Somewhere in Zevkhay Province
Alfegos
The meeting room was busy, as the special session of the JNHQ took place. During this time of war, the once-daily meetings were rapidly become twice-or-thrice daily as intelligence and special operations were organised. It was one of the biggest escalations since the 2005 crisis, and before that since the 1970s. However, the threat was not on the shores of Alfegos - it was far away, in distant lands. The meeting room was a sound-proofed room deep in the underground facility that JNHQ used, one of the many sections in this labyrinth inhabited by representatives of the more secretive agencies - the Orange Service, and their commando unit, responsible for overseas high-risk operations; the Green Service, a counter-terror and counter-espionage unit based across the Fegosphere; JNIA, responsible for a more "civilian" approach to espionage and counter-espionage; and many others too countless to organise themselves with the joint initiative.
Today, representatives were in talk with one of the highly secretive branches of the JNHQ - ORBCOM, the command facility for the nation's space assets. Based deep underground at the Ol'vi cosmodrome, with monitoring facilities stretching across the world, they had reason to keep themselves quiet - after all, they were constantly engaged in espionage with spy satellites, and defending the nation against said threats. But alongside their surveillance and communication responsibilites, they had numerous other assets that had been lumped in from the disbanded Army Experimental Warfare Unit - they had been left with the legacy of nuclear pulsejet missiles, all now dismantled and awaiting full decomission; an arsenal of sounding rockets and experiment aircraft and missile designs, now slowly being sifted through in the legacy of the collapsed agency; and, of course, the Geophysical Warfare Initiative. The decision had been based upon the supposed purpose of the programme - to conduct atmospheric research, allowing determination as to whether long-term habitation of space within and above the van-allen belts and magnetosphere was possible, and to research the effect of geomagnetic storms on the atmosphere. When they had found out other parts of the programme, it had rapidly been hushed up, as they tried to determine what to do with some of the more dangerous plans and reports. And now, it was being dredged up again.
Once all were seated, and the flickering images of avatars including the ORBCOM commander were all present, the meeting began. The doors were bolted shut and alarmed, as the room was scanned a final time for any bugs.
"Good afternoon gentlemen. Today, we are here to discuss potentially one of the most ambitious and dark plans in our nation's history - Operation Sun Down. In light of the increasing threat from Beiraq, including the potential for attack of overseas territories and/or Nova itself, we have decided to engage in a campaign to remove them from the war, with minimal loss of life and minimal cost on our part. The aim of the Operation is disruption and destabilisation - that is, to cause the population of Beiraq to become so disillusioned from the government way of thinking that they are forced to withdraw, on both disruptive and religious grounds. The suggestion was first posed by the commander of the Green Service, who has a unit aiding in the decomissioning of the Army Experimental Warfare Unit camps, such as the Directed Energy Weapon facility and the Faultine device. It has since been built upon by the ORBCOM commander, to the point we now have a feasible plan for the first three stages of this operation. I will now pass you over to the commander of ORBCOM, who will brief you all on what is to happen, and to discuss inter-agency co-operation required."
"Thankyou. Ladies, gentlemen... today, we stand at the start of a new era in warfare. An era where the very earth can be used to attack our enemies. Operation Sun Down."
There was a pause as he checked his notes, a map of Beiraq appearing on a projector screen.
"Phase one of our operation is ready to be initialised very soon. This will involve the use of the UHEIM facility to induce disruption in the ionosphere, thus causing regional disruption in Beiraq and neighbouring countries, including another self-declared foe of ours. The disruption will be limited to UHF band, and MF-VLF bands, so will not affect mobile telecommunications or landline communications. However, it will disrupt long-wave radio, television, and will cause severe interference to satellite communications. This is because of the mechanism of the action of our broadcast."
A diagram appeared, showing a model of the atmosphere, along with labelled satellites.
"UHEIM was originally developed to attempt to cause propogation of long wave radio across vast distances. This was before the age of cheap satellites. However, it was found that if different layers of the ionosphere are agitated, or different atomic layers are excited, the ionosphere will become disrupted, either become opaque to most radio signals or even causing bands to disappear entirely. Furthermore, it was found that a select few of these frequencies will cause resonance in the atmosphere, and thus secondary production of UHF and HF signals in vast quantities. With the amount of power we have available, if necessary we can completely swamp many radio signals in a targeted region for up to fifteen minutes, or cause severe disruption to low power utilities - induced signals will easily swamp out GPS signals, even at low power, and will disrupt short-range radios. Of course, the power required is enourmous, and the downside is that the entirity of Nova will see that something is afoot in Alfegos - there may be secondary disruptions in communications across the whole of Nova. Which is why I need your help here.
