The Pridnestrovian Invasion of Nordskania, Part Twenty-four
Turbayov, Community of Revolutionary NordskaniaThe peace treaty to officially end the Nordskanian War was to be signed in Turbayov, the capital city of the anarchist Community of Revolutionary Nordskania, the largest of the Anglatian puppet states now residing on the island of Nordskania. The Mountain Pact had wanted President Field Marshal Stepan Stepanovich Stepanenko himself to come down to Turbayov to sign the peace treaty as a final humiliation to the invaders, but that was simply a step too far for Stepanenko and Pridnestrovia. In his place, Stepanenko sent the Pridnestrovian Prime Minister, Durag Kirilovich Nikovgorodiev, to sign the treaty for the Democratic People’s Republic.
Prime Minister Nikovgorodiev arrived in Turbayov in a Pridnestrovian Air Force Antonov An-124, the largest plane in their fleet. Everything that the Prime Minister and his staff could ever want or need for the trip to Turbayov, including two limousines, had been brought to Nordskania on board the Antonov. The Pridnestrovians didn’t trust the Nordskanians to not sabotage the vehicles that they would have given to the delegation when they arrived. In any case, the limousines drove right off the Antonov’s ramp and drove straight to the place where the treaty was to be officially signed.
Prime Minister Nikovgorodiev looked entirely disinterested throughout the proceedings. When the time came for him to make a speech in front of the Nordskanian congress, all he told the pro-Mountain Pact audience was that President Field Marshal Stepan Stepanovich Stepanenko was deeply sorry for not being able to make it to the signing of the peace treaty in Turbayov due to prior commitments, and that Prime Minister Nikovgorodiev had been sent in his stead. Nikovgorodiev had also been given the presidential power to sign treaties, effective only for tonight.
Nikovgorodiev signed the documents quickly and without flourish. He shook hands with the Mountain Pact delegates but only very briefly. He shook the hands of the anarchist Anya Belashova, the fascist gangster Lyo Kotov, and the leader of the Republic of Vestania, but he refused to shake the hand of Vasily Zharkov “as a matter of personal principle.” Even as he shook hands with the Mountain Pact delegates, Nikovgorodiev made a whole show of wiping his hand with a wet cloth every time he shook the hand of a delegate, as if the delegates were all tainted with a disease which required a quick rub down every time he touched one of them.
Immediately afterwards, the Pridnestrovian delegation went back to their limousines, which drove them back to the waiting Antonov. It was during this time that one of the Pridnestrovians said this about Turbayov: “This city is so ugly that I am ashamed to be in it, and I wish that it were gone from the face of the earth.” To this day, people still disagree on who said it, whether if it was just an aide of Prime Minister Nikovgorodiev’s or Nikovgorodiev himself who said those immortal words. In any case, the Pridnestrovians were already up in the air and far away when the locals got word of the insult to their city and were therefore unable to do anything about it except rant and rave on every possible medium.
Back in Tiraspol, the returning armed forces were welcomed back with open arms and as conquering heroes (for they had been, for seven months, the conquerors of the southern part of the Nordskanian island). The people of Pridnestrovia knew that their boys and girls had fought bravely and would have won in a fair fight without the intervention of the Anglatian imperialists, who had been brought into the conflict by their anarchist puppets to the north. Without Anglatian interference, the Pridnestrovian people knew that they would have beaten each and every one of the Nordskanian rebel states running amok on the island and afterwards establish a stable nation-state that would care for its people instead of kill them all if they weren’t so much as toeing the official ruling line, as was apparently the case in Nordskania now. The soldiers, sailors, and aviators of the Pridnestrovian invasion army marched in front of the Tiraspol Kremlin with backs straight and chests puffed out, for this was only a tactical and, in a sense, geopolitical defeat. The peace treaty signed in Turbayov had been vetoed by a unanimous majority of the State Duma, the Pridnestrovian lower house and trashed in favor of an armistice between Pridnestrovia and the Nordskanian states. Only a separate peace between Pridnestrovia and Anglatia was ratified and allowed to pass through the Duma and the People’s Congress.
