[TWI-Only] [Semi-Open] [IC] The Rains

[Ainslie]

The Rains RP



IC | OOC | Dispatch

[Ainslie]

One foot high and rising - Rains RP
9:32pm, 23rd of April 2021
Atolla Capital, Atolla

President Lewen Kelau sat at his desk in a humble room on the outskirts of the Parliament’s grounds. He sat watching his computer, which had precisely three tabs open - one was a radar that covered Southern Westmoor, another covering the northern islands of Nhoor and one from Norregan, which incidentally provided excellent coverage over Atolla as well.

“Aneri, wifey, get me the radio please”, he called out whilst he sat back on his chair fixated on the radar loops.

It didn’t seem there was much else to do anymore. Besides, of course, sitting and waiting for the trickles of water running down the window to intensify.

After a few minutes, his normally warm-natured wife entered the room, placing the battery-powered radio next to hsi computer, on the well-worn lacquered wooden desk. Her complexion was cold - one of pure fear.

Obviously, she had been listening to the radio before he did.

He spent a few weeks tweaking the dial on the radio before he found the clearest sound. For a few minutes, the various presenters spoke about some nonsense before the words the President of Atolla was waiting to her range clearer than they ever had.

”This is Radio 1 Wake Islands, broadcasting live from Karanoa in Sud on this most watchful day. My name is Agelo Karoona and I’ll be with you over the coming hours as we… er… *suddenly his voice gets stronger*

We have just received information from multiple Wakeite Governments. Firstly, from the Government of Norregan. THIS IS A RED ALERT for ALL communities on the northern coast of Norregan Island. You must seek shelter NOW. Find a room in a solid structure without windows - the safest room will likely be an in-house bathroom or a bedroom. Avoid death. Get inside well before the rain and wind picks up.

That is a red alert for communities along the northern coast of Norregan - seek shelter now. We have also just received word from the Atollan Government. Let me just rearrange the papers in front of me first…”

The President furrowed his brow. Whatever this was, it was most certainly news to him.

“Ok. We have just received word from the Atollan Government that all people on the island are now subject to an AMBER ALERT. This means you should make final preparations and ensure that everyone under your care is accounted for. Also, check on your neighbours. Make sure they know what to do. Seek shelter as soon as you can after your preparations are done. Make sure you are in a safe place well before they upgrade the situation to a red alert.

Norregan has also advised that everywhere except the northern red alert communities remain on an amber alert, but this is likely to change very soon. The information here in Sud remains the same - YELLOW ALERT. Prepare now and get ready to hunker down soon.

Sit tight Wake, this will all be over soon.”, the presenter concludes as the music slowly fades in and replaces his voice.

President Kelau then pressed a button on his desk, which prompted his assistant to almost instantaneously open the door and enter the room.

“Disou, please get me the director for International Affairs and also the local emergency controller for this event.”

“Yes, Mr President”, he replied.

“And what about my family - my wife is clearly still here… where are the kids?”, Kelau inquired.

“Back at the residence”, the assistant calmly stated.

“Good. Make sure my wife leaves soon to join them.”

With a nod of the head, the assistant leaves the room and quietly shuts the door. Soon after this, Kelau turns the radio down and drops his head into his hands as his hair slowly gives way to his fingers as they slowly move through.

Eventually, the President looks back up. The rain has turned into a consistent shower from the initial trickles just before the broadcast. In the distance he hears a familiar voice - it’s his Internal Affairs minister. Kelau quickly composes himself, puts his suit jacket back on and strides towards the large window in his office. After not too long, the Director comes in, followed by an elderly man in military uniform.

“Hello, mr Minister… and… I’m sorry, we may not have met before”, the President says as he greets a familiar face and one that appears as a lot more foreign to him.

“Evan Collo, lieutenant of the President’s Guard. I am here on behalf of the Incident Controller who deeply apologises for not being here but stresses that he was not able to come.”

The President’s face quickly sharpens and he tenses up upon hearing this, but he soon shrugs and meaninglessly flicks his hand through the air.

“I do suppose he is more use outside of this room and with the emergency services than in it. Well, what can you tell me about this front - what happened in Westmoor?”

Evan was the first to respond.

“We have not gotten a hold of the Westmoorish Government - it appears they may be scrambling in the wake of the back end of this low.”

The President’s keen ear then heard the brief mention of Westmoor over the hushed speakers of the radio.

“Let’s find out”, the President remarked as he turned the radio back up.

“Westmoor has been devastated by a once in a hundred year rain event. Landslides continue to pose risks to first responders as emergency workers desperately try to meet the immediate needs of communities upstream from Angel’s Peak, where a combination of flash flooding and early river rises has caused communities to be isolated. Severe, if not life threatening, damage in these areas is presumed to have occurred.”

The radio then barked out a couple more news stories before President Kelau turned it back down.

Evan and the Minister briefly walked out of the room, grabbed some plastic chairs from the room next door and planted themselves in the President’s office. Meanwhile, Kelau heavily sat back in his chair and leant back with his focus switching between his computer monitor, the radio and the window outside.

The wind was the next thing the President noticed. The trees started to swerve, bending in the force of the winds which started to pick up significantly. The rain rapidly changed angle from vertical to almost horizontal.

The radio soon blared again, announcing a red alert for Atolla. His assistant then briefly came into the room to check everything was okay before sending the rest of the small staff who remained.

Disou, the assistant then moved into the office. Four people remained in offices which would normally be reasonably lively - all of these being in one room, the one belonging to the President.

The President then stood back up, looking out of his window. The office was two blocks away from the ocean, although he was two storeys up. He looked out onto the horizon, watching the waves beginning to churn and crash into the shore. Out into the distance, soon after he noticed the waves a large object caught his sight - a tree had fallen down.

The rain soon blocked his vision - it was a complete white-out. He turned back towards the three others in the room and began pacing around the room. Almost out of the blue, the Minister speaks up.

“Whenever it used to rain heavily, my mother used to sing a song to calm us down.”

“Yes, I know the one…”, the assistant replied.

Almost out of nowhere President Kelau starts humming, as the sound of the rain and wind begins to make it hard for any speech or conversation to be audible.

“How high’s the Etsa Creek now?
One foot high and rising…”

The assistant then joined in…

“How high’s the Etsa Creek now?
Five feet high and rising…
The streets are clean, the wind is mean
Everyone’s got a houseboat
How high’s the etsa creek now brother?
Six feet high and rising…”

The lights began to flicker before completely blacking out. All around them, the houses along the street blacked out. The President then felt around his desk, finding his drawer which had his reading light in it. The assistant then pressed on the light just as he found the reading light. With two clicks, the room was fully illuminated this time - although with battery power only now. Most of the island wasn’t that fortunate though.

The rain kept coming, the wind kept shaking the trees and the water began to build up along the sides of the streets.

The rain kept coming.

Thirtly minutes later, the street which separated the Parliament from the beachside houses was fully flooded. As he held his booklight over the window which would normally show the outside world, the President briefly saw specks of what Atolla really looked like. As the afternoon continued to come to a close, the storm made it much darker than usual for this time of the year.

The next morning
President Kelau opened up his eyes to an empty room. Startled by this discovery, given there were three others in the room before he obviously fell asleep he got up out of his chair and ducked his head around the door to quickly survey the assistant’s office. He spotted the assistant fast asleep, whilst it appeared the Minister was drifting in and out. Lieutenant Evan Collo, the man the incident controller who sent was scouring over various pieces of paper in front of him.

“Is it that bad?”, the President stated whilst looking in the general direction of the Lieutenant.

The Lieutenant quickly looked back up with a cold, almost lifeless expression to which the President replied, “here - come into my office. We’ll look at the reports together if you don’t mind. No point in you briefing me on things that I can read for myself.”

“Most certainly Sir”, the Lieutenant replied as the President walked back into his office.

The two of them spent the next hour looking over the reports until the Minister woke up and walked in unannounced. He opened up the curtains and looked out at the street below. His whole body seized up and he paused as he watched a light buggy kind of vehicle float down where a street was.

It was still raining at this point. The President spoke up once again to inquire why the Minister was standing there for so long.

“Come look for yourself.”, was the simple reply he received and with that he got back out of his chair to look out at the window.

His face suddenly changed. This front seemed bad but this was something else - the damage was so unlike anything he had seen.

“This is most certainly the front that passed through Westmoor - maybe gained some intensity over the water.”, the President said before pointing at the Lieutenant.

“Are the phones still up. What about power, water and sewage?”, the President asked.

“Phones unavailable, but we have satellite phones which can link into where the incident controller is currently holed up. Otherwise phones are down. Some areas of the capital run on generators already so as long as they are not damaged that is okay. Otherwise, all electricity is down. Water is down - water will need to be boiled. Sewage is down too, so who knows what is out there in the waters”, Lieutenant Evan Collo replied.

“Ok. Tell the incident controller this. I have declared a national emergency, will move us up to Code Black and make sure everyone stays in their homes. Martial law will come into effect 5pm tonight and I am expanding my executive functions to directly oversee this recovery. I hope that is okay, Minister”, he said as he looked at the Minister of Internal Affairs who was still staring out the window.

“Yes, most certainly. I do hope you will keep me in the loop.”, the Minister replied after sensing the President’s glance at him in his periphery

“I will, you are to remain on these Parliament grounds until further notice - I may need to call upon you at any time. Dismiss Parliament for two weeks effective immediately and open up Parliament House as an evacuation centre - welcome anyone who walks off the street. We will figure out what to do from there.”, the President barked in an odd display of authority.

“Yes, I will make sure the necessary arrangements are made.”

The President then watched as the Minister quickly left the office, leaving only the Lieutenant in the room.

“So, Lieutenant Collo. What is the latest report you have gotten from the incident centre.”

“4:30am. Next one is due in thirty minutes.”

“Ok - so what was in that. What emergency response capabilities do we still have, what are river heights like and how much damage do we know we have already?”

Lieutenant Collo briefly flicked around the binder he was now holding and then pulled out a few sheets before replying.

“Limited emergency capabilities - we may be able to set up that evacuation centre at Parliament House. No other evacuation centres currently available across the island, owing to the widespread nature of the flooding. They attempted to set up one on Gesala Street but no one could make it to that point, even when it was just above the water height.

River heights - Etsa Creek is at 8.40m, three metres above major flooding height. Several storm surges have washed away the foreshore across the northern coast, particularly along the beaches and near the capital. Many homes remain unstable near there. Other than that, many houses have sustained significant damage the exact number is unclear - water has rushed into homes, houses have lost roofs and some families remain stuck on the top of their roof as a result of the water heights.

One of our specialist responders left the centre on boat and described the damage as “devestating” and “far worse than any of the damage he had seen in any of the photographs of civil wars.”. He then continued to describe the place as if a bomb hit it, and then it also was covered in water.

The President stood there silently, absorbing the information before quickly changing his expression.

“Well, I suppose it is time to get onto the phone then and notify the League. I assume internet is down?”, he asked

“Yes, it is.”

The President then raised his voice to ask whether the assistant had a phone number to the league. There was most certainly one - it was to the offices of the Keveraite delegation to the League, who the President had been discussing the impacts of the recent introduction of an indentured servitude prohibition resolution with a couple days prior.

Kelau was presented with a sticky note, which he kept on his finger as he dialled the number into the bulky satellite phone. He then sat down and lent with his elbow on the desk as he waited for a reply. It was not long before someone picked up.

“Good morning, this is President Lewen Kelau of the Republic of Atolla. May I be patched through to your delegate, there is an urgent matter I must discuss with him.”

“Yes, please stand by”, the friendly voice on the other side of the line replied.

Almost immediately, he was on the line to the delegate for Keverai who very much began the conversation in a stressed manner.

“Lewen, what is going on over there. Are you okay? I’ve been hearing about Sud and Norregan over the news here but there seems to be silence coming out of Atolla”, Gabriel Barrette, the delegate for Keverai said.

“Yes. It is not good over here and that is why I am ringing. Our systems are down and we do not seem to have the kinds of numbers on file that we used to have around here when we rang to notify when there was a disaster.”, the President explained. “I wish to speak to the Secretary-General or a similarly high positioned official in the League, do you mind providing me the number?”

Soon enough, Gabriel found the number and President Kelau wrote it down. The call then quite promptly ended.

He then dialled in the number he had received. On the other end of the phone, after talking to a few assistants, was the Secretary-General of the League.

“Good morning Madame Secretary-General. I wish to call today to provide an update on recent events in Atolla. We cannot speak for Sud or Norregan and have been unable to establish contact with them in the hours since the front has arrived. The rain continues here and the island has sustained significant flooding already - early reports from my emergency responders suggest that major and devastating damage has occurred at least in the capital. We have not been able to get any information outside of our immediate surrounds due to the loss of infrastructure.

We cannot stress this enough though. The Atollan Government wishes that no one be sent to the island at this time. It is exceptionally usafe and there is a lot of unknowns here at the moment. We do not wish to add to the anguish that we already face by watching aid workers be swept into the disaster we are still facing. We will re-establish contact soon, but the waters are still too high and the damage too severe to accept any aid at this point. For now, no news is good news.

As a nation, we must first reckon the disaster that lies before us. We will then, as other nations are willing, gratefully accept support. That time, however, is not now. I wish you all the best and I must offer my apologies for the brevity and lack of tact I have at the moment. I do hope the next time I call, we will both have good news for one another. I must leave for now.”

“As you wish, Mr President. Best wishes.”, the Secretary-General replied.

President Kelau then stood up, walked out of his office and collected his boots. It was time for him to see some of the damage for himself.

[Ainslie]

The poster child - Rains RP
10:12pm, 23rd of April 2021
Karanoa, Sud

“Sit tight Wake, this will all be over soon.”, the presenter concludes as the music slowly fades in and replaces his voice.

Chief Minister Jacob Lenana sat in a grand, ornate and large room with a high ceiling. He was sitting at the head of the table, closest to the radio which had been placed in the corner of the room on a small table which had been brought in earlier. On the table were various large maps and pieces of paper. Four men - one in a military uniform, two in emergency services uniform and Lenana’s deputy Chief Minister all sat close by around the table whilst ten assistants filled up the rest of the seats, almost all of them steadily typing away on their laptops whilst the changing of webpages in front of them caused a subtle flash on their faces to appear every few minutes or so.

The next few hours were relatively mundane as they negotiated potential responses to the varying levels of severity the impact of this system could have on Sud, and particularly the capital of Karanoa.

However, after those three or four hours passed, the people in the room began to hear the rain picking up outside and making an increasingly intense sound on the roof. The wind began to howl.

The front was here. At that point, he dismissed his Deputy Chief Minister before sending one of the emergency services personnel back to the incident control centre which had temporarily been set up in an adjoining room. The rest of them continued their conversation about how they may help Sud in the aftermath of this front.

Every hour or so up until now, the Chief Minister would get status reports from government officials on the situation outside. These quickly became twice an hour and timed in a way so he could hear the news out of Norregan and Atolla in between briefings. Late in the evening, at around 11pm, all of the news surrounding Atolla seemed to have dried up - there was nothing coming out from them. At that point, the Chief Minister thought it was time to get the information straight from the source and see if anything was happening.

“How about we call the Atollan Government?”, Chief Minister Lenana suggested.

The required numbers were pressed on the telephone and the room sat quietly as they heard the tones of the phone continue to beep. No response. Lenana was the first to speak after this.

“Do we have any other methods of contact with Atolla at the moment?”, Lenana said as he increasingly got frustrated.

An assistant quickly rushed out of the room and returned some minutes later to answer in the negative.

“Well, whilst the phones are still up we should call around and make sure our allies are aware of the situation. Anything new, come talk to me in my office. That is where I’ll be.

Throughout the evening, the Chief Minister called various governments and fielded replies, playing phone tag with multiple numbers at once as he tried to broker support for Sud.

The next morning
The Chief Minister, having slept on the couch in his office, opened his eyes to see that the sky was still a bleak shade of grey. The wind eased up but yet still the rain was torrential to the point it was much harder to see into the distance. He opened the door to his office and slowly walked back into the room that he had spent of his early evening in - the one with the large table. A few assistants were asleep so he quietly shut the door and walked over to the impromptu incident centre. It was very clearly the hive of activity, even at 6:30am in the morning.

The Deputy Chief Minister obviously had had a much worse night’s sleep than him. He was still in the room listening to various people and offering comments in response. Soon enough, he noticed that he had been joined by the Chief Minister and quickly walked up to greet him.

“Good morning, Mr Chief Minister.”

“Good morning. Tell me, what is the current situation?”

“Not good, Mr Chief Minister. Flash flooding was widespread, erosion is significant and some streets remained flooded. My understanding is that the damage is akin to that of a category two cyclone. Internet, water and power are patchy if not completely disabled whilst phones appear to be up in the central parts of Karanoa but that does not seem to be the case for the rest of the island. We are going to need international support, and quickly.”

The Chief Minister nodded for a second to process the information he had received and then replied.

“Is the airport in any state to except humanitarian aircraft?”

“No.”, the DCM replied.

“Can it be - and in the meantime can the airstrip on the outside of town be used?”

“In a few days, we believe Karanoa Airport could allow for limited arrivals. And there is nothing to suggest that the airstrip has been disabled. There may be some fallen trees, but it is up on a hill and appears to be above the water line. It would just be a matter of getting there.”

The Chief Minister smiled at this news before he replied.

“I must produce some kind of message then. Do we have equipment here to broadcast to the wider Isles, and can we get that out there?”

“Yes. We can do that”, the DCM stated.

“Oh, and how are Norregan and Atolla?”, the Chief Minister tagged onto the conversation as he began to make his way back out of the room.

DCM: “Norregan is badly hit - similar damage to what we have initially found in Sud but their understanding is that preliminary assessments have been unable to examine the full extent of the damage - it is very likely that most of Genna has been very badly effected. As for Atolla, we still do not know. As far as the officials here in Sud are concerned, they are off the grid entirely.”

The Chief Minister shook his head slowly in disbelief then promptly made his way out of the office.

Three hours later

The Chief Minister returned to the room with the large table, looking rather comfortable sitting at the top of it whilst lights shone onto his face. He adjusted his tie and then crossed his arms as he placed them on the table.

“Mr Chief Minister, are you ready to record your message?”, an assistant who was standing behind the camera said.

