[Earth II] Sins of a Lunar Empire [Semi-Open]

[Layarteb]

Sins of a Lunar Empire is a chronicle of past, present, and future events of the Empire. It depicts a part of Layartebian politics and foreign policy from rarely seen angles and gives insight into the Empire in a way that some may find immoral or, at the very least, amoral. They depict some of the deepest, darkest, and most damaging secrets kept by the Empire and detail chapters in Layartebian history that will often go unnoticed, unwritten, and unstudied.

Sins of a Lunar Empire is a play on the title of a recent video game, Sins of a Solar Empire. The name is chosen because the largest religion in the Empire is the Layartebian Pagan Rite, which worships Luna, the moon goddess, as its chief deity. The title is extremely fitting and while some may see it as uncreative, that is simply not the case.

This is a semi-open RP and you can participate in it only if you have been invited - or if you telegram me to get involved. Please do not post OOC comments, critiques, or IC posts if you have not been invited. If you do, I will ask you to remove the post and, if you fail to comply, I will have the moderators do so. Additionally, this takes place in the world of Earth II but that isn't to say you cannot read this. Any comments you would like to make, please do so privately through telegram and if you don't have anything constructive to say, quietly complain about it to yourself.

Thank you for taking the time to read Sins of a Lunar Empire and I hope that it inspires your writing and that you find it pleasurable.

Other Roleplaying Stories

In the Eyes of Heaven
Ride the Lightning
The Lies We Feed Our Young

Disclaimer: Some of the posts within this thread may not be suitable for all viewers. I kindly ask that should you feel any strong emotion towards any post within this thread that you discontinue reading of it and not make a fuss. Please do not actively work to censor or alter the writing presented by all members of this thread. Thank you.

[Layarteb]

Table of Contents

Part One: Türkiye [July - October 2010]

• Introduction: Setting Forth from Our Past (Page 1)
• Chapter One: The First Sins
• Chapter Two: Preparing a Conflagration
• Chapter Three: Mixing Gasoline and Sparks (Page 2)
• Chapter Four: Dousing the Flames
• Epilogue: Spoken History

Part Two: Kaliningrad [January 1993 - November 1995]

• Introduction: Lies Upon Our History (Page 2)
• Chapter One: Rout (Page 4)

[Layarteb]

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the first part
Türkiye

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[Layarteb]

introduction
{setting forth from our past}

July 19, 2010 - 04:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Incirlik Air Force Base, Incirlik

Hot and humid, the night was sticky and uncomfortable. The sun had gone down hours ago and was on its way back up again but that didn't make any difference. At Incirlik Air Force Base, the humidity made everything unbearable. There was no breeze and aside from the air conditioned barracks and offices, there was no relief. Soldiers on duty, especially in the guard towers, were more than fatigued. Wearing their body armor and uniforms, the only redeeming quality they had was that they didn't need pounds upon pounds of gear. Those walking the beat around the perimeter did carry some gear with them, mainly extra water. Staying hydrated was crucial for them, especially since patrols and security at the base had been beefed up in the past few months. Soldiers leaving the base only did so now in groups and never to places that were unfamiliar to them and those at the base, walking the perimeter contended each day with crowds of angry residents around the base.

The situation was growing direr by the dire. Once upon a time, the United Federation of Eurasia sat in Ankara and ruled a mast and mighty empire, that stretched all the way from Turkey to the Indian border with Pakistan and then all the way up to the northern border of Kazakhstan. The Eurasian Federation ruled for centuries under a rather peaceful banner that emphasized democracy, human rights, equal opportunities, and religious freedom. Fanatical organizations that did pop up never went too far, either being squashed quickly or ignored by the rather modern and relatively docile populace. In a world where the geopolitical landscape changed monthly, it seemed that the one sure thing was the solidity of the Eurasian Federation. For centuries, the pride of the Eurasian people was something that was globally recognized. The longstanding alliance with the Empire was just as recognizable. Since the inception of the October Alliance in 1983, the Empire and Eurasian Federation became blood brothers, so to speak. The extremely friendly policies of immigration, trade, and exchange between October Alliance members meant only that the Empire and Eurasian Federation would grow closer and closer together over time. By the mid-1990s that was blatantly evident and the Empire worked hand-in-hand with the Eurasian Federation. Peace between both nations was absolutely guaranteed and, forever, until the dark ages of the Eurasian Federation hit.

It started with the peripheries of the Eurasian Federation, splitting off one by one, desperate for their own chance at self-rule. Sensing weakness in Ankara, more and more left until the Eurasian Federation ceased to be, leaving Turkey as a lone state in the world, independent, in debt, and desperate for stability. The identity and pride that the Eurasian people once felt was gone and so was the peace and prosperity. Tenuous governments rose in Ankara and elsewhere in the former, Eurasian Federation but they lasted only small amounts of time. Governments were simply too weak, too disorganized, and too vague to do any good. Some rose up with the interests of reunited the Eurasian Federation but they lasted only months. Coalitions fared no better. When one nation rose, it was only a matter of time until they fell back onto themselves. With each new government came glimmers of hope that were savagely ripped away days, weeks, or months later. None had lasted even as much as a year. Cities around the country were left under the control of local governing councils or strongmen. Some were put there legitimately while others seized power simply by force.

To help the Eurasian people out, the Empire had begun foreign aid not long after the dissolution of the Eurasian Federation was official. In the beginning, all of the foreign aid made it to the Eurasian people. However, gradually, over time, less and less was getting to the people and, because of that; the Empire was sending less and less. What had once been in the hundreds of billions was now in the hundreds of millions and given to only a few localities, where those in power weren't there by force. That, of course, drew resentment, not just from those in power but also from the people. Despite the fact that aid was being siphoned off by corrupt leaders left and right, some of it was still getting to the people. Many of them relied on it to survive. Shipments of food, medicine, clean water, clothes, and what not stopped coming to certain localities and that only added to the problem. As the situation in Turkey grew worse by the day, anger and resentment towards the Empire grew at an extraordinary pace. It started with small groups, a few dozen here or there, branching out past a hundred, and then into the thousands. Now, more than half of the country had it out for the Empire. They decried the Empire in the streets and protested outside of Incirlik. Those who had been incensed by government propaganda were some of the worst. Despite the fact that Adana was still receiving foreign aid from the Empire, even its people had issue with the Empire. Nothing seemed to be going right for the Eurasian people, especially those in Turkey.

That was the reason why security at Incirlik Air Force Base had been beefed up so much. Within five miles of the city of Adana, Incirlik Air Force Base was under constant scrutiny. The air force base continued to exist but reluctantly so. The Eurasian people had once seen it as a symbol of stability, a guarantee from the Empire that nothing would go wrong. Nostalgia used to be of the years when Incirlik Air Force Base sat unoccupied, a beacon on the horizon begging for development. Now nostalgia to them was looking at an old map of the world, with the Eurasian Federation a giant blotch of color on it. A general depressive state encompassed the Eurasian people and that led to anger, directed right at the Empire. Hundreds of people on any given day now camped outside of the airbase. They yelled, cursed, and spat at the airbase, especially when soldiers on perimeter patrol walked by, always putting on a good show for people they now saw as invaders. If the Empire suddenly abandoned the airbase, they assumed that the problems would go away. Of course, that wasn't the truth. Despite the reduced friendliness for the base and its soldiers, they still fed the local economy. With the airbase gone, the local economy would be destroyed. Because the situation in Adana and Turkey as a whole were in such a fragile state, it seemed that just about anything with enough weight to push things over the edge could.

That "anything" was already on its way. It was a C-130J Super Hercules flying to Incirlik from Mülhausen Air Force Base. For the past sixteen hundred and fifty miles, the flight had been completely uneventful. Now just twenty-five miles from the airbase, the crew was going through their landing preparations. They had flown southeast, over Switzerland, the northeastern tip of Italy, through Slovenia, Croatia, a brief moment through Bosnia, then through Serbia, Bulgaria, and briefly over the Black Sea before crossing into Turkish airspace. Now it was flying south, over Adana, descending lower and lower towards its approach. As they passed Kozan, the situation remained normal but, as they approached Imamoglu, things took a strange turn of events. They were still twenty miles from the airbase and, in the dead of night, everything that could go wrong went wrong and, in rapid succession. Flying now at just thirty-two hundred feet, the Super Hercules was flying normally, straight and level. It was still dark out and they were relying on their night vision goggles to see, which were working just fine for them until catastrophe struck. Dead ahead, less than one hundred meters in front of them was a massive flock of birds, big enough for them to see. The pilots barely had time to react, yanking up on their flight sticks hard, compensating with a massive increase in thrust. Unfortunately, it didn't work and the Super Hercules simply couldn't get out of way in time. Within seconds, alarms were echoing in the cockpit as the starboard engines quickly belched flames and thick, black smoke. The aircraft violently shook as it became entirely unresponsive, still climbing except now unevenly. The high amount of thrust on the port side was throwing off the aircraft's balance dramatically and it threatened to roll as the two pilots frantically fought with the controls, declaring an emergency less than ten seconds after the bird strike. Thick, black smoke continued to belch from the engines even as the fire extinguishers were applied and the fuel was cut. Though impossible for them to tell, not only were the engines damaged but also the starboard wing, though it maintained enough structural integrity to remain functional.

Alarms rang out at the airbase as fire squads were called to action but the aircraft was still twenty miles away, the pilots gaining some control over their aircraft. Despite being trained for this, they were entirely in unfamiliar territory. Despite having plenty of time in a simulator, training for this very occurrence, the real thing was completely different. Sirens rang and everyone at the airbase sprang into action, suddenly ignoring the heat and humidity over the threat of a crash. Still beyond their view, the Super Hercules was in real trouble. The pilots had managed to gain control over the aircraft but not quick enough and they had lost altitude, at least another fifteen hundred feet of it, meaning that they were now too low. They still had enough forward airspeed to maintain lift and prevent a stall but maneuvering was a chore. They managed to continue onward, towards Incirlik Air Force Base but more and more went wrong with each minute they spent in the air. They needed their port engines to help maneuvering, increasing and decreasing the thrust in order to make necessary turns and keep themselves on a straight and level course towards Incirlik.

However, the closer they got to Incirlik, the worse the situation got, until they were just north of Buruk Cumhuriyet Mh., a small village just two kilometers from the northeastern perimeter of the airbase. It was one of the closest villages to the airbase and it was a slum. Houses were on top of one another and the streets were more like alleyways than roads. It was spread out nearly three kilometers from end to end, bringing it within just a kilometer of the airbase's perimeter. Unfortunately, this was as close as the Super Hercules would get to the airbase. Thrust simply wasn't enough anymore as the strain on the starboard wing grew too much. With the flight surfaces of the starboard wing now completely inoperable, thrust just didn't cut it anymore. Barely four hundred feet off the ground, the last bits of lift were finally lost and the aircraft stalled. Despite their best efforts, there was nothing either pilot could do and, forty-five hundred meters from the runway at Incirlik, the plane nosed in, slamming into the ground in the middle of a housing block. At least forty houses were destroyed outright, including their occupants and dozens more were lit aflame as the aircraft burst into flames, shrapnel flying through the air at thousands of miles per hour, destroying everything in their path. Both pilots were killed instantly and the two crew chiefs in the cargo hold were thrown about like toys, succumbing to massive trauma and internal bleeding before the aircraft burst into flames five minutes later, which was only exacerbated by the cargo of the aircraft, several pallets of jet fuel. Suddenly, the push had come.

Fire engines from Adana wouldn't arrive in the village for over twenty-five minutes while fire engines from the airbase were barred from responding by the city's governing council. Of course, this wouldn't be the story they told when the sun rose...

[Layarteb]

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chapter i
the first sins

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[Layarteb]

cemel
{a romance fairytale from the start}

July 19, 2010 - 08:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Adana, Turkey

Cemel Akurgal was in high school when Layartebian Special Forces joined the Eurasian military in their Caucasian campaign. The goal for the Eurasians was simply to secure Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan for the United Eurasian Federation and to do so immediately. For the Empire, the goal was the complete and utter destruction of the Sepah-e Pasdaran (SP), a terrorist organization that operated with relative freedom within the Caucasus Mountains. The SP was the premier terrorist organization in the world and they were not stupid either. They focused their strategies on their region and gave the Eurasians enough stress to last a few generations. The Empire, to them, while hated, was simply too powerful to antagonize. Instead, they got their revenge against the Empire through strictly indirect means. They worked clandestinely and secretly, training and equipping domestic terrorist groups that operated against the government within the Empire's borders. However, their secrets could not last forever. Ultimately, the Empire found out and traced the training, the bankrolls, and the equipment back to them. Their time was, from that moment on, limited. When the Eurasians announced their campaign against the Caucasian states, the Empire jumped at the chance, opting to work on a very low scale with the Eurasians. When Layartebian Special Forces arrived, they did so secretly and clandestinely, hidden from the regular forces and the world. While Layartebian advisors worked actively with regular infantry units, Special Forces cooperated with Eurasian Special Forces and worked behind the lines, way ahead of the invading army. They sought one-on-one war with the SP and attacked them sequentially, up and down their lines. They destroyed weapon's storage caches, lased training camps for destruction from the air, dismantled ambush points, and captured everyone that was still breathing at the end of a fight. Documents, maps, and computers were seized. Those left undestroyed proved invaluable to the Empire; eventually linking the Falkland Islands based company, Totalis, to the atomic bombing of Saint George's on Grenada in the summer of 2006. When the Empire seized the Falkland Islands and subsequently dismantled Totalis, it was done thanks wholly in part to their campaign against the SP.

The attack on Saint George's had come on the morning of July 26, 2006. Layartebian forces were engaged in an all-out battle with communist separatists on the island and the communists were losing. At precisely 10:29:38, Eastern Standard Time, a five-kiloton, nuclear device exploded in downtown Saint George's. In the weeks after, investigation revealed that the bomb had come from Madagascar and it had once been in the service of the Teh Ninjan Navy. The warhead was a W80 Mod 1, the same type used in the Tomahawk cruise missiles. In the end, thirty-seven thousand, two-hundred, and twenty-one people were killed by the blast and radiation sickness. The damage was catastrophic and even now, four years later, life had not returned to normal on the island of Grenada, especially not in Saint George's, which had once been the capital of the Caribbean region. Investigations and interrogations revealed that the SP was directly involved and between February and Mary 2007, the SP was systematically dismantled by the Empire and the United Federation of Eurasia. Totalis fell. The Republican Liberation Army (RLA) was gone. Cartels were flattened. In just one year after the blast, Layartebian forces exacted all of the revenge that was needed for the people of the Empire. The Falklands would never again see independence, now a part of the Empire's Atlantic Republic. Throughout the rest of 2007, Layartebian Special Forces went on multiple manhunts against SP leaders who escaped the war. They killed Faysal Abd-Al-Malik Behnam in Afghanistan and seized his assets in mid-March. In mid-May, Assad al Samir was killed. Two more were captured in Portugal during the middle of June and, through their interrogations, much is learned about an organization known as the "Ghost Warriors," who were terrorizing the Empire in the wake of the RLA's defeat. In July, an SP cell was captured in Layarteb City and that was the last the world heard of the SP, considered to be just a bad chapter in the history of the world.

Now, Cemel Akurgal was out of high school and in college. An impressionable sophomore, he had taken to Layartebian resentment quite easily. A native of the city of Adana, he talked stories of how he would see Layartebian soldiers in drunken bar fights as a child or how he would watch them mistreat Adanan women and shout and whistle at them. He loathed the noise their aircraft made coming to and leaving Incirlik Air Force Base, especially the late night flights or during the Empire's many campaigns of war. Hatred coursed through his veins day and night, all year long. He was adamant in group discussions about the Empire's war crimes and crimes against humanity. He called them "pagan barbarians" and decried their moon goddess Luna as nothing more than a fantasy. He had joined an organization that called for the Empire not only to vacate Incirlik but also to cease and desist with all relations with Turkey and the former territories of the Eurasian Federation. He drew and held signs at rally's outside of the perimeter of Incirlik and he threw glass bottles every now and then over the fence. For a lanky kid, Cemel had some strength to him and he sometimes started contests with the crowds on who could hurl rocks the furthest. Half of the time, he won, despite having little muscle on his whole body. Thus, it was no surprise that he be approached by "Agha," the organization's "spiritual mentor." Agha was what they called him and it was not his name. As far as they knew, his name could have been anything. Agha was simply the Eurasian word for elder brother, chief, or master.

Agha, like Cemel, was lanky. He was tall but skinny and just about three times his age. His body was scarred all over from the battles that he had fought, not with the Eurasian military but rather against the Eurasian military. His voice was always low, beckoning utter silence when he spoke. His eyes were always engaging and he never lost his temper, even when he decried the crimes of Layartebian soldiers. He could be talking about the most brutal rape and murder of a Eurasian woman at the hands of a Layartebian soldier and never appear incensed or angry. He simply called them "savage dogs." To look at him, one would not give him much credit for anything except for his incendiary rhetoric against the Empire but he was much accomplished. He was one of the last "En," the Eurasian word for ten. That was what they called themselves and they being the surviving ten lieutenants of the Sepah-e Pasdaran. Having escaped the Eurasian military and the Layartebian Special Forces, they hid and hid for months and years, having little to nothing to do with their former ways and organization, until the fall of the Eurasian Federation. They kept in minor contact with one another, communicating irregularly and only by messenger, using the back regions of the Eurasian Federation to hide from prosecution, capture, and death. When Ankara fell, they met once again, in the desert of Iran. For days, they recounted their pasts, brought one another up to speed, and determined that they had one common enemy now, the Empire thanks to corruption within the Eurasian military, which had tipped them off to the Empire's role against their former organization. On that fateful, winter day, sitting around a campfire in the Iranian Desert, the Sepah-e Pasdaran was reborn.

They were now four hundred strong and growing by the day. Small and relatively unequipped, they were a fraction of what they once were but they were organized. When Agha approached Cemel to join, not much convincing was needed. Weeks later, Cemel was invested within the organization and he even had the mark to prove it. In the days of the former SP, all of its members had a specific mark on their body, usually on their side, which signified not only their rank within the organization but also how many merits of honor and valor they achieved in their time. The most highly decorated and fiercest of warriors had tattoos up their entire side and on their face too. Cemel had earned nothing save for basic membership into the organization. Save for his antics on the perimeter of Incirlik Air Force Base, there had not been any chances for him to prove his dedication to the organization. That was until the Super Hercules had crashed into the town of Buruk Cumhuriyet Mh.. When the sun rose and cast its light upon the badly burned fuselage of the Super Hercules, it illuminated the symbol of hatred for the Adanan people, the Empire's flag. Still intelligible on the tail of the crashed cargo plane, it gave them all a beacon for their anger. By eight in the morning, just four hours after the crash, over six thousand people lined the perimeter of Incirlik Air Force Base. Now on the highest of alerts, Incirlik was surrounded by thousands of hostiles. Layartebian soldiers took up defensible positions around the airbase, manning machine guns, sniper posts, and sandbagged fortifications. Fearing the possibility of an overrun scenario, they were all on edge, having been given orders to engage unarmed civilians if they came across the perimeter en masse. It would be hard to get over the perimeter fences though. Aside from being over twenty feet high, they were topped with rows of barbed wire. Motion sensors placed around the perimeter could tell if anything larger than a cat was walking around inside of the fence but those were a little less reliable now that thousands of people were stomping their feet just a few feet away. Cameras showed nothing but masses of people in every direction and the situation could not have been direr.

