[Earth II] To Fall from Olympus

[Layarteb]

Chapter V
Phase IV

October 1, 1958 - 10:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Aerolimenas, Lemnos
Lemnos International Airport
(39° 55' 32" N, 25° 15' 4" E)

Summer had given way to autumn and in the Republic of Lemnos, normalcy was slowly returning. Following the end of major combat operations on August 25, with the complete and utter rout of the Lemnosian rebels on Agios Efstratios the level of violence had declined dramatically. Initially there had been some heavy firefights between squads of soldiers so well hidden that they'd eluded the main thrust by the paratroopers and MF-MA forces continued to take light casualties. By October 1, the number of MF-MA casualties had risen from 180 to 200. However, as September wore on, firefights and arrests of suspected spies and sympathizers tapered off to nothing by the end of the month. Fairly confident those holdouts had been eliminated or captured and that all sympathizers, spies, and supporters on the mainland had been arrested, MF-MA forces began the transition into Phase IV on October 1, right on schedule.

Phase IV would be a three-month push by MF-MA forces to clean up and rebuild. On Lemnos, the Layartebian Marines would be assisting the Lemnosian soldiers with clearing the lingering remnants of war. Contractors from MF-MA countries would come to participate in the rebuilding of the island; while on Agios Efstratios, MF-MA forces would begin the painfully tedious, slow, and dangerous process of destroying arms caches, booby traps, and landmines. The biggest contribution here came not from the Republic of Layarteb but rather from Eurasia, which had decided to deploy engineers to Agios Efstratios to assist with the cleanup. Where Eurasia had been hesitant during combat, they were now eager in peace. Seeing the potential benefits to getting MF-MA forces established on their long-term missions to monitor the Soviets, the Eurasians would help speed up the time significantly. There was a considerable amount of work to be done throughout Lemnos.

On the diplomatic front, MF-MA forces would be determining their long-term plans. The Fourth Reich of North Germania had already signaled that its mission was done and that it would be withdrawing its forces by the end of Phase IV. The Commonwealth of Hirgizstan agreed to keep a small force to assist with Phase V. The United Eurasian Federation was in talks to keep a small presence on the island republic as well as provide permanent MF-MA bases for future action against the Soviet Union, including the air base at Incirlik, which had hosted the larger, Layartebian warplanes involved during the war. B-52D Stratofortress and B-47E Stratojet bombers had been flying around-the-clock missions in northern Turkey as a warning to the Soviets and the effect had been quite evident. Soviet bomber flights against Eurasia had dropped considerably now that they had opposition. Furthermore, F-102A Delta Daggers and F-104A Starfighters flying CAP missions suddenly removed the large superiority the Soviet Air Force believed it had, forcing them to rethink their operations in the Black Sea region.

For the Lemnosians, the Lemnosian Defense Force was about to receive a big boost in support. They would establish a small but effective air force capable of monitoring the Aegean Sea and to provide air cover in the event the Soviet Air Force attacked with bombers. Their navy would receive surplus hardware from MF-MA countries, which included German anti-submarine destroyers and surface-warfare frigates. In addition, a new listening post would be built on Lemnos, this much was already agreed upon prior to Operation MIDNIGHT CYCLONE and it would be utilized to monitor the Soviet Union. Additional sites in Turkey and Iran would be built, all with the permission of the Eurasian military, which saw a major threat in the Soviets and a major cushion with the alliance members of MF-MA.

As Phase III transitioned to Phase IV, a special mood fell over Lemnos. There was considerable depression and grief over the war and the deaths of so many Lemnosians. The rebels accounted for 3,500 of the 5,000+ casualties suffered by the Republic of Lemnos in the war and it would take decades for the population to rebuild itself. Families had been torn asunder by the war and those wounds would take a considerable amount of time to heal. Another windfall to the war was a drop in Prime Minister Argyris' popularity. This caused some alarm for MF-MA nations, especially the Republic of Layarteb, which recognized him for what he was but supported him because of his fierce anti-communist stance. Any replacement would have to be in line with Argyris' thoughts otherwise it could undo everything that Operation MIDNIGHT CYCLONE had accomplished in the past months.

At Lemnos International Airport, General Rainbolt watched as the first civilian Boeing 707 jetliner landed on the airport's 3,000-meter runway to great fanfare. General Teitelbaum, still riding the wave of success that had come with the rout of the communists had helped arrange a large ceremony for the jetliner, which had flown to the island from the Hirgizstanian capital on Cape Verde. The event was truly auspicious for the MF-MA command since the flight brought with it the Hirgizstanian Fuhrer, who'd chartered the Apollo Air flight. He was flying in to sign a major security agreement with Prime Minister Argyris that would see two dozen ex-Hirgizstanian aircraft transferred to the Lemnosian Defense Forces. The aircraft would arrive within the next month and operate from the airport until new airstrips could be built. They would form the first two squadrons of the Lemnosian Air Defense Force.

Shortly after his arrival, General Teitelbaum and several of his senior planning members retreated away from the visibility of the crowds and the reporters to meet with two Hirgizstanians who'd come along for the flight. One was Walter D. Danielson, the head of the Hirgizstanian intelligence department and the other was Colonel Robert Webb, who worked with the military intelligence department. Both men had flown in to discuss future plans should Prime Minister Argyris be deposed. The meeting would ultimately conclude that little would be done to keep Prime Minister Argyris in power should he lose the election but that if his successor was not as fervently anti-communist, pressure could be applied to ensure that the Soviet Union wouldn't receive any sort of benefit. MF-MA forces would remain and contributions would continue to be anti-Soviet in their nature. If a successor was pro-Soviet then other solutions could be taken to remedy the situation more permanently.

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• |- 51 -| •

[Layarteb]

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

"Private Flores just expired sir," said a military aide after he'd saluted and was bade to speak his message.

"Thank you Corporal, damn shame."

"Yes sir," the corporal disappeared while General Teitelbaum ruminated over the implications. Young Private First Class Nathan J. Flores had become one of six casualties since the end of hostilities. He'd inadvertently stepped on a landmine on the island of Agios Efstratios at 10:30 in the morning. It had taken some time to get him to a military hospital because of the presence of landmines and by the time he'd arrived he was barely conscious. Doctors had tried their best but his right leg had quickly become infected and his body just couldn't fight it. His heart had stopped only thirty-nine minutes earlier and though the doctors tried, they could not restart it, he was dead. PFC Flores would be honored with a Purple Heart and another medal because though he knew the risks, he still volunteered for EOD duty, which meant clearing unexploded ordinance and the myriad of landmines and booby-traps set by both the rebels and the MF-MA forces.

While General Teitelbaum was ruminating over this, a flurry of activity was happening inside of the intelligence department at the airport. MF-MA forces had taken over the airport during the initial campaign and they'd yet to cede a single portion of it away. The intelligence shop operated out of a secluded building on the airport's northeastern perimeter and it was here that Hirgizstanian, Eurasian, Layartebian, and North Germanian men mixed. The North Germanians had left only a handful of men, less than ten and only because of Hirgizstanian prompting. By far the biggest contingent was the Eurasians but the entire effort fell underneath the leadership of a Layartebian colonel named Robert Lowery who preferred "Rob."

The intelligence shop was focused on three priorities. The first was on Soviet and pro-communist activities on Lemnos, particularly in an effort to weed out spies and stay-behind forces. The second was on the level of dissent to Prime Minister Argyris. The third was on monitoring the Soviet ships running about the Aegean. The Soviets had three trawlers that operated as spy ships and they were monitoring Lemnos, Turkey, and Greece. Keeping tabs on them was a daunting task that required aircraft, radar, and patrol boats and of the intelligence shop's fifty men, twenty-one were assigned to this endeavor.

The common language was English, spoken by the Layartebians and the Hirgizstanians as a first language and also by the Eurasians as a second language. The North Germanians spoke it too but with some disdain, preferring their own native tongue to that of their "allies." This evening the shop was fully manned because of a brewing crisis. Prime Minister Argyris was in hot water with his approval rating plummeting by the day. A Eurasian spy working undercover within the Lemnosian populace had discovered a small, student group being born out of pro-communist sympathies. They intended to assassinate the Prime Minister soon.

The Eurasian spy was under orders to stay with them and so he did for hope of uncovering a larger Soviet plot but thus far this appeared to be homegrown. If the Soviets had a hand in it they were extremely adept at keeping their visibility so low as to be invisible. The North Germanians were convinced that the Soviets had a hand in it and so too were the Hirgizstanians. The Eurasians were in a camp by themselves believing it to be solely domestic and the Layartebians were on the fence, split virtually down the middle. Tonight, every available hand was pouring over contact reports and SIGINT data. They were reviewing recordings from number's stations operating in Ukraine that broadcast over frequencies capable of being heard on Lemnos, hoping to crack the code but aware that these were likely one-time pads and thus impossible to crack without the pad.

One particular station dubbed "The Mariner" because it began each broadcast with the blast of a navy man's whistle was the primary focus of attention. It broadcast at regular intervals usually at 02:00 and 15:00 with the voice of a woman speaking Russian. Theories from the men listening to her attributed the voice to everything from a beautiful twenty-something who attended the ballet to a hag who likely brewed potion to ensnare children. They had fun with it but the fact of the matter was that the Russian voice likely came from an educated woman of upper class. Her diction was clear and perfect and she spoke with such precision that she likely rehearsed everything ahead of time. She could have been an actress for all the men knew or she could have been a destitute woman from Kiev who'd been thrown out by her family and who never lost her elegance in diction.

Due to broadcast in just five hours, the men were setting up tapes and listening to her previous broadcasts, hoping to catch any hint of a pattern. Patterns were everything and the more people tried to make things random the more they appeared patterned. There was no such thing as random in the world of espionage, at least not yet. Everything had a pattern to it and the best minds in military intelligence were working on cracking whatever pattern existed in her broadcasts.

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• |- 52 -| •

[Layarteb]

November 1, 1958 - 02:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Panagia, Lemnos
Southeastern Panagia
(39° 58' 42" N, 25° 24' 25" E)

"Are you sure this is it?" The Layartebian soldier whispered but just a tinge too loudly. Quickly, his platoon sergeant slapped him on the back of the head and held his finger up to his lips.

"Quiet moron!" He whispered and with the platoon back observing noise discipline, the sergeant led them out, walking through the pitch black night towards a house just four hundred meters to the west. They were about fifty meters north of the road but in an open field, crouching as they moved forward. The other half of the platoon was approaching from the northeast, crossing through a small plot of farmland three hundred meters from the house.