“Yes. Let us record.”, he said as he briefly looked down at his notes before looking back up.

“Our great nation of Sud has suffered greatly over recent hours. Reports produced by my Government....”

[Roendavar]

CHAPTER 1: THE GRAY
The Kingdom of Norregan

“Norregan is now placed under Red Alert. All citizens must stay at home and seek shelter. Those located in vulnerable ground are advised to immediately evacuate to the nearest civic building or higher ground.”

The skies above Genna remain dim, clouded by a vast expanse of dark clouds that stretch from horizon to horizon. Day was slowly becoming night as winds whipped through the capital city of the Kingdom of Norregan, a taste of the impending doom to come. The seas churned with a slow rush, lapping the coasts lazily yet with force. Small fishing boats were dragged across the sand towards higher ground, however, such desperation would be short-lived. The streets were empty, the once bustling center of commerce in the Kingdom reduced to a ghost town as the Norregan people barricaded themselves inside their houses, with nothing but flimsy wooden boards nailed to the windows and furniture stacked on top of each other to not taste the mud and flood that was soon to rise. Plastic bags protected books and what little electronics the people of the isolated kingdom owned.

The Rapids Palace sat on top of a hill at the center of Genna, painted with a peeling blue and white. Queen Falini’Okilanoa Ilinakara watched as the last of the ceremonial torches was snuffed out, the harsh light of bulbs now superseding. The rest of the capital was without power, shut down in preparation for the storm, but the palace itself was with a generator. A figure entered the throne room, an middle-aged man dressed in a blue suit.

“We’ve lost connection to the island of Tarakela. Any attempts to contact the local administration there were futile. We did, however, manage to recommend that they implement red alert protocols half an hour earlier, and we can assume that they managed to heed our orders in time.” Kahua Aparorina, speaker of the Atanoara, the council that advises the Queen of Norregan, reported.
“And the northern coasts? The towns of Mataora, Whekarili, and Kepeleni?”
“Under red alert as well. We’ve sent it out to the majority of the northern coasts.”
“Very well. Thank you for your reports, Kahua.” The Queen dismissed, waving her hand.
“One more thing… our Ilinakara.” Kahua began. “Regarding... our funds in the case of rebuilding-”
“Speak no further, Kahua. I do not intend to entertain this discussion. I thought I had made my position clear when I ascended the throne.” The Queen frowned.
“And our circumstances have changed… my Queen. Pardon me, but we need to rethink this. It will be hard for us to get through this storm, but that is just the beginning. Our people will be hungry, mad, and we can not forget what happened with our neighbors.”

The Queen rose from her throne, her blue silk robes falling to her feet. From the harsh electric light, the lines of her face became apparent, the toll of being thrust into a position of power becoming more and more noticeable. However, she was still quite young, around mid-30s, though the greatest flaw that her country sees in her is that she was still unwed, choosing instead to sink herself in the rule of Norregan and seclude herself in the palace. She walked towards one of the open windows, rain starting to pour from the dark skies above. From the Rapids Palace, she could see the city of Genna, dark and silent.

“I will think about it, Speaker. I will not undo the belief and the work of those who reigned before me just of a single catastrophe.. However, if I were to ponder on this, I need one condition.” The Queen said, her face bearing the same determination she was known for.
“Anything the Queen wants, we will provide.”
“The storm hits in Genna, and I will be at the forefront in all efforts. Rescue operations, first-aid, organizing our disaster response, everything. I want to see everything.” The Queen appealed.
“That can be arranged, your Highness. Perhaps once the storm subsides, then we can make arrangements for visits.”
“That’s not what I asked for, Speaker!” The Queen turned to her minister, a dark look in her eyes. “I said when the storm hits. I want to be outside now. Help in any way that I can and do what I can in my capacity. This is the condition that I will ask of you.”
“It would be dangerous, our Queen! The storm is beyond what we have seen in our history. We’re already assuming that deaths will be high and it would be a great national tragedy for our great Queen to die! More so that you are unwed and without an heir!”
“Then if that happens, then at least I perished with this country of mine. Besides, minister, once I am dead, perhaps the Atanoara can finally declare a republic as is with Atolla and Sud and open up this country once and for all. Is that not most of the Atanoara scheme behind my back?” She taunted, a crooked smile on her face.
“That’s not true, our Queen. The Atanoara was just discussing-”
“In any case, consider this as a test to see whether I will reconsider my policies or not. It would be a win-win for me and the Atanoara. I die, you can declare a republic open to the world. I live, and I can perhaps consider loosening our Kingdom’s policies.” The Queen smirked, knowing that this was a proposal that would be beneficial to the both of them.

Hours later, the storm arrived in Genna. The once gray sky has turned into an inky blackness as the winds gathered in strength like a vicious whip that lashed throughout the city.. The seas churned in such a violent manner, throwing itself upon the shore, a sign of an impending horror to come. The hospital of Genna was in panic, people pouring through its doors not just for medical aid, but for shelter as well. The hospital was built on the slope of the hill where the Rapids Palace was built, high ground where people could escape the flood that was slowly rising. Outside, masses of people gathered at its doors. A car parked in the roadway, and the people gasped as the Queen stepped out, dressed in simple clothes and was getting pelted by the rain. The Head Doctor of the Hospital, Aolani Elehau, rushed outside in a hurry, an umbrella in her hands that shook from the sheer strength of the winds.

“Our Queen. What brings you here?” Aolani asked, hurriedly sheltering the Queen underneath the flimsy umbrella.
“I’m here to see the situation, to organize, and to help. I will not leave my people alone in this tragedy. Now please, can we come inside so that we can start?” The Queen started walking towards the hospital. The stunned looks from the people of Genna proved that they did not expect the Queen herself outside.
“Our Queen. We appreciate your help but we are concerned for your safety. We do not wish our Queen harm. We are well capable of organizing things here.”
“Are you refusing me, head doctor?” The Queen stopped. Immediately, all of the people outside knelt, seeming to forget that they were all outside in a storm.
“N-no… our Queen. I spoke too hastily in your protection. You are most welcome here.”

The Queen hurried inside the hospital, and the full hectic atmosphere of Genna appeared before her. Already, able-bodied men were constructing simple rafts from mattresses and plans in order to help people trapped by the floods. Throughout the corridors, children huddled close in thin blankets, cold and wet from the torrential rain that continued to grow in strength. Doctors and nurses alike, too few to keep up to the emergency, rushed around in a frantic pace, unable to catch up with the needs of everyone. Tired elderly and pregnant women, too weak, were laid out in bare bed frames with nothing but cardboard boxes laid out for the barest comfort.

“What is the status in here?”
“We’re double over capacity, our Queen, and we are expecting more to come in the next hour once the storm bears its full strength.” Aolani emphasized, showing the Queen the current list of patients.
“Speaker. Make arrangements that the West Hall of the Rapids Palace be opened for those who only seek shelter but do not need medical attention.” The Queen turned to Speaker Kahua.
“I will notify the Palace staff right away, Our Queen.” Speaker Kahua obeyed, stepping away and pulling out his cellphone.
“We hope that wouldn’t be much of a problem to you, Our Queen. We are willing to bear the problem ourselves here.” Head Doctor Aolani gasped. “We do not wish to burden the Palace.”
“Nonsense. The Palace has plenty of space. This is an emergency.” The Queen assured.
“Ilinakara! Head Doctor! A storm surge just hit the capital. I’m afraid most of our boats have been destroyed and a quarter of the city that faces the port has been damaged heavily.” One of the men rushed inside.

The Queen dashed towards the open window, the city of Genna coming to view before her. The city was black as night, with the stars above blotted out, leaving the entire horizon in darkness. In the distance, the lights of the port were no more, replaced by the rumbling of the seas. The wooden ships that were on the shore earlier were now gone, swallowed by the mad sea that slowly rushed upwards. Half the city was flooded and most inhabitants of the city were either taking shelter on the hill or at their rooftops. The Queen could not hear anything, the faint calls of help drowned out by the roar of the winds. Outside the hospital, rescue workers hauled wooden rafts and even beds in order to use them as rafts to rescue people. The elderly and the children looked miserable, wet and fatigued, splayed across mattresses as people carried them to safety. Those who dared to go down the hill were met with flood waters up to their waist, and at some parts, submerged them whole.

Queen Falini’Okilanoa Ilinakara walked away from the window, not wanting to gaze at the horror anymore. She excused herself from the hospital staff and walked aimlessly throughout the hospital, hoping to clear her mind from the current situation. There were those who bowed to her or asked her questions, yet she trudged on, ignoring all sounds and sights that threatened to overwhelm her. She eventually found herself in a wooden bench at the hospital’s courtyard, devoid of people as they sought shelter from the torrential rain. She, however, embraced it, feeling every drop soak her. She refused to weep, instead letting the rain serve to quell her thoughts. Immediately, the rain stopped, and as she hoped for clear skies, it was from an umbrella held by Minister Kahua.

“Speaker. May I ask you a few questions? Please do answer them truly.” She spoke, her head remaining bowed to the ground, refusing to let anyone see her vulnerability.
“My answers have always been true to the Queen of Norregan.” He declared, his tone one of assurance.
“What do my people think of me? And what of the outside? What do they see in us?”
“Our Queen…” Speaker Kahua pondered for a moment, trying to choose his words carefully. . “Truly, you are seen as a strong figure, one who will not bend to any adversity. You have kept us safe for years, and we have trust that you will continue to do so. Still, there are those who speak of you as insane, the mad Queen of an island nation that remains closed and backwards.”
“I see.” The Queen nodded. “Then, for once, I yield to you and the Atanoara. This is a catastrophe that we cannot solve alone. I cannot leave my people in this state for years. Tell the Atanoara. We are accepting foreign aid.”
“I imagine that will make the Atanoara happy, and surely it will help in easing the suffering of our people.” Kahua said. “However, is this truly your bidding?”
“Yes, Speaker. It is.” She answered. “I have thought about it, and tonight has solidified my answer even more. Honestly, I still have reservations about it, to fear that our time of weakness be used against us, but I have complete faith in my people.”
“If that is what you believe, our Queen, then that is what I shall believe too.”
“But… Speaker…” The Queen rose, her face devoid of the sadness, replaced with the hardness that she was known for. “I will choose which countries we will open to. We will not turn into another Atolla. Republican sentiments shall be a worse catastrophe than this storm.”
“Do you have a preference or nations in mind, our Queen?”
“Only monarchies for now. Preferably those where the royalty still hold some form of power. They will understand my concerns and share in it. Serpens Land and Nhoor, perhaps? They should be open and wealthy. Our partners in Domanania are welcome too, even if they are not one of us. There is also that one nation to the East, the monarchy that holds the League and the oldest of us. Contact them.”

The rest of the night was spent in darkness, a flurry of activity rushing through the hospital as the people of Genna tried to survive the storm. It lasted for eternity, an unyielding storm making its way through the Kingdom and never ceasing its fury. More and more dead bodies kept being counted, each one being reported to the Queen herself, who was up all night making plans for when the storm finally weakens. Head Doctor Aolani once offered the Queen a private room in the hospital for herself to rest, to which she refused. The Queen continued to make rounds across the hospital, assuring the people of Norregan of hope and salvation.

The next morning, a faint sunlight finally peeked through the clouds, a sign that the storm had finally spared Genna from its wrath. People in the hospital of Genna were now thinning, most of them returning to their houses to survey the damage wrought by the great storm. Without sleep or rest, the Queen, Speaker Kahua, and the Atanoara convened at the Rapids Palace. The Council Chamber was circular, decorated with shells and sea stones that accentuated Norregan itself. Surrounding it were 19 men, all elders representing various towns and communities throughout Norregan. The oldest one of them, Elder Makaio, immediately stood up once the Queen entered and rushed to her side.

“Our Queen! We’ve heard about what you did last night and we would just like to say how dangerous that was.”
“Spare me, please. I’m tired.” The Queen cut him off. Just give them the report, Speaker Kahua.”
“Damages throughout the Kingdom, especially in the island of Tarakela. The northern villages have been wiped out. Here, in Genna, the port has been damaged and we lost much of the fishing fleet to the storm. Some of them we can repair but a majority, sadly, is lost to the storm. Much of the flood has subsided but the city still remains inundated. We are still counting the deaths and injured, our Queen, but it will take time. So many faced the wrath of the storm last night and most of them are still too weak and preoccupied to report themselves to the government.” Speaker Kahua reported, though it was apparent that much of the Elders of the Atanoara had their minds on a different topic.
“We’ve heard that you’re finally opening the Kingdom to foreign aid. We, the Atanoara, have our gratitude to this initiative. We’ve always made a point of improving our economy.” Elder Makaio exclaimed, a smile on his face.
“And opening our country would finally have us expand our diplomatic ties with other countries. Compete with the interests of our neighbors.” Another Elder, Elder Nohea, continued.
“Yes! Perhaps finally overtake Sud and became the leader of the Wake Islands-”
“Silence! This is the most ignorant statement I’ve ever heard!” The Queen slammed her fists on the table, silencing the chattering of the Atanoara. Stress and fatigue was etched on her face. “I didn't do it for you scheming elders or money! I did it for my people! Out of 20 members of this council, only one accompanied me through the storm last night and saw the horror our people saw! And if, perhaps, one of you says that you are too old to have gone outside, then perhaps you are too old to run this country! Was lounging in your houses satisfactory as the Norregan drowned?!”
“Our Queen, please, you have to calm down! Do not levy such accusations against us! This is preposterous!”
“Do not dare speak while I do, Minister Makaio! If I hear one more member of this council put themselves first or dare scheme against me, take comfort that I will boil you all alive!” The Queen rage, a fury burning in her eyes. “This council is dismissed! And if I really could, permanently! Leave!”

Despite the tension in the room, the Atanoara know the fury of the Queen of Norregan. They begrudgingly gathered their belongings and filed one by one out of the room. Minister Kahua remained seated, opposite the Queen whose anger was still apparent on her face. After a long silence, the Queen finally regained her composure, turning to the Speaker.

“What time is my speech, Minister? I believe I still have this obligation to fulfill before I can finally rest.”
“In an hour, Ilinakara. Would you like to make preparations now?”
“Yes. I want to face Norregan now.”

-=-

People of Norregan, may the winds and the seas bless us.

The events of last night was a great tragedy that each and everyone of us has endured. No doubt all have lost a part of what they love. There are those who have lost things they value the most. There are some who have lost their livelihoods. There are some who have lost their histories, their treasures, their memories. There are some who have lost those they love to the storm. Know that in this, I am one in sorrow, and I share the pain that all of us feel.

Perhaps, everyone already knows my visit to the Hospital of Genna last night amidst the raging storm. I did it so that I may truly see my people in their need. For years, I have protected this nation from the outside. Yet, now, I realize that I do not know the very people I protect. These recent events and my personal experience with you all was a horrible awakening. I saw desperation, I saw pain, I saw despair. This tragedy is one of considerable magnitude, and we cannot face it alone. For centuries, we have closed ourselves off from the outside world. Today, I see now that it has hindered us, and will continue to hinder us.

As of today, Norregan will open itself to the world. Restrictions will be loosened and charity will be accepted. Those who share interest in our plight can do so, and we shall welcome them with our gratitude. However, do know this, only us and us alone can rebuild Norregan and take it to an era anew. Many will undermine our efforts, and many will offer gifts that hide interests, but this is the truth of the world, and I, with all of you, shall face these challenges head on.

People of Norregan, they say that the seas and the winds make us. Last night, it visited us in a horrible enlightenment. Like the stories, we shall rise from this, as strong as the storm. As strong as the vast Gray.

[Serpens Land]

Diplomatic (Low) Pressure – Rains RP
09:35, 23 April 2021
Genna, Kingdom of Norregan

The skies above the Genna remained blue and calm, at least for now. Beyond the horizon – as was reported – was a very different story.

The Serpens Land embassy in Genna was a small, old-fashioned-looking building only about three blocks down from the Rapids Palace. Under normal circumstances the embassy lawn would be empty and calm, with only Ambassador Michael Schmitt, his two dogs, and the occasional embassy staff member walking upon its pristine grass. Today, however, was very much different. A long line up of people began at the front gate, meandered across the embassy lawn, and through the two heavy wooden doors perched open by two uniformed military policemen.

“Next!” Sounded a small, smartly dressed man sitting at a desk directly adjacent to the embassy doors. A family of four, all brandishing blue passports emblazoned with the Serpens Land coat of arms walked up to the desk.

“Good afternoon sir.” Spoke a tall, middle-aged man. “My family and I need to get back home urgently. We’ve tried booking flights, but the keep telling us they’ve all left. There must be some way else we can get home. Please help us... Please, we’ll do anything.”

The smartly dressed man knew what his answer would have to be: no. There was no other way off the island. They were just going to have to sit tight and make it through the storm.

“I’m sorry sir,” he replied, “there’s nothing I can do. We’ll just have to hope for the best.”

“There must be something, can’t the air force come get us?” He paused for a moment to look at the smartly dressed man’s nametag. “Albert, you must have family. You must know how it feels…”

But before he could finish, Albert interrupted him. “I’m sorry sir, you really must go. I’ve got a whole line of people to help before the end of the day.”

Upstairs, in the embassy offices, the scene was similarly chaotic. Windows were being boarded up, important documents waterproofed with plastic bags, even the large portrait of King Edward II – which normally hung proudly at the front of the room – was taken down and wrapped with plastic.

Ambassador Michael Schmitt sat in his large office talking (yelling at certain times) on the phone with the Serpens Land foreign minister.

“I’ve got a whole line of people outside my embassy waiting for answers. Don’t we have any aircraft that we can spare to at least evacuate some?”

“I’m sorry ambassador, there’s no way I can help you. You’re on your own.”

As the day slowly began to fade into night, the sky grew harsher, and the rain began to fall. The embassy lawn now lay empty, with only the wind and rain breaking the silence. Everyone had left the embassy in disappointment, knowing their government had no way of helping them.

By nightfall, the rain had worsened and the water began to creep up the small hill that the embassy was situated on. Ambassador Michael Schmitt looked down at his cell phone, which just began displaying a notification reading “NO SIGNAL”. He sat in the common room along with the eight other embassy staff.

