manille during the Fleet Week, this was pretty much the only time an adversary had a pussyhair of a chance at getting away with something as bold as this. It was probable that the submarines Rico had shown her in some IMINT shots taken with a Koudish asset's jacket-concealed Point-and-shoot were the very same ones launching the strike packages at them. That narrowed down the ordnance they were being attacked with to a select few sub-launched options guided by GPS through all courses to make manoeuvres as tight and specific as executed, ones which could be countered easily, even en-masse by certain air defence options. 

 

The thoughts raced by with a mixture of excitement and alarm coursing through her head, despite the ridiculously dangerous physical situation she was in. She knew that given the staffing issues, Sector Air Defence Command, if it was still standing (Auxiliary SADC in Block G if it wasn't) could probably do with a quick update to their intel cycle. She and Rico might need to head over ASAP.

 

Shit. Rico.

 

She tried to get up—she jerked back startled, bringing more pain. Something had her arm in a vice-grip. Through the dimness, she could make out a chunk of... Masonry? Stunned for a moment, she tilted her head ceilingward. Except there was no ceiling, just the open sky—lit with the occasional flash of something detonating high above.

 

The Almirante Narro building was gone. She looked around, everywhere she could make out some shapes of tumbled masonry. They may have fallen through, to the basement. Where was Rico? The thought of her young aide crushed under a few hundred pounds of old stone gave her an adrenaline shot of energy.

 

She called out. No response. Far overhead, out of the ruined basement pit they were in, she heard the faint sound of a siren, then the muffled crump of a detonation. The ground trembled slightly.

 

Just then, she heard a rumble of stone-on-stone. She looked to her right, just there on the side of where the basement wall should have been, was a slope created by a collapsed section of wall. The slope was angled downward, directly at her. Perched above it, precariously close to tipping over and down the slope, was a slab some 4 metres wide and 3 metres long. It was thick, single-cast cement and every so often, as another explosion shook the ground, it trembled and slid a few inches closer to sliding down the rubble slope and straight at her. Oh fuck. No.

 

She called out again, breathing hard now.

 

No response.

 

Gathering her strength, she tightened her core and brought her legs around to face the rubble pinning her right arm down. Still prone and unable to stand properly, she got into a sitting position. She was 52 but her religious PT regimen, calcium treatments, and extensive vitamin supplements had made her stronger and more durable than a dowdy middle-aged housewife. She tensed her core and back, then kicked with both feet at the rubble.

 

Searing pain ripped through her forearm as the stone, evidently part of the building's stylised eaves, scrapped over her arm. It freed her elbow some. The part of her forearm she saw did not look good. It was a sickly blue, bruised, crushed and numb. Only when she saw it did a bout of agony rip through her. Mind-numbing, pain. She writhed and thrashed on the ground, nearly biting her tongue off as she let off a string of shouts, which quickly gave way to manic laughter as she realised how idiotically fucked the situation was.

 

Over the next few minutes, the CO of the Armada's Sotavento intelligence office composed herself and tried shifting the stone eave off. Though painful and desperate, the efforts were futile. Contra-Almirante Vives had already looked around her in her limited reach. Pinned by the rubble, she could only reach about 2 and a half metres around her at most, with her feet. There was a long length of rebar just tantalisingly out of reach—with it, she could probably lever off the heavy stone. She wanted to weep in frustration.

 

There was nothing around her reachable circle but some pebbles, her uniform coat, and the letter opener from her desk.

 

She glanced at the letter opener, then at her elbow.

 

She tested the letter opener. It was sharp enough. She liked to keep it fit as a razor given the thicker plastics some despatches arrived in. She worked quickly, keeping the thought of what she had to do away from her mind. From experience, Maria knew that the more you lingered on something unpleasant, the more likely you'd baulk when it came time for it.

 

Ripping away at her wool cloak, she made a long loop of fabric and secured it painfully tight around her right arm. She tensed her core once more and readied her shoulders. Biting down on the rest of her coat, she twisted her torso against her elbow's range of motion.

 

Blood seemed to drain from her brain. She fought against the darkness swimming at the edge of her vision as she screamed into the wool of the coat, biting so hard her teeth hurt.

 

When she regained control of herself, she assessed the elbow. A clean dislocation. She didn't wait because the pain would only get worse. She tightened the tourniquet around her right bicep some more and brought the letter opener down with her left hand. She sliced up and down as quickly and forcefully as she could while pulling back to keep the arm taught.

 

With a sudden jerk back, the Admiral was free. She fell backwards and her vision faded to black.

 

Unsure if she was dreaming, somewhere between consciousness and delirium, she heard the long rasp and scrape of the slab finally sliding down the slope to finish her off. She thought about her niece, still recovering in the hospital, hoping she'd be spared. She hoped Rico wasn't smashed to pieces and that he'd figure out what to do without her.

 

---

 

OOC: One last part after this, and the short story "Classenalia" is over.