[Earth II] To Fall from Olympus

[Layarteb]

March 17, 1958 - 10:00 hrs [UTC-5]
Layarteb City, New York
Fortress of Comhghall
(40° 41' 28" N, 74° 0' 58" W)

President Baltz entered his office shortly before 10:00 hours and while various staffers milled about, he headed right to the coffee machine, poured himself a heaping cup, mixing in two cubes of sugar, and continued to stir it even after he sat down behind his desk. At precisely 10:00 hours, he checked his watch and spoke up, "All right, good morning, thank you for coming, please let's get down to business. I'd like to hear from Defense first. What is our progress on Lemnos?"

"Well Mister President," the Secretary of Defense began, "army units successfully captured Thanos yesterday, which puts them less than two and a half miles from Myrina, where we believe the highest concentration of insurgent forces in Western Lemnos reside. Unfortunately, the Marines are not as close. They're having a hell of a time in Kaspakas. The terrain there, while coastal, supports a large hill to the immediate south. They've come under several ambushes and the enemy has had the high ground for some time."

"How long are we estimating until Myrina falls and our forces can push eastward?"

"It could be another month Mister President, it's hard to say. Until the Marines are ready though, the army units will remain in Thanos and resupply themselves."

"How have casualties been?"

"Mister President, more or less in line with our projections; we've lost men but not nearly as much as our enemy has. We benefit from having armored vehicles. Almost all vehicle losses have been to the RPG-2 anti-tank rocket, which the Soviets have supplied the insurgents with while a large portion of the infantry losses has been due to snipers or ambushes."

"All right then let's switch over to State. How are our allies holding up?"

"Mister President," began the Secretary of State, "our allies remain strong. The Hirgizstanians and the North Germanians remain committed to the end. The Eurasians are still taking their own stance of limited involvement but they have not hindered us whatsoever. They continue to monitor the Soviets in the Black Sea and they pass on vital information about Soviet vessels and aircraft transiting down into the Aegean. Our Lemnosian allies remain strong but I'm afraid to admit sir, they aren't appearing to be in this for the long run."

"What do you mean?"

"Well sir, right now they are fine but when this is over, they're going to want to come down with a heavy hand against the insurgents and anyone who sympathized with them. This won't solve anything - in fact it will positively lead to a repeat."

"All right, correct me then if I am wrong. The initial phase of operations will concentrate on the island of Lemnos and dislodging the immediate threat. Then we're going to move into an inter-phase where we'll conduct reconnaissance operations against Agios Efstratios, am I still on track?" Heads nodded in approval, "Our last phase of combat will be a major push against rebel strongholds on the island. Once that is over we'll conduct mop-up and peacekeeping operations and then our mission is over, correct?"

"Yes sir, that is as far as our operational tempo goes. We have a long-term plan for peacekeeping, if you recall we discussed it on February 28. However, the Lemnosian government is giving us serious pushback."

"That's not how this works," President Baltz said with a slight laugh, "Make them understand that our final phase is non-negotiable or else we pull our forces out this moment, and with us comes the entire alliance. Make it abundantly clear to your counterparts there. If they still don't get it, I will make a phone call. Prime Minister Argyris would be toeing a very fine line if he were to continue upon that course."

"Yes sir," the Secretary of State answered and that left an uneasy silence in the air until President Baltz continued, calling on the Secretary of State to give any new information from Kiev. There was little to be had, just the usual condemnations and the fact that more shipping was being tracked moving through the straits into the Aegean. Bombers were flying regular probe missions but they weren't getting within the exclusion zone around Lemnos and thus they could not be engaged whatsoever. Despite the fervency for anti-communism, no one wanted to be the one to fire the first shots in a major world war and thus, the Soviets were allowed to fly their obvious provocation flights and the MF-MA forces were allowed to continue to bomb insurgents.

---

• |- 26 -| •

[Layarteb]

April 8, 1958 - 21:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Aerolimenas, Lemnos
Lemnos International Airport
(39° 55' 32" N, 25° 15' 4" E)

There was a lot of security around Lemnos International Airport and all for good reason. The heads of each military element were meeting now that Western Lemnos was deemed "secure." Only hours earlier, Layartebian Marines and paratroopers, with the assistance of Lemnosian forces hiding within the city broke the seventeen-day siege of the city of Myrina on the island's western coastline, thus freeing the last major city on the island's western coastline. The casualties, primarily for the enemy, had been high. Civilians caught in the crossfire would need to be counted but the military wounded and killed had remained low in comparison. Aided by the use of armored vehicles and a less aggressive strategy versus an all-out rush through the narrow streets of Myrina, Layartebian Marines and paratroopers were able to clear each section of the city before proceeding onward. Lemnosian forces, coming in behind them, were tasked with protecting their rear flanks and by and large, the Lemnosian forces seemed capable of doing as much. Now that the city had fallen and victory had been declared in the Western Lemnos Campaign, Phase I could move into securing Eastern Lemnos.

"We're still going to need to conduct mop-up operations," General Teitelbaum was saying now as the many generals, admirals, and colonels crowded around the room. North Germanian, Hirgizstanian, and Layartebian special forces elements were holding security around the airport along with a temporary contingent of Eurasian special forces. There was no chance the enemy would have to set off a few sticks of TNT in this meeting, which would deal a deathblow to the MF-MA forces. Unannounced, the meeting was probably known to the Lemnosian Communist Commune and the Lemnosian Workers Brigade, probably even to the Soviet Spetsnaz troops but none of them were suicidal enough to dare the assault.

"How long is that intended to take?" General Dionysios Simonides, who was the highest-ranking member of the Lemnosian military, asked. General Teitelbaum hated the man because of his inefficiency and because of the troubles that the Lemnosian forces exhibited but he was forced to tolerate his overweight, offensive appearance for these meetings.

"General, it shall take as long as is necessary. If you want to put a figure on it, it will not be before May 1 and it will not be after June 1. LWB rebels have escaped into the immediate countryside and they are certainly hiding out, hoping to either return to Agios Efstratios, launch behind-the-lines attacks on us, or liaise with their comrades on Eastern Lemnos. It is imperative that we sweep through the more remote areas and captured or kill as many of them as there are, lest we will have to deal with them later.

"This is a confusing time for them and we have to seize the opportunity while they do not yet have orders. Now, as for the rest of the campaign, I am informed that all elements can commence operations as soon as tomorrow morning." General Teitelbaum said while receiving approving nods from almost every man around the table. "Army paratroopers are going to move on Varos and Repanidi, assaulting both places at once to ensure we cut off the lead element and their reinforcements. Our special forces camp at Repanidi will be instrumental in launching the attack against reinforcements.

"While they are handling both towns, the Marines will move on Lynchna and Romano, with the same goals and the same purposes. This will set up the Marines for moving into the southern portion of Eastern Lemnos and the army for moving into the northern portion. Because we anticipate heavier and stronger resistance because of the loss that the LWB has experienced in Western Lemnos, we're going to divide the air force's and the navy's air power evenly. The navy will support the marines and the air force will support the army. Naval gunfire support will still be available for either the Marines or the army. Upon the completion of securing Lemnos, that will conclude Phase I to Operation MIDNIGHT CYCLONE, as we are calling it. You all have your own respective names for this."

"When we move to assault Agios Efstratios," General Simonides began, "I want to ensure that my men are the first over there."

"Out of the question General," General Teitelbaum answered in quick fashion. "It has already been agreed upon with your government, and ours, that multinational forces will be spearheading this campaign. If your men were up to the task, we wouldn't be needed but as you can see, we are." What followed next was a fifty-minute bickering session between General Simonides and the heads from MF-MA forces. Ultimately, he was quieted by the combined sentiment that MF-MA forces could be easily removed from the campaign entirely.

When all was said and done though, Admiral Coco was given a round of commendations for seizing a second naval vessel on March 29 that was violating the blockade and bringing illegal arms and supplies to Lemnosian rebels. Unfortunately, intelligence revealed that while two vessels had been seized already, a half dozen had not been. Admiral Coco promised to increase his surveillance efforts but then he inquired as to whether or not intelligence knew of submarines operating in the area. Intelligence could not give that detail but the man in charge, Colonel Leon Hertzog, would double up his efforts to find out if the Soviets were running supplies via submarine.

Reports were given of interceptions of Soviet bomber patrols, which were now a frequent thing over the Aegean Sea but there was little worry. The Soviets were just telling the MF-MA forces that they were watching and that they could strike whenever they wanted to, and MF-MA forces were saying, "Go ahead, we'll shoot you down before you drop one bomb." There had been some tense and high profile incidents, including one in which a surface-to-air battery on Lemnos locked up and plotted a firing solution on a flight of Soviet bombers. At the same time, the overzealous operators also targeted a pair of air force Delta Daggers escorting them around the Aegean Sea. Begrudgingly, General Simonides agreed to put extra pressure on his men. The Eurasians also pledged to focus on the matter more closely. The last thing anyone needed was a blue-on-blue shoot down or the shoot down of a Soviet bomber in international airspace.

With the next part of Phase I set to kick off in less than twelve hours, the generals and admirals departed just after midnight and headed back to their respective command centers. Plans were being drawn up behind the scenes for the extended stay of MF-MA personnel beyond the campaign, which would include utilizing the airport on Gökçeada as a monitoring site for Soviet shipping coming into and out of the Bosporus and an army base on Bozcaada that would serve as a quick-reaction force in case something in Lemnos went awry again. Both the airport and the army base would receive rotational deployments from all members of the MF-MA group. The main push behind these plans was the Republic of Layarteb, which was aiming for a truly dominant foothold in the Aegean Sea to counter the Soviet dominance of the Black Sea.

---

• |- 27 -| •

[Layarteb]

April 10, 1958 - 03:30 hrs [UTC+2]
Moni Panagias, Agios Efstratios
Rebel HQ
(39° 31' 51" N, 25° 0' 34" E)

Vasilis didn't know what happened. One moment he was pacing the inner grounds of the encampment and the next he was splayed on the ground his face in between two roots and his ribs aching from where they landed on the ground. "Let me help you up friend," came a familiar voice as a hand reached down and helped Vasilis to his feet. "You should pace only indoors when clouds are this thick and the moon is hidden," the accented Russian voice said.

"Thank you Zuyev," Vasilis said as he brushed off his knees, suddenly grabbing his chest as he breathed in, wincing from the pain. "That hurt," he said next, "but I don't think anything's broken."

"Broken?" Senior Lieutenant Zuyev laughed, "Not from that fall. Come I will share some tea with you," and with that, the two men took off to Zuyev's tent. Vasilis had taken to packing each and every night though this was the first time he'd lost his balance and splayed out on the floor. It was a tree root that got him and it was odd that it hadn't before but he didn't bother to think it out, he was too tired and too weak. Vasilis hadn't been sleeping since the MF-MA forces commenced their campaign on Western Lemnos and he doubted he'd ever sleep again now that they'd pushed into Eastern Lemnos.

"Thank you," he finally said after he sat down and took the mug of hot tea from his Soviet friend.

"This war is taking too heavy a toll on you Vasilis. If you don't sleep you're going to have a breakdown and then what good will you be?"

"I cannot sleep," he said, "the moment I lay down all I see are the faces of our men. I hear their screams and I smell their burned flesh. We might sit in comfort and safety here but only for so long. Our enemy outnumbers us and they have much better equipment. We don't want to face the truth, and of course those in the political wing cannot face the truth but we are not going to last any longer.

"They're going to come for us here. They've captured enough of our men, monitored enough of our radio transmissions to know that our base camp is here. They'll scour the island and when they find us, they won't give us the opportunity to surrender. We're too well defended; they'll have to bomb us out."

"Then we'll die a hero's death," Zuyev said, smiling. "Kiev will not abandon us; I have full faith in our brothers in Kiev."

"That's a fine thing for you to say but remember what they said the last time we requested additional supplies." The memory of that event stuck in Vasilis' head all too well. Running low on medical supplies, they had made an impassioned call to Kiev for a delivery of much needed supplies but Kiev rejected it. When push came to shove, the Lemnosians would have to make do with what they had because the next resupply wasn't scheduled until the end of April and they would not advance it, though they certainly had the capabilities to do so.

"Kiev must have had their reasons. The MF-MA forces have been trailing sonar wire throughout the sea and they could have spotted the submarine."

"It smells differently to me. It smells like abandonment."

"No!" Zuyev said loudly, slamming his fist on the wooden crate they used as a table. "Kiev would not abandon us!"

"I hope not friend but we are low on supplies."

"We'll eat into our caches, that's why they are there." Zuyev said, "And when we can, we'll replenish them. The MF-MA forces are attacking four towns right now and they are running through supplies at a geometric rate. Our men are going to hold and they will make the MF-MA forces bleed for every meter they want to take." Vasilis didn't want to say it but he wasn't able to see Zuyev's optimistic outlook. Zuyev was the leader of an entire company of Spetsnaz soldiers, three platoons with four rifle squads apiece. Two of those platoons were deployed onto Lemnos and the last was defending Agios Efstratios.

"It's not only that," Vasilis said, taking a sip of the tea. "Where are your platoons Zuyev?"

"Moudros and Panagia, you know this."

Vasilis shook his head and sipped more tea, "What happens if they're captured?"

"Why would they be captured?"

"Just answer the question."

"They won't be."

"Why?"

"They just won't be Vasilis! Now why are you asking?"

"The Layartebian Marines are moving closer to Moudros. They're fighting in Lychna and Romano now and one of my patrols in Moudros reported back that they spotted reconnaissance scouts flying overhead in helicopters."

"My men will be prepared."

"That's a fine thing to think Zuyev but make sure. Make sure they are ready. It will come any day now. Once Lychna and Romano fall, they'll move on Moudros and we cannot stop them. There's only so much we can do and it won't stop an armored column coming down the main road, especially if they lead with tanks and we believe they will. That's how they led the way so far. They'll have to set up a proper ambush to slow down the armored column or else the column is going to reach the city and they'll last a day, maybe two, tops!"

Zuyev didn't know that the MF-MA forces had moved on Romano. He knew they'd hit Lychna but not Romano. He searched his brain for the visualization of the map of Lemnos. "There's a fork of road just south of Romano," he turned and reached behind him for the map of the island, finding it easily. The light of the tent, a red glow, shined favorably upon it. "Right here, grid 17-14, we'll plan an initial ambush right here and hit the lead elements with RPGs. Then the next grid down we'll hit them here where the main road and the secondary road meet. We'll hit them twice more along the way, each point with a single rifle squad."

"That'll slow them but once you make the initial hit, they won't rush south down that road. They'll move cautiously and they'll know if they're about to be ambushed again."

"Then we'll hit the column after it's passed all four points. Maximum damage!" Zuyev made a fist and for a moment, Vasilis thought that it could work but then he thought of a thousand reasons why it wouldn't work. He held them to himself though. If Zuyev was ready to send an entire platoon of men, thirty-six in all, to die for an ambush then he would let him. The damage could be enough to help the men in Moudros prepare for the eventual onslaught from the Marines but, at the same time, it might also incur a particularly vile form of wrath upon them once the Marines hit Moudros. Every scenario he thought of was worse than the last and - as usual - he was driving himself crazy. He'd never get to sleep, not now!

"Hopefully it will work."

"Of course it'll work," Zuyev said. "We have enough RPGs to make it work. The RPG-2 can penetrate one hundred and eighty millimeters of steel armor. An M48 has precisely one hundred and twenty millimeters at its thickest point. An M41 and an M75 have considerably lower. You know what our rocket-propelled grenades do to them?"

"I know Zuyev," he had seen it first hand, watched as the Layartebian paratroopers burned inside of their APC, watched as the rear ramp lowered and two men struggled to get out, human torches, dying in pain on the ground behind the armored personnel carrier. "I am not quite as comfortable with it as you are but I know what effect it will have."

"Then you'll understand why our enemy will not wish to step foot into Moudros until we say they can."

"I hope you're right Zuyev," Vasilis said, finishing his tea before he patted his friend on the shoulder, stood up, and left the tent, heading back to his pacing. Now this could weigh on his mind, keeping him awake for even longer.

---

• |- 28 -| •

[Layarteb]

April 16, 1958 - 15:30 hrs [UTC-5]
Layarteb City, New York
Fortress of Comhghall
(40° 41' 28" N, 74° 0' 58" W)

Sadly for Vasilis, Zuyev was dead wrong. The Layartebian Army secured both Varos and Repanidi by April 13 and then moved onto Kontopouli on April 15. That battle was still underway. The Marines, on the other hand, moved past Lychna and Romano on April 13 right into Moudros and Roussopouli the next day. However, all of Zuyev's plans failed. The Marines took the long way around and attacked Moudros from the flanks, neutralizing most of the ambush teams before they could even fire off a shot. Casualties in most of the battles in Eastern Lemnos had thus far been light, at least for MF-MA forces. The aggressive push was simply too much for the rebel defenders and they were now in a sort of mass panic. Kaminia, the next target for the Marines, would be a blink of an eye as rebel forces rapidly retreated from the township en masse.

In the Fortress of Comhghall, President Baltz and his senior advisors, including the Secretary of Defense, were all sitting down to a situation update when the news came that the Marines were successful in Moudros and Roussopouli. Whereas on Agios Efstratios the loss of the town was being mourned hard, in Layarteb City it was a cause for quiet celebration. "Secretary I must admit your department is outdoing itself in this campaign so far. It was a difficult journey in Western Lemnos but it appears that Eastern Lemnos will put up only token resistance, at best."

"Mister President thank you," the Secretary of Defense began, "but I don't want to hastily celebrate yet. There is a lot of land left to conquer on Eastern Lemnos and we still have plenty of townships between Moudros and Roussopouli and the southeastern coastline. When our men reach Fishni and Plaka sir, then I'll open up for celebrations."

"Understood Mister Secretary, caution is a virtue in this situation. Forgive me. Shall we get going then? What is the plan as we see fit then?"

"As it stands today sir, the army is duking it out in Kontopouli. The rebels are putting up a particularly ardent fight but they're surrounded. It's only a matter of time before we unseat them from the city. We're moving cautiously for fear of suffering too many casualties. Once we defeat them in Kontopouli, we'll move north to secure Panagia and Pláka. There's not much between Pláka and the northeastern coastline. Wary that the rebels might try some sort of rescue operation, we're going to have the navy pulled in close as we reach the final days of this phase.

"The Marines, who have just won victory in Moudros and Roussopouli, are moving onto Kaminia tomorrow morning, striking just before dawn. Hirgizstanian special forces, operating in advance for reconnaissance purposes, has already observed several platoons of rebel troops fleeing the city. We presume a minimal fight. Marines are moving in two lines southward. The columns to the west won't advance past Kaminia for fear of splitting our lines. Ultimately, they will provide flank security as the eastern group moves onto Agios Sofia. After that is conquered, both groups will strike Skandali and Fisini, respectively. From that point on sir, Lemnos is in our hands."

"What about mop up operations for small villages and rebels whom have escaped our main thrust?"

"That will be Phase II sir. We're going to regroup, resupply, and reinforce our main units while the Lemnosian military will conduct the mop up operations, under our supervision, throughout Lemnos. We'll mainly focus for Phase II will be reconnaissance. Our navy is going to push throughout the Aegean and thwart any resupply from the Soviets. We've been somewhat successful but we believe they're using diesel-electric submarines to resupply the island and these submarines, capable of evading our ASW nets, are delivering much needed supplies to Agios Efstratios. The Eurasians will be on board to help us stop any unauthorized shipping from exiting the Dardanelles.

"Phase II won't involve much in the way of ground forces. We'll deploy some special forces in limited numbers and that is it. Our main mission is to bomb the arms caches and observation posts we know about and we'll do so via air strike. Our real goal in Phase II will be to starve them out in Agios Efstratios so that when the time comes to unseat them, in Phase III, they'll be decimated before we ever get there."

"How long will that take?"

"Mister President we are banking on three months and no less. We do not want to commit too early lest we suffer losses we aren't prepared to suffer."

"Very well then, how long until Phase I is concluded?"

"Thirty days, at most. The resistance we're seeing on Eastern Lemnos is fierce but they're under the assumption that we're still having logistical problems. We aren't sir."

The meeting concluded shortly thereafter and true to his prediction, the Marines hit Kaminia the next morning and rolled through the city in under eight hours, finding only a handful of rebel fighters brave enough to square off against them.