This house had been the frantic search of the MF-MA forces throughout the entire month of October and now that they'd zeroed in on it, they were being as careful as possible. Radio transmissions had been going out irregularly, using coded letter groups and staying on the air for only two and a half minutes. It made triangulating the signal that much more difficult and it was only accomplished by stationing vans with radio triangulation gear throughout the island. By mid-October, they'd identified the signal as coming from the eastern portion of the island. By October 20, they narrowed in on the northeastern portion and as of twelve hours earlier, they narrowed it onto this particular house after spending four days working on the town of Panagia.

The attack plan called for seizing the house in the dead of night. One platoon of Layartebian paratroopers were to set up a perimeter to the north and the east. A squad of Lemnosian Rangers, the newest outfit of the Lemnosian military would set up a blocking position in a house to the immediate west and the south would be occupied by other Lemnosian troops. The goal of the mission was the capture of those inside, including their radio equipment. With it all captured intact, the MF-MA leadership hoped to provide false information to the Soviets. They had a strong possibility of achieving that, so long as the raid went successfully but it was difficult to predict. The Lemnosian Rangers were the elite of the Lemnosian military forces but they were an untested outfit. Formed with assistance from the Layartebian Green Berets, they numbered less than fifty men and twelve were on site now with a single Green Beret embedded within their number to ensure they didn't jump the gun.

SFC Paul Kanagy halted his men halfway to the house. With hand signals he ordered everyone on the ground and they began to crawl now. There was nothing between them and the house but open land. The moon wasn't exactly full but it was bright, the full moon having just been four days ago on November 27. Clouds mixed with the silvery light but anyone looking out of the windows of the house, which were dark, would be able to see the encroaching soldiers if they stayed upright. This would slow their advance but in the briefing, stealth had been emphasized by the officers in charge. SFC Kanagy knew that his platoon lieutenant, 2LT Harold Webber was likely doing the same once they got out of the farm plot.

Moving slowly, the Layartebians got into their position by 02:30 and by 03:00, everyone all around the board was in position. Guns were aimed at the house, which included an assortment of battle rifles and light machine guns. The Lemnosian Rangers closer to the target mostly had submachine guns but they had a few battle rifles among their number. Radio checks were made and the go-code was given. The main Lemnosian capture force was located just over nine hundred meters south on the main Moudros-Plaka Highway. That force consisted of a half dozen jeeps and trucks, the jeeps armed with .50-caliber heavy machine guns and with the go-code, they moved out, peeling off to the right and then to the left as they took an auxiliary road that led right to the target house. The three jeeps had nine men and the three M35 deuce-and-a-half trucks behind them brought another thirty-six men, forty-five in total. That was a lot of firepower to bring to bear and anyone inside of the house couldn't hope to stand and fight.

For them, the realization came when the main force was but eighty meters away, the trucks revving their engines loudly as they downshifted into the next two turns. By then, the jeeps had put themselves into a fire arc with their guns pointed at the front of the house. The larger M35 trucks parked in a line as the squads of men jumped out of the backs and set up their own positions around the area. At the front of this all was a Lemnosian major named Dimitris Floros and he quickly got on the loudspeaker, saying in Greek, "This is Major Floros of the Lemnosian Defense Force. You are surrounded and ordered to turn on the lights and leave the house in the next thirty seconds with your hands up! The countdown starts right now!" Quickly, he ordered a squad of men up to the front door of the house. They would breach in thirty seconds to ensure that those inside didn't destroy the radio equipment. All of them had been equipped with submachine guns or pistols and though there were ten of them, only four would enter first.

It took all of twelve seconds before the sounds of destruction came from inside of the house. Immediately, the team breached. The point man leveled a shotgun at the front door and blasted a round through the lock, blowing the door backwards. He backed out of the way and four men with SMGs and pistols burst through. Shouting and yelling filled the air and one man burst out of the back door and began to run, though he headed right towards 2LT Webber's men. Having previously ordered his men to hold fire, 2LT Webber stood up and leveled his rifle at the running man. That stopped him dead in his tracks, "Hands up and on your knees!" He yelled in English and the running man quickly complied as his eyes registered the other men staring at him with weapons raised.

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• |- 53 -| •

[Layarteb]

December 1, 1958 - 12:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Aerolimenas, Lemnos
Lemnos International Airport
(39° 55' 32" N, 25° 15' 4" E)

Some things had gone to plan and some things didn't. MF-MA forces, in combination with the Lemnosian Defense Force, were able to roll up an entire Soviet spy network on Lemnos, which all began with the successful capture of the radio house in Panagia on November 1. Though some equipment was destroyed, most of it survived intact thanks to the quick and otherwise calm actions by the Lemnosian squad on point. What didn't go to plan was the attempt to feed false information back to the Soviets. They caught on almost immediately - by the second broadcast - that their radio operator had been compromised, likely the lack of a specific control key that MF-MA forces never transmitted, despite looking for patterns in all of the transmissions they'd managed to record. The Soviet reply had been comical and that was it, the numbers station went offline and all broadcasts ceased.

November proved quiet. MF-MA forces learned that the Soviet network's main goal wasn't so much to spy on MF-MA forces but rather to facilitate a coup or an assassination against Prime Minister Argyris. Throughout November, MF-MA forces worked through the interrogations, learning the identities of those enlisted to help the Soviet plan to remove Prime Minister Argyris from power. One-by-one, they were captured, brought into interrogation, and more names were revealed. By the end of the month, seventy-two people had been captured, interrogated, and determined to have been part of the wider spy network / coup / assassination team. The Soviets had done well in enlisting agents and assets inside of Lemnos and the sheer number spoke worlds for what they could do. The KGB would be a worthy adversary for the combined intelligence services of Lemnos and the MF-MA bloc.

This high-intensity action was really the exception to the rule. On Agios Efstratios there wasn't a soul but MF-MA engineers working to clear landmines and booby traps along with unexploded ordinance. While the vast majority of the bodies had been cleaned up, there had been a handful which evaded the initial and secondary search teams. The remains of those still above ground were handled carefully and cleaned up, removing the last dead from the battlefield of Agios Efstratios. In Lemnos proper, engineers were working to help clean up the mess as well but there were far fewer booby traps and landmines there. Also underway on Agios Efstratios were scouting missions by surveyors who would be turning the island into a veritable military fortress. Surveyors had already identified four potential spots for army camps on Agios Efstratios and another location that could be used to build a large, military airport, though to do so would require a considerable amount of landfill. It would be a large construction project, one that could take some time but if the money was there, it was possible. Surveyors on Lemnos had already picked out two ideal locations for small airfields, the kind that could operate propeller aircraft for patrols around the Aegean Sea, where they would hunt for Soviet submarines and track Soviet naval warships.

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• |- 54 -| •

[Layarteb]

December 31, 1958 - 14:00 hrs [UTC-5]
Layarteb City, New York
Fortress of Comhghall
(40° 41' 28" N, 74° 0' 58" W)

New Year's Eve had promised to be chilly but sunny only four days earlier and now, with the evening hours rapidly approaching, the forecast had shifted dramatically. A cold front, previously expected to break up over the Appalachian Mountains hadn't and now it was driving full force towards Layarteb City where anywhere from eight to eleven inches of snow would join the already nine and a half inches of snow that had fallen the day after Christmas. Of course, that snow was now a mixture of sand, salt, and road filth and because there had been a few days above freezing - but not that far above freezing - there was a slushy mixture to the snow that had yet to be cleared. Despite the encroaching storm system, New Year's Eve plans weren't being curtailed much except in Times Square, where policemen were erecting barricades to reduce the size of the crowd. The ball would drop at midnight, regardless of the storm or not, and people would still be in lounges, bars, and clubs in their formalwear to celebrate the end of 1958. A world away in Lemnos, where midnight was just three hours away, people were doing the same.

Of course, the Lemnosians were hoping to put the horror of 1958 behind them while the Layartebians looked at 1959 with a much different outlook. A showdown between the non-communist West and the communist East had turned into a Western victory and it was rapidly becoming the rally cry against Soviet encroachment throughout the world. Leading this rally cry were the governments of the Marseilles Agreement with President Baltz of Layarteb at the forefront. While the Soviets licked their wounds, he was overseeing the finishing touches to decorations around the Fortress of Comhghall. Tonight at 20:00, eighty-five societal elites and fifty foreign dignitaries and their spouses would be descending upon Governors Island for the President's New Year's Ball, a time-honored tradition that dated back to the country's second President. Finding himself at the entranceway to the fortress, President Baltz was surveying the scene before him when a woman appeared in an archway ahead, striding towards him with purpose. Her name was Anne Campbell and she'd become the highest placed woman in the Layartebian executive branch as senior advisor to the President. She was striding towards him now in a green, yellow, and brown patterned dress with her high-heeled shoes clacking on the stone floors.

"Mister President," she said as she nonchalantly negotiated the slippery steps down into the main greeting area.

"Anne, what brings you out here?" The doors were open and a gust of freezing wind blew in and caught her dress, which wasn't loose or short enough to raise but she did put her hands down to prevent it from ruffling too much. "The door is open and you'll catch cold, what's happened?"

"Sir, Prime Minister Argyris would like to speak with you about an important matter. I was just in my office when he was put through to me to field the call."

"Did he sound distressed?"

"A little sir," she answered as she stopped in front of him. The wind rushed back out and a chill filled the air as her breath crystallized in the air stream. Even with her thick pantyhose it was still much too cold to be standing here with only a dress on and not any sort of jacket.

"All right let's go then to it and stop standing here in the cold. Gentlemen, good work, just stick to the plan and we'll be set." He gave a pat on the back to the head decorator and followed Anne back up to his office.

On the way, President Baltz asked if George, her husband, would be attending the gala and she said that he would but only after he put down their two children for bed, which would be at 20:00 sharp. President Baltz's own wife was in the midst of her final primping that would bring her back to Governors Island at 16:00, in time to eat a small and early dinner before she got ready. It was imperative that she be at her husband's side to receive guests and welcome them to the Fortress of Comhghall, another time-honored tradition. The tradition of having an esteemed and elegant woman to greet was so important that one President, who'd been a widower at the time, hired a local actress and model to be there. They eventually had a private affair but it didn't go anywhere, much to his chagrin though he was eighteen years her senior.

Back in his office now, President Baltz waited for the phone to ring. When it did, he picked up and he was immediately connected to the Lemnosian Prime Minister. "Prime Minister, Happy New Year's, though I am a few hours premature; how can I be of help this evening? Surely it's late there and you have a party to attend to?"