“Albert, why don’t you go fetch us a radio; we’ll see if we can pick up any updates about the situation outside.”

Albert returned with the radio less than five minutes later. He immediately tuned to a local radio channel, surprisingly still broadcasting. What followed was a long list of updates about the situation across the Wake Islands.

“Seems like everyone’s in the same boat.” Commented Ambassador Schmitt. “It’s going to be a long night.”

The next day

The Ambassador woke early to the sound of a satellite phone ringing in the corner of the room. It appeared to be lighter outside as he could see light shining through the cracks between the boards across the windows.

“Hello, this is Ambassador Schmitt,” he answered picking up the satellite phone.

“Mr. Ambassador” – it was the foreign minister – “have you heard the statement from the Queen? I need you to meet with her urgently. She says she’s opening up the country to foreign aid. Let her know that the Realm of Serpens Land will willingly oblige.”

[Westmoor Isles]

Out of the Frying Pan
Noon, 24 April 2021
Black Creek, The Westmoor Isles

The Presidential Palace was usually full of MPs rushing to their office following Parliamentary meetings, aides carrying stacks of papers to their party's conference rooms for strategic planning, and tourists who were observing the hustle of Westmoorish legislature at work. This week, however, the halls were empty and barren with scarcely more than a handful of politicians who weren't taking a leave of absence during the storms. Black Creek hadn't been hit as hard as anywhere in the state of Bernow, but it was still hit. Power had been down for large areas of the capital city for a couple days and municipal services were rushing to repair broken and downed lines. For now, the city was safe.

In a large spare office in the South Wing of the palace, Prime Minister Joseph O'Connor sat at a desk illuminated by a floodlight. His senior aides and the members of his cabinet who remained in the city had called a meeting regarding the press strategy Westmoor would take in the midst of this crisis. The Prime Minister sat at his desk, nodding along to his secretary's ramblings about "government ineptitude" and "journalists' integrity." O'Connor had been golfing when he got the call that this meeting was being arranged and he hadn't even changed out of his salmon polo and khakis. A thick cigar rested in his mouth and waggled when he occasionally grunted in agreement with his secretary.

"Would you like a light, sir?" asked a young assistant who was standing at attention beside O'Connor's desk.

"The floodlight's plenty bright enough," O'Connor mumbled without even making eye contact.

"I meant for your cigar, sir."

O'Connor glanced up and nodded, held the cigar over the aid's lighter, and took a long drag on it before letting the smoke roll out of his nostrils. Minister of Foreign Affairs Lee Nguyen entered the office, tailed by his secretary who was wheeling in a corkboard with a map of the Kingdom of Norregan pinned to it. Nguyen looked at the Prime Minister, who nodded for him to begin.

"As you already know, our response to the storm here in Westmoor has been...lackluster. Casualties are stacking up pretty high and it won't be long before public opinion takes a nosedive. Doesn't matter who is to blame, we're all going to get walloped in the upcoming midterm election regardless what party we belong to. And Westmoor will look weak to boot, not even able to save its own people from some rain," Nguyen began in his monotone, nasal voice. When he mentioned elections, the Prime Minister's eyes lit up for a moment as if he hadn't even considered that there was only two months before midterms began. "That's why my team has devised a plan to improve our appearance to the public."

Nguyen pulled out a copy of the Queen of Norregan's statement and passed it to O'Connor. O'Connor darted his eyes over it, feigning that he was reading.

"You just read a statement released by Norregan in response to the devastation that they are experiencing. You think its bad in Bernow right now? Try being in Genna."

"I'd rather not try that," O'Connor chuckled. "But you're more than welcome."

Nguyen grinned despite his annoyance at O'Connor's joke. "That's just thing, sir, neither of us will have to. We'll send a Westmoorish detachment with Serpens Land to their embassy in Genna. That way we'll look charitable to improve the public's opinion on us and will look strong to improve their confidence."

"Your strategy to improve the public's opinion is to take away aid from them and give it to someone else?"

There was a beat. The room went awkwardly quiet and the Prime Minister crushed his cigar against the desk. He began to laugh and continued his train of thought. "It's brilliant. This is why you're in my cabinet, Lee." He stood up and shook Lee's hand before going over what statements would be released to the press. Nguyen went over a list of Westmoorish expatriates in Norregan (there were very few) who their detachment would search for and ensure their safety. The public in Westmoor and Wake didn't need to know that their orders to the detachment prioritized the lives of the Westmoorish expats over any Wake Islander.

"Now that that's squared away, Lee, why don't you meet me at Del Angelitas Resort for the back nine?"

And Into the Water
14:30, 24 April 2021
Graig, The Westmoor Isles

The city of Graig was relatively untouched by the storms, thankfully. The Lowlands Medical Research Hospital wasn't any busier than usual despite receiving patients that were injured during the storms in Bernow and the Highlands. The Director of Emergency Services, Barbara Nielson, was finishing her lunch break in her office when she received a call from the office of the governor, requesting that she assemble a team of 10 emergency medical technicians and 5 paramedics to be shipped out to the Wake Islands. She'd been requested to send emergency response crews out to the flooded areas of Bernow to triage patients several times this past week, but to send them out to a foreign nation this unexpectedly when there was still so many people in need of help in Westmoor?

"Yes, we can do that. No, it won't be a burden. We're very well staffed despite the circumstances."

She knew this wouldn't go over well with her EMTs, many of whom had family in Bernow. Even she had her doubts, but if the order came through from the office of the governor there had to be a good reason for this response. She trusted the system despite its flaws.

[Martenyika]

Gerard Aloumbassa, Serval Solutions Group (SSG)
Airstrip, Karanoa Area, Sud

As the company aircraft powered down and came to a stop, Gerard Aloumbassa felt relieved, but not that relieved. Between assembling a team, materials, making arrangements, and busting his ass convincing Serval Solutions Group to go into Wake, there hadn't been a lot of opportunity for rest lately. And yet his real job of managing SSG's efforts in the Wake Island area was just now beginning-- at least the hurdle of getting the airplane safely to land at an airstrip on a cyclone-blasted island had been overcome.

Gerard took his first step inside Sud as he came out of the aircraft's side door. One by one, the other four from his handpicked crew did the same, Romeo, Flora, Bethany, and lastly their pilot Max. Gerard turned around to address him.

"Max, let the others know we've touched down and are ready to coordinate."

"On it Chief," Max nodded as he began dialing.

At the same time, Gerard Aloumbassa conveyed a similar message back to HQ. He knew plenty of them back there were watching him like vultures. Many of the Serval brass still blamed him for the needless loss of a plane, along with its personnel and supplies, responding to a flood area in Martenyika in 2017.

The way Gerard had it all figured out in his head, the Wake Islands' current ailment and his plans to address it would (hopefully) be a win-win-win between the local people, the company, and Gerard Aloumbassa.

[The Tsunterlands]

La Phora Street, Libartalia,
The Cooperative Tsunter Republic

The restaurant called Larkada sits on La Phora Street in the city of Libertalia, its back to the ocean, overlooking the Tsunter Bay, not quite in the city’s government district but not quite in the tourist zone. The resturant's food had won awards, perhaps not as many as it deserved but enough to justify the price. On a warm enough night, the owners, a merry couple who’d been running the restaurant since the late eighties, might set out tables and chairs on the decking outside and the patrons can take in the sea and let the sound of waves gently mingle with soothing sounds of the Jazz pianist who regularly plays at the restaurant. But it wasn’t the food, or the view or the atmosphere that brings the customers to Larkada. It was the discretion the owners guaranteed. No photographs and no gossip about who was meeting with who. The stories of the numerous illicit affairs, be they political or romantic, would die with the owners. These conditions made the restaurant ideal for the wiry, young gentleman that sat alone out on the decking, fingers impatiently drumming on the table, sipping a nearly empty glass of water and rereading a menu for what felt like the millionth time. A smile emerged as he sensed someone else approaching the table.

“Councillor Gaun.” The young man stood and turned a face a well-dressed gentlemen, whose head was balding and beard was greying. “I’m honoured we could meet.” He decided not mention Guan’s late arrival.

“Cappa Sandy, is it?” The councillor shook Sandy’s outstretched hand. Guan’s palm was cold and dry, his eyes a little reptilian behind a pair of rimless glasses. “I rarely pass up an opportunity to eat at Larkada’s, particularly when someone else is paying.” The smile he gave didn’t quite reach those cold eyes.

A waitress who’d accompanied Gaun to the table offered him a menu. Without so much as glancing at it he ordered, sashimi with goat’s cheese, followed by smoked duck with endive and maple syrup. Sandy gave his own order and handed his menu back.

“I’ve had a friend called Primrose.” Guan began as he poured himself a glass from the wine bottle the waitress brought. “She’s a Chae’La Bonnie, like you? You know her?” Sandy shook his head, although he vaguely remembered a woman by that name at his uncle’s last wedding anniversary. “Well, I asked her about you, after you invited me tonight. Bande-Captain at thirty-two is impressive nowadays, but apart from that nothing too special.” Gaun chewed an olive from a plate of appetizers. “Which leads me to conclude either you’re a lobbyist or you’re looking for a job. So, which is it?”

“I guess a little a bit of both. I wanted to talk to you about the Wake Islands.”

“Don’t tell me you’re an activist. It would this meal awfully unpleasant.”

Sandy chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’m no activist.”

“Alright then. Wake Islands: three miserable specks, unfortunate enough to be on a wrong side of Raedlon. Had a bit of weather trouble recently, if I’m not mistaken.” As he spoke the waitress reappeared with Guan’s sashimi and goat’s cheese. Sandy assumed it must have been prepared before Guan arrived. It appeared being a Councillor of the Grand Conclave was enough to warrant such rapid service.

“That’s putting it rather mildly. Atolla has been completely cut off. Norregan and Sud have both requested foreign aid. Perhaps you might enlighten me as to what our government intends to do for the poor souls.”

“That’s really not the type of information to be revealed to private citizens over dinner.” For a moment Guan’s reptilian eyes bored into Sandy’s, before the councillor broke into a grin. “But considering this is a particular excellent meal you’ve paid for I supposed there’s no harm in telling you the government intends to send the nation's thoughts and prayers and let nature do its work. The North Mesder isn’t exactly a high priority area. Why the interest?”

Sandy reached into bag next to him a produce a thick folder, which he let thump on the table. “I have proposal for you. I want to put together a taskforce. Doctors, builders, teachers, general do-gooders. We’ll use my family fleet to get there and send supplies. Try and make the Wakes a better place.”

Guan leafed through the folder, scanning the pages as he chewed chunks of sashimi. He seemed amused. “Why?”

“To staunch my bleeding heart.”

That made Gaun laugh. “No no. If that were the case, you’d go find a charity. Or go work for the League. No, you’re not type. So, I’ll ask you again: What’s in this for you?”

Sandy poured himself a glass of wine, growing a little hungry as he watched the older man eat. “I’d argue that’s the wrong question. A more pertinent one might be: What’s in this for you?” From within his suit pocket, he produced a photograph and placed it on the folder in front of Guan. The photograph showed an attractive blonde-haired young woman whose appearance bore a slight similarity to Sandy. Guan held the photo at arm lengths at peered at it through his glasses.

“Very pretty. And I admire your boldness in assuming you could bribe me with a woman but I’m afraid I’m quite happily married.” Guan poured himself another glass

“But your son isn’t.” Sandy’s words caused Gaun’s hand to freeze. “Apparently his engagement met a messy end. Too many holiday’s to Dociara. That’s the rumour anyway.” Guan’ eyes grew narrow and hard. The line between bribery and blackmail could often seem small and Sandy wondered if he’d come across too aggressive. “I apologise. I don’t mean to give life to rumour. But if you want your son to succeed you as clan captain, you’ll need to put such rumours to bed. Chae’La Bonnie is as fine a clan as yours. And trust me, my cousin here won’t care about her future husband’s… predilections. A lack of conjugal attention would suit her just fine.”
Guan leaned back in his chair, stared at the photo and swirled his glass of wine around, seemingly deep in thought. The moment seemed to drag on into eternity.

“She would also come with a fifteen per cent stake in Bonnie Marine Industries.” Sandy added, to sweeten the deal.
“I want thirty.” Gaun’s voice had lost whatever humour it had, turning to pure business. Sandy grimaced, thirty per cent was difficult, not impossible, but difficult. It would require a hard phone call with Sandy’s uncle, the Bonnie clan captain. Sandy nodded, accepting Guan’s terms. “Okay. We’ll hold a press conference. Talk a load of nothing about our international obligations. Put out a contract for sending aid to the Wake Islands.”

“Which I’ll win?”

“If you keep playing your cards right. But you still haven’t answered my question. Why do you care so much about the Wake Islands?”

Sandy leaned back and for moment stared out at the waves in the Tsunter bay. “In 1989 the north coast had some ‘weather troubles’ as you put it. Not nearly as bad as what the Wakes are currently experiencing. But for a week Bonnieanne found itself a foot and a half under water. Seeing your city like that leaves quite an impression.”

“Ah so you feel some kindred spirit to the Wakeites. You must have that bleeding heart after all.”

“Oh no, I’m afraid you were correct about that. What I remember most was how desperate the people became, even if just for a few days.” Sandy smiled as the waitress finally brought his meal, grilled salmon from the North Mesder with Berry vinegar and guacamole – a Wakeite delicacy. “And in my experience, there is no commodity is more valuable than a desperate person.”

[Ioudaia]

Foreign Ministry, Nykalessos, Ioudaia
Two days before the storm

An unfamiliar man appeared at Minister of State Shir bat Hekabe Ushria's door and waited for her attention. Puzzled, she merely said, "Yes?"

"Oh, um, excuse me." He pointed at himself. "Maor Aristides, the new Junior Assistant Minister for Emergency Aid. The Weather Office says the Wake Islands are going to get flattened by an approaching storm: wind, rain, probably severe flooding. What sort of response does the Ministry have in mind?"

"I think that you have one in mind."

"Um, yeah." An embarrassed smile flitted across Maor's face. "Send in small teams, see what's been hit, and see where Ioudaia can do the most good. Build up where we can have the biggest impact.

"Policy justification is the usual: improve foreign relations, use our aid as a basis for improving democracy and civil rights. Norregan is autocratic; Atolla's government is legitimate but fragile."

"Sounds plausible. Approved, but don't get us in too deep. Liaise with the other ministries, too, please."

"Gotcha." He left, his rapid footsteps retreating down the hall.

---

Morning, the day after the storm

"Everybody seemed to know this was coming except the Islanders." Major Peneleos ben Chadad grumbled to himself for about the fifteen time on the flight. As military flights went, it wasn't too bad: there was even space to stretch out, since the forward part of the Kingfisher's main compartment had been set up as a field command post.

"Five minutes to landing at Genna airport," the pilot called from the cockpit. Peneleos nodded to Sergeant Tros ben Yakir Nicon, the loadmaster, to check that everybody and everything was strapped down for landing.

Tros made his way back through the crowded compartment. The rest of Task Group N, Allied Forces Training Corps, all seven of them, were secured. Tros carefully checked the two amphib ATVs lashed down beneath the wing; if they broke loose, the landing would be their last. He tightened the webbing over the stacks of supplies behind them, then looked over all the civvies. A smile brightened his face: the five of them were strapped into their seats, and the canine handler had the dog as tied down as possible. He made his way back forward.

"Everybody's ready, Major, even the dog."

Peneleos chuckled. "Best-trained dog I've seen. Hasn't even whimpered once. Thank you." Turning to take another look at everybody else, Peneleos saw that they were all looking out the windows. He turned back to see for himself. "Not much left standing. I've seen better looking war zones."

[Westmoor Isles]

Arrival in Genna
06:15, 25 April 2021
Genna, Kingdom of Norregan

The Westmoorish detachment to Genna approached the hospital carrying their emergency medical equipment high above their heads as they waded through the now shallower floodwaters. The team was originally intended to be a group of fifteen medical professionals and five soldiers from the small corps of Westmoorish Army Engineers, it now consisted of only seven of the promised fifteen medical professionals. When director Barbara Nielson heard the news that many of her team had simply not shown up at the headcount before shipping off at four in the morning she immediately understood that this was not going to go as well as anyone had hoped. She insisted to the lance corporal who was busy taking the headcount that she take the place of one of the paramedics who'd not arrived, the young man simply shrugged and let her onto the boat.

"Let's get a move on, clear that eastern entrance of mud and debris so we can start moving out the less injured to our tents," barked Lieutenant William Shepherd, ordering his token force. When the Westmoorish detachment first arrived they set up a small tent to triage patients before sending them further up the hill to the hospital proper, the plan being that they could treat any minor injuries and escort the injured to shelter without clogging up the overworked hospital. This makeshift clinic would be understaffed even with a force of only 20, let alone the 3 who stayed behind to man it, but the Westmoorish detachment ultimately had no jurisdiction to take control of how resources were applied. Nielson was particularly worried about how the Wakeites would feel about going into the tent of some foreigners instead of just running the rest of the way to the hospital, and equally worried how her team would feel triaging foreigners instead of being home with their families, or helping fellow Westmoorans. Of the eight of her team who stayed home, most of them she knew did so to check on their families or work in the tent cities in Johannestad and New Leiden. She could respect that.

The army engineers began to shovel the mud out and clear the largest of the debris from the entrance. A large, water-logged pile of tree branches was thrown into a dumpster that was wheeled up to the entrance to aid the soldiers in their efforts. Nielson propped up a foldable chair and rested her equipment on it when a middle-aged woman approached her, carrying a boy no older than ten. She had a pained look on her face and was holding the boy's face in her hand, clearly frightened.

"Ma'am, you're going to have to go to the other entrance of the building, this entrance hasn't been-" she began, before seeing a heavy stream of blood running from the young boy's neck.

Nielson clocked the severity of the situation and called out for two of her EMTs to take a look at the boy. As the first of the two EMTs approached, the woman began speaking in a language that neither Nielson or the EMT could recognize. The second EMT tried to speak to her in English, then Dutch, and in a last ditch effort said a greeting in broken Alteran. Recognizing that they weren’t getting anywhere without a local to translate for them, one of the paramedics motioned for the woman to hand the boy over, which she hesitantly complied with. As the team began treating his injuries, Nielson ran over to the lieutenant.

