TRINITY, SAN CASTELLO
The end of the cigarette glowed red as the paper peeled back in the direction of the drag. Mariano took it out of his mouth, ashed it on the ground, and let out a long white plume of smoke from his lungs. Smoking was no longer as fashionable as it had once been, given cancer and all, but Mariano figured that if he died young it wouldn't be because of cancer. He frowned. He had made it this far, hadn't he? Maybe he'd give up smoking after all. Then, he smiled. No, no, foolish to fill oneself with hope in a world like this one. He took another drag and his face lit up with satisfaction as the nicotine rushed to his head.
Trinity had changed over the past five years. The Wandejarians had invested in erasing the past, understandably of course. The best sort of oppression was the kind committed beneath the veneer of liberation.
Five years ago, the town of Trinity became a front line in the Castellan civil war and resistance against the Wanderjarian intervention. The Dienstadi Panooly National Congress — DIENPAC* — used it to suck the Wanderjarian army into a street battle and, when the battle seemed lost, it sprung its most vicious trap of the war: it set off hundreds of tons of explosives, rigged in sewers and throughout the town, with the intention of killing everyone. 70 percent of four Wanderjarian regiments were annihilated, along with hundreds of civilians who were never given the chance to flee. DIENPAC called it a victory. For what, though? The war ended the same way it would have had Trinity never been sacrificed: the defeat of DIENPAC and the occupation of San Castello by the apartheid regime.
Since then, Trinity had been rebuilt. Mariano looked out from the outside table of the café and saw cars in the street, buildings with colorful curtains, intricate paneling, and all the signs of peaceful life. Women, men, and children alike went from place to place as if it had been this way for generation after generation. It was incredible how easily humanity papered over the tragedies of history. Mariano didn't blame them, after all, he papered over his own.
Across the street, a black car pulled over and parked. A man wearing sunglasses, a hat, and a long coat stepped out and walked toward the café, taking a seat finally on the opposite end of Mariano's table. It was hot for a coat like that. And if Mariano didn't already know who to expect, there was hardly any way he'd recognize who this person was. But, as mentioned, he expected the arrival.
The two nodded at each other but, otherwise, there were no introductions, no small talk. Instead, Mariano still held on to the tablet he was reading on, and said, "The nest is overflowing."
Across the table, the man said nothing, not at first. He waited for a waitress, a black woman, to come up to them and ask, "Good morning, sir. Can I get you some coffee? Perhaps some breakfast?"
"Just coffee, please," said the man, with a slight wave of the hand.
When the woman walked off, he replied, "Your people move fast."
"Yes, well, we move at the pace of events," said Mariano. He took another drag of his cigarette, then reached over to put it out on a glass tray laying at the center of the table. "Some would say we aren't moving fast enough, in fact. Wilma is crawling with Shadow Sultans these days," — hardly veiled terms for Wanderjar and the Ordenites — "she's hardly herself in fact. Hard to believe that Wilma could be any worse than she already was, but so it is. Chiefs say the time is now."
The man grimaced. "The Chiefs have their own motivations," he said."
"Sure," answered Mariano, "but, the motivations are aligned here. There will be Shadow Sultans here soon enough. Apple Trees" — apartheid — "are one thing, Lemon Trees" — labor and death camps — "quite another."
"All theory," replied the man, unconvinced.
Mariano chuckled. "That's what we thought in South Panooly."
"Wilma has been a manipulative mother," said the man. "She's done a good job at scolding the kids, getting them in line, and punishing them to the point of dejection. I'm not sure the children have the spirit of rebellion in them." The man's voice was tinged in sadness, with a hint of something like disappointment. "They didn't go about right the first time, you know. Just didn't think through it. Kids almost never do."
"Yea, well, the big kids are on the block now." Mariano took a sip of his coffee, which had been sitting on the table untouched as it cooled down. "And once the children see them in action, they'll want to play on the street too."
The man shrugged. "I suppose the children don't really have another option, do they?"
"I suppose not," was all Mariano said back.
"How much time do I have?" asked the man.
Without looking up, Mariano answered, "Fourteen days."
By the time the waitress came back with the man's cup of coffee, he was gone. Mariano looked at Tohnain Londo, underground leader of DIENPAC, walk back to his car and drive away. He looked at the waitress — she was a cute little thing —, shrugged, and said, "He must not have enjoyed the conversation. Oh well, you can leave that here for me." Then, he went back to reading the paper on his tablet.
* OOC: I am renaming the DANC to DIENPAC to get away from the use of real-world names.
One day later...
CASTROBA, SAN CASTELLO
Felipinho brought down the binoculars from his eyes and turned to the man laying to his side. "Right on time, the patrol is exiting Kamp Ratsingen and heading south."
Adriano took the binoculars and peered through them, his jaw pausing from chewing gum for just long enough for him to get a good look. "Aye, a mechanized platoon. Four W2s. Different unit markings to yesterday's" — Felipinho jotted down notes. "How many is that now? Three confirmed? That's at least one infantry company, at least. It'd be easier to get a gauge of their strength if we got closer, of course."
Felipinho grunted in appreciation but otherwise didn't respond. Both of them knew they weren't going to get any closer to Kamp Ratsingen. Hell, they couldn't even infiltrate the town. In Wanderjar, a black man either lived with his own and away from the white man, or he was the white man's servant. And no way in hell Felipinho was going to pretend to be any man's servant. Men like him and Adriano had fought long and hard in Holy Panooly to unshackle themselves from exactly that sort of life. And even in Holy Panooly, in some places — like in the south —, little had changed since the 'liberation' of 2027. Anyway, one could be certain that every black man in Castroba was accounted for. If you weren't recognized, you just weren't from around there, and if you weren't from around there you aroused suspicion. And if you didn't have a white man to vouch for you, you were a dead black man walking. Simple as that. Binoculars from the treeline atop Hill 306, named after its height, was as good as they were going to get. Felipinho read through his notes.
After scouring through his notepad for a bit, he said, "At least one infantry company and a tank company is known for sure, but my guess is that there's a whole battalion in there. Definitely has the size for it and more to boot. Wouldn't be surprised if there's an attached field artillery company in there."
"You think they have more than a tank company?" asked Adriano.
"Nah," he replied. "At least, wouldn't count on it unless we got visual confirmation."
The other man nodded unconvincingly. He knew that it was better to overestimate than underestimate. "You know," he said, changing the subject, "I never thought I'd be back here." 'Here,' of course, did not mean San Castello. Neither of them had ever been to San Castello. Both had served in New Garrack, unofficially. Then, like now, they pretended to be locals. At least there they had worn uniforms. Not here, not yet. They were still just Castellan civilians, officially. The sweat dripped down his forehead as he reminisced. "It's a lot hotter down here, though."
"That's for damn sure," was all Felipinho said. "It ain't gonna get any better soon, either."
Adriano chuckled. "Eventually, it will. Eventually, it will."
OUTSIDE LORINAMEL, SAN CASTELLO
Down the one-lane highway, a black sedan sped down until it came to a halt at a random dirt road, turned onto it, and disappeared.
A stone's throw from the international border with South Greal, Lorinamel was little more than an insignificant village. No more than 700 people called this place their home. Most were farmers, some worked the small storefronts that tended to the community, and the rest were wives, children, or vagrant workers. There wasn't much work around these parts, anyway. One would think that the Stevidian presence south of the border would attract commerce, but truth be told there wasn't much of a Stevidian presence there these days — not since the Great Díenstadi War. And while for some that may have felt like a lifetime ago, even if a decade hadn't yet passed, eastern South Greal had hardly recovered from the Imbrinumian scorched earth campaign that had left it utterly devastated. Without commercial opportunities, then, villages like Lorinamel survived through a little bit of agriculture and a little bit of luck. In fact, villages like these were disappearing.
Lorinamel, though, had recently been given a godsend.'Or, a death sentence. It all depended on how one looked at it.
Inside a large copse of woods, directly west of Lorinamel, Huron Authority had set up one of its largest training camps in the country. No one had been told it existed, except for the landowner, but if anybody in Lorinamel wasn't aware of something going on there then they had their heads in the sand. Because the number of strangers coming through, asking for food and drink, had been increasing on a daily basis. Not to mention the trucks — and, occasionally, a black sedan — driving down the road, turning off the highway, and disappearing into the woodlands.
