Inyurstan Whistle Blower Crisis! [MT][Open]

[Mizrad]

OOC: Just going to tag this right quick so I can get a post up tonight. This will be replaced with my post shortly.

[Inyourfaceistan]

Outskirts of Dyflin, Brytene

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Tançias realized this Bryton woman was not as bright as he had first reckoned her to be, but in its place she was truly the agent of an evil system. He could understand why someone like Rodrigues or Sãorules would theoretically be welcomed here.
Seizing the chance before the marines could lay a hand on him, he moved his head to the side briefly and his arm came up almost instantaneously with the flash of a trained professional aiming to disarm his opponent. Tançias aimed to use his arm to pin her elbow and neutralize the gun which would allow his other free arm to ideally grab the weapon.

Melendez was not prepared to go out sitting down either. As soon as his partner made a move against the woman, he slid out of the car in one quick, downward motion, using his heel paired with the force of gravity and the weight of his leg to kick-bash right into the kneecap of the marine at his door, which would allow him a few seconds head start.
As soon as Melendez was out of the car he didn't look back - hoping his jab had rendered the guard stunned in the leg just long enough to prevent an instant-tackle situation - sprinting in sporadic zigzags, he clutched his phone in one hand as if he had just found the One Ring, and prayed to God he would get an instant - one way or another - to use it.

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Santigo de Cuscatlan

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Commandante Galvan took the first hit before anyone could reply. The round struck him square in the frontal body armor, shattering the plate and embedding itself just below the skin. A second bullet splashed through his upper shoulder, taking blood, flesh and a little bit of bone with it as Galvan fell backwards on the hot pavement beneath him.
Leonce was right behind her, and in a very advantageous spot when the shooting started, as he quickly moved his pistol down and two the side a few inches and a few degrees before he pulled his own trigger sending a .45 ACP round right at the arm she was shooting the heavy pistol from at point-blank range - as well as right next to her ear. "The Leopard" then pounded on his prey - gun still in hand as he smacked the side of her temple and pushed his weight forward to bring her to the ground.

The others then lowered their weapons, as one man dragged the seemingly useless aide away from the street and back towards the embassy, and the others either moved to help Leonce secure the ambassador or moved to help with their leader who had been hit.
Galvan reached into a small bag he kept at his side and pulled out a pair of glasses which he put on as his comrades removed the shattered vest and quickly wrapped torn cloth around his shoulder. His usually dark-brown skin originating from African heritage turned a ghostly shade of gray as he saw the tiny chunks of muscle and even shards of bone on the ground behind him, and the crimson liquid oozing from his chest.
"Hospital" He said in a short breath as he tried not to let his own mind play tricks of over-injury on him. Three paramilitaries quickly lifted him and took him to the pick-up truck as another unloaded some of the junk from the back.
Galvan again turned to Leonce who was standing over the ambassador as a female parco wrapped clothed around her wrist, he pointed at him and simply said "Natalya. She knows what to do..." As he was loaded into the side seat and rushed to the nearest hospital.

[Riysa]

Tel al-Riyah, Riysa

Brytene was no stranger to the nations of SACTO, even if Riysa never had any open contact with the nation. Deeds spoke louder than words, after all, and so while the Cuscatlanis and Inyurstans were taking care of the "issue" openly, the Riysians worked from the dark, in the form of the Mukhabarat and the RiyAF Cyberwarfare Division. They preferred it that way.

"Check your software and ports one last time, the attacks will be launched in five minutes."

Way back in the day, when Brytene first made a note of itself on SACTO's radar, the Mukhabarat had gone and compiled a list of operating system types in common use in the nation - not that it was difficult, a quick internet search could come up with all the necessary information - and had forwarded the information to their allies as well. It was all for insurance at first, but now it would be put to good use. With this knowledge, SACTO wouldn't be stemmed by compatibility issues, making their attack even deadlier.

Right now, elements of the division were at work, preparing to launch their form of support - a denial-of-service cyberattack. They were targeting the general internet infrastructure of Brytene with an advanced persistent denial of service - APDoS - attack. Supplementing the APDoS were POST attacks, with its ability to circumvent security systems and near indetectability, targeting particularly secure servers and causing them to slow down to unworkable speeds and then crash. The dozens of millions of requests per second, per attack, to flood servers and overwhelm countermeasures, combined with the pinpoint POST attacks, would be a living nightmare to deal with. Combined, your average nation's internet would take only a few minutes or less to buckle and collapse under such an attack. With multiple layers of IP security and rapid switching of targets to evade countermeasures and prevent the origin of attack from being pinpointed, in addition to other bonuses, an attack such as this could be continuously maintained for very long periods of time.

"...And, go!"

With their signal to go, the men of the Cyberwarfare Division got to work.

[El Cuscatlan]

***Cuscatlani Embassy, Lundene, Brytene

What Brytenic government probably realized was that the Cuscatlanis thought about diplomatic security in much different way than Brytenes did. The ambassador had a single armoured SUV in his garage, used during more... needed duties. Unlike Brytene, which had small protection detail, on ambassador and his aide there were eight security personnel, each of them in background in Cuscatlani special forces, such as BOEP, COE or CEOM. These men fought in countless conflicts Cuscatlan was involved in; and to break them was no easy task, considering what training Cuscatlani special forces gotten. This was place where 1/10 of recruits died during the training, and where you had to fight attack dogs - and often convicted to death prisoners promised freedom if they defeat you also - to remain in there. Unlike the "western" special forces, these men were simply taught to be a killing machines, to either pacify favelas or act as behind the front-line sabotage units. Considering the fact that Cuscatlani embassies were already attacked often by communist terrorists, these men were well armed; their armament consisted mostly of Nihonese - made Type 6 Assault rifle, shooting 9x40mm bullet. Designed for special forces, this bullet torn to shreds even most advanced bulletproof vests.

Ambassador expected that the moment since he heard of events in Santiago. He was now in bulletproof vest, ready for eventual siege, when the phone rang. Each of his men was already in position. They had small chances against the Brytenic marines, but if they dare to step here, they had all the means to take a lot of them into grave. The protection detail had quickly divided themselves into two four man teams, each with assigned sectors of fire by the commander. The ambassador suddenly heard a cracking sound behind him. It was sound of Type 25 stock being unfolded. These weapons were here in small quality; yet the single - shot grenade launcher could be fired from inside the building.

The same moment the phone rang, and ambassador picked it up, putting his ITA FRMA pistol into the second side.

"Buenos Diaz, senor" he replied in calm and polite voice "I must inform you that according to diplomatic protocols, the evacuation of the embassy is duty of the member state; the territory of embassy is ex -territorial. Therefore, I must remind you that we have our own mean of transport. Thank you for informing us, and expect the embassy to be evacuated as soon as possible."

This was nothing new to him; he used to be in Chucara long ago, when Admiral Rosario - Salazar launched his insurrection against social - democratic government. Few bullets more were nothing new.

*** Santiago De Cuscatlan

The unit with comandante Galvan enjoyed hell of a ride on the streets of Santiago, with people hailing them as heroes all the way they rode. Population here in overwhelming percent supported Inyursta, as ally of the Integralist Military Junta that established itself in Cuscatlan. Two countries differed at government method, but did not at love of free market and freedom. One kilometre away, Police "arrested" them. It was just so Cuscatlani government could deny that they had any hand in the attack. Police them quickly escorted them to local hospital.

CADI militants could soon hear sound of police sirens coming at their direction. It were the COE units, which frankly, had to clear the place of crime. They did not even thought of engaging the para - militaries which did them a big deal of help by clearing Brytenians from Cuscatlani soil.

*** La Paz, Gran Cuscatlan

At the same time, fuelled by Cuscatlani patriotism, the nationalists from Integralist Union begun a massive protests in La Paz, bringing thousands of people on the streets. The people waved Cuscatlani flags, singing national anthem and shouting obscenities towards Brytenic government. Protests remained peaceful; and thus the paramilitary police did not intervene.

30 minutes after the protests begun, at large podium, Colonel Juan Hechavarria Altamiriano rose his three fingers into air in integralist salute as he shouted:

"Brytenics want to spill fire? They shall get it!"

The nationalists brought a Brytenic flag, which was then covered in oil and burned. Same happened to picture of king Cernwulf, all on the eyes of cameras.

*** San Miguel, Gran Cuscatlan

Salazar Vasquez smiled down, as he sat in front of his computer, and powered it up. He was again on a mission given to him by DINA cyber warfare command. Vasquez was former head of Cuscatlani cyber mafia, genial hacker who once used to live from money of people whose internet bank accounts he robbed; gotten by the police, he gotten cover on condition that he will be commanding the military unit known as "Los Cybertadores", which had to wage war against communists in the cyberspace. At that, if put frankly, he was expert at that. Brytenic government had did a thing they should have not done; therefore, they were going to pay for that now. Los Cybertadores were not going to attack sites of infrastructure or commercial servers - their only target this day will be servers of Brytenic government.

First sight that something was going on were the Cuscatlani hackers activating the BotNets all around the world. Agents of DINA were not interested in revealing that attack was done by them and originated in Cuscatlan. They have been infecting computers all around the world for months before it begun. Most of them were chosen to be in various socialist states according to the possibility of infection. Most of the people who had the "zombies" were not aware that their own computer was being used as a BotNet by the hackers. In case of detection, it will be more probable that it will be them who will take all the fire resulted from attacks.

The attack itself, was to be launched in two phases. Major targets will be the Brytenic government websites, computers of various governmental officers and royal family, as well as commercial infrastructure. At 01.06.2015 approximately 2000 hackers located in Cuscatlan and abroad (recruited from various integralist movements) using various BotNets begun the attack. First phase of attack was launched. They have been scanning the Brytenic governmental websites for some time, to gather information they needed; and the day came when the hell broke loose. Using IP proxies and Botnets, the attack took the shape and begun.

At that time, in Brytene there was a day, and people at work in governmental agencies would receive actualisations from various programs, which seemed totally legitimate, since at nearest time there were really planned actualisations of various programs that they used. Of course, after downloading them the actualisations would go to work. Problem was, this were not actualisations, but rather, a permanent denial of service (PDoS) attack launched at those computers. The updates replaced programs they had - operational systems, various needed for work programs - with malfunctioning copies which would very quickly start rising mess among the Brytenistic governmental computers. Most of work would, in case of successful delivery, become impossible. This type of attack was also launched at bank servers, trying to replace the server files with corrupt copies.

2nd Wave of attack was launched approximately 20 minutes after the delivery of first wave - time long enough to allow for successful delivery, but not long enough for Bryenistic government to fully mobilize against the cyber attack. Then, through the dozens of BotNets, hackers unleashed an combination of APDoS attacks, directed at key governmental websites and key infrastructure, combined with HTTP POST DDOS attack on governmental institutions. HTTP POST used the header size to make the computer download more data (2GB) and was extremely difficult to distinguish from legitimate one - that type of attack was reserved mostly for infrastructure.

The problem however for Brytenic people was, that the DDoS was not the only attack. Second one was much more plaguing, but not so threatening. It involved thousands of trolls mobilized from various Integralist groups and Cuscatlani patriotic population, in addition to friendly countries, who had to en masse attack the international - and according to possibility, Brytenic - discussion boards, especially ones about politics and where the various talk about recent events was talking place. Trolls flooded them en masse and begun posting hateful comments about Brytenian royality, using hashtags such as "#Justice4IYF" and "#GoHomeGringo!". Tactic was very simple - through sheer amount of trollish posts turn every discussion board into a propaganda rubbish bin and surround with it every not profficient in topic person, who will have to believe Cuscatlani version because he will not be able to hear other one...

Cuscatlani Embassy Crisis?

AiofeForever • 2 hours ago
Eh, what is happening in there.... another backwards regime is showing it's true colours, eh?

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Integralismo_o_Muerte • 2 hours ago
If you love Aiofe the slut so much, go have sexual intercourse with her #BackInYourHomeGringo!. !

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AiofeForever • 2 hours ago
What are you even speaking about? Inyurstanis attacked us! This was clear act of terrorism!

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Trollsentai • 2 hours ago
Brytenian gaijin, leave! Your Aiofe produces porn! You are disgusting excuse for a monarch! #FujikawaWeWillAvenge!!

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AiofeForever • 2 hours ago
This was once a good forum, where people could discuss politics and life. Now hordes of I suspect Cuscatlani - paid trolls are flooding it and turning it into rubbish bin. You can not post an intelligent comment which is not instantly attacked by hordes of poor speaking trolls which are to spread propaganda from Palacio de Libertad. I am out!

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[Brytene]

Gran Cuscatlani Embassy, Lundene, Brytene

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The Colonel in charge sighed. Of course the Cuscatlani were too proud to ride in Brytisc vehicles. It was all the same to him - they had confirmed, so they now had thirty minutes to get the hell out of dodge. Well, twenty-nine minutes and forty seconds.

One of his spotters buzzed him on the radio, and he answered quickly
"What is it Greys?"
"We've spotted an ATW in there. Bravo have got eyes-on."
"Alright. If they even look like they're going to try anything, let them have it. I'll call in for an escort, since they want to fanny about in their own crappy vehicles."

Accordingly, the Colonel wandered back to his Nihtgenga and began talking into the comm system, ordering further reinforcements in case these bottled-up morons tried something. He could have just ordered the Stappa to level the building and kill them all, but Brytene had to demonstrate the virtues of civility in the face of these barbarians and the eyes of the world. Besides, it was a nice building. Shame to waste it just like that.

Outskirts of Dyflin, Brytene

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When Tançias lunged at Catamount, the marine processing him caught him with a firm arm under the armpit, his other arm reaching around the back to grab Tançias' other arm before locking them behind the man's back. Other troops began climbing out of the lead Nihtgenga and moving towards the scene just in case, but it seemed that the group by the car had it under control.

Catamount, meaning, used her free hand to deliver a straight jab to Tançias' face, placing her SlatePad on the front passenger seat.

"For goodness' sake," she snapped "You idiots. Resisting arrest and assaulting an officer too now? Even if it turns out your nasty little agency had nothing to do with this Rodrigues fiasco, you're in massive trouble now."

The marine by Melendez's door was half-expecting something stupid from this backwoods operator, and he simply stepped aside and tugged as Melendez came sliding out of the door, throwing him to the mud where he received a swift kicking from the second marine. The first marine joined in for a moment, before the second shoved his rifle barrel against the mans head.
"Gonna have to ask you to calm the fuck down sir." he said calmly.

Behind this scene, two more Marines piled out of the final Nihtgenga, just in case. One of them waved to the dashcam of the evidence truck as he passed by, since the truck was just behind the LAC carrying the ISD agents and had captured pretty much everything that had happened since the cars stopped.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, the salt-and-pepper captain looked at his SlatePad and nodded. He glanced up at his ONI colleagues and nodded.
"We're on after all. Fucking SACTO. Tampering with evidence, affiliation with the ISD, assaulting an officer and resisting arrest."