“Lieutenant, we’re brutally unprepared to manage this situation without someone to translate for us,” Nielson began, not wanting to waste any time. “Hell, I don’t even know the name of the language they speak here in Norregan. We have to get a translator.”

Lieutenant Shepherd eyed Barbara, sighed, and said “Look, we know that you’re not going to get anything done without an interpreter. You can put in a request with the Serpens Land embassy, I guess. Your focus shouldn’t even be on the Wake Islanders, just try and find Serpens Landers and Westmoorans, they’re our primary target here.”

“Primary target?” Nielson fumed. “Damn it we’re doctors, not soldiers! Our ‘target’ is whoever is in need. I took an oath for Christ’s sake.”

Shepherd opened his mouth to retort when the voice of a lance corporal rang out saying “This entrance is cleared, sir!” Shepherd complimented his men for their speedy work and began giving them their next orders before turning back to Nielson.

“Listen. Here’s a list I was given of the Westmoorish expats living in the Kingdom of Norregan. You see how it’s one sided? That’s why there’s so few of us here. Now, my orders are to ensure the safety of these-“ he dramatically ran his finger up and down the list. “These individuals. How you and your team do that is up to your discretion. I’ve got work to do.”

A portable generator began whirring and an air compressor began humming as the lance corporal from earlier inflated an emergency raft. Barbara angrily stormed back to her EMTs and paramedic to see how the boy and the woman were doing. Her heart sank when she saw his still chest drawing no breath.

[Keverai]

A helping hand - Rains RP
10:12pm, 23rd of April 2021
Offices of the League of TWI, International District

“Lewen, what is going on over there. Are you okay? I’ve been hearing about Sud and Norregan over the news here but there seems to be silence coming out of Atolla”, Gabriel Barrette, the delegate for Keverai said.

“Yes. It is not good over here and that is why I am ringing. Our systems are down and we do not seem to have the kinds of numbers on file that we used to have around here when we rang to notify when there was a disaster.”, the President explained. “I wish to speak to the Secretary-General or a similarly high positioned official in the League, do you mind providing me the number?”

Soon enough, Gabriel found the number and President Kelau wrote it down. The call then quite promptly ended.

Gabriel looked at the phone he had been holding up to his ear with a feeling of disbelief and confusion. That had been the most random yet haunting conversation he had had for a while. He tapped away at his keyboard for a few seconds, then decided to close the window on the computer and go out into the hallways of the League Offices and see if there was anyone he could talk to and see if Lewen had potentially called anyone else. He pushed his chair back from the desk with his feet, spun it around and then got out. He stood up slightly too fast before gaining his composure and walking past his assistant and out of his office.
The halls were quiet, even for this time of the evening. The league was still debating the indentured servitude resolution - something in Gabriel’s mind was almost certain to fail as a result of the constant fighting over a mere definition they were trying to give that was crucial to the resolution. He briefly noticed one of the few sounds that he could here. It was a light sound of what was clearly an Alterran, owing to their accent. He continued down the corridor, looking at all the various people that were in the offices he passed. As he approached the corner of one of the well-lit hall his eyes turned to the television screen - he immediately noticed that it was Arendai International, an Ahnslen news network. It appeared that they were covering the Wake Islands and how they were coping with the front. Pictures clearly marked from Karanoa, the capital of Sud, showed the devastation which the people faced - fallen trees, flooded streets and the dodgy wooden boats that people were using to paddle around to get essentials and to check up on other people in the community.

Barrette stopped for a couple minutes and took it all in before he had a sudden realisation. The front was coming from the northwest and not the south. If that was the kind of damage that a town sustained in probably what was the most sheltered place in the entirety of the Wake Islands, Lewen must have been very much understating what was going on in Atolla - or simply it was so bad he didn’t know what was even going on. He reflected on a minute on the reason for the Atollan President’s call - it was to get a number to the Secretary-General’s office.

If they didn’t even have numbers to the league… they must be out of contact with their foreign affairs department… Atolla City must be very badly impacted…, he thought as he remained stationed in the awkward corner where the television sat.

After reaching this point, he decided it was best to return to his office. Within minutes he returned back to the chair and picked up the phone, dialing the number to the Office of the Keveraite President. The first voice he heard was from President Renaut’s assistant, Skye. After some brief pleasantries, he requested for her to put the President on the line.

A few minutes of strangely selected holding music later, a voice hesitantly came over the line.

“Hello, this is President Burnell Renaut.”

“Yes, hello Mr President, this is Gabriel Barrette - ah Gabriel! How are you!, the President interjected - I’m doing well overall, just a bit troubled by something”, Gabriel replied.

“And that is?”, the President inquired.

Barrette: “I have gotten a strange call from Lewen Kelau… who is the leader of Wake Atolla. He asked me for the number of the Secretary-General of the League.”

Renaut: “Yes, I would agree that is quite strange, especially given the events that are happening at the moment. Has there been any further communication from him anywhere?”

B: “Not that I know of.”

R: “Well. I suppose that is that then, we will just have to wait and hope that the Secretary-General sends the information around.”

B: “I’m not sure if we can wait for the League.”

R: “Excuse me?”

B: “I have just seen some pictures out of Karanoa on Arendai - and I’m sure your office has seen the same or similar… if that is what is going on in Sud, Atolla has been decimated.”

R: “What do you propose then?”

B: “We need to get Keveraite boots on the ground, and fast. Our cyclone teams know how to deal with this like no-one else can. It’s been bothering me why Lewen called me as a Keveraite and I think it’s because we have a real opportunity to make a difference.”

R: “You could have been the only number he has…”

B: “Regardless, I think it is time for us to help. Before the league. Before other larger nations get in there - this is an opportunity for us to make some real inroads in the west and help people along the way. Fifty personnel should be enough, at least initially.”

R: “I am only comfortable dispatching ten at this time. And you will get permission from the President, won’t you?”

B: “Thank you, Mr President.”

Shortly after, his assistant came in holding a binder folder of sheets that had been printed. They were a set of emails from the President’s Office and from the Internal Affairs Authority of Keverai, placing him in his capacity as a delegate of the President’s foreign service to oversee the project.

With a fresh enthusiasm, Gabriel signed the forms that had been printed out with the emails and then handed them back to the assistant. Now that that was sorted, Gabriel picked up his phone and looked through his call history to find Lewen’s number. Surprisingly enough, it was easily traceable and all he needed to do was press a few buttons and his call was up and away.

It was much easier to get the number than get a response. After a few calls with no luck, Gabriel put the phone down and focused on the task at hand - getting ready to try and convince the President to offer a much larger commitment to Wake Atolla after the cyclone responders found what he knew deep down they would find.

6:13am, 25th of April 2021
Atolla City, Atolla

President Lewen Kelau stood outside on the Parliament lawns, a grand and expansive area which had now been covered in tents as a part of the makeshift evacuation centre he had ordered the Government to establish. The sights around him were beyond grave, but he was glad that at least some of his constituents would be in relative safety and close enough to him that he could effectively govern and reassure them in this time of crisis. He looked up into the grey sky and every couple minutes he saw helicopters slowly circle around him before he watched them move off to the northern.

He knew those helicopters were not for Atolla but rather Norregan. He had insisted that the Secretary-General tells nations to steer clear of Atolla until he gave the go ahead for emergency responders to come in. He continued watching the aircraft flying low but very much past his city with gratitude that his wishes had been met. Obviously, he knew that the aerial photos of Atolla would be hitting international news shortly and he would need to quickly switch his position so as to not look as uncaring to his people.

The President looked back down for a second and pondered on the frightening balance that he had to make between trying to ensure the best for his citizens whilst making sure foreign lives weren’t added to the already unacceptable toll that he was already certain his nation had paid. Over the past 48 hours, whilst the waters had somewhat receded he remained unable to contact his constituents outside of the immediate Capital. He feared the worst but was determined to not make the situation more severe.

He looked back up at the sky as he watched a black and purple helicopter approached him at a much lower altitude than the helicopters prior. It circled very closely around the lawn before coming even lower.

It was going to land.

President Kelau, who had been standing in the open amongst the tents walked and then increased his pace to a jog in order to meet the helicopter when it landed.

By the time he had gotten to the paved square which sat in front of the grand Parliament building, the helicopter had already been powering down. There were ten men coming out of the helicopter with strangely familiar accents. The President kept his distance, observing the ten men placing backpacks on and attaching a piece of fabric with some sort of medical logo on it. He recalled the brief conversation he had with Mr Barrette two days prior.

He couldn’t believe his ears, or his eyes. Somehow the Keveraites, despite the Secretary-General’s assurances, ended up landing in Atolla.

When the foreign men noticed him, they began to lock eye contact with him and approached with their hands out of their pockets and in a clear sign they wanted to talk with him. Before they got too close, the President spoke first.

“Stand right there, thank you.”, he asked. Promptly, the men stopped in their places.
“With all due respect, who has sent you? I was not aware of any humanitarian efforts coming towards Atolla and to the contrary, the League signalled to me that none of the member-states were sending people at the time to the island.”, the President continued.

“Bonjour Monsieur President. We are a part of the Cyclone Damage Response, Recovery and Evaluation Unit which is based in Keverai. Our President, Mr Burnell Renaut, has authorised our dispatch and we have been placed under the direction of Mr Gabriel Barrette. Personally, my name is Sergeant Bareeve Carra.”, the man replied with a friendly tone.

“So it was Barrette. I mean, you are here now and your services are likely going to be needed quite soon. Come, follow me.”, the President stated emotionlessly.

The disaster response squad looked at their surroundings, observing the fallen trees, the tents that had been placed throughout the well-kept lawns that they were being led through. They looked out towards the sea, and saw a number of buildings clearly destroyed and partially submerged by the brown floodwaters which were still here despite the storm finishing about thirty-six hours ago.

After a couple minutes, they filed into the various offices and rooms which the President and his staff had been using. The President then asked the men to stay there and talk with his assistant. He continued down the corridor and then slammed the door shut behind him.

The President was anything but impressed.

President Kelau then picked up the phone, dialled in the number he had for Barrette and tried to work out what actually happened.

“Good morning, Gabriel.”, the President said.

“Hello Lewen, I trust you are faring a bit better than the other night.”

Kelau: “Not by much. Nevertheless, I have ten people here with me now that claim they have been sent under your authority.”

Barrette: “Yes, that would be correct. I tried to notify you of their arrival but it seems the communication between us is patchy.”
K: “Indeed, it is patchy. I thank you for the ten men, but please send no more until I give the all clear for them to come in. The simple truth is that it is not safe or feasible to have any more people in Atolla at the moment than we have. The disaster is anything but done, and our authorities must be the first to re-establish contact with our citizens.”

B: “No more are coming for now. The President has dispatched ten currently and no more than that, at least in the short-term. I do hope that the current assistance we have sent will be helpful at this time.”

The conversation ended on that point and Kelau then placed the phone back down and walked back outside to where the disaster response team from Keverai were still seated.

“Tell me what you can do.”, the President asks.

[Martenyika]

April 25, 2021
Kessa, Martenyika

President Maxime Zubele quickly reviewed the speech, or what was really more of a basic outline. A few updates regarding the situation had already been scrawled in the margins by a staffer. He took special care to review those, and not just because of the handwriting. By the President's side was Martenyikan Army General John Reaboka.

"Okay Mr. President, General, are you both ready to go in?" the staffer inquired. He was looking at the clock.

"Yes, so long as the media is present, and there aren't any other last second updates," President Zubele replied.

"They're all here, and it looks like you're all up to date for now, sir." They knew the drill, President Zubele and General Reaboka stepped up to the backstage doorway leading to the press room.

"We're all set here, go ahead," the staffer spoke into his earpiece.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the Republic of Martenyika" came the introduction. The two men crossed the threshold and made their way directly to the Martenyikan flag-flanked podium. Neither looked over towards the audience on the way, but once they reached the podium they could see it was a packed room. Just as the President hoped.

"Forgive me for looking at the script occasionally," Zubele exposed his paper, "but the theater didn't give me this role very long ago." The room chuckled.

"I realize that this press conference was not originally scheduled, so thank you all for coming today and fulfilling your role on relatively short notice. Now, I have been briefed on the devastating natural disaster which recently struck the Wake Island area. Yesterday I watched Chief Minister Lenana's message to the region about the suffering there in Sud, and it seems to be the same for their neighbors Atolla and Norregan. Our prayers are with them, but I believe Martenyika can and should play its own role in bringing relief to the Wake Islands. My administration and I have been in contact with the Wake governments as well as fellow members of the Western Isles Democratic Alliance so that we might coordinate relief efforts. Parliament is currently being briefed on a proposed aid package which would be administered by a joint team of the Martenyikan Defense Forces. To tell you more about this, I would like to introduce the leader of this effort, Army General John Reaboka. He will give you a brief overview, and then we can receive questions. General..."

"...Thank you...first of all, I am honored to be entrusted with this level of command by President Zubele. As he touched on, my staff and I have formulated a plan for disaster relief in the Wake Island area, which is currently being introduced to parliament in the form of the Wake Island Relief Initiative. This initiative would designate essential items like emergency food and first aid supplies for Wake Island nations, to be transported and distributed by a joint team of Army, Navy, and Air Force personnel. Furthermore these personnel would be available to help relief efforts from other nations, like those of our WIDA allies. Mr. President..." he concluded.

"Now we will receive just a few questions about the Wake crisis..." Zubele said as he stepped back up behind the podium.

"You spoke about 'roles' in the beginning, but what would you say to those who might think Martenyika doesn't have need to have a role in all this?"

"It's not just about need, its about wanting to help. It's about solidarity with a people in need, and being a good citizen of the region. Faith teaches us that in caring for others in their time of need, we will be cared for in ours."

"Are you confident Parliament will approve the initiative?"

"I am, I encourage them to pass the bill. General Reaboka's plan is actionable, I think it's just a matter of time until they approve it--hopefully a short time. Next."

"How will this be paid for when the Infrastructure Bill from last July has hardly--"

"That's all, thank you all once again for coming." President Zubele interjected, before being escorted off stage.

[The Tsunterlands]

The Jamie

Bonnie Clan Penthouse, Libertalia
9:50 AM - April 25th
The bathroom was thick with steam. It clung to the mirrors and walls, hung in the air obscuring the light and pooled outside the open window as it mingled with the brisk morning air beyond. Most residents of Libertalia preferred to take cooler showers, a relief from the warm winds of the Mesder. But Sandy was from the North Coast where a cold shower was something the weather gave you. Besides, with the looming prospect of spending the next week washing in a ship’s bathroom, he was going to make the most of the luxury Libertalia penthouse apartment his uncle had lent him for the week. As Sandy rinsed the last of the shampoo (Astàse Golden Scent, “very nice”) he sang along to the songs booming from the apartment’s sound system.

“Don't turn around, woah oh oh. The Kommissar's in town, woah oh oh.” He flicked the pad turning the water and stepped from the shower and into steam-filled bathroom. “You're in his eye and you'll know why, the more you live, the faster you will die.” He dried himself, slipped into a bathrobe and slid into the kitchen, the music still blaring. There he popped a pain au chocolat from the pantry in his mouth, drizzled oil into a pan and placed it on the cooking hob, fairly confident he still had some salmon left in the fridge. He never got a chance to check, his train of thought interrupted by the realisation there was someone else in the apartment. Behind the kitchen island, sitting on the sofa facing away from Sandy was a slight figure, dark hair tied up in a bun.

“DON’T TURN AROUND!” the music continued.

“SENORA, stop the music!” Sandy commanded and a little device in the corner of the room lit up with a blue ring as the song suddenly cut off. The figure rose from the sofa and turned. She was slightly smaller than Sandy. He guessed they were of an similar age.

“Interesting choice of song.” she said with a wry smirk. Her eyes were dark, sharp and mocking and she dressed professionally; white shirt with no collar, fitted black jacket, long black trousers that reached her high-heels. In fact, she was dressed exactly like a lawyer which made Sandy very nervous indeed.

“Who are you?” He asked coldly, pulling the pain au chocolat from his mouth.

The women’s smirk didn’t seem to abate. “SENORA, play my messages.”

The little device in the corner lit up once again as a familiar voice emanated from the sound system. “Hi, Sandy, its Gaun here. Bit of a bloody shit one but the Conclave completely ambushed me with this. They want to send a Jamie with you to the Wake Islands. Something about new leadership at the Institute and wanting to show off what the Co-ops offer the modern world. I tried to kick it away but the boys here are drawing a hard line on this. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” The device went dark as the message ended.

Shit. This wasn’t quite the last thing Sandy needed but it was getting there. A Jamie – the nickname giving to the agents of the James Misson Institute, the organisation responsible for being the ideological cheerleader of the Tsunterlands. Sandy cared very little for the ideology of his country and even less about having a government flunky getting in the way of the Wake Island operation.

The Jamie held out her hand. “Anrietta ‘Pages’.” She said, with the same bitchy smirk. She had a slight accent to her. Probably Chae’La Appâtmann.

“Captain Andreo ‘Sandy’.” Okay, I’ll play, he though shaking the woman’s hand. “So, what is it you want?”

She wiped her hand, which was now damp after shaking Sandy’s, on her trouser leg. “Well, I’d thought the Councillor’s message was rather self-explanatory but if you want detail’s the J.M.I. has prepared a detailed list of our objectives in the Wake Isles.” As she spoke, she picked up a brown envelope from the sofa. As she reached down Sandy noticed an engagement ring on her finger. Not cheap-looking but not expensive either.

“No, you misunderstand me. I don’t care was the Institute wants I’m interested in what you want to not spend the next year living on a boat in the most godforsaken part of the Western Isles. I can’t image your fiancée is so happy about that prospect.”

She laughed at that. “I’m afraid, Captain Sandy, that you are misunderstanding the situation. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to bribe me away. Not with money and certainly not with relatives.” Sandy suddenly felt very cold standing in the kitchen in just a damp bathrobe. He wasn’t sure if Pages noticed his discomfort as she continued, “It is the opinion of the Institute that the situation in the Wake Islands represents a unique opportunity to establish labour co-operatives and other Missonist structures not only to assist in the recovery of the islands and to better the lives of Wakeite people overall but also to demonstrate the effectiveness of Cooperatism as comparisons are inevitably drawn about the speed of recovery of the Wake Islands and their Westmoorish neighbours.” She sounded convincing; Sandy had to give her that.