But the Wanderjarian military rarely patrolled this far south. Tucked into the pocket of San Castello that drew down the coastline and away from Wanderjar, Lorinamel was secluded enough from everything to be the perfect location for a secretive training base. Besides, even if there were more strangers than ever in these parts, they were still few and far between relative to what Huron Authority hoped to achieve over the next couple of months. The Castellans brought down here numbered, perhaps, one or two hundred, and not a man more. That was because San Castello had been milked of willing fighters years ago, during the war of resistance against the Wanderjarian invasion. A mixture of bad tactics on DIENPAC's part and the brutal efficiency of the Wandejarian army had buried the will to fight.
Mariano Barros hoped to change that, though. At least, that was what he was hired for. Parking his car once it was hidden from outside view, he stepped out and walked towards the sound of rifle-fire. As he came to an internal clearing, an ad hoc range of sorts came into view and there were a couple of dozen men firing their rifles down the line. Some of them hit their targets, but most of them did not. Mariano sighed. These people were going to take a lot of training.
"Howdy, sir," said a uniformed contractor, one of the range instructors. "Another inspection?"
"Informal," he responded. It had been a long drive from Trinity. "When's chow?"
"1800 hours, sir," replied the instructor.
Both of them looked on as the locals fired their rifles. Shells ejected from atop and landed with a ping on the dirt around them, littering the ground by the thousands. The instructor grimaced, "These guys are going to take some time to get up to snuff, I'm afraid. No more than a handful of them have anything close to a decent shot, although we do have some wizzes."
Mariano nodded. "You don't need to make these men top fighters, those will come. Just good enough to help you train a larger contingent."
"Aye, sir," said the instructor. "Doesn't make me less worried."
"We'll do with what we have," said Mariano. He put a hand on the instructor's shoulder. "I'll catch you at chow, Instructor Valente."
He tried to hide it from the men, but Mariano worried too. It was true that few people, aside from him, knew the full extent of Huron's deployment in San Castello — thousands of them had been crossing over the South Greali border over the previous months —, but ultimately it would have to be the San Castellans that won independence for themselves, not Huron Authority. Huron was just the catalyst.
Still, Huron's operations were truly stunning. Not even Mariano knew all of the details. His job was strictly to command the company's forces in San Castello, but he had friends high up in the company and had caught a glimpse of the truly mammoth proportions of the contract. Months ago, during the war in Krasnova and Killia, Huron had been approached by someone in the imperial government and asked whether they had the resources to destabilize the situation in Wanderjar. It looked like the presence of an Ordenite fleet in the far east had unsettled someone or, perhaps more likely, the Imperial Bureaucracy just wanted to do what it did best, undermine the Ordenites everywhere and anywhere they were. And by now it was no longer a secret that Wanderjar was being reduced to the status of an Ordenite vassal. So, Huron said that it had the resources the empire was willing to pay to accomplish that objective. Mariano didn't know how much exactly was being spent on this and it didn't seem very much had been spent at all so far, apart from the several thousand he had on hand in the country and the handful of rundown training facilities like this one. But, his friends up top had let him in a bit on the big secret: over the past few weeks, hundreds of thousands of Panoolies sent to fight in Gholgoth against the Scandinvan Empire were being demobilized and almost immediately hired by Huron. With that army, Mariano was to inflame an indigenous rebellion from the southern reaches of San Castello to the northern extremes of Corbourne.
Even though the Castellans still had a long time before they would be in shape to win that war, Huron would fight it for them until they were. That put Mariano's mind at ease, at least a little.
LAMONIAN SEA
Seven days before, a detachment of Kríergrup 'Indras' quietly slipped out of port and headed south-southeast toward the Lamonian Sea and began sailing around the Ikherian cape. Before the end of the second week, they'd be off the coast of Southern San Castello.
The order had come directly from the naval high command in Fedala. Presumably, they had gotten their orders directly from His Imperial Majesty's government. Officially, the detachment was to participate in a joint land-sea-air exercise with elements of the Stevidian military posted in eastern South Greal. They were simulating the defense of the Stevidian colony from a hypothetical eastern invasion. "Possibly an extra-regional invasion in retribution for the imperial campaign in Drana, against the Scandinvan Empire," read a missive that was purposefully circulated only on a limited basis. Events in the Sea of Faith and in the far west were dominating the news cycle, so this one got little play in the media — as the Imperial Bureaucracy intended.
In size, the detachment was small relative to the common operational war fleet in Greater Díenstad. Two carrier eskúadra, along two two raid eskúadra. Since the last war with the Ordenites, the last were beginning to lose their original meaning and now acted almost as additional screening forces for the carrier groups. Together, they amounted to just under 70 ships. They were meant to be inconspicuous. Anyway, after the mauling of the Kriegsmarine's 'Wanderjar' fleet in the last war — it had been caught in an ambush by significant submarine forces, attacked by air in a constant matter, and then engaged with by the imperial fleets defending Pezlevko —, the Kríermada suspected that just 70 ships would do for what was to come.
HEWE, SOUTH GREAL
Rikardo was somewhat surprised the Stevidians had invested so little in repairing the damage in eastern South Greal. The Imbrinumians had been notoriously brutal in their scorched earth strategy but, still, Rikardo expected an imperial power like Stevid to spend lavishly on rebuilding as a statement. That was the Macabéan way, as shown throughout the territories, satrapies, and likutats. Instead, the border area with Wanderjar and San Castello was little more than the wasteland the Imbrinumians had left it.
Alas, he turned his attention to the frontier, which he surveyed. Stevid shared an extensive border with San Castello and the geopolitics here had changed since the Great Díentadi War. Now, Imbrinium was an ally of the crown via the Triumvirate and Wanderjar a shadow of its former self. The Ordenite Wehrmacht was in Wanderjar in strength but, for now, the struggle there seemed internal. Wanderjar, a proud nation, was being turned into little more than a vassal state of the Reich. Military pressure here had lessened and, although the Wanderjarian border did bristle with arms, the Castellan border was relatively less militarized. San Castello was occupied by Wanderjar, true, but the situation in Wanderjar had weakened its hold on its colonies.
It was in the context of this new geopolitical situation that Rikardo was sent to South Greal's frontier with San Castello. The name tag on his uniform read Karlse and the insignia on his collar were those of a Komstrategos. Komstrategos Rikardo Karlse.
Why was a komstrategos sent to the eastern fringes of South Greal? Officially, to participate in the coming land-sea-air exercises with Stevid. Unofficially, to prepare the logistics for the movement of men and material across the Greali-Castellan Frontier.
Thirteen days later...
ROMALIANO, SAN CASTELLO
Archbishop Giuseppe II's betrayal of his people had won him the continuation of his rule in San Castello, even if only as a puppet of the Wanderjarian government. Living in the Diocesan Palace of Romaliano, he governed from the shadows at first. But the progressive subjugation of the DIENPAC guerrillas by Wanderjarian and other allied forces eventually persuaded him to reveal himself once again. The sermons at the majestic Holy Monastery of San Castello had always continued, but it had been several years now that the archbishop felt comfortable enough to go out in public. Of course, always in a car and always protected by his Holy Guard.
The regime's security apparatus had become quite sophisticated. To be white in San Castello was to be king and nowhere was this more true than in the capital. The indigenous lived as a servant caste and little more, and aside from those who worked in the city most lived in the adjacent suburbs designated specifically for their kind. Such were the days of the apartheid regime. As such, movement through the city for the lower caste became not just a privilege, but an outcome of the apparatus and something that was highly controlled. Little wonder, then, that Archbishop Giuseppe no longer feared traveling the streets and showing himself to his loyal, believing masses. The streets he traveled were rarely the same as the ones walked by the lower caste. Few blacks were allowed to attend the procession for the Day of Body and Blood, anyway.