"Thank you Mister President, yes I have removed myself from my own party because I have just received some distressing news, it concerns the Soviets."

"Oh? Tell me," he sat down in his seat and Anne joined him across from the desk. Cradling a notepad and a pencil he began to scribble as Prime Minister Argyris explained a plot he'd only just overheard twenty minutes earlier. When he was finished talking, President Baltz was glad it was a phone call as the look on his face would have conveyed the wrong demeanor. "I will make some immediate phone calls. Who from my embassy is there tonight? The ambassador? Good. I will have someone get back to you. Security should be tight Prime Minister. Yes you will take care. I will see to it that this does not happen. Yes. Good night."

"Sir?" Anne asked as President Baltz hung up the phone.

"Prime Minister Argyris believes that the Soviets or Soviet-backed rebels are going to make an assault on his residence tonight. The ambassador is there along with what I would assume is at least one intelligence attaché. I hope he's just overreacting. Ever since we hit that spy house in the beginning of the month he's grown more and more paranoid by the day."

"I'll call the Chairman-General sir and have him liaise with General Teitelbaum in Lemnos."

"That's all we can do for now. I want to be kept apprised of any developments Anne. Make sure that we're not kept out of the loop."

"Yes sir," she answered and the meeting broke up right there. MF-MA forces were due to end Phase IV of the mission at midnight and commence Phase V, a long-term, four-year humanitarian and peacekeeping mission. The goal of Phase V would be to establish a near-permanent MF-MA force on Lemnos and combat rebellion and pro-communist sympathies through less dramatic measures. By the end of January, MF-MA forces would be down to less than half of what they had been at Phase I. Most of the aircraft on deployment around the Aegean Sea would come home though the Republic of Layarteb had already negotiated the lease of Incirlik Air Base as a permanent station and Gökçeada Airport as a semi-permanent station. The islands of Gökçeada and Bozcaada would become sizeable MF-MA military outposts though the majority of activity would flow through Incirlik. Several bases would be established on both Agios Efstratios and Lemnos, all of them permanent, which Prime Minister Argyris did not particularly mind. In the future, candidates for office who thought differently would find the election results unfavorable to their side.

As the afternoon wore on in Layarteb City, the clocks changed in Lemnos to represent the change in month, day, and year. President Baltz, curious for updates received little to none. No one reported any distress or duress and by the time President Baltz was welcoming his own guests, the event was gone. Nothing came of it and the Soviets or pro-Soviet rebels did nothing to spoil the New Year's ceremony. President Baltz and many within his administration privy to the information would even wonder if there was a plot and not just Prime Minister Argyris' paranoia. It would be a question never properly answered, even after deep investigation by the Layartebian chief of state and his adept and intelligent staff of agents and their recruited assets.

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• |- 55 -| •

[Layarteb]

Chapter VI
Epilogue

August 10, 1961 - 10:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Agios Efstratios, Republic of Lemnos
Camp Maxwell
(39° 29' 47" N, 24° 59' 50" E)

In the Republic of Lemnos, nearly three years had passed since the tragic events of 1958. Life had more or less returned to normal in Lemnos and while there were short, tense flare-ups, they were quickly resolved, whether by the Lemnosian Defense Force or by the small contingent of MF-MA forces on the island, which was either a battalion of Layartebians or a battalion of Eurasians. Prime Minister Argyris was still in power and his popularity had largely stagnated. He wasn't loved but he wasn't hated either. A considerable effort had been made to squash avenues of dissent to his rule but because they were done quietly, they didn't foster new resentment. MF-MA forces largely knew what they were doing in this regard.

On the island of Lemnos, two new airfields had cropped up since the end of 1958 and considerable construction was underway at the international airport to make it capable of handling heavier and newer aircraft. One day in the future, the airport might have to handle heavy, medium bombers and heavy transports and the airport needed to be able to handle the weight and takeoff requirements of those aircraft. The two new airfields were small, not for large aircraft and both were located on the island's eastern coast with Fishni Airfield located in the southeast and Plaka Airfield in the northeast. At Fishni, the runway was one thousand meters long but up in Plaka, it was sixteen hundred meters long. These runways weren't long enough to handle the fighters in service but rather they were long enough to handle helicopters and that was what lined the runways at both airfields, Huey helicopters.

Three models of the Huey were in service with the Layartebian Army, the UH-1A Huey, the UH-1B Huey, and the UH-1C Huey. The UH-1B Huey was the primary transport, an improved model over the UH-1A with a heavier lifting capacity. The UH-1C was the gunship model, armed with guns and rockets. It wasn't meant to carry troops unlike the UH-1A and the UH-1B. A dozen UH-1Bs and six UH-1Cs sat at each airport, which was enough to lift just over three hundred men. This was enough to move two companies of men at once and for both the Layartebians and the Eurasians, that fit their doctrines. But Fishni and Plaka weren't the only places were new military bases had popped up since the war's end.

On Agios Efstratios, four land bases had popped up and a large air base was under construction. The airfield was to be named Stratis Air Base and it was slated to have a sixteen hundred meter runway. It was meant to be a fighter base in the future. The land bases were named Tempest, Maxwell, Rogain, and Kamino, located west, south, north, and east on the island. An air station for helicopters was being set up in the middle of the island, big enough to handle two dozen Hueys and other helicopters. Located on the flat top of a mountain, the base didn't have a name yet and it was a long way from being finished since the mountaintop had to be flattened.

A lot of money was going into construction at Lemnos and Agios Efstratios. In addition to the airfields and army camps, the Eurasians were renovating and upgrading the radar and listening station just east of the airport, making it capable enough to track any and all Soviet aircraft and ships in and around the Aegean and the Black Seas, as well as over the Balkans and the Levant. The Soviets had objected deeply to the militarization of the Republic of Lemnos and this listening station had drawn a lot of angry objections in Ankara from the Soviet ambassador. They fell on deaf ears as the Eurasians listened and forwarded the information to the Layartebians and the rest of the Marseilles nations. The North Germanians were the most apathetic with the Hirgizstanians seeing their objections as mere procedure for these kinds of incidents. None of the four nations were too concerned by the Soviet objections, especially Layarteb.

By now, Layarteb had a new President, Andrew Beckwith a Federalist and a newly retired army colonel. He swept in with 72% of the vote on November 5 and assumed office the following January. He was doing well now, pushing the Layartebian space program in his domestic agenda and representing the anti-communist persona of the Marseilles Agreement. He was an ardent supporter of Phase V of Operation MIDNIGHT CYCLONE, which had begun on January 1, 1959 and was slated to continue at least until 1963. By then, work on the new airfields and military bases would be complete. Prime Minister Argyris would be term-limited come the 1963 elections and so a new Prime Minister would assume office and already the MF-MA nations were maneuvering certain people into position, hoping that they would continue the anti-communist, pro-Western agenda that Argyris formulated.

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• |- 56 -| •

[Layarteb]

February 17, 1963 - 18:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Aerolimenas, Lemnos
Lemnos International Airport
(39° 55' 32" N, 25° 15' 4" E)

Prime Minister Argyris had six months left in his term as Prime Minister of Lemnos with elections slated for August 18, a Sunday. By Monday morning, on August 19, Lemnos would have a new Prime Minister. Heavily favored was Giorgos Karras, an ardent anti-communist who was really the MA's choice. They would see to it that he had no issues at the polls. However, it was mid-February now and Phase V of Operation MIDNIGHT CYCLONE was concluding with a two-week withdrawal of the remaining MF-MA forces on the island. This included a battalion of Layartebian Marines and two squadrons of Eurasian military aircraft. The Lemnosian Defense Force had its own aircraft and while they were geared to self-defense, reconnaissance, and maritime strike over and in the Aegean Sea, they weren't lacking in capabilities. The Eurasians could, of course, respond with much more capable aircraft from their bases along the coastline.

Phase V saw the successful transition of Lemnos away from a damaged, scarred country and to a thriving oasis for investment and growth, within reason of course because Lemnos was so small. Military base construction was complete and while the plan was for a Eurasian contingent to remain on Agios Efstratios along with a regular rotation of Layartebian troops, that agreement had yet to be signed. There was some concern that Prime Minister Argyris would balk on his promise to sign it and that wouldn't be tolerable for either Eurasia or Layarteb. As it stood now, Argyris seemed more concerned with the overall humanitarian and peacekeeping mission that the MF-MA forces had committed to during Phase V. Whatever the reason for his dawdling, it was not going to go over well - for him - if he continued to falter.

Over the next two weeks, the Eurasians would be pulling their men back to mainland Turkey and the Layartebians would be moving off to Incirlik Air Base. While the Layartebians had a default lease on the air base since early 1958, they were set to gain full ownership to the air base following the completion of Phase V and the long-term agreement to protect Lemnos from Soviet invasion, intrusion, and interference. Some men were guaranteed to remain, particularly those operating the listening and radar station east of the airport but there would be no more combat troops on Lemnos-proper. Lockheed C-130E Hercules transports were running regular rotations through the airport and they would be until early March as they carted away men and equipment.

To the east, on the islands of Gökçeada and Bozcaada, MF-MA forces had established several large bases. On Gökçeada, the main airport now supported a squadron of maritime patrol aircraft and a squadron of fighters. A radar post and a SAM base had been established to provide protection against Soviet bombs flying from the Black Sea. On Bozcaada, an army base was being established but it would largely be for the Eurasians though Layartebian Green Berets would regularly rotate through, acting as a sort of quick reaction force to stop any Soviet invasion force.

The Soviets were still lodging protests left, right, and center but as before, they fell on deaf ears with the signatories of the Marseilles Agreement, which included the Republic of Lemnos, though the Soviets didn't have any sort of mission there, they didn't recognize the government nor would they any time soon. For the Lemnosians, that suited them just fine, it would have been expensive to maintain a counter mission in Kiev and the government wasn't entirely fond of wasting money on their enemies.

---

• |- 57 -| •

[Layarteb]

March 3, 1963 - 10:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Ankara, Turkey
Eurasian Presidential Palace
(39° 55' 50" N, 32° 47' 54" E)

Cameras snapped and the press clamored to get a word in as an unprecedented array of world leaders stood on a small stage inside of the Eurasian Presidential Palace. In the center was Prime Minister Argyris who represented the Republic of Lemnos. Flanked immediately to his right was the Eurasian Prime Minister, Hakan Kutlar. To the right of him was the Hirgizstanian Fuhrer. Then, to the immediate left of Argyris was the Layartebian President, Andrew Beckwith. To Beckwith's left was the North Germanian Fuhrer and thus all four leaders of the Marseilles Pact were present. This was the photo opportunity to the press before each leader spoke, addressing his nation and the people of the world. They'd all come to Ankara, the Eurasian capital, to sign a lasting, long-term agreement with the Republic of Lemnos. That agreement had taken a long time to pen with all five nations negotiating here and there where necessary. These men had already affixed their signatures to the documents and all that remained was an official signing of the five copies by each of these men.