“Oh great, you’re a fanatic. Wasn’t your breed meant to have died out when one-party rule ended?” Sandy asked, rhetorically.
Pages sighed and gave a forced smile. “Captain Sandy, we are one of the wealthiest nations in the Wake Islands and yet our peers regard us as nothing but a isolated socialist hovel comparable to backwaters like-“

“I’m not fanatic and my patriotism only extends to the Isles Cup.” Sandy interrupted. “So, let me cut you a deal. I’ll let you run about the Islands, giving your little speeches and handing out pamphlets and in return you’ll let me and my boys get one with business of actually helping the Wakeites.”

Pages seemed amused, which was not the effect Sandy was hoping to have. “Ah yes, your so-called bleeding heart. I just gave the reasons why the J.M.I wants me aboard your taskforce however I haven’t explained why the Grand Conclave are so eager to send me.” She was really starting to enjoy herself. “Because, you see, as soon as the good Councillor Gaun raised your name some of his colleagues in the Conclave took it upon themselves to look a little bit deeper into you. Ended up finding some not-so-nice secrets about the not-so-nice company you like to keep. And as you can imagine there were some concerns about sending a fucking sex trafficker to effectively represent our country internationally. But we can’t exactly back out of our obligation to the Wake Islands not after the announcement has already been made. Nor was there any wish for the government to foot the bill for the aid itself, not after your uncle has agreed to bare the brunt of the costs of the operation. So the compromise was reached to send me. To keep an eye on things. Keep you inline and on message. Avoid any embarrassments. I’m sure you understand.”

Sandy did understand. And he didn’t like it. Not after the promises he made to his uncle, or to the men on the taskforce or even to Guan, the spineless toad. The truth was obeying the government was an option he couldn’t afford.

“Trafficker.” He said quietly.

“I’m sorry?”

“Not a sex trafficker, just a trafficker. Because I’m not fond of putting myself in a niche.” He raised his eyes and stared deep in the Pages, determined to show he would not bend.

She gave that smirk again. “It doesn’t really matter, because once we get to the Wake Islands you’ll be nothing more than an aid worker doing good by the people. I’m afraid, Captain Sandy, the Kommissar is very much in town.” Sandy found himself speechless. Pages picked up a bag from the sofa while placing the envelope on the arm. Before she left she turned and said “I believe we set sail tomorrow no? You’ll need to prepare me a room on the boats, someone to sleep and someone where to work. I look forward to the coming days.”

[Keverai]

First Glance - Rains RP
5:32am, 26th of April 2021
Grounds of the Atollan Parliament, Atolla City

The bleak rays of the early morning sunrise reflected off of the murky brown floodwaters which remained to cover parts of the island. The waters had receded over the night a bit more, revealing more of the debris which had previously been submerged by the deluge that had happened multiple days prior. President Lewen Kelau, having slept in his office again, wandered aimlessly through the corridors and opened the door to the world outside. The clouds had cleared and the warm, humid air of the Wake Islands had returned - the air was no longer soggy but rather steamy and slightly oppressive. Lewen took his suit jacket off and hung it on a chair placed out of the front of the office whilst looking out at the extensive lawns which had previously been pristine and clean. Now, they were filled with litter and tents - a sign of the Atollans who remained to seek refuge close to their Government.

Lewen watched as the helicopters passed Atolla again for the morning and waited patiently for the one he was expecting to return for the day. Ten minutes later, the President watched as a black helicopter departed from the general path that the overhead aircraft had been taking. The Keveraites were coming back again for the day. Soon enough, one helicopter had landed and left, dropping off rations and supplies for the Atollans as well as further equipment. The President was met with a familiar face again - it was Sergeant Bereeve Carra again. After the helicopter left that had carried him and the other ten people associated with his team, a few more supplies came courtesy of repeat flights by the helicopter.

Kelau knew what was the agenda for today for these men - why? Because, they had discussed it the night before before they left.

Sergeant Carra and his team weaved their way through the ad-hoc tent city, dragging five kayaks behind them. When they approached as far as they could before throwing their bags into the front of their boats and grabbing the paddles attached to its side. Lewen had followed them, briefly chatting with the Sergeant. It was at this point he stopped, nodded his head slowly and waved goodbye to them for the day.