---

• |- 29 -| •

[Layarteb]

April 18, 1958 - 06:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Aegean Sea
7 nautical miles northeast of Agios Efstratios
(39° 35' 57" N, 25° 11' 32" E)

"I hear it Captain, I hear it!" Whispered the young but excited sonar technician as he held the headphones tight to his ears, "She's moving very slowly but she's moving." He added, referring to a faint, submerged contact that he'd been ordered to find. His role was part of a wider operation by the Layartebian Navy that had been a month in the making. Over the past month, the Layartebian Navy had been trying to track and follow a number of Soviet submarines running around the Aegean Sea on two types of missions, reconnaissance and resupply. Despite the thick net that the MF-MA forces had laid throughout the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, Soviet submarines still managed to evade anti-submarine patrols, make it into the Aegean, and conduct operations.

The majority of the submarines operating were the numerous Whiskey class submarines but there were a couple of new, capable, and elusive Foxtrot class submarines and Zulu class submarines moving about as well. All diesel-electric, they were louder than a motorcycle in a tunnel on diesel power but on electric, they were smooth and quiet. Still, the Layartebian destroyers could pick them out easy enough and they usually did when they snorkeled because they just didn't have the endurance needed to make the full journey on electric power only. However, there were a few that were especially elusive and those ran not reconnaissance missions but rather resupply missions, the more important of the two. Submarines running reconnaissance were under orders to shadow Layartebian ships and to draw resources, thus to their captains it didn't matter if they had ASW destroyers and planes pinging them with active sonar. They did this to draw resources away from hunting resupply missions.

Every captain running a resupply mission was indebted to these men and that bore especially true for Captain 2nd Rank Rodion Belov, who had just made his second successful resupply drop on Agios Efstratios. His submarine was B-73 and he'd made a resupply drop in late February, sneaking out of the Aegean and back into the Black Sea just as quietly as he'd slipped into the Aegean. Now, for his second mission, he'd done another commendable job sneaking into the Aegean but getting out was tricky. He'd gotten to Agios Efstratios and under the cover of a moonless night in Girna Bay, offloaded the supplies meant for the Lemnosian rebels. Soviet command had already resigned itself to losing the battle on Lemnos and it knew that the Lemnosian soldiers on Agios Efstratios would not hold out for very long by themselves but they were committed to harming the MF-MA forces as best as they could. Thus, they were forced to continue to resupply them and do so regularly.

Belov thought that this crossing was especially hairy. On two occasions, he'd had to bottom his boat in order to escape a crossing destroyer and an anti-submarine plane dropping sonobuoys. Thankfully, the buoys deployed had limited range and limited battery life. They were made more to annoy submarines than it seemed to be to detect them, or at least that was what Belov and his fellow captains believed. Now, skirting their way back to the Dardanelles, Belov had no idea that despite it having been a moonless night, his presence had been detected. A Layartebian Tang-class submarine was operating just a few nautical miles off of the western coastline of Agios Efstratios and at the time, it had been operating near the surface, moving quietly under electric power. When Belov's B-73 moved into Girna Bay, echoes reflecting off of the shallow bay and the calm seas brought faint echoes and transients back to the Tang-class submarine where the submarine's captain raised his periscope slightly and in the darkness of the moonless night, watched the silhouette of Belov's submarine against the terrain of Agios Efstratios.

Belov, already having moved through this route once, stuck to his normal return home. He kept his submarine close to the bottom of the Aegean, made eight knots, skirting back around the island's southern teardrop, and up along its eastern shore before he moved into deeper water northeast of Roumpos, a small rock formation north of the island. Since then, he'd been moving just as quietly, heading away from the island. He had another fifty-four nautical miles to go before he reached the Dardanelles and then began that hairy transit; although, he was mostly safe at that point. All he had to do was get back to the Black Sea, where he could move peacefully and without worry.

Belov's sonar crew were good but they weren't good enough to have tracked the Tang-class submarine, which had remained far enough away and behind the Zulu to avoid detection. The Tang-class submarine had given multiple updates to command as well, which gave the Layartebian Navy the course, heading, depth, speed, and location of the submarine. That information got back to a Dealey-class destroyer escort operating on anti-submarine picket around Agios Efstratios. The B-73 had evaded them on the way in but it would not evade them on the way out for the Dealey-class destroyer had moved into position and it was now sitting on the Aegean's surface without its engines running. Quietly sitting there, its sonar crew listened to the undersea noises while men elsewhere in the ship prepared to activate its weapons.

"Good work," the ship's captain, CAPT Michael Backlund said as he stood behind the sonar man. He picked up the internal phone next to the bulkhead and pushed the button for the bridge. "XO, we've got the contact two thousand yards astern making eight knots. She's close to the bottom but she's going to pass two hundred yards to our starboard. Get everyone ready."

"Aye Captain," came the response and the call was cut. Over the next few minutes, while the B-73 approached, the destroyer remained silent and then, all at once, its screws began to turn, and its klaxons began to blare. Underwater, the crew of the B-73 heard everything and the sonar men inside of the submarine's sonar compartment immediately knew that they'd been detected. Belov had several decisions to make. He could try to make a run for it, which was useless considering the speed of a destroyer escort, he could bottom the boat and be a sitting duck, or he could fire at the ship. His orders didn't allow for the third option except in the most extreme of circumstances and his political officer had to consent. Doubting that he would, he instead opted to go for a speed run.

Coming from a stop, the Dealey-class took some time to get up to the speed needed to chase down and get past the B-73 but the ship had a nine-knot advantage. When the B-73 was within range, the Dealey-class began to deploy practice depth charges because her orders were to force the submarine to the surface. It didn't take long for Belov to get the hint, the destroyer could destroy him with little effort and the blood of his sailors would be on his hands, not that he would survive, they would all die. The harrowing ordeal wore quickly on his strained and tired crew and five minutes after the Dealey-class had caught up with him, he ordered the surfacing of the boat, against the wishes and orders of his political officer who, until he'd been restrained, threatened to take command and execute the captain for defying Kiev's orders.

It was April 18 and the Battle of Eastern Lemnos was tipping fully into the hands of MF-MA forces. Kaminia had fallen, Kontopouli would fall soon, Agios Sofia was the next target, and the Lemnosian rebels were down to their last men, retreating from the oncoming Layartebian paratroopers and Marines. In Western Lemnos, speeds were being conducted by the Layartebian Army and by the Lemnosian Army and while there weren't many rebels left, those who were found themselves with an increasingly tightening net wrapped around them. Surrender might not have been an option but neither was suicide. The capture of B-73 and her crew, all of whom were treated cordially but as the prisoners they were, would be a major blow to Kiev. The Soviet leadership would demand that the crew be released, that they had been doing nothing wrong, that they had been in international waters, and that they had not brought weapons to Agios Efstratios whatsoever.

Even with the evidence presented, Kiev would not back down and neither would MF-MA leadership. The demand was simple. The crew, and the submarine, would be returned to Kiev on the condition that any and all support for the Lemnosian rebels be cut. It was that simple, "Abandon the Lemnosians and have your men and equipment back." Kiev mulled it over but they wouldn't budge. The Politburo knew that the war was lost but they still wanted their proxies to do some harm to the MF-MA forces and they still wanted to resist the spread of their enemies into the Aegean Sea, not that it mattered much. Those making the decisions now were more driven by emotion than by the coldness of logic and reason.

---

• |- 30 -| •

[Layarteb]

April 21, 1958 - 07:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Skandali, Lemnos
Battalion CP
(39° 48' 34" N, 25° 19' 47" E)

"Lieutenant Colonel! Lieutenant Colonel!" Came the voice of a runner as LTC Williams turned around and acknowledging the approaching runner. "As ordered, we have the town surrounded sir."

"Good, let's find out if these sons of bitches are ready to surrender yet," LTC Williams said as he walked into the radio tent and picked up the microphone. "Cowboy Actual, it's Renegade Actual, what say they?"

"They're going to fight it out sir."

"Civvies?"

"Hard to tell sir, there was a big exodus about three hours ago, we watched them head off to Fisini but there's no telling if there are any left."

"How dug in are they?"

"From the looks of it sir they've pretty much turned the place into a death trap. We've been looking at potential ambush spots everywhere. It's a small place and there's a lot of them in there. We could wait them our sir."

"Command doesn't want to wait until they get so hungry they're about to eat one another. They want them out of there ASAP."

"Well sir there's only two options then," the radio traffic back and forth was amusing to the men around the radio tent. Unfortunately, it was an open channel so it was entirely possible that the enemy was listening, which was what LTC Williams was banking on when he decided to have the conversation this way, instead of walking five hundred meters to where Alpha Company's CO was. "We could assault the town or we could lay down so much artillery there won't be a town left."

"We can use fires support from the navy, they've got a battleship just over the horizon. Let's pull back and saturate the place."

"Roger that sir, ETA?"

"Let's give them two hours."

"Roger that sir," with that, Alpha Company began to withdraw its armor and infantry back. They were arrayed around the town's northern sector and as they pulled back, they widened their lines to cover more ground. Bravo Company, holding the southeast and Charlie Company, holding the west, pulled back as well. There would be a near five hundred meter cordon around Skandali; and with that, LTC Williams began to get in touch with command for heavy fires support. There wasn't a battleship in the Aegean but there were destroyers with five-inch guns and he had plenty of artillery at his disposal back at a fire support base west of Kaminia. If the enemy didn't surrender, and he hoped they would, he would saturate the town with so much ordinance that it would hardly resemble a town when the dust and smoke settled. He'd done well and now the enemy was backed into a corner. They couldn't retreat any further and no one was going to come and save them. It was either fight to the last man or surrender and since they weren't going to surrender, fighting to the last man was how LTC Williams expected them to go. He didn't need that kind of ferocity in an enemy so he would neutralize them as best as he could and to the limit that he was allowed.

Approximately an hour and a half later, LTC Williams got back on the radio. "Kodiak Actual, Kodiak Actual, this is Renegade Actual, have for you fire mission echo-bravo-four-four-two. Do you copy?"

"Roger that sir, we copy, we have fire mission echo-bravo-four-four-two." Kodiak was CPT Timothy Lang, the commanding officer of Charlie Company; and because of his position on the elevated terrain to the west of Skandali, he would be calling in the fire mission. He handed the microphone over to his artillery spotter and with a smile, patted him on the back. "Make me proud son."

"Aye sir!" The artillery spotter, a corporal, walked over to the edge of the mountain and lay down on the ground with the radioman by his side. He spread out a map on the ground in front of him, looked through a pair of binoculars, and called in the first coordinates. This was just spotting fire but it would make a major racket. The first round screamed in like a freight train, detonating long with a puff of smoke. This wasn't high explosive ordinance but rather white smoke for target marking. He gave adjustments and they fired again, halving the distance between their first shot and the town. He gave adjustments and watched as the third shell slammed right onto the edge of town and began to puff smoke. "All right Echo-Bravo-Four-Four-Two you hit the edge of town. Adjust in two hundred, left two hundred, and right one fifty and that is your grid."

"Understood Kodiak, we'll fire one more dead center and began getting the shells ready." With a boom, the round hit the center of town and began to puff smoke. That was it, the artillery was sighted and once the command was given, the light artillery battalion would offload as much high-explosive shells as was required. There were twenty-four M2A1 105-millimeter howitzers at FSB Kaminia, which was quite a bit of firepower. The navy destroyer, still operating out in the Aegean had six 5-inch guns that could be brought to bear and while she was moving into position, the young corporal was hesitant to use them for fear of overshooting and hitting friendly forces.

Fortunately, none of this would be necessary. The smoke shots unnerved the Lemnosian rebels in Skandali so much that they began to emerge from their hiding spots, rifles in the air, holding white flags. The PSYOPS tactic had worked and it had been helped, in no part, by the lack of support from home base. Later on, signals intelligence would reveal that radio calls to Agios Efstratios had gone unanswered. They were certainly heard but the commanders on that island, afraid for their own skin, had opted to ignore their beleaguered comrades, a difficult decision, or so it would be made to seem. Perhaps things would have been different had Zuyev and Vasilis been contacted but they were inspecting ambush points on the island and were thus out of range. In the end, the surrender at Skandali ended the Marine's run on Lemnos while the army, still duking it out at Kontopouli some thirteen and a half klicks to the north, had plenty of terrain to cover until they got to the northeastern point past Plaka.

---

• |- 31 -| •

[Layarteb]

April 25, 1958 - 01:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Kallithea, Lemnos
Soviet GRU Observation Post
(39° 54' 14" N, 25° 12' 5" E)

"Датчик дождя, все это датчик дождя ... Меня тошнит." [Rain, all of this rain…I am sick of it.] Said Igor as he huddled underneath a thick, wool blanket. The small shack that he and his three GRU companions occupied had no heat save for a kerosene lamp and that wasn't to be used at night. "В дождливую погоду еще вчера." [It's been raining since yesterday.]

"И она будет дождь завтра. И на следующий день. И на следующий день после этого. Он не будет остановить дождь." [And it will rain tomorrow too. And the next day. And the day after that. It will not stop raining.] Added Nikita with a scoff. "Теперь достаточно об этом говорят. Я больных слушания. Быть тихой Игорь!" [Now enough talking about it. I'm sick of hearing it. Be quiet Igor!] Tensions rose as the four men, overtaken by cabin fever and the routing that the Lemnosian rebels were receiving, grew sick of one another's company and each other's quirks and ticks.

"Будет как вы замолчите!" [Will both of you shut up!] Shouted Malik, "Может это не просто? Это после полуночи, а мы все "холодной, мы все устали, и мы все больные этого конфликта. В Lemnosians, мужественных но outmatched. Нашего времени здесь является ограниченным." [Can a man not get some rest? It's after midnight and we are all cold, we are all tired, and we're all sick of this conflict. The Lemnosians are brave but outmatched. Our time here is limited.] Malik was the most fed up with everyone's bickering while Blasius opted not to contribute to it and instead buried his nose in his novels, three of which made the trip with him, and his poetry, of which he'd already filled a notebook and was working on a second.

It had been raining since the day before and based on the weather forecasts, it wasn't going to stop raining until at least May 5. It wasn't a downpour but the wetness of the air made for a particularly displeasing condition. Of those things, the rain also muffled the footsteps of anyone walking around on Hill 76 and there were indeed men walking around on the hill. Unbeknownst to the Soviets, their transmissions had been detected early on and it had taken the better part of the month to triangulate their position. Now that they had their fix, the North Germanians were closing in on them, a step at a time, quietly as they'd been trained to do.

All thirty-one men of a Jäger Platoon were on the hill on this particular morning, having walking from the airport perimeter, using the weather to their advantage. The shack had been sighted during the day, when visibility permitted but now that it was night, the men moved under the cover of both darkness and weather without hindrance. They'd scaled the hillside from the eastern slope, moving up the muddy, vegetation-less dirt. When they reached the top, the squads fanned out with their two machine guns aimed at the shack from diagonal points. The specialty squad moved around the perimeter to set up their position against the shack's face, which left the three 5-man assault squads to move up to the shack and prepare their assault. One squad would breach the door while the other two were on hand for backup. In rehearsing the assault, the men of the breaching squad had wanted to use a smoke grenade to flush out the occupants of the shack but fearful that it would ignite papers or equipment and burn down all of the intelligence they hoped to collect, they opted instead for a grenade-less entry.

Inside, the four men were trying their best to sleep. The cots were far from comfortable, the air was cold, and they were in sour spirits. Igor and Nikita continued to bicker with Malik occasionally shouting at them to shut up while Blasius slept soundly. It was in the midst of such a three-way spat that the Jäger commandos breached through the front door of the shack with a sledgehammer. The door practically tore itself off of its hinges as the first men entered; their submachine guns aimed right at the four bodies awake, stunned, and defenseless on their cots. Radio equipment behind them stood undestroyed as well as their codebooks and their reports. It was indeed a treasure trove and for Oberst Schulze, a major victory for his Germanian brothers who still looked at the Layartebians as animals. Within minutes of the shack being declared safe and secure, Oberst Schulze's driver pulled his vehicle up to the front of the shack and he climbed out, angered that his boots had gotten muddy on the short walk into the house. Inside, the four Soviet GRU soldiers were restrained and sitting on the ground against an exterior wall, wet and cold for the ceiling was leaking over them.

"Now this must be embarrassing," he said in accented English as he taunted the Soviets. "Caught with all of your gear intact. You're very good you four," he said, paying them a compliment. "It took us quite some time to lock onto your position. I will admit that my resources were scarce compared to what I normally have but alas, you four are very good. Kiev would be proud of you. Have you anything to say?" Glowering at him, the four Soviets said nothing, they merely sat there, wet, cold, and uncomfortable. "No matter, we'll be having a conversation soon enough." With a sharp order, the four Soviets were led out and roughly manhandled into the back of a covered truck that had pulled up just after Oberst Schulze had. He surveyed the scene and hailed it as a victory for him and his men, not for the MF-MA coalition.

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April 29, 1958 - 10:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Kortisonas, Lemnos
Battalion CP
(39° 58' 31" N, 25° 23' 45" E)

LTC Cole cracked his knuckles as he stepped outside of the house his battalion had commandeered for its CP. In fact, all of Kortisonas, a hamlet just south of Panagia, had become home to LTC Cole's paratrooper battalion. Unlike the Lemnosians that the Marines faced, those who had occupied the northeastern arm of Lemnos were not so willing to surrender. Instead, they had turned their towns into death traps. Kontopouli had taken eight days from April 15 to April 23 to secure and since April 24, he and his men had been situated just outside of Panagia. His battalion was leading the charge up the northeastern arm of the country while other men had flanked the ridge to Panagia's southwest and west to capture a small settlement overlooking a nice cove and a few other small hamlets. They faced no resistance, the Lemnosians focused instead on defending Plaka and Panagia.

Plaka was it, the end of the line for the paratroopers and for the Lemnosian rebels on the main island. Agios Efstratios was another story altogether; but here on Lemnos, this was it. The Layartebian paratroopers were coming on hard and fast and the Marines had already secured the southeastern arm. What had begun nearly two months over for the fighters on the main island was drawing to a bloody and sad end. Casualties were high for the Lemnosian fighters; and of the original three thousand that had been placed on Lemnos, barely three hundred remained between Panagia and Plaka. Most had been killed and plenty had been captured. Reinforcements had come here and there and a thousand men had been landed on eastern Lemnos after Myrina fell on April 8, leaving approximately two thousand on Agios Efstratios. For MF-MA forces, casualties weren't high but they certainly were not low.

LTC Cole had lost plenty of good men and he hated the prospect of writing those letters home but such as the charge of a battalion CO. In the distance, the rolling waves of gunfire echoed across Kortisonas on this rainy, miserable Tuesday morning. The scene at Kortisonas was ordered chaos. Stretchers baring the wounded were being shuttled down the main road and convoys of trucks carrying ammunition were shuttling the other way. The front was a klick in the other direction, towards Panagia, where Layartebian paratroopers were finding it difficult to break through without running into an ambush. The Lemnosians had the place well defended but ammunition was running scarce for them. To compensate, they hid mostly and set up ambushes designed to stop and re-route the paratroopers. The tactic was effective and the paratroopers had covered no ground past this line, one klick north of their battalion CP.

"Jeffries," LTC Cole said to his battalion's G-5, "what is it that is preventing us from encircling this city and just saturating it with firepower, like the Marines were going to do to Skandali?"

"It was all a bluff by the Marines and it was good that they hadn't, there were a hundred civvies there. There's no telling how many are in Panagia. We have to do this the slow way sir."

"It's too slow. We're losing too many men."

"Yes sir we have a lot of wounded. The Lemnosians are doing an effective job with ambush tactics. They attack quickly with only a burst of firepower."

"They're running low on ammo, aren't they?"

"So it would seem sir."

"Well they need to run out already! This is the only road to Plaka and I'll be damned if I hand that victory over to someone else. Find me a way through this town tonight!"

"Yes sir." The G-5 departed with a quickness to his step while LTC Cole walked over to a smaller house that had been commandeered by the G-2 or intelligence section.

Inside, he found the men hard at work covering dispatches and looking at a very detailed and decorated map of the island. Captain Justin Coots stood over the map and hadn't even noticed that LTC Cole had entered until the man cleared his throat, "Sir!" CPT Coots snapped to, "I didn't know you were here sir."

"That's fine Coots, what do you have?"

"Recon from Plaka, which shows about one hundred and fifty or so men inside of the town, about half of what was here when we started this siege."

"What are we doing about Panagia?"

"There isn't much to do sir. The Lemnosians are working us pretty good but they have no communication with Agios Efstratios, we've jammed their radio channels. We've seen a few runners moving back and forth on the road but there's a sniper team overlooking it now. We've put a two-man team in a small hut about eight hundred and fifty meters before Plaka. They've already reported nine kills sir."

"Do they have any backup?"

"There's a platoon about two hundred meters behind them in a grove."

"Very well Coots, good job. Then how long until we break through Panagia? How long until these guys run out of ammo?"