For Cemel, this would be his one and only opportunity, thus far, to prove his loyalty to the SP. Unfortunately, it would be an act of utter stupidity rather than of heroism and bravery. Eyeing the razor wire at the top of the fence, his mind went wild. He thought of scenario over scenario, thinking if he could just get over the fence and then he could cause havoc for the Layartebian soldiers inside, leading them on a cat and mouse chase through the airbase, tying up their resources. He hoped, in some ways, that others would follow him but not too many. He knew that if a few went over the fence, they would just be chased down, arrested, and released a day or two later. He heard stories of such happening but whether or not they were true, he never investigated, simply relying on the faith that Agha would never lie to him. It wasn't that Agha lied; he simply wanted to portray the Empire as weak. He embellished stories and called the Layartebian threats to shoot and kill any trespassers hollow. In reality, the few that had gone over the fence had been released but only after hours upon hours upon days of rigorous interrogation. Some were beaten and tortured and others died in the hands of their captors, especially if they were insolent to the Layartebians. Official stories often cited their grabbing of weaponry and being killed only in self-defense but relatives weren't convinced. This wasn't a regular occurrence though and more times than not, people were in fact released, though none escaped without donating some blood first. Guided by these embellishments, Cemel worked out a plan in his head, a plan that nobody would have agreed to had they heard about it before hand. He started with a blanket, carried to the spot by a fellow protester. He flung it over his right shoulder and climbed the fence, ignoring the cries of those behind him to stop and get down. At the top, he draped the blanket over the top of the fence, in an attempt to shield him from the barbed wire. From there, he launched himself over the top and began his climb back down, tossing the blanket back to the crowd, its underneath torn, the shreds of it still clinging to the barbed wire. He, on the other hand, was unscathed. Seconds later, his feet touched the ground inside of the Incirlik Air Force Base perimeter. Silence dawned on the crowd as he began to run away from the fence. Gasps filled the air when two soldiers tackled him. A third, holding the leash of an angry German Shepherd joined only minutes later and the smile and sense of accomplishment had left Cemel's face as he was handcuffed and yanked up from the ground, his body bruised, blood pouring from an open wound above his right eye. A vehicle pulled up moments later and that was the last the crowd saw of Cemel that morning.

[Layarteb]

July 19, 2010 - 23:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Incirlik Air Force Base, Turkey

Cemel Akurgal had sat in the basement level of the brig now for fifteen hours. He had been taken there immediately, blood gushing an open wound above his right eye, his knees sore, his ankles tight, his wrists visibly bruised, his left shoulder swollen, and his ribcage bruised. The tackle had been a particularly impressive one, in part because the two soldiers who hit him both had played high school football and easily outweighed him. He had been hit from both directions and his body had not so much twisted as it fell to the ground as it contorted beyond friendly means. He had hit the pavement and been used as a shield for the two, falling soldiers, neither of whom were bruised. With a knee on the back of his neck and a vicious German Shepherd only inches from his sweaty, dirty, blood face, his arms with yanked into handcuffs that were made very too tight. When he was yanked up by his left shoulder, the soldiers had been extra rough, just to prove a point and the swelling now was directly related. For Cemel, those thirty or forty seconds of freedom he had after jumping over the fence, were not worth the fifteen hours being endured. Thrown into the back of a truck and sped away towards a numbered and nameless building at the far end of the airbase, he couldn't help but think about Agha.

"They are rough. They abuse their captors and beat them without mercy, all for their own egos." Agha's words echoed in his head as he was yanked out of the truck and led into the building. Two men shoved him along, at their pace, pistols on their hips, body armor around their torsos. He didn't know what a brig was; the word had never been used before in his presence. However, when he heard it, he felt an ominous tone to its sound. He was thrown about as he pushed through the hallways and to an elevator, which descended at least two levels underground, an eerie silence in the air at that point. He could see there were four basement levels just by reading the elevator panel, something he did to occupy his mind while the slow elevator descended past one and to the other. His escorts, as he called them in his mind, were silent and stoic, standing behind and above him, neither one of them anything less than a brick wall. He knew if he tried to run, they would chase him down and beat him more. He wouldn't be able to wound them either, that would be like throwing a tennis ball at a truck.

The elevator doors opened up to reveal a long but dimly lit, dank, concrete corridor with steel, windowless, numbered doors on either side. He was shoved down this corridor just as roughly as he had been all along, the men behind him silent and expressionless as they pushed his lanky, featherweight body around. The corridor smelled of mold and every human fluid from sweat to urine. Dried blood stained the floor in more than one place and there were even brown handprints on occasion, usually underneath the light bulbs that hung shoddily from the ceiling. Whether they were placed there on purpose or not was undeterminable. They looked authentic enough. With each step, his heart pounded harder and faster. Sweat gushed from his pores and soaked through his shirt and shorts. His knees grew weak, buckling more than once, which only made things worse for him. A feeling of queasiness rose from his stomach, all the way up through his throat and his skin turned pale. His eyes darted left, right, up, and down, more so at each, hanging light bulb. Those light bulbs above him dangled from the ceiling, suspended in midair by frayed wires or rusty chains. There were no switches and no pull-cords. They were just illuminated, barely though, perhaps by as little as forty watts each, just enough to give light to the walls, floor, and ceiling for a few feet but not enough to show every detail in the corridor. Inside his body, his mind cried for air, fresh air. His fear level rose dramatically. What's going to happen to me? His mind ruminated over and over and over, only furthering the sickness.

He walked past dozens of doors and the corridor seemed to go on forever until it made an abrupt, ninety degree, right turn. It went on forever again, steel doors on either side, a silence in the air, a silence so quiet it was deafening. He could hear his heart beating so loudly that he was sure it echoed off the walls. His throat began to close as he was led past door after door after door, the numbers steadily rising, one after the others, odds on the left, evens on the right. It was impossible to judge how far it was between each door, his mind couldn't focus on his footsteps. The rooms could have been ten feet wide or ten inches wide, it was all the same to him, he didn't want to go into any of them. He made another abrupt, right turn, the soldiers behind him keeping pace, pushing him along when he slowed down, yanking him up without a sound when his knees gave way. Each corridor was a replica of the one before it, long, dimly lit, and frightening as a nightmare but this would be his last. He would never reach the end of it, being stopped at door number fifty-seven. The soldiers behind him turned him to face the door and one of them stepped forward, his giant fist illuminated by a light bulb above. It pounded hard against the door one, two, three, four times, the echo rolling down the corridor and bouncing off the walls.

Moments later, it opened, the room before him cast into utter darkness. It truly was a nightmare though one he couldn't wake up from no matter how hard he tried. "Prisoner 1-9-4-2-8" A soldier behind him said. It was impossible to tell which one, his eyes couldn't leave the darkness in front of him and his ears were made deaf by his beating hard. There was no voice from within, just a hand out of the darkness that grabbed his left arm and pulled hard, drawing him into the darkness, where the door shut behind him, louder than the beating of his heart. He stood there momentarily, his eyes bathed in the blackness around him. Things were eerie and silent for a few seconds, long enough to make him question whether or not a hand had actually appeared from the darkness or not. Then, the whole room was bathed in bright, white, fluorescent light. He instantly went blind and a shooting pain filled his head as he nearly collapsed again. Footsteps echoed now but only one pair of them and not for too long. His eyes teared up right away and his vision was reduced to blurriness once he regained it, his eyes taking longer to adjust to the bright light than ever before. That was partly in response to the sheer brightness of it. Ten, twenty, thirty, sixty, ninety seconds passed before he could even make out anything in the room and only then he could see two blurry, dark figures, one standing and one sitting. Just then, an echo filled the room that he couldn't distinctly make out but it was loud, very loud. In reality, it was the locks on the door engaged. They were remotely controlled from afar, where controllers could listen to every word spoken above a whisper and watch every movement the occupants made, whether with the lights on or not.

"This man is a medical doctor. He will look at your wounds, please cooperate with him or else you will not be treated." A voice said but Cemel couldn't tell whom it was, the person standing or the person sitting, everything was still too blurry to make out such details. He slowly obliged but, unable to see clearly, there wasn't much he could do, save for approach what he thought was a cot. With his hands still restrained behind his back, he was wobbling as he walked over to the cot but he managed to sit down on it without completely losing his balance. One of the men was now standing in front of him and another was seated but he still couldn't tell if they had switched places or if the man standing had simply walked over to him. Slowly, his vision was coming back into focus and he gradually made out the man in front of him. He was white, had brown eyes, and brown hair, a rough face, and he wore a military uniform. He was an officer and a medical doctor, the patch on his shoulder revealed that much. This was simply a survey by the doctor to see what treatment was needed and where it was needed. However, the moment he lifted his shirt, to reveal the tattoo, everything stopped. The man, who was seated, clearly visible now, stood and quickly dismissed the doctor. He was not a military man, as far as Cemel could tell from the way he dressed. His hair and appearance otherwise was sharp and neat, as if he were an officer, but he was wearing a black, business suit. "Sepah-e Pasdaran," was all he said. No medical treatment came and the interrogations began. He thought of Agha many times during those fifteen hours, recalling what he said about the forces of the Empire being simply too weak-willed to uphold their threats. From everything Cemel was experienced, there was absolutely, no weak will.

Fifteen hours hadn't passed quickly and now, Cemel was in an orange jumpsuit, black hood over his head, handcuffed, in leg irons. He was out of the basement of the brig as well. He was seated on an uncomfortable bench inside of a hangar, his wounds left untreated, weary, tired, and scared beyond belief. Agha had never mentioned anything about this. Everything was relatively quiet for now but that was about to be shattered by the sound of a helicopter, albeit, a relatively quiet helicopter. The helicopter in question was an MH-100A Explorer, painted in all black, marking free. It was a helicopter that was, for all intents and purposes, non-existent. It had no tail code, no registration, and its pilots didn't operate by normal rules. It and its contents simply didn't exist yet, there it was, sitting on the tarmac at Incirlik Air Force Base, being towed into the hangar, its skids resting on wheeled dollies. Less than a half hour later, as the clock passed 23:00 hours, the Explorer lifted off, heavy by three additional people, Cemel and the same two soldiers who had escorted him through the basement level. The helicopter quietly lifted off the runway at Incirlik Air Force Base and took an immediate, southwesterly course, cruising over Adana and to the Mediterranean Sea, where the calm, glass-like water acted as a pavement for the low-flying, black helicopter.

The helicopter was flying for quite a while, the passengers and pilots inside in complete silence. For Cemel, it was a world of hallucinatory dreams, thanks to a fast-acting drug that he had been given just prior to getting into the air. It was for many reasons that he was, primarily because there wouldn't be any easy way of hiding the destination from him, regardless of whether or not he was hooded. His ears would simply not deceive him. That destination was about fifty-seven miles away from Incirlik, a spot in the Mediterranean, just twenty-seven miles from the Turkish coast and another forty-six from Cyprus. There, floating in the glassy water was a single, ship, barely visible in the dark, night sky. No lights emanated from the ship and it made little noise. That vessel was a Watson class roll-on/roll-off cargo ship, tasked with the 5th Prepositioning Group, based out of Caracas, Venezuela, part of the Imperial Layartebian Navy's 6th Fleet, the reserve fleet. Floating innocently enough in the Mediterranean, the Watson remained in its position as the Explorer touched down on its landing pad, where three soldiers, one standing behind a wheel chair, waited. Cemel was simply offloaded, like a piece of cargo, placed into the wheelchair, and pushed off, the two soldiers walking behind the one pushing the wheelchair. Within a few minutes, they had stopped, in front of an ominous-looking, steel, windowless door, a number being its own decoration. This was where Cemel was dumped, the hood removed, where he would wake up in about five hours, after the effects of the drugs wore off, after his entire world vanished from underneath him, all because of an immature stunt.

[Layarteb]

July 20, 2010 - 06:20 hrs [UTC+2]
Watson class T-AKR, Mediterranean Sea

Cemel Akurgal awoke groggily from his opiate-induced slumber. The drug had been administered only moments after he had been put into the helicopter and by the time the engines began to spool up from idle, he was unconscious, hallucinations running wild through his fevered brain. Waking up had never been this hard for him and while he struggled to open up his eyes, he once again found himself in the dark. These few hours had been the only rest he had received after jumping over the fence to the grounds of Incirlik Air Force Base and now, he hadn't a clue where he was. He didn't know if he was still on the airbase or not, perhaps the whole helicopter ordeal was a ruse to fool him into thinking he was being moved elsewhere. In his opiate-induced slumber, he dreamed that he was a warrior in the ancient times, riding around on a horse, clothed in a white robe, with a red sash, defending the city of Adana from attacking invaders, presumably the Layartebians. The details were vivid and they were clear. He wielded a blade expertly and rode on a horse without a saddle. He was an acclaimed hero of the people, a warrior for Allah, and a brilliant poet and scholar. Perhaps, in a past life, he was all of these things. In this present life, he was nothing more than a captive prisoner, held by the Empire against his will, in a location unknown to him, under conditions that weren't even suitable for a cockroach. The four-walled, low-ceilinged room that he could call shelter for now was a lot different from the last one. For starters, it was all steel and ice cold. There was no cot, table, or chairs. He couldn't quite make out if there were cameras, lights, or audio eavesdropping devices, neither could he make out the door. It was absolutely, pitch black, but, in that blackness, all he could hear were the echoes of his own inhalations and exhalations. "Hello?" He called out, groggily, as he attempted to sit himself up from his uncomfortable, sleeping position on the floor. His voice echoed off the walls at a barely audible volume but it must have been heard by someone as the lights turned on, instantly bathing the room with bright, pure white light. Again, his vision instantly went to blurry as he shut his eyes amid a waterfall of tears. Again, he cried out in pain and again, his head roared throbbing.

Minutes later, when he could see clearly again, he noted that his surroundings were definitely different. The room was entirely made of steel and empty, as his presumptions had noted. Above him, the lights were recessed into the ceiling and he could see several video cameras, built into the walls. There was no escape from them. For a toilet, there was only a hole in one corner. There was no toilet paper and no faucet. Wherever this was, he concluded, it wasn't going to be a pleasant place. Now where am I? His mind raced as he looked at the locked door. Though he couldn't see them, the audio microphones were so sensitive that it seemed they could have picked up his own thoughts. At that moment, the door unlocked, the echo filling the room as the steel locks disengaged and a buzzer filled the air. He couldn't hear anything save for it, the room being soundproof and airtight, as far as he could tell. The door opened outwards and there, in it, stood a man dressed in a military uniform but one without patches or emblems or markings of any sort. He was a tall man, not thin but not overweight in a gluttonous kind of way either. He was unfriendly looking and he peered down at Cemel from a position of attention.

"Are you Sepah-e Pasdaran?" He asked, first quietly but, when he received no answer, he repeated it an octave or two louder, his voice nearly growling by the fifth time he had to ask the question. Cemel, though beaten, exhausted, and frightened, remained defiant, keeping his movements to a minimum and his voice silent. His thoughts may have run wild but they did not lend themselves to speech. "You aren't the first defiant person we've broken Mister Akurgal." Instantly, Cemel wondered how they knew his name, forgetting that, in the back pocket of his pants, had been his wallet, with his identification card. "You can just make it easier on yourself by cooperating. We will find out exactly what we want to know, it's just a question of how much you're going to have to endure." He took a step back and, seemingly by magic, slammed the door shut, the echo filling the entire room. The locks engaged and Cemel was left in mere silence but only for a minute or two and then it began, the first phase of his new captivity. The lights quickly turned to a strobe effect and then came the music, loud music, hovering at a volume just under the threshold for pain. That music was a playlist of intense, metal songs, loud music with high-pitched guitar riffs. On average, four days of this, alternating between sixteen hours on and four hours off was enough to break someone.

For four days, the cycle went, sixteen hours of heavy metal music and strobe lights followed by four hours of absolute silence, insofar as the music went. The same man whom had greeted him upon waking up would routinely come to the door, open it, and ask questions. He bombarded Cemel with them, sometimes five or ten at a time, and then, not getting any answer, he would leave, for a short while. He would always return, sometimes as many as twenty times, standing at the door for as little as thirty seconds, enough to ask a single question and then he would be gone. Sometimes, he didn't even give Cemel a chance to answer, he simply fired the question and left. He simply asked questions, he offered no more advice and asked no questions about Cemel other than those related to Sepah-e Pasdaran. Then, the music and strobe lights would return. Even if Cemel had been a fan of heavy metal, which he wasn't, listening to it at such a volume and for so long of a time would have made him hate it. Four days and four nights of it was what Cemel endured and finally, when the cycle stopped and returned to four hours of silence, Cemel began to hear the music even when it wasn't there.

Cemel had lost all concept of time by then. Those four days and four nights to him all melded into one, sleepless experience. His mind had filled with a haze that dominated his five senses. Everything seemed strange, foreign, and extraterrestrial to him. He remembered little of what he had just experienced save for the horrific way it made him feel. Food and water had been scarce and what little sleep he got was very restless. Whenever it seemed he was just about to fall asleep, the soldier would appear, yelling questions at him fast enough to compete with the cyclic rate of a machine gun. When the soldier appeared this time, after the last sixteen-four cycle, Cemel had been asleep for a grand total of eighteen minutes. He didn't know it had been that long though and when the soldier appeared at the doorway, the only thought on Cemel's mind was simply the prospect of returning to sleep. "Mister Akurgal, are you going to continue this charade? You must be tired, hungry, thirsty? You have to be Mister Akurgal. If you answer our questions, truthfully and without wasting more of our time, you will be given food, water, a comfortable bed, a shower, all the amenities you enjoyed before your illegally jumped the fence at Incirlik Air Force Base. Are you willing to cooperate?" Whether Cemel wanted to or not, his mind was already beginning to play more tricks on him than he could handle and he simply stared at the soldier, his voice paralyzed, his mind a weak sponge. Had he truly wanted to answer, he could have, albeit weakly but he still had some shred of defiance about him. Mustering the last amounts of strength and stubbornness within him, Cemel resisted and remained silent, thinking to himself how he would never be broken, a faint smile creeping across his lips as he did. "If you so desire." The soldier said as he stepped back, closed the door, and locked it, leaving Cemel alone again, in the darkness.