Deep inside, Kelau was hoping they wouldn’t find much. His mind though was certain what they would encounter would be nothing short of traumatic.

~~~

Sergeant Carra and his men had been making their way through the city for five minutes already. Their mission was to save lives, prevent further damage and to open up a larger area for planes to fly in or to have enough space for multiple helicopters at once to land.

The men paddled slowly through what used to be the streets of Atolla City. Almost all of the houses had no roofs, many of the doors had been broken down by the rush of the floodwaters. It was clear from the watermarks that the floodwaters had at least been up to the level of the first storey of these houses - this was the waterfront, wealthy and markedly international part of Atolla compared to the rest of the city.

Over the next fifteen minutes, they evaded the various branches which continued floating past them and many of the implements the Atollans had been using to move around - bikes, scooters and motorcycles were all either washed up or destroyed as a result of the flood. House after house, street after street it was sheer devastation. Soon enough, they had made their way to a part of town that President Kelau had pointed out as the most vulnerable - the Arkelesnee, a slum-like community on the outskirts of the township.

The houses here were a completely different material - many of them were rudimentary brick houses or made out of mud. Somehow, the damage here was even worse and small patches of blood were easily spotted on the various surfaces surrounding the canoeing rescue workers. In order to evaluate the damage effectively though, the team would have to go into at least one of these properties. After a couple of minutes, they found a two storey house made out of brick that seemed to be a good candidate.

After turning on the flashlights in their helmets, they began to slowly disembark from their canoes, wading through the water which still remained well above their ankles yet still below their knees. Sergeant Carra was the first to enter the property.

Carra heard a sharp yet quiet cry which appeared to come upstairs. Whilst the other men evaluated the situation, he and one of the other men - whose name was Adante Berine, went upstairs to take a look at what was going on. A man, no taller than six feet sat helplessly and hopelessly in the corner of the room. He continued crying even as the men started to approach and the lights began to dazzle his eyes. He did not turn away, instead his gaze was fixed in the other corner of the room. Adante followed the track of where he was looking and spotted a body, limp and bruised and likely slightly shorter than the man sitting down laying on the floor.

The man who was crying had blood running down from his leg and from his wrist. Carra waved briefly at the man, turned off the light on his helmet and sat down next to him.

“Hello.”, the Sergeant said simply. His next sentence was interrupted as the man’s arm ended up on the shoulder of the Sergeant. The man who had been crying slightly eased up and leant on Sergeant Carra. Carra could feel the warm tears trickle down the high vis vest that he was still wearing.

“What is your name. And who is that in the corner?”, the Sergeant enquired.

“Ar… wedded”, the man replies after an attempt to compose himself slightly.

Carra’s brow furrowed and he leant forwards, causing the man to return to sitting down in the same way he did when the Sergeant walked in. The Sergeant grabbed his backpack, opened the zip and got the first aid kit out. He got out a bandage and held it up for a second, watched as the man nodded and then began to apply first aid to the man’s wound. It was a lot deeper than the Sergeant initially thought. In order to stay alive, the man would have to come with them.

Acknowledging this fact, Sgt Carra asked one more question as he dropped his shoulder towards the man. “We help you, but you need to come with us.”

The man replied, “You help?”

The sergeant replied in the affirmative and helped the man down the stairs. Soon after, Adante followed behind. The rest of the team had finished evaluating the house and looked around them as they spotted multiple bodies on the floor. The man whom the sergeant was helping continued making his way through the room with his eyes straight forward, not observing what had happened around him. The Sergeant then helped the man get into the front part of the kayak. With one of the other men in another kayak escorting them, the Sergeant and ‘Ar’ returned to the Parliament lawns whilst the rest of the team continued to explore the remains of the city.

As soon as the Sergeant returned, he handed over the man to Atollan care before sitting down on the large lawn outside of the Parliament house with one of his subordinates, waiting for the rest of the team to get home. Late in the day, the bright kayaks bar one ran ashore onto the lawn and two of Carra’s men ran with haste towards the Sergeant. By the time he could stand up, the two had described the situation which the team now had to face - one of their own, Corporal Adante, had been severely injured and wounded after a large steel bar landed on them. The Sergeant quickly called the helicopter in and within an hour, the urgent airlifting of the Corporal and the man from the house was completed.

By the time the unannounced helicopter returned back to base for Karanoa, President Kelau emerged from his office. He walked towards the team with a look of concern on his face after hearing the distant sounds of rotor blades from where he was working.
“Sergeant, was there just a helicopter here?”, the President (P) inquired

“Yes”, the Sergeant (S) replied.

P: “It was unannounced and unscheduled. So what did you find?”

S: “We found a man who had just lost his wife to the flood, he was pretty beaten up so we put him on the helicopter back to Karanoa. One of our men was also badly injured, but he was stabilised before lift off.”

The President’s complexion suddenly went from neutral to one of deep concern. One of his fears looked like it was about to materialise - a foreign aid worker leaving Atolla in a state much worse than they arrived.

“Keep me informed on both of their conditions. Please, also, take some time to rest after what you surely must have been through out there on the other side of the water. Did you find anything else?”

One of the subordinates, Private Arali Aluen responded to this question.

“We went into some of the structures around the city. Most of them are pretty badly damaged, but the slum district is almost completely wiped out. That is where we also found the man. The football fields are no longer submerged though, so if we can get a team out there to clear debris we can open up Atolla to more comprehensive support than we can currently offer.”

The President nodded before asking how soon that could be opened.

“A few days”, the Sergeant replied before continuing by saying “we will need some additional supplies in by helicopter, but other than that it will be operational quite quickly.”

[Keverai]

Clearing the Way - Rains RP
8:22am, 29th of April 2021
Grounds of the Atollan Parliament, Atolla City

The President gave off a slight smile as he watched the strangely coloured helicopter come closer to the ground once again, in the square near the Parliament as was its usual landing spot. He looked at his watch and then hurried along the footpath towards where he knew the Keveraites had landed. He hoped that it was Sergeant Carra and his fellow men - and it was.

He watched as the dark haired man that he had come to know quite well walked with his men in an orderly yet relaxed way across the vast square. The President stood in the hallway to one of the buildings which bordered the square, as he usually did. He nodded as they came, smiled a bit more widely and walked towards the nine men - one less than last time.

President Kelau engaged in the typical small talk with the Sergeant but then quickly asked him about the man they had left behind.

“Yes, he is stable at the moment. Pretty beaten up and not going all that well but he is in good hands. When we left, he was under the care of a Solaryi doctor at the Karanoa Field Hospital over in Sud.”

“It is good to hear that was established over there. I wish him all the best and I do hope you have had time to be with him during this time.”, the President replied.

“Yes, the only assignment Barrette has given us is to help you all here in Atolla so between the logistical work and the paperwork we’ve needed to do in Karanoa to get things up and going here in your country again we’ve been visiting him and talking to the doctors and the like.”, the Sergeant responded.

They continued talking until they went out of the building out into the wide open sky which stretched over the lawn. It had cleared up significantly since the Sergeant was last here and there was much less tents than last time.

“People have been able to go back home?”, the Sergeant inquired of the President.

“Yes, the floodwaters have receded significantly. Whilst some of the valleys and dips still have water, thankfully a lot of the water has now drained out of Atolla City and we’re not expecting much more water coming from upstream. Because of that, we gave a lot of the people staying on the Parliament grounds the all clear to go home. Of course, we’ve told them to be cautious though.”, the President responded.

“Does that mean the football fields can now be walked to from here?”, the Sergeant asked of the President.

“Yes, the roads are clear through to there. We have set up a very small aid hub there already but are looking forward to your team helping us with the final work so we can get more support in now that the island is more safe and accessible.”, the President replied.

The President then led the team along the busy streets towards the fields from the Parliament lawn. People were using anything they could - sticks, brooms or improvised tools to repair their properties and to get the thick mud from out of their living spaces. Many of them noticed the President and the people following him, although they were moving hastily around the various buildings that were still standing.

After some twenty minutes, they had made it to the fields. All that was left to do was the moving of tree branches which was promptly done by the team with the help of some locals and the President, who had since took off his jacket. A president in a tee shirt was very unusual for the Keveraite team and they watched on as Lewen rolled up his sleeves and had orders barked at him by various local helpers who had clearly taken the reins of the recovery effort in the blocks around the field and also in the park itself.

By the early afternoon, the field was ready to accept much larger helicopters than previously could have landed in Atolla. As a final measure, the Sergeant got some spray paint out of his backpack and marked various distances around the field. After the paint dried, the Sergeant then called all the locals together to explain the various markings and where they should not stand in relation to them. The President then gave a short speech thanking the community for their support before turning on his satellite phone in front of all of them in order to call the base camp at Karanoa.

“Good afternoon. Is this the Karanoa Humanitarian Camp?”, the President asked.

“Yes”, a young voice replied across the telephone.

“This is President Lewen Kelau, on behalf of the people of Atolla. We humbly welcome any support available to our nation, given that we have now transitioned into a situation of relative safety and are now able to begin the early steps to recovery. There are a set of three soccer fields which have now been reserved for aircraft to land on. Responders should be advised that the only way into Atolla remains by air and that aircraft are still not able to land at the airstrip in Atolla City nor anywhere else on the island. Our dock is still out of order but over the coming days we do hope that will be able to accept aid as well.”

The people around quietly clapped and smiled. Help was on the way now, and the Atollan people were in a place to accept it.

The President stood quietly for a moment, taking in his surroundings before his mind was sidetracked by the Keveraite responders who were at some pace walking around the field doing final checks. He then approached them, offering if he could do something for them.

“Stay with your people, President. They need you far more than we do.”, the Sergeant responded in reply to the request.

President Kelau then pulled his sleeves down, walking back towards the crowd which was rapidly dispersing. The Sergeant watched on, seeing the President walking off to the right of his line of sight with three civilians.

[Alteran Republics]

Operation Blue Jewel - Rains RP
29th April, 2021
Alteran 1st Fleet, North Mesder Sea

Admiral Dermot Avelson, aboard the A.D.V. Rector supply vessel, took the binoculars from his eyes and placed them down on the console in front of him, rubbing his forehead gently. The combined Alteran fleet, mostly comprising of supply and logistic vessels, Avelson was tasked with leading the relief forces from Altera. Whilst Altera had great aerial assets at her command, they could not be brought in to supply and relieve the beleaguered Atollans until her airfields and airstrips are repaired. The first duties of the fleet, along with bringing in emergency relief - was to restore these essential pieces of infrastructure. The repairs to the airfields were swift and were not of the original quality of their construction but were suitable enough to land additional heavy aircraft.

With essential repairs underway, the fleet was able to continue flying aid to the island. Utilising their fleet of tilt-rotor aircraft, the Alteran navy was able to fly supplies into urban and remote areas, conduct rescue operations and land essential elements of the Alteran military. Troopers, equipment, and civilian personnel the the Alteran Medical Corps, Corps of Engineers and civilians from the Commonwealth Emergency Relief Organisation were flown into the nation - helping to rebuild the damaged nation. Avelson, a long-time veteran of the Alteran Navy, had many years in experience in coordinating relief and emergency efforts, so was naturally best suited to lead such an endeavour. Being a man in his late fifties, he knew this would be his last front-line operation, looking forward to his well-deserved retirement and transition into civilian life.

Whilst gazing out towards the coastline, a young officer came onto the ship's bridge, bearing a message for the Admiral.

"Admiral Avelson, sir." The admiral turned, seeing the officer saluting. Saluting back, Avelson nodded and welcomed the young lady onto the bridge.

"Yes, Petty Officer, what is it?"

"You wanted to know when the Harrier was ready for departure? The crew said they're ready to lift off in 5 minutes, sir." The officer was referring to the VT-12 Harrier, an Alteran tilt-rotor aircraft that was a stable transport aircraft of the military, which was preparing to take the Admiral and other senior officers to the capital.

"Very good, tell them I'll be there shortly."

The officer stood to attention once more, saluted and turn out from the bridge to inform the air crew. Placing his hand on the console once more, he turned to his immediate subordinate and handed control and responsibility to the vessel to him. Taking in the sights, sounds and smells of the bridge once more, the Admiral left the room, walked through the corridors of the vessel until reaching the outer-most landing deck, where the aforementioned aircraft was waiting. The rotors already spinning, the Admiral covered his face to protect himself from the battering winds produced by the aircraft. Joined by an aircraft crewman, Avelson clambered aboard the aircraft. Within moments of seating and securing himself onboard, the aircraft was airborne, and bound for the capital.

[Jeriga]

In Hospital,
Karanoa,
Atolla

"Sit tight wake… it will all be over soon.."

The radio went silent as we stared at it, then started broadcasting the same warnings it had before. "Seek shelter!" It had screamed at us, doing nothing more than reminding us that others were as scared as we were. Even as bad as it was at that point, it was only going to get worse. Lani had been nervous for hours as the wind and rain picked up with astonishing speed. 'How could it get worse?' I had thought. There seemed to be no way. By God, I was wrong. I'm so sorry, Lani.

"Knock, knock!" Noa was jolted from his mind and back into the white room of the hospital where his Solaryi doctor, whose name escaped him, stood smiling under bagged, worried eyes with a clipboard. "Hope I wasn't interrupting."

Noa shook his head, still stuck in the previous night. He closed his journal and tried to focus on the doctor. "No.. no. You didn't interrupt. What's the news?"

"Well, we got your X-rays back and your leg is pretty badly hurt, but it's not too bad. Just a nasty flesh wound. We will change the bandages and watch it for a couple days." The doctor flipped a page. "Your wrist is ok, though. We are gonna keep you on anti-biotics for a couple of days. The water in your house may have been contaminated, so maybe two more days of that. But other than that, you look to be in good health, Noa. I think you'll be out of here after that."

"Then what?" Noa blurted out before he thought. "Where do I go?"

"As far as I know, there is a temporary camp being set up outside the city. You can go there."

Noa grimaced. The doctor hadn't missed a beat. "What about my wife, their bodies..."

The doctor sighed and his eyes turned soft for a moment. "I don't know. I know it's too dangerous to go back there right now. Authorities are still working through those sites. They'll have the bodies ready for claiming soon, I imagine." Without a word more, the doctor turned and walked away.

The urge to scream filled his lungs, but all he could do was stare down at his bandaged leg. He couldn't just leave her there. These sorts of things took months, years sometimes to sort out. Just to leave her... He couldn't. Still staring at his leg, he tried to lift it, gritting his teeth as the pain shot up his body until it was too much to bear. His leg dropped back down like a useless lump. Tears fell down his cheeks as images of his wife flashed across his mind and mixed with the pain of his leg. He gripped his face and shook violently as the tears turned to rivers. Alarms started blaring and soon hands were around him, forcing him down and restraining him. For a while afterwards he just laid there, forced to be still but wanting nothing more than to find a tall cliff and end it there. Instead, he passed out from exhaustion.

The days afterward were spent convincing the hospital psychiatrist that he was fine, something his years of school and therapy had taught him to do well. Determined to find his wife's body, he withstood the pain of his leg and told them it didn't hurt as bad when it did, though he silently cursed them when they took him off his pain meds. Still, he was soon to be free. Then to find Lani's body.

[The Tsunterlands]

Freight City

Outside of Karanoa, Wake Sud
4.00 PM – May 7th
Officially the place was known as the Temporary Emergency Shelter Camp but almost everyone on the island had taken to calling the two square mile complex of white tents, jerry-rigged pipes and rows upon rows of repurposed cargo containers “Freight City”. It hadn’t quite been built in a day, but the camp had grown from a few scattered tents to a functioning small town at a speed its’ Wakeite inhabitants, who were used to a slow pace of life, couldn’t quite comprehend. Barely a few days after the flood the Tsunter aid workers had set up the settlement camp on a hill not to far from the damaged capital of Karanoa, to house the city’s former residents whose homes had been rendered uninhabitable. The vast majority were moved into the many shipping containers that made up the bulk of the camp. Each had been refitted to serve as temporary accommodation, with bunk beds, cupboards and a chemical toilet. Most had around two families living in them but Kaya and her Gamami were fortunate to have one to themselves. As she walked through the makeshift streets of the settlement, she found it eerily deserted. When it had first been raised “Freight City” lived up to its name, being bustling with several hundred desperate souls. But now with the efforts to repair and rebuild Karanoa well under way many returned to their former homes in the city during the daytime to see what they could salvage from their old lives. Kaya herself had ventured into Karanoa the previous day to visit her Gamami’s old bungalow but had been dismayed to learn the foreigners had yet to touch their district. When she entered inside in an attempt to collect any personal effects worth retrieving, she discovered that the flood had, along with breaking every door and window, damaged the foundations of the building. Unfortunately, she had made this discovery by putting her foot through the bungalow’s floor and thus had returned to Freight City with nothing but an excruciating pain in her left leg which had not abided, necessitating today’s trip to the camp’s medical tent.

As Kaya limped through the camp a figure whistled at her. He looked to be a Wakeite lad perhaps just shy of twenty and was sat smoking in the entrance to his container.

“You want a smoke, pretty girl?” Kaya ignored him. She was used to the unwanted attentions young men gave her. Anyway, it wasn’t her fellow Wakeites who unnerved her but the foreigners who ran the camp – the Tsunters. While other aid workers had come with kind reassuring smiles, these Tsuntermen came with cold sneers and seemed to delight in finding ways to mock the Wakeites and each other with every sentence. Kaya found their habit of trying to make nicknames for everyone especially peculiar. The worker that came around with every week with a clipboard and pen to check up on Kaya and her Gamami, insisted on calling them “Young Curly” and “Grey Curly” respectively, on account of their hair. It wasn’t as strange as the names the Tsuntermen had for each other such as “Pictures”, “Stashy”, “Creamskin”, “the heartbreaker”. And of course, there was “the Cappa”, the blond-haired wiry man the other Tsunters seemed to answer to, who regularly sat in a deck chair in the centre of the camp smoking cigars while others came up to ask him questions and for favours, as though he was a tribal chief of ancient times taking court. As Kaya approached the centre of camp the deck chair was there but the Cappa was missing, no doubt on some important business elsewhere.

She entered a large white tent with a thick red cross on the outside. She’d come to the medical tent once before, a day after they first moved into the camp. Her Gamami’s wheelchair had broken in their escape from the city, and they had enlisted the help of their neighbours to carry her from the carnage. She had hoped to acquire a wheelchair at the medical tent but without success. That time the medical tent had been filled with people who’d had not been as fortunate. Now however the tent was seemingly deserted save for the lone Tsunterman who sat behind a wooden desk tapping away at a laptop. She approached the desk and cleared her throat to get the receptionist’s attention. He didn’t look up.

“Name?”

“Kaya, uh Kaya Orlani.” She wondered whether she should add ‘Little Curly’. “I’m here to see the doctor.”

“Where’d you live Kaya?” In response she started to give her old address in Karanoa before the secretary stopped her.

“No, I mean where’d you live in now.”

“Oh, um… Container B-8.” For the first time the receptionist took his eyes away from the laptop and look Kaya up and down.

“Who’d you say you live with?” She wasn’t sure why that was relevant but answered anyway.

“My Gamami, Ara. I lived with her before the flood.”

“That’s your grandmother, right? No parents or… brothers?”

“No sir. Mama passed a few years ago and Pap is on Atolla.” She knew Wake Atolla had been hit much worse and supposed she ought to be worried about her father’s safety but considering the minimal role he had played in her life she didn’t worry. The receptionist returned to tapping away at the laptop before informing her that a doctor would see her shortly.

Indeed a few minutes late she found herself following the doctor, a craggy-faced middle-aged man into another section of the tent. Upon asking Kaya explained the doctor the nature of her injury and how she acquired it. He made a few notes before asking to inspect her left leg. Initially she pushed up her skirt, but he stopped her.

“I’m going to need to see the whole leg I’m afraid.” And so, she hesitantly took her off her skirt while the doctor prodded at her thigh asking if it hurt. It did… a lot. He made more notes before telling her to remove her top too. “We need to check if there’s any injuries you might have missed” he told her when she hesitated more. The doctor inspected her further – she could almost feel his eyes crawl along her body – and then grunted when he was satisfied with his report and had her redress. “You’ve just bruised your leg. Bruised it badly mind, but it’ll heal in time if you give it rest.” That wasn’t really an option for Kaya but she didn’t say anything. “I’ll prescribed you some painkillers. Oh, and there’s a man in camp, Locksley, slip him some cash and he’ll give you something to cover up the bruising.”

Kaya quickly left the room and quickly and picked up her prescribed painkillers from the receptionist. As she exited the tent, she heard someone call out “Hey, you!”. She turned to see a woman, with a camera round her neck, clutching a handful of leaflets one of which she thrust in Kaya’s face. “Hi.” She said in nasal voice with too much enthusiasm. “I’m with Tsunter Today, doing in a depth story on the flood and just how much the island has suffered and just how great a job our guys are doing here. We’d absolutely love it if you could come down and see us tonight. You would just look so great in the article for us. It pays very well, decent money, and trust me it’s a great opportunity for a girl like you. How about you think about it, love, hmmm.” Kaya took the leaflet and just as quickly as she appeared the woman no doubt to find someone else to pitch her article too.

It was getting late by the time Kaya reached the canteen tent and she was forced to join back of the queue. A week ago, the queue for the tent was larger and the competition for food fierce. It hadn’t been uncommon for fights to break out and once Kaya had witnessed one of the soldiers that accompanied the aid workers fire their gun in the air to break up a tussle between several young men fighting for places in the line for food. The queue was still long but the people were too tired, their energies trawling through their former homes or searching for missing loved ones to fight over food. No one attempted to make conversation. The old topics of speaking about how you spent your day, how your family was, how the weather was, came with too much pain.

The queue moved along slowly, and portions seemed to get smaller. This couldn’t be due to a shortage in food. When the foreigners came, they brought enough supplies to feed the entire island’s population thrice over, but it seemed half of everything they brought had vanished from the aid worker’s inventories and into private hands. Of course, those hands were happy to feed you for a steep price. Some handed over their family jewels, others performed favours, in return for a meal that didn’t taste like a chemical spill, for better accommodation, to speed up bureaucratic process, or perhaps just to acquire a television or radio set. In her search to get her Gamami a wheelchair Kaya almost gone to see Stashy, an aid worker who was said to be able to get his hands on hard-to-get items. But she hadn’t gone through with it. She hadn’t nothing to pawn, and she was old enough to be aware of the type of favour that would be asked of her.

A couple of hours later with the sun was beginning its descent, Kaya reached the front of the queue. Two older Wakeite woman, lucky enough (or just well-connected) to get jobs working at the camp, were standing behind a table spooning a pale slop from a pot into a polystyrene cup. On closer inspection it seemed to consist of rice, and assortment of vegetables and a few chunks of fishmeat swimming in hot water. It smelt awful but the prospect of warm food helped lower Kaya’s standards. She thanked the women as she took two cups from them and made her way back through the camp to her container. There she found her Gamami in the same state she’d left her in, lying in her bed staring out of the small window the aid workers had fitted into one of the container’s corrugated walls. They ate in silence.