"Could be days sir, if we take other captured cities for example. They have no shortage of ammunition and weapons, the Soviets have seen to that prospect sir."

"Days! We're not going to suffer this for a few more days."

"Unless we saturate the town with artillery sir we don't have an option. We can't go in with armor because they've already put two APCs out of commission with RPGs and our armor isn't going to be precise enough to alleviate the worry of civilian casualties."

"How many civilians are we talking about Coots? Fifty? A hundred?"

"Approximately three hundred or more sir."

"Shit!" LTC Cole cursed. That was too high a number to justify anything. "Let me know if you learn anything new Coots, I want to get through this town immediately, if not sooner!"

---

• |- 32 -| •

[Layarteb]

May 5, 1958 - 15:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Panagia, Lemnos
Prisoner Collection Point
(39° 58' 54" N, 25° 24' 15" E)

LTC Cole walked into the door, momentarily blotting out the massive beam of sunlight shining into the otherwise dim room. The paratroopers had taken over a squat, concrete structure on the northwestern face of the town and they were using it as a collection point for rebel POWs who didn't need medical treatment. The Battle of Panagia was over and the town bore the scars of battle. There were few than forty POWs and over half of them required medical treatment. The twelve corralled and restrained here were those twelve who managed to be captured without taking a bullet or grenade shrapnel serious enough to wound them badly. Most of them were wounded but only superficially so. "This is an impressive bunch," he said eyeing the angry and hateful prisoners. He turned to a young specialist standing guard over them, "Any of them speak English?"

"They're all playing dumb sir."

"That's no matter, they speak English. The North Germanians will have a field day with them," he smiled. The fact that the North Germanians were in charge of prisoner interrogations annoyed LTC Cole but in this instance, he hoped the mention of it would get enough to squeal in such a way that he could delay their handover. As it stood, the North Germanians were already on the way to pick up the prisoners. "I figure they'll be here in ten or fifteen minutes. They get pretty eager in situations like this."

"Yes sir," the specialist answered. LTC Cole took a walk around the group of them, looking from face to face, looking for any sign of weakness. To their credit, the Lemnosian rebels were stoic and showing a great deal amount of courage and strength in the face of capture, interrogation, and certainly torture.

"Well if any of them wants to talk in the next few minutes and be saved the possibility of handover, let me know Specialist, I'll be outside." With that, he left, hoping the mind game would work. It didn't, the Lemnosians thought he was bluffing and the sad part of it, he wasn't. The North Germanian truck pulled up fifteen minutes later and the prisoners were loaded onto it and sent back to the airport, where the North Germanians were having a field day with interrogations. Torture was used, in most cases just to scare the others into talking, in other cases because they believed it would work.

Outside in Panagia, LTC Cole surveyed the damage. His lead company had already moved up the road twenty-five hundred meters up the road and were holding just before the village of Pláka, the last village still occupied by the Lemnosian rebels, where they would make their true, final stand on Lemnos but unlike the group that occupied the southeastern arm of the country, who'd already surrendered en masse to the marines, these rebels had no intentions of surrendering. They wanted to go out fighting, to the last man if it was required, and they had plenty of civilians around them to ensure that the paratroopers had a tougher time of it than they'd wanted.

Surveying the damage to the town, LTC Cole was taking it all in when CPT Coots came up to and stood alongside him, "Sir, we're going to have some company for Pláka."

"Who?"

"Green Berets sir, there's an A-Team on the way up now," CPT Coots answered. "It looks like the guys who were at Atsiki sir."

"Those guys? They took a beating down there and they still want more?"

"Yes sir it would appear. I'm guessing they drew the short straw sir. The other team is working their way to Agios Efstratios."

"Short straw it is," LTC Cole answered. "Well when they get here make sure the team's CO makes his way to where I am. I don't want them going off alone on this one. These guys in Pláka aren't going to go down without a very major and very brutal fight. We all have to work as a team on this and if they're along for the ride I want to make sure they're along for our ride, not theirs."

"Yes sir," CPT Coots said before departing and heading back to Kortisonas. He and his section were packing up for a move to the new battalion CP, which would be located in a small hamlet located half of the distance between Panagia and Pláka.

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May 5, 1958 - 17:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Unnamed Hamlet, Lemnos
Battalion CP
(39° 59' 38" N, 25° 24' 56" E)

LTC Cole had found his way to the new battalion CP. It wasn't quite up and running yet but equipment was being moved up quickly. When two trucks pulled up and parked, LTC Cole didn't take any sort of special interest in them until one of the passengers, a man with the walk of an officer walked up to him and said calmly, "Lieutenant Colonel, I'm Captain Dye with Team One-Oh-Two. Your G-2 told us where we might find you."

"You're the special forces team we've been told will be coming along?"

"Yes sir, my men are in those two trucks."

"How many are you Captain?"

"Twelve with me sir," CPT Dye answered. Both men had been in battle long enough that no one resented the other but each was feeling out the other for very purposeful reasons. "We're going to be attached with your battalion for the duration of the battle."

"That's what I'm told Captain but I want to make sure you're here to play on our team and not your own. I know how independent your teams are but we can't have that here. These rebels are hardened and they know they're it, the last stand."

"Yes sir I know that as well," both men began walking. "My team's best asset is as a forward reconnaissance asset or to help open a rear flank on these guys. Command is worried that there is some grand breakout escape plan. The navy's been pulled in very close to the shore and it's been suggested that we set up as a rear guard force to prevent such a breakout. Personally I think that would be a waste of our talents sir."

"As do I," LTC Cole answered. "What can you offer me for reconnaissance?"

"My team can split into two maneuver units. My element will flank to the west of the village and the other will flank to the east of the village. We'll move about four hundred meters away from the village and set up four OPs with three men each. We'll be able to watch their flanks."

"There are some outlying structures about two hundred and fifty meters west of the village; can your men clear those? It's a lot closer than four hundred meters but if we can be sure that they are funneled into the village it'll make my job easier."

"Consider it done, we'll leave after dusk. When are your forces going to be ready to launch on the village?"

"Oh five hundred Captain."

"Good, that gives me plenty of time."

"Best of luck Captain," they shook hands and CPT Dye went to his men to give them the briefing.

---

• |- 33 -| •

[Layarteb]

May 15, 1958 - 10:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Pláka, Lemnos
Battalion CP
(39° 59' 38" N, 25° 24' 56" E)

Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) Bob Welch looked suspiciously at the pylons of his A-4B Skyhawk. "You know," he said talking to the crew chief next to him. He spat a piece of gum out, arcing it out of the ship's open elevator port and into the Aegean Sea. "They look like nonsense to me."

"That there sir is the finest weapon our boys back home have made."

"I've read everything about them but I still don't trust the things. Give me irons and let me do my job the right way. This nonsense, I have to control it the whole way in, it's not natural."

"Where'd they get the name?"

"Bullpup, it makes no sense. What's a 'Bullpup' anyway?" The two men were having a go at the navy's latest - not even in service yet - weapon, the soon to be AGM-12B Bullpup A missile, a radio controlled missile that mounted a 250 pound warhead and had a range of seven miles. It promised pinpoint accuracy and the ability to reduce strikes and command had told LCDR Welch that for any strike order he received, they'd be using the Bullpup. Of course, Welch was a traditional ground-attack jockey. He didn't believe in anything that left an aircraft except bullets, rockets, and bombs. Missiles were a kind of "voodoo" to Welch. He never trusted that they wouldn't fail and screw up his plane in the process.

For good measure, he consigned himself - and only himself - to that fate. He'd be going over Lemnos today to support the army - he hated the army - taking the town of Pláka, which they had yet to do, even after nearly five days sieging it. He'd be taking three planes with him; and on each of those planes, he had ordered the crew chiefs to mount "good old iron bombs" as he called them. Each plane carried a pair of 1,000-pound Mark 83s and a pair of 500-pound Mark 82s. All he had were a pair of Bullpup missiles. "I just don't trust them," LCDR Welch said once more before patting his crew chief on the shoulder and walking off to give the briefing.

Thirty minutes later, he and his A-4B Skyhawk were barreling down the carrier's deck and on the way to the target. It had been called in the night before by a special forces team in contact with troops. They'd located the enemy HQ and they were unable to take it. It had to be felled and command thought it was the perfect opportunity to give the Bullpup, still in the design and prototype phase, a good "real world" test, which would eventually become standard practice for the Layartebian military. Around 10:00 hours, LCDR Welch and his flight rolled in over Pláka. The ground battle below was heated. The Layartebian paratroopers had cornered their Lemnosian foes into a small cordon in the northeastern part of town but they were unable to mount the needed push to dislodge them - rather, they didn't want to take the casualties required from the only tactic that would work, a full on rush. The Green Berets, who'd called in the air strike, had moved one 6-man team around the town and to its east where, from an overlook point, they identified the HQ.

Now, ten minutes out from Pláka, LCDR Welch was listening to the radio and hearing the ongoing battle. Deciding that now was as good a time as any, he keyed up the microphone on a separate channel, "Python 3-1, this is Scooter 2-1, we're inbound and available for tasking."

"Scooter 2-1, roger that, glad you boys could make it this morning. We were told you'd be TOT three hours ago?" Replied the Green Beret's radioman.

"Weather," was the response from LCDR Welch but that wasn't the right reason. The right reason was that LCDR Welch wasn't going to use these new missiles in anything but the most perfect of conditions. They were still prototypes. "We're going to need that target marked you know."

"Roger that we've got something for it. What's your ETA?"

"Nine mikes."

"All right contact me again at two mikes."

"Roger that Python 3-1." On the ground, one of the Green Berets had just affixed a rifle grenade to his M1 Garand and he was ready to send it downrange. The grenade would belch out red smoke the moment it impacted and all he had to do was get it close. The rest would be up to the pilot so, as LCDR Welch came in closer, at two mikes, he contacted Python 3-1.

"All right spot the smoke, it'll be red."

"I see the smoke."

"That's your target, friendlies are two-zero-zero meters due east. Make them count." The Green Berets had lied, they were about one hundred meters away but moving to a new position wasn't going to work. They were under fire now that they'd lobbed the smoke grenade into the enemy's HQ.

LCDR Welch brought up the firing panel, went into the quick firing procedure and snapped off both missile. The one on his left wing just fell away, its motor failing to ignite; the one on the right wing at least ignited and flew true. "Missile is away."

"Missile?" The Green Beret said over the radio but he was met with no response. The Bullpup soared towards its target now at Mach 1.8 with LCDR Welch guiding it to the target. The Green Berets weren't looking for it but when the missile exploded, they sure saw it, unfortunately it exploded a mile premature of the target.

"Hold on there, Scooter 2-2 and Scooter 2-3 are going to come down now." LCDR Welch answered, cursing under his breath as the Bullpup exploded prematurely. The launch had jiggered the fuse and it was only dumb luck that it didn't explode on his wing. The other two A-4B Skyhawks screamed in as they dove, dropping their four bombs each, right on the target. Scooter 2-4, flying backup wouldn't be needed thanks to the precision of the A-4's bombing system.

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May 15, 1958 - 10:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Pláka, Lemnos
Battalion CP
(39° 59' 38" N, 25° 24' 56" E)

"Did he say missile?" CPT Dye asked to his shrugging radioman. "Ask him if that's what he said."

"Missile?" SSG Fowler repeated into the microphone but when he received no response he just shrugged again, picked up his carbine and fired a few shots back at the enemy HQ. They had good cover at their position and the Lemnosians were firing more wildly than accurately but the fact of the matter remained, they were under fire.

Looking up to the sky, CPT Dye watched as what looked like a streak - it was hard to tell with all of the gunfire around them - was moving towards the target. But then, premature, it ended in a brilliant orange fireball. "Guess that was the missile," he joked as he let go a spray of fire towards the enemy headquarters. "I hope they have some bombs with them."

"Roger that sir, he just said two more aircraft are coming down now."

"All right everyone cover!" CPT Dye yelled and no sooner than thirty seconds later did a pair of Skyhawks become visible as they dove towards the target. Just before he took cover, CPT Dye watched the first quartet of bombs fall free from the Skyhawk, the pilot making a hard-G pull up after releasing the bombs. The vapor trails coming off of the aircraft left streaks in the sky like the missile had but the result was unmistakable. The ground shook underneath him, the air exploded all around him, and he and his men listening to the whistling zips of bomb fragments flying over their position at supersonic velocity. They were close, too close even but they couldn't move. "That's one!" CPT Dye yelled in the brief interlude between the first quartet of bombs and the second, which exploded right on target and sent more fragments whistling and zipping over their heads.

When all was clear - or as clear as they thought - they came slightly above cover, noting the lack of gunfire. It was difficult to hear anything but gunfire would have been audible, at least at the range they were from the HQ. There was nothing, the only sound being that of falling dirt. Eight bombs - 2,548 pounds of high-explosive - had fallen onto the enemy's HQ and reduced it to a smoldering pile of wreckage. "Scooter 2-1, Python 3-1, delta hotel buddy. That is a shack."

"Roger that Python 3-1, we are RTB. Good hunting."

On the ground, CPT Dye looked at his men, "I don't think I want to be that close again, should we check it out?"

"Not much to check out," answered SSG O'Brien, the team's demolitions man. "I couldn't have done a better job if I had enough Comp-B to ruin the world."

"On me guys," CPT Dye said as he stood up and carefully walked forward, weapon shouldered.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ | ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

May 15, 1958 - 15:00 hrs [UTC-5]
Layarteb City, New York
Fortress of Comhghall
(40° 41' 28" N, 74° 0' 58" W)

"Mister President, we've done it," and that was when the clapping began. President Baltz smiled, truly happy to hear this news from General Pierre. "Roughly four hours ago, our forces secured the last rebel stronghold on Lemnos, the city of Pláka. The siege had been intensive and we took casualties, light though as the battalion commander on the ground did not want to risk too many men."

"He is to be commended General. A high body count would have achieved only a few days' less conflict."

"Yes sir, we will be doing just that. The man I am speaking about is Lieutenant Colonel Sam Cole, a good solider sir. We're already thinking of the Distinguished Service Cross for his leadership throughout the campaign. The same for Lieutenant Colonel Steven Williams who led the marines throughout the initial campaign. Regardless of decorations sir, we are not through with this conflict yet. This was only the first phase and while this lasted 71 days sir, the next phases may last longer."

"All right General, let's get through it then," President Baltz said as those around the table nodded their heads in agreement. President Baltz wasn't stupid, he knew that he couldn't be a micromanager when it came to conflict and it was a lesson his successors would soon forget although, ultimately, when the Emperor rose to the position, he took President Baltz's approach heartily.

"For the next six days we're going to reinforce our positions, conduct post-operation replacement of ammunition, troops, and equipment, and we're going to comb the last parts of Lemnos that were missed, just in case the rebels have any stay-behind teams. We believe they do, that would fit Soviet doctrine. Phase II will begin on Wednesday when the navy begins reconnaissance flights over Agios Efstratios, where the rebel headquarters is located. At the same time, the navy is going to increase its patrols in the Aegean to prevent Soviet ships, especially their submarines, from resupply the island.

"If all goes well, in three months we're going to launch phase three sir."

"Three months General?"

"Our plan is to isolate and virtually starve out the rebels on Agios Efstratios. The island is small but the terrain favors the defenders heavily. They have ammunition caches and they can operate down to the fire team level with mobility that we cannot counter. We have to break their will to fight before we can actually fight them sir. We're going to use special forces soldiers in theater to conduct strikes on targets near the coastline, when we find them, and to provide reconnaissance but we do not want to leave our men there. They are outnumbered and they are unfamiliar with the terrain. We're in this for the long haul sir."

"Do we expect phase three to last a long time?"

"It'll take some time to get that estimate sir. We need to know just how dug-in the rebels are. They'll have observation posts throughout the island and because of its size, we cannot deploy too many men. They'll be bumping into one another and the island is not equipped to logistically support a large force. We have to deploy men in small units only, which means it's going to take more time sir."

"Very well General, if this is the plan, we're all in agreement, then this is the plan. Forgive my impatience, I merely want to be done with this menace sooner rather than later."

"Yes sir, I understand fully."

---

• |- 34 -| •

[Layarteb]

Chapter III
Phase II

May 21, 1958 - 10:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Aerolimenas, Lemnos
Lemnos International Airport
(39° 55' 32" N, 25° 15' 4" E)

Captain Robert Windham sat on the runway at Lemnos International Airport with his engines at idle, the vibration softly reverberating throughout the airframe around him. In the past few days, certain fighters had been moved from their bases around the Aegean Sea and the Turkish coastline to Lemnos IAP to cut down on flight time to Agios Efstratios, the focus of Phase II of Operation MIDNIGHT CYCLONE. CPT Windham's squadron was one of the several though it didn't matter, given the fuel capacity of his aircraft. "Voodoo 2-6, you are cleared for takeoff, good luck," came the call from ATC and with that CPT Windham acknowledged the call and increased his throttles from idle to 85% power, letting his two J57 turbojets spool up evenly. At 85% power, he released the brakes and advanced the throttles to military power after the aircraft was rolling. The roar out of the back of his aircraft echoed over Lemnos and he shot down the runway, increasing his throttles to afterburner after his aircraft had reached 30 knots speed.

Both turbojets propelled the RF-101A Voodoo down the runway. He rotated the nose wheel off of the ground at 155 knots and at 230 knots, the Voodoo leapt off of the ground and climbed into the sky, the landing gear retracting as the fighters zoomed towards the northeast. "Voodoo 2-6 is airborne, turning to mission heading," CPT Windham said into the radio as he leveled off at one thousand feet and banked the still accelerating fighter to the east. He was flying the first aerial reconnaissance mission over Agios Efstratios and he was quite nervous. No one knew just what kind of hardware the rebels had on the island and that worried men like CPT Windham, who fly reconnaissance missions at low level. They of course flew them at high speed too, which would make it difficult for gunners to track them and with the unknown element over Agios Efstratios no one knew if the Soviets had managed to get a few guns onto the island.

"Roger that Voodoo 2-6, let us know of any trouble," came the response from command. "Contact Slayer 3-1 if you get into trouble."

"Ten-four," CPT Windham responded. Slayer 3 flight was a flight of four navy A-1H Skyraiders loaded with unguided rockets, napalm, and iron bombs and they were orbiting just north of Agios Efstratios, itching to release their payloads on targets. CPT Windham was unarmed, not even having the comfort of a gun underneath his cockpit. Normally, the aircraft flew with external drop tanks, three of which could be carried but even those had been omitted from today's flight because it was so short. His only defense against ground threats was his speed and the RF-101A Voodoo had a lot of it, able to accelerate quickly. At altitude, the aircraft could reach Mach 1.85 and it could climb fast enough that no gunner operating a manual gun system could have a snowball's chance in hell of tracking it.

CPT Windham stopped the aircraft from accelerating when it hit 550 mph. He stayed at 1,000 feet AGL and turned now to his run across Agios Efstratios. He was making three runs this morning, the first one overflying the suspected location of the rebel headquarters (based on radio triangulation), the second one was overflying the small settlement on the island's northwestern coastline (and also the suspected HQ), and the third route would take him down the island's eastern coastline. Each route would be less than ten minutes long but they would be made quickly, lasting at most a minute. The island was small and estimates put approximately 3,000 rebels from the Lemnosian Workers Brigade entrenched on it. Of course the leadership of the Lemnosian movement, the Lemnosian Communist Commune was also situated on Lemnos.

CPT Windham started his first run from a point ten miles north of Agios Efstratios. He turned on the cameras and settled onto a heading of 218° and zoomed towards the island. From his altitude, he could cleanly see the entire island and it looked calm and peaceful, the worst way for an enemy stronghold too look. Saying a very short prayer, he passed over the coastline. He had one hand on the stick and another on the throttles. If he saw tracer fire he would push the throttles to afterburner and scream out of there, banking hard to the west to get over open water where he knew he would be safe. He didn't have to worry about surface-to-air missiles so that was a relief but only so much so.

The roar of the Voodoo was not lost on its pilot who knew full well what one screaming overhead at low altitude and 550 mph sounded like. On the ground, as he flew over the island's forested, hilly terrain he knew that the booms of his fighter would echo loudly in the canyon. Overflying the suspected rebel HQ, he looked out of his cockpit canopy to see most of nothing. There were a lot of trees and he was sure that the Lemnosian rebels had plenty of camouflage netting available from their Soviet benefactors. He doubted that he would be able to visually spot anything. His heart pounded in his chest as he made the overflight and then, before he realized it, he was back over the Aegean Sea. "Voodoo 2-6 is clear, run one complete, no contact." He said with some relief as he flew the rest of the way until his next waypoint. He banked to the west now, flying to his next setup point, ten miles northwest of the island. When he was there he turned to a heading of 120° and initiated his next run.