Along either side of the grand Boulevard of Light, the buildings were decorated by icons of every kind and size, with images of God, the son, the mother, and even of the archbishop himself. Red and white streamers flowed between lampposts and fountains and rooftops, and the boulevard's pavement was covered in green-leafed branches of rosemary. Men, women, and children alike were dressed like they would have been two hundred years ago, wearing colorful dresses, shirts, and vests. Hundreds of thousands of people lined the boulevard awaiting for the procession to pass through. They could see it coming by looking out for the carriages carrying tall icons of the mother, father, and son, as well as gem-encrusted crosses and angels. Some people were said to weep at the sight. Many fell to their knees. Those who could follow it from one end to the other, although given the sheer number of people who came to witness it this was almost impossible to do unless you were one of the very few privileged to travel within the route as opposed to beside it. And there were more people than ever these days, as they traveled from South Greal, Wanderjar, and elsewhere. Hundreds watched the multitude from balconies and others even from the rooftops.
Giuseppe II traveled in his car, a white sedan that looked as delicate as him. It was armored, of course. But, one could not tell by simply looking at it. It was made for him to be able to stand on a platform that bisected the back seat, a dome of glass surrounding him. He waved at the crowd as he passed. The people cheered back. It was truly a sight to behold. Such was the cult that the archbishop had built around him since the Wanderjarian occupation.
And cult it was. Religious sanctity alone no longer could enshrine him, as he had abandoned sanctity when he abandoned his people to the Wanderjarians. His authority had to evolve into something more than that, out of necessity. For the indigenous, Guiseppe II was nothing more than a despot who justified his rule through a superficial appeal to religion. To the white population, it was so much more than that. He was their protector from chaos and the hatred of the lower caste, a caste that would surely butcher them all in their sleep if it were not for their God-given guardian. There were as many or more icons of him as there were of the father, son, or mother combined. What further proof of cult did one need? Cult or not, Guiseppe's hold on this city was undeniable.
The people around him worshipped him, almost like a living god, as he and the procession traveled from his palace to the monastery. The Boulevard of Light wrapped around the Great Diocesan Retreat, a park of enormous proportions that occupied much of the city's center. Almost in the middle of the trajectory, the boulevard split to flow around the Arch of Ultimo, like a great river around an even greater island. The arch was really four arches in one, with two tall ones in the middle flanked by one on either side that rose to maybe three-fourths of the height. Intricate friezes were scrolled along center panels that wrapped around the arch and between its legs, depicting religious scenes sacred to the people of Romaliano. Three angels cast of bronze flew atop it with wings spanned wide.
There, as the archbishop's car followed the great bejeweled cross, a great sound befell upon the plaza like the crack of a whip. At first, no one understood what had happened, just that there had been a loud noise. But, the second crack was unmistakable. And then a third.
The glass dome surrounding the archbishop cracked. It withstood the second and third rounds, as well. But, more kept coming.
Chaos suddenly engulfed the Boulevard of Light as the crowd attempted to disperse. Hundreds of thousands began to push and shove their way through the wide sidewalks to the cover of the flanking buildings, flooding into the myriad streets that connected to the boulevard. Many were pushed under and screams were cut short as people were trampled. Things were made worse when gunmen at the street level opened fire.
As absolute pandemonium descended upon Romaliano, the archbishop's car at first tried to accelerate forward. But it struck into the back of the carriage carrying the cross, toppling this icon onto the procession-goers in front of it. Then, the car backed up and tried to go around, but it was cut short by the gunmen who were pouring out of a sidestreet and opening fire with automatic weapons. Holy Guardsmen fired back. Shooters fell here, guardsmen fell there, and Guiseppe II was a prisoner of his own mobile fortress, trapped inside a glass dome.
The Holy Guard was a highly trained force and had prepared for such an event, although nobody had expected such a well-coordinated attack by so many shooters. This seemed...professional. And the insurgency had been mostly suppressed, with the very best guerrillas killed. How could DIENPAC organize something like this after so many years of living in the shadows? No matter now. Guardsmen filtered into the boulevard and fired back. Neither they nor the shooters had much concern for the ocean of innocents around them. Those caught in the middle were felled in droves. All the while, the sniper that had opened fire first continued to shoot. Some would claim that there was more than one. As the battle unfolded, Guiseppe's driver finally managed to find a path forward and he surged through it, ignoring the bumps of the bodies underneath.
But even as the car was getting away, an onlooker who managed to catch a glimpse of the retreat stuck out his arm and pointed. "Look! The archbishop has been shot!"
And so it was. A round had made it through the glass and traveled into his chest, ruining white robes with a great red blotch of blood. Guiseppe fell backward into the sea and disappeared from sight...
OOC N.B. A D20 role was made for this attack. The role is hidden for the sake of suspense.
CASTROBA, SAN CASTELLO
While hell came upon Romaliano, war renewed in upper San Castello.
Felipinho and Adriano once again occupied the hill from which they observed Kamp Ratsingen. This time, though, they were joined by a company's worth of other men and all of them were uniformed, armed with a myriad of weapons, and laying low as if in position to ambush. Felipinho looked down the highway, which ran north to south around the town of Castroba. If one followed it north he would eventually reach Wanderjar. If one followed it south he would go through a series of towns until reaching Romaliano. It was flanked on either side for stretches at a time by deep ditches that elevated it over the countryside around it. Within those ditches hid thousands of more of Felipinho's men. Their weapons included automatic rifles, machine guns, anti-tank rockets and missiles, mortars, and all the trappings of a modern army. This was no rebel force. This was Huron Authority.
Huron had prepared very carefully for this day, of course. All of their uniforms were those of DIENPAC. All the men were Panooly or Panooly-descended. It had been a policy to turn back the light-skinned. This force had to be persuasive. The world had to be made to think that DIENPAC was back and with a vengeance, perhaps armed by some foreign power but still a force of its own. And so professional soldiers wearing the garb of DIENPAC guerrillas silently waited as the Wanderjarian convoy passed through.
It came right on time. For weeks, Felipinho and Adriano had tracked the habits of Kamp Ratsingen. It knew when it sent out patrols, when they returned, their size, and their make. There was not a variable they hadn't prepared for. They knew that within Kamp Ratsingen was also a confirmed artillery company and a confirmed tank company. They had learned this through the pattern of military trucks and other logistical vehicles. At one point, a tank had to be hauled out of the base and up north, perhaps to a depot or back to the factory. The Wanderjarians were about to be ambushed by a force that had assembled exactly what it needed to defeat the occupier.
Four W2 Oorwinnaar — Conqueror — IFVs rolled down the highway in the direction of Castroba. The rebels on either side of the road let it go by, waiting until it had reached the halfway point of the ambush line. Then, they opened fire. Simultaneously, eight anti-tank rockets screeched from out their launchers and sliced through the air until they impacted against the composite armor of the IFVs. Huron had chosen the weapon for this specific purpose. When the rockets struck home, they penetrated. Wanderjarian battle reports would later confirm that the drivers of two vehicles were killed instantly, the driver of a third lost his legs to the hot, piercing jet of the shaped charge that came in through the side armor. The fourth survived the initial attack, but the commander was killed. All four vehicles were immobilized, but four additional rockets were fired just to make sure. Rifle-bearing insurgents peeked over the upper lip of the ditch to observe the behavior of the crewmen and infantry inside the knocked-out steel beasts. Quickly, some moved into the road from the rear and the front to isolate the mechanized column. From one IFV came out dazed infantrymen from the rear hatch. They were cut down. Another 'Conqueror' exploded from an ammunition cook-off, killing or severely maiming everyone inside. The other two were rushed upon, but the hatches remained closed. A group of attackers struggled to get them open.
While the patrolling column was being ripped apart, insurgent mortar teams were already pounding Kamp Ratsingen to flush the defendants out. The fire was harrowing and constant, not lifting for a second. Most of the ammunition dropped was high explosive, but smoke rounds were dropped outside the walls of the base to obscure the movement of a number of company-sized rifle formations to deploy closer to it and surround it. One company-sized formation of riflemen advanced to the mouth of the road that led to Kamp Ratsingen's gate.