Her Gamami had always been on the shorter end but now she seemed to Kaya to be especially small. Before the flood her wide sagely smile and all-knowing nods of her head had been known to all of Karanoa. She owned and ran, with Kaya’s help once a fishing accident rendered her unable to walk, a small street stall that sold little irrelevant trinkets such as cheap but pretty jewellery or house decorations. Men and women across the city would come to shop there but the real draw was the advice she always offered, telling them what to expect in the futures, whether they should marry their lovers or try their luck fishing in a different spot. Kaya had once asked her how she knew these things and her Gamami had smiled and told “most of its fish food, but people will believe what they want.” Not that Kaya cared much where her Gamami’s advice came from. Kaya’s mother had always taught her to be eternally grateful of the woman who’d taking pity on the poor girl her good-for-nothing son had got pregnant.

That was why Kaya couldn’t bare to see her Gamami in this state; shrunken and silent, spending her days staring out of a window unable to leave her bed. It was also why Kaya couldn’t bare to tell her Gamami about her discovery in Karanoa; that not only was their home ruined beyond repair but that her Gamami’s entire stock, all those shiny little trinkets, had disappeared. If only she could leave the container Kaya thought to herself. Her Gamami had always thrived off socialising, seeming to draw energy from innocuous conversations with friends, acquaintances and strangers alike. In truth Kaya didn’t think she would really care about the home or the theft of her shop’s inventory if she could just get outside to talk to someone. In Kaya’s mind she’d then probably deal with the news the same way she had dealt with her paralysation, with the same cheery optimism about the future she’d once always had. But to get her Gamami outside require the one item Kaya had been unable to acquire: a wheelchair.

After they’d eaten Kaya took her and her Gamami’s cups to a waste section of the camp and while she was going through her pockets to bin the unwanted tat that had accumulated there, Kaya found the pamphlet the journalist had shoved in her hand hours earlier. Decent money the woman had said. Kaya could do with some of that. With money she could buy a wheelchair of Stashy, she could replace her Gamami’s stolen stock, she could even bribe the foreigners to start repairs on their district so they could have a proper home again. She looked up the address on pamphlet. It wasn’t far, just down road at the coast, where the foreigners had some of their boats tied up. Kaya could get down there and be back before midnight. She wouldn’t tell her Gamami though. Her Gamami trusted the foreigners about as far as she could walk. Back at the container Kaya vaguely told her she had some errands to run.

“Be safe.” Her Gamami replied without looking away from the window. Kaya hugged her and left.

She made it to the specified meeting spot at the beach at around half eight. The sun was hanging low in the sky and turned the sky and sea golden. There were maybe a few dozen people milling about around a tent on the sand. A lot of Wakeite girls around Kaya’s age, along with some older men and women, some were Wakeite while others were clearly foreigners. She spotted the journalist she’d met outside the medical tent. There’d seem to some confusion among the organisers over the amount of people who’d shown up. Out in the bay she saw a boat, not one of the big aid ships but smaller like a yacht. She guessed that was where the journalists and their photographers were staying. Kaya even saw some girls she knew and got talking to them. It was awkward at first, no one wanted to mention the flood, but eventually they made conversation about all the meaningless guff that had seemed so important to girls their age before. Kaya didn’t mind. It was first proper conversation she’d had for days. In fact, this was the first time since the flood the sense of gloom and despair that had hung over Kaya began to dissipate.

Eventually the organisers herded the gaggle of girls into an orderly queue leading into the tent. Kaya was close to the front. Inside a group of foreigners, including the journalist from earlier, took photos and asked some impersonal questions before motioning for Kaya to join the other girls on a bench at the far end of the tent. Not everyone was accepted. Most of those rejected were children or older girls. Kaya guessed that the girls sat on the bench were no older than twenty and no younger than thirteen or fourteen. There was even one boy in the queue although he was quickly turned away. The organisers seemed annoyed about those they had to reject. The journalist in particular began to aggressively ask them how they had heard about the event in the first place. It seemed word had travelled fast in Freight City.

When the queue finally reached its end around twenty odd girls were either sat cramped together on the bench or otherwise on the floor. The mood among them was one of excitement and Kaya let the minutes fly by the chatting to the other girls. The journalist returned, picked out ten of the older girls and had them follow her outside. One of the organisers accompanying her, brough out a large box-shaped speaker and began blasting music at an uncomfortable volume. It was an old-fashioned kind of music, although that didn’t really matter since it was far loud to properly listen to. Some of the girls tried to get the organiser, a burly pale man, to turn it down but he paid them no attention. Unable to talk to each other over the music the girl’s mood gradually grew more tepid and Kaya became aware of just how dark it had become outside. The hour seemed to drag on, but the journalist did not return, and the girls were left along with the music and the apparently deaf organiser.

Maybe two or three hours later, the journalist came back to the tent and once again pulled out ten more girls although this time Kaya was among them. She led them away from the tent and Kaya noticed just how empty the beach seemed compared to when she had entered. Most organisers had disappeared, all that remained flanking the journalist while they walk were four large men. Four men large men carrying shotguns. Many of the aid workers had come to the island with soldiers although most of them didn’t carry their weapons unless they believed they would be needed. However, the men on the beach certainly were not soldiers.

The girls followed the journalist around a hundred feet down the beach to where a small, motorised dinghy was waiting for them. The journalist turned to face them.

“Girls, you have no idea how great of an opportunity this is. Seriously, this could be a real gamechanger for you. Now, this boat here will take you to my ship where you’ll be staying for the duration of the photoshoot. Trust me you’ll love it there.”

None of the girls moved. None of them spoke. All of them had realised something was deeply wrong here and were stood frozen stiff in fear. Kaya broke the silence.

“I’m really sorry, I need to go. My Gamami-“

One of the armed men grabbed and twisted her arms before shoving to the ground. Stunned and with a face full of sand, she heard screaming, a gunshot and then silence. She felt a hand pull her around and saw the other girls being violent pushed onto the boat before the smiling face of the journalist loomed into view.

“Kaya is it?” she asked. Her voice had changed entirely. “Get on the boat Kaya… for your Gamami’s sake.”

[Jeriga]

Docks of Atolla,
Atolla City, Atolla

When it hit, it hit harder than we could have imagined. I yelled across the room for her to come to me, grabbing a mattress from the bed to pull over us. The rain was pounding hard against the glass, mixed with hail. She couldn't hear me calling, so I beckoned. She replied with a nod. Her eyes were wide as she crawled towards me and I slowly to her. The whole house seemed to shake and the roof began to jolt up and down like we we were in a toy box in the hands of a child. With a crack and jolt, beams, shingles, and water cascaded down on us as it collapsed. I could hear her last scream and watched her take her last breath. If only I had acted faster, if only I had taken the storm more seriously...

Could I have saved her?

It had been days now in the hospital. The news reports showed scenes of rescues and politicians performing the disaster care dance that they always do. No reports of body recovery. No idea when Karanoa would be truly habitable again. When he was finally given his discharge papers, it was without fanfare or relief. No one spoke to him except to point him to the door.

"You're lucky," one nurse had told him during his stay. "You survived."

But now he was alone amidst the crowds. No where to go but to a camp that was already making the news as "fire traps of tents among filth ridden trenches". No, he would not go there. His jaw set, he made his way through the city and to the docks, catching a cab with what little money he could. When he finally reached the docks and paid the driver, he caught the next boat heading to Atolla. The ride, though short, was choppy. The waves were still white with anger of the storm, though this hardly compared to the scene of orderly chaos at the docks. Loads of boats were unloading food and water, soldiers were everywhere. People with hastily made ID badges were hurrying about. Noa ignored them and went to the first cab he could find.

"Hey," he spoke quickly. "I need to get home."

"Yeah?", the driver replied tersely. "Where's that?"

"Parliament Grounds."

The driver cocked his eyebrows and motioned to Noa's crutch. "In that condition? You trying to die?"

"Can you get me there or not?"

"Fine, fine. But it'll cost you."

Noa froze. He didn't have money. It was all gone. "How much?"

"Got any food vouchers from the camps?"

Noa blinked. "Food what?"

"Ah, Jesus, man." the driver slouched back in his seat with a loud sigh, then spotted Noa's watch. "That's a nice watch. Give me that and I'll get ya there in no time."

Noa looked down at his wrist. It was a nice watch his father in law had given him. He grimaced, then ripped it off his wrist and tossed it to the driver. "Fine. Just get me there."

The driver grunted and unlocked the door. Noa threw his crutch in and climbed in, scribbling an address and handing it to the driver. Without another word, the driver shut the glass and sped off from the hospital. At first, it didn't seem so bad, the crowds and mess around him, but the closer they got to Parliament, the more destruction became clear. The military and police were directing people around the mess and had been able to restore access to a large part of the area. Despite this, the usually 20 minute journey took an hour and a half. As the cab pulled up to the head of Noa's street, the scene was still one of raw carnage. Houses and apartment buildings ripped bare by winds they had never been made to withstand. Trees and cars tossed here and there as if sprinkled from the air. Power lines were still down across the streets, some still sparking. Worst of all, water still stood about a foot on the ground, but had receded greatly from the time Noa had been saved.

The car came to a stop and the cabbie unlocked the doors. "Good luck, mate."

Noa nodded and got out, grabbing his crutch. His feet sloshed in the murky gray water, but still he moved through, hoping not to step on anything dangerous. He could nearly imagine himself on a movie screen. That lone survivor wading through the death and destruction as the main characters passed by. He was certain to die, it would be inferred. But even the extras had loved ones.

After sloshing through the murk, he finally found his old home. The roof was caved in and the windows were blown out. He had expected that. But the massive hold where his front door had been? No. He could see the car which had done it, possibly thrown there from the force of wind and water. The hole was so large that his old belongings had washed away. As he pushed into the home, there was very little left. No furniture, no paintings, and no bodies. Noa paused. He knew everyone had died. The soldiers told him. The bodies were either removed, which he doubted, or they had been washed away. He grimaced slightly, but pushed through the broken roof and up the stairs. Using his crutch as more of a crowbar and simply suffering the pain, he moved beams and wood until he got to their bedroom. Here he became more careful, tears streaming down his face and mixing with his sweat. Slowly, but surely, he uncovered a hand, then a leg, then her face...

He fell backwards, vomiting into the rubble as he saw what was left. Her gnarled face and bloated body would be unrecognizable but for the ring still attached to her finger and her pretty dress she had worn for her family's get together. The royal burgundy dress now tangled with the rubble and what was left of her. Noa burst into tears, screaming into the air, damning every god he knew of. For what seemed like hours, the deep, dark pit inside him gnawed and tore at his core. Eventually though, it subsided to a dull ache. As he lay on top of his broken home, he made the decision then to live. It's what she would have wanted, he knew.

He tried to save her, but soon realize he couldn't save her remains without them falling apart, so he did what he could do. Noa began gathering clothes and anything he could scrounge from their home, filling a brown shoulder bag with the things he needed. Finally, he knelt by his wife and removed the ring, placing it in a small pocket on the inside of the bag by a picture he had found and saved of her. Unable to stand anymore, he turned and struggled down the stairs and out the gaping hole where his front door once stood. He stood there for a long moment, teaes streaming down his face in silence, unsure of what to do. When he finally regained his composure, he began struggling his way back to the end of the street. Still dazed, he flagged down a military transport which collected him.

Before long, he was at a crowded, dirty camp. And here he knew he must remain. For now, he would get by.

[Ioudaia]

Atolla City, Atolla
7 May

Minister of State Shir bat Hekabe Ushria walked into President Lewen Kelau's office. The windows were covered with sheets of translucent plastic; glints from bits of glass in the carpet confirmed her impression: functional, but not restored. Lewen sat behind his water-stained desk in a metal folding chair; there were a few similar chairs for people meeting with him. Shir walked towards his deck, hand extended for a shake. "President Kelau, I--"

"'Lewen', please, and please have a seat." His flowing gesture swept across the arc of chairs in front of him, and he left his hand out to take Shir's hand as she approached.

Sitting, Shir replied, "Lewen it is. And I'm Shir.

"Now that the immediate crisis is stabilized, we have some proposals for long term aid. We'd like to run them by you."

Lewen leaned forward, an intense gaze on his face. "You're the first person to ask what we want. Why?"

"We'd like to support your government and your people."

"My government is a moment in history. Tell me what you propose for the Atollan people."

Wow! That's different! After a moment collecting her thoughts, Shir found her mental footing. "Okay... Clean water seems the first priority, and fast. We can airlift in hundreds of tons a day of bottled for a few days. That'll buy us enough time for a freighter to arrive carrying far more. At the same time, we'll try to get Atolla City's waterworks back on line. The Ministry of Defense tells me that our military engineers think they can get it up and running in a week."

"Military Engineers? Why not your civilian disaster response agency?"

With a conversational gesture, Shir also leaned forward. "The Civil Defense Corps is used to Ioudaian water systems. I'm told Atolla's water treatment equipment came from an anglophone country. Few members of the CDC read or speak English. So, it will take longer for them to do it. Many of our military specialists are bilingual. And they're better at getting something happening now. We can minimize their presence in Atolla, both in numbers and in time here, however."

Shir got a frown and a shake of the head in response, as Lewen leaned as far back in his folding chair as he could. "The people of Atolla have become proud of their independence. However well meaning, Ioudaian troops running around Atolla City gives the impression you are free to act as you will in Atolla. That won't work here. I want all Ioudaian assistance providers under the visible control of a civilian authority present here in Atolla City."

"I see. I will see what I can do. Since my government is united behind assisting Atolla, we should be able to work something out. It shouldn't take long to work out, but that may require a change in plans about another matter."

Lewen's expression returned to neutral as he leaned back. "Electrical power?" Surprised, Shir could only smile in return. "There our staffs have done the technical work. I agree that providing power from a ship in the harbor is the best short term solution. I see that the proposal is to use a warship. Are not some of your vessels capable of serving as hospitals?"

Uh-oh, this may not go well... "One has a large hospital aboard."

Lewen brightened, a huge grin lighting his face. "Our staffs have indeed done their homework. And that ship is capable of housing over a thousand people. So, we shall call it a hospital ship, and it will be marked as such, and it can house those who have lost their homes."

Shir stiffened, then forced herself back to a proper posture. "That's a big of a stretch for us, but I will ask."

"Thank you. And in longer term...?"

"We've noted that Atolla imports all of its energy, mostly in the form of natural gas. We'd like Atolla to be energy independent. In the few-month term, an Ioudaian company can build a series of small dams to provide 50 megawatts of power. They have standard products, turn-key and low-maintenance. We'll also see about getting your existing power plants up for the short to medium term, until you're ready to move on to energy independence.

"In the longer term, we'll work with your government to put out tenders for wind power. There's several companies in the Isles that provide wind turbines. The combination of hydro and wind can provide steady power, or so I'm told.

"And we can help build new housing for your people."

Leaning forward again, Lewen placed his folded hands on his deck. "My people would like to return to their homes, where they've grown up and lived."

Diplomatically, Shir suggested, "We'd like their homes to survive the next storm."

"Yes, that would be the coldly rational choice: put up pre-fabricated, concrete Brutalist apartment blocks. It would be quick, and it would be durable. But it would not be home."

"This may take some discussion. I appreciate your position, and your people's position... and perhaps we can work something out that satisfies them. There is a company in Ioudaia that makes semi-custom single-family houses and row houses in a factory, perhaps those will work.

"Yes, they may." Rising from his chair, President Lewen Kelau indicated that the meeting was over. "Thank you. I am happy Ioudaia has taken Atollan interests to heart."


Ioudaian Temporary Aid Command Post
Atolla City
A little later

"He wants what??"

Even though the Defense Minister couldn't see her over the secure radio link, Shir rolled her eyes. "You heard me, Prymneus. Kelau wants the Neleager Alos. You have to understand his position: how would we react to an Atollan frigate sitting in Pteleon's port?"

"Uh-huh. And how do you think the Navy is going to react to taking their second largest amphibious assault ship out of service? I'll tell you: the admirals are going to go right to the Kings, so we better talk to them first. I can recommend deploying the Neleager Alos, but this is above our stations. I expect the admirals will fight hard to keep it to a month, maybe three lunar weeks."

Shir persisted. "But it's the right ship for the job. It has a command center aboard, not this – " She glanced around her – "overgrown metal box, and is designed to provide water and power for forces ashore."

"And the admirals will point out that its job is to do those things in support of an attack on a hostile power, which allows us to keep the strategic option open." Prymneus' tone sharpened: "Look, you're going to need to argue this in person, so get on the next plane home. There's no way around it. I'll see you in a few hours, and we can coordinate our positions then. Bye."

As she heard the connection drop, she hissed between her teeth. "Bastard's right. Three Kings definitely yesses, but the Big Boy himself? Gonna be tight..."

[Jeriga]

Just Outside of Atolla City, Atolla
Refugee Camp

"Next."

Noa stepped forwards in line as the aid worker handed him a plate with steaming hot soup, bread, and a protein bar on it. It was small, but it was the first hot meal he had seen in a week. The MRE's they gave him and the small group in his box container were hardly anything to look at. As he stepped out of line, he sat down beside a young woman. She didn't seem to notice, just stared at the soup in her hand as its steam began to obscure her eyes, her shoulders slumped forward as if being pulled down by a weight. Noa took a long sip from his soup, letting the warmth flow through him and fill his gut. He sighed involuntarily, then looked back at the woman.

"The soup is good, Malie," he said softly. "It'll help, I promise." She didn't move at first, but then lifted the cup to her mouth and sipped. The sudden warmth seemed to have some effect on her as her posture changed slightly, the weight holding her down abated a little for now. "Good, isn't it?"

She nodded wearily before looking up at him. "I suppose. Bland, though."

"Eh, a little bit." He looked up at the line he had just gotten out of. "Not a lot of people left. I saw a boat full leaving for Sud earlier." She didn't respond. "When do you plan on leaving?"

She shrugged. "Leave to go where? My job is gone, my home is gone, my fa.." Her voice drifted off as she looked down at her cup. "I don't know what to do."

Noa stared down into his own soup, not really sure what to say. It was so different here. In his classes and sessions before the storm, it had been like a formula with a loose process you could follow. He always knew what to say then, but he was at a loss. What would she do? Where would she go? Where would he go? He sat there, sipping his soup with Malie until the gray clouds above began dropping the first signs of a small storm. Before long, the rain began to pick up and the pair walked back to their container.

The camp was slowly emptying out. Where before the small alleyways between containers were full of desperate people, only a few groups wandered the small roads of the camp now. Every now and then, the sound of a child laughing would make Malie more alert as she identified the sound. Then, realizing it wasn't who she was hoping for, she would look down at her feet again. As the pair opened the door to their container, the rain picked up. Without speaking, they went to their cots and listened in silence, as they had most of the time they had been here. Noa rummaged through his small backpack and found his journal. He ran his fingers over the soft leather, knowing he hadn't written in it today or yesterday. The spaces between entries were growing longer, something he knew shouldn't happen. But then, what was there to say? He felt nothing anymore. Watching Malie, he was almost jealous of the pain she was feeling. At least she could feel.

Lightning suddenly flashed through open door, followed by a slow crescendo of thunder that rolled across the sky, causing both of them to look up. There was fear in Malie's face and he could tell her breathing had picked up.

Noa thought for a moment, flipping through the pages he had written on. In one sudden stroke, he ripped them out and folded them up before sliding them into a pocket of his back pack. He looked up at Malie on the other side of the container and smiled at her before getting up and moving around the other cots to sit across from hers. "Here," he said as he handed her the journal. "I want you to have this."

"Why?" She seemed ready to jump, as if Noa was about to attack.

"To write down how you feel. What you remember. It'll help process what happened to you, what you lost. Help you heal."

She took it slowly. "Isn't this the one you were writing in?"

He shrugged. "I don't have anything else to say. Just promise you'll try and use it tonight."

"What would I write about?"

"Your nightmares. Your memories. Anything that you keep getting stuck on. Any moment you can't seem to get out of your head. Or maybe just try and organize what you were thinking when you were staring at the soup earlier. Anything that may help you get through this."

She simply nodded in return, but didn't respond beyond muttering a slight "thank you". Noa simply smiled back and went back to his cot and laid down, slowly tuning out the sound of the rain hitting the metal container. Maybe it would serve her better than it had served himself.

[Jeriga]

Outside of Atolla City, Atolla\
Refugee Camp

"Stop! Please!" He was on his knees, his hands clasped. She stood over him, water pouring from the bottom of her gown. "Please! I tried, Oh I tried." She stared at him indifferently as water filled the room around them as if the room had been sealed for his demise. Debris fell around him, sloshing the water as it kept rising. He reached out to grip her dress. The woman recoiled, as if disgusted, but she did not speak. "Please, my love, I tried!"

She slowly lifted a finger as her face became clear. "You left me!" Her face twisted, bloated, and drained of color as she said it. "You left me there!"

"Please," he whimpered as the water began to fill his mouth. "I'm sorry..."

Noa jolted awake, clasping his throat and coughing. He was drenched in cold sweat and his heart pounded in his ears. He gasped for breath and felt himself up and down. Feeling he was dry, he slowly calmed down, taking slow, deep breaths until the pounding in his ears was gone. Slowly, he opened his eyes and let them adjust to the darkness. As he calmed, he began looking around the container, slowly scanning it and expecting the water to start flowing at any second. When he froze, it wasn't water that stopped him.

At the back of the container, dark human shape seemed to levitate above the ground, slowly swaying back and forth. Noa slowly reached down and carefully withdrew his flashlight from his bag, dreading what it may illuminate. He gripped it tightly, saying a small prayer before he flipped the switch. For a moment, he simply sat there as he felt his heart drop to his gut. As soon as the shock left his system, he jumped up and ran out of the container, screaming for help, for anyone.

---

Noa stared down at the journal in his hand, dreading to open it, knowing what lay within. He had hoped it would help, but now it may only show how far gone she had really been. There would be chaos, confusion, grief, and pain. Words written, then scratched out, another word written on top of that. Words like "useless", "failure", or "dead" would be covered by whatever may have been crossing her mind at that moment. Any journaling she had done would be long, ranting, and filled with doubt, guilt, and shame. He had seen many like it before and would see many more after this. Still, he slowly opened it. He shut it again as he saw exactly what he thought he would. Another one he couldn't help at the end. Another pointless death to this storm.

He sighed and placed the journal in his bag once more. Nothing more to do than that. He sat there for a while afterwards, drifting into a space of nothing. Just as his mind began to turn to his nightmare, he felt a vibration in his bag. His hands yanked the bag up, instinctively finding the cell phone. When he saw the name, he quickly answered it.

"Pika?!"

"Noa!", the voice on the other end sounded relieved. "I'm glad you're alright! I saw the obituaries and missing lists. I saw Lani's name and picture and, I just... I'm sorry."

"Thank you," Noa said slowly. "You ok as well?"

"Yes! I was just calling since reception was back. Look, you've lost your home and we've turned the University into a temporary free hotel in the dorms. It's pretty full, but we can throw a cot in your office if you don't have anywhere to stay. We could use a few hands here."

Noa looked around the desolate, empty camp, then sighed. "Yeah, I just need to get there."