Then it was time for the Pridnestrovians to set up their own Nordskanian puppet state, the Republic of Nordskania. The Republic of Nordskania was established as a government in exile based in Tiraspol now that there was no more Nordskanian territory in Pridnestrovian hands. The Republic had been forced out of Puloko alongside the withdrawing invaders, and in Tiraspol they found a populace and government willing and eager to give them diplomatic recognition. The headquarters of the Republic of Nordskania government in exile were set up in the old embassy of the Nordskanian Democratic People’s Republic; the entire embassy staff, from the diplomats to the clerks and guards to even the cooks in the embassy canteen, unilaterally decided to defect to Pridnestrovia after Vasily Zharkov announced that he was now joining the Mountain Pact. Kiril Fedorchuk, a noted Nordskanian Communist who had spoken favorably of the Pridnestrovian invasion, was elected President of the Republic of Nordskania by a secret ballot between him and his fellow pro-Pridnestrovia Nordskanian communists.
There was another puppet state which was supposed to have been created in Pridnestrovian-occupied territory in Nordskania before successive events interfered in its formation. Now the time was right to announce the creation and establishment of the State of Vestania, the homeland promised by the Pridnestrovians to the Vestanian people. The establishment of the State of Vestania was a politico-diplomatic counter by the Pridnestrovians to the Mountain Pact-established Republic of Vestania, which was now occupying the lands once held by Pridnestrovia in Nordskania, and it was also the fulfillment of a promise made by the Pridnestrovian government to the Vestanian people in the early days of the invasion guaranteeing their independence. The Pridnestrovians could have abandoned the Vestanians after their leaders attempted to betray the invaders to the Mountain Pact during the Second Sopova Offensive, but a Pridnestrovian’s word was his bond, and the Pridestrovians had promised the Vestanians their homeland, a free and independent homeland.
To make matters simpler, the two governments in exile were merged into one entity, which was now named the Federation of Nordskania and Vestania. It was the political union of the Republic of Nordskania and the State of Vestania, and they laid claim to the entirety of the island of Nordskania. The Republic of Nordskania claimed the currently anarchist north and the State of Vestania claimed the south currently held by the Republic of Vestania. Fiergrad was made the capital of the State of Vestania as that was where the Pridnestrovian and Vestanian people had had their first fateful meeting. Choosing the capital city of the Republic of Nordskania proved to be a tougher job as they didn’t know which city would be a harder slap to the face of the Mountain Pact: Turbayov, present capital of the anarchists, or so-called “Orelgrad,” headquarters of the fascist gangsters and a place which Pridnestrovia still stubbornly refers to as the Red Strip. Eventually the Republic of Nordskania settled on claiming Turbayov as its capital because of the hated anarchists.
And because there was no place for the Nordskanian puppet states in the new Pridnestrovian outlook on the island, they had to be removed from existence by whatever means possible. The Community of Revolutionary Nordskania, the State of Nordskania, the Republic of Vestania, and even the new Nordskanian Democratic People’s Republic were immediately placed on Pridnestrovia’s list of international terrorist and criminal organizations. The leaders of the Mountain Pact states like Anya Belashova, Lyo Kotov, the leader of the Republic of Vestania, and even Vasily Zharkov himself were now included in Pridnestrovia’s most wanted men and women, with large and substantial rewards for their capture or killing.
Kiril Fedorchuk would remain President of the Federation of Nordskania and Vestania, but to more accurately represent the equal relationship between the two peoples in the newly established state, the position of Prime Minister of the Federation was given to Victor Traianescu, who was then the President of the State of Vestania. Traianescu’s cousin, Anton Ionescu, was named President of the Senate of the Federation. The members of the Vestanian Protection Forces which had been deemed loyal to the agreement with Pridnestrovia had been evacuated from Fiergrad and Duradino before the purges committed there by the Pridnestrovian Army, and after the withdrawal from Puloko they had been brought back to Tiraspol as well and reformed into the Vestanian Defense Forces, which would form the core of the new Federation Armed Forces. Bonifacy Covaci, brother of the late Chief Lucius Covaci, was made the commanding general of the Federation Armed Forces. There were also rumors that Niketas Boyko, formerly of the Nordskanian People’s Army and the Soviet Republic of Nordskania was also being mooted for the position of Covaci’s deputy once he had passed some kind of loyalty test to be administered on him by the KGB and the GRU.
Right now, there were more Vestanians than Nordskanians in the Federation government-in-exile and its newly organized armed forces. But events in post-war Nordskania would see the number of refugees from that island coming to Pridnestrovia rise exponentially in the hopes that this government-in-exile and nation-state would come back to restore order to their once-again-chaotic country.