I need all relevant agencies to report the impending disruption to their civilian counterpart agencies - the government need to know the potential there is for local disruption in Milkavich province. The HVDC lines will need to be shut down until further notice, otherwise we risk blowing all the lights in Alfegos. All signals will need to be routed through our mesolite assets until further notice, and GPS users will have to be warned of potential disruption in Milkavich province. This information needs to be passed on to Novan governments. All aircraft will have to be diverted away from the 50 mile exclusion zone around the antenna, to stop them crashing - and even then there will need to be an alert to all air traffic. Finally, we need people to get onto the rest of Nova, to make sure they don't come investigating when the brightest aurorae in a decade suddenly appears above Alfegos - I don't know how to explain that off the top of my head. Swampgas?"
There was a loud laugh from most present, before he continued.
"The second phase is the main striking phase - the action phase where we will exploit the religious tendancies of the population. As a stroke of genius, we have had a suggestion from our Monavian counterparts of a joint orbital asset effort, since we have a relatively intact network, of creating a 'rain of fire'. This will rely on its psychological effects above all, but also on the potential for destruction.
This phase will commence in thirty-six hours time. With the established aurorae and disruption in Beiraq, people will start questioning what is going on. At this point, we will give the order for the UHEIM facility to increase power to maximum for as long as they can manage - apparantly ten minutes. This will create a fantastic aurorae across their nation - and potentially wipe out most communications. As this occurs, timers outside of the affected region will transmit signals to two groups of devices - the first is the Cluster Projectile Munition aboard ODIN-I, and the second to an orbiting cluster of fifteen orbiter warheads. Each of the orbiter warheads contains 2000 tungsten spheres, each of diameter 5cm. The Cluster Projectile Munition contains 35 000 tungsten spheres of this diameter. On the command, the units will begin deorbiting, at as steep an angle as possible, using rocket assistance. These units have no re-entry shields, and as such will begin to rapidly heat on re-entry. At an altitude of approximately 40km, the cage holding the CPM together will burst, allowing the spheres inside the cluster to further heat up, and to scatter the many thousands of spheres. These will then land - we are aiming to hit the capital with the CPM, and the Monavians will be aiming for the port to the south of the nation with half their devices, and a city to the north with the other half. The devices have an accuracy rating of about 6km using gyroscopic stabilising along with the programmed rocket re-entry, and will be dispersing over an area of diameter approximately 15km. The Monavians tell us their devices may be more accurate, but will heat up less on entry.
The spheres will land with many at temperatures of a few thousand degrees. Beforehand, since we are aiming to attack during the evening or night, the sky will be lit up by thousands of these objects. They will have enough kinetic energy on impact to penetrate roughly 0.5m into soft ground, less so on hard surfaces - however, we are assuming that if they land in the drier areas with crops, fires could be started, and that in the urban areas widespread minor damage to buildings, possibly with fires started, could be caused. The sonic blast caused by re-entry will not do anything itself, but each projectile may be able to be heard landing from up to a kilometre away. We are estimating a few direct civilian casualties directly, but possibly large damage.
The resulting carnage ensuing will likely provoke a religious reaction. Now, I am again asking those with contacts in Novan media agencies to ensure that this strike is in no way traced back to any nation in the region - even from allies. This is a strictly Union matter. However, once news leaks back, we will need data to assess the impact of the strike, and the possibility for development. We will also need to promote the possibility of an act of god being serious, to inspire our religious peoples and to work against those who are religious and of the Confederate block.
Finally, we will be sending an airship patrol to the region, with the primary apparant attempt being to intercept and destroy the arsenal ships in retreat to Beiraq. However, we will also be loading a special payload. The missiles which they will carry as a special package will be modified sounding rockets, which will hold dust warheads. These will be fired into major cloud systems located before by pour meteorological experts, with the intent on destabilising them. Hopefully, this will induce a short-term drought in Beiraq, and possibly cause flooding or torrential rain on the coast. This will take a few days to become apparant, and we are not sure of the outcome. There is though a potential, if the torrential rain works, to add to the illusion of divine intervention. I'll need JMHQ to get onto the airfleet units being scrambled from Solace V to get onto it ASAP.