Castroba itself began just ahead of the base. Movement in and out was cut by a platoon-sized formation of riflemen that simply turned anyone back through the use of gunfire. There were known police forces within the town and they could become a variable, so Felipinho and his reserve company were ready to reinforce the blockading platoon if necessary. For the time being, he focused on observing the battle.
A secondary gate opened towards the back of Kamp Ratsingen to reveal a force of eight IFVs and eight heavy tanks. Wanderjarian tanks were large things, almost 70 metric tonnes and armed with large caliber 140mm cannons. They were also heavily armored, so anti-tank rockets probably wouldn't penetrate unless the launcher managed to pull off a great shot. As the insurgent force prepared to ambush this force, it split into two: one column headed east toward the main highway and the other in the opposite direction, probably to flank and divert the guerrilla force's attention. They didn't get very far before the heavy tanks were targeted by top-attack anti-tank missiles and the IFVs came under heavy rocket fire. Within minutes, eight tanks were left wrecks, another was left immobile, and the remainder withdrew back into the camp along with a lone surviving IFVs. The vehicles left outside were little more than steel coffins, as they were pelted until they cooked off, the crew tried to escape and were gunned down, or simply shot to death inside the vehicle. That rescue attempt had ended in absolute disaster.
But as the first sally faltered, a second made its way out of the western gate. Eight 'Conqueror' IFVs thundered out at a brisk pace, laying a smoke screen of their own to layer in with the dissipating smoke laid down during the initial mortar barrage. Rockets shrieked by, missing narrowly, while small arms fire ricocheted off of their armored hulls. Like the party exiting from the southern gate, this one split in two. They were initially more successful but hit heavy resistance from the Huron guerrillas that had previously deployed in the area in anticipation. While their 30mm autocannons shredded whatever they could find, the well-hidden insurgents lay in wait until the opportunity presented itself while a supporting mortar platoon kept up the pressure with constant indirect fire. Once the two platoons had split up sufficiently, the attackers moved to isolate them from each other and then began pelting the heavy vehicles with rocket fire. Three IFVs were knocked out, another three immobilized, and the other two withdrew back into the base under heavy fire.
Simultaneously, two more Wanderjarian platoons sallied from the north. These were more successful since here the attackers were the thinnest in number. The eight IFVs veered west and then south, possibly hoping to link up with the platoons sallying out of the western gate. Initially beating off light resistance with ease, they then stumbled upon the active attacking formations deployed on the western side. Vision obscured by mortar fire and smoke, this Wanderjarian counterattack also faltered against heavy anti-tank rocket and missile fire. After fierce action, five IFVs withdrew northward into Castroba. One was knocked out just on the outskirts of the town.
Mortars continued falling onto Kamp Ratsingen, but Felipinho wasn't about to settle into a siege. The attack continued to unfold. Content that both the initially ambushed column and the rescuers had been put out of action, the rebel force reoriented itself to focus on overrunning Ratsingen itself. The destruction of a full infantry battalion, a tank company, an artillery company, and all of it associated headquarters and administrative personnel would be a colossal win to get the rebellion started on the right foot.
But just as the front gate was battered down by rocket fire, a sally attempt was spotted emerging from the southern outskirts of the town. As expected, the local police force came out in vehicles of their own. But equipped to deal with ragtag insurgents, and even those not for some time, they were not ready for an enemy of this quality. Emerging from the town in six armored mine-resistant vehicles, these were allowed to travel for some time before heavy machine guns opened up on them. Two were put immediately out of action before the occupants of the other four could start firing back. The other four were subsequently knocked out through rifle fire. Their occupants were killed either inside the vehicles or as they tried to exit them under fire. One officer was gunned down as he tried to run back to Castroba.
As the local police's sally was ambushed, the five IFVs that had managed to withdraw north made a presence again. They crashed into the flank of the small insurgent blocking force on the highway between Castroba and the military base. This platoon was being forced to withdraw when Felipinho ordered some of his reserve force into action. With their rifles slung across their chest, two platoons of infantrymen armed with anti-tank missiles counterstruck against the counterattack, knocking out three vehicles and forcing the surviving two to withdraw back into the town. That's the last they would hear of those vehicles.
About two hundred insurgents moved in through the front gate but were pinned down by the heavy defending fire. The smoke screens converging over them served to obscure their vision as much as the defender's, but the latter knew their fields of fire intimiately. Despite the stalemate at the front, the guerrillas that had moved around the base created their own entry point with assorted rocket fire. Facing breaches from multiple sides, and already heavily chewed up by the ambush, the defenders were gradually pushed into a tighter and tighter perimeter. They left the dead and wounded behind. Huron soldiers — acting as DIENPAC freedom fighters — butchered them where they lay. Joined by surviving IFVs, tanks, and wheeled armored cars, the Wanderjarians made the attackers pay for every ounce of blood they drew, though. Defending from building corners and supported by infantry, or makeshift infantry, in the buildings around, the resistance was fierce and powerful. But it was inevitable for the perimeter to continue to shrink under the incessant pressure. Bodies wearing both sides' uniforms littered the ground. When the Wanderjarians or their allies returned they'd find the enemy bodies not just in DIENPAC uniforms, but with fake trinkets that pointed to local homes: fake letters to loved ones, photos of local women, and other sorts of things that a Castellan Panooly would carry.
At one end of the camp, the artillery guns were overrun and their tubes ruined by explosives down to the breech. Abandoned vehicles were destroyed as well. It wasn't long before the final tanks were knocked out, the crews having abandoned them minutes before. Barracks buildings were ransacked and torched as soon as they were outside of the shrinking defending perimeter. The attacking force was well supplied, so Wanderjarian weapons were not needed. The goal wasn't to capture coveted arms, it was to terrorize. And terrorize they did.
Felipinho had lost track of time to some extent. It tended to happen in battle. What seemed like hours were actual minutes and what seemed like seconds were actual minutes. He was mesmerized by the operation. It was certainly unfolding much more successfully than even he had anticipated. The fate of the initial ambush was sealed before the fighting began, but the way his men handled the sallying reinforcements went beyond his expectations. A feeling of satisfaction filled his insides, as he smiled to let it show.
Adriano must have caught him, for he said, "Indulgent, are we, sir?"
The 'sir' caught Felipinho off guard. The two of them had spent so much time away from the main body of their men, where Adriano knew he needn't be so formal, that Felipinho almost forgot he was the superior commander. He quickly came back to, though, and replied, "A little bit of indulgence never hurt anyone."
"It will be time to withdraw soon," said the other man in response.
Felipinho nodded. "Indeed, lieutenant, indeed. Soon."
They both turned their attention back to the Wanderjarian base, which was steadily being set ablaze. Flames danced as if alive from one end to the other, as buildings, vehicles, and bodies were incinerated alike. Tall towers of dark and light smoke climbed toward the clouds like tendrils of death, as if the underworld were trying to conquer the heavens above. The noise of heavy gunfire never subsided, although it was concentrating closer and closer to the very center of Kamp Ratsingen. It was all a palpable drama to the observer.
A distant thump, thump, thump drew their attention, though. Helicopters. And so it was. A flight of attack helicopters appeared as small dark dots in the distance. Felipinho realized the time to withdraw was nearing. More reinforcements would come soon and he didn't want to be caught in a battle against a no-longer-surprised enemy with heavy combined arms. Still, he would leave one last nasty scar on the Wanderjarian ego. As the helicopters neared, an anti-aircraft platoon attached to the company-sized force he was leading in reserve opened fire with their MANPADs. Within seconds, two helicopters had been set ablaze and crashed into the terrain below, dark columns of smoke rising to mark their graves. The remainder withdrew. They would be back.
Inside the base, the surviving defenders had withdrawn into the central administrative buildings. The attackers were taking heavy casualties as they assaulted positions held by well-trained soldiers. Surveying the apocalyptic damage already done, Felipinho gave the order to withdraw and within minutes the suspiciously well-trained insurgent forces bled back into the countryside and disappeared for the moment.
Like that, the opening rounds of what the occupiers would know as the Wanderjarian Border War and the indigenous would know as the War of Castellan Independence were fired.
OOC N.B. A D20 role of 12, plus a modifier, succeeded. The subsequent D100 damage roll came out to 98.