This time he would breach the coastline from the west and cross over the island's single settlement, a village of 270 people. His flight would take him over the rebel headquarters and he was a little less nervous this time. The village rose beneath him and then it was gone as he flew over the island's settlement and then seconds later, the location of the rebel headquarters and then over the island's eastern coastline, again without contact and again without spotting anything significant. "Voodoo 2-6 is clear on run two, still no contact, setting up for run three." He turned to the south and flew for twenty minutes before he came around and headed on a northerly course on a heading of 030° heading along the island's eastern coastline and ultimately Lemnos in the near distance. His run was made without contact and that put him in a very good mood. He still had plenty of fuel to make more but the mission dossier only wanted three runs, in broad daylight, and so he was done. He banked to the west and headed home, landing at Lemnos IAP only a few minutes later, the airport being a mere twenty-five miles north of where he finished his final reconnaissance run.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ | ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

May 21, 1958 - 19:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Aerolimenas, Lemnos
Lemnos International Airport
(39° 55' 32" N, 25° 15' 4" E)

General Rainbolt entered the room and everyone who wasn't standing immediately stood and came to attention. "At ease gentlemen," the general said as he walked over to where the senior officers and enlisted men stood hunched over a special table with a light built into it. "What do you have?"

"This morning's recce run sir," answered LTC Henry Wilson, the senior Layartebian in charge of aerial reconnaissance operations. "It gave us little sir."

"All right, go figure, we expected that the LWB was down there and hidden within the valleys and trees. Give me a summary then."

"Where we anticipated the rebel HQ we see nothing, just trees. If they have a camp there it's well hidden, very well hidden. The village looks as normal as a village could be. We spot no matériel down there either. Along the eastern coastline it looks quiet. We see no dug-in emplacements or encampments."

"All right so just what we expected. I believe someone will owe someone money," GEN Rainbolt joked. "We'll just have to fly more and at irregular times and just hope they mess up somehow; we'll keep the RB-57s flying at high altitude where they cannot be spotted and keep the RF-101s down low. The navy has a squadron of RF-8s that we'll use too and fly those low level as well. Any other suggestions?"

"Have the navy send some destroyers close to the island's coastline. They'll be able to spot things aircraft won't. We need to establish a few points for the commandos to get onto the island and right now nothing looks good."

"All right fine, I'll see if Admiral Coco will cooperate." GEN Rainbolt gave the men a nod and left the room, bringing the assessment to the rest of the operation's general and multinational staff, all of whom were itching for the results, hoping against hope that the reconnaissance flight would have yielded what they needed, despite the grim reality that the Lemnosian rebels weren't some ragtag army of idiots.

---

• |- 35 -| •

[Layarteb]

June 5, 1958 - 07:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Aerolimenas, Lemnos
Lemnos International Airport
(39° 55' 32" N, 25° 15' 4" E)

"All right gentlemen, let's settle down," said General Teitelbaum as he took his seat in the main conference room. The room was packed with every available seat used up by some member of the Multinational Forces - Mike Alpha. Everyone was represented there and everyone was an officer of the rank of major or higher except for one man, a captain, sitting peacefully in the corner of the room. "General Rainbolt is going to brief us on the results of the reconnaissance flights over Agios Efstratios."

"General, gentlemen," GEN Rainbolt began. "All of our flights have revealed nothing. I cannot sugarcoat it to anyone. We have flown low-altitude runs with RF-8A Crusaders and RF-101A Voodoos and medium-altitude flights with RB-57A Canberras. We've come up with next to nothing. Signals tells us that they're down there but we just can't see them from the air."

"Nor can we from the sea," said Admiral Coco. "We've run destroyers and gunboats close in and we've seen nothing too; we personally believe that they have spotters around the island to warn the others when we are making our seaborne runs. Perhaps they have them at the airport too."

"There is no doubt about that but they wouldn't be able to watch the Ranger," GEN Rainbolt affirmed.

"Which brings us to the problem of the morning," GEN Teitelbaum said. "How do we knowingly put our boys on the ground on the island without any intelligence? For that reason, I have asked Captain Chuck Dye, the team leader for Green Beret Team 102. His team will make the initial reconnaissance on Agios Efstratios, paving the way for the Germanian Jäger squads. Captain, if you don't mind?"

"Sir, gentlemen," CPT Dye said as he stood to his feet and walked to the center of the room where all eyes were on him. "Team 102 is ready to go and we've taken the intelligence gleamed from reconnaissance flights and naval passes to identify three potential insertion points, all of which we know to be unoccupied. While we are going to insert into a location that has no cover, we know we will not be exposed due in large part to the terrain.

"Now our primary insertion point is located on the northeastern shore of the island. We're going to come in through the water at night and come ashore on a relatively flat part of the beach. We'll take it upwards to the road and skirt it for our reconnaissance. If that fails we're going to deploy into a small cover on the eastern portion of the island. It will require more time to scale the cliffs to get to the island's higher terrain level. In the event that beach is a no-go we have a single point left, on the western portion of the island's teardrop south. It's a small beach with another stable rise to the road."

"Captain are you confident that these insertion points will be all available tomorrow night?"

"I am Admiral," CPT Dye answered. "If your boys can get us there quietly, we'll insert onto them. Once we're on the island we've got a few days to conduct our initial reconnaissance. I have full confidence we will be able to do so and, should we run into trouble, we'll hunker down and call in the support."

"And support you will have," answered GEN Rainbolt. "We'll have F-105s on standby here and of course all of the aircraft on both the Ranger and the Shangri-La ready to provide support."

"You do understand Captain," GEN Teitelbaum said, "that we cannot tell you anything about this island other than we anticipate a force size in the thousands."

"I'm aware sir and I and my men are still willing to take the mission." Heads nodded around the table and though the briefing continued for another forty-five minutes, during which time the Germanians insisted on putting the Jäger Platoon nearby for extraction assistance - which was ultimately approved - nothing altered the course of the planned events.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ | ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

June 6, 1958 - 23:30 hrs [UTC+2]
Agios Efstratios, Aegean Sea
Insertion Point Alpha
(39° 32' 6" N, 25° 2' 49" E)

In the calm but pitch-black darkness of the night, CPT Dye and his eleven men waded ashore wearing black wetsuits, cradling their weapons and enjoying their first breaths of air. CPT Dye and the five men in his first fire team quickly took a knee and held watch while the second fire team shed their rebreathers and wet gear. When they had finished, they stood guard while the first fire team did their business. The equipment would ultimately be buried in the sand well above the water mark to ensure that nothing dug it back up and revealed their presence on the island. If all went well, in seven days, they would return to this point, retrieve their gear, and swim back out into the sea where a submarine would meet them.

They didn't know it but they'd just completed a vital insertion that would one day become the textbook example for SEALS and other Frogmen units in the militaries of the MF-MA nations. However, as it stood now, they were on a barren and rather desert-like beach on the island's northeastern face and they were exposed to enemy sightlines. Their eyes already having adjusted to the darkness of the night, they wasted little time moving off of the beach on a southwesterly course, rising with the terrain until they crested above the beach and found the dirt road that would serve as their turnpike throughout the island. Using just hand signals, CPT Dye led them down the side of the road, keeping low, constantly searching in every direction. It was nearly nine hundred meters from the start of the road until they reached the safety of the tree lines to the southwest, where they wouldn't be so heavily exposed.

Once there, they stayed low and checked their communications gear. They couldn't do this on the beach, they were too exposed, and in the safety of the trees, they were easily hidden. Everything checked out okay and the sun was still far from rising by the time they were done. CPT Dye pulled out his map and a red flashlight, identified his position, and from there, the two fire teams split up; CPT Dye and his men would travel to the northwest, skirting the northern coastline and identifying possible spotters. His assistant team leader, Master Sergeant James Morris, would take the second fire team along the eastern coastline, scouting for spotters just the same. It would be up to the Jäger personnel from North Germania to work deeper into the island when they deployed next.

---

• |- 36 -| •

[Layarteb]

June 8, 1958 - 06:10 hrs [UTC+2]
Agios Efstratios, Aegean Sea
Northern Agios Efstratios
( 39° 33' 0" N, 25° 0' 39" E)

CPT Chuck Dye didn't know how he and his team had walked into an ambush but now they were fighting for their lives. O'Brien was dead; his body was lying five meters away with a dozen holes in it and Fowler was dying five meters the other way as the team's medic, SGT Bell attempted to get a tourniquet on his leg. A pair of AK rounds had torn through his pelvis and his thigh and he was bleeding out on the ground and time was crucial. Having taken the comms gear from Fowler, CPT Dye was waiting on a response from command, they were in serious trouble and they needed air support to cover an extraction. They also needed a boat there to extract otherwise they were toast. "Air support is inbound; contact Scimitar One-One for support."

"Thanks Lima Charlie, we need to get out of here fast!"

"Understood Charlie Delta, we're working on that now."

CPT Dye switched frequencies as another salvo of gunfire came pouring into his position. His team was spread out over a twenty meter area and while they had concealment and cover, they were in danger of being overrun. Things had been quiet until now and it was catastrophic just how quickly things had gone from eerie to apocalyptic. After insertion he and his team had moved quietly but quickly into the interior part of the island, taking advantage of the night to get into an overwatch position so that they could sleep for the day. They put out watches, slept through morning and the afternoon hours of June 7 and then they were up and moving before sunset. They moved throughout the night and towards the dawn hours, identifying two possible cache locations and a potential coastal observation point. Dawn was approaching and they needed another place to sleep when all of a sudden the world around them erupted with chaos and fury.

Gunfire poured into their position from three locations and RPG-2 rockets streaked overhead, some exploding as they impacted trees and some missing completely. Within the first ninety seconds, O'Brien was dead, Fowler was down, and everyone else was peppered with shrapnel. The Green Berets immediately returned fire, shooting against the muzzle flashes, hearing the clinks of grenades landing near them. In the pre-dawn hours, it was difficult to see and their enemy was overthrowing their grenades and that would help, at least for now. Grenades were thrown back, effectively, and the screams of dying Lemnosian rebels echoed in the trees. CPT Dye immediately called in an extraction and now, five minutes after contact, he was getting some help.

"Scimitar One-One, this is Charlie Delta One-Zero-Two, radio check."

"I hear you loud and clear Charlie Delta, this is Scimitar One-One. What is your position?"

"Difficult to say, we'll need to get smoke into the air for you to find us. What ordinance do you have?"

"We're a two-ship flight of A-4B Skyhawks loaded light. We don't have a lot to give you but we'll give you everything we've got. That's a pair of five hundred pounders and some rockets."

"Willy Pete on those rockets?"

"You got it Charlie Delta."

"We'll need that shit fast! What's your ETA?"

"Two mikes, you'd better get that smoke ready."

"It'll be yellow. We're yellow."

"Roger that, we'll make one pass to spot the smoke and then vector in on the hostiles."

"Thanks Scimitar One-One. It's might dense down here so you aren't going to see much, we'll talk you through it." With that, CPT Dye consolidated his men, got their smoke grenades ready and prepared to throw them. The enemy was close, within fifty meters but he wasn't going to tell anyone that, he needed the Skyhawks to get the Lemnosian rebels on the run, at least long enough for him and his men to break contact and head for the coastline, which was all of six hundred meters away from them. "Brewster," CPT Dye called out, "get a mine into the ground there so we can get the hell out of here fast."

"You got it boss!" Shouted SGT James Brewster, the second demo man on the team. He was hurting bad, his entire back peppered with shrapnel from an RPG-2 blast but he was still fighting and CPT Dye needed him badly. The team had four M16 Anti-Personnel mines with them and they'd already put two of them out for booby traps earlier in their mission. With two left, they would get one onto the ground here to cover their retreat, in case any of the enemy followed. The M16 mine was a copy of the North Germanian S-mine, a terrible weapon nicknamed the "Bouncing Betty." Made infamous throughout warfare, particularly in Morocco, the S-mine, when triggered, rose to a height of 1 meter and detonated, spraying lethal shrapnel - in the form of ball bearings - twenty to one hundred meters away. Everyone within one hundred and forty meters of one was in danger and everyone within twenty meters was likely to die. It was a terrible mine, one that went off the moment you activated its trigger and the M16 was just as unforgiving.

Seconds later, CPT Dye heard the radio announce that the Skyhawks were sixty seconds out, which was his cue to get the smoke grenade going and he did. Yellow smoke puffed around him, obscuring his vision but marking his position. When the Skyhawks screamed overhead a minute later, they called out his position and though he couldn't see them through the thicket of trees, he could hear them. "All right, get ready to move on my mark," CPT Dye ordered his men. Fowler had a tourniquet around his leg and the medic was going to move him personally. Brewster was going to take O'Brien and everyone else was going to have to move on their own accord. "Scimitar One-One, we're on the move now, that yellow smoke is where the enemy is. Come and drop everything you fucking have right on that position. One run, just drop it all."

"Say again Charlie Delta?"

"You heard me Scimitar One-One, drop your ordinance on my position. By the time you get here we won't be here."

"Roger that," with that CPT Dye and four of his men laid down a tremendous salvo of covering fire, including a half dozen grenades, which went off one right after the other in a line across where the enemy had their arc of fighters. Men moved out behind them, falling down the rough terrain as they went into a small ditch and popped back up on the other side. Those who weren't carrying anyone returned fire so that CPT Dye and his line could move back and they did quickly. It was a phased fallback to break contact and it was working when the two A-4B Skyhawks returned less than three minutes later. Of course, CPT Dye and his men didn't get that far away but they'd gotten far enough and with a warning from the pilot, they all hit the ground, covered one another, covered Fowler especially, and rode out the tremendous earthquake of four Mark 82 500-pound bombs detonating within one hundred meters of their position.

Shrapnel tore through the trees and the Skyhawks came back on a second run, unleashing their 2.75-inch rockets and 20-millimeter cannons onto the spot of the forest that had just taken their bombs. Contact was broken and CPT Dye and his men moved quickly now, the eerie silence of the forest having returned. They moved quickly, not wishing to stay and wait for the enemy to catch up to them. More air support was on the way, this time a quartet of A-1 Skyraiders but they would be needed to cover their extraction as the navy raced a pair of small boats to the point that CPT Dye had identified, which was a small strip of beach near their position. The terrain getting down there was rough and it was downhill the whole way. The men moved quickly but they couldn't run on ahead otherwise that would leave SGT Bell and SGT Brewster exposed with Fowler and O'Brien and that wasn't acceptable to the Green Berets.

Coming around the north of the island at flank speed was a navy destroyer and it was armed with three 5-inch guns and four 3-inch guns, enough to wreck the coastline and provide artillery support. Moving at over thirty knots, the ship would have to slow down some to get accurate fire on the coastline but that wasn't a problem. The real problem was getting its tenders out to the coastline as fast as possible and the destroyer wasn't going to get closer than 1.5 nautical miles from the coastline. That left the two tenders, neither of which could make more than 20 knots, with a transit time of some four and a half to five minutes. The Green Berets would be exposed on the beachhead for the entire time, firing upwards against an enemy that had a better position and cover. They opted to plant their last mine right in their pathway and conserve their last remaining grenades in case they were being followed - and they were!

The enemy had taken a big hit from the Skyhawks but they still had enough men to pursue the Green Berets and ten men were moving quickly but stealthily, trying to move on the Green Berets' flanks. They were moving without being spotted and that was to their advantage. Shot to hell, the Green Berets weren't in any shape to keep fighting but they had little choice and as they approached the beachhead, with the tenders yet to launch, the enemy found themselves in an ideal position. Gunfire was exchanged again and within the first sixty seconds, three RPG-2s had been fired. CPT Dye took new shrapnel to his leg, SGT Bell was knocked unconscious, and Fowler's tourniquet came loose. It was a doomsday scenario and as the Green Berets returned fire, they used their last grenades, hoping to stave off the enemy long enough for the tenders to arrive. Of course, that was a long while away sadly.

Two more minutes passed and the volume of gunfire only increased as the ten enemy soldiers positioned themselves and poured rifle fire onto the Green Berets. SSG Eddie Jackson, who was operating one of the team's two LMGs took a shot to the head and was gone before his head hit the ground. His LMG was picked up by the team's executive officer, WO1 Robert Smith who was closest to Jackson. WO1 Smith was wounded badly himself within the next thirty seconds but he managed to stay in it and continue to fire his LMG as the destroyer reached position, launched its tenders, and began to rapidly slow down.

CPT Dye launched another smoke grenade into the air and lookouts on the destroyer spotted his position. "We see you Charlie Delta."

"Great! Everything northeast of me light it the fuck up!" Artillery fire came seconds later as the destroyer opened up with its 3-inch guns. The first salvo tore into the side of the island between his position and the enemy and CPT Dye called in the correction. Fire shifted but it went too far so he told them to halve the distance and open up and they did. The destroyer launched both 3-inch and 5-inch shells as the tenders roared to the island's coastline. Gunfire continued to pour into the Green Berets' position but for only so long as the artillery smashed into the area around where the Lemnosians had positioned themselves. By the time the tenders arrived, five grueling minutes later, the Lemnosians had retreated or been killed. The Green Berets piled into the boats, WO1 Smith and SGT Fowler first followed by SGT Bell and the rest. SGT O'Brien and SGT Jackson, the team's two fatalities went into the second boat and the tenders raced back to the destroyer, medics onboard working on both Fowler and Smith who were dying right before their very eyes, Fowler from an arterial wound in his leg and Smith from a chest wound.

---

• |- 37 -| •

[Layarteb]

June 17, 1958 - 05:50 hrs [UTC+2]
Aerolimenas, Lemnos
Lemnos International Airport
(39° 55' 32" N, 25° 15' 4" E)

Captain Bill "Buzz" Ericson had earned his nickname flying too close to too many control towers and, "buzzing" them at the most inopportune times. Decades later, Hollywood would make the film Top Gun where Maverick, the main character, had the same MO. But on this day in 1958, Top Gun, the F-14 Tomcat, and the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier were nothing more than science fiction dreams of those deemed visionaries ahead of their time. CPT Ericson sat in the vibrating, loud cockpit of his F-105B Thunderchief, belonging to the rowdy and notorious 609th Fighter Squadron with his right hand on the control stick and his left hand on the throttle. He was sitting on the end of the runway at Lemnos IAP waiting for clearance from the tower to takeoff and to commence his mission, which would be a short sortie over Agios Efstratios, aimed more at unnerving the Lemnosian rebels than achieving some strategic goal.

His fighter was fully loaded with fuel and "clean" meaning that he carried no external ordinance. His 20-millimeter Gatling gun was loaded with a full magazine of 1,028 rounds but that was the extent of his armament. He was flying the first of what would be many harassing missions flown by the men of the 609th Fighter Squadron. These kinds of missions fell to them, not because of their notoriety but rather because the aircraft they flew, the F-105B Thunderchief, was the only aircraft in theater with the ability to make controllable, supersonic speeds at low level. Clean, they could hit a top speed of approximately 836 mph or Mach 1.1, depending on the air temperature and, to a very small degree, humidity levels. This morning, the air temperature and the humidity correlated to a speed of sound of 764 mph at sea level, where the temperature was 62.6°F and rising. The day's max was forecasted to be 81°F and mostly cloudy skies would filter out most of the light.

The sun was rising in the east when CPT Ericson got clearance to takeoff from the airport and he did, advancing the throttle on his single-engine aircraft up to military power. He released the brakes on the aircraft and immediately it began to roll forward as 14,300 lbf of thrust pushed out of the back of the aircraft. Despite its speed and payload capacity, the F-105 Thunderchief would become known for being underpowered and extremely vulnerable to ground fire. Because it had only a single engine, any critical hits to the power plant would mean the pilot had to bail out from his aircraft. Moments later, he advanced the throttle up to afterburner and the Thunderchief lurched forward as the thrust increased to 24,500 lbf, an increase of 71%. Shortly thereafter, CPT Ericson rotated the aircraft off of the ground, raised the landing gear, set the flaps to 0, and climbed up to 1,000 feet, maintaining afterburner. He banked away to the sea as the aircraft continued to accelerate. He banked around the island at first, keeping over water while he built up airspeed until finally, when he surpassed Mach 1, he banked for the island of Agios Efstratios, leveled off at 500 feet above ground level and prepared to make his first of five passes over the island below.