---

Santigo de Cuscatlan

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Latrell was more than a little shocked - 5m was precisely 5m further than she had ever fired a bullet in her life, and through the confusion she got the impression that Galvan had fallen down, but she had very little time to react.

Behind her, Leonce fired a .45 ACP into her arm from point-blank range, the one of the most high-performance rounds on the market. The hit shattered bone, tearing a huge gash through her upper arm, destroying her elbow, and tearing her forearm in a vicious gout of blood. Before she could even scream, the heavy butt of the gun slammed into her temple, knocking her senseless in an instant. Both her gun and her SlatePad clattered to the floor, the SlatePad still streaming.

---

Interwebs

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Even if the contractors had been stupid enough to use equipment linked to or located in their offices in Brytene, they themselves hardly had direct access to the closed governmental systems that constituted the core of government work, so the electronic trail died in a few dead-end countries in the harddrives of a few cheap foreign smartphones and public computers used to commit the fraud, meaning that no direct link could be established. Brytisc governmental systems were for the most part closed, meaning that the Riysians would have to either bribe someone in Brytene to give them the access information, or else gain physical access to one of the networks in order to break in. Even doing that would be mostly futile - Brytene was a modern country and its computer networks were highly compartmentalised.

As it was, the Riysian attack amounted to little more than a brute-force attempt to DDoS spam, and not even a particularly complex one. Many of the private firewalls and computer security firms in Brytene had already picked up on the insertion of shifty-looking programmes into their networks, and simply removed the code, raising the alarm so that by the time the Riysians activated their 'attack', it had barely any affect. IDAItech ran a company-wide sweep for the 'corrupted programmes' and sure enough, found one or two nestled in their more public-facing networks, but these were quickly removed. Additionally, IDAItech had inserted a high-interaction honeypot here and there, knowing that these mysterious and not-so-effective hackers would most likely try again. Sure enough, they did, sinking much of their time and energy into what looked like vulnerable IDAItech systems.

In the end, the Riysian attack proved to be a damp squib. The Cuscatlani attack met with somewhat more success. Their DDoS attacks managed to bring down several important sites, including the weather service website, many local council websites and several banking groups who were forced to blackhole their servers to stop the attack. The Rihtgemot public-facing site was shut down, and only quick-thinking and some well-placed emergency routines managed to prevent damage to some vital criminal databases.

However, generating false requests on a closed system with compartmentalised and up-to-date dedicated security measures with a professional IT team was never going to be particularly successful, and Goldwing Finance did not appear to be affected by the attack at all, other than suffering from slightly increased page load times for most of the afternoon.

The trolls were a pain, but various forums and sites found their own ways to deal with them. Some simply banned certain hashtags, users, and IP addresses, whilst others added code to their sites which scanned new posts and gave obvious trolls special and embarrassing flairs or turned their profile pictures into the Brytisc flag, that kind of thing.
The hashtag #justiceforlatrell quickly skyrocketed, as did a variety of other similar anti-SACTO hashtags.

[Inyourfaceistan]

Outskirts of Dyflin, Brytene

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Tançias took the jab and briefly closed his eyes with the blow but instinctively continued his suicide maneuver. He reached up with his free hand and placed it on Catamount's pistol, murmuring "Libertas óu mortes!" the whole time, waiting for either Catamount or her accomplice standing out the car door who was now almost certainly reacting to his defiant last stand.
Tançias knew he was going to be executed either way, probably tortured and eventually degraded to give some mud-forged confession implicating himself and his partner and God-knows what crimes the Brytons could dream up, and he was sure determined to go out fighting like a man than kneeling like an animal...

Melendez meanwhile had been thrown to the ground but his cellphone was still in his hand. He didn't know which number he had hit but whichever number was on speed dial was an Inyurstan number regardless.
"No residue on the hands of the accused! No residue on the hands of the accused! Sourez innocent!" He screamed at whichever of his associates was unfortunate yet luckly enough to be on the other end of his phone during what would likely be be Melendez's final moments.

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Santigo de Cuscatlan

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Leonce sighed as he realized Necktie Natalya was now in charge of this operation, but despite his own reservations about her over-zealous nature ordered the two spare parcos to get the stuff that had been unloaded from the truck onto the embassy grounds.
On the pavement, the female paramilitary had finished temporarily wrapping Ambassador Latrell's arm, and began lifting the woman with the help of her comrades and walking towards the embassy as the Cuscatlani police began showing up to pretend they were going to intervene. As they came to the embassy, two more paramilitaries stood by the door - including Tanya Rodrigues - who was in fact Tanya Rodrigues, despite no immediate relation to the senator or his wife - who was now clutching an AKI-1 in her hand, and had ditched her heels for good and instead wore simple sandals for the business of moving around inside the building.

Inside, Vasquez had assembled her subordinates and supplies. She ditched the last cellphone she had used, and assigned the parcos under her command new ones from a whole box of pre-paid phones previously. Counting the numbers, she now had just twelve soldiers in the embassy - not including herself - once the casualties had been taken into account and the drivers of the vehicles which had to remain outside of grounds.
Food, spare ammunition, medical supplies, auxiliary lights and even construction tools were among the supplies loaded into the building. As soon as the ambassador and her aide were inside they would be safe for now, but the parcos would still have work to be done, questions to be answered and authority to be tested...

[Brytene]

Outskirts of Dyflin, Brytene

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Catamount was shocked by the speed with which Tançias moved - it was so fast it almost went back in time. Her SlatePad clattered to the ground as she gave him a light jab to the face, but it barely stopped him as he grabbed onto her pistol with the other hand.

Instincts and training kicked in before she could stop them - she squeezed the trigger, pumping a single round straight at Tançias from less than a foot away. Luckily for the marine grappling Tançias the round was not angled in a way that it would hit him, but even so he swore as the shot rang out.
"Bloody hell!" he yelled, turning his head away but keeping his grip on the lunatic, even as Catamount's free hand now flashed down to Tançias' wrist to break his grip, assuming he had somehow survived her shot. Two more soldiers arrived, helping to grapple the man.

On the other side of the car, Melendez was on the floor being cuffed, one soldier with a boot on his back and a rifle against his head whilst the other placed the sturdy steel cuffs on the agent's wrists. He screamed at the phone and got out some nonsense about Sourez before a gloved fist grabbed his hair and shoved his face into the dirt, muffling his cries but taking care not to actually choke the man to death.

Meanwhile, one of the troops from the rear LAC who had just jogged up tugged the phone out of Melendez's hand. He checked the caller ID (OOC - please let me know ) before putting the phone to his ear.
"This is the Royal Brytisc Fleet, unfortunately Mr Melendez can't come to the phone right now. He is under arrest for, ah..."

He turned and held out the phone to one of the marines who, since Catamount's previous attempt to read the prisoners their rights had been cut short by Tançias' suicidal attack, read them their rights for the first time.

"Mr Melendez, Mr Tançias, you are under arrest for your involvement with the ISD, for suspected tampering with vital evidence, and now for resisting arrest and assaulting an officer."

The corporal holding the phone put it back to his ear.

"Catch all that? Good."

He hung up the phone and pulled out the battery.

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Santigo de Cuscatlan

---

Daryl Wilson did not resist, following quietly as he was led into the embassy. He was just an aide, a civilian pencil-pusher with little real knowledge and not enough of a salary to give his life for any kind of cause. Latrell was maybe a different matter, but she similarly gave absolutely no resistance because she was still unconscious. Her arm wound was bleeding heavily despite the field bandages, and she was looking very pale, whilst her temple was already starting to look sickeningly discoloured and her breathing was shallow.

[Inyourfaceistan]

Outskirts of Dyflin, Brytene

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The round from Catamount's pistol hit Tançias somewhere between his left eye and his ear, and traveling at a slight right angle came out straight from the back of his head - killing him instantly.
Several thousand miles away from the warm oceans and calm breezes of his homeland in this cold, slate-gray northern wasteland Leonardo Tançias had fallen. But he died like a man, in the face of imprisonment, inevitable execution and possible torture he went out on his terms, fighting until the bitter end.

But this left Melendez in a worse situation. He was pretty much doomed to follow whichever fate the Brytons had in store for him regardless. However, he had got his last statement out to the world, the word of the last eye witness before his captors would inevitably destroy all evidence of their wrong doing...

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Santigo de Cuscatlan

---

The last CADI grunts brought the ambassador through the back gate before closing it and retreating fully into the building. Inside, they took her to the bathroom and undid the bandages - but keeping the arm wrapping - and washed off the wound before pouring hydrogen peroxide on the wound to temporarily kill off potential infection. It seemed the bullet had apparently passed right through, they fashioned a quick splint with a small plank of wood and completely wrapped the arm in bandages.

Meanwhile, other paramilitaries had set to work drilling and nailing boards across the blasted-off front door. There was also cutting and drilling being done in other rooms of the house, but to what effect had yet to be seen.
Vasquez sat in the ambassador's office which she had taken to be her own temp HQ, or at least so it seemed, along with Jérendé and another veteran parco which she had replaced her own position with in Galvan's absence. Right now they had to decide a plan to carry on, there was a lot of X-factors: the ambassador's condition, the press coverage, and the subsequent responses of the Inyurstan and Bryistic governments...

[Brytene]

Outskirts of Dyflin

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The soldier holding Tançias cursed again, wiping some of the blood from his visor.
"Bloody hell, stupid bastard!" he grumbled, stepping back and letting the corpse flop to the floor. Catamount didn't bother checking for a pulse - Tançias' head was a ruin and she was pretty sure she could see clean through the exit wound. She moved over to Melendez, who was now in cuffs and on his feet. Marines began searching the two agents, taking away everything but their pants, shirts, and shoes. One of the men traipsed back to the evidence truck and came back with a small metal detector, which they used to check for hidden microchips, that kind of thing. One of the marines took out a suppressor and used it to wedge Melendez's mouth open before checking for poison pills disguised as fake teeth.

Once the rigmarole was done and Tançias' body had been loaded into the evidence truck, Catamount gestured for Melendez to get back into the car.
"Well you've been read your rights, you know what's up. Unfortunately for you, the Inyurstan government is almost certainly involved with this embassy fiasco, which is a real shame. Kicking off like that didn't do you any favours either, and poor Tançias...what a waste. I'm gonna guess you're not going to have a change of heart and start cooperating, so you and I are going on a special trip."

The marine sat next to Melendez grabbed him, pinioning him as Catamount took a rag and held it over his face, the strong smell of chloroform filling his nostrils before he lost consciousness.

R-DARK facility, location REDACTED

---

Melendez awoke in what appeared to be a natural cave. Several fluorescent spotlights were trained on him, practically blinding him, but he could see figures standing behind him.
"Fucker's awake" said one, in accented English.
"Deberíamos comenzar?' asked another.
"Si."

Brytisc Embassy, Santiago de Cuscatlan

---

Latrell seemed to have stabilised. She was pale, her breathing shallow and her heartbeat irregular, but the blood flow had finally stopped. Meanwhile, her SlatePad, which no-one had thought to do anything about, suddenly beeped. It had been accessed by the Brytisc government via Latrell's live-stream, and wiped, reset to factory mode and completely purged of information.

From the desk of Queen Aoife Brighteye of Dyflin
A public statement

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Earlier today, the Brytisc Embassy in Gran Cuscatlan was attacked by armed terrorists identifying themselves as the Coalicion Autodefense D'Inyursta, a violent anti-communist militia group with ties to the Cuscatlani 17CV group. These terrorists were purportedly trying to capture the former Inyurstan Senator Diego Rodrigues, who had only minutes earlier taken refuge in the embassy. The entire attack was recorded by Ambassador Latrell's SlatePad, with which she had the presence of mind to call for help via livestream.

A brutal firefight ensued in which two gallant soldiers of the Royal Brytisc Fleet, Sergeant James West and Private Arthur Gordon, gave their lives in defense of the embassy, killing somewhere between 5 and 8 of the attackers in a display of bravery which we shall never forget. Ambassador Latrell and her aide Daryl Wilson are missing, presumed dead or kidnapped - we have heard nothing from CADI thus far.

Unfortunately, before Ambassador Latrell's SlatePad stopped transmitting, the 'Senator' revealed himself to be 'Leonce the Leopard', another Inyurstan terrorist operating under a fake name and using an authentic Inyursta-issued passport. Given the Inyurstan government claim to have Senator Rodrigues in custody, this points to direct Inyurstan involvement in this heinous and callous attack. To this end, we have arrested two ISD agents, Inyurstan secret service personnel, who were in Dyflin working on a different case with their Brytisc counterparts. As Gran Cuscatlan failed to render assistance to our embassy staff, King Cenwulf has taken the decision to order the closure of their embassy in Lundene. As of today, Brytene no longer encourages or maintains ties with SACTO.

You may have noticed an increase in the amount of anti-Brytisc vitriol on internet message boards today, or the fact that many private sites and several government sites have been unavailable for the better part of the afternoon. This is, we believe, a concentrated attack by professional computing teams based in SACTO nations, as the scale of the attacks suggests a state-sized operator rather than llone operators or small groups of poorly-equipped mountain terrorists.

I urge you not to panic. This is part of an increasing campaign of intimidation and aggression on behalf of SACTO or from important actors within SACTO. They hope to intimidate us and bully us into submission with every tool in their arsenal, but to that I say fuck you. We will not remain silent in the face of barbarity, we will not let violence and blood become the language of politics, and we will not allow chaos and anarchy to rule our streets.

Unlike Gran Cuscatlan, we do not allow violent militia to rule our capital city. We do not permit extrajudicial punishment and we do not tolerate extremist terrorism. Our intelligence agencies, governmental departments and private industry are standing ready to repel any further attempts to harm Brytene or its people.

As ruler of Dyflin, entrusted by your vote and popular mandate to lead this fine canton, I promise you that I will be at the forefront of any dispute or conflict that should result from this tragic day.

Signed
Queen Aoife Brighteye of Dyflin

[Mizrad]

Union Square, MCID Monitoring Facility, New Boston, Mizrad
68* Degrees Fahrenheit, Partially Cloudy
Mizradian Central Intelligence Department Political Analysis Unit

"It is a threat to national security or not Mr. Jefferson?"

Barks Chief Analyst Nasaira Hemsey despite remaining calm in both posture and tone. She looks straight at the man in her office high above the streets of the Mizradian capital. Her job is simple yet extremely hard; stay in said office day in day out deciding whether or not international issues are worth reporting higher up the chain. Anything in the political field be it a rigged election placing an anti-Mizradian leader in power or the more recent and related whistleblower scandal in Inyursta would be extensively studied and then brought to her. Nasaira would be the one to give the final say on whether or not it was to be reported to those higher in rank. Right now her plate is becoming excessively overfilled with issues in Firmador, Alderann the IFC and so on. Making her think pouring more resources into another issue a great deal away from Mizrad is worth it would surely prove extremely hard. Experienced Senior Political Analyst Richard Jefferson begins trying to convince her this case, is worth it.

"Yes Nasaira I do believe it is. While we may not see it's effects for a long time and they may remain miniscule what is going on in Inyursta is quite worth looking into. I give you my word."