Turbayov, Community of Revolutionary Nordskania
Thirty-one days later The man in the black leather hooded jacket looked at the watch on his left wrist once again to check that the time was still proceeding and had not stopped without his realizing it. Time had not stopped, to his immense relief, even though such a thing was technically still impossible for the current technology of the day. But his contacts were running late, that much had to be said. They had agreed on meeting at exactly midnight to meet and go over the plan one last time before enacting it, but it was already two in the morning and there was still no sign of his contacts. Had they been caught by the purging hordes? Surely not, or else the hordes would have made their way to his location and found him waiting for someone who was never going to come.
Finally, a black unmarked van came out of the main street and drove into the alleyway where the man had been waiting. The van slowed down a fraction as it approached him, and the sliding door opened up. The man stepped into the van with carefully practiced precision and was gone, along with the van, in the blink of an eye.
“What took you guys so long?” he asked as he struggled to find a place to sit down after hours of standing and waiting. The interior of the van was crowded almost to the limit. He counted twelve people inside the van with him.
“The submarines took us to the wrong place altogether the first time,” the man sitting in the front passenger seat replied. “First we ended up off the coast of Puloko, and then we found ourselves in Kurovo before we finally landed in the right place. Please tell me that this is Turbayov or I will be forced to shoot you between the eyes.”
“Yes, my Pridnestrovian comrade, we are in Turbayov, all right,” Stanislav Vinogradovsky replied. He was a supporter of socialism more than communism, but even being in favor of a leftist ideology was rapidly becoming a death sentence in Nordskania, what with the Blue Skulls running amok throughout the country killing off anyone who ever so much as a word of support for the old communist regime or the Pridnestrovian invaders. Vinogradovsky had already been providing intelligence and support to Pridnestrovia during the invasion while the invaders were mooting possible landings in the supposedly undefended north and he knew that it was only a matter of time before the Blue Skulls discovered his duplicity. He had agreed to provide help and support to the Pridnestrovians for this last operation in exchange for the Pridnestrovians bringing him out of Turbayov before his life became forfeit. And if that wasn’t enough for the Skulls to come after him then the fact that he had a Pridnestrovian father, who had long since gone back to his home country, would probably do it as well.
“Do you really have to do this, though?” he asked as the van headed ever closer to their ultimate destination. “You have already established the Federation of Nordskania and Vestania as a counter to all these Mountain Pact states. Your government refuses to pay more than the two billion rubles they have already paid to the Mountain Pact as reparations for the damages wrought by the conflict. Is there still a need to blow up the national stadium?”
“I wouldn’t call it a need, my Nordskanian socialist comrade,” Major Mikhail Yevgeniyevich Kutuzov replied. “But President Field Marshal Stepan Stepanovich Stepanenko has a pathological desire to always get the last word, the last laugh. The Anglatians hadn’t afforded him much opportunity for that, but the opportunity has opened up to show the Mountain Pact that Pridnestrovia is beaten back but not defeated and Stepanenko is taking it come hell or high water. Knowing the Comrade President, he’s already planning his revenge beyond the destruction of the stadium. Maybe it is time that we did what the Anglatians have been afraid of in the first place. Maybe it’s time that we got ourselves involved in Patierre.”
“You do realize that such a course of action will have massive consequences for your country if the Anglatians discover your interference in the Patierre Insurgency,” Vinogradovsky said. “The Patierre Insurgency is swimming up to their ears with Imperial Intelligence agents, infiltrators, and informants. As soon as one of you Pridnestrovians set foot on Patierre, II will know all about it. What if they use those arrays of theirs on your country?”
“Oh, you never know,” Kutuzov waved away. “A meteor might fall out of the sky and absolutely destroy those arrays. They may be a superpower but even they are powerless against Mother Nature and the cosmos at large.”
“Something tells me that if you do go ahead with this cockamamie plan, it will lead you to an even bigger disaster than the Nordskanian adventure.”
“
Da, da, da. Are we there yet?”
“Right on time,” the driver said. The van opened up and the Pridnestrovian saboteurs poured out of the van and looked up at the Port of Turbayov Stadium, the national stadium of Revolutionary Nordskania. “That’s a big stadium,” one of the Pridnestrovians muttered.
“Stanislav, you have the keys to the stadium,” Kutuzov said. “Mstislav, you have the encyclopedic knowledge of the architecture of this stadium. You’re the one who knows where to put the charges for maximum damage. The rest of us will carry as much explosives as we can humanly carry to destroy this symbol of the anarchists’ excesses.”