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June 17, 1958 - 06:15 hrs [UTC+2]
Agios Efstratios, Aegean Sea
Southern Agios Efstratios
(39° 28' 22" N, 24° 58' 54" E)

"Jesus fucking Christ that is loud," barked CPT Lindell from Team 104. The F-105B Thunderchief had just finished its second pass, flying on a south-to-north route, passing near to the two dinghies that brought the twelve men of Team 104 to Agios Efstratios' southern tip. They were only a hundred meters from the beach and though the sun was rising fast, it was still early enough that no one was awake near the southern tip of the island. The navy had reconnoitered the area for the past week, searching for lookout stations and none had been spotted, which gave the men the green light to disembark there and so they were, heading to it slowly as the boatsmen in charge of the two dinghies rowed.

"Fifty meters," whispered the boatsman from CPT Lindell's dinghy and with this, his men all jumped off of the boat and into knee-deep water.

"That's close enough, thanks for the lift," CPT Lindell said, shaking the boatsman's hand before he waded to the beach. The boatsman turned the dinghy around and headed back out to sea where a submarine was sitting just underneath the waves, waiting for his return and the return of his partner.

Fifty meters later, CPT Lindell's boots reached dry land and he and his men took a knee, surveyed the scene, and prepared to move out when it was deemed safe. They could easily get back to the water and hail the boatsmen back if they came under fire. The beach was nestled in between rapidly rising hillsides but there was a valley leading uphill to where a dirty road began. They would travel up the valley and to the dirt road, investigating a shack that an RF-8A Crusader flight had identified on a previous run. That shack was five hundred meters away, at the end of the dirt road. With the sun up, they needed to move quickly and though they would have preferred making landfall just before dawn, the timetable have been moved up hoping to capture an element of surprise. Command knew that the Lemnosians were aware of dawn/dusk limitations and thusly, command believed the Lemnosians would turn in their watch patrols once the sun rose. Their guess paid off, the watch patrols had turned in for the morning, leaving instead the tree and bunker-based observers to watch over the island's four coastlines.

Team 104 had taken a beating earlier in the war but they'd been reconstituted and now they were back in action, hoping to do better than their comrades in Team 102. The first incursion onto Agios Efstratios had ended in disaster for Team 102 and they were still licking their wounds, nine days later. Two were dead, two were seriously wounded and medically evacuated off of Lemnos, and the rest were all injured in some fashion that precluded them from going back into the fray just yet. Despite a hankering for a rematch with the Lemnosian rebels, Team 102 was content to sit and heal.

CPT Lindell ordered his men to move out and the point man took the lead. They walked with their weapons in hand, moving slowly and carefully, looking out for mines and booby traps equally as intently as they were looking out for human beings. Intelligence picked up radio transmissions suggesting that the Lemnosian rebels were beginning to plant Soviet-made OZM-4 bounding mines and PMN-1 blast mines, both designed for anti-personnel duties. The OZM-4 was similar to the Layartebian M16, both of them copies of the German S-mine. The M16s that Team 102 had placed had largely been rendered neutral thanks to air support and one very unlucky roving patrol of Lemnosian rebels. Signals intelligence also picked up that heralded piece of battlefield news.

"Keep it tight and watch out for mines," CPT Lindell whispered loudly, reinforcing everyone's mindset. Mines were a concern to troops, especially ones who needed an evac via boat or helicopter versus a stretcher and a nearby base camp. With this, the second incursion onto Agios Efstratios, the MF-MA forces knew very little about what was out there. They'd yet to zero the enemy's base camp and headquarters and while Team 102 had found a few lookout positions and caches, those were on the northern side of the island, far from where Team 104 was at present.

Hitting the shack a few minutes later, the twelve men of Team 104 fanned out while CPT Lindell and his radioman checked it. The shack was deserted but it was definitely used by patrols as a waypoint along the way. Getting on the command net, CPT Lindell reported what he'd found, "Lima Charlie, this is Bravo Lima One-Oh-Four, radio check."

"You're coming in clear Bravo Lima, go with your traffic."

"We've conducted our search of Foxtrot One-Oh-Ten and we've found no personnel but signs of recent activity. There are food stores and medical supplies. We have no further equipment here."

"Roger that Bravo Lima, thanks for the Intel." From there, Team 104 would head further into the island's interior, sweeping west as they searched the island's southern tip. The vegetation was much sparser here than elsewhere on the island and the hills rose sharply, giving to deep and steep valleys in between them, a hellish place to patrol, especially in the daylight hours. They would split up into two 6-man groups, patrol separately but keep within radio contact, in case.

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June 18, 1958 - 21:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Agios Efstratios, Aegean Sea
Southern Agios Efstratios
(39° 29' 38" N, 24° 58' 31" E)

"Contact right!" CPT Lindell yelled as an RPG-2 sailed over his head and harmlessly away from his position. Team 104 had walked into an ambush, expertly set up in a small hamlet of three dwellings. He and his men had taken cover behind a low wall and they were facing approximately ten to fifteen hostiles about forty meters ahead of them. Poor discipline on the part of the Lemnosians led them to open fire too early, before CPT Lindell and his men could walk into the kill box and set off two anti-personnel mines. Still, forty meters was close enough that Team 104 suffered three hard casualties right away. Their point man was down, bleeding from a gut wound; the radioman was hit in the neck and bleeding out on the ground; and one of their machine gunners was hit in the arm and the leg. Tourniquets had been applied and the team's medic was tending to the radioman.

CPT Lindell lobbed a grenade towards the enemy and picked up the blood handset on the radio, "Lima Charlie, where's that evac, we've got three down here and we're taking a lot of fire."

"Bravo Lima, hold one," came the response.

"That's what you said two minutes ago Lima Charlie!"

"We're vectoring air assets now; contact Spad One-One for tasking."

"Evac Lima Charlie, fucking evac!" CPT Lindell switched over, "Spad One-One, I hope you're out there, this is Bravo Lima."

"I've got you Bravo Lima; I'm inbound hot, three-ship formation of Skyraiders. We're loaded for bear we just need you to spot the targets for us."

"ETA?"

"Two mikes, we're blazing through the sky as fast as we can."

"You got it Spad One-One, we're marking our target with a flare, it's the only thing we've got."

"Ten-four Bravo Lima." A minute later, CPT Lindell sparked the flare and threw it near his position. The A-1s caught sight of it, "Enemy is fifty meters due south of our position, troops in contact, suggest you cross northeast to southwest to avoid friendlies."

"That'll work Bravo Lima, we're coming in now," responded the A-1H Skyraider pilot leading the flight. Coming in on a dive, he centered his piper on the muzzle flashes that he could see coming from the enemy position and let loose a stream of gunfire at a range of one kilometer. The A-1H Skyraider contained four M2 20-millimeter cannons, each loaded with two hundred rounds and depressing the trigger for two seconds put one hundred shells into the enemy position. Tracers lit up the sky as the Skyraider banked off target. Behind it came the second, firing a salvo of 2.75-inch rockets, two of which were white phosphorous, marking the enemy's position. "Get your head's down Bravo Lima, number three is going to be a powerful hit."

"Ten-four, we're ready," and with that, the men all covered the wounded and dove to the deck. The third A-1H Skyraider came in with iron bombs, dropping a pair of right onto the enemy position. They were light, only two hundred and fifty pounds a piece but the combined explosive force of 192 pounds of Tritonal and 332 lb of steel fragments tore open the air around the men. The wall held though, protecting them from both blast and fragmentation, slicing through the enemy ambush brutally. Two more passes by each aircraft silenced the enemy but time was running out for the wounded and Team 104 needed an evac fast.

Relief came minutes later when a pair of army helicopters, H-13C Sioux's with stretchers on each side put down in the clearing of the village. The three critically wounded and one other man, one of the team's demo men, were loaded aboard. The helicopter would fly out to the Shangri-La, which was closer than Lemnos IAP was and less dangerous of a flight. The remaining eight men, wounded but stable and ambulatory, would be waiting for an hour until boats could get there to extract them. Unlike their entry, these boats brought outboard motors to move much faster.

---

• |- 38 -| •

[Layarteb]

June 19, 1958 - 09:15 hrs [UTC+2]
Aerolimenas, Lemnos
Lemnos International Airport
(39° 55' 32" N, 25° 15' 4" E)

The veritable who's who of the MF-MA Command Staff was gathered yet again at Lemnos International Airport. In the days since Phase I ended, Layartebian Marines had been conducting a number of mop-up operations with the Lemnosian military. Dozens of men and women had been arrested but no one had been killed, at least not yet. Scores of weapons and matériel caches had been secured and confiscated, added to a growing stockpile of Soviet arms and ammunition sent to put a friendly regime on the Lemnosian island group. Diplomatic protests had been raised in the days since the end of Phase I - by both sides - but neither side was listening to the other. MF-MA forces continued to put pressure on Agios Efstratios and the blockade had been tightened. Nothing was getting onto or off of Agios Efstratios, period.

General Teitelbaum preferred this strategy. He wanted to break the LWB's will to fight and erode all manner of power that the LCC exercised. By virtually starving the rebels on the island, he hoped to turn them against their leaders, who promised a socialist utopia but who could not deliver on the basic necessities of life. Regardless of General Teitelbaum's plan, the island was stocked well with rations and ammunition but the former was dwindling much faster than the latter. They could not hold out indefinitely but in the same vein, neither could General Teitelbaum, who would succumb to political pressure eventually and be forced to invade, whether he and his forces were ready, or not. This morning's meeting was an attempt to save face. In the wake of Team 104's hasty extraction the previous evening, MF-MA forces were in a quandary. Two elite, Green Beret teams had been ambushed, taken casualties, and been forced off of the island's terrain.

"Gentlemen," spoke up Colonel Red Patterson, from the Layartebian Army. He was a higher up in the planning and operations division and one of the more well-read men involved in Operation MIDNIGHT CYCLONE. "It is obvious that the rebels on Stratis (Agios Efstratios' nickname) are much better informed, entrenched, and led than we previously assumed from signals intelligence. Team 102 came under ambush as did Team 104 and very early on in their missions. Based on signals intelligence intercepted since Team 102's ambush, we have learned that the rebels on these ambushes are being led by Spetsnaz advisors. The Lemnosians refer to the Spetsnaz advisors by specialized codewords, which we have deciphered and translated.

"This would explain the effectiveness of the ambush on Team 102. However, it does not explain the ambush on Team 104, which was much less effective, despite being in an ideal location. As near as we can ascertain it is likely one of the rebels on the ambush grew jumpy and fired prematurely, alerting Team 104 to the ambush. The quickness of our air support decided the battle.

"In order to continue to press on the Lemnosians we need to follow three primary strategies right now and I will hand the briefing over to Major Godoy, who can speak to this."

Major Godoy from the Layartebian Air Force stood up and took the center stage. He was a short, bulldog like man who'd made his career in intelligence and tactics rather than as a pilot. That didn't stop him from getting a few backseat flights over the years but he preferred to keep his feet on the ground. "Gentlemen, the first and foremost strategy is to continue our aerial reconnaissance using both low-level flights from RF-101s and navy RF-8s as well as high-level flights from RB-57s. Secondly, we're going to continue our supersonic harassing flights. These flights are more psychological than military as the sonic booms do little damage to anything the rebels have on the ground. Our third strategy is something a bit cruder and I ask you to bear with me while I explain the concept.

"Air support via fixed-wing aircraft is effective but limited. Bombs are inaccurate and neither guns nor rockets can provide the proper volume of fire we need to safely extract a team under fire. We are working on a concept to convert a single C-47D Skytrain into an airborne gunship. The concept would require refitting the aircraft with several guns, all on the aircraft's left side. Flying at a medium altitude, the aircraft would be able to fly in a pylon turn, circling around the island. When a team is in trouble, it could orient its guns downward and provide nearly constant fire support onto a target. Unfortunately, we would not be able to keep the gunship over the island all of the time as its presence would alert the enemy on the ground to a special operations team.

"The aircraft would be available and able to respond quickly to a request for fire support and with the ground team directing fire, they would able to put large volumes of fire upon an enemy position in order to break contact and extract." Faces around the room looked stunned. This was something novel of an idea and no one knew just how to feel. The traditional airmen believed in fighter support, the infantrymen believed in artillery and mortars, and the sailors believed that nothing shook up a coastline like a stabilized deck gun firing high-explosive rounds.

"What kind of guns will you be using?" Asked General Rainbolt, who wasn't entirely comfortable with a cargo plane negating his expensive fighters and bombers.

"Sir, our load out calls for one .50-caliber and two .30-caliber light machine guns, crew operated with individual magazines for each gun." Major Godoy said.

In his head, General Rainbolt did quick calculations, "That would require an aircraft to be flying under five thousand feet."

"General sir we need to conduct tests but we are confident that the angle of attack," here Major Godoy showed with his hand as a plane, banked on an angle would be facing downward and firing downward, "combined with the effects of gravity would provide accuracy above five thousand feet. We know of no major anti-aircraft guns on the island that would make flying at five thousand feet dangerous though."

"A pair of .30-caliber and one .50-caliber guns is hardly worth the effort," barked a brigadier general from another corner of the room. "That will do nothing compared to rockets or bombs." Aircraft were only just starting to be armed with 20-millimeter cannons and the infamous Browning M2 .50-caliber Heavy Machine Gun, which had graced the wings of many aircraft, was beginning to get a bad reputation as an aircraft gun.

Major Godoy stood his ground though, "Sir, fired by an aircraft in a forward direction with only a few seconds to hit a target you would be correct. However, directed by a turning aircraft, moving around a fixed point, a gunner would be able to direct fire very accurately. Because of the spacious cabin of the C-47, we would be able to carry thousands of rounds of ammunition, far more than a fighter could carry." Major Godoy, who was pushing hard on this project was hoping to get at least twenty thousand rounds of .30-caliber ammunition into the aircraft and five thousand rounds of .50-caliber ammunition. He didn't worry so much about the weight of the ammunition, for the C-47 was a cargo plane after all but rather the volume of the ammunition.

"What about at night?" Asked General Teitelbaum, "How will they see at night to fire?"

"Flares sir," Major Godoy said. "We're going to equip the aircraft with illumination flares to drop onto the target."

At this, General Rainbolt let out a snicker and Admiral Coco smirked. Neither one was sold on the idea but their opinion, in a way, didn't matter. General Teitelbaum looked at them and then back at Major Godoy, "Major how long until your aircraft is ready and then will it be only one?"

"We want to do three sir but we'll have the first one ready to go in a week for quick testing."

"And the other two Major?"

"By August 1."

"Major, I'm not sold on this idea. I think it's foolish but the morale blow this would cause to the enemy, if it were successful, would be tremendous. I doubt the effectiveness of the armament like my colleague here does but I don't want to close the book on an unproven idea. You may continue with the project but know this Major, we're not waiting for it to be effective. We're not going to hedge our bets on it."

"Thank you sir," answered Major Godoy, hearing all he needed. To him that was a green light and a half to speed up the project if he could and get some crews trained and ready to unleash unholy hell upon the Lemnosian rebels.

"In the meantime, we'll continue reconnaissance and harassing flights. We need to find their fixed positions and destroy them. Our teams need safety to get onto Stratis and they need safety to get off of Stratis. I want the navy to preposition assets closer to the island and the air force to keep close air support planes airborne with less than five minutes' response time whenever we have men on the island but don't make a pattern of it. Let the rebels see this even when we don't have men on the island. Dismissed."

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June 29, 1958 - 07:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Aegean Sea
16 nautical miles southeast of Agios Efstratios
(39° 14' 47" N, 25° 9' 43" E)

"Sneaky devils aren't they?" Asked the watchman on the bridge of the navy destroyer as it closed on the Soviet-flagged cargo ship approaching from the south at a leisurely ten knots.

"Hail then again," yelled the captain as he looked through his binoculars. Over the loudspeaker came the warning from the radio room. The ship was nearly a maritime exclusion zone of twelve nautical miles around Agios Efstratios and the vessel was headed right for the island. The Soviets had come up from the south but they weren't fooling anyone with their course.

"Sir, no response," came the reply from the radio room moments later. The captain cursed aloud and then watched as the destroyer's helmsman brought the vessel around. They were going to pass by the cargo vessel's port side at a range of two thousand yards, circle around behind it, and come up on its starboard side, keeping the range at about two thousand yards, too far for small arms but practically point blank range for the destroyer's 5-inch and 3-inch guns. The way the maneuver was going to be completed would allow the Gearing-class destroyer to be in position just as the vessel crossed into the exclusion zone.

"Maintain course and speed," the captain ordered and the destroyer passed the vessel. On deck, Morse code was going out via lamp telling the Soviet vessel that it was about to enter an exclusion zone. "Radio let them know that we're going to fire on them if they do not avert their course."

"Aye Captain," the message went out as the destroyer turned hard to starboard to complete its maneuver. Running at flank speed, the maneuver would burn off plenty of speed but the Gearing-class destroyer had a top speed of near 37 knots making it one of the fastest vessels in the world.

"Good job helm now keep her steady," the captain ordered. Most everyone was braced against something but Captain Ronald Puckett was an old sea dog who'd ridden through hurricanes and other sea storms. To him, the maneuver was easier to manage that the swells associated with a winter storm in the North Atlantic. He watched the Soviet cargo vessel continue onward. "Secondary battery, prepare to fire when we come around. I want one star shell loaded and two high-explosive rounds. First two high-explosive rounds go over the bow and the star shell goes off high. If that doesn't get their attention, prepare to aim for the engine room." He further ordered. The Soviet vessel wasn't going to get to Agios Efstratios and deliver whatever supplies it had aboard for the rebels. The navy was in control of the Aegean, the Soviets would learn; whether it was the easy way, or the hard way, Captain Puckett was onboard.

The maneuvering was complete and steadily, the Gearing-class destroyer closed on the cargo ship as more speed came off, the idea being to track the same speed as the cargo ship. One more hail went out, which went ignored. "Secondary battery, fire on my command!" Captain Puckett said as he held the microphone in his hand. He waited a few more seconds, to see if the ship changed course. When it did not he ordered, "Secondary battery fire!" Two seconds later, the first two 3-inch guns fired followed a split-second later by the third. The two high-explosive rounds arced over the bow of the cargo ship and impacted the water five hundred and nine hundred yards to the cargo ship's port side. "Secondary battery, hold fire," he switched to the radio room, "Radio let them know the next ones go into the engine."

"Aye Captain," came the reply and the radio call went out but this time it wasn't ignored. The cargo ship rapidly changed course to and began picking up speed. She was turning to the west, to her port side, away from the exclusion zone and away from the destroyer.

"Helm all ahead full, maintain track and keep with her."

"Aye Captain." Yelled the helmsman as the destroyer kicked its speed back up and began to turn.

"Captain, the Soviet vessel says it's turning around."

"Good," Captain Puckett answered, "let them know we're going the same way. We'll escort her for the time being."

"Aye Captain," with that Captain Puckett smiled, knowing that the Soviet captain would be annoyed with the escort. Still, the ship was turned around, no one was hurt, an international incident was avoided, and the navy saved the day once again. Captain Puckett ordered the gun crews to stand down and congratulated the crew on a job well done. Then he radioed command to apprise them of the situation.

---

• |- 39 -| •

[Layarteb]

July 4, 1958 - 15:10 hrs [UTC+2]
Aerolimenas, Lemnos
Lemnos International Airport
(39° 55' 32" N, 25° 15' 4" E)

In 1958, July 4th didn't have the same meaning it would thirty years later. Only today had been a busy day in the Aegean Sea. Navy RF-8A Crusaders had flown a low-level, high-speed reconnaissance flight not long after sunrise; and on their fourth pass over the island, they located and catalogued a major rebel position. They had caught the light in just the right way and their cameras proved what the pilots had seen as they skirted over the deck at 200 feet above ground level and over 500 knots. Now the tasking order fell to 1LT Ian Hart and his wingman 2LT Robert Nickerson who'd drawn an armed reconnaissance mission to the very same spot. However, unlike the unarmed RF-8A Crusaders, their F-100D Super Sabres were carrying live and hungry ordinance. Their four M39A1 20-millimeter cannons had eight hundred rounds of ammunition and on their six underwing pylons they were carrying a mixed load, either four 1,000-pound bombs or four Napalm bombs and a pair of 19-round rocket pods. Out of the two of them, 2LT Nickerson had the napalm. There wasn't any need for fuel tanks because of the proximity of Agios Efstratios to the island of Lemnos.

Both fighters took off minutes later and climbed out to an altitude of 1,000 feet above ground level. There wasn't any need to go higher; they needed to draw enemy fire. As they turned for the island, the smoke trails of their single turbojet engines lingered like a tail to the two fighters. It didn't take long for them to cross over the island of Agios Efstratios and they were down at two hundred feet when they did it. They weren't moving as fast though, hoping to make themselves out to be a better target than the Crusaders were. This also helped to conserve fuel, not that they had a particularly long trip home. In the days since Lemnos had been secured, fighter squadrons from around the Aegean were moving to Lemnos so that they could provide a closer strike force. However, space was limited and the F-105s and RF-101s that had been occupying the airport for most of the month were gone now in favor of F-100s and F-104s, the latter forming an integral part in the Aegean Sea Air Defense Zone.