Nasaira plants her head in her hands and sighs. The long locks of blonde hair upon her head sprawl down to the desk by her elbows.

"What makes you say this? You know how much we've all been going through recently. Hell I'm starting to think that this job was easier in war time. Peace makes everything complicated."

Richard steps forward and pulls a chair out from by the stained wooden desk and takes a seat. His charcoal colored suit pants crease in a different pattern than when he stood and he runs his right hand down the front of his light blue dress shirt and tie as to press them back against his chest rather than dealing with the alternative of having them puffed out.

"Peace does indeed make things complicated. It's our job to simplify them and you know that. Why is this such a big deal? Because it may lead to either a war within SACTO or one against it. Either way this greatly concerns our partnership with them as well as the International Freedom Coalition. While I love less arduous work that's about the only benefit a war on a world wide scale will bring about. I'd rather have to interpret and pick apart everything I do than have to travel miles away from my home and compile statistics about how many body bags we need to ship to the front. On another note we don't need to bring the IFC into this but by acting now and on our own accord we can get things done the quick and non-bureacratic way. Most of all it will be done effectively. How can you argue with that?"

Hemsey picks her head back up and slips a finger through her hair as to drive it back behind her ear.

"I can't Jeff. You've got the green light to continue but tread carefully because this will either get an extremely minimal budget or be cut all together. See what you can find me that isn't already plastered all over every media outlet in the first world."

Richard Jefferson attains his footing and thanks his superior with the trio of a stern handshake, a grin and a wink. For the first time in a while Nasaira actually smiles. As Richard exits and the door closes she presses a large button on the phone sitting atop her desk. Leaning back in her chair she closes her blue eyes and awaits an answer. A high pitched, very girly sounding voice comes from the other end of the line.

"Hello, you've reached the the office of the Mizradian Secretary of Foreign Affairs Mark Gabriel. How may I help you today?"

Nasaira, still rather high pitched in tone due to her femininity but more controlled and intimidating in tone, responds to the secretary.

"Hello ma'am this is floor five hundred, if you could patch me through to Mr. Gabriel it would be very much appreciated."

Much like floor five hundred, the MCID monitoring stations in New Boston didn't technically exist. Technically was the key word there. As to confuse anybody listening in or to ensure the counter espionage teams carefully listening on government calls did not mix up their own people with those trying to push their way into the Central Intelligence Department using the term "Floor five hundred" as a noun with which to call oneself is a tactic used by all MCID personell acting within the station. However with introduction of caller ID it has become a dying practice yet it remains in use. After a short pause the Mizradian secretary of foreign affairs picks up the phone.

"Well if it isn't the illustrious Naisaira. What might you be trying to interest me in today?"

Hemsey leans forward in her chair and takes the phone off speaker.

"Have you seen the news lately? What was on it."

Mark laughs.

"Warm weather has finally made an appearance and there's multiple dead Inyurstans as well as a whistleblower in their midst. I'm going to take a wild guess and say you don't want to talk about how sunny it's going to be this week?"

The chief analyst wastes no time in responding.

"You guessed correctly Mark. We're still working on piecing together what happened with the murder and whether or not the Inyurstans have completed their investigation. It's pretty safe to say that the findings from Brytene's indigenous police forces will most likely go against what the folks from the IYF have to say. Meanwhile the Inyurstan whistleblower revealed a good deal of corruption within the government and was let off free while the politicians responsible were either put under arrest or fled. That's all we currently know however as any in depth information collection operations have yet to be finalized. I've already devoted what I have left under my command to handling it. It's up to you what you wish to do with the information but both the department and I do suggest you say something to help ease the tension and offer some, albeit minimal assistance. Good night Mark."

"Right. Thank you Mrs. Hemsey."

With that the phone call ends and the two continue with their jobs. Just outside Naisaira's office the senior analyst and a handful of other MCID office workers begin compiling surface level reports of what had gone down. So far they had already managed to confirm a few things which were already reported on by even the most corrupt of nation's news agencies. Confirmed as of now are the deaths and arrests of a handful of the politicians, the whistleblower being granted immunity and a massive shoot out in Gran Custcatlan.

Union Square, Governance Tower, New Boston, Mizrad
65* Degrees Fahrenheit, Partially Cloudy
Mizradian Office of Foreign Affairs

Less than an hour after the call from Naisaira came Secretary of Foreign Affairs Mark Gabriel has finally managed to pull together his group of advisors and those involved with his decision. The advantage they have is that as long as they work with the MCID no congressional approval is needed. Years ago it had been decided that there needed to be a group which could respond to anything, anywhere, anytime as soon as it came up. That group morphed into the Mizradian Central Intelligence Department's Field Operations Team. Recently paired up with them is the Army Special Operations Group. Twenty five platoon sized groups of men and women who were either recruited from regular units or managed to survive the brutal initiation course as well as the subsequent trial by fire in combat. The hundred or so MCID operators paired up with the seven hundred and fifty of A-SOG had all grown relatively close over the decade or so that they began to work together. Two men from this joint group present themselves in front of Mark. Also at the table are a handful of advisors and senators. Once everybody sits down, Mark speaks up to kick off the meeting.

"So what are we to do? So far all I've managed to gather is that I'm going to need to speak with some politicans from both Inyursta and Gran Cuscatlan."

An older advisor at the opposite end of the table chimes in with his two cents.

"With this nearly unsolvable diplomatic maze of a mess I am convicted of the belief that we're going to need to arrive either violently or with extreme intimidation. Every involved party clearly has no intent of concerning themselves with how big of a stick the other guy is swinging but rather how they swing it. Why else would a nation like Brytene try to kick SACTO about like a soccer ball? It's obvious that none of these people care how big their opponents are."

The A-SOG operator interrupts the advisor with some much needed advice.

"He's right but he has yet to hit the nail on the head. Sir with all due respect you've got it half correct. While it is transparent that the nation of Brytene is oblivious to the power of SACTO and at the same time SACTO does not care about anybody and will do anything without question nobody has pointed out what they are afraid of. If I were to take a guess I would say neither of the two groups value human life. They'll kill whatever they get their hands on. You know what's going to bring them down? Small scale stings deep into their skin. A straight up intervention is out of the question for two reasons. One, we can't afford that right now. Two, it's exactly what they want. These people prey on anyone that comes out straightforward and tries to stop them. We see this time and time again with everything from guerilla fighters to seemingly unstoppable empires. They can't fight what they can't see and implanting the seeds of whatever we want to grow there whether it be democracy or capitalism with platoon sized groups of special operators will go in our direction. If it doesn't work we can just back out and they'll never even know we were there. Fighting a war over hearts and minds while trying to occupy or invade a country with hundreds of thousands of troops is about as hopeful as a blind artist. Turning the people against an invasion is too easy. Telling the people to be weary of someting they don't even know exists and that they can't fight will either scare them away or scare them into helping us. Especially if we support them. If these paramilitaries are killing off drug dealers and hating on communism let us take advantage of that. If it's clearly working we can just do the same thing. Hell we could even just force them to do the dirty work for us while we take the diplomatic high road. For example we'll can play the mediator between Inyursta and Brytene in discovering the truth behind the murders."

Gabriel returns to the conversation as the soldier takes his seat.

"Mr. Longue is it?"

The soldier nods his head.

"Yes sir, Major Devlin Longue, Mizradian Army Special Operations Group."

"That you are. Anyways I believe Major Longue is correct. To dumb things down a bit our biggest advantage right now aside from secrecy is that we have very little at stake here. Our only weakness on the other hand is that same thing. If things go south we'll have to get out fast. That includes both the political and military route. Nobody in Mizrad wants to fight after what we just went through and if we manage to piss even more people off we'll be in a very tight spot. If we make friends out of this however we can help adjust Mizrad into a renowned peace time paradise. So while we-"

All of a sudden a women bursts through the door and rushes over to the conference table. In her hand is a metallic chip, a flash drive, which she quickly slips into the projector sitting atop the wooden table. With the click of a button the machine whirs up and sprouts a video on to the screen at the opposite side of the room. Without saying anything the woman simply exits out the way she came. The explanation needed by her would soon also arrive on the screen. On the flash drive is a news report recently taken off a trusted news agency.

"Hello to everyone at home. For those of you just joining us now we've got some pretty interesting stuff to tell you about what has spurred from the recent whistleblower incident in the nation of Inyursta. Aside from the political killings, embassy attacks and even the initial secret spilling we are now getting what appear to be confirmed reports of a large scale attempt by the Santiago Anti-Communist Treaty Organization to hack into the nation of Brytene's online presence. What makes this different from the other cyber attacks? Brytene is no useless little country. They recently applied to join the ranks of the International Freedom Coalition. Even more surprising is the turn of events which recently went down in Brytene's embassy in Gran Cuscatlan. The firefight over the property resulted in the deaths of multiple people and apparently some arrest were made. I'm sorry but we do not have any more information on the subject at this time. Until next time this is St-"

The MCID agent shuts the projector off. With a rather high pitched voice for a man, he stands up. This man did not possess height nor muscle. Just brown eyes and hair with a clean shaven face. If it were not for the identification numbers on the back of his neck he would appear as just joe average. Yet his past was very different from this. The numbers were branded on to him while spending time in captive as "Political prisoner of the nation of the Greater Korean Empire". He was one of the few people to survive the mass execution of the captured Mizradian 2nd Marine Division. Fortunately for him he was away from the fighting working on a counter-intelligence operation as a simple paper pusher when the 2nd were surrounded. After being detained, beaten, starved and forced on to a prison ship he reached the mainland of the GKE. There he would sustain brutal conditions and have his life spared as he along with only a handful of others escaped in a riot. Evading a second capture he returned to Mizrad and decided to take his career to the next level with the Mizradian Central Intelligence Department. This man's name? Douglas Macoy.

"This changes the game. If we have to deal with Brytene being in the IFC then we'll need to take a far more imposing stance in the political field and a far more stealth one militarily. Supplying or assisting paramilitaries or government agencies in Inyursta, GC or any other aligned against Brytene will have to be done in absolute secrecy. Drop the idea of surface level friendly advisors. If we go in we'll have to do it undetected and fast. Like what was brought up before we are now without a doubt going to have to leave the heavy lifting to everybody else. To put it in perspective we'll just be playing the spotter. Secretary Gabriel I'll leave what you want to do up to you and your comittee but I highly suggest whatever final plan you come up with is presented to the MCID before you put it into action."

The far more appealing looking Mark Gabriel makes his final response.

"There's no need to wait around to send diplomats. We can take the standard approach of holding a meeting with both nations individually and then hopefully bringing them together. I'll leave the clandestine operations up to the folks in the appropriate communities but I do have a request."

He removes a piece of paper from his suit jacket pocket. With a flick of his wrist the creased line paper is pulled from the reaches of the jacket. Unfolding it Mr. Gabriel then reads it aloud.

"An investigation about what the Inyurstan politicians were up to as well as compiling a report on all currently deceased members of the group of exposed public figures. Nobody is to try and get involved with either of the embassy incidents for reasons including but not limited to the fact we have little to no information on them and it will rile up more than a handful of people in the international community. Let us not stick our nose so far in that when we inhale the stench of this issue, we cannot back out if we don't have the capacity to withstand. End quote, President Ryan West. So that settles it people. Let's get to work."

TO: All Parties Involved With the Inyurstan Whistleblower Incident
FROM: The Mizradian Office of Foreign Affairs
ENCRYPTION LEVEL: None, Open to Public

To whom it may concern,
We here in the Democratic Republic of Mizrad have witnessed some of the events that have recently occurred in the nations of Inyursta, Brytene and Gran Cuscatlan. While this message may be quite short in length it has no bounds in promise. The government of Mizrad does humbly ask that any and all information regarding the events of the whistleblower leaks, the embassy attacks as well as the arrests or killings of any exposed Inyurstan politicians is shared with Mizrad. With this information we will in return be able to help alleviate the tension between all those involved as a peace keeping force. Hopefully everyone understands.

For a brighter future,
Secretary of Foreign Affairs Mark Gabriel, the Democratic Republic of Mizrad

TO: The Nations of Inyursta and Gran Cuscatlan
FROM: Secretary of Foreign Affairs Mark Gabriel
ENCRYPTION LEVEL: Level Five, Highest

Hello ladies and gentlemen,
I am sending you this message personally in the hopes that we can ensure a mutual trust between one another. Our nations may not be great allies but in order to help further our relations I'm willing to help you out in this "pickle". It is quite obvious things are well on there way to escalation be it political or militarily but I can assist in de-escalation. So long as you cooperate on the surface, Mizrad can assure you both diplomatic support as well as an investigation team assigned to figuring out what happened to the Inyurstan senator and his aide. If needed more support can be sent in arresting those with warrants on their heads for this scandal. Cutting deeper than the surface however I can also make sure paramilitary groups of your choosing are given as much aid as needed. If you do not wish to officially sponsor them, we can support them for you. I know you'll make the right decision.

For a brighter future,
Secretary of Foreign Affairs Mark Gabriel, the Democratic Republic of Mizrad

Port Warrior, 25 Miles North of Oceanata, Mizrad
60* Degrees Fahrenheit, Partially Cloudy
19th Army Special Operations Group
Operation Talebearer

As the blackness of night drapes itself across the land, a convoy of equally dark SUV's escorted by two humvees roll up to the security gate at Port Warrior. A squad of soldiers rushes out to meet them. Checking each driver's identification card and running a scan on the vehicles they are quickly let through. Speeding through the sprawling base the line of trucks make their way over to the well maintained runway by the docks. Upon coming to a stop the passenger of the lead sports utility vehicle presses his finger against his radio and transmits a message.

"All teams dismount and report to the runway. Our ride will be here in a half hour."

The two humvees pull off and other personell from the base take the SUV's to a garage whilst the rugged looking men whom departed them stand in a line by the air strip. This group was supposed to be on their way to the nation of Alderann. Yet little did they know that their "vacation" there had been canceled. Marine infantry from Fallenrun had already completed their task for them and more pressing matters were at hand for them anyways. This group is the 19th Army Special Operations Group. Due to the unexpected loss of the entire 24th platoon these men would be substituting in as the elite of the Mizradian Army. Having proved themselves in the recent invasion of their homeland during the War of the Two Empresses it was no question why they were going to be trusted with heading off to the seemingly uncharted lands of SACTO countries. In the war that was commonly summed up with the speech from the president titled "Homo Homini Lupus", or in English, "Man is a wolf to man" they had gone above and beyond in rescuing countless civilians in the aftermath of an all out assault on Mizrad by an overwhelming force. While people ran screaming in horror in the opposite direction the 19th joined forces with the divisions stationed at Fort Thomas. The fort stood tall as a pinnacle of hope for the seemingly helpless population. Unlike a lot of other nations the Mizradian military was not built upon savage, barbaric training programs in which most recruits were killed but rather based their trainning on controlled rage, logic and an unbreakable bond with fellow soldiers. The battle against insurmountable odds at Fort Thomas epitomized that and showed the world in one defiant cry "We are here to stay!". What it showed the brass however was that the 19th was more than capable of operating in extremely risky conditions. Thus when the 24th were killed off in the invasion the 19th had taken their place. The platoon's leader, Captain Brandon Walters, a poster child for being a warrior is now standing in front of his platoon taking a call from Major Longue regarding the change of the mission. Hanging up the phone and tucking it away to the confines of his right pocket he looks up at the nineteen men facing right back at him.