But the plan didn’t happen that way. Already constrained for time due to wrong landings on the wrong cities, the Pridnestrovians weren’t able to truly sabotage the stadium for total and complete collapse. However, they were able to plant explosive charges throughout the stands which would render the place unusable for a long time. Some of the more patriotic saboteurs took the time to hang Pridnestrovian flags from the stands so there was no question as to who was responsible for the destruction in the stadium. “There you go,” Stanislav Vinogradovsky said as the Pridnestrovians went out of the stadium and began filing back into their van. “You’re going to destroy the most important stadium in the anarchists’ lives with my help. Now will you let me come back to Pridnestrovia with you?”
“If you keep standing outside of this van then we will leave you behind without a heavy heart,” Kutuzov said. Vinogradovsky made to get into the van, but he happened to look up as he did so, and he saw a bright streak of white light crossing through the sky. “A shooting star,” he said almost to himself. “What are the odds of that?”
“That’s not actually a shooting star, Vinogradovsky,” Kutuzov shouted. “That’s the final surprise that Stepanenko has in store for the Nordskanian puppets. Now if you really value your life then you’ll get in immediately before that shooting star hits its target.”
Puloko, Nordskania
That same time The bright streak of light seen over the skies of Nordskania generated much attention from those who were still awake to see it. It seemed unusually bright for a meteor, but no one who saw it questioned if it really was a meteor or something else entirely. And once the meteor vanished over the horizon, those who saw it immediately forgot all about it.
But over in Puloko, once the capital of the Soviet Republic of Nordskania and the Republic of Nordskania and now the capital-city-in-waiting of the Republic of Vestania, awe and wonder at the meteor turned to fear and panic when the people who were still in the city realized that the meteor was headed right for them. They panicked, they lost their heads, they tore their hair out, they prayed, they made to get out of the city as quickly as they could, but it was no use. There was no escaping the fate which had befallen Puloko.
The falling object fell from a northerly direction, and it struck the city right in front of the city hall, at the very same spot where Colonel General Vsevolod Pankavuranov had announced the fall of the Soviet Republic of Nordskania and the establishment of the Republic of Nordskania. Weighing eighteen hundred pounds and traveling at terminal velocity, the object impacted Puloko with the force of an atom bomb. Everything within a mile-wide radius of the impact site simply vanished, torn apart at the molecular level. The underlying rock was turned into smoking hot lava by the force of the impact and sizzled and crackled as they flew through the air.
The citizens of Puloko who were unlucky enough to be left behind by the withdrawing Pridnestrovians were carbonized, and their ashes mixed with the rock and debris flying out of the impact zone. The earth shook so fiercely that large cracks and fissures appeared around what remained of the city, and the island of Nordskania itself was shifted from its position by as much as two feet. And when the devastation finally ended, a large mushroom cloud of dirt, debris, and molten rock rose up from the crater where the city of Puloko once stood. The entire city had been destroyed, and not a single soul who had been inside the city when the impact arrived survived to tell the tale.
The remnants of the Vestanian Protection Forces which had survived the Pridnestrovian purges during their attempted backstabbing of the invaders, augmented by volunteers from the Vestanian diaspora throughout the multiverse, would have been the first people into Puloko in preparation for it becoming the capital of the Republic of Vestania. Now, all they had before them was a smoking and burning crater. Initially, they thought that the Pridnestrovians had launched a nuclear missile at Puloko as a parting gift to the Mountain Pact and was therefore understandably reluctant to approach the site. But when there were no signs of radioactive fallout detected coming from the crater, they were forced to change their theory. If it wasn’t a Pridnestrovian nuke that destroyed Puloko, then what did? Was it really an act of God, a random shot in the dark by the cosmos which was lucky or unlucky (depending on your point of view) enough to strike a major and important Nordskanian city? Or had the Pridnestrovians somehow managed to master the cosmos and use its natural resources such as asteroids or comets as their newest and latest weapons?
Deep in an underground bunker beneath the Tiraspol Kremlin, a sergeant of the Pridnestrovian Strategic Rocket Forces turned around from his seat to face President Field Marshal Stepan Stepanovich Stepanenko and said, “Target is destroyed, Comrade President. Puloko is gone. Stepanenko’s Fist is still working and effective.”
“That is very good news, Comrade Sergeant,” Stepanenko said with only the barest hint of a smile. “Now Anglatia and the Mountain Pact know that Pridnestrovia is not the cowering wretch they thought they were dealing with. They may have their Underfell Array but we have Stepanenko’s Fist. Let’s see them counter that which they cannot see.”