The first past by the F-100s drew nothing but the echoes of noise and both 1LT Hart and 2LT Nickerson believed that they'd been had. They watched their navigation system tick down to zero and start ticking back up again as they passed the target and headed away. They passed over the rest of the island quietly and then turned and headed to the east, to make a new approach on the target. Lining up from eight miles back, they dropped back down to 200 feet and leveled off their airspeed at 350 knots. Their turbojets roared as the pair of F-100s, spaced less than two hundred meters apart, passed over the suspected spot again. Just like last time, they drew no fire and they could see nothing down there. Truly believing they'd been had, 1LT Hart and 2LT Nickerson opted to make a reverse flight over the target, on the opposite heading at the same speed and altitude but this time with a half mile spacing between them.

They lined up from eight miles away, leveled off, and zoomed over the island and this time, though it wasn't easy to spot, 1LT Hart caught a glimpse of a camouflage net that whipped in the wind as the fighters passed overhead. "Nickel, I got it bud," he said over the radio as they finished their pass and flew back out to sea.

"What'd you see?"

"Camouflage net, you kicked it up when you passed overhead."

"Roger that, all right you want to light it up first?"

"Yep, I'll dive on and let loose the irons and the rockets. You come in with the napalm."

"Ten-four."

1LT Hart pulled the fighter around and climbed up to 8,000 feet, maintaining speed as he did. He rolled towards the target and increased his speed to 450 knots. At five miles to the target he initiated his dive, manipulating both his throttle and his airbrakes to keep the fighter at 450 knots. As the gun sight reticle on the HUD passed over the spot on the ground, he squeezed the trigger on his flight stick, firing off most of the rockets in his two LAU-3 pods. At the same time, he pickled off all four bombs and then rapidly exited the dive, yanked hard on the stick, and lit the fighter's afterburner. Seconds behind him, flying a level course because napalm was dropped better that way, 2LT Nickerson screamed overhead and let loose all four napalm canisters. The bombs somersaulted as they fell to the ground below, igniting and exploding in a brilliant fireball as they impacted the ground. Each bomb carried 100 gallons of napalm.

"That's a shack Nickel, let's finish off the site with rockets and guns and go home," 1LT Hart replied over the radio as he came around for another pass, firing the rest of his rockets in a scattered pattern around the site. 2LT Nickerson did the same, firing all of his thirty-eight rockets. In the process, they watched secondary explosions as ammunition cooked off from the site. They'd hit an ammunition cache and a relatively large one at that but far from the largest one on the island. When they landed they had gun camera footage that became legendary for the time being. It was the first hard hit on Agios Efstratios that produced results and it was a major score settled for the Green Beret teams that had to exfil under fire.

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July 5, 1958 - 21:35 hrs [UTC+2]
Aegean Sea
28 nautical miles southwest of Agios Efstratios
(39° 14' 58" N, 24° 26' 29" E)

"All right what do we have now?" Captain Puckett asked as he entered the bridge with a large cup of coffee - or motor oil, it was difficult to decipher - in his hand.

"Captain on the bridge!" A voice called out and everyone snapped to attention, not that they weren't already.

"Yes, I'm on the bridge, at ease. We just wasted time doing that," Captain Puckett said with good humor. "Now what do we have?"

"Sir, we've got a fishing trawler zigzagging around here. It appeared on radar after coming out between Piperi and Gioura. The profile fits one of the trawlers that exited the Black Sea nine days ago. We believe it's going to make a run to Stratis."

"What makes you say that?" The Captain asked the watch officer. He believed it could be but he wanted to make sure his watch officer was being objective and not simply investigating every maritime contact in the Aegean Sea, wasting fuel and resources.

"The zigzag pattern sir, here," the watch officer let him over to the plotting table. "If you look at its movements, it isn't trawling for fish. See this line here, this line is the true head based on the course changes. Its right into that little cover Team 104 inserted onto weeks ago."

"Fine work Briggs," Captain Puckett said. "Do they know we're here?"

"Fifty-fifty chance sir. We're still five thousand yards out and there isn't any moon. We could still be unknown to them. Radar, it's an amazing invention."

"Yes it is Briggs, okay let's watch it then." Over the course of the next hour, they watched the trawler slowly make its way towards the exclusion zone. It was definitely getting closer and moving very slowly. The Gearing-class destroyer had basically set up a position one nautical mile into the exclusion zone and stopped its engines. The trawler would come within 2,000 yards of the destroyer, at which point it would be fair game.

Captain Puckett mainly paid attention to other matters while they were waiting, though he asked for updates every fifteen minutes. When the trawler finally found itself two nautical miles from the exclusion zone, the radio hail was made. It was 21:35 and Captain Puckett was itching to get back to his quarters so that he could get some shuteye. It had been a long day and it was turning into a long night.

"Captain, we've got a response this came," came the radio room. "Captain says he isn't violating anything. He sounds drunk."

"Drunk my ass," Captain Puckett answered. "Let him know we're not joking. He's to turn around or he's going to be a floating torch." Captain Puckett had the 3-in gun crews load star shells and high-explosive rounds. The high-explosive rounds were virtually worthless in the night but the star shells would be clearly visible. The star shell was fired off before the answer came, illuminating the trawler and the destroyer. Anyone on the trawler with binoculars, or a semi-decent set of eyes would be able to see that the destroyer had its guns pointed their way. A second star shell was fired in the interim and the destroyer began to move closer to the trawler. A single 3-inch shell was going to turn the trawler into nothing but a flaming hulk with one round, especially one fired at point blank range.

"Captain he's acknowledging that he's turning around and going somewhere else," the radio operator responded.

"I guess the Soviets know we mean business. I'm going to my quarters, have the gun crews stand down and let's shadow him. Let command know that we're tasked so they need to monitor the sector." Captain Puckett answered and headed off of the bridge back to his quarters. Once a destroyer or patrol ship was tasked, another would have to come in and guard the sector, just in case the Soviets were using one ship as a ruse to draw others off of patrol, which they were.

---

• |- 40 -| •

[Layarteb]

July 8, 1958 - 05:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Aerolimenas, Lemnos
Lemnos International Airport
(39° 55' 32" N, 25° 15' 4" E)

General Teitelbaum was up early and monitoring the radio. Ground reconnaissance of Agios Efstratios had resumed and the North Germanian Jäger Platoon had deployed a 5-man rifle squad onto the island about an hour earlier under the cover of night. The small squad was tasked with investigating a sector in the island's southern hemisphere. They were looking for patrols, caches, and watch positions and the five men were some of the best in the entire Fourth Reich's military when it came to recon. The Jäger Platoon was a big contribution and while they were hated by the Fourth Reich's enemies, they were beloved by its friends and MF-MA command indeed loved the unit for their effectiveness and capabilities in battle.

"General," began Oberst Schulze, the overall North Germanian commander. Despite being a colonel and thus subordinate to a general, he would never address any Layartebian as "sir" but rather by their rank instead. Oberst Schulze, like Hauptmann Max Wolf, both hated the Layartebians and despised the idea of working with the Republic of Layarteb. Slightly more than a decade earlier, the Republic of Layarteb had joined the Kingdom of Dalmasce in war against Morocco and by proxy, the Fourth Reich of North Germania. Both men, like many others deployed, had received their baptism of fire fighting the Layartebians, not the Soviets and those wounds war far from healing.

"Yes Colonel?" Likewise, General Teitelbaum would not respect the North Germanians any more than they respected him. He could care less about old grievances though. He trusted that the North Germanians would follow their orders and his orders.

"My men are on the island and they've passed an abandoned watch post, they've booby-trapped it and they're on their way to an overlay position." Oberst Schulze translated from the radio call. Despite the working language of MF-MA being English, the North Germanians only used it when they addressed their "inferiors" - aka Layartebians, Lemnosians, and to a degree the Eurasians. They felt superior to the Hirgizstanians but they didn't deride them like they did the others.

"Thank you Colonel," General Teitelbaum answered. "Since your men won't be speaking English over comms, I'll need a translator manning the radio at all times until their extraction."

"Yes General," Oberst Schulze said with a grin. He'd arranged this in order to keep a man in the tactical operations center at all times. He had men there already but no one on the radios and he wanted someone on the radios and thus he'd orchestrated this small but effective plan to sneak a spy into the radio areas.

"That is all Colonel unless you want to stay for the morning show."

"I'll take my leave General." He clicked his boots together but there was no salute. He merely turned on his pivot and exited the tactical operations center, leaving a lowly unteroffizier or corporal but one who worked with the military intelligence unit and who had a photographic memory and a penchant for overhearing other peoples' conversations.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ | ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

July 11, 1958 - 22:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Aerolimenas, Lemnos
Lemnos International Airport
(39° 55' 32" N, 25° 15' 4" E)

More than three days later, the Jäger Platoon's squad were waiting for an extraction and not because they'd come under fire or been ambushed, a fact that Oberst Schulze had thrown in the face of the Layartebians no less than two dozen times over the past three and a half days. However, they were extracting earlier than anticipated and that was because they'd stumbled upon a large weapon's cache in a small valley about four klicks from where Team 104 had landed on the island. After a brief firefight that raised unholy hell around the island, they eliminated the nine men guarding the cache without any casualties of their own, another fact that Oberst Schulze would make sure to hone in with his Layartebian "allies."

Following the firefight, Oberst Schulze ordered the men to set charges and exfiltrate from the island, moving overland to the island's eastern coastline where an extraction point had been preordained. The Layartebian Navy got the word and a nearby destroyer had launched a recovery boat to go get the men. It was about thirty minutes away from arriving and the charges were set to go off at any moment. In the TOC, Oberst Schulze and General Teitelbaum were watching on a live feed from an RB-57A Canberra flying over the island. Only two aircraft had been loaded with video cameras and the necessary equipment to transmit the footage back to the base. The picture quality wasn't good but it didn't need to be. There was nothing to see at night except for a brilliant fireball, which suddenly lit up the area around the island.

"I believe that is the cache General," Oberst Schulze said, chest out, beaming with joy. "That is one effective mission for my men General."

"Yes it is Colonel," for all of the patience in the world, General Teitelbaum had it when dealing with his North Germanian subordinate. He wouldn't be gloating with the first Layartebian victory, instead he would gloat when the whole war was won and he could look at Oberst Schulze and say, "You might have helped with battles but without us you would have lost the war, just like Morocco." He was waiting for the day to upstage his counterpart and for now he would take the irritating Oberst Schulze's momentary victories. "All right, order the Canberra back to base, we've seen what we need," General Teitelbaum ordered. The RB-57s were based out of Gökçeada Airport on the island of Gökçeada. It was one of two Eurasian islands that had been occupied by MF-MA forces.

The RB-57 would be landing some twenty minutes later. Ten minutes after that, the five North Germanians would be aboard a small craft heading back to a navy destroyer and the island of Agios Efstratios was left to clean up in their wake. In the three days they were there, the five men had booby-trapped four watch positions, killed eleven rebels, set a dozen mines, and destroyed the ammunition cache. It was a remarkable success, especially after the failures of Team 102 and Team 104 the previous month.

---

• |- 41 -| •

[Layarteb]

July 13, 1958 - 03:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Agios Efstratios, Aegean Sea
Northeastern Agios Efstratios
(39° 33' 2" N, 24° 59' 37" E)

"Guess who's back," CPT Chuck Dye whispered underneath his breath as stepped onto the small, sandy beach on the island of Agios Efstratios. Team 102 was back in action after much lobbying from CPT Dye and he was told outright that if Team 102 wanted to deploy again, they'd better come back with a prisoner. Unfortunately for CPT Dye, he'd had to cut his team down to just six men. He led them, took SSG Willie Fowler for comms, SSG Charlie Powers as the team marksman, SSG William Bell as the medic, SGT Chester Rankin as the machine gunner, and SGT Ray Hopson from Team 104 as the demo man. Everyone else was either still injured or incapable of breathing. With six men, CPT Dye could move quicker and he hoped that the smaller team would come in handy. He wasn't on the island now to collect intelligence, booby-trap watch positions, or find weapon's caches - though he would - but rather just to secure a live prisoner that the North Germanians could thusly interrogate.

Walking off of the beach in a low crouch, he and his men headed uphill away from the beach, crawling on the ground as they went. They would come across a watch position immediately and killed the two sleeping rebels with their knives to avoid making a sound and alerting the rest of the sleepy island to their presence. From there, they snaked alongside the roadway and worked their way into a small valley area they were convinced had enemy troops. They needed prisoners who knew something and the two watchmen were low on the totem pole. They wouldn't be able to provide much to the North Germanians except perhaps rotation schedules. That wasn't what the Layartebians were looking for; they didn't want small fish, they wanted the whole picture.

Over the next three days, the six men kept low, crawling through the valley until they came to a small bunker complex on the morning of July 16. To CPT Dye, this was what he wanted. He used the daytime to rest his men and to reconnoiter the target. There were fifteen rebels and one of them was an officer of sorts. He'd been easily spotted giving orders, yelling and chastising his men. Morale was definitely low and the rebels holding watch were lazy and tended to daydream and goof off, rather than stay vigilant. This would work to CPT Dye's benefit and he and his men set up an ambush. Every three hours, a four-man patrol would walk off into the woods and perform a patrol around the general area. They would be gone for two hours. The first patrol nearly stepped on the Green Berets but they hadn't.

Watching them, CPT Dye found that they would get out of sight from the bunker complex and take a nap for two hours. Then they would get up, take a leak, and go back to the bunker complex and report that everything was okay. The bunkers were nothing more than holes in the ground with sandbags but each position offered good cover for firing and any armed force approaching the site from the front, which was the only approach vector, would get pummeled to shit before they saw the bunkers. It was smart thinking, definitely the Spetsnaz had done it but the Lemnosian rebels weren't the kind of men to guard the site, they weren't motivated or disciplined enough. They were hungry, they missed home, and they'd become disillusioned with the war in the face of losing Lemnos and the aircraft buzzing overhead nearly constantly.

The sun set at 20:47; and with it came the Green Berets' chance to assault the complex. The four-man patrol left at 21:00, walked off into the distance, and found the best spot to rest. They never knew that stalking them the entire way was SSG Powers and SGT Hopson. They made quick work of the four men with their knives about twenty minutes after the four men found their position. Two went to bed and two stayed awake. They would rotate after an hour and that was enough. The two awake went down first and then the two sleeping went down next. It took all of seconds for the two Green Berets to handle the four rebels and now the odds were better in their favor. They were only outnumbered 1.8:1 instead of 2.5:1, as they had been before. CPT Dye and his men split off into two fire teams of three men each.

The first fire team consisted of SSG Powers, SSG Bell, and SGT Rankin. CPT Dye kept SSG Fowler and SGT Hopson with him. Keeping low and crawling through the vegetation, the two fire teams approached the bunker complex from the edges of the valley. When they reached the concertina wire, they cut through it and made their way into the base. Once inside, they found that activity was at a minimum. They kept low and used whatever they could for cover. They placed mines behind the two outer bunkers, each of which held two men. Then they moved around to the other positions, none of which were occupied. They booby-trapped the two rear positions with mines, placing the mines inside of the bunkers, and then worked their way around to the CP. They could hear talking from inside and that was more than enough to convince the Green Berets that they had seized the initiative.

Without words, CPT Dye and his fire team put themselves in a proper ambush position to get people coming out of and around the bunker while SSG Bell, leading the other fire team, put his men behind cover near the right side of the bunker complex. With everyone in place, SSG Bell caught the signal from CPT Dye and prepared a grenade. Three grenades were thrown into the general area around the bunker complex to get everyone's attention. It worked!

Screaming out of the complex's barracks were the four rebels meant to occupy the rear bunkers. They got only as far as middle part of the fighting position before the mines went off, detonating inside each with a blast and fragmentary force that killed all four men instantly. Seeing this happen, the men on the forward fighting positions didn't know what had caused the explosions in the other two bunkers but they assumed it to be grenades. Quickly, they came out of their own positions, unaware that no gunfire had been levied on the small base yet. However, as they exited, the remaining mines detonated and in short order, eight rebels were dead. That left twelve overall and now the Green Berets outnumbered the rebels 2-to-1.

Moving quickly, CPT Dye tossed a smoke grenade into the rebel CP and within seconds, the three Lemnosian rebels came out of the bunker. Only one was armed with his rifle and he was cut down by CPT Dye who stitched him with three 7.62-millimeter rounds from his M14 rifle. The other two surrendered and found themselves prisoners, just what the Green Berets needed. With that, the Green Berets set off to the extraction point, radioing in their success and calling for a rapid exfil from the target area. They moved quickly to the island's northern coastline, fearing that the rebels would send reinforcements into the valley area. For that reason, CPT Dye and his men went up the steep walls of the valley's rear, taking the more difficult route in hope that they wouldn't make contact with the enemy. They didn't and at 02:19 hours on July 17, they extracted via sea with two prisoners in tow, a major victory for General Teitelbaum and the MF-MA forces.

---

• |- 42 -| •

[Layarteb]

July 19, 1958 - 10:00 hrs [UTC-5]
Layarteb City, New York
Fortress of Comhghall
(40° 41' 28" N, 74° 0' 58" W)

It was a hot and muggy Saturday in Layarteb City and President Baltz didn't want to be dealing with "work" requirements on this fine weekend day but duty called. Over the past forty-eight hours, the North Germanians, chiefly Hauptmann Wolf from the military intelligence unit, had broken and subsequently extracted a good deal of information out of the two rebel prisoners. One of them was the equivalent of a major and the other was his radioman. Frequencies were handed over as well as positions, including the location of the rebel's main headquarters on the island. The bunker complex had been only 1,900 meters north of it and with that position solidified, the air force was going to step up reconnaissance flights to try to locate it.

General Abe Pierre was present in his military uniform, gulping down cups of ice water to try to keep himself from overheating. It was warm and even in the air conditioned office of President Baltz, it was still far from ideal, especially in a military uniform. "Sir, based on the projections from General Teitelbaum, the air force and the navy combined will conduct about sixty reconnaissance flights with RF-8s, RF-101s, and RB-57s over the next few weeks. They're going to be running them three and four times a day, weather permitting. The goal is to locate newly identified rebel positions."

"General, do I want to know how the North Germanians got the prisoners to break?"

"Sir I'm not privy to those details. You could ask but I could not reliably answer. Knowing the North Germanians though I don't believe it was painless."

"That suffices General. Continue."

"The capture by the Green Berets is a major leg up for us. The Hirgizstanians are going to deploy next but not until the navy and the air force conducts a series of reconnaissance flights on their target zone. They'll deploy two 6-man teams onto separate parts of the island and their goal is to make contact with the rebels, whether via ambush or something else, inflict heavy casualties, and then extract off of the island. We want the rebels to think that we have tons of teams on the island. Reliably speaking, if two teams make contact there are dozens more who don't. It will cause the rebel command to go haywire."

"When are they going General?"

"Sir, on Tuesday just after midnight, one squad is going to the island's north and the other to its south. This will be an effective way to hit the enemy."

"What kind of support are they going to have?"

"Plenty sir, if they get into trouble, the air force has a new weapon for them. It appears, and I only just learned this yesterday, that a group within the air force has converted a cargo plane into a gunship. They plan to test it out with the Hirgizstanian unit."

"A gunship? I don't understand General."

"Sir, they've fixed light and heavy machine guns to the aircraft's side. The aircraft will orbit the target area and fire upon enemy positions. They believe it will allow more focused and constant fire on a position."

"How would we normally respond?"

"A fighter jet with bombs, rockets, and its own guns sir."

"I presume we cannot use this close to our forces."

"No sir."

"And this gunship idea?"

"Reliably sir? We could use it within meters if the men on the ground can direct the fire accurately."

"What do they call it?"

"I haven't seen the name yet sir. I believe this is just a proof of concept. Only one aircraft is modified and ready but two more are in the works to be done by the end of the month."

"Interesting General, how is the air force taking the idea?" General Pierre just smiled and nodded his head. "I assumed that much I guess. I don't know why I asked."

"Sir, old habits die hard. If the concept works it'll revolutionize both warfare and close air support."