The end of the cigarette glowed red as the paper peeled back in the direction of the drag. Mariano took it out of his mouth, ashed it on the ground, and let out a long white plume of smoke from his lungs. Smoking was no longer as fashionable as it had once been, given cancer and all, but Mariano figured that if he died young it wouldn't be because of cancer. He frowned. He had made it this far, hadn't he? Maybe he'd give up smoking after all. Then, he smiled. No, no, foolish to fill oneself with hope in a world like this one. He took another drag and his face lit up with satisfaction as the nicotine rushed to his head.
Trinity had changed over the past five years. The Wandejarians had invested in erasing the past, understandably of course. The best sort of oppression was the kind committed beneath the veneer of liberation.
Five years ago, the town of Trinity became a front line in the Castellan civil war and resistance against the Wanderjarian intervention. The Dienstadi Panooly National Congress — DIENPAC* — used it to suck the Wanderjarian army into a street battle and, when the battle seemed lost, it sprung its most vicious trap of the war: it set off hundreds of tons of explosives, rigged in sewers and throughout the town, with the intention of killing everyone. 70 percent of four Wanderjarian regiments were annihilated, along with hundreds of civilians who were never given the chance to flee. DIENPAC called it a victory. For what, though? The war ended the same way it would have had Trinity never been sacrificed: the defeat of DIENPAC and the occupation of San Castello by the apartheid regime.
Since then, Trinity had been rebuilt. Mariano looked out from the outside table of the café and saw cars in the street, buildings with colorful curtains, intricate paneling, and all the signs of peaceful life. Women, men, and children alike went from place to place as if it had been this way for generation after generation. It was incredible how easily humanity papered over the tragedies of history. Mariano didn't blame them, after all, he papered over his own.
Across the street, a black car pulled over and parked. A man wearing sunglasses, a hat, and a long coat stepped out and walked toward the café, taking a seat finally on the opposite end of Mariano's table. It was hot for a coat like that. And if Mariano didn't already know who to expect, there was hardly any way he'd recognize who this person was. But, as mentioned, he expected the arrival.
The two nodded at each other but, otherwise, there were no introductions, no small talk. Instead, Mariano still held on to the tablet he was reading on, and said, "The nest is overflowing."
Across the table, the man said nothing, not at first. He waited for a waitress, a black woman, to come up to them and ask, "Good morning, sir. Can I get you some coffee? Perhaps some breakfast?"
"Just coffee, please," said the man, with a slight wave of the hand.
When the woman walked off, he replied, "Your people move fast."
"Yes, well, we move at the pace of events," said Mariano. He took another drag of his cigarette, then reached over to put it out on a glass tray laying at the center of the table. "Some would say we aren't moving fast enough, in fact. Wilma is crawling with Shadow Sultans these days," — hardly veiled terms for Wanderjar and the Ordenites — "she's hardly herself in fact. Hard to believe that Wilma could be any worse than she already was, but so it is. Chiefs say the time is now."
The man grimaced. "The Chiefs have their own motivations," he said."
"Sure," answered Mariano, "but, the motivations are aligned here. There will be Shadow Sultans here soon enough. Apple Trees" — apartheid — "are one thing, Lemon Trees" — labor and death camps — "quite another."
"All theory," replied the man, unconvinced.
Mariano chuckled. "That's what we thought in South Panooly."
"Wilma has been a manipulative mother," said the man. "She's done a good job at scolding the kids, getting them in line, and punishing them to the point of dejection. I'm not sure the children have the spirit of rebellion in them." The man's voice was tinged in sadness, with a hint of something like disappointment. "They didn't go about right the first time, you know. Just didn't think through it. Kids almost never do."
"Yea, well, the big kids are on the block now." Mariano took a sip of his coffee, which had been sitting on the table untouched as it cooled down. "And once the children see them in action, they'll want to play on the street too."
The man shrugged. "I suppose the children don't really have another option, do they?"
"I suppose not," was all Mariano said back.
"How much time do I have?" asked the man.
Without looking up, Mariano answered, "Fourteen days."
By the time the waitress came back with the man's cup of coffee, he was gone. Mariano looked at Tohnain Londo, underground leader of DIENPAC, walk back to his car and drive away. He looked at the waitress — she was a cute little thing —, shrugged, and said, "He must not have enjoyed the conversation. Oh well, you can leave that here for me." Then, he went back to reading the paper on his tablet.
* OOC: I am renaming the DANC to DIENPAC to get away from the use of real-world names.
One day later...
CASTROBA, SAN CASTELLO
Felipinho brought down the binoculars from his eyes and turned to the man laying to his side. "Right on time, the patrol is exiting Kamp Ratsingen and heading south."
Adriano took the binoculars and peered through them, his jaw pausing from chewing gum for just long enough for him to get a good look. "Aye, a mechanized platoon. Four W2s. Different unit markings to yesterday's" — Felipinho jotted down notes. "How many is that now? Three confirmed? That's at least one infantry company, at least. It'd be easier to get a gauge of their strength if we got closer, of course."
Felipinho grunted in appreciation but otherwise didn't respond. Both of them knew they weren't going to get any closer to Kamp Ratsingen. Hell, they couldn't even infiltrate the town. In Wanderjar, a black man either lived with his own and away from the white man, or he was the white man's servant. And no way in hell Felipinho was going to pretend to be any man's servant. Men like him and Adriano had fought long and hard in Holy Panooly to unshackle themselves from exactly that sort of life. And even in Holy Panooly, in some places — like in the south —, little had changed since the 'liberation' of 2027. Anyway, one could be certain that every black man in Castroba was accounted for. If you weren't recognized, you just weren't from around there, and if you weren't from around there you aroused suspicion. And if you didn't have a white man to vouch for you, you were a dead black man walking. Simple as that. Binoculars from the treeline atop Hill 306, named after its height, was as good as they were going to get. Felipinho read through his notes.
After scouring through his notepad for a bit, he said, "At least one infantry company and a tank company is known for sure, but my guess is that there's a whole battalion in there. Definitely has the size for it and more to boot. Wouldn't be surprised if there's an attached field artillery company in there."
"You think they have more than a tank company?" asked Adriano.
"Nah," he replied. "At least, wouldn't count on it unless we got visual confirmation."
The other man nodded unconvincingly. He knew that it was better to overestimate than underestimate. "You know," he said, changing the subject, "I never thought I'd be back here." 'Here,' of course, did not mean San Castello. Neither of them had ever been to San Castello. Both had served in New Garrack, unofficially. Then, like now, they pretended to be locals. At least there they had worn uniforms. Not here, not yet. They were still just Castellan civilians, officially. The sweat dripped down his forehead as he reminisced. "It's a lot hotter down here, though."
"That's for damn sure," was all Felipinho said. "It ain't gonna get any better soon, either."
Adriano chuckled. "Eventually, it will. Eventually, it will."
OUTSIDE LORINAMEL, SAN CASTELLO
Down the one-lane highway, a black sedan sped down until it came to a halt at a random dirt road, turned onto it, and disappeared.
A stone's throw from the international border with South Greal, Lorinamel was little more than an insignificant village. No more than 700 people called this place their home. Most were farmers, some worked the small storefronts that tended to the community, and the rest were wives, children, or vagrant workers. There wasn't much work around these parts, anyway. One would think that the Stevidian presence south of the border would attract commerce, but truth be told there wasn't much of a Stevidian presence there these days — not since the Great Díenstadi War. And while for some that may have felt like a lifetime ago, even if a decade hadn't yet passed, eastern South Greal had hardly recovered from the Imbrinumian scorched earth campaign that had left it utterly devastated. Without commercial opportunities, then, villages like Lorinamel survived through a little bit of agriculture and a little bit of luck. In fact, villages like these were disappearing.
Lorinamel, though, had recently been given a godsend.'Or, a death sentence. It all depended on how one looked at it.
Inside a large copse of woods, directly west of Lorinamel, Huron Authority had set up one of its largest training camps in the country. No one had been told it existed, except for the landowner, but if anybody in Lorinamel wasn't aware of something going on there then they had their heads in the sand. Because the number of strangers coming through, asking for food and drink, had been increasing on a daily basis. Not to mention the trucks — and, occasionally, a black sedan — driving down the road, turning off the highway, and disappearing into the woodlands.