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ABANHFLEFT • PRIDNESTROVIA • OONTAZ DERT LI NG • COPPER CUPRUM • TRENDSTART • FHULGHAMOUS PENINSULA
WORLD CUP 77 QUALIFIERS: ABANHFLEFT VS ESHANBy Malik QazizadahAbanhfleft's Kevin Kelvin celebrates his second goal against Eshan. (Courtesy of Crescent News Network Sports Channel/Andros Tasasa)
LOTHARSTADT, XEMLICE - Abanhfleft came from behind to win a vital encounter against Eshan in the World Cup 77 qualifiers with a brace from in-form striker Kevin Kelvin.
Eshan took a surprise lead when Marco van Ciavatinni practically walked the ball into the goal just five minutes into the game.
Once again, just like in the game against Hazard Nation when Fleftic play became shoddy and haphazard after conceding an early goal, Abanhfleft couldn't string together a single pass, and whenever it looked they were about to build upon a dangerous moment, the Echani defense was there to mop up things and keep hold of their slim lead.
Kareem Dagen had the best chance for the Fleftics in the first half but saw his attempt to lob the keeper loop over the bar as well, but the Echani could very well have doubled their advantage had Marshawn Mercury done a little better to connect to Jean-Marie Bentacur's short pass.
Ranulph Bustamante's half-time team talk must have had the desired effect on the players as they came out of the gates searching for the equalizer, which they finally found through the efforts of Kevin Kelvin, who has scored in three consecutive Fleftic Premier League games for Malabon SC before the international break. Kelvin applied the simplest of touches to Rory Edwards' pass to take it just beyond the reach of the goalkeeper.
The Revolutionaries then got the second goal which they deserved through Kelvin once again, and this time it was impressive solo footwork from the Malabon striker which enabled him to get past the Echani defense once again and slot home.
Having experienced a topsy-turvy game with regards to goalscoring in Sabrefell against Nephara, though, Abanhfleft pushed on for the decisive third goal, and it almost proved to be their undoing as van Ciavatinni once again managed to walk into the box and somehow managed to shoot the ball into the side netting instead of into the back of the net.
Kenneth Owobowale had a good shot at goal from Valery Zolnerov's corner but instead was flagged for offside even as he managed to find the target.
Abanhfleft manager Ranulph Bustamante: Another winning performance but we could have done betterAbanhfleft manager Ranulph Bustamante: "In the end, we got the win, and that's what matters, doesn't it? But there was a possibility that things couldn't have ended that way. Conceding so early in the game almost messed us up once again, but this time we've learned from our mistakes, and we were able to dig ourselves out of the hole that was almost entirely our own making as well."
"What I said before is still true. We can no longer afford to drop any more points if we want to stand a chance of qualifying out of this group and into the World Cup once again. I started the streak for qualifying into the World Cup, and I don't want to be the one to break it."
Abanhfleft will host Nordernious for the second leg of the World Cup 77 qualifiers at the Stadion de December 27 in Imgortur, Verbergerkinnh.
ABANHFLEFT 2 - 1 ESHAN
KELVIN (56', 71') VAN CIAVATINNI (5')
ESHAN
GK: 1 Aurélian
RB: 2 Tadeo
RCB: 3 Tran
LCB: 5 Luc Villaview (Bambic - 55')
LB: 6 Carstensen
RM: 11 Arisilde
LM: 4 Samper Markovic
CAM: 8 Bentacur (Elrond - 70')
RW: 10 van Ciavatinni
ST: 9 Baudelio
LW: 7 Mercury (Stanford - 80')
ABANHFLEFTGK: 1 Varamoninov
RB: 14 Popov
RCB: 4 L. Edwards
LCB: 5 Owobowale
LB: 3 Ogigayatsu
RM: 8 Vincelot
█CM: 7 Zolnerov
LM: 6 Marilungo (Lovren - 65')
CAM: 10 R. Edwards (El Salah - 84')
RS: 9 Kelvin
LS: 11 Dagen (V. Zima - 79')
MATCH STATISTICS
PossessionAbanhfleft: 52%
Eshan: 48%
ShotsAbanhfleft: 13 (7 on target)
Eshan: 12 (7 on target)
CornersAbanhfleft: 9
Eshan: 5
FoulsAbanhfleft: 13
Eshan: 15