"We'll send you a car, ok?"

"Ok, I'll head up front with my things."

"Good! I'll see you soon!" Pika paused after that. "And Noa?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you're ok."

With that, the line went dead. "Ok" Noa muttered to himself. He wasn't sure he'd ever be OK again.

[Ainslie]

A New Phase - Rains RP
9:10am, 18th of July 2021
Atolla City, Republic of Atolla

President Lewen Kelau sat on a rather average wooden bench, viewing the light blue hue which stretched across the sky all around him. Some smaller birds flew past him to a nearby tree on the Parliament lawns as he watched a small lizard scurry through the green grass and then up to a different tree. He then stood up, quickly realising that he was not on his typical suit but rather in a polo shirt and jeans. He didn’t care much for that - it wasn’t like a suit was a prerequisite for disaster recovery.

He then looked around the lawns which had previously been filled with tents. Small pieces of litter were the only signs that an impromptu village had been set up in recent weeks. Many people had returned to their homes - some against the wishes of the President. It was time to move on for many - the time to face what was ahead of them.

President Kelau was still a bit unsure about this. He had looked upon the faces of that Keveraite rescue team who had been gone for quite some time now, presumably to be with their fellow teammate who had been injured by one of the houses they had been into.

As far as Kelau was concerned, no news was bad news on that front.

Aid was flowing steadily into the island and the President had already seen the effects of that - after all, the main purpose of his lawn again was for walking and aesthetic purposes. The helicopters too were a more constant feature and they were no longer just bypassing the island.

The President took a moment to reflect on Sergeant Carra and his team’s efforts to get Atolla back up and running - and to rescue that man whom they called Ar. He hoped he was okay, after all he was a citizen of his, yet he still did not have any word on his condition from Karanoa. After about thirty minutes, his aimless meandering led him to entrance to the Presidential Offices where he already knew his aides would be standing in, waiting for him to arrive. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and then nodded to the guard to open the door.

It was surprisingly quiet. Only one assistant seemed to be in the building - at least in the front room. Soon enough, this aide had stood up not noticing the President and walked to President Kelau’s office, handing a large binder to the personal assistant sitting in the chair.

President Kelau increased his pace, managing to cut off the assistant before he reached his destination.

“Good morning. What did you just hand to my assistant?”, he inquired.

“Your schedule for the day, Mr. President. And, of course, all the important details for the rest of the week that you need to know.”, was the reply of the assistant.

“Thank you.”, the President replied with a slight smile. “I shall get to it immediately.”

The two then went their own directions and the President picked up the binder folder on the assistant’s desk before moving to his own office again. With no time to waste, Lewen quickly opened to the first page which read

TODAY

• Aid shipments from Ioudaia due at 940, 1350 and 1820.
• Secretary-General of the League, Ms. Cirasephona Refihhlia Alfethis, will attend Atolla today. She is to be escorted by Sergeant Carra and his team.

There were a number of other points on the list, but the President stopped at that point and smiled before expressing joy at the visitors for the day.

Carra and his team will finally come back to Atolla. And there was much to discuss and catch up on. The Secretary-General's arrival was also of note to Kelau, particularly because of her reputation for being quite practically minded and not transfixed by the geopolitics of the larger nations of the Isles. She was the perfect advocate for the Atollan cause, provided that she was who she has been described as.

9:55am
Waters between Sud and Atolla
The medium sized boat sped along the calm waves of the archipelago, with about fifteen people on board not counting crew. With them were large amounts of aid and cargo bound for the Atollan Republic. Whilst the air was reasonably calm, the speed of the boat caused quite a drought through the watercraft.

“About ten minutes out from Atolla Port - thankfully they have it back up so you all don’t have to use kayaks!”, a voice from the front of the boat bellowed.

Sergeant Carra looked down at his backpack before looking back out to the still waters. It was a beautiful day - pretty much perfect, really. The sun was beaming down on the clear vibrant water yet it was not so warm as to be uncomfortable. The sergeant was starting to work out why people stayed here - the life must have been normally quite laid back and pleasant. With the Sergeant and his team was the Secretary-General of the League, who was chatting away with the other members of the team. Her presence was quite consolatory, yet her discussion topics seemed to be about quite practical things - infrastructure loss, medical access for Wakeites in the aftermath of the disaster but also about inane things such as their daily lives back home in Keverai.

The Sergeant’s mind was preoccupied with other things - it had been some time since he had visited Atolla. It was hardly in a good state when he had left it in late April to briefly tend to duties in Karanoa. In his mind, Atolla could have gone either way - it may be almost at Sud levels or it could have simply stagnated, or worse…

Such thoughts were unproductive, so the Sergeant tried to block them out by starting a conversation with the wider group. When he heard a break in the conversation, he pounced at the opportunity to ask the Secretary-General some questions.

“Madam Secretary-General - call me Cirasephona, Sergeant - ok… Cirasephona… have you ever been to Atolla before?”

“No, not that I’m aware of at least. It’s not exactly a place my homeland of Roendavar has a lot to do with, so I am most eager to visit and hear some of the stories of the people. Hopefully, I will have an opportunity to be of real help to them.”, she replied.

“Yes, well when I was in Atolla soon after the winds and rain died down. These people certainly need our help - I am not sure to what extent though, the reports seem quite uncertain and ambivalent at best.”, the Sergeant tagged on.

There were a few moments of silence as the island increasingly became prominent on the horizon. A few minutes later, they docked at a small port close to the city as the larger one was still being repaired.

When the Sergeant was last here, this was all underwater. As he stepped off the boat, he stopped for a moment and looked around at the frontage of Atolla. It would have been quite a pleasant place before the storm. Now however fallen tree branches line the beach and it looked like it was still in disrepair. The port contrasted this heavily, as the new metallic materials used to build the temporary docking capability sharply stood in opposition to the brown and green trees which separated the beach from the residential areas of Atolla City.

He was one of the first to get off the boat and by the time he had walked onto the shore, the Secretary-General and her two bodyguards were just getting out of the boat. He stood there, watching as she stepped off a quite average boat onto a quite average jetty. He had always known Roendavar as quite a posh and pompous place, a bit like Kevara, his hometown. The rest of the group followed the Secretary-General to meet the Sergeant before making their way through the reasonably wide path which had been cleared of branches and other debris. After a short walk, the city itself was revealed - a sprawling yet quite low density and unbecoming place. The brick buildings in front of their eyes, which were largely in good condition, were the best of the houses the Secretary-General was likely to see. Sergeant Carra picked up his radio and dialled into Atolla’s frequency and requested for a few vehicles to come down and take them to the Parliament. Almost immediately, they appeared and the fifteen people who were on the boat all got into them. They were open-topped simple vehicles akin to the military jeeps which had been a common sight in the militaries of advanced nations decades ago.

The vehicles all chugged along up to the Parliament grounds, leaving a strong diesel smoke in the air. The gates to the Parliament grounds were still open just as they were after the disaster. The first thing the Sergeant noticed was how stately and regal the area looked now. It did not have the chaos and disorder that it did when he was last there.

The road switched from bitumen to gravel and then to pebbles as they pulled up to the front of the Presidential Offices. President Kelau had been sitting down in a chair out under the overhang near the entrance and stood up quickly when he heard the vehicles drawing ever closer.

When the vehicles stopped, the President was the first to speak, walking towards the second car and opening the door before helping the Secretary-General out of her vehicle.

“Good morning, and welcome to Atolla Madam Secretary-General. I must thank you personally and the League itself for their faithfulness to nations like ours. We may be too small to have a voice in the Chamber but we are thankful that good people like you still lend us an ear nevertheless.”, the President said.

“That is very kind of you”, the Secretary-General responded. President Kelau then noticed that someone was getting out of the first vehicle. It was Sergeant Carra.

“Please excuse me, there is urgent business I must tend to with Sergeant Carra. I trust my assistants will serve you well.”, the President then said before motioning his hand towards the small crowd of aides which had congregated around the door. A couple of them then rushed over to the Secretary-General as Kelau walked a few steps to his left towards the Sergeant.

“Sergeant Carra, welcome back to Atolla. You have been missed. I do hope all is well, not only with you and your friends here today but also with the two patients that accompanied you to Karanoa some days ago.”, he said.

The sergeant then replied with the following, “Thank you. Yes, our teammate is stable and recovering well to treatment as is the Atollan man we also evacuated. The man seems pretty shaken up which is completely understandable given the situation we found him in. It was grim.

How is Atolla, in a broad sense?”

The President tensed up when he was asked this but still offered a response.

“Thankfully unlike our fellow Wake nations, our population is quite centred on one city so for the most part how this city is going is how my citizens are going.

People have been moving on - they are going back to their homes and things are starting to look slightly more normal. You can move around on the streets pretty freely but we are dealing with a number of new issues. Particularly of note is the large articles of rubbish that is left on the side of the street which simply has no place to go. Also, many of my people are becoming unwell with a variety of different diseases which we simply do not have the capacity to treat here. Whilst we’ve been evacuating who we can to Karanoa, we need some sort of outpost clinic here.

Anyway, some of that is well above your pay grade. Let’s get to the more vital things - thankfully there has not been the looting we thought that may happen but rather we are having issues with people moving in where they really shouldn’t be - there needs to be assessment of properties and more importantly the removal of hazards that do not immediately seem problematic.”

The Sergeant nodded in response as he opened the door for the President who walked through into the lobby. The Secretary-General was standing there, chatting away again with a quite compassionate and concerned look on her face. She noticed the President’s arrival and walked over to him to speak to him again.

“I wish to visit some people in their homes and see what is happening on the ground. Your assistants have been excellent with me and have helped me get an idea of how it is going but there is no substitute to seeing people in their surroundings.”, the Secretary-General inquired.

“Yes, most certainly. Let’s go now then.”, the President replied before turning to the Sergeant to ask whether the vehicles were still there. He replied in the affirmative. The group then moved back towards the jeeps.

Twenty minutes later

Three vehicles pulled up next to a modest one storey house which had been made out of a combination of mud and straw. Outside, there were a few kids playing and kicking around the mud.

President Kelau was the first to reach the front of the house and knocked on the door before speaking a brief sentence in a language foreign to both Secretary-General and the Sergeant, although the latter found it to be quite familiar - it was the same tongue Ar was speaking, or at least close enough to it.

The door quickly opened after a brief conversation between the President and the man who was living in the house.

By the time the five of them were all in the room, it seemed pretty cramped. The Secretary-General and the Sergeant stood together in one corner as the President briefly wandered around the room.

“Lewen, by chance is there a translator with us?”, the Secretary-General said in a slightly louder tone than normal in order to get his attention.

The President said that there wasn’t, but that he was willing to translate for her.

The man sat on a dry patch of floor and the Sergeant and the President soon followed, finding places on the cold cement to sit. The Secretary-General then did so as well and the four of them began to talk.

SG: “Hello, what is your name?”
-”Auro.”
SG: “How is life here at the moment? I have heard some things but I really do want to know your experience specifically. Also, Compared to before the storm, how would you want your life to change when everything is back on track and recovered?”

Auro paused and slowed down his breathing, before sighing and responding to the woman.

Auro: “I want my family back. I want to live in peace and security and I do not want my roof to cave in. I want my children to live up healthy and strong and are able to stay here in Atolla and not have to leave in order to have better lives.

Life here has been awful. I have been moving mud out of this house for days now, those in my family who have not died are now sick or getting unwell. All the people I know - i fear for their safety every day or they are already dead. These houses are still standing for now. My family is healthy, for now. I fear that soon they will not be. There is no help here for that sort of thing. The Atollan Government could only do so much before this and now they are simply without a head and it is like their hands are cut off. Everyone is moving back to normal but we are all refusing to acknowledge that nothing is normal here.”

Auro then briefly sobbed as the President translated what he said. Cirasephona then leaned over to Auro and placed her hand on him whilst listening to what he said. Her neutral complexion changed to one of distress. As the President finished translating, everyone sat there for a minute to process what had just been sent - by the end of that he looked like the wind was taken out of him. He was completely deflated but still was able to interject just before the Secretary-General had formulated a reply. Before she had an opportunity to respond, Kelau added his own comment to what Auro said.

“And I think he is right. We can only do so much, as you can see. We need help - we need some of those people in Karanoa to come here and stay here for a while - especially the medics. People are going to die here and there is no reason why they should.”

The Secretary-General nodded before asking another question. The group then talked for a couple more hours before leaving the man to prepare a meal for his children. Cirasephona’s bubbly persona quickly became a very sombre and quiet complexion, only talking when she was asked to. Thoughts were ticking along in her mind - Atolla and Sud couldn’t be more similar yet different in how they have recovered… the current response is disjointed and needs leadership… these Atollans needed tangible help yesterday, now they must suffer the consequences… were some of these reflections.

The five of them then bundled into their vehicles, returning to the Atollan Parliament for some refreshments and food before the Secretary-General returned home. Towards the end of the evening, the Sergeant had made some calls and received authorisation to come back for a week or two after delivering Cirasephona back to Karanoa.

Kelau breathed a sigh of relief at hearing this news just before the Secretary-General left for the port. Before the engine started, Kelau thanked her for coming before asking her to not forget what she had seen in Atolla when she goes back to Karanoa.

There was no questioning that she would remember this day. If anything, it pointed to a wider problem across the Wake Islands in this recovery effort and perhaps across the Isles.

There had to be an international leader - someone who would wield power and authority and coordinate multinational efforts between all nations regardless of their creed, affiliation or alliance.

If this did not happen, it would be people like Auro would suffer needlessly because of it.

[Ainslie]

The Rains | Two Stories
8:22am, 21 July 2021
Karanoa, Kingdom of Sud

Cirasephona opened the curtains in her bedroom in Karanoa, revealing the bright light of the Sudite morning. After this, she wandered out of the door, got some breakfast and ate it and then made her way towards the shared space where she was to meet the leader of the Republic of Sud. When she found the room, she sat down in what looked like a comfortable chair, rubbed her eyes and yawned before sipping on a cup of tea she had gotten from a nearby aide. It was early in the morning and it had been a long day in Atolla the day before. She sat there wondering what the Prime Minister was doing - maybe he was enjoying the sleep she found so difficult to get. Maybe he was dealing with affairs of state… or himself trying to coordinate the emergency effort…

Cirasephona had not been to Wake before and unlike her experiences with President Kelau in Atolla, she had not had any prior conversation with the Chief Minister of the Kingdom of Sud, Jacob Lenana.

She was not left to ponder for too long. Soon enough, a smiling face with a dark brown yet glowing hue strided down the hallway towards her.

“Jacob. Jacob Lenana, Chief Minister of Sud.”, the man said as he earnestly shook the Secretary-General’s hand.

“Jacob, nice to meet you.”, Cirasephona replied.

“The pleasure is all mine, Madame. Shall we go to our first stop?”, the Chief Minister inquired.

“Yes, that would be good.”, she replied.

The two then meandered through the corridors of the Chief Minister’s residence, a sprawling property which transitions into an office complex. With no disruptions whatsoever, they manage to get into a black car which quickly leaves with the Secretary-General and the Chief Minister. After a short five minute drive, they reach their destination.

Cirasephona steps out of the car first, followed by Jacob. He gestures towards the entrance to the building and the two walk into the hospital surrounded by various aides and security guards who quickly filter out to have eyes on almost the entire room. She looks around at all the security, wondering what the need for this at a humanitarian hospital is. Once they make it through reception, they then find themselves in a large room filled with beds and curtains which only just managed to conceal whoever was lying down from everything else. Cirasephona walked around the room for a few minutes, chatting with the Chief Doctor of the facility who had just joined them after noticing their arrival.
After a short amount of time, Cirasephona asked the Doctor whether she could talk with one of the patients, to which she got an affirmative answer. Almost at once, the Secretary-General adjusted the general direction she was walking in and drew a curtain slowly so as to see if the patient would be hostile to her presence.

“Good morning. My name is Cirasephona and I am from the League. May I take a few minutes of your time? I am eager to talk to you about what you have seen, what you have heard and how you feel.”, she asked.

“Yes…”, the woman laying in the bed stated. Cirasephona (C) was a bit surprised by the response as despite using English, she was half expecting to get little to no reply because of the low amount of English speakers she encountered in Atolla.

C: “What is your name? Where are you from?”

“My name is Namaka (N). I… I… lived near Karanoa. That was until the rains came.”, she matter of factly replied.

C: “What happened during the rains?”

Namaka lifted up her arm slowly, revealing a cast on her wrist and a long scar from the edge of the cast to the bottom of her shoulder. Cirasephona tensed up looking at the sight of the scar and was immediately interested in how she got it.

C: “Your arm. How did that happen to you?”

N: “My roof fell on me. The wind was so strong, the rain so heavy… It was like nothing I had seen before - it just kept going, for hours. My house is not the best built, but it has stood a long time and there was a lot of memories in there. That is all gone now. The memories will stay in my mind. That’s all I have now - i have no records left, no documentation, hardly any money - they only know I am Namaka because I told the emergency services that was my name. I am only sitting here because of the good nature of some people whose families and homes are far away from here. It’s embarrassing, its exposing - just like this scar… my roof fell on me and everything else followed.”

Cirasephona then looked at Namaka for a couple more seconds and shed a tear before responding.

C: “What can I do to help? What would you want to tell a room of leaders from across The Western Isles about what you have experienced and what you need?”

N: “We are thankful. We are grateful. We need dignity. We need our livelihoods restored and some level of normal returned as soon as possible. We are a proud people and we need help but eventually things need to go back to the way they were. You all can stay and visit, but we need to stand on our own two feet and do that sooner rather than later.”

Cirasephona stopped for a minute and took a deep breath upon hearing this. She then flicked some hair away from her face before approaching closer to Namaka to say some last words.

“Thank you, Namaka.”, the Secretary-General said.

Cirasephona then floated around the hospital, talking to a number of other patients before it was nearing the time to leave. The Chief Minister who was practically absent whilst the Secretary-General wandered around the building was soon found again. He had been talking to journalists out the front of the building for quite some time, taking their questions and charming them through his words.

“Ah, hello Madame Secretary-General. I trust your tour of the hospital was fruitful?”, he exclaimed to her as she walked up to him.

“Yes.”, the Secretary-General shortly replied before making eye contact with one of the journalists before continuing her comment. “And I will not be taking any questions here. The League will issue a statement in the coming days from me in reflection upon my time in the Wake Islands.”

After her brief remarks, the Chief Minister then led her towards the same black car they had arrived in. When the car started to leave the kerb, Cirasephona broke the silence by asking a question.

“Could we see some of the buildings in Karanoa? How have they recovered after the front?”, she asked.

“Unfortunately, our dinner back at the Palace is quite soon so…”, the Chief Minister then paused before continuing. “On second thought, we do have time if that is what you wish Madame. Driver, can we go through the Arone District on our way back to the Parliament. The car then quickly took a left turn before taking the Secretary-General through some of the wealthiest neighbourhoods on the entire Island, most of which had completely recovered after the storm. He wanted to show her how much better the nation was recovering and most importantly to show her the picture of a strong Sudite nation with an accomplished Chief Minister.

The Secretary-General looked out the window, looking at the tarps and scaffolding left on the few houses that had not been completely rebuilt yet.

“Quite the effort here. It is to be commended.”, she stated in an attempt to draw more information from the Chief Minister.

“Yes, Aralee is quite fortunate to have received a lot of the support so far. There are of course some neighbourhoods less well off but in due time we expect all of the island to vigorously snap back to life.”, Chief Minister Lenana replied.


The Secretary-General didn’t respond to this, preferring to just let the conversation end at this point. The car continued to chug along the streets of Aralee, free of debris and the kinds of obstacles and despair she had seen in Atolla. It was almost unbelievable the difference between what she saw in Atolla and what Namaka said and what the Chief Minister seemed eager to present to her.

There was a lot more to learn about Sud. About this disaster in general and about the islands hit hardest by it. She hoped in the next few days staying and being amongst the people in Sud could clear things up. Otherwise, there was always Norregan - they were to the north so they were more likely to see the kind of damage Atolla did.

[Jeriga]

August 10th, 2021


Noa flipped through one paper after another, going over the lengthy proposal he and his colleagues had put together. Most of the major repairs had been completed. The refugees that once lined the halls of the dorms and classrooms were mostly gone. The road to recovery was tough, but life must go on. And for life to go on Atolla Isle, that meant using the aid money to do immediate research on the damage to lives and property and to ultimately reopen the university.

Shortly after his arrival, the research had begun. Being the only Psychology PHD to have returned at the point, he had led the team to survey the Atolla population post-storm. Much of what he found was much of what he expected. Hopelessness, devastation, loss. Suicides had gone sky high. But he had also seen survival, family and community bonds being strengthened by a shared sense of loss. As order had returned to the streets at the hands of foreigners and roads were built, the food and necessities for life had come flowing in. With the increased security, people had turned from the loss to the future.

In one neighborhood where the waters had receded and no one had returned to their homes, several families had taken up residence without a legal right to the property. Before long, the city was dotted with little places like these. Small communities taking what shelter they could and rebuilding their lives. How that would work out long term, Noa couldn't say. But it made him feel the first measure of real hope he had felt in a long time when he saw children playing safely on the streets with multiple parents watching and laughing at the sight of it. A sense of community he had not felt in the Atolla Isle for a long time.

As he signed his name to the proposal and closed the folder, his desk phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Noa, I have the papers! They're signed and done!"

Noa let out a silent scream, his fists pumping in the air. "Where do we meet?"

"I'm already on my way!"

"I'll let you in once you're here!"

Noa snapped his phone closed and threw the proposal in his desk drawer and pulled out a small briefcase. He cleaned up his desk and walked briskly to the front of the building where Maleko was already standing. With a turn of the lock, Noa let the smartly dressed 32 year old in.

"I present to you the official permits for the Community Party Of Atolla."

Noa took the file into his hands and leafed through the contents. "Petition signatories verified, party deemed not extreme..." He flipped through to the last page. "CPA approved to enter elections!" He embraced Maleko and they both hurried back to his office.

Once there, the pair opened up the briefcases and started pulling out the papers. Before long, they were buried for hours in writing a plan for the next election. For them, the government had failed its citizens and Atolla faced the possibility of Annexation by wake. They wouldn't let that happen.