"Thank you General, keep me apprised them to the situation." President William Baltz had been a senator and he'd never served in the armed forces. He was from Layarteb's elite "aristocracy" of sorts but the idea of an airborne gunship sounded like a sound idea to him. He didn't need to serve in the military to understand the nature of close air support. When troops were in contact, they could call in fighters and bombers to strike enemy positions but bombs weren't very accurate and they kicked up fragmentation and lethal effects for 100s of meters. Rockets were good but they didn't deliver a lot of firepower. Guns were ideal because they could be used close to friendly forces and the kinds of guns on aircraft did horrific things to the human body, enough to cause massive and instant casualties upon enemy forces and save the day for friendly troops.

Five days after insert, the Hirgizstanian squads found and set up their ambush. At 16:00 hours on July 27, the two squads ambushed two separate watch patrols. They used the classic L-ambush and cut down the rebels in quick order. They repositioned shortly thereafter and initiated contact again, taking out fixed watch positions. As the sun went down, they booby-trapped a few of the bunkers they'd shot up and then headed for the exfil. Signals intelligence caught wind of the effects of the battle later that evening. The booby-traps had killed another four rebels and the rest were being disarmed, time consuming and harrowing work. In one of the ambushes, a Spetsnaz soldier had been killed and in another, a Spetsnaz soldier had been wounded. Both of them were leading the patrols, trying to invigorate their comrades but as the Hirgizstanians observed, even the Spetsnaz soldiers were falling into bad habits now that they were cut off from supplies and command.

---

• |- 43 -| •

[Layarteb]

August 1, 1958 - 04:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Aerolimenas, Lemnos
Lemnos International Airport
(39° 55' 32" N, 25° 15' 4" E)

General Teitelbaum didn't like to be woken up but this was significant enough. The Soviets had upped the ante with regards to trying to run the exclusion zone around Agios Efstratios. Now instead of trying to sneak in with trawlers and cargo ships, they were using warships and a Riga-class frigate was about to have a showdown with Captain Puckett and his Gearing-class destroyer. Both ships were heavily armed but the Gearing-class had larger guns, 5-in versus 4-in. Still that was little consolation to Captain Puckett who knew that if the shooting started, the bridge was likely to take the first hit. A 4-in shell would tear through and destroy it instantly and the Riga-class had three, 4-in guns.

"This is a clusterfuck," General Teitelbaum observed as he listened to the radio traffic. "Do we have aircraft in the air?"

"Yes sir, we have A-4 Skyhawks with iron bombs available to strike the Soviet ship."

"Do the Soviets know the fighters are there?"

"I'm not sure sir."

"Make sure they know," General Teitelbaum said and over the radio, he could hear the pilots responding. They would make a low level pass flying near the frigate. If the frigate fired on them, the Layartebian navy would take action. Backing up the Skyhawks were Skyraiders and an S-2A Tracker with torpedoes. Those torpedoes would be put right into the side of the Soviet frigate.

The tense standoff wasn't doing good for anyone though. The Soviets were showing that they were supplying the rebels, something they'd flat out denied throughout the entire campaign. At the same time, it was bringing both nations close to a shooting match and a shooting match was something everyone was trying to avoid. This was between the MF-MA forces, Lemnos, the rebels, and the Soviets as proxies. It did no one any good to have the Soviets as more than just proxies.

"Where are the F-105s?" General Teitelbaum asked moments later as the A-4s were making their run down either side of the Soviet frigate.

"Gökçeada sir, they're on scramble order now but we don't have any airborne yet."

"How many are scrambling?"

"Six sir."

"Let the Soviets know about two of them and fast."

"Yes sir." This was something of a chess game. General Teitelbaum wanted to show the captain of the frigate that he couldn't win this mess. He was one ship facing both a Layartebian destroyer and Layartebian airpower. The frigate might get some good hits on the destroyer but it wasn't going to survive the fight. It needed to turn around, go back out of the exclusion zone, and forget about whatever supplies or men it was trying to deliver. Yet the frigate wasn't budging and neither would the navy. It had broken the 12 nautical mile limit and at 6 nautical miles, the firing would begin. That horizon was fast approaching as the F-105B Thunderchiefs took to the skies. Two of them kept hammering on supersonic speed, flying at low-level and passing the frigate a thousand yards from its port side moving at just over Mach 1, enough to make a sonic boom but not much else. The F-105s were still carrying some ordinance and they weren't going to be going much faster. Fuel was limited now that they'd made their run and while the Soviets didn't see it, the two F-105s would be returning to Gökçeada to refuel after the run, leaving four fighters in the air to strike the frigate.

More warnings were given and at 7 nautical miles, the frigate changed course. It briefly crossed the 6 nautical mile barrier but it was changing course and no action was taken. General Teitelbaum breathed a sigh of relief, ordered Captain Puckett, who was three-for-three now on pushing away ships, to follow the Soviet frigate and make sure it didn't get anywhere near Agios Efstratios again, whether during the day or night. Reconnaissance flights would continue while more targets were identified. Then, on August 8, the date for Phase III was set and each of the special operations units on Lemnos received their orders. On August 14 and August 15, Team 102 of the Green Berets, a team of Hirgizstanian special forces, and two squads from the Jäger Platoon would deploy onto Agios Efstratios to conduct initial reconnaissance work. On August 16, Layartebian paratroopers would conduct a combat drop onto Agios Efstratios landing a company of men initially. Follow on drops would bring an entire battalion of men within seventy-two hours.

Phase II had lasted eighty-six days and in that timeframe, the rebels on Agios Efstratios had received no additional ammunition, no additional medical supplies, no additional rations, and more importantly, no additional men. Casualties for Phase II had been relatively light for the rebels, they'd taken fewer than one hundred killed or injured. They only killed two Layartebians, both from Team 102, and they'd wounded four others seriously enough to require medical evacuation from the theater. The losses were lopsided and the MF-MA forces had dealt a painful blow to the Lemnosian rebels. They had started out with 6,000 men and they were down to less than half of that though they still had 118 Spetsnaz soldiers boosting their numbers. Morale was terrible though. Soldiers were rationing their own food and going hungry. Few in the Lemnosian Workers Brigade held their commanders in the Lemnosian Communist Commune in high regard anymore. They would fight the MF-MA invaders only because they were fighting for one another but the cause was lost. If the LCC couldn't effectively feed them and resupply them here, on the micro scale, no one believed that they could on the larger scale on Lemnos. Men missed their families and their homes and they knew that they had to accept one of two fates. They could fight for the men standing next to them or they could surrender and face harsh years in jail before execution. They'd die either way but at least they'd die on their own terms.

---

• |- 44 -| •

[Layarteb]

Chapter IV
Phase III

August 16, 1958 - 07:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Southern Agios Efstratios
Green Beret Team 102
(39° 30' 5" N, 24° 59' 45" E)

"Clouds are moving in," commented SGT Bell as he rolled over and looked up through the trees towards the sky above. The sun had reared its head above the horizon half an hour earlier and that meant Phase III was only minutes away from beginning. "Weatherman says it's going to be a hot one today, ninety degrees, mostly clear, some misty rain from whatever this is passing over us and then nothing. Should be comfortable once this clears out."

"Should be," concurred CPT Dye lying next to his side. "Fowler, you hear anything on comms yet?"

"Twenty minute delay boss," SSG Fowler, the radioman said. "Everyone's in place, we're just waiting for the paratroopers."

"Well we're nowhere near where they're landing so that's just fine with me. We've got forty minutes before the patrol comes through." Waiting in the vegetation and the underbrush was boring, more so that Team 102 was waiting for a 10-man patrol of Lemnosian rebels to ambush. The patrol came through every morning like clockwork, or so the North Germanians had observed. The patrol was left be by the North Germanians, who couldn't mount an ambush quickly or safely enough. Team 102, on the other hand, could and they were in the standard L-shape, waiting for the patrol. Once they hit the patrol, the men would move quickly to a nearby arms cache that low-level recon had miraculously spotted. That would start Phase III for Team 102 and other special operations units would hit patrols and other fixed targets. Already, the Hirgizstanians were preparing to take down an observation post and the North Germanians had a radio team in their sights.

Everyone was just waiting for the go code from command. On the island of Lemnos, an entire battalion of paratroopers - 620 fighting men - were loading into six C-123B Provider and four C-130A Hercules transports. The ten aircraft would take off, circle north, level off at an altitude of barely 1,500 feet, form up, and head to Agios Efstratios. Fighters and attack aircraft were already airborne, circling at their orbit points, waiting for the call to soften up the landing zones, of which there were four. There were three rifle companies, each with one hundred and eighty men. They would put down at the three primary zones. A fourth zone would take a pathfinder unit while the fire support, mortar sections, and MPs would put down at the other three. The MPs would be used for prisoner control and there were only five them, not enough to do much but hold an already subdued group at gunpoint in case they tried to escape. Drops would be made at only 650 feet above ground level.

CPT Dye checked his watch and saw that it was 07:05, "Twenty minutes are up, any word yet Fowler?"

"One sec boss, yep, they just ordered it."

"What the hell did they delay it for?"

"One of the C-130s had to be scrubbed."

"Piece of shit," CPT Dye said with a shake of his head. As the go-code filtered through all of the units, CPT Dye knew that the special operations troops on the island were going to be assaulting their designated targets within the next five minutes. It would take a few minutes for all ten aircraft to not only get airborne but also to form up north of Lemnos. Surely though, the LWB had spotters watching the airport. They would see the transports, laden with troops, taking off but at the same time, they watched it happen every day for the past seven days and each time, the transport flew out into the Aegean Sea, made a circuit, and came back, simulating the drops. The observers would have seen as much over the past week and by now they would be getting bored of watching the same rigmarole. They'd denote the takeoff time was a little late but they'd also see that the single C-130A Hercules - serial number 54-1622 - was scrubbed on the tarmac. They might make a radio call to Agios Efstratios but signals had noticed that the day before, they didn't bother, though they did when a previously unscheduled flight took off at 18:00 and made the circuit.

Signals would be listening but they wouldn't be alerting anyone except the pilots of the aircraft who would then alert the commanding officers. Of course, things would be easier if directional finding could triangulate the position of the spotters but no luck had been had yet and while the MF-MA forces were on it, they weren't having much luck. The Lemnosians knew that they had to be short on the radio, lest they be located and they were good about using short codewords to transmit just what they were seeing. That code had been broken, it was a simple enough code but it was concise and that was its greatest strength. As the first aircraft took off and headed to their rendezvous point, that code went out, alerting the Lemnosians on the island that aircraft were taking off, thus alerting them to the invasion thanks to the contact being made by the special operations troops. There would be no surprise except for the landing zones, which would take ordinance only minutes before the transport aircraft began their run.

By 07:25, the last of the transports were airborne and within ten minutes, it entered the rendezvous orbit seventeen miles north of the island. From there it was a sixty mile flight, flying west of Lemnos over the Aegean and then down to Agios Efstratios. For fifty of those miles, the aircraft would be cruising at just 180 mph, which was the limiter on the C-123B Provider. The Hercules could move quicker but there was no sense passing the C-123s. The last ten miles would be made at around 150 mph and at 650 feet. The minimum safe speed on the T-10A Parachute was 173 mph and the minimum altitude was 500 feet. At this altitude, depending on the weight of each paratrooper, they would take anywhere from 27 to 30 seconds to reach the ground, an impossibly long time for the paratroopers but barely any time for the Lemnosians on the ground to muster the proper defenses, unless they'd gotten lucky and put them in place beforehand.

To counter their luck, quartets of A-1 Skyraiders, A-4 Skyhawks, F-100 Super Sabres, and F-105 Thunderchiefs would be making attack runs at the various drop points, and at other points as well. Coming in fast in a dive, the aircraft would unleash unguided, 70-millimeter rockets, 20-millimeter cannon shells, and iron bombs. They wouldn't be point bombing either, they were area bombing, aiming more to shake up any emplaced enemy positions rather than strike set targets. With seventeen minutes from 07:35 before the transports reached their IP, the attack aircraft had all of the time in the world to get ready. Once the transports reached their IP they would be over the drop zones in four minutes and by that time, the attack aircraft needed to be done with their runs and they would be. There had been enough rehearsals over targets in the Aegean Sea that the entire performance had become routine. At 07:45, seven minutes before the transports reached their IP, the attack aircraft rolled in on their own IPs. Three minutes later, they began unleashing their ordinance, one by one, walking their fire around the drop zones. That went on for four full minutes and as the C-123s and C-130s called "IP inbound," the last of the A-1 Skyraiders, the slowest of the four groups of aircraft, came off target, having just released their last bombs. It was a rehearsed success in the air and for the men on the ground watching this menagerie, it was Hell's fury.

CPT Dye and his men weren't anywhere near the drop zones and so they could only hear the explosions in the faraway distance. The ground didn't shake where they were and the noise of the explosions rolled with the terrain. They were waiting for the patrol to ambush and at 07:52, when the transports reached their IP, the patrol hadn't materialized yet. They were late and all things considered it was likely because of the renewed pounding that the MF-MA forces had given to Agios Efstratios. At 07:56, when the first paratroopers leapt from their airplanes, all hell broke loose around Agios Efstratios. The fighters pulled back for the time being but soldiers on the ground, with view and a straight line of sight to the paratroopers opened fire with their assault rifles. They were shooting at descending targets and they were firing wildly. Having to account for a lot of factors such as the speed of descent, crosswinds, and bullet drop, most of the rounds fired at the falling paratroopers missed with a wide berth though a few tore through canopies or rucksacks. A couple of paratroopers took lucky rounds, landing injured but no one was injured too seriously.

By 08:00, all of the paratroopers were on the ground, consolidating in their drop zones and the fighters had returned, vectored in by the transport ships. A few enthusiastic drop masters managed to get a hold of some flare guns and they fired the devices towards where they saw muzzle flashes, fully aware that they'd hit nothing. The flares would serve as markers though and the A-1 Skyraiders came back, vectored now by the men on the ground calling in air support to hose some of the enemy positions.

---

• |- 45 -| •

[Layarteb]

August 16, 1958 - 08:05 hrs [UTC+2]
Southern Agios Efstratios
(39° 28' 39" N, 24° 59' 24" E)

Second Lieutenant Patrick Tolbert knelt down and scanned the area around him thinking to himself, This isn't right. He pulled out his map and turned it around in his hand. He and his men, an entire rifle platoon, were horribly exposed with a hillside to their west, a dirt road and more hillsides to their east, and nothing but a descending slope from north and south. "No, this isn't right," he said aloud as he looked at the map. "Sergeant what do you think?" He handed the map over to his platoon sergeant who took to pursing his lips whenever something went wrong. It was a quiet way to show displeasure and the platoon sergeant knew all about the need for quiet.

"We're definitely not where we need to be sir. It's impossible to tell where we are though, we might have dropped in the middle of the goddamn day but I didn't see a thing when we exited the C-123. My guess is where's on the island's south end. We're hella exposed here. Let's get first squad up on the hillside to scout and set up a perimeter while we can."

"Roger that get them in place King," 2LT Tolbert told SSG Gary King and with a snap, the grizzled platoon sergeant went off to give the orders. 1st Platoon, Bravo Company was meant to put down about 800 meters from the small settlement of Girna but instead, they missed the drop zone by just about a mile. They landed in a valley on the island's southeastern shore that was gradually sloping downward to a beach on the island's western coastline. Agios Efstratios was in the shape of an inverted triangle - roughly - and though there wasn't much flat terrain on the entire island, there were at least trees to the north. In the south it was sparse vegetation - nothing to hide a man - and rocks. Special Operations teams that had moved through this area had come into contact with observation posts and neutralized them. Bombing runs by fighters had struck various targets and 2LT Tolbert could see, just a few meters from his position, the most unnatural crater dug into the ground, possibly an errant Mark 82 bomb or something.

It didn't take long for 1st Platoon to get into position and from there, all was quiet. The C-123s and C-130s had departed the area and the sight of paratroopers no longer dotted the skies. 2LT Tolbert didn't take solace in the quiet though he knew that there were fighters and attack planes on station for CAS, if it were needed. Moving over to his radioman, a buck private named Jesse Crozier, he lifted the radio handset from the backpack and keyed the transmit button, "Whipper Actual, this is Whipper 2-1, radio check." Nothing came back but static.

"Sir, it's the valley; we're not going to get a signal in this. We've got to get out and up to the hilltop maybe."

"All right Crozier, let's go," with that the two men moved off to the western hillside, scaling its dry slope with some difficulty. 2LT Crozier's M14 Rifle banged against his side the whole way up, threatening to slip a few times. He'd need both hands for the ascent, not that it was steep just that he was that off balanced. When they neared the top, both men crawled the rest of the way, coming alongside 1st Squad, which was positioned around the area, looking around for enemy troops. Surely someone had seen them come down and if Agios Efstratios were as packed with Lemnosian rebels as Intel said, they would be in contact almost the moment they touched down on the ground. With the radio back in his hand, 2LT Tolbert opted for another radio check, this time getting a response.

"Whipper 2-1, this is Whipper Actual, where the fuck are you boys?"

"Hard to say, we missed the DZ completely. We're ascertaining our position now."

"Well get your asses to the DZ on the double, we've got a good perimeter so announce yourselves when you get here. We'll be waiting but not for long."

"Understood, Whipper 2-1 out," 2LT Tolbert handed the handset to his radioman and took out his map. He looked around, scanning the full 360° view. Being higher up he had some idea of the surrounding area and what he saw was disconcerting. "Water to the left, to the right, and behind. We've got to be on the southern tip of the island."

"Roger that sir," answered SGT John Creekmore, the team leader of 1st Squad. "Way I figure it sir, and I looked when we got up here, is that we're situated somewhere down here," he pointed to the map. "That means we missed the DZ but about a klick or two, let's split it down the middle and say a klick and a half. We've got some walking to do and the terrain is pretty rough."

"So it is Sergeant, all right let's go, we'll get going on bearing," he checked his compass, "3-4-5. We're definitely closer to the eastern coastline than the western so if we go right north we'll miss the DZ entirely. What's between here and there?" He asked rhetorically. "Looks like we're at the top of one hill and that means we've got to go down into this valley right in front of us, up that next hill, and down to the DZ. It's on the downward slope of that hill over yonder." This time he pointed.

"Sounds about right sir."

"I'm putting 2nd Squad on point, hold here and take up the rear."

"Roger that sir."

"King, let's get on the move," 2LT Tolbert said a few moments later when he got back down the hillside to find his platoon sergeant kneeling with the corpsman. "Let's put 2nd Squad on point and 1st Squad on rear guard. 4th Squad has the big guns so they'll go third and 3rd Squad will take up second."

"I'll assemble the squad leaders sir." It took only seconds before the sergeants of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Squad were all assembled.

"Situation is this men, we missed the DZ by a klick and a half at least. 2nd Squad is on point and we're walking on a bearing of 3-4-5. We've got to go up this hillside, down the valley, up the next hillside, and to the DZ on the other side. If 2nd Squad gets hit, 3rd Squad will lay down covering fire while 4th Squad puts down the MGs. 1st Squad is going to cover our back door and cover us while we crest this hillside. Is that clear?" Heads nodded. It was simple because it needed to be. Complexity in battle was the quickest way to come unglued once contact came and no one had any doubts about making contact while they walked to the DZ. "Good, let's move out!" 2LT Tolbert said as he slung his rifle and made his way for the hillside. Moving back up it, he opted to go with 2nd Squad and lead from the point because that was what paratroopers did. They were always the first men out of the door and the last to step back into the plane on the way out and the platoon sergeants were usually right behind them, or in the rear to make sure everyone got off of the plane - or in the coming years, the chopper.

Moving up the hillside was slow. One squad moved at a time and 4th Squad, carrying two M1919A4 Browning Light Machine Guns. All told, the squad had eighteen men carrying the M14A1 Rifle, eight carrying the same rifle but the equipment to launch rifle grenades, thirteen men carrying the M3A1 Grease Gun submachine gun, three carrying the M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle or BAR, two slogging the M1919A4 Browning Light Machine Gun, and one carrying an M1E14 Garand with a scope attachment. The M1E14 Garand was the venerable old M1 Garand, just rechambered to 7.62x51mm, the standard rifle cartridge used by the Layartebian military. Everyone had the same round except for those carrying the SMGs. Their weapons used .45ACP, the same caliber as the M1911A1 sidearms that sergeants and Tolbert were carrying. His platoon had a lot of firepower across forty-five men - including himself - but they were large, much larger than the Lemnosian patrols mounted. At the same time, his platoon didn't know the lay of the land like the Lemnosians did so if they were going to come into contact with enemy forces, it was going to be problematic.