He sat there for three hours, three, long, dreadful hours. Intermittently, sometimes for only a few seconds at a time, the strobe lights kicked on but not the music. It was designed simply to keep him on his toes and it did so, leaving him to expect the music each time but it never came, all by design. After three hours, as Cemel began to adjust to the irregular cycles, the next phase began. Instead, this time, the music was replaced by a multitude of sounds, all melded together. The first sound was the most prevalent, that of a crying baby but not just any crying baby, a colic baby. Underneath that was a low-pitched groaning sound. Now, the sixteen-hour cycle had been replaced by that, the noise enough to drive anyone insane. This would be phase two and it would continue for another four days, to see if Cemel cracked. If he still resisted, phase three would include sensory deprivation. His eyes would be covered with welders goggles, his ears covered with earphones, and, if more were necessary, his sense of touch, smell, taste, thermoception, and gravity could be altered. However, with each upgrade in phases, his captors risked mental damage so severe that nothing beneficial could be gained whatsoever.

At the conclusion of the first, sixteen-four cycle, the soldier once again appeared in the door and looked across the brightly lit room at Cemel, who cowered in the corner, in a full fetal position. The smell was already quite horrific but it was nothing new to the soldier. "Alright Mister Akurgal, are we ready to cooperate or does that need to return? We can do it as many times as we want and for as long as we want. The crying baby, the groaning, it all is a lot for the mind. Imagine blood curdling screams, shrill, they echo and pierce the eardrums, the sound of a person being decapitated, the knife cutting through flesh, visualize it Mister Akurgal, listen to the victim as he chokes to death on his own blood, the screams of pain from a dull knife," the imagery was too much for Cemel who let out his own, blood curdling, shrill scream.

"STOPPPPP!" His voice carried through the corridor. "Stop. Please. Stop. Enough." The soldier smiled, knowing that Cemel had finally broken, five days later. The interrogations would commence immediately and they would use sophisticated lie-detection means to verify the statements as truth. For each token of truth offered by Cemel, he would receive a reward, training him to tell the truth. Things such as a glass of tea or water, medical treatment, perhaps a pillow or blanket, a comfortable pair of shoes, a semi-comfortable cot, a shower, et cetera would all be used to keep the confessions rolling. It was early on the morning of July 25. The sun was rising on the eastern horizon and the Watson class roll-on/roll-off ship was rounding the western coast of Cyprus, moving its way seemingly out of the Mediterranean. In Adana, trouble was brewing and it was brewing quite rapidly. Cemel had a lot to yield them and the sheer idea of the Sepah-e Pasdaran being back was enough of a motivator for the higher ranks of the military and government to rush anything needed to defend not only Incirlik Air Force Base but all Layartebian assets in theater. Little did they know what was actually brewing right in front of them.

[Layarteb]

brigadier general wheeler
{we don't all win the lottery}

July 19, 2010 - 07:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Incirlik Air Force Base, Turkey

Brigadier General Jonathan Wheeler rubbed his eyes as he leaned back in his chair. He had only enjoyed two hours of restless sleep before his doorbell was ringing rapidly. His wife had woken up at the same time as he did and was more than irritated when she turned on the light, cursing the name of whoever was at the door. BG. Wheeler slid his legs over the side of the bed and his feet into a pair of black slippers on the floor. Much to her annoyance, he answered the door, only to see a visibly distraught messenger standing in the doorway, at attention, saluting. BG. Wheeler returned the salute and within five minutes was in his uniform and speeding away from the residence area of the airbase, the messenger at the wheel of the vehicle. They blew through three stop signs at sixty miles per hour, lights flashing, siren blaring, just to ensure that not only was everyone alert to their presence but also to keep the base military police from chasing them and wasting their time with a traffic stop. Base speed limits were just fifteen miles per hour and even going as much as five miles an hour over would draw a summons from them. They were four times over the limit and blowing stop signs and traffic lights without any pause or even flinch to obey the laws. Though he wasn't above any of the base laws, especially the traffic laws, this was a dire emergency. The messenger blazed through intersections on his way northward, towards BG. Wheeler's office, which was in the main, command center not very far from the flight line. As ultimate authority on the base, BG. Wheeler was the one who would be answering not only to the Ministry of Defense back home but also to the government in Adana, which was undoubtedly furious. The entire drive, his eyes focused on one thing, the orange glow on the horizon, where the burning Super Hercules was utterly obliterating the town of Buruk Cumhuriyet Mh.

He had been in his office ever since, directing the scores of officers and enlisted men coming into and out of his office, relaying reports. The first course of action that BG. Wheeler had done was to speak directly to the administrator of Adana, Ayta? Durak, a man who liked to call himself a mayor, even though he wasn't necessarily elected democratically. He had opposition, that was a fact but whether or not they were all working for him remained a mystery. He may have won sixty percent of the votes but nobody in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs truly believed he did so legitimately but it couldn't be proven and Incirlik Air Force Base took priority. Of course, as aide was reduced throughout the entire country, it had been reduced to Adana as well and certainly, that reduced the "mayor's" liking of the Empire. Plenty of that aid was getting into his Swiss bank account and that figure was being compiled by accountants in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who watched every penny of the aid given to Turkey. Mayor Durak spent half of his day tending to the few affairs of the city he actually attended to, namely, whatever he had to approve to continue the abandonment of the people of the city and of the entire province. The rest of the day, he spent enjoying his lavishness. Sometimes he would smoke multi-thousand dollar cigars, drink hundred-year-old scotch, swim in his Olympic-sized swimming pool, or fish off his yacht in the Mediterranean, and who knew what else. The only saving grace to his extravagance was that he did it quietly and didn't attract much attention but it wasn't much of a secret, especially not to the Empire.

When BG. Wheeler called Mayor Durak, he was surprised to get an answer from him. Usually, Mayor Durak had his secretary take the call and a message, which, more often than not, Mayor Durak simply wouldn't return. If he called the Mayor's cell phone, it would go right to voicemail. This time, neither happened and the Mayor picked up, no grogginess in his voice. "Mayor, there's been an incident." BG. Wheeler wasn't able to say much more before the mayor cut him off, yelling loudly, cursing his name and the name of the Empire. It just so happened that six months earlier, BG. Wheeler had called Mayor Durak about the presence of large bird flocks around the airbase and requested permission to install particular devices around the perimeter that would keep the birds away. That was a message Mayor Durak never returned, crumpling up the paper and throwing it in his wastebasket as he lit a Cuban cigar, one of only six hundred in the world, hand-made from a special tobacco leaf, grown just for its purpose. Each cigar cost over five thousand dollars but they could only be bought in groups of six; Mayor Durak had four left. Now, as he went on his tirade about the carelessness of Layartebian aircraft and the poor maintenance, he couldn't help but remember the memo left for him, the memo he tossed into the wastebasket. "Mayor. We do not know what the cause of this accident is. A full investigation will be conducted and let me reassure you, if one of my guys is responsible, he will be held accountable for it. We can respond immediately, I have fire units prepared to fight this fire and prevent any further destruction." That was when the mayor rebuffed him, citing that the Empire had done enough damage. The fire department of Adana would take care of it and that was final, he slammed the phone down before BG. Wheeler could go any further. The conversation was recorded and it would be filed in BG. Wheeler's report, a report that he would send to the Ministry of Defense when all was said and done. Mayor Durak waited ten minutes before he phoned the chief of the fire department and it took another fifteen minutes for them to arrive in the slum, by then, the fire having already consumed the entire area where the Super Hercules crashed. It was now spreading, fueled by jet fuel in the Super Hercules' cargo hold. All four men on the Super Hercules were already dead and the crash had killed over a hundred people outright, destroying forty homes instantly. Dozens more were injured and either unreachable or looking desperately for help that was still far away from arriving.

The fire was out by half past six, the charred wreckage a reminder of what happened. When all was said and done, the entire northern half of the village had been burned to the ground. Two hundred and eleven people were killed, including the four, Layartebians. Another eighty were injured, including three firefighters hurt in a fuel barrel explosion. The damage was catastrophic and the markings of the Empire on the charred wreckage made sure that everyone knew what had happened. At cafés all over Adana, people discussed what had happened, decrying the Empire left and right. Some called the act deliberate while others blamed some sort of perceived lack of maintenance by the Imperial Layartebian Air Force. In reality though, the cause of this accident was entirely within the realm of blame of Mayor Durak but he would never admit to such.

BG. Wheeler cursed silently at the phone. He was more than just a little aggravated at Mayor Durak, who had dismissed his efforts to help. As the hours passed, BG. Wheeler reviewed report after report after report. Survey teams had been dispatched the moment the aircraft went down and they were still onsite, combing through the smoldering wreckage, which had finally been declared safe. They were trained to locate and recover important pieces of hardware such as the black boxes, radios and encryption devices, classified material, and, of course, bodies. Bodies, in this regard, weren't going to be too hard to find. The carcasses of the pilot and co-pilot were glued to their seats and the two cargo masters were lying dead in what once was the cargo hold, their bodies contorted in strange ways. White sheets would soon cover their corpses and they would eventually be removed by recovery teams that were already on their way. The survey team on site was mainly concerned now with classified material and the black boxes. It wouldn't take long for the information to be deciphered but the full investigation could take a few days, especially since the wreckage would have to be disassembled and carted back to the airbase, a phase which was already underway as recovery teams prepared their equipment and protective suits.

For BG. Wheeler, this was a nightmare of an ordeal. He had absolutely no cooperation from the civilian government in Adana, scores and scores of people were crowding around the perimeter of the airbase, each one of them angrier than a killer bee, and they were getting low on supplies. The Super Hercules mission was meant to hold over the base's motor pool with enough fuel for a few days until a larger resupply mission could be sent. Ships were already steaming through the North Atlantic on their way to Turkey with enough supplies to last thirty days. Now, with the situation rapidly deteriorating, BG. Wheeler was more than concerned about supplies. He would have been a lot more comfortable if he had an entire armored brigade at the base to help defend it, seeing that the possibility of a severe, civilian overrun in the making. The reports from soldiers all along the perimeter of the base suggested that the civilians around the base were definitely hostile. There had been no confirmed sightings of weapons but the soldiers knew that, if there were, they would be concealed until the last moments. The threat of civilians coming over the fence was real enough that BG. Wheeler was left with no other option than to beef up security around the entire base. Every soldier on base was put on duty, regardless of if they had the day or shift off or not. He put out a call to all soldiers off base that they were to return immediately and, whoever was unaccounted for was to be found immediately and brought back, forcibly if necessary. That meant, of course, that soldiers would have to leave the confines of the base and they did so, fully armed, the Military Police (MP) badge on their uniforms showing that they meant business. Armed with their pistols or shotguns and a list of names and possible locations, the MPs departed in armored vehicles, convoy-style, from the main gate of Incirlik, past rows and rows of screaming, angry civilians, many with signs condemning the Empire.

At the crash site, surveyor teams had found the black boxes and were recovering them by eight in the morning. Classified material had already been secured and was on its way back to the base in armored cars. As the morning began to wear on, the surveyor teams noticed that the amount of civilian activity around the crash site was steadily increasing and security was being provided for by Adana police. The police in Adana were known to be especially corrupt and they couldn't be trusted whatsoever. Radio calls were made and BG. Wheeler was now faced with a second, tough decision. He now had to send more soldiers outside of the perimeter to protect the crash site, which meant that even fewer would be at the base to protect it and, to top it all off, a civilian had been captured after jumping the fence. The situation was rapidly spiraling out of his control and he knew that if he did nothing, he could lose the entire base. This wasn't an ideal situation by any means and he was faced with more decisions than he cared to make but, as a brigadier general, he was more than qualified to make them and more than trained to do so as well. He quickly ruminated, in his head, the personnel on base. He had about ten thousand people on the grounds of the airbase and that included the wives and children of the pilots and support personnel. He had an entire company of military police and another company of Defense Forces soldiers. He was surrounded on all four sides by a hostile, local populace and he knew that, if the shit hit the fan, his forces on base would not be able to resist the populace without further angering the entire province. This was a sensitive scenario and he knew that, if things got too chaotic, he would have to evacuate the women and children first. If that time came, he knew that there would be no going back, that conflict was about to occur.

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

July 19, 2010 - 13:40 hrs [UTC+2]
Incirlik Air Force Base, Turkey

Brigadier General Wheeler answered every question confidently and truthfully and he simply had no other choice. The emergency meeting with his superiors in the Ministry of Defense had been called with a twenty-minute warning after Mayor Durak concluded an inflammatory and incendiary radio address that hung the Empire out to dry. The increasingly uncooperative mayor of Adana had directly stated that not only was the crash entirely the Empire's fault but also that the Empire refused to lend any assistance and were concerned only with their aircraft and not the "innocent victims of this senseless disaster." He alluded to it being orchestrated by the Empire to exert control over the government and cited an erroneous report conducted by his own staff of the horrible maintenance record of the Layartebian military. He invented claims of multiple near-crashes, averted only because of his government's attentiveness to detail, by forcibly grounding flights of certain aircraft. He called the Empire's airbase a cancer on the society of Adana and accused the Empire of kidnapping innocent civilians and bringing them to the base for torture and execution. Many of those victims had actually been kidnapped by the mayor's secret police, which though they were small, were unbelievably powerful. He blamed corruption within the ranks of the government on the Empire and cited their monthly payments as "hush money" instead of humanitarian assistance that he so benevolently distributed to the people of Adana, out of the goodness of his own heart, of course. The twenty-six minute address was loaded with falsities, erroneous claims, hate speech, and just about everything else an increasingly hostile populace would eat up and take without question. When it was delivered at noon, there were over six thousand people on the perimeter of Incirlik Air Force Base, cursing the name of the Empire, protesting its presence, and calling the Layartebians there murderers. An hour later that number ballooned to about fifteen thousand, by best estimates and many of them could be seen brandishing weapons. Brigadier General Wheeler had been in the secure conference room since, answering questions left and right to his superiors, including the General of the Air Force, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Imperial Layartebian Military, and the Minister of Defense himself.

The first questions posed had to do with Wheeler's response. Damage control was necessary and the Ministry of Defense needed the facts. Though his superiors did not outrightly believe anything that Mayor Durak had claimed, they were vaguely suspicious of the claims in the first place. BG. Wheeler was on the chopping block, called to answer for the claims. For Wheeler, it was a stressful situation and he was slightly incensed that his own superiors would think that he, a brigadier general and a man known to do things properly, would do anything to jeopardize not only his post but also the strategic position of the Empire's military. Regardless, he dealt with it and presented all of the evidence he had, included the audio recordings of his phone conversation with Mayor Durak, damning and irrefutable evidence against the corrupt bureaucrat. His maintenance records were equally scrutinized but, again, documentation showed that the aircraft was in perfect, working order. The preliminary findings were consistent with a bird strike. All of the base's countermeasures were working effectively and the aircraft was flying an approach path that was determined to be safe and free of birds. By odds, this was a one in a million chance. The next steps would be to recover and reconstruct the entire aircraft and needle through the black boxes, a process that could take a few days, with crews working around the clock. Radar data had been saved and reviewed but nothing indicated a flock of birds was present. For now, the only thing that the Ministry of Defense could really do was to reinforce the airbase and provide BG. Wheeler with the forces he needed to keep it adequately secured. Soldiers at the base were being overworked on patrol and that meant they would be less efficient than they could otherwise be with reinforcements. This was a volatile scenario and not the first time the Empire faced a large, hostile, civilian populace around one of its assets in a foreign location.

Once upon a time, in the Realm of Cotland, protestors angry at a Mayan archeological finding stormed the Layartebian embassy in Oslo. With permission from the Cottish government, Layartebians forces there held the embassy until rescue, killing many civilians in the process who were armed and angry. In Mato Grosso, the Mato Grossan military attacked the Layartebian embassy, which led to a return to war between the two nations. The situation in Adana was identical in every way, shape, and form. The airbase needed reinforcements and they needed them fast. Just before the conclusion of the meeting, the Minister of Defense took the floor and informed BG. Wheeler that the 1st QRF was being rapidly deployed to Incirlik Air Force Base, an announcement that made Wheeler very happy. The 1st QRF was a battalion-sized unit of troops within the Imperial Layartebian Army based out of Sledge Airbase in Germany. They would bring with them light armor, vehicles, another five hundred men, and plenty of weaponry. They could act as shock troops for the Imperial Layartebian Military if Adana became militarily hostile to the Empire. These men were originally deployed to Germany to protect Berlin against foreign attack in the days of the Fourth Reich but with the rise of Prussia had been relegated mainly to helping other parts of the Empire where needed. For some time now, the Ministry of Defense had been looking to relocate them and now was an excellent opportunity. It would not only make the Prussians happy but it would serve to put some pressure on Mayor Durak as well as the Soviets, who were moving through the Caucasus, getting closer and closer to Turkey. This would double his fighting force at the base, which thus far consisted of only a company of ILDF soldiers and a company of military police. With the deployment of the 9th QRF though that meant one thing, hostilities were inevitable and BG. Wheeler's concern now shifted to the women and children on base. He knew that an evacuation was going to be needed and it was going to be needed right away. The Ministry of Defense was quick to agree to his request for this evacuation but they wouldn't have any assets there until tomorrow morning to move the women and children. Those assets would be chartered airliners from a variety of companies around the world. They would be flown in and the women and children evacuated according to age, rank, and health. Allowed to bring only a single suitcase per person as well as a single carry-on per person, BG. Wheeler knew that this move would severely degrade the morale of the men but it was something that he to be done. He knew had to make the announcement himself and he didn't want to waste a single second thinking about how to say what he needed to say.

It was about 14:30 when BG. Wheeler stepped into the communications room on base. Activity was high everywhere as section leaders took reports on the growing situation around the airbase. The sheer volume of people around the base added to BG. Wheeler's stress level and even he knew that it was going to take a lot out of him. This was a nightmare scenario. Few SOPs could cover what was happening at and around Incirlik Air Force Base and those that did didn't deal with many of the specifics that this scenario had. BG. Wheeler would be updating them as he went along, something he wasn't amazingly thrilled to be doing. He ignored the signs and ceremonies as he walked into the communications room and went to the officer in charge, an E-7 master sergeant, a middle rank within the enlisted ranks of the Empire's military. "I need an open line to all radios on this base now." He didn't have time to beat around the bush, he had a million things on his mind and this was the worst of them all. He also had to visit the families of the deceased, despite the chaotic situation.

"Yes sir. You may use this handset. Everyone. Quiet." He instructed and the radio room became instantly silent as BG. Wheeler keyed up the microphone and waited a brief moment.