But the Wanderjarian military rarely patrolled this far south. Tucked into the pocket of San Castello that drew down the coastline and away from Wanderjar, Lorinamel was secluded enough from everything to be the perfect location for a secretive training base. Besides, even if there were more strangers than ever in these parts, they were still few and far between relative to what Huron Authority hoped to achieve over the next couple of months. The Castellans brought down here numbered, perhaps, one or two hundred, and not a man more. That was because San Castello had been milked of willing fighters years ago, during the war of resistance against the Wanderjarian invasion. A mixture of bad tactics on DIENPAC's part and the brutal efficiency of the Wandejarian army had buried the will to fight.
Mariano Barros hoped to change that, though. At least, that was what he was hired for. Parking his car once it was hidden from outside view, he stepped out and walked towards the sound of rifle-fire. As he came to an internal clearing, an ad hoc range of sorts came into view and there were a couple of dozen men firing their rifles down the line. Some of them hit their targets, but most of them did not. Mariano sighed. These people were going to take a lot of training.
"Howdy, sir," said a uniformed contractor, one of the range instructors. "Another inspection?"
"Informal," he responded. It had been a long drive from Trinity. "When's chow?"
"1800 hours, sir," replied the instructor.
Both of them looked on as the locals fired their rifles. Shells ejected from atop and landed with a ping on the dirt around them, littering the ground by the thousands. The instructor grimaced, "These guys are going to take some time to get up to snuff, I'm afraid. No more than a handful of them have anything close to a decent shot, although we do have some wizzes."
Mariano nodded. "You don't need to make these men top fighters, those will come. Just good enough to help you train a larger contingent."
"Aye, sir," said the instructor. "Doesn't make me less worried."
"We'll do with what we have," said Mariano. He put a hand on the instructor's shoulder. "I'll catch you at chow, Instructor Valente."
He tried to hide it from the men, but Mariano worried too. It was true that few people, aside from him, knew the full extent of Huron's deployment in San Castello — thousands of them had been crossing over the South Greali border over the previous months —, but ultimately it would have to be the San Castellans that won independence for themselves, not Huron Authority. Huron was just the catalyst.
Still, Huron's operations were truly stunning. Not even Mariano knew all of the details. His job was strictly to command the company's forces in San Castello, but he had friends high up in the company and had caught a glimpse of the truly mammoth proportions of the contract. Months ago, during the war in Krasnova and Killia, Huron had been approached by someone in the imperial government and asked whether they had the resources to destabilize the situation in Wanderjar. It looked like the presence of an Ordenite fleet in the far east had unsettled someone or, perhaps more likely, the Imperial Bureaucracy just wanted to do what it did best, undermine the Ordenites everywhere and anywhere they were. And by now it was no longer a secret that Wanderjar was being reduced to the status of an Ordenite vassal. So, Huron said that it had the resources the empire was willing to pay to accomplish that objective. Mariano didn't know how much exactly was being spent on this and it didn't seem very much had been spent at all so far, apart from the several thousand he had on hand in the country and the handful of rundown training facilities like this one. But, his friends up top had let him in a bit on the big secret: over the past few weeks, hundreds of thousands of Panoolies sent to fight in Gholgoth against the Scandinvan Empire were being demobilized and almost immediately hired by Huron. With that army, Mariano was to inflame an indigenous rebellion from the southern reaches of San Castello to the northern extremes of Corbourne.
Even though the Castellans still had a long time before they would be in shape to win that war, Huron would fight it for them until they were. That put Mariano's mind at ease, at least a little.
LAMONIAN SEA
Seven days before, a detachment of Kríergrup 'Indras' quietly slipped out of port and headed south-southeast toward the Lamonian Sea and began sailing around the Ikherian cape. Before the end of the second week, they'd be off the coast of Southern San Castello.
The order had come directly from the naval high command in Fedala. Presumably, they had gotten their orders directly from His Imperial Majesty's government. Officially, the detachment was to participate in a joint land-sea-air exercise with elements of the Stevidian military posted in eastern South Greal. They were simulating the defense of the Stevidian colony from a hypothetical eastern invasion. "Possibly an extra-regional invasion in retribution for the imperial campaign in Drana, against the Scandinvan Empire," read a missive that was purposefully circulated only on a limited basis. Events in the Sea of Faith and in the far west were dominating the news cycle, so this one got little play in the media — as the Imperial Bureaucracy intended.
In size, the detachment was small relative to the common operational war fleet in Greater Díenstad. Two carrier eskúadra, along two two raid eskúadra. Since the last war with the Ordenites, the last were beginning to lose their original meaning and now acted almost as additional screening forces for the carrier groups. Together, they amounted to just under 70 ships. They were meant to be inconspicuous. Anyway, after the mauling of the Kriegsmarine's 'Wanderjar' fleet in the last war — it had been caught in an ambush by significant submarine forces, attacked by air in a constant matter, and then engaged with by the imperial fleets defending Pezlevko —, the Kríermada suspected that just 70 ships would do for what was to come.
HEWE, SOUTH GREAL
Rikardo was somewhat surprised the Stevidians had invested so little in repairing the damage in eastern South Greal. The Imbrinumians had been notoriously brutal in their scorched earth strategy but, still, Rikardo expected an imperial power like Stevid to spend lavishly on rebuilding as a statement. That was the Macabéan way, as shown throughout the territories, satrapies, and likutats. Instead, the border area with Wanderjar and San Castello was little more than the wasteland the Imbrinumians had left it.
Alas, he turned his attention to the frontier, which he surveyed. Stevid shared an extensive border with San Castello and the geopolitics here had changed since the Great Díentadi War. Now, Imbrinium was an ally of the crown via the Triumvirate and Wanderjar a shadow of its former self. The Ordenite Wehrmacht was in Wanderjar in strength but, for now, the struggle there seemed internal. Wanderjar, a proud nation, was being turned into little more than a vassal state of the Reich. Military pressure here had lessened and, although the Wanderjarian border did bristle with arms, the Castellan border was relatively less militarized. San Castello was occupied by Wanderjar, true, but the situation in Wanderjar had weakened its hold on its colonies.
It was in the context of this new geopolitical situation that Rikardo was sent to South Greal's frontier with San Castello. The name tag on his uniform read Karlse and the insignia on his collar were those of a Komstrategos. Komstrategos Rikardo Karlse.
Why was a komstrategos sent to the eastern fringes of South Greal? Officially, to participate in the coming land-sea-air exercises with Stevid. Unofficially, to prepare the logistics for the movement of men and material across the Greali-Castellan Frontier.
Thirteen days later...
ROMALIANO, SAN CASTELLO
Archbishop Giuseppe II's betrayal of his people had won him the continuation of his rule in San Castello, even if only as a puppet of the Wanderjarian government. Living in the Diocesan Palace of Romaliano, he governed from the shadows at first. But the progressive subjugation of the DIENPAC guerrillas by Wanderjarian and other allied forces eventually persuaded him to reveal himself once again. The sermons at the majestic Holy Monastery of San Castello had always continued, but it had been several years now that the archbishop felt comfortable enough to go out in public. Of course, always in a car and always protected by his Holy Guard.
The regime's security apparatus had become quite sophisticated. To be white in San Castello was to be king and nowhere was this more true than in the capital. The indigenous lived as a servant caste and little more, and aside from those who worked in the city most lived in the adjacent suburbs designated specifically for their kind. Such were the days of the apartheid regime. As such, movement through the city for the lower caste became not just a privilege, but an outcome of the apparatus and something that was highly controlled. Little wonder, then, that Archbishop Giuseppe no longer feared traveling the streets and showing himself to his loyal, believing masses. The streets he traveled were rarely the same as the ones walked by the lower caste. Few blacks were allowed to attend the procession for the Day of Body and Blood, anyway.