"Change of plans. We won't be heading to Mislau or Alderann any time soon. Fallenrun beat us to it."

Walters is met with sighs of relief mixed in with annoyance that they would not get to deploy. One man in the crowd stands out. Sergeant Oscar Kaiden approaches Walters. Despite rarely speaking with anybody other than the captain Kaiden was probably the guy who had the most meaningful things to say. Whether it was one of his routine rants or informing somebody of an important thing he always seemed to hit the nail on the head. His sharpened mind and clever timing isn't his only edge. The twenty nine year old sergeant also has another trick behind his brown eyes and hair: near unbeatable skills in combat. While most other A-SOG operators have been trained extensively to be extremely profficient with just about any weapon Kaiden is a man who takes it to the extreme. Thus whatever he says tends to be listened to.

"Something more important pop up sir? There's no way we'd just get called off like that."

Walters doesn't bother to look at him but still replies in a very loud tone.

"That is correct sergeant. Everybody listen up. Mizrad's got bigger problems than dead Alderannian soldiers right now and solving those problems is now our job. We'll be taken by plane to a fleet stationed around SACTO's neck of the woods where we'll be briefed and equipped with everything we need to handle this whistleblower crisis. We are about to jump right into the shit with nothing but our wits and weapons so you better be prepared to use both effectively. Operation Talebearer begins...."

Bringing his wrist up by his face, Brandon stares down at his watch. The clock strikes ten at night.

"Now."

[Inyourfaceistan]

Unknown Location, Brytene

---

Melendez was genuinely afraid, anxious, and dreading the awakening of the unknown fate that awaited him. He could only bite his tongue and brace himself for whatever the Bryton's had in store.
However, a slight dose of anger and annoyance helped ease the tension inside his head when his captors started speaking Spanish like the ignorant gringos he had assumed they were...
"Get on with it you self-righteous pricks!" he shouted at his soon-to-be tortures or executioners.

---

Brytisc Embassy, Santiago de Cuscatlan

---

As Latrell came around, the CADI militants held up her throat and slowly dripped water through her lips, and offered her food - basic coconut cookies, plain baguettes and banana bread - all to counter-act the blood loss she had sustained. The ambassador and the aide were then taken before a white sheet (the latter with his hands bound) placed between two grunts armed with assault rifles with Leonce and Natalya standing behind them, with one paramilitary recording them.

"Greetings to everyone watching. I am Natalya Penelope Jezek Vasquez, and we are Le Coalition Autodefense D'Inyursta - The Self-Defense Coalition of Inyursta. As you can see we have the Bryton Ambassador and her aide in our captivity. The Bryistic State has made clear their support for criminal elements of the Inyurstan government and their aim to further destabilize the situation by offering aide and shelter to the faces of government corruption and the enemies of basic democracy; as compensation for our efforts and our losses suffered in our operation to rid their meddling tentacles from America Libré, we demand a grand sum of $50 million USD in hard cash, delivered here to the former embassy in Santiago in exchange for their release."

The cameraman then gave a thumbs up as he turned off the recording device and took it too a laptop to upload and copy the footage. Two pillowcases were then tossed over the heads of the captives, and they were dragged off.

Some time later the blinding bag was taken off Latrell's head as she found herself sitting in her former office. In front of her was the now-acting commandante Vasquez sitting back in the chair with her legs up on the up the desk, combat boots and all. The dark-brown haired woman sporting a black-and-blue bandana then leaned forward and poured a glass of alcohol.
"Rum?" Vasquez offered, as she pushed an empty glass towards Latrell and held up the bottle of amber liqueur.
"I don't believe we have been formally introduced, but I obviously know who you are and if you know anything about the region or have been paying attention for the past few hours you probably know who I am.
Monséor Galvan cannot be with us thanks to your respectable option to refuse surrender, but he has entrusted me with extracting certain information from you. Now, I prefer to be civilized and reasonable, so I will ask you nicely and if I believe you then I will stop asking...
Who is the rat?"

Déclaration par Cheif de Policio National Vidali de Ruise

---

Declaration by National Chief of Police Vidali de Ruise

---

Greetings et Bona Sora to those listening at home and abroad. As the head of all local, provencial and national law enforcement, I hereby declassify and announce the following updates and information regarding the recent events stemming from the leaks by J.P. Lancorda.

First of which, all individuals accused of criminal action have been apprehended and held on charges ranging from Perjury, to Embezzlement and even Obstruction of Justice in the case of the head of cyber security who turned away Mr. Lancorda and tried to brush his findings under the rug. All are now in custody and awaiting a trial by their peers.

Secondly, in regards to the two brave federal investigators, Leonardo Tançias and Henri Melendez, I am sad to report that they have reportedly been taken into Bryton custody. Unfortunately, as the Bryistic government has not given us any proof that either agent is still alive, we can only assume the worst. My condolences go out to the friends, families and coworkers of the victims who have gone MIA in their duty to bring us the truth and uphold justice.
However, with every dark cloud their is a silver lining. In his last words placed via a call to his station chief, Agent Melendez was able to report an inconsistency with the report by the Brytons and clear the name of Rando Sourez until further notice. Again my condolences to the families of all involved, including Mr. Sourez who they may at last sleep at night knowing he died an honest man.

Next, there has been an incident in Gran Cuscatlan in which the Bryistic Embassy in Santiago was attacked by CADI paramilitaries with assistance from local vigilante groups. Before I continue I must remind everyone again that CADI is an illegal organization, and we condemn their acts of violence and ill-tempered attempts to take the law into their own hands.
However, considering the recent occurrences in Brytene which have left at least two Inyurstans dead and another two MIA and presumed dead, there will be no law enforcement action taken against the outlaw elements currently taking refuge in the embassy in Santiago. It is foolish, risky and inherently stupid to risk the lives of my own men and women to save government officials of a nation which has so suddenly made clear its antagonism for us and our way of life. I cannot speak for the military, nor can I speak for any unit of our Cuscatlani allies in the matter, but this is the final decision of myself, my advisors and approved until further notice by our elected civilian supervisors.
Note that all current investigations, legal action and routine policing against current and future CADI crimes in Inyursta will continue, and that this move is no way pardoning those among them that break Inyurstan law from their due justice.

Lastly, in response to the claims by Queen Aoife; I must remind her that the presence of a legit passport in the hands of outlaws does by no means imply broad government involvement with the criminal organization. We have the man responsible - a local police officer from South Marindino who apparently sold the passport to an unnamed CADI operative or supporter - in custody, stripped of rank and pay; but we would like to announce to everyone that he is cooperating with police and ISD to help with the effort to non-violently disband CADI.

As a closing remark, I feel the need to reveal that Mr. Jean-Paulo Lancorda has been promoted to replace his former superior who turned away his findings. As a citizen of Inyursta I believe we all owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Lancorda who has gone out of his way to help us root out corruption and vice from the halls of our government.

Signed:
- National Chief of Police Vidali de Ruise

---

To: The Mizradian Office of Foreign Affairs;
From: The Office of Secretary of State Mario Velacoro, Inyurstan Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
Encryption: None/Public

We thank you for your unbiased approach to this complex situation, and will shortly comply with your request for our version of the recent events. However, we must first correct your error, there have been no "killings" of exposed corrupt politicians, only a single death of an individual fleeing justice and his private employee while seeking "asylum" in Brytene. The other high-profile death in this situation was a Cuscatlani politician with reported but unconfirmed ties to some of the accused as well as elements of the communist underground in Inyursta and Cuscatlan. The idea that has been circulating in which Alberto de la Plata was Inyurstan either stems from the ignorant and borderline racist notion that Cuscatlan and Inyursta are somehow the same nation, or from the fact some governments apparently can't read a simple news article - and unfortunately causes confusion and misunderstanding among others such as yourself.

The official version of events according to our government is as follows:
- J.P. Lancorda , an inside cyber-security consultant to the legislative branch, released a large sum of documents incriminating several politicians
- Some criminals were offered asylum by nations hostile to Inyursta
- Former-Senator Lanson Sãorules took up one offer of asylum to Brytene, where he and his aide were then killed
- Two ISD agents (Internal Security Department) volunteered and were dispatched to Brytene to take up the offer by their government to review the evidence on behalf of Inyursta; they then went MIA and are presumed dead
- An attack by an outlaw group known as CADI (Coalition Autodefense D'Inyursta) attacked the Brystic Embassy in Cuscatlan with apparent support from local Cuscatlani paramilitaries, they now have the ambassador hostage in the embassy and are demanded a large sum of money for her ransom
- A member of the Bryton royal family falsely accused the ISD of being involved in the attack on account of an official passport used by CADI to trick the Brytons into believing they were the "right" criminals, however since this accusation we have a found a local police who was tasked with transporting evidence to be responsible for the lost passport and he has since been disciplined accordingly

Again we thank you for the unbiased nature of your request and your willingness to listen to our side of the story.

To: The Mizradian Office of Foreign Affairs;
From: The Office of President Jack Peresque, Inyurstan Executive Branch;
Encryption: Extremely High

We thank you for your offer, and if possible would like a second opinion as to the cause of death of one civilian and the fate of our two missing agents in Brytene. Given the apparent blood-thirsty nature of the Brystic government, we would understand if you didn't wish to undertake this endeavor.
But if you should choose to seek the truth, what we know is that the slaying of former senator Lanson Sãorules was according to the Brytons, done with a Bersa .380 - gun which the accused (and now deceased) Rando Sourez did not have registered to his name. The second piece of evidence (other than the gaping narrative and motive hole in their story) was that agent Melendez reported before being "arrested" that Sourez had no gunshot residue on his hands - despite being claimed as the triggermman. We can both assume that by the fact they were presumably killed, or at least detained without any chance to speak their side of the story, that they had other evidence which incriminated they Bryistic government and it is safe to assume the Brytons have destroyed or intentionally contaminated what evidence was left.

However, in regards to the paramilitary situation, we must confide in you that we have nothing to do with the attack on the embassy - or any other criminal action performed by CADI - since 1995.
But, dealing with the paramilitaries is like dealing with a deadly viper in your back yard: The viper leaves you alone if you leave it alone, if you mess with it you get bit. The snake also keeps the rat infestation at bay, and if you kill the snake the rats overrun you. Our military and police forces COULD deal with CADI and the smaller group Contré-Rouje (Counter-Red), but this would cost lives, money and infrastructure and would have almost no popular support; and could very well leave us less fit to handle the drug cartels or a revival of recently-defeaten leftist terrorism.
So right now must strike a balance between whittling down the influence of paramilitaries while keeping them around just long enough to keep the cartels and communists at bay until we can effectively suppress all three, just as the homeowner cannot kill the viper until the rats are gone...

We certainly hope you understand this metaphor, and understand that the only solution to the "parco problem" is non-violent disarmament and peace transition.

[Brytene]

On the road to Dyflin

---

After Melendez had been taken away, Centurion Catamount leaned over Tancias' body, her back to the camera. She shouted out, loud enough for the others to hear.
"Hey, look at this" she said, moving her body to reveal the corpse as she pulled an oily rag out from one of his pockets. "Looks like the little fucker picked up one of those yellow grease-rags whilst we weren't looking."

She had deftly planted the rag as she crouched down, and now she held it up for the dashcam to record and then called for an evidence bag to put it in. Once it was dropped into the bag and zipped shut, the dashcams for the various vehicles were turned off in order to collect the video footage from the incident.

Once this was done, Catamount sighed and went back to the truck, placing a phone call. Maybe 20 minutes later a motorbike arrived, and the breathless driver handed a new Bersa-380 Thunder to Catamount, along with a morgue tag. She climbed into the back of the truck, opening the body bag and gently drawing out Sourez's body with the help of another guard, both using gloves. Once he was clear of the bag, she held the Bersa close to his hand and pulled the trigger, firing a shot off into the road near the convoy. She handed the Bersa back to the motorbike rider, who turned and left the way he had come, whilst Catamount carefully retrieved the oily rag from earlier and used it to wipe down Sourez's hand. They then slowly placed his body back in the bag and replaced the tag with the new one, which displayed exactly the same time, date, and name as the previous tag.

Crossing to Tancias' body, she lightly rubbed the rag across his right hand before slipping it back into the evidence bag, which she sealed, labelled, and slung in the back.

Tancias was slung into a body bag, the fired bullet, shell casing, and old tag were gathered up and taken away and the whole convoy continued on to Dyflin.

Brytisc Embassy

---

Latrell came around very slowly. The blow she had sustained to the head seemed to have left her quite dazed and confused, and the question seemed to baffle her. Wilson, however, spoke up, his tone frightened.
"Rat? What rat? What do you think someone told us?"

Meanwhile, the terrorists received a response.

Code: Select all

FROM: R-DARK
TO: TERRORIST SCUM

DO NOT BE RIDICULOUS. WE CANNOT SEND PERSONNEL INTO SANTIAGO DE CUSCATLAN. TAKE THE HOSTAGES TO THE COAST AT THE FOLLOWING CO-ORDINATES. BRING AS MANY TERRORIST SCUM AS YOU WANT. A SINGLE DINGHY WILL ARRIVE WITH THE MONEY AND ISD AGENT MELENDEZ. YOU MAY TAKE UP TO FIFTEEN MINUTES TO COUNT THE MONEY. THE COMBINATION IS 01982. AGENT MELENDEZ WILL NOT BE AWARE OF THE COMBINATION.

ONCE SATISIFED, YOU WILL PLACE THE HOSTAGES IN THE DINGHY. MR WILSON WILL BE UNHARMED AND UNTIED, AND YOU WILL INSTRUCT HIM TO DRIVE THE BOAT DUE EAST. IF YOU TAKE THE MONEY AND DO NOT RELEASE THE HOSTAGES, YOU WILL DIE.

YOU MAY KEEP THE $50 MILLION AND THE ISD AGENT.

R-DARK facility, LOCATION REDACTED

---

The operators were not in fact speaking Spanish for the benefit of their cockroach guest - the Brytisc were not the only people with agents present, whatever conclusions this rabid little parasite jumped to. There was a pause, and a silence, then laughter.
"Don't piss your pants, mate. We're going to set you free, we're not some Inyurstan barbarian gang."

One of them crossed to a pile of supplies, everything from ammunition and webbing to pallets of MRE's and a large bag of beans. He dragged out a large crate, grunting with the effort. The crate had been prepared specially for the situation, waterproof and sealed with all the contents necessary, with a simple 5-digit combination lock and a couple of buttonhole cameras attached.
"Lucky for you, it looks like your dumbass friend was the one who tried to tamper with the evidence, so you get off with a slap on the wrist. We're going to hand you $50 million, and you're going to take it to Gran Cuscatlan and get our people back, and then you're going to go home to your mongrel family and spawn more mongrel children and live quietly in your dump and never step foot on Brytisc soil again, an outcome I'm sure you would appreciate just as much as we would."