"To all commands, all units, all soldiers. This is Brigadier General Wheeler, commanding officer." Soldiers all around the base quickly silenced themselves and listened to their radios, if they had any. Those who didn't were generally around those who did. "Due to the tense and chaotic situation in Adana, I am issuing an order to all personnel on base. Beginning tomorrow morning there will be an emergency evacuation of all non-military personnel. Preference will be given to family members who are young and in poor health then it will be done according to rank. This will be an orderly process and require the full attention of all personnel. Unfortunately, due to the situation, I cannot order any duty posts to be abandoned. However, I will be allowing brief moments tomorrow before departing flights take off for farewells. I trust that this will be a temporary situation. Your loved ones will be flown to Ireland for the time being where they will be housed in a temporary facilities being constructed right now. Accommodations will be suitable. For those soldiers with direct communication to their families on base, I ask that you allow up to two hours before making contact as radio personnel will be placing phone calls to all residences. Messengers will be delivering further information as well. Thank you." He let go of the microphone and looked around the room. "I'm sorry gentlemen." He had nothing further to say and he handed the master sergeant a large stack of paper before exiting, giving him very specific instructions. "This is a list of every residence on base. I need all of these numbers phoned in the next hour and a half. Put as many men as you need on it. Understood?"

The master sergeant looked at him, gave him a salute, and proudly responded, "Yes sir!" BG. Wheeler exited the office and defied his own orders, calling his wife directly on his cell phone, to give her the bad news. As he did, military police were driving around the residences, handing out information to all of the residences. It included instructions for the evacuation, their departure number, which was the order in which they would exit the base. The evacuation was going to be orderly and base vehicles would be used to transport them from their homes to the tarmac. Military police outside of the confines of the base were rounding up the last, few soldiers who were away. Any soldier whose family did not answer the door would be immediately brought to the military police headquarters and asked to locate his family, especially if they were outside of the base. After the last plane took off, there would be no others and whoever didn't get out would be stuck until the crisis abated, which had no foreseeable end in sight.

[Layarteb]

July 19, 2010 - 22:30 hrs [UTC+2]
Incirlik Air Force Base, Turkey

Brigadier General Wheeler and Lieutenant Colonel Scott Ryan Musso sat across from one another in the general's office. They had been there for the better part of the past hour, orienting themselves with one another and the situation. The 1st QRF Battalion had only begun to arrive within the last ninety minutes. One plane was scheduled to land every fifteen minutes, for a total of eight hours. That would put twenty-four transport aircraft on the ground, twelve C-17B Globemaster IIIs and twelve C-5M Super Galaxy's and their escort aircraft, eight F-59A Aeromancers. The relocation effort being conducted by the Imperial Layartebian Army was removing their last forces from Prussian soil. It was a plan that the Ministry of Defense had put in place years prior and it began with the Imperial Layartebian Navy leaving their facilities on Memmert Island and Norden, both of which had supported Layartebian battle groups since the days of the Fourth Reich of North Germania. The 1st QRF Battalion had the same mission, to protect the Fourth Reich, its leaders, and its government assets in Berlin. Based out of Sledge Airbase in Kaiserslautern, the 1st QRF Battalion was what started the whole QRF Program inside of the Imperial Layartebian Army. Now at twelve battalions, they formed an entire brigade, similar to many nations' concepts for a Marine Expeditionary Unit but much more focused. LTC. Musso was, at present, one of many commanding officers to have led the 1st QRF Battalion over the years. Sitting across from BG. Wheeler, who stood two rates higher than he did, LTC. Musso reminisced about the days when the Eurasian Federation and Fourth Reich of North Germania existed, when days were a bit more stable. Stability was now a major focus of the Empire's foreign policy. In the wake of the collapse of the various October Alliance nations, save for the Realm of Cotland, which still survived, instability had ravaged the world. Central Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East had been turned upside down. Turkey was just one more chapter in that book.

The crowds around Incirlik Air Force Base had thinned gradually as the night wore on, leaving about one to three thousand civilians remaining of the original six thousand. Fueled by the incendiary speech made by Mayor Durak, the crowds around Incirlik Air Force Base continued to shout and call for the departure of the Empire from Incirlik and from Turkey. Members of the Sepah-e Pasdaran walked amongst them, fueling the smoldering fire with gasoline. In his home, Mayor Durak watched the coverage on television, wondering why so many aircraft were not only landing but also taxing into hangers before they were offloaded. He had spies from his police force on the perimeter of the airbase equipped with some expensive optics that gave them night vision capabilities. That information was being relayed constantly to their superiors and back to Mayor Durak at irregular intervals. Little did he know what was actually happening, a true testament to the ability of the Empire to conduct even an operation of this caliber secret.

BG. Wheeler and LTC. Musso both checked their watches and saw that it was half past twenty-two hundred hours. All of the men of the 1st QRF Battalion were on the ground already and some of the vehicles were there as well, being kept inside of a hangar. Aircraft that had already been offloaded were refueled and sent back to Sledge Airbase, where they would find an adjustment period necessary now that the 1st QRF Battalion was no longer there. It would take a while to get the rest of the administrative assets of the 1st QRF Battalion over to Incirlik and LTC. Musso was eager to get settled in at Incirlik, despite the circumstances. LTC. Musso was optimistic that the situation would diffuse itself, especially when Mayor Durak was made aware of their presence. BG. Wheeler was far more cautious. He didn't anticipate that it would be that simple and, from what he saw, he expected a lot more to come. Relieved that the 1st QRF Battalion had arrived and was now offloading itself into hangars, BG. Wheeler had finally begun to relax, for the first time since the crash of the Super Hercules. The stress of the whole day had piled up and it was compounded dangerously when Cemel was captured and his link to the Sepah-e Pasdaran had been established. Still hidden underneath the airbase, Cemel Akurgal was only minutes away from being loaded onto a helicopter and flown out of Turkey to an unknown destination. This was being done for two reasons. The first was the most obvious, the situation could boil over any minute, and the presence of a prisoner on base compromised its security, especially if he got loose within the confines of the more secure areas. The second was because the facilities and personnel at Incirlik were ill equipped to deal with the sustained holding situation and requirements of breaking Cemel.

The presence of this prisoner wasn't known to LTC. Musso nor would it be, it was, at present, unnecessary. When he asked if there had been any breaches of the perimeter, Cemel was mentioned but only briefly as someone who jumped the fence and was subsequently caught. Nothing more needed to be said. As another aircraft, this one a C-5M Super Galaxy, prepared to touch down on the runway at Incirlik Air Force Base, LTC. Musso and BG. Wheeler agreed that nothing more needed to be said. The 1st QRF Battalion would unload their equipment and supplies and do so in a many that wasn't very alarming. Mayor Durak definitely didn't need to know what was happening on the airbase and tomorrow morning, when the civilian, charter planes landed to take away the base's non-essential personnel, wives, and children, Mayor Durak wouldn't be in a situation to stop anything. This was their most vulnerable time, the time when the 1st QRF Battalion wasn't entrenched yet.

[Layarteb]

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chapter ii
preparing a conflagration

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[Layarteb]

paralysis
{numbing the wounds}

July 20, 2010 - 21:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Incirlik Air Force Base, Incirlik

All morning, all afternoon, all evening, and throughout most of the night, civilian charter planes landing and took off from the runways at Incirlik Air Force Base. Women and children were being evacuated at a rapid pace. Allowed to carry one suitcase onto the plane, per person, they had packed their most important valuables and clothes. They brought documents with them proving their identity and feared, beyond any doubt, that the worst was about to befall not only the airbase but also their husbands and fathers who now defended it from the enemy. Many of them cried as their jetliners whisked away into the wild blue yonder, bound for Ireland, where they would be safe from the hostilities and chaos of Adana. They were sad for many things, not just the fact that the base was under siege. The fact that they had to leave was really the hardest thing for them to cope with, more so than the siege. The fact that they were being separated from their loved ones was the hardest of all things for to cope with, oddly enough.

In the Mediterranean, onboard a Layartebian roll-on/roll-off ship, Cemel Akurgal was in the beginning stage of his interrogation, the breaking stage. He would break, though it would take four days, a day longer than the average. Brigadier General Wheeler had spent most of the day paying close attention to the reports coming from around the city. Overnight, agents within other parts of Turkey relocated to Adana, sneaking into the city easily thanks to its turmoil and focused attention on the airbase. The Ministry of Intelligence was reaching back to its older days with the United Federation of Eurasia and seeking out assets that it once had employed successfully. Few of them remained in Adana but those that did would be immediately sought out for reinstatement. If they accepted, they would immediately be put into action with one mission, to infiltrate and observe the Sepah-e Pasdaran and find out what they were up to and what their plans were. In his home and office, Mayor Durak pondered over his next course of action. He had his police and military on alert and they knew that something was definitely happening. If they didn't, they were either completely stupid or that far out of the loop, probably living underneath a rock. In the Ministry of Defense, Layartebian officials were going over the situation left and right. They had created their own situation room in the basement of the massive complex dedicated to the situation in Adana and the growing tensions with the local government. Maps and situation reports were looked over hourly and a giant display board in the room kept a visual track of the situation in a format easily readable for everyone who looked at it. Thousands of people not only at the airbase but also in the Empire itself were attentive to the growing turmoil in Adana and the hostility that the populace was directed towards the Empire.

Such it were, the situation in Adana, around Incirlik Air Force Base. BG. Wheeler stood tall in the control tower of the base, looking out as a Boeing 777 lifted off and banked to the west, Ireland thousands of miles and a few hours in the distance. Small fires began to glow around the perimeter of the airbase as campers prepared for a late night meal or for some light. None of them was for warmth; it was too hot and too muggy to worry about warmth but light was a problem. Most of the people around the base were the impoverished individuals of society. They were the easiest individuals within society to manipulate and the most hurt and traumatized by the Empire's presence. The crash of the Super Hercules set them off and when it left most of a town in utter ruins, razed to the ground from the fires of the crash, the wheels of chaos set into motion and the hourglass began its motion. As BG. Wheeler watched the aircraft fly away into the distance, the aircraft warning lights still flashing to give any other pilots a visual reference for it, he looked at his wristwatch. By now, his wife was landing in Ireland. They had been separated before, thanks to the wars of the Empire but never under these particular parameters. He looked back at the plane flying into the distance and put his hand on the right shoulder of the soldier seated in front of him. "It's going to be fine, we've got it under control." He said, vaguely reassuringly. The soldier in front of him watched the plane fly away as well, his wife and two daughters on it. "You'll see them soon," he said as he turned away and exited the tower. A car at the bottom of the tower was waiting for him, waiting to take him to the marshalling area where the tanks and armored vehicles of the 1st QRF were. They would be coming out, under the cover of darkness, and setting up blocking positions around the base. The last plane was scheduled for takeoff soon and with it, the last of the civilian populace on the base. Mayor Durak's spies would undoubtedly see the vehicles moving out and immediately alert their superiors, who would turn the information over to Mayor Durak, and send him, likely, into a complete tirade. He would finally know though, why those cargo and transport aircraft had landed and moved into the hangar before taking off again which had been on his mind ever since.

BG. Wheeler was hiding his own, momentary sense of fear. He had felt more than confident when the 1st QRF arrived but now, as the reality began to set in further and all of the civilians were gone, he knew that his confidence was, seemingly, false. He tried his best to hide it but, inside, even he wanted to sit down and cry for a good hour or more. His driver was sitting in the vehicle, waiting for him to come down, thinking more of the same thing. BG. Wheeler had been right when he first proposed the idea to have the civilians evacuated. He knew that, for morale, it would be a sinkhole. Having a soldier have his family forcibly removed from him was about as horrible as acting as a police force in one's own city. Every soldier was given about five minutes to say good-bye to their family and not even one of them took under ten. Of course, none of the MPs overseeing the ordeal had any desire to step in and thus, delays were had but they were necessary delays. He exited the tower with all of this on his mind, hopped into the passenger seat of the vehicle, and held on as it sped off, towards the hangars on the opposite side of the base. "Sir, if you don't mind me asking?" His driver broke the silence moments after he got into the car, long before they ever got near the hangars.

"What's on your mind soldier, speak freely." BG. Wheeler wasn't in the mood for any sort of hesitation. He had just seen the worst order he had to give in his entire career play out and now he wanted to hear things truthfully.

"Sir. The men are supportive of you. We believe in the Empire and of our mission here. We know the reason you sent our families away. What are we going to do next?"

"Next?" BG. Wheeler turned and looked at him, "If I had an answer I'd give it to you soldier. Right now we just sit and wait until Mayor Durak comes to his senses and this whole thing blows over or until he does something stupid and we send in the QRF."

"I think I'd opt for the first."

"As would I." He turned and looked out at the starry night. "As would I." They were in front of the hangars moments later.

On the opposite side of base, MPs were reviewing the passenger manifests, checking off names, ensuring that everyone got away. They also patrolled the houses along the area, looking for potential fence jumpers and, of course, going into homes where lights were left on and turning them off, just to make sure that the light didn't give anything away. Tactically speaking, the best condition for the base was total lights out, giving night vision goggles, used by the soldiers, a true advantage. Of course, it was known that their enemy possessed such devices themselves but they didn't have the equipment that the Layartebians had.

Mayor Durak had, at his disposal, a rather sizeable force, for such a small area. His whole province had a little over two million people in it and, because of them, he had around thirty-five thousand soldiers and five thousand police officers throughout the entire swath of land, a little over fifty-four hundred square miles. With full control over the entire province, just by controlling the government in Adana, he could give them whatever orders he so desired. He had a tiny navy, consisting of just a few Boghammers, nothing special. The air force was underneath the army and they operated helicopters only, all transport helicopters. Some of them could be loaded with air-to-ground ordinance to make them into attack helicopters or gunships but their primary role was utility. They were mainly old Hueys and a few early model Black Hawks. His army was really the heart of his capabilities. That was where the overwhelmingly large majority of his forces were situated. They even had armored vehicles, light and medium tanks, and all the trucks they needed to assist them in their endeavors. The police force even had a few armored trucks and vehicles to help them, mainly with riots. All of that equipment could be brought to bear against the airbase at Incirlik if Mayor Durak decided to go off the deep end and commit suicide. Soon enough, he would be under constant surveillance by the Ministry of Intelligence, whether by loyal assets or skilled agents. It would take another day or two, maybe more or maybe less, but he would eventually be under constant watch, his every movement given to the Ministry of Intelligence, in real time. It wasn't explicitly brought out but there was a plan on the table to assassinate him in favor of leadership perceived to be much more moderate and tolerant of the Empire's airbase. This leader would also be extremely receptive to going after the Sepah-e Pasdaran. Now that their existence had been resurrected, out of the ashes of defeat and slaughter, the entire policy of the Empire in the region had shifted and changed massively.

Whether or not Mayor Durak knew about their resurgence was a big unknown to the Ministry of Intelligence. Until now, they weren't even a thought. Now that they were back though, questions had to be raised and they were being raised constantly and in volumes. Did Mayor Durak know of them? Was he supporting them? Were they supporting him? Was he arming them? Were they given free range? Did he have any clue what their capabilities were? All of these questions, hundreds upon hundreds of them, were being posed and posed again as the agents and analysts in the Ministry of Intelligence tossed the situation in Adana around in their minds. Like the Ministry of Defense, they had designated an entire conference room to the crisis and were using it all day and night long. Analysts and agents, directors, and section chiefs went into an out of it constantly. Of course, they were all authorized and they needed to be just to get past the door. All day and night long, they walked up to the doors, on either side, swiped their access card, submitted a finger for print analysis, and posed for a momentary retinal scan. Seconds later, the door would open and allow them into the room. With over a dozen people inside, even at this late out, the conference room showed absolutely no signs of resting. So long as the crisis in Adana continued, they would be in there, brooding over everything that was presented to them.

[Layarteb]

July 21, 2010 - 03:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Mayor Durak's Estate, Adana Province

When Mayor Durak's cellular phone rang, it caused him to shoot straight out of his bed. He did this so rapidly and so forcefully that he nearly knocked his wife out of bed. Her reaction was just as startling but after a few seconds, as it became evident what had happened, she returned to sleep while Mayor Durak, on the other hand, stepped out of the bedroom and into the hallway. "Hello," he answered, his voice groggy, his eyes still adjusting to the light. On the other end was the general of his military and it was a voice that he didn't expect to hear at three in the morning.

"Mister Mayor, I apologize for waking you," the general began. "We have a major development at Incirlik Airbase."

"What is that general?" Mayor Durak was not yet awake and he didn't anticipate what was about to come next. "It's three in the morning," he peaked at the time on his phone before putting it back to his ear.

"Yes Mayor, I understand. We have just visually spotted and identified armor and ground troops inside of the airbase. Tanks, IFVs, APCs, trucks." Silence was all that Mayor Durak could muster and it caused the general to repeat what he said, out of fear that the reception was cut off or garbled.

"I heard you the first time general. Ready your men. Keep watch on them, the moment they move past the gates we will strike back at them. I need to assemble my staff first and lodge a formal protest. I doubt it will change anything general. Do not provoke them though, the last thing we need is for them to jump the gun at all. We need to plan our moves general. Understood?"

"Yes. I understand clearly Mister Mayor." The phone call ended and Mayor Durak returned to his bedroom, the lights still off, his wife back asleep. He returned to the covers and rested his head on the pillow, wishing for just a few more hours of good sleep so that he could think lucidly and rationally when the sun rose and his meetings began. This would be his first order of business for the day but it could wait until morning, perhaps a strange outlook considering but he had not detected anything in the general's voice that suggested that the Layartebian tanks were ready to roll out of the front gate and plow through Adana. However, sleep wasn't going to befall Mayor Durak, especially as his mind raced with anxious thoughts about what the Empire was up to on the airbase. He laid there for an hour, trying desperately, in vain, to fall back asleep. Then, it was the pacing stage, which he did, for the sake of his wife, out of the bedroom. He roamed back and forth, first down the hallway, then through his kitchen, then through the study, then through the sitting room, then back through the kitchen, then back through the hallway, and then the sun began to rise. He was already exhausted and the growth of stubble on his face and neck had seemingly tripled since he had laid down for bed the first time. He decided on a shower and a shave before he would make any further phone calls. His convoy would be arriving soon to take him to his office in the capital city, not a very long drive and he didn't like to make them wait, especially not if someone was watching him. His paranoia in that regard was steadily increasing, now rapidly heightened because of the presence of the Layartebian ground forces in his "country," so to speak.

When his doorbell rang, signifying that the convoy had arrived, he was ready, just putting on his tie. His wife, by then awake, promptly answered it, which normally was the duty of their maid or butler, whomever, but neither of them were scheduled to work that particular morning. She invited the two bodyguards in, knowing both of them very well. When they weren't protecting her husband, they were often protecting her, alternating with other bodyguards who Mayor Durak trusted heavily. "Good morning ma'am," they said as they entered, refusing an offer of coffee a few seconds later. Patiently, they waited for Mayor Durak but they didn't wait for long. He barely said goodbye as he strode out the door, the cell phone back to his ear, immediately calling a meeting. An update from the general left the situation unchanged except for the fact that they were dug in all around the base, though within its perimeter and not outside at all. In the back of his armored, state car, a black, Mercedes-Benz, S-class, W221, he made phone call after phone call as the vehicle weaved through traffic on its way to central Adana. Mayor Durak's residence was a fifty-acre estate situated along the coast of the Adana province. It was all private land and his mansion was one of the largest in the province. For a good portion of the trip, his car traveled along a relatively local road, kicking up dust and dirt as it blazed through at a hundred-something kilometers per hour. The three-vehicle convoy, all using identical cars, contained a lead car, loaded with bodyguards, the Mayor's car, and then a trail car, also loaded with bodyguards. Generally, Mayor Durak had a passenger, often an aide, or an advisor but on this particular morning, he was alone. As his three-vehicle convoy barreled down the road, to the main highway running south from Adana to the coast, a live-video feed was being broadcast back to the Ministry of Intelligence.