With the photo opportunity ended, the men stepped up to a ceremonially placed and ornate desk. On it were the five copies of the long-term defense agreement. Having been ironed out in earnest the last two weeks while MF-MA forces withdrew from Lemnos proper, the agreement had not been easily had. Prime Ministry Argyris had a lot of input, most of which was not appreciated by the four signatories of the Marseilles Agreement. In frustration, both the Hirgizstanians and the North Germanians announced that they would back up the agreement but they wanted no provisions for themselves, their forces, or their policies. That left just Layarteb and Eurasia as the benefactors and protectors of Lemnos on the day-to-day basis. The only stipulation for involving both North Germania and Hirgizstan was outright invasion by the Soviet Union; otherwise it would be up to Eurasia and Layarteb to handle matters. In many ways this made things less complicated and it required far less input should something go awry. In that situation, help could come to Lemnos much quicker than if all four nations were required to act.

One-by-one, starting with Prime Minister Argyris and ending with Prime Minister Kutlar, the five men signed the five separate copies of the agreement, right where their names were. The long-term agreement called for a number of things. First and foremost, the Lemnosian Defense Force would be the primary military force in the Republic of Lemnos. Secondly, Layartebian - and not Eurasian - forces would man and maintain the radar and listening station east of the airport. Thirdly, the airfields in eastern Lemnos were to be used primarily by the LDF but would be used to store weapons in a cache situation should Layarteb or Eurasia need to act to defend against an invasion or a conflict. Fourthly, the four infantry camps, the helicopter station, and the air base on Agios Efstratios would all be maintained by the Eurasians with the Layartebians providing a rolling rotation of troops limited to one battalion of men and one squadron of fighters only. Fifthly, Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey would pass to Layartebian ownership and it would serve as the main hub for supplies and flights to the Republic of Lemnos. Sixthly, Eurasia and Layarteb would provide day-to-day defense for Lemnos against external opposition and involve themselves in internal conflict only with approval from the Lemnosian Prime Minister. North Germania and Hirgizstan would only act against a specific, overt, Soviet invasion. And lastly, the Marseilles Agreement nations would be the sole supplier of military hardware to Lemnos.

With the document signed, all that required now was for each nation's legislature - if it had a role - to approve the treaty. The Republic of Layarteb would do so first since the Layartebian Congress remained staunchly anti-communist, despite the presence of the Liberal Party, which while it was left of center was far from pro-communist or socialist. Eurasia would approve it a few days later and both Hirgizstan and North Germania had no need for their legislatures to approve anything since they were merely rubber stamps for the executive.

Once again, the Soviets protested, much more loudly than before, threatening to respond with the deployment of short-range, nuclear weapons in the Caucasus and in Moldova to counter the agreement. They also threatened to increase bomber patrols around the Black Sea and aggressively harass any Marseilles Agreement ship in the Black Sea, regardless of its destination. There were other conditions as well but by and large, the Marseilles Agreement nations paid little attention, countering that each move by the Soviets would receive an effective second counter. At the same time, while the Soviets spoke of deploying nuclear weapons, the Marseilles Agreement nations did not, keeping instead their desire to put tactical nuclear weapons in theater a secret. They would use it as a political tool if the Soviets really did deploy SS-4 Sandal missiles into Moldova and the Caucasus. This would of course facilitate the deployment of nuclear IRBMs into Turkey to effectively counter Kiev's move - not that such was needed, the Republic of Layarteb and the United Federation of Eurasia had already made agreements to this regard and three dozen missiles were secretly based in Turkey already, all of them aimed at Kiev and Ukraine. The deployment of SS-4s would be countered with more missiles, a hypocritical move but the Marseilles Agreement nations needed to preserve the secret deployment to maintain the "moral high ground" they needed over the Soviets.

---

• |- 58 -| •

[Layarteb]

July 10, 1963 - 10:30 hrs [UTC-5]
Layarteb City, New York
Fortress of Comhghall
(40° 41' 28" N, 74° 0' 58" W)

President Beckwith was sitting comfortably in his office reviewing budget proposals when his eyes fell on a massive budget allocation for the radar and listening station on Lemnos, known as the Lemnos Early Warning Station. It was originally established in 1949 by the Eurasians for the sole purpose of monitoring the Soviets and since March, it had been in the hands of the Republic of Layarteb. The Eurasians had spent most of the 1960s updating the station but they'd fallen short on a lot of equipment. The station, fully capable in its mission, needed further upgrades to the tune of §100 million to make it a capable station for the next ten years. The upgrades would install newer radars, add more powerful processing computers, and provide SAGE capability to the Aegean Air Defense Zone. SAFE or Semi-Automatic Ground Environment was a ground-controlled interception (GCI) system that allowed ground controllers to direct and guide fighters without them turning on their radars, keeping them stealthy in a passive emissions environment. The Soviets made GCI their main strategy for their air force.

By bringing SAGE capabilities to the Aegean Air Defense Zone, the newest interceptors could be forward deployed to the zone and be extremely effective and that was what the Layartebian Air Force wanted, to deploy the F-106 Delta Dart to the theater. The Mach 2+, delta-wing interceptor could carry up to four Falcon air-to-air missiles and one Genie nuclear rocket. The Genie, with its 1.5-kiloton warhead could create a fireball 300 meters wide, which was big enough to take down several Soviet bombers flying in formation. The Falcon missiles, significantly less reliable, would only be effective against bombers. Against fighters, they were miserable weapons, as the Layartebians would soon find out over Eastern Venezuela. Eurasia didn't possess any F-106s and neither did Lemnos but that could change, provided the SAGE upgrades went into the station.

There was more than just the inclusion of a SAGE system. The budget proposal also called for the installation of a powerful, X-band tracking radar that would be able to provide long-range illumination for beam-riding surface-to-air missiles. The single radar would be able to provide precise guidance for the proposed RIM-50 Typhon missile for the navy as well as the new MIM-14 Nike Hercules surface-to-air missile, which had a range of 88 miles, far above the range of the existing MIM-3 Nike Ajax missiles and their 30 mile range. The Typhon promised ranges in excess of 225 miles but the program was facing some setbacks. The radar would be able to provide guidance for navy warships, allowing them to fire blindly and still have their missiles reach and strike Soviet bombers.

President Beckwith was running into budgetary constraints though. The Gemini Program was sucking up a considerable amount of funds and involvement in the First Venezuelan Civil War was beginning to get costly as nearly 10,000 troops were deployed into Western Venezuela. At the same time, the Empire of Neuvo Rica was in the midst of a war against drug cartels and the Republic of Layarteb was deeply involved, providing funding and physical support. To add onto it, Gemini's successor program, the Apollo Program, was only months away from being activated and that would drain billions upon billions out of the treasury. Gemini alone was going to cost §1.3 billion when all was said and done but Apollo was going to cost at least §10 billion, maybe more. One of the highest estimates said that costs would balloon to over §25 billion by the time the program was over in the 1970s. Combined with the other commitments, President Beckwith was running into trouble. It was illegal for the Layartebian government to spend more money than it received in revenue but they needed to in order to keep pace with the Soviets and their commitments. Raising taxes was political suicide and there was no promise that the public wouldn't revolt over a proposed amendment that removed funding caps. Thus this left President Beckwith in a troubling situation.

"So how do we get the money for this? We clearly need it but we just don't have the wiggle room right now. We can't wait either; the Soviets are getting more and more aggressive in the Aegean Sea. Three weeks ago they flew a quartet of bombers with nuclear cruise missiles right around the island!" President Beckwith said to the men and women gathered in his office, most of them senior advisors.

"Mister President, if I may," spoke up the Treasury Secretary, Russ Brooks. President Beckwith gave him a look that approved his continuing. "We need to shift funds around and create some loopholes, things that we can dump money into and not report."

"You're talking the intelligence budget?"

"Yes. We don't have to report to Congress what goes into their budget, only the overall number and there's no way that they can check against it either."

"That's a good approach but still, where are we getting the money? We already submitted our budget for the year, we'd have to wait until next year for the money and it just can't wait."

"One hundred million shingrots aren't hard to come by Mister President." Brooks smiled, "There are numerous 'funds' we will call them that are established for a variety of purposes. One of them is for providing assistance to out-of-work Layartebians. There are a few hundred million in it already and it grows yearly. It was established in 1901 and it's been sitting there since. We're looking to use it to pay pensions and health benefits for retirees when they start going en masse but until then, we might as well use it for a more immediate purpose."

"So you want to shift money out of this pension coffer into our black budget?"

"It would be the best way Mister President." President Beckwith thought for a moment. "It can be untraceable sir."

"Get me the money then and get it quietly. I don't want this on the front page…"

---

• |- 59 -| •

[Layarteb]

May 4, 1966 - 07:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Gökçeada, Gökçeada
Gökçeada Airport
(40° 12' 20" N, 25° 53' 5" E)

Captain Richard Koonce adjusted his ass in the cockpit of the F-106A Delta Dart as he waited for his clearance to take off. Just behind him was his wingman, Second Lieutenant Jeff Slade. They were both on alert and they'd gotten the call to get into the skies and buzz a suspected, Soviet spy ship. This had become routine now for Eurasian and Layartebian pilots serving a tour of duty in or around the Aegean Air Defense Zone. Of course, an F-106 could do absolutely nothing to a spy ship but be an annoyance and that was generally what they were. Occasionally though, a maritime patrol aircraft would go out there, flash its weapons, and come home. This was all part of the game with the Soviets. They would send bombers into the Aegean Air Defense Zone and fighters would intercept and escort them around until they went home. They would send out spy ships and aircraft would either buzz by them or ships would come out and hinder their travels. The Lemnosians nearly lost a few ships in near-collisions because they'd been a little too overzealous in their aggression.