Along either side of the grand Boulevard of Light, the buildings were decorated by icons of every kind and size, with images of God, the son, the mother, and even of the archbishop himself. Red and white streamers flowed between lampposts and fountains and rooftops, and the boulevard's pavement was covered in green-leafed branches of rosemary. Men, women, and children alike were dressed like they would have been two hundred years ago, wearing colorful dresses, shirts, and vests. Hundreds of thousands of people lined the boulevard awaiting for the procession to pass through. They could see it coming by looking out for the carriages carrying tall icons of the mother, father, and son, as well as gem-encrusted crosses and angels. Some people were said to weep at the sight. Many fell to their knees. Those who could follow it from one end to the other, although given the sheer number of people who came to witness it this was almost impossible to do unless you were one of the very few privileged to travel within the route as opposed to beside it. And there were more people than ever these days, as they traveled from South Greal, Wanderjar, and elsewhere. Hundreds watched the multitude from balconies and others even from the rooftops.
Giuseppe II traveled in his car, a white sedan that looked as delicate as him. It was armored, of course. But, one could not tell by simply looking at it. It was made for him to be able to stand on a platform that bisected the back seat, a dome of glass surrounding him. He waved at the crowd as he passed. The people cheered back. It was truly a sight to behold. Such was the cult that the archbishop had built around him since the Wanderjarian occupation.
And cult it was. Religious sanctity alone no longer could enshrine him, as he had abandoned sanctity when he abandoned his people to the Wanderjarians. His authority had to evolve into something more than that, out of necessity. For the indigenous, Guiseppe II was nothing more than a despot who justified his rule through a superficial appeal to religion. To the white population, it was so much more than that. He was their protector from chaos and the hatred of the lower caste, a caste that would surely butcher them all in their sleep if it were not for their God-given guardian. There were as many or more icons of him as there were of the father, son, or mother combined. What further proof of cult did one need? Cult or not, Guiseppe's hold on this city was undeniable.
The people around him worshipped him, almost like a living god, as he and the procession traveled from his palace to the monastery. The Boulevard of Light wrapped around the Great Diocesan Retreat, a park of enormous proportions that occupied much of the city's center. Almost in the middle of the trajectory, the boulevard split to flow around the Arch of Ultimo, like a great river around an even greater island. The arch was really four arches in one, with two tall ones in the middle flanked by one on either side that rose to maybe three-fourths of the height. Intricate friezes were scrolled along center panels that wrapped around the arch and between its legs, depicting religious scenes sacred to the people of Romaliano. Three angels cast of bronze flew atop it with wings spanned wide.
There, as the archbishop's car followed the great bejeweled cross, a great sound befell upon the plaza like the crack of a whip. At first, no one understood what had happened, just that there had been a loud noise. But, the second crack was unmistakable. And then a third.
The glass dome surrounding the archbishop cracked. It withstood the second and third rounds, as well. But, more kept coming.
Chaos suddenly engulfed the Boulevard of Light as the crowd attempted to disperse. Hundreds of thousands began to push and shove their way through the wide sidewalks to the cover of the flanking buildings, flooding into the myriad streets that connected to the boulevard. Many were pushed under and screams were cut short as people were trampled. Things were made worse when gunmen at the street level opened fire.
As absolute pandemonium descended upon Romaliano, the archbishop's car at first tried to accelerate forward. But it struck into the back of the carriage carrying the cross, toppling this icon onto the procession-goers in front of it. Then, the car backed up and tried to go around, but it was cut short by the gunmen who were pouring out of a sidestreet and opening fire with automatic weapons. Holy Guardsmen fired back. Shooters fell here, guardsmen fell there, and Guiseppe II was a prisoner of his own mobile fortress, trapped inside a glass dome.
The Holy Guard was a highly trained force and had prepared for such an event, although nobody had expected such a well-coordinated attack by so many shooters. This seemed...professional. And the insurgency had been mostly suppressed, with the very best guerrillas killed. How could DIENPAC organize something like this after so many years of living in the shadows? No matter now. Guardsmen filtered into the boulevard and fired back. Neither they nor the shooters had much concern for the ocean of innocents around them. Those caught in the middle were felled in droves. All the while, the sniper that had opened fire first continued to shoot. Some would claim that there was more than one. As the battle unfolded, Guiseppe's driver finally managed to find a path forward and he surged through it, ignoring the bumps of the bodies underneath.
But even as the car was getting away, an onlooker who managed to catch a glimpse of the retreat stuck out his arm and pointed. "Look! The archbishop has been shot!"
And so it was. A round had made it through the glass and traveled into his chest, ruining white robes with a great red blotch of blood. Guiseppe fell backward into the sea and disappeared from sight...
OOC N.B. A D20 role was made for this attack. The role is hidden for the sake of suspense.
CASTROBA, SAN CASTELLO
While hell came upon Romaliano, war renewed in upper San Castello.
Felipinho and Adriano once again occupied the hill from which they observed Kamp Ratsingen. This time, though, they were joined by a company's worth of other men and all of them were uniformed, armed with a myriad of weapons, and laying low as if in position to ambush. Felipinho looked down the highway, which ran north to south around the town of Castroba. If one followed it north he would eventually reach Wanderjar. If one followed it south he would go through a series of towns until reaching Romaliano. It was flanked on either side for stretches at a time by deep ditches that elevated it over the countryside around it. Within those ditches hid thousands of more of Felipinho's men. Their weapons included automatic rifles, machine guns, anti-tank rockets and missiles, mortars, and all the trappings of a modern army. This was no rebel force. This was Huron Authority.
Huron had prepared very carefully for this day, of course. All of their uniforms were those of DIENPAC. All the men were Panooly or Panooly-descended. It had been a policy to turn back the light-skinned. This force had to be persuasive. The world had to be made to think that DIENPAC was back and with a vengeance, perhaps armed by some foreign power but still a force of its own. And so professional soldiers wearing the garb of DIENPAC guerrillas silently waited as the Wanderjarian convoy passed through.
It came right on time. For weeks, Felipinho and Adriano had tracked the habits of Kamp Ratsingen. It knew when it sent out patrols, when they returned, their size, and their make. There was not a variable they hadn't prepared for. They knew that within Kamp Ratsingen was also a confirmed artillery company and a confirmed tank company. They had learned this through the pattern of military trucks and other logistical vehicles. At one point, a tank had to be hauled out of the base and up north, perhaps to a depot or back to the factory. The Wanderjarians were about to be ambushed by a force that had assembled exactly what it needed to defeat the occupier.
Four W2 Oorwinnaar — Conqueror — IFVs rolled down the highway in the direction of Castroba. The rebels on either side of the road let it go by, waiting until it had reached the halfway point of the ambush line. Then, they opened fire. Simultaneously, eight anti-tank rockets screeched from out their launchers and sliced through the air until they impacted against the composite armor of the IFVs. Huron had chosen the weapon for this specific purpose. When the rockets struck home, they penetrated. Wanderjarian battle reports would later confirm that the drivers of two vehicles were killed instantly, the driver of a third lost his legs to the hot, piercing jet of the shaped charge that came in through the side armor. The fourth survived the initial attack, but the commander was killed. All four vehicles were immobilized, but four additional rockets were fired just to make sure. Rifle-bearing insurgents peeked over the upper lip of the ditch to observe the behavior of the crewmen and infantry inside the knocked-out steel beasts. Quickly, some moved into the road from the rear and the front to isolate the mechanized column. From one IFV came out dazed infantrymen from the rear hatch. They were cut down. Another 'Conqueror' exploded from an ammunition cook-off, killing or severely maiming everyone inside. The other two were rushed upon, but the hatches remained closed. A group of attackers struggled to get them open.
While the patrolling column was being ripped apart, insurgent mortar teams were already pounding Kamp Ratsingen to flush the defendants out. The fire was harrowing and constant, not lifting for a second. Most of the ammunition dropped was high explosive, but smoke rounds were dropped outside the walls of the base to obscure the movement of a number of company-sized rifle formations to deploy closer to it and surround it. One company-sized formation of riflemen advanced to the mouth of the road that led to Kamp Ratsingen's gate.