The MQ-9A Reaper had taken off from Mülhausen Air Force Base in eastern France hours earlier and settled in above the Mayor's residence not long before two in the morning. When the cell phone call beamed down to Mayor Durak's cell phone, it was intercepted by the Reaper overhead. The entire conversation had been heard, recorded, and subsequently translated in the bowels of the Ministry of Intelligence, thousands of miles away, in Layarteb City. It had been orbiting since, flying around the area, picking up intelligence, getting information where it needed. Now, the Reaper, which flew unarmed, was tracking the convoy, watching it move down the roads, recording its route. It would land at Incirlik afterwards, its mission over, the information it gathered invaluable. If they wanted to strike at the Mayor and decapitate him from his leadership position, the Ministry of Intelligence could do so without effort. All they would have to do is arm the Reaper with a single missile and they could take out his vehicle at ranges of a few miles, without him ever knowing a mission was on its way until the moment it hit. He would never again cause havoc for the Empire, except in the afterlife. It was being piloted from the Ministry of Intelligence, thousands of miles away, by two, experienced pilots, both of whom operated a particular part of the drone. One was the pilot; he flew the aircraft while the other controlled the sensors and weapon systems of it. Capable of holding three thousand pounds of ordinance, the MQ-9A Reaper was a workhorse, used frequently by the Imperial Layartebian Air Force, through the Ministry of Intelligence, to conduct special operations missions, especially over hostile territory.

Unaware of its presence, the drivers turned onto the main highway and continued towards the city limits, increasing their speed past one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour, weaving in and out of early morning traffic. There wasn't much traffic on the roads to even worry about, that was for sure, but there was enough that they could have gotten into a terrible accident after just a moment of inattention. By the time he arrived at his office, everyone he called was there waiting for him, including the general of his military, the chief of police, and all of his other deputies, as they were called. It was then that the Reaper returned to Incirlik, further alarming the general and, by proxy, Mayor Durak.

[Layarteb]

July 21, 2010 - 15:00 hrs [UTC+2]
Mayor Durak's Office, Adana

General Ahmet Dadian entered Mayor Durak's office, less than an hour and a half after the MQ-9A Reaper touched down at Incirlik Air Force Base, carrying a thick, manila folder that had just been compiled for him by his senior staffers. What was inside was not going to make Mayor Durak feel any easier about the situation nor was it going to have a necessarily good outcome for the Empire. "General. What is it that you have there?" He asked, offering a seat in front of his desk by simply motioning it without actually looking up from his desk. He was intently reading the conclusion of a report on Adana's hospital capabilities. Overall, most of the hospitals were doing all right but many were failing due to budgetary reasons or simply a lack of experienced doctors. Those were mainly in the more rural regions of the state of Adana.

"Mister Mayor, I have some things you should see. Mayor," he handed the folder over to Mayor Durak who looked up from his desk, reached out for the folder, and took it, opening it up immediately. "These are a collection of photographs taken from our personnel on the ground around Incirlik Air Force Base. They show a build-up of forces, the evacuation of all non-military personnel, and the most recent event, today's landing of the unmanned, aerial drone, the MQ-9 Reaper. We believe it is the 'A' model and not any new model. Because it does not have any serial numbers that we can visibly see, we believe that it is operated by the Layartebian Ministry of Intelligence.

"The Reaper, sir, is a very capable and deadly drone. It can fly at high-altitude for a very long time and it can carry weaponry capable of destroying many targets." The general concluded and let Mayor Durak browse through the photographs, which he speedily did. "This constitutes a very grave situation Mayor. We believe that the Layartebians are gearing up for war against us and that, at present, their capacity to do this is extremely high. We cannot completely stop them, if they were to try."

"Well that is serious. Very serious. Tell me about this drone. What kind of capabilities does it have?"

"Sir. A lot is classified but we believe that it can intercept phone calls, eavesdrop on radio and microwave communications. It obviously can photograph and videotape many things. The weapons it can carry include laser-guided bombs and anti-tank missiles. Because it can fly so high, we do not have any self-defense systems with which to shoot it down when it's on a mission. As you are aware, the only surface-to-air systems we possess are a handful of rapid-firing, crew-operated guns and man-portable, air defense systems that engage at low altitude only. We can only engage the aircraft of the Empire as they take off and land from Incirlik and that is it. Once they fly above ten thousand feet, our likelihood of shooting them down remains low and, above fifteen thousand feet, we have zero chance."

"This drone, general, is of major concern. Can we track it?" Mayor Durak's mind was thinking about what capabilities it could have and his mind was thumbing through countless scenarios.

"Yes we can. It is not a very stealthy aircraft. We do have a radar network using mobile, small, deployable radars that can track all but the stealthiest aircraft used by the Empire and those are only ever used at night, limiting their capabilities." The general sounded confident in his responses to the Mayor but he was still having a hard time conveying just how worrisome he was at what capabilities the Empire had in Adana. They could dismantle the entire government and military in a matter of hours if they wanted and nothing could really stop them.

"Why would they deploy this specific drone here? I thought they operated drones from this airbase before. What makes this one any different?"

"Well mister Mayor, the Reaper carries more armament, has a longer endurance, and is harder to shoot down. Their Predators operate at a much lower altitude and can be tracked much more easily."

"Could this drone be used to attack anything they wanted?"

"No. Only small targets and normally in assistance with ground forces. You wouldn't use this drone against an airbase but you could use it against a structure in the middle of an urban conflict or, if they wanted, to attack a vehicle."

"A vehicle?" Mayor Durak's mind raced to one possibility and that was his assassination at the hands of the Layartebians.

"As in my vehicle?"

"Yes sir. If they wanted. The missiles and bombs this aircraft can carry cannot be stopped by any of our means. Your motorcade could be a target for them; however, such would constitute a grave and gross act of violence for which they would never recover. If they assassinated you, they would be facing international pressure, likely from their own allies as well." Whether or not General Dadian believed that was the case was neither here nor there, that was what his advisors were saying and that was what he would go with, even if he didn't completely believe it. He suspected that Mayor Durak didn't either.

"General. This is cautious ground we tread. It is obvious that this is not all being down out of coincidence. Something is definitely happening and we must be prepared for it. Are our forces at full alert?"

"They are sir."

"And are they in defensible positions?"

"We're working on those presently but the pace is slow as we do not want to attract much attention. Constant surveillance of the air base reveals that there are no military personnel lurking around our city. We believe that there are intelligence agents though. We do not know how many there are or where they are. Our police continue to look for them." By proxy, General Dadian was also in charge of the police forces of Adana but he wasn't as dedicated to them as he was to the military. If it were up to him, the police forces of Adana would be part of his military on a formal level, rather than where they were now, which was separate.

"Alright I will include this in my decisions on where we proceed further. Please inform me of any changes or new arrivals."

"Absolutely sir." General Dadian stood, saluted, and left the office, heading for his own command headquarters on the opposite side of the city. His own motorcade would take him there and he too wondered if he was being targeted for assassination. It was entirely feasible that the Layartebians would target Mayor Durak for assassination and taking him out in his convoy would be one of the easiest ways. Decisions were being made and one of them was concerning his convoy and the present of the Reaper. That decision was hinting on keeping the Mayor indoors and his true location hidden when the Reaper was aloft. Surveillance of the air force base would have to remain constant for that to be an effective policy.

The news that General Dadian brought with him wasn't exactly surprising. However, it forced Mayor Durak's hand significantly. He was weighing many options on how to proceed now with the Layartebians continually upping the ante. Among those options though was something that was very drastic and could very well change the face of the entire crisis. That option would see him unilaterally declaring the state of Adana an independent, sovereign country. There was a bit of a gentleman's agreement between the mayors of each province and state within what once was Eurasian Turkey that none would go out and declare independence, that they would remain a loose union. However, this type of situation was much different from anything any of them had imagined and Mayor Durak felt that he could convince the other mayors and governors that this was what needed to be done. In doing so, he would proclaim the Democratic Republic of Adana and his first order of business would be to evict the Layartebians from Incirlik. If they didn't comply, they could take military action. That was considered the most severe and, if he didn't have the blessing of the Council of Turkish Leaders, which was all of the mayors and governors of the Turkish state, he would face conflict from them just as much as he faced it from the Empire. He also needed to up his weaponry and he wouldn't be able to do that without help from abroad, from a major power and many of them out there were at odds with the Empire, just as he was. The most glaring were the Bavinese and the Hi No Motons but they were too far away. This left just the Soviets, who were loathed by the Empire and that was no secret. He knew that his military personnel wanted to increase their weapon's capabilities and he knew that they would take anything they could get their hands on, so long as it was new and did damage. In reality, the Soviets were his only, logical choice. They could export weapons to him fast and he hoped, for cheap. He didn't have much in terms of funds to work with considering how the budget and foreign aid systems were working. He could dip into his personal fortune but that was something he had no desire to do. He knew what his military personnel wanted and he knew that they would be angry if he wasn't able to get as much as he could from the Soviets because the budget simply didn't have the funds. What they wanted included tanks, armored vehicles, helicopters, surface-to-air systems, and all the small arms they could store.

By the end of the day, as the sun went down and as Mayor Durak climbed back into his car for the ride back to his coastal estate, he knew that he couldn't wait any longer, that he would have to seek a foreign backer. The generals had requested it from him again during their late-day meeting concerning the state of the military and their present capabilities, which remained under par. On the way home, he made the final decision and he approved of a foreign source of weapons and backing, so long as they were discreet and clandestine about it and could provide him with what he needed. Thus, he set out to contact the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics but, unaware of whom to address his appeal, he wound up composing a heartfelt communiqué to the head of state, Comrade Premier Alexey Menshevik. In it, he asked for support against the menacing imperialism of the Empire. He wanted the USSR's help in expelling them from Incirlik Air Force Base, which would serve their end slightly. All of the reconnaissance flights against the USSR took off from Incirlik Air Force Base. He requested a face-to-face meeting with a representative from the country to discuss the possibilities of arms sales. He also expressed his strong desire for discretion in the matter. How they would respond would tell him how he was going to proceed.

[Layarteb]

OOC: Originally posted by Urbov.

July 22, 2010
Tula, Soviet Union

The cry for help from the nearby Turkish “state” was heard by the Soviet Union long before any communiqué was received. The letter itself was a sign of just how badly Mayor Durak needed aid. His tiny nation/province was thinking of resisting the Empire, the foolish course of action was almost a joke to the Soviets who themselves would think twice about war with Layarteb. However the KGB and Politburo agreed that the situation could benefit the Soviet Union.

If the Empire was stuck fighting a long draw out battle in Turkey their eyes would not be drawn to other activities planned by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This alone was enough to mobilize the KGB assets in Georgia to move into Turkey. Problem was the only assets the KGB had that were suitable for this mission were either Russian or Afghan. The search for a Turkish Operative was on.

The Turks wanted arms and they would receive more than they could ask for. Small arms, helicopters, tanks, APCs, IFVs, MIG-17s, Scuds, even Portable Anti Air Systems were readied but first contact had to be made. The Empire would surely look for foreigners amongst the local population so an ethnic Turk had to be located, and quickly.

Data Analyst Agah Tabak who worked in a small KGB office in Tula suddenly became a very critical asset to the KGB and to his new homeland. Problem was he had zero field training, over the next three days he would have to be rapidly prepared.


July 24, 2010
Rostov on Don, Soviet Union

Agah had crammed hours and hours worth of information into his head in the space of several days. The necessary protocols regarding communication in the field, weapon’s training, local dialect training, historical study, and a million other topics all had been pumped into him by a whole staff of fellow KGB personnel.

Now he just sat and waited for his flight which would bring him to the closest friendly position, Armenia. He would land in a Soviet Airbase, be issued a civilian car “requisitioned” from a Turkish citizen and receive the necessary papers to pass himself off as a Turkish traveler. He would also receive a suitcase full of the various papers he would present to the Mayor which would both show the various Soviet weapons that could be his as well as exactly how the USSR would kill off the family that didn’t die by Layartebian hands if he revealed from where he received his weapons.

Finally the small plane arrived and he climbed aboard. Sitting in an uncomfortable seat he slowly closed his eyes and decided to catch some much needed sleep. Sleep would not come however as the thought of possible capture and torture flashed across his mind’s eye. The various tortures he had learned about over the last few days played out in his head and as the plane landed Agah emerged a much more worried individual.

He arrived in Yerevan and had several hours before he was scheduled to report for his final briefings. Deciding to enjoy the local fare he stopped in a nearby restaurant and enjoyed a bottle of wine that was a local product. Thoughts of his coming mission whirling about inside his already packed cranium and he very nearly found himself speaking aloud. The timer on his small cellular phone went off just as he finished his first glass and Agah wearily rose, there would be no rest for the wicked.

He arrived at the KGB headquarters in Armenia. A cold looking building that was almost perfectly square it has small windows that could double as firing slits in a pinch. The heavy doors were lined with lead as were the walls to defeat radiation as well as satellite imaging or at least that was the idea. Rough looking guards stood behind the checkpoints leading up to the building, their fingers hovering near the triggers of their AK-101 rifles.

It all was both exciting yet also worrying to Agah as he realized that if he made a wrong move despite his official papers he could be shot at any time. Gulping he realized that it was always like that in the KGB, and that when he was in the field he could be a second from death and not even know. He checked in and quickly walked into the first of his many briefings that day and resigned to bury his head in the information presented to try and calm his nerves.

After another two hours of briefings he received the car and began the trip to Turkey, with any luck he’d arrive in Adana before morning on the twenty fifth. From there he would be both on his own but in a foreign land mere miles away from the enemy, not a reassuring situation for a nervous Data Analyst who was playing spy.

[Layarteb]

July 22, 2010 - 18:30 hrs [UTC+2]
Mayor Durak's Office, Adana

Mayor Durak looked happily across his desk. The Soviets had replied favorably and were going to be aiding him, militarily, with equipment. They would also be sending a "specialist" and that was golden news for him. Finally, he had a backer and a means to defend the Empire. They would send armored vehicles, which would replace the dilapidated ones his military and police used. They would send comprehensive, surface-to-air missile systems, which would be more than enough at fending off the strike aircraft from Incirlik and from the sea. They would send new, unused, small arms, small arms that wouldn't jam when they fired them in dirty conditions. The police and military would have capabilities beyond anything they've had yet and that was music to his ears. He would, he decided, go ahead with independence for Adana. He would declare the Democratic Republic of Adana and himself as the first President of the country. However, before he could go further, before his excitement could get the best of him, he needed to consult with the rest of the provinces of Turkey. He needed to consult with Ankara and couldn't wait. The Soviet communiqué hadn't been intercepted by the Empire. Simply put, the Empire wasn't closely monitoring Mayor Durak around the clock in such a way that it could intercept everything. The capabilities certainly existed but they simply weren't being employed yet. Time might have not been on his side but the element of surprise certainly was. He reached over to his phone and picked up the receiver, putting it to his ear. There were three clicks, successively, with little time in between them, and then the dial tone. He lifted his finger from a lighted button and prepared to dial on the secure line.

Digit after digit, the phone clicked once more until finally, the dial tone went to a ringing. It rang once, twice, three times before it connected on the other end, two hundred and forty-three miles away, in Ankara. The conversation was fast paced, answers to questions posed quickly and seemingly by memorization but nevertheless, they were the right answers. At the end, Mayor Durak convinced the man at the other end of the line to hold a meeting of the provinces. He need it right away and stressed the point. Originally, he had been given a date a week into the future but he needed something sooner, immediate. He would get his meeting, in two days, in the afternoon of July 24. There, the provincial governors of the eighty-one provinces of Turkey would meet. Mayor Durak would represent Adana. After all, he was the acting governor of the province, even if he preferred to title "Mayor." The Council of Turkish Leaders included all eighty-one, provincial governors and they met, at minimum, once every six months, to discuss how things were proceeding. Turkey existed, thus, as a loose confederation rather than an organized state. Within each province, the governor was, in effect, king. He controlled the military, the police, the economy, the utilities, and so on and so forth. The only powers he didn't have were to secede from the confederation. That was, really, the only right they did not have, and, until now, none of the governors had sought this particular right, instead opting to remain as such, rather than seek anything further. This would be a historical moment for the Council of Turkish Leaders.

The only thing left for Mayor Durak to do was make his travel arrangements and scribe the notes of his case. He would charter the whole first class cabin of a regional airliner and fly, in the morning, from Adana to Ankara, aboard a Fokker 50. The flight would be short, less than two hundred and sixty-five miles in total, making the journey in less than an hour. It would be enough time to take off, briefly climb to about twenty thousand feet, and then descend back to the ground, landing in Ankara. The aircraft would continue on to its final destination in Istanbul. The passengers would get off and the Fokker 50 would refuel and return to Adana, along the same route. At the end of the day, Mayor Durak would take a return flight, he hoped, with the blessing of the council to declare Adana independent and, eventually, to expel the Empire, once and for all. There would be a lot of waiting and, throughout the night, Mayor Durak wouldn't get a wink of sleep. His mind was too preoccupied.

[Layarteb]

July 24, 2010 - 10:00 [UTC+2]
Adana, Turkey

The still, warm air over Adana greeted Mayor Durak as he stepped out of his Mercedes. It had pulled up only about thirty meters from the Fokker 50, which sat quietly on the tarmac. Everyone had boarded the aircraft already and that just left Mayor Durak to board, who stepped out of his car with a sense of excitement that he managed to curtail just moments before his foot touched the tarmac. He had beat his driver to opening his door, which caused some worry for his driver but who was immediately dismissed by Mayor Durak, who was already striding towards the aircraft's open, cabin door. With a smile, he greeted the stewardess, an extremely attractive, young Turkish woman, likely from Adana based on her dialect and accent. He gave her a look up and down, from her heels, up her long, naked legs, and to her nearly form-fitting uniform. The top of her blouse was unbuttoned enough to show a little cleavage and leave anyone looking to wonder about the rest. She smiled brightly back at him, knowing that he was a man of wealth, power, and fame. She would make it a special note to tend to him personally during his flight and she didn't care what her fellow coworkers would say, he was, after all, the man in charge of Adana. With the cabin door shut, the two stewardesses quickly tended to the cabin, making sure everyone was seated with his or her belts fastened. They did their safety spiel and then the plane was off, its passengers momentarily pinned back in their seats as the aircraft barreled down the runway, rapidly increasing in speed. Inside the cabin, the noise of the propeller engines roared loud enough to make even side-by-side conversations unmanageable. When the plane finally left the ground and entered the sky, the sudden application of positive G-forces pushed the passengers down in their seat, again just for a short amount of time as the pilots came to their designated, climb angle. By then, the landing gear was already retracted, the flaps raised back to neutral, and the engines were no longer at maximum thrust, easing some of the noise inside but side-by-side conversations would still be a bit difficult for a short while.