For CPT Koonce, this mission was his ninth since he'd landed on the island of Gökçeada, which though it was a Eurasian territory, hosted enough Layartebians to qualify as a colony of sorts. Outside of two fighter squadrons, there was the radar post, and a navy port. A carrier group was in the Aegean right now too but it was moored at the port and not active, its planes idle and its pilots sleeping off very intense hangovers. With clearance to take off, he advanced the throttle to military power and the turbojet responded. He released the brakes and as the aircraft began to roll, he advanced the throttle to afterburner. Thirty-five hundred feet later, he was airborne and retracting his landing gear, sucking fuel from the two limited-drag fuel tanks he carried on his wings. All of his ordinance, in this case just the four Falcons, was internally loaded and so there would be much less drag once he dumped the two tanks.

After takeoff and roll out, he leveled off at 5,000 feet and eased back on the throttle to fly a subsonic speed. The spy ship was only about fifty miles away and so he would have plenty of fuel to buzz around it a few times. He might even get the authorization to go to afterburner and crack past them with a sonic boom, which might screw up their sensitive electronics or it might do nothing but piss them off, it was impossible to tell really. He'd heard of a story from the navy once and it made him laugh as he watched the water pass below him. There was a spy ship following a carrier group, being annoying of course, and so a flight of F-8 Crusaders buzzed over the ship and one of them dropped a bunch of rolls of toilet paper onto the ship. The rolls were caught up in the antennae of the ship but apparently the Soviets were happy since they'd run out of good toilet paper. The navy heard about this and afterwards they dropped moldy potatoes just to be spiteful. The Soviets probably cooked them anyway, everyone had assumed.

A few minutes later, at a speed of 400 mph, he made visual contact with the ship and passed over it approximately one mile to the north. Then he closed in for a closer look, dropping down to 100 feet and passing within a quarter of a mile of the ship. It was definitely a spy ship, one of the newer ones too, and though it was international waters it was definitely committing espionage. There was little else that CPT Koonce could do though and so, for him, the mission involved making some tight passed - all at subsonic speed - just to let the Soviets know that they couldn't sneak around without being spotted. After that, he would fly home, land, and go to an otherwise uneventful and truly boring debriefing. He'd use the autopilot to get some personal photographs of the spy ship though these would have to be developed by the intelligence people though he'd get copies and the negatives. His wingman did the same thing but his wingman had a better camera and a longer lens so his photos came out better. He was also using higher speed film so there was less camera shake owing to the faster shutter speed.

---

• |- 60 -| •

[Layarteb]

February 10, 1969 - 21:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Bozcaada, Bozcaada
Bozcaada EWR Station
(39° 50' 30" N, 26° 3' 10" E)

Captain Phillip Mars yawned as he looked out over the darkness of the Aegean Sea. He was the watch officer for this particularly boring and all-consuming evening shift that saw him report in at 15:00 and report out at 23:35. Six hours into that shift, he'd wished he'd stayed in bed. The afternoon's PT run had left him more tired than usual and the lack of activity for the past few months had left him with little to do but sit and pretend to be interested in a job he was increasingly growing to hate. When he'd been offered the station in the Aegean, he thought it would be an exotic experience with regular trips to the Turkish mainland for all that the East could offer to him but that was a big disappointment. In his six months on Bozcaada he'd made all of three trips to the Turkish mainland and none of those had been for more than five hours. The posting, in his estimation, sucked royally. But men were dying in Venezuela and he could be there, a frightening thought, though he knew he wouldn't be bored.

He was stationed at the small Bozcaada Early Warning Station, situated atop a hill just west of the island's main city, also called Bozcaada. However, calling Bozcaada a city was something of a misnomer. For the Layarteb City native, Bozcaada was a glorified town with less than two thousand people who though they were accommodating enough, couldn't help but look at the Layartebians with suspicion. The purpose of the station, situated 600 feet above sea level where the distance to the horizon was a pleasurable 30 miles, was to watch the Dardanelles for Soviet warships and spy ships transiting out of the black sea. The Dardanelles were only fifteen miles away and so the position of the station was ideal. They were so close that the powerful surface-search radars were more or less useless since a good pair of binoculars could see the strait easily in clear weather. The site also had powerful air-search radars that could spot bombers as far away as 260 miles, which was long before they even reached the Bosphorus Strait at the entrance to the Black Sea.

At night of course, looking through a pair of binoculars was basically useless though they did have a powerful new toy to play with, having just arrived thirty days earlier. It was a starlight scope that gave them adequate range to see ships coming into and out of the Dardanelles though they couldn't identify them as anything more than moving shapes on the horizon. Surface-search radar would just tell them that a ship was passing and it would be up to Eurasian lookouts along the straits to provide the Layartebians on Bozcaada the identification of the ship. The constant communication back and forth between the two entities made for some amusing transmissions for Soviet interlopers who regularly overheard the frequencies and even figured out the code that was used.

The Soviets had become more daring as the 60s went on, pushing more and more spy ships into the Aegean to monitor what the Eurasians, the Lemnosians, and the Layartebians were up to just outside of their habitat, which the Black Sea was. The Soviets had never fully come to terms with the large Layartebian presence in the Aegean Sea. The Lemnosians and the Eurasians had always been there, the former a failed opportunity and the later a perennial foe. But the Layartebians were new game in town and the Soviets watched as the Republic of Layarteb encroached right up to their doorstep, allying with the Eurasians, defending the Lemnosians, making peace with the fascists in Africa and Europe, and levying their anti-communist rhetoric right at Kiev with laser-guided precision. Now with them so thoroughly entrenched in the Aegean Sea, the Soviet High Command and the Politburo believed it was only a matter of time before they leased or worse, owned, territory in the Black Sea. The only saving grace to the Soviets was Venezuela.

The Republic of Layarteb was thoroughly involved in the becoming quagmire that was the Venezuelan Civil War. The Soviets were now using it as a proxy war to fight the Layartebians, allying with, supporting, and even fighting with East Venezuelans against the West Venezuelans and their Layartebian and North American backers. Spetsnaz units were operating covertly throughout the rainforests of Venezuela, fighting with the East Venezuelans against the Layartebians. Most of the Layartebian airmen that had been shot down and captured over East Venezuela had been interrogated by the Soviets and through it, the Soviets had learned something very meaningful about the tactics and war plans of the Layartebian Air Force. The Soviets had always known about the concept of "terrain-masking" but they never understood the employment of it like the Layartebians did, largely because their air force was constrained by the limitations of ground-controlled interception or GCI. GCI was effective in that it allowed Soviet fighters to fly blind without their radars. Ground controllers would guide them to incoming aircraft formations for hit-and-run attacks from the advantageous rear-quarter position.

GCI didn't work so well at low-altitude because radar and radio are line-of-sight systems. Thus, the Layartebian Air Force perfected low-altitude flying. Even big bombers like the B-52 Stratofortress could fly a couple of hundred feet off of the ground at over 400 knots, which would allow them to get to their target undetected, where they would pop-up just before they got to the target, drop their payload, and receive the warm comfort of mission success in the form of a blinding flash, a rising mushroom clouds, and the end of the planet. The Soviets needed to find an effective way to counter that and though they had airborne early warning, which had look-down capabilities, they knew that the future was low-altitude ingress. They would change their tactics, develop new countermeasures, and focus on stopping the Layartebian ingress routes through mountains and at low-altitude now.

None of that was on Captain Morris' mind though as he watched the men all around him go about their humdrum duties with the movements of bored robots. Since the summer of 1963, the Soviets had been ratcheting up their eavesdropping patrols in the Aegean but now that winter of 1969 had come, they were laying back a little. They were still bringing in the ships but far less frequently and without warship escort, like they had been doing in the earlier years. Captain Morris wanted something to do and he wanted it badly. He wanted to hear a call from the observation post in Gallipoli saying, "We've got a whale coming your way," which was code for a spy ship. If it had the escort of a warship there would be a "shark" and if there was a submarine involvement, which would be located through underwater hydrophones, the designated word was "dolphin" and these hadn't changed, ever. Captain Morris hated the lax attitude to the code words but he understood the thinking. The Soviets knew the Layartebians and the Eurasians were watching, they knew the straits were lined with hydrophones, they knew that they couldn't get into the Aegean without being noticed and they did it anyway so what did it matter if they overhead the Layartebians and the Eurasians talking about what they were doing.

"Billy, is there anything on the threat board at all?" He would ask some time later, bored to tears.

"Nothing sir, Intel doesn't even show any activity around Sevastopol."

"Another boring night again."

"Yes sir, it looks that way indeed." There would be little else for the night and Captain Morris would end his shift quietly, return to his quarters, pass out, and do it all over again the next day.

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

March 7, 1978 - 13:00 hrs [UTC-5]
Layarteb City, New York
Fortress of Comhghall
(40° 41' 28" N, 74° 0' 58" W)

"I don't give a flying fuck if you can't get in touch with your OP! Get someone down there and find out what the fuck these assholes are doing! We've got mortars landing on half of the city from the north and no one is stopping them!" President Deveroe slammed the phone down on his desk and went on an eight-minute tirade in front of the generals, colonels, and civilian staffers surrounding him in the Fortress of Comhghall's War Room.

"Sir," his leading general, William Fitzgerald said when he had finished, "the rebels are not going to get that far right now. They're raining down mortars as a form of terrorism but they'll deplete their ammunition stocks very quickly at the rate that they're firing them. I have been assured by the men on the ground that they're running operations right now against the mortars."

"This fucking Delta major, I should have had him shot and killed the moment he defied me, the goddamn moment," he pounded his fist on the table to emphasize what he was saying. The Battle of Falcon City had begun earlier in the year and the pro-government forces weren't doing that well. This renewed offensive by the rebels was putting a major strain on the government's forces and the tactics being used weren't just succeeding, they were outright crushing the defenders in Falcon City. The year promised heavy casualties for both soldiers and civilians alike and President Deveroe, from the safe confines of the Fortress of Comhghall was really beginning to fold to the pressure of the civil war that raged around him. Day and night he worried what unit would capitulate next and how long it would be before the rebels were pushing on Layarteb City. Heads would roll if they got that far!"

"We have another crisis right now sir though, one that needs our immediate attention,"[/I] General Fitzgerald said, hating to have to put even more on his strained Commander-in-Chief. "Two days ago, the Soviets began large-scale exercises in the Aegean, specifically aimed at the Republic of Lemnos and at our facilities there. They have warships operating off of each island where we have a garrison and another one in striking range of Incirlik. We have to take this matter very seriously sir. Intelligence from the Eurasians also backs up our own that they've mobilized several divisions in Ukraine and that includes their entire naval infantry branch."

"Are you telling me now that in the middle of this disaster the Soviets are going to make a play for Lemnos?"