The first 400 meters for everyone was uphill - save for 1st Squad which had already gotten to the top of the hill. From there, 2nd Squad led the way the 700 meters down to the base of the next hill. It took some time while the soldiers moved slowly, checking each and every direction. They were exposed here but outside of a sniper, so too were enemy forces. Vegetation this side of the hill was much less sparse but it wasn't very tall. If enemy forces were waiting for them they would have to be prone and hiding behind the low shrubs that sprouted here. At the bottom of this slope, most of the men were growing tired. They were slogging a lot of gear, which included their parachutes. There was nowhere to stash them where they'd landed so to prevent them from becoming a hindrance or to clue the Lemnosians where they'd landed and where they were going, they'd stuffed the chutes back in their rucksacks.

They had another 400 meters to go before they got to the top of the next slope. From there it would be easy, less than 200 meters downslope to the DZ where everyone was. 2LT Tolbert, opting for a short rest at the base of the slope, checked his compass and looked for possible landmarks but there weren't any. They were in a gully that had long since dried up for there were no rivers on this island. Instead, there were rocks and trees. Without the trees it would have been reminiscent of some extraterrestrial planet right out of science fiction writing. Calling an end to the rest after five minutes, it would have been ten but they needed to get to the DZ, 2LT Tolbert put 3rd Squad on point, 2nd Squad in the rear, and 1st Squad in the number two position. He dared not move his weapons squad for they were the real force of power for the platoon.

Up the next hillside was slow going because it was steeper, there was barely any cover, and they were nearing the DZ. At the top of the slope, everyone hit the ground and 2LT Tolbert inched forward, scanning the downslope for signs of the DZ. He found them, 275 meters to the northwest and with that, he called his radioman up, let Whipper Actual know he was on his way in, and receiving a favorable reply, waited five minutes for word to pass down. Then he and his men popped up, walked down the slope, and joined the rest of Bravo Company, glad to have the force of men around them. It was already 09:00, nearly an hour after they'd touched on the ground and the invasion of Agios Efstratios was slow going. Of Bravo Company's three platoons, only 3rd Platoon and the HQ element landed on the DZ. The other platoon, 2nd Platoon, landed another mile away but they didn't have to go up and down a hill and a valley so they'd arrived about ten minutes quicker than 1st Platoon had.

---

• |- 46 -| •

[Layarteb]

August 16, 1958 - 09:25 hrs [UTC+2]
Southern Agios Efstratios
(39° 29' 37" N, 24° 58' 31" E)

The paratroopers hit their bellies as they crested the top of the hill. Their objective was down below, a small hamlet of houses astride a dirt road. Fanned out at the top of the hill, the company of men was now in an ideal firing position, looking down at their target. Of course, everything was quiet down there and nothing appeared to be amiss at all but the paratroopers weren't the kind to be lulled into a false sense of security. Captain Roy Washington, the company's CO, scooted over to 2LT Tolbert once everyone was in position because he had a job for him and the rest of his squad. "See that rock wall down there?"

"I see it," 2LT Tolbert said, looking seventy meters downslope.

"Get your platoon down there and send a squad into the hamlet to recon."

"Yes sir." Quickly, 1st Platoon, Bravo Company moved with their fronts covered by the rest of the company. They slid into the dirt, set up their firing positions by the low rock wall, and it was low, barely two feet, and there they waited while everyone got it place. The village remained quiet while this happened but it wouldn't remain quiet for too long. Dispatching 2nd Squad to the hamlet, 2LT Tolbert remained at his covered position, just a few meters away from the platoon's sniper. "Guzman, make sure you cover them. If you see anything, I want you to yell it out."

"You got it sir," the sniper, CPL Danny Guzman said, never taking his eye off of the scope, which was now scanning the small hamlet. Minutes later, as 2nd Squad had finally made it down to the road, it would be his shot that alerted everyone to the presence of hostiles and it was his shot that was the deadliest. Looking through the scope, he thought he'd spotted a shadow or some form of movement; it was hard to tell it was so quick. He panned the scope to the position and then saw a head pop up from behind a wall and then duck back down again. "Got you," he whispered to himself. He didn't need to yell, he knew his shot would be enough of a warning and he didn't want to upset his balance. He had the rifle resting on the wall itself at an odd angle. Then, when the head popped up again, he placed the crosshairs right where he'd shoot and waited for a third time. Seconds later, his shot announced the presence of hostiles as the man he'd targeted, slumped back, dead from the headshot.

Immediately, gunfire poured into the hamlet from Bravo Company's position and that brought return fire as Lemnosian rebels popped out of their hiding positions and shot uphill. One-by-one, in quick succession, they fell to rounds from Bravo Company. CPL Guzman would get two more before a burst of gunfire hit his position and forced him to take cover. By the time he was able to reset himself the firefight was over, a quick slaughter and rout of the Lemnosian forces. When 2nd Squad entered the hamlet they did so cautiously, suspecting booby traps or ambushers but they found nothing but dead bodies. No one was even clinging to life, everyone was simply dead where they fell.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ | ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

August 16, 1958 - 20:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Aerolimenas, Lemnos
Lemnos International Airport
(39° 55' 32" N, 25° 15' 4" E)

Night fell and the paratroopers dug-in, keenly aware that hunting their enemy at night was too dangerous. The Lemnosians knew every inch of Agios Efstratios and more than likely they had the island rigged with land mines and other booby traps that would be difficult to spot during the day, let alone during the night. The day had been a good one for the Layartebians. The three companies of paratroopers had eventually all linked up and hit their primary targets during the daylight hours, killing several dozen Lemnosians. They would be working their way through the hills and valleys the following morning, searching for the main, Lemnosian garrison though they expected a busy night ahead. Their defensive positions were all located in places that were easy to defend. They would rotate watches throughout the night and they'd set up Claymore mines for perimeter defense. The directional mines were brutal to the enemy and quite safe for the paratroopers, so long as they deployed them properly and when it came to Claymores, ever care in the world was made to ensure that they did.

At Lemnos International Airport, where headquarters had spent the day monitoring radio traffic and keeping score, a quiet calm was descending. No one expected a calm night but so far, the Lemnosians hadn't hit the paratrooper positions yet. They were likely moving into position, crawling inch-by-inch throughout the night until they were in their ready positions. They didn't plan to strike for quite some time and they were patient. They were aware that they outnumbered but did not necessarily outgun their enemy but they were aware that during the night, air support was limited and the paratroopers were likely to be tired and exhausted from both the jump and the subsequent combat they'd faced after they landed.

At Lemnos IAP, General Teitelbaum was seated in his office, smoking a cigar, when General Rainbolt entered. "We're going to have a problem tonight."

"Why's that?" General Teitelbaum asked the air commander.

"The rebels are going to hit our boys tonight and we can't provide them with air coverage too effectively. Any bombs we drop run the risk of hitting our positions."

"I suppose you have a suggestion?"

"I have two actually."

"Go on, I'm all ears."

"First we fly some of the F-105s and F-100s around. We keep them low just so they can be heard. Our boys know they can't be used too effectively at night but they'll take comfort in the sound. The enemy will think that we have fighters on standby and they might think twice about attacking. The second is that we get those Skytrain gunships up in the air and let them drop flares all night long. The illumination flares should help them aim and fire. It's worked with our special forces troops."

"It's risky. We have a lot of men on the ground. I agree one your first point, that's simple and it isn't risky at all. The second one is. What if they fire on our boys?"

"Every one of our officers on the ground has a radioman and a frequency. We know their positions so when the Skytrain is in orbit, they can contact the ground commander. If they need to open fire, well they'll be able to be guided in with enough accurate to pick out the hostile targets. We've used tracers to mark targets before and the paratroopers have spotting flares too. They can use those."

"I'm not sold on it but if we make sure that the permission to fire is strictly controlled then I will authorize it. My concern is our boys. I don't want an entire company shot to shit because the gunners on the Skytrain can't see. It's dark down there and it's dark everywhere and the rebels are going to hit when it's darkest."

"Yes they are, which is why we have to be ready for them with everything we can manage. We aren't going to provide the kind of air support we can during the day but the presence of one aircraft may just tip the scales in our favor tonight."

"I hope you're right General."

"So am I…"

---

• |- 47 -| •

[Layarteb]

August 17, 1958 - 03:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Southern Agios Efstratios
(39° 29' 55" N, 24° 59' 47" E)

Even in the midst of war, soldiers find time to sleep and for the paratroopers around Agios Efstratios, a small window from midnight to dawn was that time. The platoons had hunkered down where they were, found good cover, set perimeter watches, and turned in for a night, confident that they had dazed the enemy enough that they could sleep peacefully. 2LT Tolbert was doing his best to sleep but he kept waking up every ten minutes, aware that his body was doing little more than taking "power naps," a concept that wouldn't become commonplace for another forty-something years. The night was quiet and the island was peaceful. Fighter jets screamed overhead now and then with a pair of F-100s or a pair of F-105s loaded for close air support merely flying a racetrack pattern around the island in case they were needed. Pilots back at their bases were sleeping on and off in waves, just in case a platoon came under heavy fire and an emergency order were given.

The last pass had been twenty-five minutes ago and 2LT Tolbert hadn't even heard the F-100D Super Sabre pass overhead for he was in the midst of one of his ten-minute sleep cycles. For the rest of the men, orbiting aircraft were a comfort that allowed them to sleep rather than a nuisance that kept them awake. 2LT Tolbert didn't know how many fighters were airborne or what they were but he knew one thing, their bombs or rockets would come in handy if they were assaulted but no one on the ground expected an assault tonight. They'd only just landed and they spent the day putting fight to the enemy, attacking known positions and setting up ambush points. The Lemnosian rebels were in disarray and Intel didn't expect them to have enough of a handle on the situation to mount a counterattack but Intel could be wrong and this morning it was dead wrong.

2LT Tolbert became aware of the silence only about four minutes before his platoon got hit. He'd recognized that the night was quiet but it took a moment for him to realize that it was "too quiet" meaning that night creatures sensed something unnaturally violent about to happen and had scattered to the four winds. He got up from his sleeping position, grabbed his rifle, and began to crawl towards where his platoon sergeant was, fifteen meters away. SSG King heard him coming even before he got there and looked at his CO with weary eyes. "L-T, you're not on watch for another hour."

"Can't sleep King, don't you think it's 'too quiet' out here?"

"It is quiet," replied SSG King. Then he thought for a moment, "Too quiet indeed," he tapped the man sitting next to him, one of the platoon's grenadiers. "Look lively and put word down the line that we think something's up," and with that whisper, the grenadier went into action. One-by-one, the platoon members were roused from their shallow slumbers where they yawned and shook off the blurry vision of their unfocused eyes. They would need a bit to get used to the darkness again but they wouldn't need it for as the last man, Private James Maxwell awoke, the Lemnosian rebels attacked.

2LT Tolbert's platoon held the high ground and they had plenty of natural cover to protect them though they were ultimately exposed to the enemy and when the Lemnosians attacked, the tracer fire was accurate enough to send each of his men onto their bellies. "Open fire!" 2LT Tolbert screamed as he yanked the pin out of a hand grenade and lobbed it towards a muzzle blast he'd seen just slightly downslope. It detonated three seconds later for "all five second fuses burn down in three seconds." Within moments of contact, 1st Platoon was returning effective, aimed, steady fire at the enemy and 2LT Tolbert was on the radio, "Whipper Actual, this is Whipper 2-1, we've got contact!"

"No shit Whipper 2-1, everyone's in contact! The fucking Greasers are hitting everyone up and down the goddamn island."

"What about air Whipper Actual?"

"Hold tight, we'll see. Everyone's going to be needing it so take a number."

"Roger that sir," he put down the handset and looked over at SSG King who'd moved five meters away to get a better firing angle. "King! No air!" He yelled and SSG King only held up his hand with a thumb's up gesture. Whether or not he understood was not something 2LT Tolbert knew but a rifle round about nine inches from his head effectively killed the thought. He shouldered his rifle and fired a few aimed shot at what he could see of muzzle flashes. A volley of grenades exploded only milliseconds later, one right where he'd fired, and he could see the body of a Lemnosian rebel somersaulting downslope. He didn't know if he got him or the grenade but it didn't matter, the Greaser - the pejorative for the Lemnosians - was dead or wounded.

"Get out a flare!" Someone yelled and one of the grenadiers shot off an illumination flare before another volley of grenades slammed into a now illuminated target. In the glow of the illumination flare, 2LT Tolbert could see more than two dozen Lemnosians working their way up the hillside towards him. It was sobering but it gave him targets and he fired towards them when the unthinkable happened. The round pierced through the air at supersonic velocity and it cracked as it went past his head, immediately sending him to the dirt but the round wasn't aimed for him. It was aimed at Private James Maxwell, who'd just shifted his position to protect his CO. The 7.62x39mm round found the soft tissue of his neck a nuisance more than a hindrance and pierced right through it, severing his spine on the way out of the back of his neck. Like a ragdoll, PVT Maxwell hit the ground, bleeding and mostly unconscious. He'd be dead before the end of the firefight, the platoon's first casualty and a hard one at that for everyone liked PVT Maxwell, who did a stellar impression of the evil, "Soviet Menace" where he pretended to be a nefarious Soviet soldier, complete with accented English.

---

• |- 48 -| •

[Layarteb]

August 18, 1958 - 06:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Aerolimenas, Lemnos
Lemnos International Airport
(39° 55' 32" N, 25° 15' 4" E)

General Teitelbaum walked into his office after a shower and sat down at his desk before he picked up the ringing phone. "Teitelbaum speaking," he said as he picked up the phone and put it to his ear. Immediately he heard the voice of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Abe Pierre. "Abe what can I do for you at this hour? It's quite late in Layarteb City."

"I need a SITREP Steven, what do you have for us?"

"A lot of good news," General Teitelbaum said with a smile, knowing that the Joint Chiefs would appreciate a bit of good news. "They hit us yesterday at 03:00, a full twenty-four hours before we expected it. Achieving total surprise, Lemnosian rebels hit every paratroopers position on that island. However, it didn't go to their advantage. We had plenty of air and artillery support and our boys fought like wraiths! They drove off every attack and then seized the initiative at daybreak. In the twenty-four hours since, they've made some major advances on Agios Efstratios."

"That is good news, how were the casualties?"

"Relatively speaking they were light."

"What's the plan now?"

"We're continuing the push. The rebels suffered a major defeat yesterday morning and they're wounded so we're giving it to them hard."

"The President's going to want timing?"

"It's hard to say Abe you know that, give him a week's estimate. I don't want to be too conservative but there's a lot of land for a battalion to sweep and we're moving carefully. The rebels have a lot of booby traps on the island. When it comes time to cleaning it up that's going to take months."

"Well we'll deal with that when it happens. Until then I want to make sure you've got everything you need."

"I couldn't ask for more Abe, we've got two carrier groups, two dozen squadrons from the air force, and enough grunts to make anything happen. We're in good shape, you can tell the President that directly."

"Good, will do," there was little left of the call but it took another eight minutes before it ended with the two generals, old friends really, catching up on matters. Most of the communication between Layarteb City and the theater was handled by the lower-ranking officers rather than the higher ups. It made for quick communication but it also alienated the generals and the admirals from their superiors in Layarteb City, not necessarily a bad thing just a thing.

The past twenty-four hours had been rough on the Lemnosian rebels. Their assaults on the 17th didn't get very far before air support was dropping bombs on their positions and artillery was raining down. The planners expected something like that to happen and while the Lemnosians struck a full day early, all of the resources had been in place. The C-47D Skytrain converted into an airborne gunship had ran its ammunition magazines dry and headed home to be replaced on station by a second aircraft that ran its ammunition magazines dry. By the time dawn hit, four sorties had been run by the two aircraft and thousands upon thousands of rounds of .30-caliber and .50-caliber ammunition had been fired by the two aircraft. Throughout the day on August 17 the gun barrels were replaced and the brass cartridges were cleaned out of the aircraft to be recycled for fresh rounds.

Backing up the C-47s were F-100s and F-105s from the air force and A-1s and A-4s from the navy. Bomb loads were light and nothing dropped was over 500 pounds due to the proximity of friendly forces. Several hundred 2.75-in FFAR rockets had been fired by the A-1s, the F-100s, and the A-4s and the scoring marks from the white phosphorous rounds had made the landscape of Agios Efstratios look like an extraterrestrial planet. At 11:00 local time, General Teitelbaum had been shown the landscape of Agios Efstratios personally during a resupply drop from a C-47D Skytrain. He'd remarked that though it was a tiny island, it was as big as the continent for the men on the ground. During the resupply drop, a platoon of rebels shot their AK-47 assault rifles at the C-47 but they succeeded only in announcing their presence. General Teitelbaum watched as an A-1H Skyraider providing escort dropped a pair of napalm bombs right on their position. The Skyraider had maintained a low-level flight with a slight dive over the target. The two canisters fell from the wing hardpoints, tumbling on their way down, which ended in a spectacularly brilliant pair of fireballs that filled the sky. The Skyraider rolled and came back for a second pass but the bombs had hit the mark and a second drop wasn't necessary.

Now, as dawn was rising again over the region, the Layartebian paratroopers on Agios Efstratios were beginning the next day's push against the rebels. From their positions they would expand outward, attacking prepared fighting positions. The intensity of battle would be high and there would be no shortage of air support and artillery support requests made by the paratroopers. Air support would come from mixed sources, whether they were the air force or the navy while the artillery came solely from the navy, whose big cannons were perfect for the type of fire support the men on the island needed. The navy had been extremely effective in blocking the Aegean to the Soviet Navy and their "merchant" vessels and thus they needed a new mission. Providing artillery support was just what they needed to stave off the boredom that many of the sailors faced while the ships made orbits around the calm seas of the Aegean.

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[Layarteb]

August 24, 1958 - 13:00 hrs [UTC-5]
Layarteb City, New York
Fortress of Comhghall
(40° 41' 28" N, 74° 0' 58" W)

President William Baltz stepped into the press briefing room to a round of applause from the gathered reporters and government officials. Everyone knew what the President was there to discuss and this was a monumental day for the Republic of Layarteb and soon, the entire world would know as the President's radio broadcast was bounced from country to country. "Good afternoon my fellow Layartebians," he said, beginning his speech moments later. "As of one hour ago, MF-MA forces have ceased major combat operations in the Republic of Lemnos following the complete, utter, and total defeat of communist rebels on the small island of Agios Efstratios. After one hundred and seventy-five days of heavy fighting between rebels and MF-MA forces, the freedom-loving, pro-democratic citizens of Lemnos can finally rest soundly tonight that the communist threat is defeated once and for all.

"This is a major blow to the Soviet Union, which has been supporting the communist rebels since at least 1956 and likely even before then. Today marks a major defeat for Soviet foreign policy and a great victory for the supporters of democracy around the world." Here he paused for great effect while cameras snapped in the background, capturing his stillness in black and white. This was a pure audio broadcast and there were none of the clunky video cameras rolling. Reporters sat on comfortable folding chairs with tape recorders and notebooks, capturing every word as best as they could of President Baltz's speech.

"Today does not mark the end of all fighting however. Sweep operations must be conducted by Lemnosian and MF-MA forces to thwart rebel spies and holdouts who have eluded capture thus far. There is a considerable amount of battle damage and unexploded ordinance to clean up and every effort will be made by MF-MA forces to repair the damage caused by the communist rebels and their Soviet backers. Thus far, MF-MA forces have suffered approximately one hundred and eighty casualties of all kinds. Our communist foes have not fared so well and we estimate that as many as six thousand rebels and Soviet advisors have been killed, wounded, or captured in the fighting. Civilian casualties are estimated at approximately two thousand, many of those suffered during the first phase of Operation MIDNIGHT CYCLONE, when communist rebels brought warfare to the main island of Lemnos, utilizing homes and hamlets as hideouts without a care for the property or livelihood of their 'fellow citizens.'

"Presently, MF-MA forces are in Phase III of this operation and that will taper off over the next six weeks. When it does, Phase IV will commence with a short-term peacekeeping mission to assist the battle weary people of Lemnos. We will utilize the peace to help rebuild this small Aegean republic and clear it of land mines and booby traps set by communist rebels. Our long-term commitment to the Republic of Lemnos will be titled Phase V and it will see a four-year, at minimum, effort to provide stability for the Lemnosian government and prevent flare ups from any future communist insurrections. MF-MA forces will establish a semi-permanent presence in the small republic to ensure that Soviet aggression remains fully checked from now until the collapse of that heretical government. Thank you and have a good day!" President Baltz stepped away from the podium and left the room. He headed back to his office where several of his top advisors were gathered. It was there that he would learn, in detail, how MF-MA forces had fared during the battle and what lay ahead. Negotiations were presently underway with the Lemnosian government to establish one small, helicopter air station and several training camps, all on Agios Efstratios. New airstrips would need to be built on Lemnos as well but those would be small and mainly for propeller-driven aircraft, the kind that the future Lemnosian military would need to keep tabs on its territorial waters.

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