Once they leveled off at twenty thousand feet, the first-class cabin had its curtain drawn and Mayor Durak conducted some last minute business with his present aides, who included his chief of police. The beautiful stewardess tended to all of them by herself, pushing her colleague out of the first class cabin so that she could work her feminine wiles. By the time the plane landed in Ankara, she was on a first name basis with Mayor Durak and he had her phone number securely inside of his jacket pocket. He would definitely be taking advantage of her flirtatious behavior and add her to his ever-growing list of moment mistresses, as he liked to call them. They were good, just for the moment and then rarely ever again. He was a playboy and his wife knew it, to some regard but she didn't know the full details. All of that was kept from her and, to some point, she tolerated it, knowing that, no matter what, she was his wife and there was no chance of divorce. She wasn't physically or verbally abused, she was never scrutinized, and she had all of the freedom she so desired. Furthermore, if something should happen to him, all of his assets, everything that he owned would go right to her. There was no room for any of his mistresses, moment or not.

From the airport in Ankara, it was sixteen kilometers to the Ankara Provincial Building, the headquarters of the Council of Turkish Leaders as well as the administrative center of the Ankara province. It was a large, seven-story, square building with an open courtyard in the middle. Behind it was another building, a rectangular one, which was like a hotel but only for foreign dignitaries and government leaders. If it were to have a star rating, it would have earned six stars. The service was impeccable and everything was confidential. Many of the government's leaders took their mistresses to that particular hotel. If the Fokker 50 had stayed in Ankara, Mayor Durak would have brought the stewardess there but, then again, he didn't have any time either. He was in a rush to get to the provincial building and meet up with his fellow, respective, provincial leaders before the start of the meeting. He needed all of the support he could get and he wanted to make sure that he walked away victoriously. He wanted to return to Adana with a signed document authorizing him to declare his own sovereignty and independence. Of course, he only wanted the authority to push out the Layartebians and he knew that the Council of Turkish Leaders had neither that authority nor the will to fabricate it. If Mayor Durak didn't do it himself, it simply wouldn't get done and he would be left to deal with the Layartebians all by himself. Thus, he spent his time before the scheduled meeting cajoling his counterparts, making them aware of what was at stake and how the Empire was reacting. Nobody was at all passive when he mentioned that the Empire had deployed ground forces to the base. Everyone saw it as a threat to the sovereignty of Turkey in general and they all believed, more than ever, that the Empire had purposely created the situations in Turkey that it had, just to create a pretense for invasion. Little did they know that the Empire was more than removed from the equation. This was, in effect, their own doing and while they didn't yet know about the Sepah-e Pasdaran making a comeback, they likely wouldn't have been too upset, seeing them as an important ally to stave off the Empire. Of course, the mere presence of the SP meant that the Empire couldn't simply ignore the troubles in Turkey any longer.

When he stepped onto his return flight, another Fokker 50, late that evening, he did so with a sense of excitement. The Council of Turkish Leaders had voted unanimously in his favor. He had the authority to declare Adana independent from the rest of Turkey so long as relations remained intact and he did not acquire any weapons of mass destruction. He had no intention of it either, he simply wanted the authority to demand that the Empire leave. Any further action by the Empire thereafter would undoubtedly be unprovoked and, he hoped, infuriate the world to Layartebian imperialism. With the Soviets supporting him with arms, he would be able to cause the Layartebians to bleed heavily should they act violently against his forces. The return flight was a celebration with champagne and though he didn't have the gorgeous stewardess he had on the outbound flight, he grabbed the stewardesses there anyway and made them join the party. The pilots didn't mind, they had no choice anyway. When they landed, they would have a lot to do before the declaration could be made and part of that work included solidifying the military and police into one unit and making giving them a clear mission. He knew that the people would be pleased and he would not try to change any of the culture of Adana or take away their history. He would learn from the leaders of the past and take their mistakes in stride but he was going to be butting heads with the Empire, in essence, making enemies of them. That was a gigantic mistake in and of itself, one that many leaders had made in the past. Few of them remained in power or alive anymore. Whether or not he would join the ranks of those deposed remained up to fate but he had a good feeling that fat was definitely on his side, especially now that the Soviets were supporting him. Little did Mayor Durak know that his entire trip had been watched carefully by the Empire. They surveillance on him was now around-the-clock.

[Layarteb]

OOC: Originally posted by Urbov.

July 24, 2010
Adana, Turkey

Agah slowly pulled into a parking garage several miles from the Incirlik Airbase. Slowly he parked his car and then slowly closed his eyes, the simple act delivering a satisfying amount of pleasure to the very tired operative. He breathed, slowly, deliberately relaxing his muscles starting in his legs. It had been a long day of travel and as he had neared the Layartebian Base he had gotten more and more paranoid. As he slipped into a doze his phone seemed to explode.

Ringing loudly and very obnoxiously he fumbled for it with sleep addled fingers. Raising it to his ear he struggled to comprehend the rapid surge of information. A deep voice, obviously Russian was on the other end and was reading off a list, he didn’t know what it was until the man finished with,

“Brother, I left the shopping list in your bag. Please deliver it to uncle Stephan so he knows what we will be getting him from the Motherland. “

The man hung up and for a second Agah had not the faintest clue what that was until he realized the shopping list must be the list of arms the Soviet Union would supply. He turned and reached back into his bag, the heavy leather satchel was on the floor however and he had to hoist it into the passenger seat to find the list. It was contained in a heavy olive dossier that had a small hammer and sickle in the upper left corner. Flipping it open his mouth dropped open as he saw the scale of arms sold,

One hundred thousand AK-103 rifles
One hundred thousand Bizon submachine guns
One hundred thousand GSH-18 pistols
Ten thousand Dragunov sniper rifles
Ten thousand RPG-7s
Ten thousand RPD and RPKs
Ten thousand Mosin Nagant rifles
Ten thousand SKS rifles
One thousand Ural trucks
One thousand Vodnik and Tigr trucks
Six hundred BTR-80s
Three hundred BMP-3s
Four hundred BM-21 GRAD artillery systems
Two hundred and fifty T-72 main battle tanks
Twp SA Grizzly sites
Eight 2S6M Tunguska
Twenty Four SA-13 Gophers
Two Ka-60 Kasatka helicopters
Eight MI-24 Havocs
Four Sukhoi Su-80s
And Twelve Yak-41m Freestyles

The massive size of this arms deal was almost enough to make Agah abandon his mission. If he was caught he was certain that unimaginable evils would be inflicted upon his body. Only the thought of KGB reprisal against his family kept him on the course. Slowly he tucked the list back into his satchel and waited. He was to meet Mayor Durak on the twenty fifth and he still had several dozen miles to go. He slowly closed his eyes again, his mission could wait an hour or two.

Tula Machine Works Factory Complex Number 4

The Turkish order had been produced over the course of the last year. All the equipment that was once going to go to the forces massing in the Urals would instead go to the Turks as they waged war upon the Empire. Hundreds and hundreds of boxes containing the various man portable arms as well as ammunition for the BM-21s and armored vehicles sat in a massive warehouse. Everywhere was the hammer and sickle of the USSR, on the boxes in the manuals, even on the weapons.

While the Empire would not know form where the arms came from as soon as they were delivered as soon as any were captured it would be obvious. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics thought it was just as well, the Empire knew that the Soviet Union would resist their expansion any means possible and supplying arms was not a crime these days. Though the Soviets did not want to enrage the Layartebians when it came to the possible terrorist elements that the KGB had reported on. As such the proper paperwork was quickly drawn up to ensure that if the Terrorists used Soviet arms they would be in violation of the legal agreements Turkey would agree to.

Of course this would be nothing to the Layartebians who could very well retaliate but it was something at least for the international community’s sake. The massed shipment set out from Tula on the morning of the 24th, bound for Armenia. From there it would wait until the green light was given and then it would enter Turkey.

Already the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics saw the possible power that could be gained from dealing arms to the various factions around the globe. The profit would help the Soviet Union as well. Ironic that one of the largest motivators for a Communist State’s sale of arms was the thought of capital gain. Comrade Premier Pyotr Petrov however felt that it would be a good thing for the Revolution, a good thing for the troops in Siberia and the Urals in this late hour in reality. Money was always a good thing in a time of war.

The proliferation of arms was suddenly a sweet thing.

[Layarteb]

July 25, 2010 - 13:30 [UTC+2]
Sabanci Central Mosque, Adana

All around the Sabanci Central Mosque, tens of thousands of Adana's citizens crowded into designated areas around the thirteen acre grounds of the mosque. They had been horded there by members of the police department and told that Mayor Durak was making a bold, historical announcement that would benefit the people of Adana for centuries to come. They were given flags and instructions to cheer, clap, smile, and do whatever they could that made them appear to be joyous. This was generally how things went around Turkey. Protests were staged and rallies were never spontaneous. Television cameras from all around the world would be capturing their reactions and those reactions had to appear to be absolutely genuine and joyous. Nobody, save for the Mayor himself and a few of his closest advisors and aides knew what was going to transpire but it attracted a lot of attention, especially from the Empire, just five miles away.

Mayor Durak ascended to the podium on the steps of the great mosque to a thunderous albeit choreographed welcome. Those around the mosque cheered louder and louder as Mayor Durak stood at the podium, his wife only a few steps away, his senior staff all lined up, beaming with excitement themselves. After he was satisfied, he held up his hands and motioned for quiet. It rippled through the crowd until, eventually, it was quiet enough for him to speak. His mouth was only inches away from a trio of microphones. Large speakers, strategically placed around the grounds, would carry his voice throughout all thirteen acres with crystal-clear clarity. "Citizens of our city of Adana. Of our province Adana. Of Turkey. Of the World!

"I come before you today with an announcement of historical importance and significance. I have chosen the ornate and beautiful grounds of the Sabanci Central Mosque because it is a place of peace, tranquility, and history. Twenty-two years ago, ground was broken on this, the largest mosque in the Middle East, all in the name of unity. Now, I stand here this afternoon to bring to you, a message of unity and of everlasting peace.

"Yesterday, I spoke with the Council of Turkish Leaders concerning the situation in our state of Turkey and how it is directly affecting our province. I am pleased to announce that, as of that meeting, the province of Adana will hereby be known as the Federal Republic of Adana as I now declare, to the world, our independence." On cue, the crowds let loose a roar of cheers and began to wave their flags. News cameras captured every bit of it, sharing the view to the world, not that it was being carried by many news stations. "In the Federal Republic of Adana, democracy and freedom will reign just as it has before. Our citizenship will not change. Our culture will not change. However, our lives will change and all for the better. You, the people of the Federal Republic of Adana will prosper and be free from the chains of foreign imperialism and dominance as the first order of business shall be the following declaration.

"I call upon the Empire of Layarteb to atone for their sins. I call upon the Empire of Layarteb to answer for their injustices upon the people of Adana. I call upon the Empire of Layarteb to accept punishment for their crimes. For too long the Empire of Layarteb has occupied land in our homeland, land that sits not more than five miles away, at Incirlik Air Force Base. For too long, that occupied land has been a black hole. I call upon the Empire of Layarteb to answer for the four hundred and eighty-nine disappearances over the past four years. I call upon the Empire of Layarteb to answer for the air crash six days ago.

"The Empire of Layarteb has long scorned our culture and us, the people of Adana. Their soldiers act with complete disrespect and get away with every crime they commit. Justice supposedly delivered to these Layartebian soldiers is little more than a slap on the wrist or an informal reprimand. Never before has a Layartebian soldier had to stand trial and answer to us, the people they harm and hurt, intentionally!

"That ends today!" The roaring crowd was likely heard all the way at Incirlik Air Force Base they were so loud. At this point, it was hard to tell if they were still being goaded. Mayor Durak's words hit home to nearly each and every one of those that were present. "Today, the people of Adana will rise up against foreign oppression and indifference! Today, the Federal Republic of Adana hereby revokes all previously signed agreements with the Empire of Layarteb concerning the lease and use of Incirlik Air Force Base. All flight paths are hereby revoked and we issue an eviction notice to the Empire of Layarteb to vacate in less than thirty days!"

Thousands of miles away, inside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, everyone's jaws hit the floor and the Minister of Foreign Affairs immediately lifted his phone and dialed the number to the Fortress of Comhghall, connecting to the secretary right away. "Angela, I need to speak with the Emperor immediately, the code is FLASHRUN."

[Layarteb]

revolt
{pain resonates with the cold}

July 25, 2010 - 08:45 [UTC-5]
Fortress of Comhghall, Governors Island

It all happened, seemingly, at once. Early in the morning, Cemel Akurgal broke, cracked, and began to spill his guts. He wept like a child as he did, divulging information like an open spigot. Question after question, he gave answers. Electrodes connected to his skin showed that he was, in all likelihood, telling the truth. None of his interrogators suspected that he was capable of defeating such a machine and he wasn't. Within the first few hours, the Layartebians on board the vessel knew the exact location of two Sepah-e Pasdaran safe houses and most of their capabilities. More questions would be posed for now but, for his cracking, he was given a small reward, clean water to clean himself up, something minor but they hoped that his brain would register the reward and continue to be honest with the interrogators, the ship now beginning its exit from the Med. Not long afterwards, Mayor Durak proclaimed himself President Durak, the first President of the Federal Republic of Adana and demanded that the Empire evacuate and leave Incirlik Air Force Base for good. Protestors around the airfield cheered loudly as their small radios carried Durak's speech to them, announcing their independence.

Wildfires had been lit throughout the world by these small and seemingly insignificant actions by now President Durak. Inside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, analysts, directors, and team leaders were scrambling for conference rooms and red flags were being raised everywhere. The ministries of Defense and Intelligence were equally as hectic. Even the Ministry of the Interior, which had authority over the Imperial Layartebian Defense Forces, was chaotic within five minutes of the conclusion of President Durak's speech. He went right after the Empire, wasting no time in attacking it or the Emperor and that was simply not going to be tolerated. It was certainly no surprise; the Empire expected it but not so soon. It crept up to them rapidly for they never expected such support from the Council of Turkish Leaders. Apparently, corruption had gone very far in Turkey, or so they thought. Obviously, with the backing of the Council of Turkish Leaders and this declaration, it was likely that President Durak was going to receive foreign endorsements and foreign support, which included military hardware. The Empire didn't yet know of the recent arms deal with the Soviets; if they had, the situation would have been approached differently.

Smoke rose from the campfires around the airbase that afternoon as residents cooked celebratory meals for lunch and eventually, for dinner. It was barely breakfast time in Layarteb City but everyone that had to be awake was awake. The regular, daily meeting, previously scheduled for 11:00 hours was now bumped up to 09:30 hours, less than an hour away. The main topic of discussion would be this development in Adana. Previously crafted plans were now being summarized and printed and the Minister of Foreign Affairs was holding for the Emperor, who was watching his television screen when the intercom buzzed, echoing off the stone walls of his upper floor office. "Sir, I have the Minister of Foreign Affairs on hold, code-in is 'flashrun.'" The intercom then sat silent, its speaker looming in front of him, along with the telephone. He knew exactly what the Minister of Foreign Affairs was calling for and he knew exactly how he would respond. He had hoped that this particular call wouldn't come at this particular time but he knew that he had to play the hand he had been dealt. Staring at the phone, he reached over and lifted it off of its cradle.

"You may pass him through, thank you." His secretary pressed a few buttons and the call was connected almost instantly. In the background, encryption systems were working to keep the line free and clear of bugs and eavesdroppers. "Minister, yes, I am watching it right now. Well we expected this, did we not? That makes things easy for us. We know exactly what Durak is thinking and how he's proceeding. I don't doubt that he already has foreign support. I can't surmise to say whom but anyone who has a grudge with us: the Soviets, Bavinese, Hi No Motons. Anyone of those could be it and about a dozen other organizations, groups, and states out there. We need to act quickly, to defray this nonsensical propaganda. I will speak with the Minister of Defense and have him release all of the information we have, included the recorded phone conversation where Durak denies our plea to help. I will also give my authorization for GLASS TOOTH to begin and, when the time comes, GLASS JAW." The phone call ended shortly thereafter, with the Emperor giving his approval for some of the most aggressive operations in the region since the Caucasian War.

GLASS TOOTH was just the buildup operation to GLASS JAW, which was the real meat of it all. GLASS TOOTH immediately allowed the Minister of Foreign Affairs to release a prewritten communiqué to Adana and to the world, where the Empire denounced the obvious lies and propaganda and reaffirmed its agreements over Incirlik that could not be revoked under these particular conditions. GLASS TOOTH immediately put all forces at Incirlik on the highest alert possible and got the 14th Amphibious Assault Group out of port under the codename, Task Force Reptile. Task Force Reptile wasn't the full group but rather a smaller unit of it, carrying only a brigade of men on twelve surface ships and one submarine. They would deploy immediately as they too were in an alert status hinging upon rapid deployment. The moment that the Adana Crisis began, they had received that alert and though that was just a few days ago, by the time the authorization papers reached Cape Verde, they were ready to go. It was thirty-eight hundred nautical miles to their station in the eastern Mediterranean and that meant it would take them ten a half days or about two hundred and fifty-five hours.

GLASS JAW, on the other hand, was the actual military operation, should it be necessary. Layartebian Marines would use a combined assault, landing LCACs and amphibious vehicles along the Adanan coastline as their main assault. Helicopters would be used to ferry troops to specific choke points to stop reinforcements from Adana from getting to the landing points. Additionally, two teams of Special Forces from the 9th Special Operations Group, "Ghost Recon," would be sent to President Durak's estate with the intention of capturing him and his family alive. They would be brought to the battle group for holding until the hostilities concluded. The 1st Quick Reaction Force would move out of Incirlik Air Force Base and secure the city of Adana, striking key, positions of the military and the police. They would also go after the Sepah-e Pasdaran. Marines would be the main fighting force in the city once they arrived, which would be less than an hour after the landings began. Initially, air support would have to come from Task Force Reptile until the airbase could be secured, and then air support could come from the airbase. Another priority was securing the perimeter and stopping anyone with anti-aircraft weaponry.