"Sir it's very likely and that's the way the intelligence goes. We've long-since held that our primary tactic for action against the Soviets would involve a large-scale exercise first and then we would roll that into offensive action, or defensive if they took the bait. They could be using a page right out of our playbook sir."

"What kind of activity are they running in the Aegean?"

"Everything they can sir, bombers, fighters, and ships. They have at least one nuclear boomer in the Med right now and it's probably targeting Eurasia."

"Have we found an increase in their patrols off of our coastline?"

"SOSUS reports higher than normal activity, yes sir."

"Jesus Christ this is a mess!" President Deveroe took off on another short tirade of cursing angrily. "Well we cannot downsize our garrisons there regardless of this civil war and we have no indication that the mutinies have spread there, correct?"

"None sir, they are fully aware of the situation here in the homeland but as far as we can estimate, they want nothing to do with it whatsoever. Men there are already refusing to come back home for the end of their tours, they're indicating that they'll serve another enlistment period but only if they can stay there. The Secretary of Defense has quietly agreed to allow it to maintain the peace and harmony of our deployment there. We don't need to lose the Aegean sir; we're going to need it when we come out of this war. We'll be weakened no doubt about it and the Soviets, if they don't pounce now, will pounce then."

"Then we have to get the Eurasians to help. There's no other way," President Deveroe ordered. "Get the Eurasians to put the pressure on the Soviets to end these exercises and let's make sure the Lemnosians reinforce everything. Put orders out to our stations to prepare for imminent hostilities and whatever else we have to do let's do it. The Soviets think that just because we're in the middle of an insurrection on this scale that this makes us weak! We will show them big time. Let's publically move nuclear weapons to Incirlik and a wing of bombers, can we spare one?"

"Yes sir we have a wing of bombers based here that are nuclear-only. Their mission is worthless right now against the insurrectionists."

"Move them to Incirlik on the double with their ordinance and make sure the Soviets know it, make sure they know we're not going to sit around with our thumbs up our asses while they dick around in the Aegean!"

"Yes sir, I'll make it so sir," General Fitzgerald agreed, clicking his boots together. Until March 15, the tension would be elevated while the Soviets went about their exercises in the Aegean and the Med. The Eurasians would, of course, seriously pressure the Soviets and the bomber wing deployment would get to Kiev's nerve but in the end, hostilities didn't break out, perhaps because they were never intended or perhaps because cooler heads prevailed. Regardless, after March 15, 1978, the Soviet presence went back to normal sized and the Layartebian Civil War raged on furiously.

---

• |- 61 -| •

[Layarteb]

May 1, 1998 - 14:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Ankara, Turkey
Eurasian Presidential Palace
(39° 55' 50" N, 32° 47' 54" E)

The Emperor smiled for the cameras as he shook his Eurasian counterpart's hand. This was the last photograph that would be taken of the two of them before they had a chance to meet. The Emperor was in the Eurasian capital for a short visit with his fellow, October Alliance ally and while there was a lot of speculation on what the two men would discuss, none of it had been leaked by either side. Thus, when they retreated into the closed doors of the Prime Minister's office, they could speak without having to trot around what the media of both nations had already deduced. For the first hour, they spoke trade. Eurasia was looking to stabilize its shaky economy and though the two countries had a free trade pact with the October Alliance agreement, Eurasia was in need of a little bit more help.

Then, the topic moved to Lemnos and Prime Minister Yasar Uzun began with bad news. "I have to reduce the size and commitment of Eurasia to the Republic of Lemnos. It's unfortunate but I need the resources to combat the instability that I am facing at home. The Soviet threat to Lemnos hasn't existed now for over ten years. They've forgotten about the little republic and that's enough reason for me."

"That's a problem," the Emperor answered. "We still take the situation very seriously and the Soviet menace is just as dangerous now as it was forty years ago when our predecessors fought on those islands. The Soviets might have relaxed on their aggression towards Lemnos but that doesn't mean we should pull out entirely. The Eurasian military constitutes two-thirds of the defensive commitment to Lemnos."

"I have no other choice right now. It's been discussed ad nauseam within the ranks of my government and my generals are in unanimous agreement that we need the resources elsewhere. It's costing us too much money and manpower right now."

"What if we could help alleviate that with foreign aid?"

"Unfortunately, not," the Eurasian Prime Minister said, shaking his head. "I wish there was some easy solution but there is not."

"Have you informed the Lemnosians about this yet? Surely Prime Minister Raptis isn't going to be favorable to this," the Emperor said, referring to the current Lemnosian Prime Minister, Andreas Raptis.

"I have not, as I wanted first to inform you of the situation. Our deference to the Empire on this matter takes precedent."

"Then there's only one solution," the Emperor said, thinking very quickly. "The Empire has to pick up the slack. How soon are we talking?"

"We're going to conduct a phased withdrawal, one that isn't as shocking to Lemnos. By next summer we'll need to divest ourselves of the primary protective role."

"That's enough time," said the Emperor. "We'll just need to station the equivalent number of forces in theater. Would I be out of line to ask that the current bases you maintain and lease to us remain as is?"

"Yes, that would be fine. My generals and I have discussed this at length. We would turn over the bases to you in full, with the exception of Incirlik, which you already lease in full. We would not provide any hindrance whatsoever," Prime Minister Uzun was pleased. This was the outcome he'd wanted. He didn't want to abandon Lemnos but he knew that he had no other choice. Substituting in the Layartebians would solve to fix the issue and though it would put additional pressure on the burgeoning Empire, in his eyes, the Empire could handle it just fine. His nation was the one under duress and he had to focus on the within before he could focus on the without, and Lemnos was the without, despite history.

"We'll have make sure we work in unison though. The departure of one Eurasian unit must coincide with the arrival of a Layartebian one and I must ask, must stress beyond all doubt, that the outgoing officers keep the incoming officers apprised of the situation so that there is no loss of capability."

"Absolutely, that is something we've discussed. Now to tell the Lemnosians, what do you believe is the best approach?"

"We'll convey to the Lemnosians simply that the Empire will be the sole proprietors for the defense of Lemnos. Due to unexpected circumstances, your nation can no longer meet that commitment and as such, we're going to fill the gap. We must just tell them the truth on this one and we will have an easier time of it. Prime Minister Raptis might not like it, he's very favorable to you versus us, though that isn't to say he is anti-Layartebian, but if he wants to maintain all of those beautiful payments his nation needs to keep themselves viable, this is the only option he has now. Would the Eurasian military be willing to take over again should these troubling times abate?"

"We haven't discussed that yet in length. Should I remain in office at such a time I would personally like to reintegrate the Eurasian military into the defense of Lemnos such as before. I'd like to call your deployment a mere stopgap but I am afraid I do not know what the future holds."

"Very well then we'll agree on this matter for now and approach further deployments in the future."

"Thank you, this helps alleviate a lot of tension within our military and government ranks. The Lemnosians we feel strongly connected to but we cannot sacrifice our own wellbeing for theirs, not in this time."

---

• |- 62 -| •

[Layarteb]

August 10, 1999 - 15:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Agios Efstratios
Agios Efstratios Air Force Base
(39° 32' 16" N, 24° 58' 48" E)

With the change of command ceremony completed, Major General Harvey Langley of the Imperial Layartebian Defense Force approached and stood at the podium. Agios Efstratios Air Force Base, a massive construction project completed some decades earlier, had become the headquarters of the deployment to the Aegean Sea and for the now all-Layartebian force providing supplemental defense for the island republic, it was a major symbol. The airbase had been built by creating an artificial island off of the coast of Agios Efstratios' main population center and in doing so, the project created a super base with a single, 1,600-meter runway capable of supporting all of the Empire's fighters and medium-lift or smaller cargo aircraft. It wasn't a base suited for bombers or heavy lifters like the C-5 Galaxy but that was fine, those aircraft could easily put into Lemnos IAP or Incirlik and be off-loaded into smaller aircraft, such as the C-130 Hercules, or "Herkybird."

As he spoke about the mission to support the Republic of Lemnos, the Layartebian garrison on the island listened, whether it was over radio from their small bases or at the airfield. There was a sizeable contingency in the Republic of Lemnos, which included a special forces battalion, a regiment of forces from the Imperial Layartebian Defense Force, and all manner of aircraft and earl warning assets. In fact, as he was speaking, a quartet of some of the last F-15C Eagles still in Layartebian service were flying around the Aegean Sea. The Eagle had been flown until its wings fell on and then flown more throughout the Conquests and though those were simmering down, the Eagles were still being flown at an impressive rate. Work on the replacement was underway but until then, they would continue to fly air defense missions, all of them being relegated to the ILDF.

With the change of command ceremony looming, the Empire, the Eurasians, and the Lemnosians were extremely concerned with how the Soviets would react but then it became a moot point with the Dagestani Conflict raging and Soviet involvement there. It was a conflict of convenience that forced Soviet attention away from Lemnos, not that they had been giving it much attention anyway as the Eurasian Prime Minister suggested. They could do nothing but issue a statement of concern that the Empire was putting even more forces in the Aegean Sea. The Soviets didn't believe what they deemed as propaganda for the withdrawal, the necessity of the Eurasian government and military to consolidate their forces in a time of instability. Nor did they believe the Layartebian assurances that nuclear weapons weren't going to be deployed to the Republic of Lemnos. That was the truth, Lemnos wasn't deemed secure enough, despite the fact that the island of Agios Efstratios was a veritable military fortress. The Soviets protested but that was all they could muster as the conflict in Dagestan with militant Islamists raged. The Empire had offered its assistance to the Soviets on the matter but the Soviets had refused, claiming that it was an internal issue and nothing something larger but like the war in Afghanistan, like the first Chechen conflict, this one fueled the roots of Islamic jihadism. The Soviets were determined to crush it the only way they knew how, with merciless, brute force.

When Major General Langley was done, the audience rose and clapped and a pair of F-16 Falcons screamed overhead along with a pair of Eurasian fighters. The four-ship flight of aircraft broke away from one another over the main field and the Eurasian fighters flew home. They'd only taken off fifteen minutes earlier, flying a slow, lazy orbit to ensure that this maneuver was completed. They were the last Eurasian aircraft based in the Republic of Lemnos and now they would fly the short flight home to mainland Turkey and ultimately onto the border near the Caucasus, where the fighting in Dagestan threatened to spill over into sectarian violence in the wider Caucasus region. That would have been a nightmare scenario for the United Federation of Eurasia, especially since they couldn't handle the stress of a military conflict of that caliber. Eurasia had to focus on its own internal problems and that meant avoiding the international deployment beltway. Unfortunately to the October Alliance as a whole, the United Federation of Eurasia was largely relegated to an inactive, secondary role, not that this was a problem overall, the alliance members were forgiving. It was worried that a troublesome trend could develop.