Any questions?"
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UHEIM (Ultra High Energy Ionospheric Modification Facility)
Centre-South Milkavich Province
Alfegos
A group of three men slowly paced along a narrow animal pathway, keeping low as they carefully trod through the dense walls of foliage to either side. Guerillas - the local government of this area of the province. Between the great Milkavich fort line, and the eastern cordon, the rainforest was their stalking ground, from which it was impossible to evict them. And now, they were investigating, not fighting but observing. There was an old experimental lab near their camp, deep in one of the small tree-lined valleys, which nobody ever went to. It was said it was haunted, and that it had been used as a biological warfare testing site during the 1st Civil War. As such, few of them ever ventured there, and even fewer returned. But with the group of helicopters landing there the day before, they had become curious - what were the military doing on their patch? Were they planning to launch an attack?
The men finally reached 'the mound' - a huge earth wall built in front of a ditch. It had been dug by the local people in the area, when the facility was abandoned in the 70s - to contain the evil spirits. Wind chimes rattled and sung in the light breeze, along with the warning signs - pictograms, warning of the Following Death, to deter those who came near. The men lay down behidn the mound, before peering across to the perimeter fence - electrified, of course. Rusted warning signs hung from it - warning of the danger of entry in multiple languages. A bullet hole failed to erase the radioactive warning pictogram, or the similar Following Death pictograms. Something was happening inside.
"Ta'ce iuo!" One of the men whispered, pointing. Within a lichen-encrusted bunker, almost invisible beneath the thick buttress roots of a giant forest tree, a single men in full camouflage kit sat looking out around the forest, using the scope atop an efficient-looking machinegun. Silence, the gunner peering around, before freezing as he peered at the men.
"Shit!" The men rolled back down the bank, as a shout came from inside. Within seconds, there came the sound of footsteps, as a section of men came running to the perimeter. They started moving, following the small tunnels of animals through the undergrowth, letting the forest surround them. They all sat silently as the soldiers began searching - slowly moving down the paths, man in front with a metal detector and thermal monocle. Whilst most men were trained in tracking and counter-tracking, this was kit enough to severely burden anyone trying to escape. Thankfully, they had not brough dogs.
The footsteps continued along the mound, as the soldiers started patrolling atop the earthern barrier. The men slowly flicked off safety catches from their assorted assault rifles, aiming up towards the bank. The soldiers were close. There came a shout, as the lead man froze, slowly looking around. His rifle came around to their hiding place, a gentle movement indicating what he could see. The rest of the section cocked their weapons, raising them.
"Come out slowly, where we can see you - weapons held above your heads. Do it now, or we'll burn you out."
The group leader thought quickly - three men against eight was near impossible - even if they had the draw, there would still be five left shooting. But they couldn't just surrender, could they? He made up his mind, before slowly standing with rifle above his head. He took a tentative breath - as he realised they hadn't seen the other two - before stepping forwards. He winked at the two, before walking forwards.
"Stop. Put the weapon down by your feet, slowly, and take the magazine out. Good. Now turn around, and face towards the forest."
There was a quick motion, as the man was handcuffed.
"Now then... what are you doing here?"
"We saw the helicopters, and thought we'd come and look. I'm a local villager."
"And do you use AKs to hunt?"
"Yes."
The man looked at him, before making up his mind.
"The military are currently decontaminating this area. They are removing sensitive devices, and as such will be here a while. You may have interference with any radios... do you have a radio?"
"We have a village one."
"Well, there will be interference whilst we disable some devices here. Go, and don't come back - this place is still very dangerous."
A loud siren began sounding back in the facility - the soldier's face showed a flicker of fear, before returning to normal. A few other men looked at each other, worried.
"For you own sake, I suggest you get out of here fast - they're about to do something... I don't know what. Run... NOW!"
The soldier cut the plasticuffs open, rifle raised as the man sprinted - he could tell panic in someone quite easily, and knew that this man was worried about something. He sprinted to where the others were hiding, turning around - the soldiers had gone.
"Let's get the hell out of here!"
"But..."
"No buts, now!"