With those two operations now gaining momentum, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs went to work, quickly releasing the previously prepared communiqué to the world. It had been edited to cover the specific situation, which was necessary since it was a general communiqué prepared ahead of time, like many others. It denounced the blatant lies and propaganda issued by President Durak. It never congratulated him on the event and it reaffirmed the Empire's lease on the land at Incirlik, which wasn't set to expire for decades upon decades upon decades. It stressed the Empire's position of non-interference with Turkish matters and proclaimed the corruption within President Durak's administration as hypocritical, suggesting that any disappearance of Adanan citizens probably was a result of President Durak's secret police. It urged the citizens of the newly formed Federal Republic of Adana to review the history that the Empire had with the region and to remember the countless acts of benevolence that the Empire had bestowed upon them. It called for them to see reason and logic and to work against the corruption and "strong-arm politics" of President Durak, who wanted total power throughout Turkey, no matter how much blood he spilled along the way.

Everything was set now for a confrontation of immense proportions. Millions of lives were at stake and it seemed, above all else, that President Durak wasn't going to back down and neither would the Emperor. Incirlik was crucial to the security of the Empire and to the power projection of the Imperial Layartebian Military. There would be no compromises made and no eviction notices respected. President Durak had two choices to make. He could wage armed conflict against the Empire over a few square kilometers of land, which he had no right to or he could admit fault and exist.

[Layarteb]

July 27, 2010 - 21:50 [UTC+2]
Adana Sakirpasa Airport, Adana

The southern tarmac at Adana Sakirpasa Airport was normally occupied by small, single-engine propeller planes, normally crop dusters and light, general aviation aircraft. The northern end of the tarmac was for regional commuters and light jets. However, now the southern end was home to three, twin-engine, Beechcraft 350i Super King Air, all registered to a civilian organization named Solar Enterprises. Solar Enterprises was a small company with a decent profit set out to provide better protection and early warning for solar flares. They operated two satellites in orbit around the Earth to monitor the sun, which meant that they could watch it twenty-four hours a day. Their aircraft were operated at thirty thousand feet and relayed communications between the satellites and ground stations. It just so happened that this particular month, solar activity and solar monitoring required them to be in southern Turkey. President Durak had been more than happy to give them use of the airport, for a handsome fee, of course. He warned them of the growing situation and they suggested that the Empire was merely saber rattling. They were a Layartebian-based company with their headquarters in southern Florida. However, they weren't part of the Layartebian military and the CEO had given his personal assurances to President Durak that he did not share in the opinion of his government. With money exchanged, the three aircraft landed late on the evening of July 25.

It was with their arrival that the Empire truly found out what President Durak had in his inventory. His buildup was now unmistakable and around-the-clock surveillance of him, the city of Adana, and the newly formed Federal Republic of Adana as a whole by satellites and UAVs revealed most of his newly gained capabilities. There was no way to find out where they came from or when they came but the presence of advanced, armored vehicles, capable surface-to-air systems, and modern helicopters meant that President Durak suddenly had a technologically capable military and police force. This changed the game completely, which was why the tasking order for Operation GLASS TOOTH was changed from a single brigade of Marines to the entire division. These new developments made the Solar Enterprises aircraft that much more important.

Solar Enterprises was a legitimate company, they were privately owned, they paid taxes, they reported profits, they did all of the things that any regular, normal company would do. However, in reality, they were just a shell company for the Ministry of Defense and the Beechcraft Super King Airs they operated were actually MC-12R Guardrail X aircraft in service with the Imperial Layartebian Air Force. The Guardrail X was a major improvement over all previous Guardrail models. Like those previous models, the role of the Guardrail X was intelligence gathering, primarily, signals intelligence. However, the Guardrail X added a few features over the previous variants. Signals intelligence remained its primary mode of function. It had various antennae all over the aircraft's hull, each of which was retractable and stowed inside of the fuselage of the aircraft. Dead center, atop the fuselage was a small dome, which was explained as a communications dome for Solar Enterprises' satellites. This was partially true. The dome was part of the aircraft's communication systems and it did communicate with satellites, Solar Enterprises' along with many others. Underneath the belly of the aircraft, retractable doors hid the lenses to four high-resolution cameras, two still and two video. They were top-of-the-line and could zoom in, from thirty thousand feet, on the watch of a human being walking at street level. They could also read the time if they wanted. Two of them were infrared. Mounted in the tail was a highly capable but small, synthetic aperture radar that they used for two purposes. The first was the listed reason, which was weather observation during solar flares while the second was the detailed mapping of targets below the aircraft. It worked in conjunction with both the GPS unit of the aircraft and its variety of imaging devices.

The Guardrail X and Icarus spy satellite system worked hand-in-hand. Icarus-A, B, or D satellites operated hundreds and thousands of miles overhead while the Guardrail X flew an orbit pattern around the target at thirty thousand feet. Both the Icarus satellite net and the Guardrail X were linked together. Guardrail X operators could datalink to any satellite in view and they could utilize their powerful sensors to amplify their own capabilities. Furthermore, the Guardrail X could use the satellites to transmit directly to the Ministry of Intelligence, wherever they were in the world. This meant that their feeds went over encrypted, secure channels that were virtually uncrackable in anyone's lifetime. The Guardrail program dated back to the Venezuelan Civil War, when Layartebian soldiers on the ground suffered from not being able to tap into the communications of the rebel forces. The Layartebian Air Force hastily modified a pair of Cessna 340 business aircraft for the initial, Guardrail program. Its first uses were less than satisfactory but by the time the Second Layartebian Civil War broke out, the program was highly successful. During the 1980s, the Beechcraft King Air was chosen and eventually, the Super King Air. The Guardrail X was the newest variant, a culmination of decades of design work and improving eavesdropping technology. Among the most important of these technologies was the ability to eavesdrop on wireless communications of all sorts, even some of the more advanced cellular phones out there. Additionally, they could sent a remote signal to any cellular phone, so long as the battery was connected, that turned it on with just enough power that its location could be traced. They could do all of this without the user knowing it and if the user left his or her cellular phone on, it just made their job easier.

The Guardrail Xs deployed to Adana were there to monitor President Durak and his highest-ranking military and governmental officials. They would be operating, in the air, over Adana, twenty-four hours a day, alternating every seven hours, flying their reconnaissance patrols around the city. They would have bogus data available if, when they landed, anyone asked. The two pilots and three equipment operators wore civilian clothes and appeared civilian. They carried their weaponry hidden and concealed, submachine guns in their duffle bags and pistols inside of their pants. Equipment inside of the aircraft was not subject to review and if someone got too nosey looking around, they could cite the agreement that President Durak signed. Due to the highly scientific nature of their aircraft and the importance not to disrupt the equipment with external stimuli, no one except a trained professional was allowed to board the aircraft. President Durak didn't know what he was signing; all he knew was that he was getting quite a handsome sum of money, in his own, personal, bank account for letting Solar Enterprises stage from Adana. It was something that he hadn't even alerted his military about and so, the orbiting Layartebian aircraft were simply ghosts in the air.

The first two days of the existence of the Federal Republic of Adana were just like those before. Nothing changed really except the ultimatum issued by President Durak. The Empire had thirty days or less to evacuate the airbase and the Marines were on their way within eight hours of the announcement. Task Force Reptile had been dramatically changed shortly thereafter as more ships departed and sped up to catch up with the main force, representing the increase in deployable forces. Ten ships and two brigades of Marines were added to Task Force Reptile, boosting the personnel there to around thirty thousand, when fully compiled. That was a smidgeon of the Imperial Layartebian Military but, for the Federal Republic of Adana, that was massive. Paratroopers from the Imperial Layartebian Army, at least a division worth, would be on ready deployment at Mühlhausen Air Force Base, if needed. They would deploy to the target area via C-5M Super Galaxy, C-29A Titan, and anything else available. Cargo transports from Ramstein would likely be flown in to accommodate them. If needed, they would deploy at very low altitude, twelve hundred feet, around the perimeter of Adana and encircle it for the Marines. Reinforcements simply wouldn't be allowed into the city and that was final. The time was simply ticking away now and while the plans were set, receiving only minor changes now, they still hinged on time. President Durak would undoubtedly know when Task Force Reptile crossed Gibraltar and entered the Mediterranean Sea. Once they knew, they would likely siege the airbase, fearing that the Marines were coming to invade. That left a large gap in time that the airbase would have to defend itself, against a numerically superior force, surrounding them on all four sides, without adequate air support. It would be a rough twenty-two hundred nautical miles for the task force. They would want to get there as fast as possible, to relieve the besieged airbase but they couldn't go too fast or else they would reveal the fact that a stealthy submarine was traveling with them. At their transit speed of fifteen knots, it would take them a little over six days, one hundred and forty-six hours, to get into position. That was a long time and the airbase had the munitions to hold out but not necessarily the bodies. They would hunker down, dig-in, and just wait, fighting off the enemy as best as they could.

[Layarteb]

July 30, 2010 - 20:00 [UTC+1]
Strait of Gibraltar

Set to arrive late during the evening of August 5 for operations against President Durak and his military, the 14th Amphibious Assault Group was churning up the seas just west of the Strait of Gibraltar. It wasn't even halfway to its destination point south of Adana, thirty-seven hundred and fifty nautical miles away from its homeport. The group was moving at fifteen knots through the seas of the North Atlantic and would have to slow down to ten knots to transit through the Strait. Once through, the group would be in the Mediterranean and there would be no stopping its trek to Turkey, at the opposite end of the sea. The Med was a large, deep sea that was always a vital interest for the Empire. In the days when the Roman Empire was at its maximum, the Commonwealth of Hirgizstan occupied all of North Africa, and the Fourth Reich of North Germania combined with the United Federation of Eurasia to control everything from Portugal to Kazakhstan, the Empire had permanent shipping routes into and out of the Med. Those routes remained intact but they saw much less activity than they had decades earlier. The 14th Amphibious Assault Group marked a distinct presence of the Imperial Layartebian Navy not seen in many years. In six days, they were going to be pounding the Turkish coast.

The Federal Republic of Adana remained on its preset and predefined course. President Durak cursed the name of the Empire in every speech he gave, whether on the radio or television or in public. Behind the scenes, he was preparing for war. He was guided by the notion that his feeble republic could gain the respect of the entire world. He believed that if he stood up to the Empire and attacked its forces at Incirlik that he could decimate their ability to wage war and that the enemies of the Empire would rush to his aide. His beliefs were a bit misguided and yet partially based on some facts. It was obvious that none of the nations of the world wanted to go toe-to-toe with the Empire by attacking it. However, he felt that if he attacked the Empire first that they would rush to his aide simply because they were just defending a small, innocent republic. They wouldn't be attacking the Empire at all but rather aiding a newly independent nation from the bullying of the Empire. He might have had Soviet support but as far as their willingness to go on the offensive against the Empire, that remained to be seen. President Durak was putting a lot of eggs in a basket that had no tangibility. He was walking on thin ice.

President Durak was only one part of the equation though, a tool for the real enemy. While President Durak looked at the Empire as his one and only enemy, he should have been looking much closer to home. His generals spoke of the Empire as the single, greatest threat but they were heeding the Empire's warning on the Sepah-e Pasdaran. They were ignoring the most dangerous terrorist group ever to come to existence in the entire planet. Now, with the independence of Adana, their membership had grown fifty percent from four hundred to six hundred. Recruiters were finding it easy to convert the young and angered to their cause. They promised them the martyr's death, whereby they would rise to Heaven, victorious, and walk alongside Allah. They would bask in the intangible and unfathomable pleasure of seventy-two virgins, forever by their side until the end of time. They guaranteed them that their names would be praised in Turkey for all years to come, that their families would live in houses made of gold, and that their sacrifices would bring about the ultimate destruction of the greatest enemy to religious and personal freedom. The Sepah-e Pasdaran were fanatics who followed militant sects and beliefs of Islam. They were enemies of the Eurasian Federation and never embraced secularism. By proxy, they were always enemies of the Empire.

When the Sepah-e Pasdaran reformed and brought their organization to Adana, they underwent significant change and alteration. They kept their fanatical, militant roots and looked upon the Empire as the ultimate source of global decadence. As far as they were concerned, the Layartebian soldiers on Turkish soil were nothing more than unwelcomed intruders who needed to be expelled. While their foot soldiers watched the base day and night from the perimeter fences, the leaders plotted inside the confines of mosques. They evaded the law and the Empire at every turn and corrupted those who already were corrupt. They built up their arms wherever they could and trained in the rural areas and underground. In reality, the leaders knew that, if they got into a fixed, set battle with the Empire, they would be decimated, yet again. Layartebian Special Forces assisting Eurasian Forces had doled out more casualties to their organization than the Eurasians ever did. They had to fight the Empire differently and smartly. They were training soldiers aged fourteen to forty to fight an urban, guerilla war against the Empire. They knew that President Durak was going to attack and, when he did, it would draw the Layartebians out of the airbase. That would make them vulnerable and then, they would attack. If they rolled into their areas of town, they would strike hard.

Adana was a sprawling, massive city, twenty-seven hundred square kilometers in area. It was split in half by the Seyhan River with most of the city's territory to the west of the river. North of the city was a massive lake, called Lake Seyhan. Just as Adana was massive, the Sepah-e Pasdaran claimed a massive part of the city as their territory. It was contained within an area that ran up to the D400 highway, as far west as Tekel Cd, and as far south and east as Adana Sakirpasa Airport. It encompassed several neighborhoods, all of which contained some of the poorest residents in Adana. In that neighborhood, the victims of Turkish corruption were all over the place and the ideology that the Sepah-e Pasdaran preached was received extremely well. They spoke against not only the corruption upon the world by the Empire but also of the corruption of leaders like President Durak, who they saw only as a means to an end. After the Empire was slapped around, they would turn on President Durak, overthrow him, take over the government of the Federal Republic of Adana, and establish their own state. They hoped to get as much of the new military equipment intact. That would give them a small army with which they could trounce through the rest of Turkey converting or exterminating.

With regards to the Sepah-e Pasdaran, Cemel Akurgal, who happened to join their ranks and subsequently act impulsively, remained onboard the Empire's floating prison ship. The Watson class roll-on, roll-off vessel had made its way slightly to the west now, sailing south of the Greek islands. It wasn't heading out of the Med but rather heading towards a port of call in southern Italy, where it would resupply and return to its patrol sector in the eastern Mediterranean. Onboard, the skilled interrogators and torturers worked on more than two dozen prisoners, many of them from Turkey. Cemel was just one of them who happened to be, by pure chance, the most valuable. His knowledge about the inner workings of Sepah-e Pasdaran was limited but it was an excellent start and it provided insight into the organization that the Ministry of Intelligence just didn't have any more. He told them where he was recruited, how he was recruited, the descriptions of places he visited, the given names of people he associated with, and what he knew about them. It wasn't a whole lot that he had to give but he was being rewarded for his honesty and allowed to regain some of his dignity. By July 30, he had yielded enough information for the Ministry of Intelligence to begin active intelligence-gathering operations against the Sepah-e Pasdaran.

Guardrail X flights over the city being conducted by the Imperial Layartebian Air Force were listening intently to everyone's communications and now that they had several phone numbers from Cemel, could hone in on their, specific conversations. From there, they got other numbers, more numbers, and a spider-webbed network began to unravel from the darkness. The aircraft were now more important than ever and within the first eight hours of monitoring the communications of the Sepah-e Pasdaran the Ministry of Intelligence had a large portion of their network mapped. They took the information that Cemel gave to them and expanded on it heavily. They knew where their area of operations was and that they were watching the airbase. Routine calls were being made every four hours with updates on the airfield. The locations of each call were plotted to within a few meters and that information relayed to the airfield, where snipers looked for the locations of the phone calls. They eyed everyone in the crowd and, when they spotted those on the phone, they snapped photos from long-range. By the time the navy got there, the Ministry of Intelligence estimated that they would have files on almost half of the organization. They would be able to take them down quickly, efficiently, and with little to no loss of life to the Layartebian soldiers deployed.

With just six days remaining before the Marines arrived and revelations about the force size of the Sepah-e Pasdaran making themselves known, one division of Marines and a division of paratroopers simply wasn't going to be enough. At minimum, two more divisions were going to be required and that was where the Imperial Layartebian Army came into play. The Ministry of Defense began immediate deployment orders starting on July 30, aimed with putting at least two more divisions into the area by August 5. Unfortunately, time was now playing more against the Empire than it had been before. By the end of the day, the invasion was pushed off by forty-eight hours, simply because forces weren't going to be ready by August 5. The revised date, now August 7, gave the Adanans a two more days. This meant that the amphibious force would have to remain south of Cyprus until the moment came for the attacks, to not give away their true presence. Once they crossed into the Med, the Federal Republic of Adana knew it and, by proxy, so did the Sepah-e Pasdaran. They knew that something big was coming but what they didn't know was the full story. By the end of the end, four divisions were going to be sent with two acting as backup if necessary. Now the clock ticked away.

The two additional divisions required would be rapidly deployed to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany and Mühlhausen Air Force Base in France. The other two would go to southern Ireland for the time being. All of their equipment would be airlifted as well, a daunting task. However, there were no alternatives. There were no land routes available yet. The battle was now changed dramatically. Total control over Adana was an absolute must and while Adanan forces weren't going to be the issue, they would put up the heaviest, initial resistance. Marines would go in from the south, securing the transport lanes from the Med up to the city. Paratroopers would land at key parts of the city and secure bridges, the airport, and other essential parts vital to the success of the Empire. The 1st QRF would deploy out from the airbase and secure it from attack. The two teams of Ghost Recon Special Forces would deploy to President Durak's estate and attempt to capture he and his family. Since this was a night attack, he and his family would likely be home. Other small units of Special Forces would deploy to the main governmental building, secure, and hold it, those teams were yet to be determined, but it was likely that they would be members from the 4th Special Operations Group, the "Rangers."

[Layarteb]

August 3, 2010 - 14:30 hrs [UTC-5]
Fortress of Comhghall, Governors Island

The hordes of angry protestors around Incirlik Air Force Base had largely thinned from the thousands to only a few hundred. The exodus of protestors had begun only an hour and a half after the Layartebian task force passed through the Strait of Gibraltar. It was a strange coincidence and Layartebian analysts had no doubt in their minds that there was a connection, even if they had no solid evidence. Analysts in the Ministry of Intelligence were working day and night keeping a close eye on Turkey and the Federal Republic of Adana and relaying anything they found to the battlefield operatives in place. There was a lot of relaying going on with messages flowing back and forth throughout all hours of both the day and the night. Agents and assets on the ground were reporting a remarkably hostile environment there. The Adanan Defense Forces, which now included both the civilian police and the military, had shiny, new equipment and trained with it day and night, mostly outside of the city of Adana, where, they suspected, the Layartebians weren't watching. At first, they weren't but these mass exercises quickly sparked the attention of the Empire's various reconnaissance aircraft and satellites.

In the Ministry of Intelligence, everything the Adanans now had was recorded, catalogued, and counted, for future analysis. The hardware was new and distinctly Soviet in origin; after all, nobody else made the type of equipment that the Adanans had. Despite this, the Soviet Union hadn't actually done anything wrong, per say. Of course, they had directly supplied an enemy of the Empire with plenty of high-tech, military hardware, hardware that could wreck havoc on the Empire's invasion plan. Extra care would have to be taken during the invasion to ensure the least amount of life lost by Layartebian forces.