Some time later

---

Outside Cuscatlani waters, the CFS Eftwyrd surfaced. It was in international waters, and broadcast its location to the Cuscatlani authorities willingly, making them aware that the submarine was there. At roughly the same time, a Heavy Revelator transport aircraft buzzed the waters before turning to make the long trip back, stopping via a friendly base to refuel. It dropped a single small motorboat, large enough for maybe six people, with a little petrol outboard engine - not a seafaring vessel, but enough to make the short trip across the 12-mile territorial waters of Gran Cuscatlan. Neither the boat nor the crate which sailors from the Eftwyrd loaded onto it had any hidden explosive or electronic device, other than the two buttonhole cameras there to give the Fleet overview of what happened at the exchange.

Melendez was taken to the deck by his captors, a pair of burly-looking sailors with white shirts and black trousers, wearing deep red jackets. Their captain was a short woman of Arabic extraction, rich olive skin and eyes the colour of deep mahogany. Captain Haley Haley gestured to the boat, which already had the crate filled with $50 million in unmarked Brytisc 200-scilling bills sat inside it. The sea rocked gently against the sides of the sleek black submarine - it was a fine, sunny day, and the ocean seemed tranquil.

"Well, this is where you leave us Agent Melendez. I hope you've enjoyed your stay. Remember, if you try anything funny with the money, we'll be watching. Just take it to the terrorists, they'll know what to do. If you're lucky, they'll be so thankful to your government for helping them out that they'll free you."

That said, they pushed him into the boat. Land was visible, and one of the sailors pointed out the distant beach that was designated as the handover spot, before stepping back and letting Melendez set off.

---

TO: The Mizradian Office of Foreign Affairs, and all other concerned parties
FROM: The Brytisc Rihtgemot
ENCRYPTION LEVEL: None (Public)

OFFICIAL STATEMENT CONCERNING RECENT EVENTS

The Brytisc Rede hereby communicates its official version of events.

• Brytene offers refuge to Inyurstans at risk of political persecution only
• Senator Saoroules and an aide arrives in Brytene, despite not being named in the initial asylum offer
• Saoroules threatens to deliver information about an unknown individual named 'Jack'
• Sourez (the aide) responds by shooting Saoroules with Bersa 380 smuggled between buttocks. Sourez is shot by Brytisc personnel on the scene.
• Brytene reports the incident, invites investigators from Inyursta to examine the scene and evidence
• Someone claiming to be Senator Rodrigues arrives at the Brytisc Embassy, Gran Cuscatlan
• The individual is carrying Rodrigues' authentic passport
• The embassy is attacked, multiple dead on either side. Cuscatlan refuses to offer assistance
• The individual reveals himself as CADI and captures Brytisc Ambassador + aide
• Based on this information and suspicion of ill intent, Brytisc personnel arrest the ISD operators
• They resist, one is unfortunately killed
• Investigation reveals they have tampered with the evidence - wiped both the gun and Sourez' hand with a cloth
• Brytene receives a ransom demand from CADI
• Inyursta confirms that they will not take action against CADI

Mizradi investigators and mediators are most welcome. Brytene hopes to resolve this matter without further bloodshed. We have dispatched the CFS Eftwyrd to international waters just outside of Gran Cuscatlan, in order to facilitate the payment and release of hostages demanded by the CADI. We have informed the Cuscatlani authorities of the vessel's proximity to their territorial waters.

International Airport, Santiago de Cuscatlan

Sara Silva was frightened out of her wits. She had just seen three of her colleagues, men and women she saw twice a week if not more, shot in front of her by armed vigilantes. She didn't know much about politics, and had only been working in the Brytisc embassy for a couple of months, but suddenly she felt herself twitching at shadows.

What if they decided to come back? What if they thought she was a communist or worse?

Her flat was ruined, being right next door to the one hit by the 40mm grenade, and so she decided to take a trip whilst it was being renovated. She claimed the insurance on her destroyed truck, and it wasn't enough but it was just about enough for a couple of cheap plane tickets and some hotel rooms. Her university professor thought it was a good idea for her to take a break after what she'd just witnessed, and so here she was walking in to the major international airport at Santiago de Cuscatlan, with a flight booked to West Aurelia.

[Inyourfaceistan]

Unknown Location, Brytene

---

Melendez kept his mouth shut. He know these scumbags were lying out of their asses, insinuating Tançias tampered with evidence when the two agents had stumbled on several forensic errors in the Bryton's murder-framing attempt. Once again it made sense to him why they would want the same disgraced scum facing criminal charges for their corruption - even if their sinister endgame was just to gun them down in cold blood.
He figured they were going to execute him too, but there was just enough self-belief in the voices of his captors unlike every other lie their pathetic terrorist excuse for an intelligence agency had spit forward since he and his partner arrived to convince his inner conscious not to make some grand-standing act of defiance in the face of certain death.
So he kept his mouth shut.

A long while later he found that his gut instinct would appear to have been correct as they loaded him off the submarine. He readily took control of the boat they threw him on, as soon as he was a few meters away from the sub he shouted:
"So long you lying, racist, murdering sons of bitches! I hope Aldiun takes you all to Sovengaurde!!!" as he threw his middle finger to the wind behind him and began pulling light zig-zags and hugging what little waves were present to make any potential back shot a bit harder.
all the while trying to figure his chances of making it to shore if he jumped off and swam for the beach - an escape plan brought on by thoughts of his own death in a fiery explosion and the Brytons trying to accuse Cuscatlan of pulling the trigger. Before long Cuscatlani Coast Guard patrol boats came into sight and moved up to meet/intercept him.
Melendez brought the boat to a stall as he raised his hands.

"I am Agent First-Class Henri Melendez of the ISD. I was supposedly released from the captivity of the Bryistic state to do their biding. On board is a container which may hold explosives, biological or chemical contaminants." He then awaited a response from both sides.

---

Brytisc Embassy, Santiago de Cuscatlan

---

"Well considering only twice have I ever seen targets react that fast to a shock-and-awe attack from all angles; once was because our sniper simply failed to kill the enemy's look-out in one shot, and the other was because we had a leak in our ranks - yes, I do... Unless of course there is a third Bryton running around in the streets of Cuscatlan that I don't know about..." Vasquez said as she sipped down her rum.
Her civil interrogation was cut short when one of her subordinates opened the door.
"Monséora, tu doita ver cetté..."
"Que-este il?"
"Le Bryton reponda à nosa extorcia."
"Well that was fast. Will you excuse me for a minute?" She said to her captives as she walked out the door. On the way down the hall she ordered another parco to tend to the ambassador with and icepack to her head.
Vasquez came to the laptop, where Leonce and her temporary-lieutenant were already reading the message. She then read it for herself.
"Smells like a fucking trap to me. I think they realize we are dug in nice and tight here, and want to draw us out. This just seems like an overly-manicured and official version of some shit Las Hemorajas would pull..." Leonce said, drawing from his knowledge of how cartels operate to coax a victim out of saftey before killing them.
"Yeah, but these guys arent narco-thugs. They are smarter in some ways, but dumber in others. They just might give us this kind of breathing room..." She replied.
"I still don't like it. If I had my way not a damn one of us would step foot outside this embassy after this raid-bait..." Leonce said, still slightly sour he was taking orders from someone he considered his junior...
"Well you aren't in charge. But you make a strong case." She then turned to her lieutenant.
"The Brytons know Leonce's face now, and they probably know mine. There is a slim chance in hell they know yours. Grab Roucharde and two rifles, throw on some civilian clothes, and go to the beach near these coordinates. Act casual and report back to me if you see anything out of the ordinary. I wanna see what these baddies are hiding up their sleeves..."
The paramilitary officer nodded, picked up his rifle and walked off to fetch another grunt and carry out Vasquez's orders. Right now she was cursing her situation - dealing with a foreign government outside of the not-so-secretly supportive Cuscatlanis and the cult-of-Ché Marxist gangs that considered themselves in charge of Tirmeno was far out of CADI's league - and to make matters worse this was really the first operation the twenty-eight year-old vigilante had really been in command of. So much could go wrong, even if it were an experianced commander like Galvan or the notorious Triple-X, but if it did she knew her comrades would likely blame it on her...

[El Cuscatlan]

*** Cuscatlani embassy, Brytene.

The sound of clock ticking on the wall annoyed the ambassador, who was now lowly crouching in here, expecting assault at any second. His room was not with any window; yet rest of the rooms had them. The embassy security team took positions dividing themselves being directed by the individual commanders of the fire teams; while 360 degree zone has been covered, the Cuscatlanis focused their heavier means of fire at the side where the tank was. They were ready. Ambassador sighed. He knew this may not end well. On the other hand, he already heard of fate of inyurstan investigators and the senator; yet they were few unarmed men, and now Brytenes had 8 well armed "hijos de putas" in the building, each of them being a man who had to fight an attack dog with bare hands so he can enter the unit. These men were dangerous, and he knew that. But then, they were in eight against whole army.

He looked through the door at two men from security team. One was crouching, covering the higher area of living building, while second was standing, covering the area where the light tank was. Both were doing it from an angle, minimalizing their exposition to eventual shooter. The ambassador sighed again. Would this end well? Would this end bad? He was not sure. Then he picked up the phone and spoke:

"According to convention about diplomatic security which El Caudillo Raul Martinez de Santa Ana signed in 2012, I have right to know every detail about the evacuation from Brytenic side, including details of escort of Brytenic military personnel, the route which it will take to the airport. I also wish to inform you that the "flight" booked by you is not in accordance with any diplomatic protocols. Therefore unless you are willing to allow Cuscatlani government to send a plane to evacuate us, I therefore request a permission to check the route and flight in advance. Please understand, we are aware of what you did to Inyurstan investigators; and you are the ones breaking international law here. You did not inform Cuscatlani government that you plan to evacuate the embassy beforehand, and therefore because of lack of procedures being fulfilled you are the one who acts illegally here. Understand, senor, we are doing it for our own safety."

The ambassador smiled. If Brytenians thought they are going to take him down easily... they were wrong.

---

*** Cyberspace

Cuscatlanis scored some success against various targets... but the real fun for them was about to begin. While first group of hackers were attempting to harm the business, 2nd one went after Brytenic media. They have been scanning them for a while, and then, the attack begun, after identifying the holes. The attack was simple SQL injection, allowing then to use XSS attack. This attack was far from the enormous attempts done by Riysans; and frankly, had much different goals than just taking over whole internet. XSS attack had to redirect the users entering on site on another site which would after it open a film, scripted so closing it would require going through 50 windows of text explaining why Brytenic government is criminal one. The film was a series of images from child pronography with king Cernawulf' s face photoshoped in place of the original. Subgroup of these hackers attacked the not so well defended commercial billboards in the city, which will broadcast to millions of brytenians photoshoped images of Queen Aiofe being anally raped with samurai sword and engaging in most disgusting sexual acts even imaginable.

Using the telephone routes, massive attack begun on this area also. After using appropriate cover means, Cuscatlanis were making countless connections at Brytenian emergency services, spamming them in message in heavy Hispanic accented English. The message was constant and spaming, chances for a legitimate help request were minimalized.

BRYTENIAN PEOPLE. YOUR GOVERNMENT HAS STEPPED UPON A SNAKE WHICH THEY SHOULD HAVE NOT; AND THE SNAKE IS NOW BITING BACK, IT' S POISON BEING DEADLY ENOUGH TO HARM YOU ALL. I KNOW MANY OF YOU ARE DECENT PEOPLE. THAT IS WHY I APPEAL NOW TO YOUR SENSE OF JUSTICE. FORCE YOUR GOVERNMENT TO GO BACK. TELL THEM TO LEAVE LA AMERICA LIBRE ALONE. WE WISH YOU NO HARM. BUT IF YOUR GOVERNMENT WILL NOT TURN BACK - YOU ALL WILL PAY. BRYTENIAN PEOPLE. YOUR GOVERNMENT HAS STEPPED UPON A SNAKE WHICH THEY SHOULD HAVE NOT; AND THE SNAKE IS NOW BITING BACK, IT' S POISON BEING DEADLY ENOUGH TO HARM YOU ALL. I KNOW MANY OF YOU ARE DECENT PEOPLE. THAT IS WHY I APPEAL NOW TO YOUR SENSE OF JUSTICE. FORCE YOUR GOVERNMENT TO GO BACK. TELL THEM TO LEAVE LA AMERICA LIBRE ALONE. WE WISH YOU NO HARM. BUT IF YOUR GOVERNMENT WILL NOT TURN BACK - YOU ALL WILL PAY. BRYTENIAN PE...

---

*** The sea

CNS "Camiguana", a Kairyu class SSN slowly descended to 03 knots, while keeping at - 30 meter depth. The Nihonese - made SONAR systems on "Camiguana" was so big it taken entire noose; but it had ability to track very quiet targets at long range. Additionally the water pump jet propulsion allowed it to be even more quiet. The sub was going on all passive detection, with no broadcasting.Thus, the Camiguana provided perfect cover for the exchange from Cuscatlani side. Additional units were also mobilized; two L8N being on standby, ready for engagement on order.

Additionally at the same moment, a Legend - Class cutter and General Vargas FFG, a locally produced copy of FREMM frigate armed for ASW duties were prepared to take the an active part in the exchange just after Cuscatlani government was informed. From the bridge of El Libertador, the legend - class cutter, a RIBs full of black - clad commandos from the coast guard was put on the water. The rib's helmsman quickly noticed the figure swimming in the water and performed characteristic U - shaped manoeuvre. After the boats were stern to stern, the commander of the group spoke.

"Positive" he said to him calmly "You will go with you on the El Libertador."

The agent was taken there, after the commander of the RIB radioed to his superiors. Captain Raul Oleastro then sent a message to brytenic ship:

".--. .- -.-. -.- .- --. . / ... . -.-. ..- .-. . .-.-.- / -.-- --- ..- / -- .- -.-- / --. --- .-.-.- (Package secure. You may go)."

What Brytenians did after that remained a question. They still were observed. Did not changed the fact that just after the agent Melendez will enter the ship, he will be handled to prepared CBRN - qualified personnel where he will be himself decontaminated and checked, while CBRN and EOD unit of the coast guard had to transport the money bag to through the 2nd helicopter - without opening it - to a place where it could be better researched, without endangering the crew of the ship. After all, it could have something much more nasty than a bomb - like a plague?

[Brytene]

Aboard the CFS Eftwyrd

---

Captain Haley Haley squinted at the retreating agent, her expression confused.
"Aldiun? Sovengaurde? Do you know what she's talking about, Solverson?" she asked, turning to one of the burly men who had thrown the captured agent into the boat.
"I think it was a pop culture reference. He might have been trying to say 'Alduin' and 'Sovngarde'. They're from a popular videogame, sir."
The little captain's jaw dropped, and then she started back at the boat, which was now wiggling around in a frantic attempt to escape non-existent gunfire.
"You mean 'Skyrim'? That poor chap! Do people in his country understand fiction?"