Castroba itself began just ahead of the base. Movement in and out was cut by a platoon-sized formation of riflemen that simply turned anyone back through the use of gunfire. There were known police forces within the town and they could become a variable, so Felipinho and his reserve company were ready to reinforce the blockading platoon if necessary. For the time being, he focused on observing the battle.
A secondary gate opened towards the back of Kamp Ratsingen to reveal a force of eight IFVs and eight heavy tanks. Wanderjarian tanks were large things, almost 70 metric tonnes and armed with large caliber 140mm cannons. They were also heavily armored, so anti-tank rockets probably wouldn't penetrate unless the launcher managed to pull off a great shot. As the insurgent force prepared to ambush this force, it split into two: one column headed east toward the main highway and the other in the opposite direction, probably to flank and divert the guerrilla force's attention. They didn't get very far before the heavy tanks were targeted by top-attack anti-tank missiles and the IFVs came under heavy rocket fire. Within minutes, eight tanks were left wrecks, another was left immobile, and the remainder withdrew back into the camp along with a lone surviving IFVs. The vehicles left outside were little more than steel coffins, as they were pelted until they cooked off, the crew tried to escape and were gunned down, or simply shot to death inside the vehicle. That rescue attempt had ended in absolute disaster.
But as the first sally faltered, a second made its way out of the western gate. Eight 'Conqueror' IFVs thundered out at a brisk pace, laying a smoke screen of their own to layer in with the dissipating smoke laid down during the initial mortar barrage. Rockets shrieked by, missing narrowly, while small arms fire ricocheted off of their armored hulls. Like the party exiting from the southern gate, this one split in two. They were initially more successful but hit heavy resistance from the Huron guerrillas that had previously deployed in the area in anticipation. While their 30mm autocannons shredded whatever they could find, the well-hidden insurgents lay in wait until the opportunity presented itself while a supporting mortar platoon kept up the pressure with constant indirect fire. Once the two platoons had split up sufficiently, the attackers moved to isolate them from each other and then began pelting the heavy vehicles with rocket fire. Three IFVs were knocked out, another three immobilized, and the other two withdrew back into the base under heavy fire.
Simultaneously, two more Wanderjarian platoons sallied from the north. These were more successful since here the attackers were the thinnest in number. The eight IFVs veered west and then south, possibly hoping to link up with the platoons sallying out of the western gate. Initially beating off light resistance with ease, they then stumbled upon the active attacking formations deployed on the western side. Vision obscured by mortar fire and smoke, this Wanderjarian counterattack also faltered against heavy anti-tank rocket and missile fire. After fierce action, five IFVs withdrew northward into Castroba. One was knocked out just on the outskirts of the town.
Mortars continued falling onto Kamp Ratsingen, but Felipinho wasn't about to settle into a siege. The attack continued to unfold. Content that both the initially ambushed column and the rescuers had been put out of action, the rebel force reoriented itself to focus on overrunning Ratsingen itself. The destruction of a full infantry battalion, a tank company, an artillery company, and all of it associated headquarters and administrative personnel would be a colossal win to get the rebellion started on the right foot.
But just as the front gate was battered down by rocket fire, a sally attempt was spotted emerging from the southern outskirts of the town. As expected, the local police force came out in vehicles of their own. But equipped to deal with ragtag insurgents, and even those not for some time, they were not ready for an enemy of this quality. Emerging from the town in six armored mine-resistant vehicles, these were allowed to travel for some time before heavy machine guns opened up on them. Two were put immediately out of action before the occupants of the other four could start firing back. The other four were subsequently knocked out through rifle fire. Their occupants were killed either inside the vehicles or as they tried to exit them under fire. One officer was gunned down as he tried to run back to Castroba.
As the local police's sally was ambushed, the five IFVs that had managed to withdraw north made a presence again. They crashed into the flank of the small insurgent blocking force on the highway between Castroba and the military base. This platoon was being forced to withdraw when Felipinho ordered some of his reserve force into action. With their rifles slung across their chest, two platoons of infantrymen armed with anti-tank missiles counterstruck against the counterattack, knocking out three vehicles and forcing the surviving two to withdraw back into the town. That's the last they would hear of those vehicles.
About two hundred insurgents moved in through the front gate but were pinned down by the heavy defending fire. The smoke screens converging over them served to obscure their vision as much as the defender's, but the latter knew their fields of fire intimiately. Despite the stalemate at the front, the guerrillas that had moved around the base created their own entry point with assorted rocket fire. Facing breaches from multiple sides, and already heavily chewed up by the ambush, the defenders were gradually pushed into a tighter and tighter perimeter. They left the dead and wounded behind. Huron soldiers — acting as DIENPAC freedom fighters — butchered them where they lay. Joined by surviving IFVs, tanks, and wheeled armored cars, the Wanderjarians made the attackers pay for every ounce of blood they drew, though. Defending from building corners and supported by infantry, or makeshift infantry, in the buildings around, the resistance was fierce and powerful. But it was inevitable for the perimeter to continue to shrink under the incessant pressure. Bodies wearing both sides' uniforms littered the ground. When the Wanderjarians or their allies returned they'd find the enemy bodies not just in DIENPAC uniforms, but with fake trinkets that pointed to local homes: fake letters to loved ones, photos of local women, and other sorts of things that a Castellan Panooly would carry.
At one end of the camp, the artillery guns were overrun and their tubes ruined by explosives down to the breech. Abandoned vehicles were destroyed as well. It wasn't long before the final tanks were knocked out, the crews having abandoned them minutes before. Barracks buildings were ransacked and torched as soon as they were outside of the shrinking defending perimeter. The attacking force was well supplied, so Wanderjarian weapons were not needed. The goal wasn't to capture coveted arms, it was to terrorize. And terrorize they did.
Felipinho had lost track of time to some extent. It tended to happen in battle. What seemed like hours were actual minutes and what seemed like seconds were actual minutes. He was mesmerized by the operation. It was certainly unfolding much more successfully than even he had anticipated. The fate of the initial ambush was sealed before the fighting began, but the way his men handled the sallying reinforcements went beyond his expectations. A feeling of satisfaction filled his insides, as he smiled to let it show.
Adriano must have caught him, for he said, "Indulgent, are we, sir?"
The 'sir' caught Felipinho off guard. The two of them had spent so much time away from the main body of their men, where Adriano knew he needn't be so formal, that Felipinho almost forgot he was the superior commander. He quickly came back to, though, and replied, "A little bit of indulgence never hurt anyone."
"It will be time to withdraw soon," said the other man in response.
Felipinho nodded. "Indeed, lieutenant, indeed. Soon."
They both turned their attention back to the Wanderjarian base, which was steadily being set ablaze. Flames danced as if alive from one end to the other, as buildings, vehicles, and bodies were incinerated alike. Tall towers of dark and light smoke climbed toward the clouds like tendrils of death, as if the underworld were trying to conquer the heavens above. The noise of heavy gunfire never subsided, although it was concentrating closer and closer to the very center of Kamp Ratsingen. It was all a palpable drama to the observer.
A distant thump, thump, thump drew their attention, though. Helicopters. And so it was. A flight of attack helicopters appeared as small dark dots in the distance. Felipinho realized the time to withdraw was nearing. More reinforcements would come soon and he didn't want to be caught in a battle against a no-longer-surprised enemy with heavy combined arms. Still, he would leave one last nasty scar on the Wanderjarian ego. As the helicopters neared, an anti-aircraft platoon attached to the company-sized force he was leading in reserve opened fire with their MANPADs. Within seconds, two helicopters had been set ablaze and crashed into the terrain below, dark columns of smoke rising to mark their graves. The remainder withdrew. They would be back.
Inside the base, the surviving defenders had withdrawn into the central administrative buildings. The attackers were taking heavy casualties as they assaulted positions held by well-trained soldiers. Surveying the apocalyptic damage already done, Felipinho gave the order to withdraw and within minutes the suspiciously well-trained insurgent forces bled back into the countryside and disappeared for the moment.
Like that, the opening rounds of what the occupiers would know as the Wanderjarian Border War and the indigenous would know as the War of Castellan Independence were fired.
OOC N.B. A D20 role of 12, plus a modifier, succeeded. The subsequent D100 damage roll came out to 98.