---

• |- 63 -| •

[Layarteb]

January 8, 2001 - 20:00 hrs [UTC-5]
Layarteb City, New York
Fortress of Comhghall
(40° 41' 28" N, 74° 0' 58" W)

"Sir, we're looking at having the finally tally of the votes in the next fifteen minutes. They're certified and confirmed by the Eurasians and by the Africans," the Minister of the Interior said as he sat down in the Emperor's office. Over the past year, the Layartebians had been slowly pushing the Republic of Lemnos to join the Empire. The Eurasian situation hadn't changed and the Republic of Lemnos was still just a small entity in the Aegean Sea. The Soviets hadn't really pushed too hard on them, despite the increase in Layartebian forces and that gave the Empire a sort of opportunity, though not an ideal one, to goad the Lemnosian government into accepting annexation into the Empire of Layarteb, though it would be peaceful annexation or none at all, the Emperor had previously decided.

Without the external threat of the Soviets so prevalent, it was considered a longshot. The Eurasians didn't object, mainly because they weren't in a position to object. Things had gotten worse for Ankara and the internal troubles that were causing the country's instability were only getting exacerbated by time. The entire house of cards could fall to pieces and that would have been tragic, a major loss to the October Alliance and a scramble by its members to cover the Soviets like the Eurasians had.

The pushing by the Layartebians had begun in early 2000, when a vote of no-confidence in the Lemnosian Parliament removed Prime Minister Raptis and replaced him with Nicolaos Teke, a fervent supporter of the Empire of Layarteb, perhaps more so than any other Lemnosian Prime Minister. Teke wasn't the nationalistic sort that his predecessors had been, even in the face of the sizeable portion of Layartebian soldiers. He downplayed nationalism throughout his tenure in office so far and he was the one to push the idea of a referendum, leaving it up to the people to decide if they wanted to become a colony of Layarteb. Naturally, the Soviets protested but what else could they do, they were still having their own troubles in the Caucasus and elsewhere and their own internal problems were beginning to paralyze their foreign actions.

When the vote had finally been scheduled, January 8, 2001, a Monday, media pundits figured that Lemnos would remain independent. The Empire could have endeavored into vote-rigging and intimidation but opted not to, lest these efforts get publicized somehow. Instead, the Empire invited internal election officials from the United States of Brink and the United Federation of Eurasia to view and certify the results. As of a few minutes earlier, even though it was well past midnight in Lemnos, those results had been certified. Now the Emperor and the various members of the Cabinet awaited the results. They would find out before the general public but it wouldn't be long thereafter before the results were announced on international radio and television.

The Minister of the Interior was manning the phone, speaking directly to the had election official in Lemnos, Katerina Zabat. "Yes Katerina, I'm still holding," the Minister of the Interior said as she came on the line. "I see, yes, well they're certified right? Good. All right I'll let everyone know. Thank you for your efforts. We'll be in touch with Prime Minister Teke in the morning. Thank you again." He turned to the crowd of assembled persons, "Fifty-eight against."

"Well that figures," the Emperor said, disappointed. "This is why we didn't give the states the right to choose during the Conquests. There's too much risk involved. Teke won't have a problem spinning this favorably though so I am not worried. We'll continue our commitment to the island republic."

"Sir in this situation we'll want to issue a statement alongside the Lemnosians. I have one prepared for this situation," answered the Minister of the Interior. "Would you like to review it?"

"Is it standard fare?"

"It is sir, I took the liberty of thanking the people of Lemnos for their generosity and said that we would not waver in our commitment to defend them."

"It is fine then, I have faith in you Minister, that's why I appointed you."

"Thank you sir."

"All right for now let's try to salvage the rest of our night and we'll approach this in the morning. I'll be sure to give Teke a personal call."

---

• |- 64 -| •

[Layarteb]

April 15, 2001 - 10:00 hrs [UTC-5]
Layarteb City, New York
Fortress of Comhghall
(40° 41' 28" N, 74° 0' 58" W)

Chaos reigned supreme in Europe and the rest of the world by proxy. The Cottish Flu Pandemic, now in its second month was shaking the core of the Old World. Millions lay dead or dying, entire governments were on the verge of collapse, and people were finding themselves going against their morals and principles just for survival. To make matters worse, the virulent and lethal strain of the influenza A virus had made it all of the way to the Far East, where the Chinese were dying in droves, worse than the Europeans were who at least had better immunity against the influenza virus. The Realm of Cotland and the Fourth Reich of North Germania, major partners in the October Alliance, were heading towards collapse. The United Federation of Eurasia was being throttled hard by refugees escaping Europe, many of whom brought the virus with them.

The Republic of Lemnos was facing catastrophe too. One hundred of its citizens were infected with the disease and the virulence of it threatened to infect so many thousands more. It was a crisis of immense proportions for the Republic of Lemnos and Prime Minister Teke was panicked. He was on the phone with the Emperor now for the fifth time in three days. The Emperor, fielding similar calls from other nations had only little to offer the Lemnosian. "You must calm down Prime Minister," he began after Prime Minister Teke's greeting, which was long, passionate, and frantic. "The flu pandemic is not just affecting Lemnos. Yes I am aware of your cases."

"Then what can we do? How can we fight this? We cannot turn on our people!"

"Prime Minister, I would suggest very strongly that you close your airports and your borders. Disallow vessels to dock unless they carry medical supplies and then let them go no further than the docks. Isolate the sick and get them care, prevent them from coming into contact with others. This thing spreads rapidly and it burns itself out just as rapidly, unfortunately killing the host as it does. This is a lethal strain, worse than the 1918 pandemic. Look at Monaco, they are facing over one-third of their small nation infected and we're trying to stem the tide there. Lemnos is not nearly in those dire straits yet."

"But Mister Emperor this is why we must react now as thoroughly as we can."

"Then that is what you must do. You must close your borders, you must isolate the infection. Do what your doctors are telling you to do."

"Where can we isolate them safely?"

"We'll use Agios Efstratios," said the Emperor. "We'll direct the medical battalion on the island to set up an isolation wing and we'll chopper the infected to it. We'll isolate them and we'll keep them from the populace."

"What if they should die?"

"There is no option but to cremate the body when dealing with a viral plague of this nature. Lemnos can weather this, you are small and you are isolated. Two-thirds of the Realm of Cotland is dead, dying, or infected. Two-thirds Prime Minister! To make matters worse, those Nerotikans are fighting them and we cannot do a thing to stop it. This is a major situation."

"I see your point; I'll have to declare martial law."

"If you must then you must. It beats the alternative."

"What is that Mister Emperor?"

"In the Goodrule Third Spanish States they're outright killing the infected and the disease is still spreading. We must treat the infected humanely and try to save as many as we can. We're not going to turn Lemnos into a killing fields, we're going to stop this viral plague right here. Close down everything Prime Minister. Recommend to your citizens that they avoid contact, that they go out only for bare necessities, and if they do so, they do so with masks and that they constantly wash their hands. This disease spreads easily but it can be negated with cleanly practices. Lemnos could very well be the biggest victory against this pandemic."

"Very well, very well, but know this, should my government fall, I have put into place a continuity of operations plan that would turn the Republic of Lemnos over to the Empire of Layarteb. We've named your ambassador the tentative head of state in this situation."

"We'll honor the text of the agreement but only if we know what it is. Kindly get a copy to the ambassador and he to me and we'll be in touch if there is anything disagreeable. I must go now, I have to speak to the North Germanian government next."

"Yes Mister Emperor…" In the end, the Cottish Flu Pandemic would claim the lives of millions across Europe and Asia with the Republic of Lemnos suffering 1,404 deaths out of a population of 12,500.

---

• |- 65 -| •

[Layarteb]

April 19, 2003 - 07:00 hrs [UTC-5]
Layarteb City, New York
Fortress of Comhghall
(40° 41' 28" N, 74° 0' 58" W)

"It's all over sir," the Minister of Foreign Affairs said solemnly as he sat in the Emperor's office speaking. "The United Federation of Eurasia yesterday agreed to disband and grant individual independence to its states. The government was facing major backlash and popular discontent from the states if they didn't and it was the only way to avoid major bloodshed. Our best bet will be to reach out to reach individual state and reaffirm our commitment to the Eurasian people; but sir, this is going to be difficult."

"I agree sir," said the Minister of Finance, "we don't have the funds to support all of them right now. We will have to focus on a single state. We're already at our legal limit for foreign aid with helping the Cottish rebuild and keeping North Germanian weaponry out of the hands of our enemies. That isn't to mention helping Hirgizstan either sir. The October Alliance has taken a major hit since 2001."

"That it has. We're the only nation left that hasn't fallen to pieces. The Cottish are doing a good job recovering but it's only been three years and they're the only other nation cohesively left. The North Germanians are gone, the Hirgizstanians are gone, and now the Eurasians are gone. We're facing a crumbling alliance right now and it's only a saving grace that the Soviets are currently in their own world of trouble that they cannot exert the kind of pressure we would against them if the situation were reversed. Where does this leave us with Lemnos?"

"Sir if I may," the Chairman-General of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. "The Republic of Lemnos remains defensible and I am sure we can arrange with the successor state in Turkey to maintain our bases along the Aegean coastline and at Incirlik. However, we need to pressure the Lemnosians to accept colony status within the Empire. It would make things considerably easier and be a strong message to the Soviets that the Empire isn't going to abandon the Mediterranean or the Aegean to them."

"The Soviets are in a state of mild disarray right now Chairman-General, is this a message we really need to send?"

"Absolutely sir," and a quick poll of the Emperor's Cabinet found nearly universal agreement. There were only two objections. "I think that would settle it sir."

"I think so," responded the Emperor. "Prime Minister Teke will just have to sell it again and this time under the banner of complete and utter chaos due to the dissolution of the United Federation of Eurasia. Whoever the successor in Turkey is they won't care about Lemnos, they'll have much bigger problems to worry about and so do we for that matter but Lemnos isn't something we can just easily abandon. I can assume we're already in communication with the former Eurasian military to contain all CBRN weaponry?"