The sub sat quietly in international waters, not attempting to hide, but it had picked up on the mobilised Cuscatlani frigates. That was only normal and to be expected - Brytene would do the same in the Cuscatlani position, and there was no reason that had to mean an escalation - it was just a sensible safety measure.

There seemed to be no traps or bombs on the case, but they had not yet opened it, and checking it would seem to be a sensible precaution. It did not go off, and the submarine did not fire or take any action as Melendez and the crate were taken aboard. It did, however, have a small glass panel which showed stacks of bills inside.

Cuscatlani Embassy

---

The colonel simply waved a hand in response, and turned back to his radio. By this point, the reinforcements he had asked for had arrived. A Woden II MBT rolled on-scene, along with extra marines and two more sharpshooter teams, as the Stappa tank headed out to block off the road. Overhead, a HR-G20 gunship began circling. Launched from a nearby aerial base, it had plenty of fuel, and a second was slated to take over the patrol if necessary.

After speaking briefly with someone over the radio, he turned back to the embassy.
"Details of the route are being e-mailed to you now. You will be allowed to take your own LAC and a private, air-conditioned coach will be provided for any excess personnel and baggage. These vehicles will be escorted by an armoured column of no less than six vehicles, with two companies of infantry. Please understand, your government just allowed the Brytisc embassy to be attacked by terrorists and so this escort is for your own protection. The Cuscatlani government may send a single unarmed transport plane to the Lundene International Airport. A runway will be cleared. The plane may be equipped with active and passive defensive equipment, such as chaff, flares, etc."

Across Brytene

---

The BBC website was not affected, running on proprietary IDAItech build, but the Brytscop and several other major sites were affected. Their webmasters noticed pretty quickly and similarly began blackholing their site, preventing any innocent people from being affected by the sick minds that obviously sat behind the Cuscatlani computer screens. News began spreading quickly across the net however, with some people insisting this was evidence that Cenwulf was corrupt, whilst others quickly testified that the film was obviously 'shooped, providing frame analysis on message boards and forums.

The attack backfired on Cuscatlan though - the people pictured in this depraved film were of a variety of origins, but the Cuscatlani had made one massive mistake. They had gone to great lengths to make sure the sick monster in each image looked roughly the same, with a big belly and pale white skin, but they had not done their research properly - or more to the point, how could they, as no-one other than the King and his immediate family and doctors knew one interesting fact:
Cenwulf had an outie bellybutton, and the depraved sicko in the images clearly had a normal 'innie' bellybutton. The King's office quickly released a photo of the king, one thumb up and grinning, with his belly bared and his other hand pointing to his belly button. The image spread like wildfire across the internet.

King Cenwulf himself even released a brief statement via the BBC website:

"Recently, you might have seen some disturbing images or heard Cuscatlani voices whispering rude things down your telephone lines. It seems that in Gran Cuscatlan they have some unusual and sickening hobbies. I must say, I do not appreciate their attempt to include me in their bizarre games, but it is kind of them to think of us and good to know that whilst they cannot maintain order in their own capital city, they have time to spare producing child pornography and other depraved imagery. Now you come to mention it, I wonder which famous SACTO politicians have 'innie' bellybuttons..."

The billboards were a much easier problem. Most of them were digital, and so the moment companies noticed their billboards acting up, they just shut them down - better for business to go down for an hour than to display sick pornography for ten minutes. A few older variants had to be shut down manually, but this happened quickly enough.

The attack did have one effect that was seen by global media, however. The hackers had decided to use a samurai sword in their twisted attempts to demoralise the Brytisc people for some reason, and the connection was quickly made by rapid-posting online enthusiasts.

An image began circulating online, and within hours it was across social media, file-sharing sites, and more. Several placards and banners were also produced, on everything from scrap cardboard and old bedsheets to professionally produced media. It was simply a news still from Aoife's duel with Fujikawa. Some people in Brytene called it callous, others called it defiance. Regardless, the image was soon everywhere, and was flooding international forum boards.

Aoife's office
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Aoife Brighteye laughed when she was shown the image of her being stabbed with a katana.
"Fujikawa already tried that." she remarked wryly "so I doubt any other slob from SACTO will manage it. Nice to know they're still thinking about me though, eh?" she remarked to her secretary. "Put out a tweet - you listening?"

By AoifeBrighteye ☑ - Just now

Anyone who wants a rematch of #AoifevsFujikawa welcome to try. I'll pay your air fare! #sactohack #getrekt #freedomftw

---

2094 Likes | 152 Dislikes

Reply | Like | Dislike

Emergency services

---

This attack failed almost instantly - it was impossible to place an emergency call from abroad in Brytene. There was a special line for the rare occasion that somehow someone abroad became aware of a crime in progress (witnessing violence over Skype, for example) but the staff responsible for that line reacted with indifference, simply blocking the numbers when they received the calls, passing the recordings on to their superiors who made them available to the police.

Lundene International Airport

---

Sara Silva had gotten off the plane in West Aurelia with a sense of profound relief. She had not been stopped at the Santiago de Cuscatlan airport, and now she was in safe, neutral territory. Two Brytisc agents, unarmed but still dangerous, had met her at the West Aurelian airport and escorted her on a commercial flight back to Brytene, and now she was in an office safe in the sprawling international terminal, with agents at the door whilst a kindly elder woman helped her fill out some paperwork.

There was a commotion outside, and then the door opened. A huge man, tall and broad-shouldered with a belly that looked like a barrel full of ale, stepped through the door. His beard was thick and behind it twinkled rich brown eyes.

The woman bowed her head.
"Your Majesty..." she began, but the man waved her off.
"No need for that. Now then. You're this young Cuscatlani intern I've heard so much about, Ms Silva?"
Silva was stunned. This elected head of state, representing over 60 million people, thought she was so important it was worth coming directly to the airport to talk to her.
"I...yes, sir. Your Majesty. I am Sara Silva."
He was silent for a moment, staring at her, then he boomed with laughter.
"Righto then. Good! Get up, come with me. This lovely woman will finish your paperwork up for you, I'm sure. You and I have some talking to do..."

Please note the picture is not of a real dead guy, it is someone from a LARP convention I believe

[Ardoki]

This is purely IC. I certainly don't feel this way in real life. This is just a highly exaggerated propaganda piece.

SACTO Citizens Confirmed as Disgusting, Foul, Savage, Stupid and Barbaric Rapists and Child Sex Offenders

Experts Claim, with Evidence, this is Because of SACTO's Constant Rejection of Progressivism and Support of Rightist Traditionalism

Doctor C. J. C. Bartholomaeus Lebuin, Expert in Criminal Sexual Acts from the Progressive Imperial Police Force.

A typical upper class Cuscatlani neighbourhood.

For long we have known that the Santiago Anti-Communist Treaty Organisation was a right-wing organisation. However now, they have removed the doubt from the minds of even the less intellectual. SACTO are just like all other rightists, they love rape and child pornography. This can be evidenced by the recent cyberattacks on the good old nation of Brytene. These attacks, were far too complex and organised to have come from anything but a disciplined government or military unite. Further evidence implicating SACTO confirms this, the samurai swords (from Nihon), South American accents (from Inyursta or perhaps Cuscatlan), typical uncouth foul-mouthed rightist behaviour involving rape and child pornography, constant references to 'LA AMERICA LIBRE' (a brutal Inyurstan dogma), and the targeting of Brytene (obviously due to Brytene's defence of international freedom and civility, in the face of the savage barbaric hordes of rightism). It is indisputable that SACTO governments were directly behind this dastardly attack. Just days earlier, in the Cuscatlani capital, the Brytene embassy was attacked by armed thugs, with no intervention from the Cuscatlanis. Not surprising, just shows to prove that their nation is a third world hell-hole and the government relies on vigilante groups to keep order. Cuscatlan and Inyursta's campaign to exterminate the Indigenous population, just further adds onto evidence showing them as right-wing.

Doctor C. J. C. Bartholomaeus Lebuin, an expert in criminal sex offences from the Progressive Imperial Police Force, explained the mentality of right-wingers nicely: "Due to their rejection of Progressivism, they are not guided by the hedonistic utilitarian ethics of Progressive Socialism. They therefore rape woman and child alike. This is a common occurrence in all SACTO countries, just as common as brushing your teeth in the morning."

First Consul K. C. J. Victoria Alexina has warned all progressive Imperial Citizens to remain vigilant at all times. If you suspect someone of rightist leanings, immediately report them to the Ministry of State Security, who will rehabilitate them into perfect citizens. The Unified Progressive Empire is a utopian vision, we must all help keep it along the path to utopia.
The Unified Progressive Empire is officially free of all rightist, traditionalist, conservative and reactionary influences. However some people are still right-wing, and they wait in the shadows, looking for an opportunity to cause chaos and watching your young children. Don't let them win. Join with the Party, and stand firmly against rightist! For Progressive Socialism and all the children of the world!

[Inyourfaceistan]

Off the coast of Paratapais, Cuscatlan

---

Melendez was relieved as he boarded the Cuscatlani cutter without incident. He was more than willing to put distance between himself and the unknown crate, as he was just as eager to go through decontamination. Once the series of sprayings, scans and wash-downs had been completed, he grabbed the new pair of clothes his hosts had prepared for him and changed quickly.
"So what now?" He asked the officer in charge, slightly unsure of what would happen next. Regardless, he was back in America Libré now. Even on the off-chance the gringo imperialists would have the last word on him, his true cause of death would be well-known and undeniable- unlike the poor Rando Sourez who had the unfortunate luck of being gunned down in cold blood in Brytene and now their government was in a full conspiracy to try and cover it up.

Meanwhile, Vasquez's two-man scout team had departed from Santiago and were still headed towards the coast and the location specified by the Brytons. The Cuscatlani capital was actually up river from the sea, and it would take some time to cross the land and come to the seaside...

Déclaration par Cheif de Policio National Vidali de Ruise

---

Declaration by National Chief of Police Vidali de Ruise

---

Attention to everyone involved and following the recent turn of events. I have called this press conference to make two current updates known to the public.

The first of which is that Agent First-Class Henri Melendez has been confirmed alive and has been turned over from Bryton to Cuscatlani custody, where he is currently undergoing saftey procedures before he will be returned home. I am personally glad that this brave man is now safe in this part of the world where he will be able to rest and recuperate before he will be able to share with us his version of the events which have transpired in Brytene.

The next is that the hard work of our Internal Security Department has uncovered that the late senator Lanson Sãorules had several back-door bank accounts that he used for explicit purposes. Our federal investigators have been able to follow the money trail, and have concluded that the accounts were trained by foreign actors, some of which had relations to the recently antagonistic state of Brytene. So far the evidence can only confirm this, and any further implications are purely speculation.

Thank you for bearing with us in this situation as we deal with the task of cleaning up corruption internally and face international tension, and I promise all levels of law enforcement shall to routinely keep our streets safe from criminal activity and illegal substances.

Signed:
- National Chief of Police Vidali de Ruise

---

To: The Office of Queen Aoife of Dyflin, Brytene;
From: Ret. Colonel Armando Nuelle; 362 San Yua Avenue, Medilla, Inyursta;
Encryption: None/Public (Civilian)

The world knows who you are. If you are familiar with the history of the Lolloh-Ruolnik Conflict you know who I am, if not let me introduce myself: I am retired Colonel Armando Nuelle, and I put several bullets into a head of state during a rigged, suicidal duel.

I see you making a grandstand of your ability to defeat an old man. But let me ask you, how good are you with a gun?

[Brytene]

Cuscatlan, coast

---

The crate, once opened, revealed no contaminants, no bombs, no agents, no nothing - just cold, hard cash, $50 million as promised. What did happen, however, was that as the hours ticked by Melendez found his chest tightening. He felt dizzy and weak, and began to feel faint.

Meanwhile, the CFS Eftwyrd slid beneath the waves, disappearing into the deep blue ocean.

Brytene, unknown

---

Centurion Catamount finished up her list and transmitted it to the Rede, to some nameless official who probably didn't even know what it was for.

Official Communique of the Witenagmot of Brytene
TO: The authorities of Gran Cuscatlan
UNENCRYPTED = PUBLIC MESSAGE

---

It has come to our attention that your coastguard have intercepted ISD Agent Melendez, who as has been made public knowledge was couriering a payment of precisely $50,000,000 NSD to the CADI terrorist group in exchange for the safe release and evacuation of Ambassador Maggie Latrell and her aide, Mr Daryl Wilson.

As you have taken custody of both this payment and of Agent Melendez, we now consider you responsible for ensuring that this transaction continues smoothly.

Please deliver the money to the terrorist group and secure the safe release of our citizens to Brytisc custody. If you fail to do this, if the money conveniently goes missing or something unfortunate happens to Agent Melendez, we will have no choice but to consider the Cuscatlani government complicit.

To: Ret. Colonel Armando Nuelle; 362 San Yua Avenue, Medilla, Inyursta;
From: The Office of Queen Aoife of Dyflin, Brytene;
Encryption: None/Public (Civilian)

By old man, you mean the active-duty general who was about 6"5 and was swinging a 2m long daikatana? Yes, I am rather pleased with myself for having butchered that violent sack of bile like the antiquated irrelevance he was, and it seems to have riled you people up no end. I'm not particularly good with a gun, no, but since you apparently think that the challenger gets to pick the weapons, then I suppose I shall pick the place. Come to Pepper Atoll, old man. It looks like I'm going to make a career out of putting down rabid fascist lunatics.

[Inyourfaceistan]

Coast of Cuscatlan

---

"Stomach tightness, weakness... shortness of breath..." Melendez said to the Cuscatlani medic as he was taken to the sick bay. He knew he had already passed through testing of any biological or chemical agent, so what was affecting him was unknown to him...
"Get me... ISD..." Melendez continued, knowing the ISD would want to hear what he had to say and get a toxicologist to diagnose him if the Cuscatlanis didn't beat them to the punch.

Meanwhile, Vasquez's two scouts had reported the events of the beach. They couldn't see much, but from the top of the hotel they could make out the ships floating around out at sea. It was clear something was going down, and the Brytons had followed up their part of the agreement, or so it would seem.
However, they did not see any ISD agent arrive nor did they see any money. The two-man team then called back to Vasquez, informing her of the transaction with the Cuscatlanis - which in turn caused Vasquez to contact her allies in CV17 and see if she could get an inside word on what was happening with the ISD agent released from Brytene custody. How and if they replied would determine CADI's next move...

---

ISD Regional Office, Victoria's Island

---

The office was naturally a buzz after the political mess, especially considering the lower portions of the San Meresque Strip was one of the wealthiest on average regions and as a result of votes of upcoming upper-class youth had its fair share of political insiders with second-hand exposure to the bombshell leaks earlier in the week. Now, it had become an artery of activity after the Cuscatlani's confirmed Melendez was in Latin American waters, and had since been extracted by their coast guard.