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The men crawled to the top of the valley side, stopping exhausted. And yet nothing yet seemed to have happened. From up here, it was difficult, but just possible to see the extent of the site - the electric fence stretched for almost two miles up the valley, and half a mile across it. And amongst it... it had always seemed strange to them. There were thousands of what looked like monuments of some sort - concrete bases, with tall metal spires raised above them. They sat, just visible poking out of the forest canopy, in long repetitive rows, equally spaced. Nobody had ever said what they were - people had merely been near the place. Nobody had ever gone in. The place was rusted and old, as if abandoned for decades. And yet...
"Can you here that?" A strange hum filled the air, a deep vibration, as if the very earth was shaking. It was quiet enough to be a whisper - but a whisper none the less. Voices, whispering to them.
"I don't like the feel of this one bit..."
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Deep beneath the concrete monoliths, nearly a hundred metres below the ground, a group of men stood alert amongst a swarm of activity. Around the large control room, hewn out of the rock, ancient computer units sat displaying complicated measurements on clusters of dials, more modern laptops connected into the tangle of snake-like cables nesting within. The only entrance into the room was through a metal blast door, currently swung open, merging into a network of thick metal wires embedded into and on top of the rocks. The floor was rough, concrete hiding a similar network beneath. At the front of the centre, amidst the largest cluster of computers and dials, a man sat talking on a field telephone, two cables leading out through the blast door. The tinny voice crackled on the speaker.
"UHIEM command, you are go-go-go on Operation Sun Down. I repeat, you are go-go-go. Over."
"ORBCOM Sierra Operator, requesting firing codes and final confirmation of co-ordinates, over."
"Co-ordinate are... ... ..., at energy levels Delta and Foxtrot one. Firing code Alpha Charlie Charline Niner Three Fiver Zero X-ray Golf Quebec. Over."
"Understood. Firing will commence in exactly three zero zero seconds from now. Out."
The facility commander put down the telephone handset, as one of the technicians quickly unplugged the telephone. A few seconds later, a man came running down with the satellite antenna and laptop unit. Picking up a loud hailer, he began to speak, as the firing code was put into the computer systems.
"Attention! Attention! We have go-go-go on firing. Prepare all systems to full readiness, at High, Sustained power, co-ordinates... ... ..., using all assets."
Even further below them, the core of a nuclear reactor glowed. The base had been built in the 50s, when at the time it was one of the primary nuclear test sites in Alfegos. The aged reactor remained, now heavily converted to power production. Beneath thick layers of electromagnetic shielding, it lurked with the power storage units, the heart of the facility - caverns filled with towering stacks of accumulators and capacitors, feeding up to transformers immersed in thousands of litres of mineral oil. And from there, through huge oscillators and modifiers, and delay coils, to the thousands of antennae above. And now, the facility was preparing to fire for the first time in true anger. Technicians sprinted to the safety of the shielded bunker areas and control rooms, as alarms sounded around the facility. The blast doors slammed shut as the last men were accounted for, sealing.
"All systems charged and fully ready!"
"Core status OK!"
"Firing T-minus thirty seconds."
There was silence as they counted down.
"T-minus five seconds."
Outside the bunker, huge switches connected, sending megawatts of power surging into the systems. Coursing into the network, it began to pulse, waves crashing back on themselves as the power levels quickly escalated. It was no lie to say the air was electric, as bolts of energy lept across to closing switches. The lights flickered, as the startup pulse tried to force its way through the wire shielding, inducing currents in the metal. Warning lights started flashing, as the system began broadcasting.
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"What the hell is that?"
In the forest, an eerie light penetrated through the trees, as the vibrations increased. They suddenly peaked, before silencing. Below, the lights hung in the air, a glowing halo around the antennae. In the sky above, the clouds seemed to be vaporising before their eyes. No, it was a trick of the lights.
"Ow!" One of the men started shaking his hand, cursing.
"Stung myself on the rifle." He looked at the others, as they got the same reaction.
"Let's get out of here - they're gonna want to know what we've just seen!"
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EITS 3
LEO - 400km Above Middle East
The Fegosian satellite networks had been severely damaged in the orbital war. Many satellites had had to be shunted into disposal orbits over earth, where they would burn up over the oceans, or had been downright destroyed. The EITS network - 'Eye in the Sky', was one of the hardest hit. Being in low earth orbit, the small size of the satellites and their delicate construction had left them most vulnerable to orbiting detritus. There had been many, but now capacity had been reduced significantly, to a mere few sky wanderers. And right now, this satellite was busy gathering intelligence that ORBCOM needed.