"Yes sir we are," the Minister of Defense answered. "Right now we're making preliminary plans to provide storage for them. The Eurasians had about forty-eight hundred warheads in total spread across their country and we have a full accounting of them per TOA protocols. Now we just need to recover them and we're going to use a lot of resources for it. The remnants of those in Hirgizstan were successfully recovered, the Cottish ones were never in jeopardy, and the North Germanian ones are in good hands just the same."

"All right, the last thing we need is a rogue nuke traveling the world right now. That's the priority. Lemnos is secondary. I'll talk to Teke about it but if it comes down to a choice between the two, I want the nuke situation handled first. Lemnos isn't going anywhere and it's going to take some time for Teke to convince the government that becoming our colony is a good idea anyway. It was tried before so there's no telling if we'll be successful this time around. If that's the case, we might have to up the ante some."

---

• |- 66 -| •

[Layarteb]

September 13, 2004 - 10:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Moudros, Lemnos
Lemnosian Parliament House
(39° 52' 20" N, 25° 16' 5" E)

Prime Minister Nicolaos Teke was sitting in his high-back, leather chair, eyeing the room around him with some sort of nostalgia. It was a Monday morning and it sure felt like it to him. The weekend had been a difficult one with the MPs working throughout the weekend to iron out a very heated and heavy debate, annexation by the Empire of Layarteb. With the Council of Turkish States in control of Turkey and completely incapable and undesirous of providing support for Lemnos, a new benefactor had to be chosen. The Empire had been providing for Lemnosian defense since the late-90s when the Eurasians pulled out to settle their own problems, which had ultimately cascaded into dissolution. With that came a renewed effort by Layarteb City to colonize the small, island republic in the Aegean Sea and this time, Prime Minister Teke pushed the issue much harder than he had previously.

When he brought the debate to the floor of Parliament on Friday morning he expected the MPs to adjourn for the weekend but when they had not, he remained. The debate went throughout the night, adjourning at 23:00 only to resume at 09:00 the next morning and again, they debated all Saturday long. Sunday they took a break for religious observations and they were back to arguing by 14:00. They adjourned at 22:00 and sent everyone home for an early morning vote. That vote had been taken just two hours earlier and the results were in and damning to Lemnosian independence. Lemnos had a small government with only thirty-five Ministers of Parliament, not including the Prime Minister. Only eleven voted against union with the Empire of Layarteb and they had been the bravest ones of them all.

In his speech to Parliament on Friday morning, Prime Minister Teke had stated the obvious, "The Empire was interested in giving us an opportunity to decide on our own in 2001. They're not giving us the same opportunity this time. They want more for the expenditures of defense and the policy against the Soviets has never stopped for them. Lemnos will be a colony for them if they have to co-opt it or not." He'd spoken the truth and that had scared some of the MPs but clearly not all of them. It was inconsequential now that Parliament had voted the way it had. He'd only just given the news to the Layartebian ambassador and he would personally call the Emperor next. He'd hoped to retain a position in the governance of the colony, like all of the MPs, save the eleven who voted against and would resign in protest. For his efforts, Prime Minister Teke would be rewarded with a governorship and the MPs that voted favorably would serve on the colony's new legislature.

Not much else would change for the time being though. The currency would be shifted to the Layartebian shingrot instead of the Eurasian lira. The Empire would promise a one-to-one exchange rate on currency for the time being. Citizenship cards wouldn't be printed out immediately though. Lemnosians could apply for citizenship if they wanted but colonies weren't required to acquiesce to Layartebian citizenship. Of course, there were benefits to having Layartebian citizenship in a colony and a colony was just one step of the process. Lemnos wasn't going to remain a colony forever, the Layartebian government wouldn't have that; eventually they would become part of a republic, perhaps the general one that included all of the Mediterranean territories of the Empire.

There were plans to change the names as well, sort of a rebirth for Lemnos. Maps had already been drawn up with the proposals and it was just a matter of time before Lemnos became Altis and Agios Efstratios became Stratis. Moudros would become Pyrgos and Myrina would become Kavala. Other names would change as well and more military outposts would appear on the two islands. Both Gökçeada and Bozcaada would be integrated into the unit as well, the islands having been passed to Layartebian control with the dissolution of the United Federation of Eurasia. Incirlik Air Base, still under Layartebian control, would maintain its focal point as a hub in the region for military activity.

---

• |- 67 -| •

[Layarteb]

May 12, 2015 - 09:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Pyrgos, Altis
Altis Executive Building
(39° 52' 20" N, 25° 16' 5" E)

Since 2004, the islands of Lemnos and Agios Efstratios barely resembled what they had once been. For starters, they were called Altis and Stratis, respectively and all of the towns had been renamed. Moudros had become Pyrgos and it remained the central location for the two islands, which had now been incorporated into the Mediterranean Republic. Nicolaos Teke was officially the governor of both Altis and Stratis, a post he'd held now continuously since September 2004, when the position had been introduced. At first he held it by default but when the Colony of Lemnos was integrated into the Mediterranean Republic in May 2008, he'd been forced to obtain it through elections. He'd won two already and that was to be his limit. Come January 2, 2017, he would need to find a new job and he'd done well for himself so retirement wasn't an altogether bad option for him.

The islands had changed much in the way of culture too. They still held onto their Lemnosian heritage but the insertion of Layartebian culture had done well on the islands. At first, of course, people were somewhat resistant but that changed quickly over time. In a few more generations, the Lemnosian heritage of the island would be but a few chapters in the local history books. Though untouched were the religious and archeological sites that predated even the Layartebian people's existence on the planet Earth. One of the most famous sites was a site dating back to the 12th millennium BC or the Paleolithic era. The ancient Theatre of Hephaistia, a popular pilgrimage site for the Dalmascans, had originally been slated for preservation but then in 2012, the Layartebian government changed its tune. No longer would the Theatre of Hephaistia merely be preserved, it was going to be rebuilt in a fashion that would make it nearly identical to what it had once been so many millennia ago. Using archeological and historical information, a group of extremely specialized builders, including many Dalmascans, began work in mid-2013 to rebuild the Theatre of Hephaistia in all of its glory. The project had moved along steadily and though it was expensive, funding had never been an issue. The newly rebuilt Theatre of Hephaistia was set to reopen to the public in a very important ceremony on November 10, 2015.

Throughout the rest of Altis, life had evolved. The island was still very much rural and agrarian centered but in Pyrgos and Kavala, a level of urbanization had come that had not previously been there before. Pyrgos was still a sleepy kind of place with modern buildings but a quiet serenity that saw most businesses close for supper time and remain closed until the morning. Kavala, on the other hand, had acquired a dual identity. Until 18:00 it was business as usual. Then regular businesses closed - except restaurants and bars - and around 21:00, night businesses opened. Cafés especially for nighttime would open and receive patrons and dance clubs would start their music shortly thereafter. Kavala was the place to go for the youth of Altis and those seeking more than the quiet, country life.

Altis International Airport had been expanded to include a dedicated military section and its 3,016-meter runway had been recently refurbished. Stratis Air Base on the island of Stratis needed little change. Feres Airfield in what used to be Fishni was revitalized and its 1,000-meter runway had been repaved recently along with the 1,600-meter runway at Molos Airfield in what used to be Plaká. By now, the bevy of military bases on Altis and Stratis were home to 112 aircraft with 64 of them belonging to the ILAF and the remaining 48 belonging to the ILDF. Pyrgos Coast Guard Base was home to a pair of motor lifeboats, a pair of offshore patrol vessels, and two fast attack patrol boats. That was it for the naval contingency on the islands and it was mainly geared not to combat but to rescue operations.

Part of the biggest change to the island had to do with the increase in lodgings offered. Because of the influx of Dalmascan tourists, new hotels and motels had to be built and so the island had the ability to provide several thousand people with temporary lodging. There was even work underway to construct a new, larger terminal for larger cruise ships. Those allowed into the island now were of the smaller variety that cruised around the Mediterranean Sea. They provided lodging already so they put only half of the strain on the island's logistics that the flocks of on-island tourists did, who more often than not flew direct from Rabanastre to Altis, a short 6-hour or 2,400-mile flight. Boeing model 767s were the most common aircraft to make the trip though there were plenty of Airbus A330 aircraft making the trip alongside the smaller Airbus A310, A320, and Boeing 737s making the trip. Other popular flight routes included Constantinople, Ankara, Cairo, and Rome. Basically, on any given day, there were over 1,500 tourists on the island; and in 2014 alone, the island was the destination for 575,000 tourists. That number was expected to climb significantly after November 2015.

With the climb in tourism would of course come a climb in the island's economic revenue. The island wasn't dependent on tourism for its economy but the tourism boost made the people on Altis very rich very quickly. As a result, the island's infrastructure receive a large upgrade and people were able to afford many more luxuries. This went a long way in converting the former Lemnosian people into Layartebians who didn't argue with their new rulers thousands of miles away on an entirely different continent and hemisphere.

Soviet aggression, one of the main factors for the way Layarteb had historically treated Lemnos had become non-existent. The island nation existed now as its own entity, no longer threatened or harassed by Soviet warships. In fact, as a show of good faith, in 2013, several Soviet warships docked in Pyrgos and the Soviet sailors were allowed to enjoy a true-to-world port visit in Altis. The Layartebians didn't worry about spies either for the island group was securely in Layartebian hands and both Altis and Stratis no longer fit into the wider, Soviet foreign policy. Despite being enemies though, the island group welcomed the Soviets and though a port call was scheduled in 2014, it was canceled for other reasons. None had been scheduled for 2015 though, not because of political issues but simply because the Soviet Navy was focusing itself more locally in the Black Sea and in something of a poor state of disrepair.

The Empire's four islands in the Aegean were more than enough to establish it in the region and that was important now that the Roman Empire had dissolved and a pro-Khorsuni government had crept into power in Athens and Rome. While there was no overt threat against Altis, Stratis, and the two islands near Turkey, there was some concern that if the government in Athens grew especially bold, the islands could be in their crosshairs, in which instance, the forces arrayed there, which were geared to fighting the much more powerful and aggressive Soviets would be turned westward and northward to fight the Greeks. In such a scenario, the massive amount of Layartebian forces deployed to Crete would likely take aim at Athens while the Apilonians on Rhodes and in Cyprus could offer next to immediate assistance. Yes, Altis and Stratis and the Empire's pivot in the Aegean had gone off well over time. There had been rocky decades in years past when the Republic of Layarteb was in trouble but with the rise of the Empire came a true rise of stability to both islands, which were firmly within Layartebian control and dominance…

Political map of Altis & Stratis as of 2015

---

• |- 68 -| •

[Layarteb]

The End