When they received word that Melendez was sick and requesting their presence, an AS-555 helicopter carrying three ISD agents was dispatched from a small landing pad on the compound, and began flying south over the ocean into Cuscatlan...

[El Cuscatlan]

*** Cuscatlani Embassy

The ambassador smiled, looking at the wall in front of him. Old walls were nothing that indicated of what was about to transpire. He knew exactly what Brytons were capable of. Murdering civilians and investigators, attack on the diplomatic staff.... if they thought that they will go down without fight, they were severely mistaken. Ambassador listened to what the Brytenic ambassador had to say. Reading across the verses, he had more than enough experience to know what they fate was about to be. They will not go down without fight. Fight they already lost. They were inside enemy territory, surrounded from every side - but the thing was, that they were going to prove that Cuscatlanis are much tougher than bunch of neo - pagans and hippies commonly calling themselves "Brytenians".

"Whoever you are" spoke the Cuscatlani ambassador with his classic Spanish accent "Vete al carajo hijo de puta!"

He put down the phone and signalled the protection staff to begin. And then, from the depths of the windows, the hell broke loose. Three members of the protection staff fired Type 25 / Type 26 at the Brytenistic positions. First two ones were thermobaric rounds, with ~ 10m blast radius; those ones went at buildings where the Brytenic soldiers taken positions. Third one went first, straight at the light tank. Considering tandem - charged warhead that could penetrate 620mm armour, the tank was doomed. After the first barrage, a shout came from Cuscatlani soldiers:

"SMOKE, OUT!" shouted one soldier throwing something in front of them.

"SMOKE OUT!" forwarded another.

Soon the embassy would be hidden behind thick wall of smoke rising into the air.... beginning of a real plan.

*** Ocean: Extraction of Agent Melendez

The crate was not revealed until it safely landed into laboratory belonging to Cuscatlani DINA. The intelligence organisations were the ones which tasked themselves with such situations, and it was their duty to investigate. The moment when Melendez called for Medic, a single medical staff members came to him:

"What is happening?" he asked, while 2nd one was already informing his superiors...

Meanwhile the CNS Camiguana, the SSN of Cuscatlani navy overseeing the exchange slowly speed up to 24 knots, keeping the track with it's powerful SONAR which took entire hull's bow, following the Brytenian sub onto international waters...

OOC: Apologies for time. I had to edit several times.

[New Carloso]

Carlossian joint marine corps-naval base Fort Crowley, several kilometres south of Lundene, Brytene

---

The atmosphere at the Carlossian-occupied military base located to the south of the Brytisc capital of Lundene could be described by many words; electric, angry, tense etc. In the central command bunker, officers watched on as the events unfolded in downtown Lundene through cameras set up by the military and local television channels. In a split second, right after a trumpeting call of "Vete al carajo hijo de puta!" or "Fuck you motherfucker!" in Spanish, there were three flashes from the windows. RPGs went whirrling towards buildings, then towards the Woden II. Bursts of 5.56mm gun fire came from the Brytisc Modular Assault Rifle System (MARS) assault rifles, targeting the rocketeers. All hell had broken lose.

Back in the Carlossian military base, the events sent a wave of shock around the room. Colonel Tim U. Botas stood up from his chair, shaking his head in disbelief as the feed came through live. "For fuck sake, commence Operation Ōdachi. Get me everyone, I need marines on the front line ASAP and helos in the air." Frantically, the orders were relayed throughout the facility, reaching the 7,000 personnel stationed there within mere seconds. From the armoury, a stream of "little green men"; Carlossian marines walked out towards the prep area, armed with a wide range of weaponry like the L9 Rebound rocket launcher, the venerable R8 Argus assault rifle and Vortex S79 anti-material rifle. These weapons, with the exception of the Argus, were thrown into the back of a M985A0/A2/A4 Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT) cargo truck which had been prepared for transport. After this, there was a rush for the troop bays of the two CI-72 Siren armoured personnel carriers coated in matte black which had been prepared for the combat operation. Prompted onwards by their sergeant who, as always, rushed them onwards with a barrage of insults. Members of the local armoured battalion took control of the remote weapon systems, looking forward to releasing the hellfury of the vehicle's 57 mm autocannon on the swoen enemy. The APCs also had the benefit of being equipped with advanced psychological warfare units; the PSYOP-2 psychological warfare system, similar in nature to the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) fielded by many cruiser liners and police forces. The aim of this system was to incapacitate the Cuscatlani diplomats and personnel inside the building, allowing Brytisc to do as they wish with the people inside. Safety for this was provided by a secondary M985A0/A2/A4 cargo truck which carried several quick-open boxs of specially developed ear-protection wear designed defend friendly personnel from the sound blast. Taking no risks, an additional HEMTT was dispatched towing a land-based SONAR to map out the area once the convoy got to the scene of the battle, allowing Carlossian forces to thwart any attempt at escape by the Cuscatlanis. Eager to get to the battlefield as quickly as possible, the APCs drove out of the main entrance to Fort Crowley, turning onto a dual-carriageway which lead to the main motorway leading into the urban centre. An armed police escort came closely behind, composed of interceptors and motorcycles. Sirens blaring, the convoy of vehicles raced ahead of all the traffic at breakneck speed, hurdling themselves towards the imminent bloodbath.

Meanwhile, two Carlossian Army Balearic H-71 Osiris five-bladed, twin-engined attack helicopters, permanently on combat-ready status anyway, were loaded up with 16 CAGP-228 Exodus air-to-surface missiles each, full with 9 kg worth of bunker-buster munitions capable of obliterating reinforced concrete and sandbags with ease. The pilot and sensor officer climbed into their respective seats, starting up the helicopter's powerful MGED Elektrike T900-CET-904 turboshaft engines. With a green light pinging in the cockpit to reassure the crew that all systems were normal, the five-rotor system spun into life, raising the body of the helicopter off the ground, slowly at first, and then rapidly. The ground crews down below gave a cheery thumbs, waving their orange batons in the general direction of Lundene. The pilots angled the nose of their helicopters forward a little bit, accelerating to a cruise speed of 300 km/h before the pair flew off towards the embassies. The sensor officer of the lead helicopter; Alpha One, tuned the frequencies of the radio to establish contact with the Brytisc battle network.

"Brytisc military command, Alpha One and Two attack helos from Fort Crowley military base. Requesting permission for 20 pound Exodus and 30 mm HE autocannon fire against enemy position, over."

Though the Exodus missile had a range of over 40 km, the pilots thought it inadvisable to launch it when they couldn't even see what was going on, especially since this was a densely populated, built-up area and collateral damage had to be avoided as much as possible. It would be better if they could get a visual before releasing hell on the Cuscatlanis. Finally, the flames came into view.

CN Stackwood, Curente Fleet, several hundred kilometres off Brytene

---

The soft hum of the two metal-cooled nuclear reactors aboard the Carlossian nuclear fleet submarine CN Stackwood reverberated throughout the pressure hull, powering the electric turbines driving the 150 metres long vessel's pump jet engine. Stackwood was one of six of her class of fleet submarines in service with the navy which served under the banner of "Submarine Squadron 21" or SUBRON 21, part of the Curente Fleet. This squadron was, in many respects, an oddball amongst the various units which made up the Carlossian Navy's submarine service; it was the only squad with six submarines rather than eight. Though weaker then other units numerically, it was in fact made up of some of the more experienced submarine crews, fresh for joint military exercises in the Fale Ocean with several Stasnovan Revolutionary Navy Vaegir-class ballistic missile submarines. These exercises had involved intense live fire operations involving torpedoes, anti-ship missiles and cruise missiles. Fresh, the hundred man crew would surely know how to handle themselves in a real-life combat situation, especially now that the Santiago Anti-Communist Treaty Organisation was knocking on the Confederacy of Brytene's door and an attack that nation's soil seemed more and more likely. As one of the closest allies of Brytene, Carloso would be compelled to intervene if the someone began fanning the fire.

Taking command of the submarine squadron was Commander Eoin C. Halley, 37, from the city Borea, Republic of Mercurea; an administrative province of Carloso, who had 19 years of experience with the Carlossian Navy. Sipping a cup of coffee made from finely ground beans, he sat at the heart of the submarine command centre, overlooking the day-to-day runnings of the ship while keeping a close eye on the communications console a few metres away. For the last few minutes, reports had been flying in back and forth between Fort Crowley, the Curente Fleet and the Carlossian Southern Command about the events unfolding in Brytene. He had yet to receive confirmation whether or not he and his SUBRON should break away from the main fleet body and move to begin patrolling Brytisc waters and scour for any SACTO submarines operating in the area. In the meantime, he had spent his time pondering about the tickets he had bought for the Cane Flute Man concert in Besini next month and whether he would be hope on time to bring his three daughters and his wife to it.

BRINNG. The proverbial telephone had rung. The officer in charge of communications immediately relayed the call to the commander. "Commander Eoin Charles Halley, CN Stackwood. Hello?" in the background, there was the sound of cursing, the rustling of paperwork and the frantic clicking of buttons on a keyboard. "Southern Command, that you?" a long, exasperated sigh came as a response. "High Command has given the go ahead. Leave for Brytene as soon as possible. Were relaying the message through the fleet now."

"Thank you sir."

And like that, the order to detach from the main fleet had been given. "Comms, alert the Zamora and bring the other subs around for departure. Engineering, speed to 37 knots and send us into the thermocline. Comms, again radio that order to the others before we submerge."

The six submarines charted their course for Brytene, diving into a the thermocline layer to avoid SONAR detection. Cruising at at a speed of 37 knots (about 69 km/h), it would take about 7 hours for the squadron to reach their destination. As they travelled, each one spread out from each other, moving in an irregular clustered pattern about 50 km wide. When they would arrive, they would rise to about 20 m and survey their surroundings for any enemy submarines, using their passive and active sonars for detection, active and passive torpedo decoys always ready for action. Until then, however, they just travelled.

Code: Select all

To: The Admiralty, Lundene
From: CN Zamora, New Carlingford-class aircraft carrier
Encryption: MAXIUM (PAPRIKA CODE)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We wish to notify you that six of our Spalding-class fleet submarines: CN Stackwood, CN Roche, CN Looby, CN Halley, CN Crowley and CN Dowd have diverted from the course of the Curente Fleet and are enroute to Brytisc waters to aid in patrols against potential enemy units that may be operating in your waters. The rest of the fleet has been ordered to move to Augsburg, Bavaria for immediate refuelling and prevention of falling victim enemy anti-ship missiles systems.

• 2 × Balearic H-71 Osiris attack helicopters
• 24 × marines
• 2 × CI-72 Siren armoured personnel carriers
• 3 × Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks (M985A0/A2/A4 variant)

• CN Stackwood - Spalding-class fleet submarine
• CN Roche - Spalding-class fleet submarine
• CN Looby - Spalding-class fleet submarine
• CN Halley - Spalding-class fleet submarine
• CN Crowley - Spalding-class fleet submarine
• CN Dowd - Spalding-class fleet submarine

CN Biscay, anchored between the intertidal and littoral zones, Pepper Atoll

---

Much to the delight of the crew of the Carlossian Asturias-class guided missile cruiser CN Biscay, Captain Liam

CN Biscay, Asturias-class
guided missile cruiser of
the Carlossian Navy

S. Casey had permitted everyone to go out on deck and watch the duel between Aoife and the retired colonel, a reward for a week of superb anti-pirating and combat insertion operations in Pepper Atoll. However, this was on the condition that there would be no hooting or hollering before or during the duel to give each side a far chance. He was, after all, a man of good character and fairness. The Inyurstan was the first to produce a weapon, a revolver. Chambered in what, 9 mm Parabellum maybe? .45 ACP? What ever it was, it was a gun, and an impressive gun at that. There was another exchange of words before Aoife revealed her KA-P7 handgun, familiar to Casey as he had trained with it during his cross-training course in Brytene two years ago.

Then, they faced away from each other...

Aoife began to fiddle with something; an underarm attachment perhaps: Tiger flamethrower. Casey's eyes opened wide with shock, now taken back by the woman's sheer hatred and brutality, "Is she... what the..." By the time he realised what she was going to do, it was too late to warn anyone, no time to shoot. Had it all been set up? On her third step, she turned and, with a grin, pulled the trigger, sending tongues of fire; napalm or possibly TPA as used in the L9 Rebound launcher, towards the colonel's back. Captain Casey pulled himself away from the port side of the ship. Several men had went dashing for the Lexis 45 mm autocannons mounted on the side of ship, but he signalled them not to. Taking his white captain's peaked cap off, Casey sighed heavily and made the sign of the cross. "And may God have mercy on your soul."

[Brytene]

Cuscatlani embassy, Lundene

---

Theme

---

The entire scene at the embassy had been tense, but the Colonel genuinely had not been expecting the Cuscatlani to actually open fire. This could mean all-out war, if the Cuscatlani government chose, but it certainly wasn't good news for the outnumbered and outgunned embassy guards.

Luckily, he had already moved up reinforcements, including two additional sharpshooter teams alongside Alpha and Bravo, and he had already ordered them to fire if they got even so much as a whiff of danger from the anti-tank operators.

The moment the ambassador started shouting, the snipers and their spotters honed in on their targets. Some were behind thick glass, others were deep in the centre of the building, but between the four teams they had eyes-on all three of the men. Alpha and Bravo teams were using a pair of .50 BMG anti-materiel rifles, whilst the two reinforcing units had brought two Kuribayashi Drake sniper rifles each.

Syctere Watanabe, the Alpha Team shooter, watched as his target hefted a shoulder-fired rocket launcher and began aiming it. As Watanabe watched, he breathed in, let half the breath out, and then squeezed the trigger. There was a thunderous boom as the rifle fired, jetting out a puff of smoke and sending a multipurpose Raufoss-Mk 2. analogue directly at the guard's centre of mass, punching through the window like it was nothing more than sheet paper.

Across the way, Bravo team similarly fired, accurate and deadly. The four sharpshooters using the Drake rifles began to open fire too, but their weapons were not as powerful and their first shots lost power as they shattered the glass, meaning that one of the guards had the time to get his shot off.

The Type 25 warhead arced out from the embassy building, but its target was now some distance away. The Stappa Light Tank had moved to block the road, but even so it was only a matter of seconds before the anti-tank warhead hit it and, to make matters worse, it was now side-on to the incoming round.
The Stappa was not equipped with Explosive Reactive Armour, which made the use of a tandem HEAT round somewhat redundant, but the secondary charge was more than enough to penetrate the rear armour of the lightly-protected scout tank.

There was a rippling boom as the tank was hit, the entire vehicle rocking and shifting almost a foot as the rear of the tank burst into flame, the metal warped. The crew had already begun to abandon the vehicle, knowing that their small tank stood little chance, and spilled out of the hatches onto the ground, stumbling away with the assistance of civilian emergency forces. The gunner's back was on fire, and only quick thinking by emergency responders prevented him from burning to death - the three men were soon surrounded by medics.