Beneath it, it surveyed the sky with camera fully zoomed out - watching the flickering aurorae. Whilst it could communicate with other satellites, it was dumb to anything down there, as curtains of shimmering light pulsed across the sky. It was coming towards night here - and in its quick pass, the infra-red camera would see through the relatively weak IR emissions of the aurorae, and watch the reaction of the military facilities - and of the population - to what could be a nightmare of radio and television interference. Its next pass, in many hours time, would see it watching the chaos that few knew was to be unleashed.
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Station Luna IV - Home of 1 & 2 Flotilla, 3rd Air Fleet
South Polinas/North Milkavich Province
Alfegos
Sirens rang in the hangar as the crews were scrambled - they had received a priority intercept notice. Aeromarines sprinted to positions around the station, as a hive of activity erupted inside. With little time to spare, as per a request directly from the War Ministry, they were going to have to work fast. And the ants that were the men paled in insignificance to to the monsterous craft that were to leave soon. The structure was a marvel of engineering - a tunnel, blasting miles back into the rocks of the mountain, huge arches holding up kilometres of rock overhead. Cubic kilometres of rock had been removed from here, much as part of mining operations over decades but also by the military, using ordinance and legions of men. And within these vast hangers, the behemoths slowly arose.
"All crew hands to report immediately to the AAS Skylark. Technical staff to load as per plan 3-2-10-S2271."
The speakers echoed around the hangar as crews worked. On the ground, missiles were being loaded onto the taskforce lead vessel, the AAS Skylark. A Consul class Aerocruiser, she was one of the most difficult airships in the airfleet to destroy. Once before, she had been intercepted by aircraft during the 2005 crisis, and annihilated the lot - in defence, she had taken on bold fighter pilots at close quarters, the survivors retreating when they realised that they were using the wrong kind of arms. And now, she was being fitted out for a potentially dangerous sortie - to hunt ships. This time, there would be little gung-ho charging - rather, it would be a long range strike, using the Machete ULRAShM normally deployed from bunkers in Alfegos to take the ships out from a 2000 km distance. Along with that, the normal plethora of anti-shipping missiles, anti-air missiles and ABMs. And, a payload of fifteen Blue Bolt XVIII sounding rockets. Normally used for scientific high-altitude research, here they would be travelling a much longer horizontal distance, to deliver their cloud-seeding warhead. Not that the crews knew the purpose of them - to them they were merely a scientific experiment.
The missiles were rapidly loaded, hundreds of smaller missiles in their launch modules slotted into place through the gondola sides by specialist trucks. They surrounding the central, forward facing payload - eight of the very large Machete missiles, complete with booster packs, hiding inside their large modules. The Blue Bolts sat facing the rear, thick anti-blast sheets between them and the other modules, as the air technicians quickly linked up each module to the internal control rack. Green light after green light appeared at the weapons control station in the control gondola, along with confirmations of loading as the escorts finished loading. Fuelling teams quickly removed the tens of methane gas tubes from the engine gondola fuelling ports and central pipe ports, as the engines started up. Massive 34kW "Super Power" engines, this vast pair taking up their own rearward gondola with fuel processors and other systems, modified from the engines used on surface ships. The units quickly wound up, rapidly, to idling speed, the roar echoing through the hangars.
And soon, the Taskforce Commander took up his position on the command deck of the AAS Skylark, checking over his fleet ORBAT:
AAS Skylark
N-991 (N class Aerofrigate)
N-997 (N class Aerofrigate)
K-265 (K class Aerodestroyer)
It was small, but adequate - after all, at the distances they would be engaging at, few aircraft could possibly make it to attack them - and those few would be spotted and destroyed from range. So as the final checks were made, the airship towing units started dragging the vast airship towards the hangar entrance - a gaping hole, two hundred metres wide and two hundred metres high, huge metal arches bridging the entrance. Many tens of metal barricades sat around the entrance, along with numerous folding panels from the roof and walls, able to form a barrier if needed. But nothing would be able to cope with a door to enclose one of these.
And so, the first of the group of four broke out into the afternoon light, quickly turning on the strong winds, before starting its acceleration towards Beiraq. In four days time, they would be in range. But much would have happened by then.
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