At Incirlik Air Force Base, every soldier, airmen, officer, and enlisted nobody had watch stations. Snipers manned the towers day and night and machine gun nests had been shifted to cover the three entrances to the airfield. Now that the perimeter wasn't lined with civilians, it made their job a lot easier, given that they only had a few hundred versus a few thousand hostiles on their lines. Unfortunately, within those few hundred were at least fifty Sepah-e Pasdaran terrorists, waiting and willing to strike fear into the heart of the Empire by way of violence in Incirlik. Whether or not they knew just how much the Empire knew about them, they were taking no chances, being as unsuspecting as possible as they shouted hatred at the Empire from afar. They looked not to arouse suspicion but rather to blend in with the crowds, where they could be most effective. That was just what they did around Incirlik, both before and after the exodus of civilians on July 30. They were the real threat to the Empire as they could muster something that President Durak could never dream to muster and that was blind devotion and loyalty to their cause.

Nearly fifty-five hundred miles in the distance, the National Security Council was meeting in the Fortress of Comhghall to discuss the latest round of intelligence reports from Adana. The most powerful body of leaders in the Empire, and arguably the world, consisted of the Emperor, who headed the group, the Chairman of the Imperial Layartebian Military, the highest-ranking military officer in the Empire, and five of the Emperor's ministers from the ministries of Defense, Intelligence, the Interior, Foreign Affairs, and Justice. They met regularly and always to discuss matters related to the Empire's military either at home, away, or of the varying crises throughout the world. Of course, there was always a crisis somewhere in the world for them to discuss and lately, it had been Turkey. Of course, with trouble brewing next door, in the Republic of Menzon, they had a few other topics to discuss at these meetings.

They had only just finished talking about the Republic of Menzon, which was rapidly taking center stage. Roughly forty-eight hours earlier, communist guerillas from West Memphis launched a terrorist attack against Memphis, signaling their intent to cause the Empire more than just grief. Unfortunately, the communists' whole plan when awry when the Domestic Justice Agency launched a coordinated raid on a motel in Memphis, capturing each and every communist participant. Within a few hours, interrogators were listening to them spill even the most minute details of their operation. The Empire was going to respond but not for a few days, forces had to be prepared and briefed. Intelligence reports had to be reviewed. The attack against Menzon was tentatively scheduled for just after midnight, local time, on August 7. Menzon was an hour behind Layarteb City. That would give Layartebian forces six hours of darkness to work, plenty of time to soften their communist opponents.

The strikes against Menzon would happen after the Empire began its invasion on Turkey, which was scheduled now for 21:00 hours, local time, August 6. It would be around 14:00 hours, local time, in Layarteb City, giving a full nine hours spacing between the two attacks. News of the Layartebian attack against the Federal Republic of Adana would make international headlines and the Ministry of Defense hoped that the communists in West Memphis would see it as a time of weakness for the Empire and not expect the coming attack. That would be preferable as it would allow the Empire to strike them when they weren't ready, catching them both by surprise and at rest.

Now, the topic of conversation shifted to Turkey, where the sun had set only an hour earlier. "Alright, shift us over to Turkey; I want to know what the situation is there." The Emperor asked, jotting down the last notes about the conflict in Menzon.

"Sir, the latest batch of intelligence reports, from our agents and assets on the ground, state that an attack on Incirlik Air Force Base is inevitable. They're directly citing the knowledge that our ships have crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. The sun just went down there and we anticipate a night strike against Incirlik Air Force Base by midnight tonight. The Adanans know that it will be a few more days until our ships reach their positions off the coast. That will give them at least forty-eight hours, give, or take, to take the airbase. With the sheer amount of firepower and forces there, they stand a good chance of success. At present, our air operations at Incirlik cannot proceed forward so forces will be without necessary air support. Surface-to-air sites deployed by the Adanans will require that we conduct SEAD operations prior to any close air support. We know of two deployed SA-17 Grizzly sites and a number of smaller, more mobile surface-to-air units. Additionally, we cannot secure flyover rights from the Council of Turkish States or Leaders if you will, for operations from Mülhausen. That leaves us waiting for two days until we can put our ships into place." There were a few moments of silence while the Emperor and the entire council pondered the information presented.

"And sir, the last thing we want to do right now is to violate the will of the Turkish Leaders, unfortunately."

"At the present time I agree Ministers. The best we can assure that our forces on the ground are well supplied."

"They can always take more supplies sir. With the Adanans closing all of our air routes into and out of the country, we're in a bit of a bind. Anything we send in will get shot at, guaranteed and, given how vulnerable a plane is on landing, likely shot down. Even if their missiles get spoofed, I'm sure we've seen anti-aircraft guns?"

"Yes sir we have, twenty-three millimeter guns around the airport."

"Very well then, for now, we will sit back and wait. There's four more days until we strike and two more until our forces are on station. Can they hold out?"

"Not without resupply sir."

"What are our contingencies?"

"Sir, we're going to treat the situation like we treated Firebase Echo." Firebase Echo was a Layartebian artillery and army support base that was erected deep in the heart of guerilla territory during the First Venezuelan Civil War, before the days of the Empire, when the Emperor lead a Special Forces, Delta Force detachment. That firebase had made it into the history books.

During a particularly aggressive and brutal guerilla campaign, Firebase Echo came under siege by some ten thousand guerillas. The base and its two thousand Layartebian soldiers withstood the siege for eighty days and never lost the base. By the time the siege was over, Layartebian forces lost two hundred and fifty men with another nine hundred injured. At least five to seven thousand guerillas were killed, as estimated by the Layartebians; although, the guerillas claimed only six hundred. During the siege, Layartebian aircraft provided intense air support, day and night, bombing mountain passes, guerilla bases, and just about everything else out there with a guerilla stamp on it. However, the significant of Firebase Echo was the pioneering of a new tactic in combat supply drops, something called Low-Altitude Parachute Extraction System or LAPES, for short. Because of the intense air defense units deployed around the firebase, cargo aircraft couldn't be landed to resupply the base. Regular airdrops were too vulnerable and inaccurate and the air defense units could shoot down the slowly descending drops without much effort. So, Layartebian planners thought of a way to deploy the supplies right down the runway without ever having to land and become exposed.

In the method, cargo planes swooped low over the airfield at less than ten feet off the ground. At the last moment, they opened their rear, cargo hatches, and dropped specialized pallets loaded with supplies that were extracted via parachute and dropped down the main length of the runway. Despite being such a successful method, it was always ridiculously dangerous. There was absolutely no margin for error and several C-123s and C-130s crashed during both combat and training runs, killing several pilots and crewmen. Now, those same methods were going to be used to resupply Incirlik until the navy arrived.

The Emperor looked pleased by the Minister's response and jotted down a quick note. "When are the first drops taking place?"

"Four hours after you give the approval sir. Globemaster IIIs will be making the first drops, as they are the fastest aircraft. The base is aware to the possibility already and set to receive them once the notification came. The only drawback we'll have sir is that we will be varying the ingress and egress routes to ensure that the Adanans don't put anything in the way. However, the airbase remains vulnerable."

"Understood, that's going to be quite hairy." The Emperor added and then, before he could continue, his office was filled with the sound of three ringing cellular phones, all of them belonging to the Chairman, the Minister of Defense, and the Minister of Intelligence. Quickly, all three men reached for their phones, ready to turn them off rather than answer them. However, that was cut short when they viewed the message displayed. The Emperor looked at them curiously. He had a single rule when it came to meetings and that was that all cellular phones were to be on silent, he hated the disturbances. However, their phones were on silent and that meant that these calls were more than just important, they were matters of the utmost importance. "Gentlemen?"

"Sir," the Minister of Defense said, "it seems that the Adanans have just launched a full-scale attack against Incirlik Air Force Base." Silence filled the air and the Emperor looked around the room. Everyone's face changed remarkably as the news graced the air.

"Get the planes in the air right away, they've got two days! It seems the Adanans have just declared war upon the Empire. Let's make sure that they don't get that airbase, understood?" Everyone in the room agreed, they had no other choice now.

[Layarteb]

betrayal
{destiny carries with the Four Winds}

August 3, 2010 - 21:35 [UTC+2]
Incirlik Air Force Base, Adana, Turkey

"Contact right!" Corporal Stevenson screamed as the muzzle flashes lit up the night. The Adanan military had taken up several positions around the airbase and had opened fire on the watchtowers, the only, exposed positions. Each one was manned by four men, two of whom assisted the other two, a sniper and a heavy gunner. The rest of the base was protected by a thick, tall, concrete wall lined with razor wire at its top. Six hundred meters between the wall and the perimeter was open land with a perimeter fence serving as the first line of defense. Powerful, bright spotlights and infrared devices were used to protect what was called "No Man's Land." A combination of motion sensors set up throughout this area was a good, early warning measure and none of them had activated yet. The Adanans were engaging from range, beyond the perimeter fence, "Engaging!" Stevenson shouted.

The siege of Incirlik Air Force Base had been ordered only six hours earlier by President Durak and his most elite men, career soldiers, not recent volunteers, had been given the mission. They loaded up with tactical camouflage and gear and moved out to the perimeter of Incirlik Air Force Base, crawling through the ground around the perimeter for the past hour and a half. Now, in position, they got the final orders and opened fire. The first rounds they put downrange were the most accurate ones, crashing into the spotlights atop the watchtowers. They hit all at once, in a coordinated attack, and they knew exactly what they were shooting at and how to engage. What they didn't know about were the infrared sensors and those were the backup systems for the soldiers, who were wearing night vision goggles to see through the distance. Their enemy was as well, which would have made the spotlights an extremely useful weapon. Shining them directly into their enemy's eyes would have caused instant blindness.

Unfortunately, their enemy wasn't stupid. After all, these career soldiers had been Eurasian soldiers and that meant plenty of cooperation with Layartebian forces, exchanges of tactics, and professional training. In comparison, they would be equal to the Goodrule troops, in terms of tactics but, thankfully, not ferociousness. Goodrule troops had been the most difficult ones that the Empire fought in quite some time and now, the Adanans would challenge and Empire and they meant to be proper adversaries.

With the opening of hostilities, the worst fears of the Layartebians were confirmed. President Durak had indeed declared war on the Empire and the navy was still a few days away. With cargo aircraft set to keep the base resupplied during the Adanan Offensive and reconnaissance operations continuing from satellites overhead and long-range UAVs from bases in Germany and Lithuania, there wasn't much more that could be done. A few combat air support missions were on the table but they would all require long-range assets, which meant that the traditional fighters and fighter-bombers simply couldn't fly the sorties. Instead, they would have to be flown by long-range, strategic bombers. The B-1B Lancer could fly combat air sorties, carrying a mixed payload of cluster and laser-guided bombs. However, with the discovery of advanced, surface-to-air missiles defending the city of Adana, the B-1B Lancer simply couldn't waltz into Adana and expect to get out alive. In order to get them over and out of the city, they would need escorts and the closest ones were at Mühlhausen Air Force Base, recently relocated there from Incirlik Air Force Base. These escorts were EB-10B Badgers, which could carry AARGM missiles and Gryphon air-to-air missiles.

However, there lay a serious problem for both the Badger and Lancer aircraft. They were around two thousand miles away and that meant a four and a half hour flight time, give or take, and, in a ground battle, a lot could chance in four and a half hours. They could take off meaning to attack one target and receive forty more along the way. Additionally, refueling sorties would be required and Wraith long-range fighters would have to be flown to provide combat air patrol over the city. Even if they were equipped with a maximum internal and external fuel quantity, they would still need to refuel several times along the way, putting a particularly heavy strain on the pilots. It wasn't that they weren't trained for it but rather if they were going to be capable of performing with the utmost capabilities over Adana when the actual time came.

This single, planned sortie to provide immediate, close air support over Adana was more of a show of force than anything else was. It would require a flight of some three F-57A Wraiths, loaded with air-to-air ordinance internally and a pair of external fuel tanks for combat air support. For suppression of enemy air defenses, there would be a pair of EB-10B Badgers loaded with plenty of electronics pods and fuel tanks externally and anti-radar missiles and bombs internally. Then, for the actual combat air support package there would be a lone bomber, a single B-1B Lancer loaded heavy with air-to-ground ordinance consisting of forty-eight, SDB II guided bombs, capable of striking moving targets and destroying them with unparalleled precision and twenty cluster bombs containing a mix of anti-personnel and anti-material submunitions. Each one of these fifteen hundred pound cluster bombs could carry up to three hundred and thirty CEM submunitions, which could blanket an area of approximately half a million square feet. Even the cluster bombs could be dropped within ten meters of their intended target thanks to a guidance system and powerful, WCMD-ER modified dispenser. With the amount of ordinance they carried, they had a total of sixty-six hundred submunitions, enough to blanket a large portion of the city in one pass. That wasn't going to be their mission though, instead, they were going to attack the largest concentrations of enemy troops that posed a direct threat to the airbase. They had to make all their bombs count.

[Layarteb]

OOC: Originally posted by Amigard.

August 4, 2010 - 09:00 [UTC+2]
Amigard City, Amigard
St. Michael’s Cathedral, Bishop Councils Chamber

Cardinal Steele sat patiently on the dais overlooking the podium in the Bishops Council Chamber. Steele was largely without expression despite the frustration he was beginning to feel as Bishop Yasin continued a rant that had been going on for nearly ten minutes now. Bishop Yasin was an elderly man, several years the cardinal’s senior and Steele often got the impression that Yasin felt he was more capable of fulfilling the role of Cardinal.

Yasin’s salt and pepper hair was neatly trimmed and he was, as always, clean shaven. Despite the fact that Yasin was near sixty years old many mistook him for being in his mid to late forties. He was a powerfully built man, his body toned from rigorous physical exercise that he conducted daily along with a rigid prayer schedule. Yasin was known to the most conservative of the bishops that sat on the bishops council.

Yasin, who was the bishop of Syria, was often supported by Bishop Layth of Jordan. Layth, like Yasin were among those that often called for laws that were far more integrated with those found in the Old Testament of the Bible. Bishop Layth had tried several times to draw up legislation that would effectively outlaw the practice of any faith other than Catholicism within the borders of the Theocracy. Fortunately the remaining bishops along with Cardinal Steele himself, quickly rejected this notion. Still, the diocese of Syria and Jordan were known for their stricter regulations that heavily favored those that were Catholic. Indeed, Cardinal Steele on more than one occasion had intervened to veto several laws that the bishops had enacted in their respective diocese, citing the fact that the laws were tantamount to persecution against Non-Catholics.

“They are pagans and heathens all, and we will be making a deal with the devil!” shouted Yasin from the podium “the last thing the Theocracy needs to do is aid the Empire of Layarteb. If anything, we should be supporting the people of Adana in ridding the region of the Empire’s influence!”

Cardinal Steele held up his hand calling for silence as he stood from the lavish chair positioned at the center of the dais flanked by the Amigard flag which hung from the wall. Bishop Yasin ceased his speech obediently although in obvious protest. “I think we all see where you are coming from your grace” the cardinal began with a tone of patience and understanding, “it is difficult for us to be in a position where we must share a region with those that do not share our beliefs.”

Bishop Yasin opened his mouth to protest, but a look from the cardinal forced him to rethink this “However, the Empire has not shown any aggression toward the Theocracy and indeed we have established trade with them as well as an embassy. The situation in Turkey is one of turmoil and represents a far greater threat to the stability of the region than the presence of the Empire. We are a nation founded on faith, that much is certain, but the Empire is not a Theocracy your grace. The mere fact that the majority of their people are of a different faith does not make them evil nor does it mean that they base their policy around their faith as we do, and the reality is we must work with our neighbors to secure a lasting peace in the region. Let’s not forget that the number of Catholics that live in the Empire outnumbers the number of Catholics in the Theocracy itself. We are hardly making a deal with the devil here.”

“But to allow the use of Amigard military airfields is a recipe for disaster your eminence” the bishop responded. Although his face had turned red, his tone returned to one of calm “If we let the Empire in, who is to say they will ever leave? Look at Incrilik your eminence. The people of that area do not want the Empire there, and yet the Empire refuses to leave. On top of that the Empire appears to be all but at a state of war with the Hi No Moto Empire and are we prepared to place ourselves in a position to be viewed as Layarteb’s ally, or worse yet, puppet state?”

There was a brief silence as the bishops that had gathered looked to Cardinal Steele for a response. The cardinal nodded slightly, “Again I understand your concern your grace. This move will hardly place the Theocracy amongst the Empire’s allies, but it will go a long way in ensuring stability in the region. The presence of the Empire helps to ensure that various warlords and rouge governments maintain a certain peace in the area. Those that fail to do this may wind up threatening Layarteb assets in the region, and most will tend to shy away from this. The Theocracy can only do so much in this regard and we do not have the same ability that the Layartabians do to extend our influence throughout the region. Short answer…we are better off with the Empire at Incrilik than we are if they are pushed out. And I assure you any agreement made with the Empire to utilize Amigard military facilities will be temporary and limited in scope.”

“I disagree your eminence” Yasin said simply

“You permitted to do so your grace” responded the cardinal in an equally simple manner.

“I call for a vote to block the move by his eminence to allow the Layarteb Empire to utilize the Amigard airfield north of the city of Benedict.”

Cardinal Steele nodded then took his seat, “Very well. You must all pray that the Holy Spirit guide you to make a decision that is in the best interest of the people of the Theocracy. We will adjourn for thirty minutes for reflection. Despite the fact that four of the five bishops would have to vote against the cardinal in order to veto his move the cardinal couldn’t help but feel frustrated. Bishop Yasin knew that his move to request a vote was merely a formality, and would likely fail, but the bishop would use it to show that there was division in the Bishop’s Council and that they did not unanimously agree with the Cardinal’s foreign policy.

Cardinal Steele did not appreciate the timing given the increased problems the Theocracy was having within its own borders trying to quell the rising tide of the Children of God. This vote would merely embolden the COG and give the appearance of a government that was not completely united.

August 4, 2010 - 10:00 [UTC+2]
Amigard City, Amigard
St. Michael’s Cathedral, Bishop Councils Chamber

As expected the vote had been three to two in favor of supporting the Cardinal in his decision to open the Benedict Airfield to the Layarteb military, with Bishop Yasin and Bishop Layth casting the opposing votes. The issue would go before the Lay Council next but the chance of the Lay Council forming a unanimous decision to block the Cardinal’s plan was next to non-existant.

Cardinal Steele ordered a secured communiqué sent to the Empire offering them temporary and limited use of the airfield for air strikes and resupply. Layarteb military personnel would be restricted to specific areas of the airfield and the Empire must declare all aircraft and ordinance that will utilize the airbase or enter Theocracy airspace. Additionally the Empire will be restricted to specified flight paths that must be declared and approved by airbase military commanders. The offer will be for the use of the airbase for one month time after which the Empire may request to extend the agreement.