Meanwhile, the Woden MBT fired its 125mm gun, blasting a High Explosive Fragmentation shell directly into the embassy, aiming through the windows to hit the core of the building and fill the interior with flame and super-hot shrapnel. The concussive force alone would be enough to kill most men, let alone the dragon's storm of flame and steel which was the hallmark of a 125mm HEF shell.

In the seconds immediately after the shot, the Colonel caught a snippet on his radio as someone from the Admiralty said something in an urgent but collected tone.
He flicked on his local radio.
"Danger close! Danger close!"

Admiralty

---

Fleet Commander Saigo Kanbei didn't quite believe what he was hearing. He was in charge of the Fleet at home, with Lord Admiral Botas away on active duty, and he had been diverting most of his attention to the growing fiasco with the Cuscatlani, but he had never imagined that they would be stupid enough to open fire. On top of that, he now hadCarlossan attack helicopters requesting permission to fire, even as the Carlossan navy began to mobilise on a large scale. This had just turned from a minor diplomatic incident into the beginnings of a full-scale war.

Nevertheless, he was an older man, pushing fifty, and he had had plenty of experience in controlling small-scale conflicts such as this, and so he focused himself, concentrating on the now and leaving the future for later. Taking a deep breath, aware of the potential gravity of his next few words, he made his decision. He turned and barked orders to one of the fire control operators in the situation room, who began to speak into her headset.

C-Alpha, C-Bravo, you have permission to open fire. Please be advised, we have an HR-G20 gunship in the area and they will be firing.

Code: Select all

To: CN Zamora
From: The Admiralty, Lundene
Encryption: MAXIUM (PAPRIKA CODE)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Understood. Fleet assets in the area will be informed. Current chart information and Fleet deployment is being transmitted to you now. Welcome to Brytene.

Above the embassy, HR-G20 'Foehammer'

---

Captain Gudin was one of the rare gunship pilots of Brytene - with only a score of Heavy Revelator Gunship 20 variants on-strength, there were similarly not that many heavy gunship pilots to go around, and Captain Gudin was proud of both his prowess and the team he had assembled. Behind him, in the dark bowels of the plane, lit only by illuminescent bars and the lights of the control panels, were 12 more men and women of the Brytisc fleet.

They had been ordered to the skies above Lundene, following reports that heavily-armed Cuscatlani guards were refusing to evacuate their embassy as ordered. For the past while, things had been boring, simply soaring through the sky watching clouds roll in from the east, but then Sergeant Lucy Burroughs, his fire control officer, hollered out - Admiralty had given the command to fire.

Gudin nodded to his copilot, putting the ponderous warplane into a pylon turn, angling its port side down towards the ground. Further back, he could hear the chatter of the four gunners and the sighting operators as they lined up the target.
The firing call came down and Gudin had barely an instant to unclench his teeth, a mostly unnecessary habit of his. As ever, his teeth were not shattered by the force of the gun, but he lived in fear of the day he forgot and lost his pearly whites.

The 120mm cannon fired first, sending a shell hurtling towards the base of the already-smoking embassy, before the 75mm opened up with a burst of five rounds, aiming at the upper floor of the embassy, looking to drive the survivors away from the windows.

Cuscatlani coast

---

The CFS Eftwyrd was going a good rate of knots faster than the Cuscatlani stalker, and unless something changed it would have extended its lead by seven miles within the hour. Regardless, the ship was already some distance away, and began making its way back to Brytene.

The Eftwyrd was not a stealth vessel, and so would be comparatively easy to track if it remained in open waters, but it was large, powerful, well-equipped and fast, and was already The diminutive Captain Haley Haley, ever one to err on the side of caution, had ordered the ship to full speed, giving them quite a speed advantage over the enemy. Combined with the distance necessary for them to stay safely out of Cuscatlani national waters, this meant that they were already quite some distance away from their unseen stalker, out of range of high-speed, short-range torpedoes, though there was always the threat of slower, longer-range weapons.

Agent Melendez

---

The man had been poisoned with ricin some time before - the bag of beans he had seen in the R-DARK facility had in fact been castor beans, but it was only now that the potent dosage was taking effect. Once symptoms showed, ricin could take anything from a few hours to 2-3 days to kill. The symptoms, however, were incredibly general and difficult to discern, and mostly revolved around shortness of breath and respiratory problems.

Official Communique of the Witenagmot of Brytene
TO: The authorities of Gran Cuscatlan
UNENCRYPTED = PUBLIC MESSAGE

---

Please be aware that your embassy staff in Lundene have opened fire upon Brytisc personnel. As of yet, Brytene is not treating this as an act of war, and rather is assuming that it is the work of misguided individuals.

We would ask you to communicate to your staff that their most advisable course would be to surrender. In the meantime, we hope that you continue to organise the release of the two civilians held hostage by the CADI terrorist milita. If you chose not to involve yourselves, we request that you return the money you have appropriated.

[Inyourfaceistan]

Cuscatlani Embassy, Brytene

---

As the shooting began, one of the enemy snipers landed a perfect shot - right beside the window. The Cuscatlani guards weren't untrained rookies, and they knew better than to fire from a direct angle from the windows. One of the shots pierced right through the wall, killing the man instantly. However, the other sniper shots missed and hit clean through the window, one shot getting off the HEAT round, the other getting off a thermobaric warhead.

Two more guards as well as the ambassador himself were killed as the 125mm tank shell flew through the smoke and straight into the window. Another man was injured as the wall beside him broke and sent debris flying into his back, however he was not out of the fight just yet.
Two remaining soldiers on the ground floor checked their Vz-58 assault rifles, and looked each other straight in the eye as they moved to the back side of the embassy, opposite where the enemy MBT was stationed. One took position next to the window while his comrade took a small Semtex charge and attached it to the door handle before standing back and holding his breath...

Upstairs, the 120mm collapsed the right corner of the building, bringing down a section of the second floor. Both surviving men were killed by the burst of 75mm cannon fire, leaving the top floor empty except for a single paper-pushing aide left cowering behind his bed in a room situation in the center of the upper level.
Down below the wounded soldier had back himself down into the basement floor, cornering himself at the base of the stairs. He caught sight of another staffer, this time a woman, busy trying to shred documents. He beckoned for her to come over to him, and left something in her hand.
"When they come, they will kill us all, just as they have done to the Inyurstans. You know what to do..." he said in Spanish as he pointed to a small supply closet. The woman nodded as she understood the severity of her situation, and took refuge in the small closet, taking off her shoes and placing them by her side as she crouched down and began to pray.
Meanwhile the soldier at the basin of the stairs cocked his assault rifle and loaded a fresh GPM-30 round into its underslung launcher, and tried to keep his breathing steady...

---

Off the Cuscatlani Coast

---

The CNS Camiguana was slowly loosing the lead on its query, however not slow enough. All the sub had to do was track it's counter-part, and the distance between them was not yet significant. But most importantly, it's job was to monitor behavior - and right now the Camiguana was reporting that the Brytistic sub had dove and was now pushing full speed. Caminguana then prepped a comms buoy for launch, and set loose the encapsulated unit which would connect them to Cuscatlani communications satellites, and by proxy the coast and surface vessels.
A few minutes later they were relaying information of the subs whereabouts to the command of the maritime assets currently active in this operation.

This left the admiral in charge of the whole operation off their own coast with a very important decision he had to make in a relatively narrow time frame.
"What is the status of the package?" He asked to the captain of the Coast Guard cutter over radio, only more dismayed to find out that early tests on the money crate were inconclusive but the ISD agent was obviously stricken with some poison or contamination. The admiral then switched radio channels.
"All units. You have the green light to engage when ready..." he said, as he watched the two L8N aircraft disappeared over the horizon.
The CFS Eftwyrd going at 28 knots, which was faster than the CNS Camiguana, however the L8N were going much faster than that -
Roughly 400knots faster.

---

Unknown Jungle, Cuscatlani Interior

---

Heavy raindrops beat down on the windshield of the SUV as it bounced and rocked with the muddy trail. The sound of windshield wipers was constant, only disrupted by the occasional "whhaap!" of branches striking the moving vehicle.
Finally the vehicle came to a stop and both the ambassador and her aide were led blindfolded out into the rainstorm. They could by now feel running water and a smooth, rocky bottom beneath their feet as the CADI parcos led them out by foot.
Finally, the shrill, yet feminine accented voice of Natalya Vasquez was heard behind them.
"I hearby release you of my custody. In the manner your own government has secured your release, I hereby let you guy to find your way back." She began as two CADI grunts cut the bindings around their hands.
"Oh yeah, a word of advice: down river is a small interior city, given your status here I would go ahead an stay away from civilization if I were you..." Vasquez said as she pulled out a pistol and fired into the air, indicating the two prisoners to begin running with their blindfolds still on.
As they splashed through the water, Vasquez holstered her pistol and reached for an FN-FAL carried by one of her grunts. She leveled the weapon, taking aim at the aide's lower leg, and fired a few rounds before handing the rifle back to it's owner.
And almost as soon as they had come, the paramilitaries loaded back up and disappeared into the jungle, the heavy rains moving mud and debris over their tracks...

[Inyourfaceistan]

Off the coast of Paratapais, Cuscatlan

---

As he awaited to be transported to DINA, or maybe have them arrive to the ship he began to feel sick. His stomach began churning and he he felt his energy deplete with each breathe and step he took. Suddenly he leaned over onto a wall of the ship and began to slide down.
"Medic! Mèdican! Médico!" he shouted in English, Inyurstan and Spanish/Portuguese as he layed back against the wall and clutched his gut.

---

ISD HQ, Castille de Terro

---

Captain Ramirez was busy sorting through papers of all sorts - he had a ripe mess on his hands between those initially implicated in the leaks, those potentially involved or related, three corpses on foreign soil (one of which was a fellow ISD agent), links back to the people who managed to get their hands on Sãorules money, and now some dumbass cop who decided to make a quick stack selling a piece of evidence had given the same people who gunned down Sourez and Tançias some reason to claim his organization was involved with CADI shenanigans.
A female agent with curly black hair poked her head in through the door.
"Sir, the information you wanted faxed from the Gracio Office?" She said as she held a manila folder in her hands.
"Oh yes thank you, thank you Agent DuPont." He said as he grabbed the folder and began looking through its contents. Some of which included out-going persons data from the airport which Sãorules had departed from. Because the senator had the sense to book it out of the country before there was a warrant on his head, he and his assistant had passed through standard security checks. According to the sucurity at Rolando C. Hollande International, Rando Sourez did not have a gun on him when leaving the country - and the only weapon reported and confirmed on board the flight was Sãorules' 9mm P-11 Serrano pistol - a fact which meant that Sourez would have had a few hours while on layover to pick up a the black-market gun which the Brytons were claiming he used. However, when you take into account the fact that he may or may not have had to pass more security checks while catching connector flights and if the Brytons were anywhere near as civilized as they acted they would have seen a concealed weapon on X-Ray scanners - making his window for which he could have aqquired the supposed murder weapon increasingly smaller and smaller the more logic one applied to the claim...

To: The Office of Queen Aoife of Dyflin, Brytene;
From: Ret. Colonel Armando Nuelle; 362 San Yua Avenue, Medilla, Inyursta;
Encryption: None/Public (Civilian)

I wasn't explicitly challenging you, but if you promise me that your henchmen won't murder me in cold blood like they have my countrymen then I will be glad to prove that the common man can make elites like you lie down and bleed...

P.S., if you would spend less time brandishing your pathetic 'title' and more time learning actual definitions of political ideologies then you wouldnt look so stupid and ignorant when you toss around big words like "fascism" as if you knew what they meant.

[Brytene]

Cuscatlani Embassy

---

The onslaught hammered the embassy, chunks of rock spewing everywhere as the sound of flame and destruction mingled with the forlorn cries of the dying Cuscatlani.
The Colonel did not raise a hand, did not issue an order to cease fire - there was no mercy in his slate-grey eyes, hardened by years of squinting against the cruel sun, as he watched these foreigners die. They had fired explosive weaponry in his city, at his people, and these treacherous little snakes would learn how a real country enforced law and order in its capital. No milita would be running riot in Lundene, no slimy rightist toad would wring his hands and insist his brave men and women had tried their best and failed. The Brytisc would stamp out this little pack of rats before dinnertime.

The snipers reloaded, waiting for opportunity, but their task was more or less over. HR-G20 'Foehammer' slammed round after round into the little building, circling the target in a wide pylon turn so that every angle of the building came under fire from one of its several guns, repeatedly. The MBT fired again, HEF once more designed to tear down infrastructure, killing the occupants or collapsing them in a pile of rubble. Around the edges of the plaza, marines fired haphazardly from cover, some of them fitting on thermal scopes to deal with the clouds of dust thrown up by the storm of destruction, but mostly their fire served to do little but add some spice to the living hell that the Colonel had made of the Cuscatlani embassy.

Out in international waters

---

The CFS Eftwyrd suddenly slowed, and then went dark. It disappeared almost instantly, emitting no sound and disappearing against the general background radar.

Daryl Wilson

---

Daryl fell at the first gunshots, but luckily these shoddily-trained militia were terrible shots. Only one round had actually connected, half-slowed by the knee-deep water, gouging a short burst of blood out of Daryl's leg which must have convinced the shrill terrorist her dirty work was done.

Daryl found himself half-submerged in cold, muddy water, torrential rain pouring down as the gentle eddies soothed and stung his wounded leg in equal measure. He began to reflect. How on earth had he found himself here? He had studied PPE at Hamtun, had done an exchange year in Carloso, and had been on-track for a quiet career as a functionary in the foreign office, and suddenly here he was in the middle of gunfights, terrorist assaults, kidnappings, and now some godsforsaken hellhole that at least didn't stink quite as badly as Santiago el Cuscatlan.

He was tired, he was shocked, he was bleeding. He was not cut out for this. He liked baseball and sitcoms and microbrews, he wanted to get a dog and finally learn how to play the guitar. He wasn't a war hero, but these people had taken him out, shot him, and left him to die in the name of their shitty political 'beliefs'. He closed his eyes and lay back, half-floating.

Then he heard Maggie's voice, thin against the storm, weak from her injuries.
"Daryl. Daryl? Are you okay?"

The last time he had heard that voice, it had been screaming defiance against a dozen brutish terrorists as Maggie fired her pistol wildly at their 'leader'. She, a middle-aged, out-of-shape career politician with two kids at home, had found it in her to fight back, and now he was giving up because of rain and a scraped calf?

He sat up, tugging the blindfold from his eyes. It was storming, rain pouring down and turning the dark green jungle to a slick grey. Rain was a sign from Thor, he thought to himself.

Standing, he found the pain in his leg not too bad. Limping over to Maggie, he helped her to her feet, taking off her blindfold and using the two of them to form a crude bandage around his meaty calf.
"Can you walk, Ambassador?" he asked, his voice full of concern.
"I...I believe so. And Daryl...I'm not an ambassador anymore, I believe. You can call me Maggie."