The Kushimoto Incident (IC | MT )

[Santoak]

The Kushimoto Incident (IC | MT )

"It's already on national news?"

"How could it not be? I'm more surprised they're only getting this now."

"Yabai. At least it could have been worse."

"I wouldn't count on that yet. This isn't something that even the SSDF can bury under the rug."

"Our own people... Boswell, we did the right thing... right?"

"I wouldn't count on that yet. Shut up. SSN's getting it."

"Fuck. The SSN was supposed to be the last one."

< Begin log >

Video Log Recording of news-network SSN (Santoak National News) at 12-12-2022 20:17

[News Anchor Rinon Ohshima is commenting on a recent video depicting a kitten attempting to eat an inflated false steak. The video was found to have been published half an hour minutes before the Miyake Incident, reaching viral status through a large influx of bots. Said bots were later suspected to have originated from the Tokyo-2 Ministry of Defense building.]

Rinon Ohsima: Isn't this amazing? It's so cute purring when it tries to eat the stake. [laughs] Reminds me of the cat my parents and I have b-

[Ohsima's eyes drift off camera at the newsreel and her demeanor instantly changes]

Rinon Ohsima: This is a warning report for all citizens within the Higashimuro District. This is a fire warning. I repeat this is a fire warning. A major fire has been reported to be engulfing the coastal town of Kushimoto. All citizens within a ten-kilometer radius are to evacuate their homes and locations and those within a twenty-kilometer radius be made ready for possible evacuations of their own. We go to Tatsuya Honda on the scene.

[Video feed changes as the camera emerges from behind the news van. It captures an image of Kushimoto town center from three and a half kilometers away.]


[Retrived still from SSN internet archives before a site outage from a still yet-to-be-identified cause resulted in its removal]

Tatsuya Honda: As you can see the entire town has been lit ablaze. It's an inferno, Rinon, a furnace. I can even feel the heat from here. Normally I would try to find citizens, and people living here, and try to understand the situation. But I can't see anyone evacuating here. I know we took one of the backroads to get here but I've lived here before Rinon, people use this road. I fear the worse if I can't see anyone fleeing up this way.

[The camera snaps around to show that the road is entirely deserted as helicopters begin to hover above the town center.]

Tatsuya Honda: I don't even see any other news crews or the fire services here. Which is odd. The nearest fire services station is down this road and they're not here-

[Honda is cut off as a Komatsu LAV pulls up behind the news van and begins unloading troops belonging to the JSDF. Their Regimental and Branch markings have been covered by black tape.]

Unidentified SSDF trooper: Shut off the camera. Shut off the motherfucking-

[Footage cuts off]

[It should be noted that the SSN is one of the larger media critics of the Santoak Self Defence Forces (SSDF)]

"What the hell? Didn't we quarantine the area? How the hell did he get through the cordon!"

"I'm on the phone with Colonel Yoshida. Son of a bitch missed the southern road."

"Damn it! Shit... alright, we continue with the official line we've given. This is a fire that was caused by a gas station explosion. Poor city planning with wooden houses cramped against each other and the recent dry spell caused the perfect scenario for a flash-fire. It was devastating but these things are bound to happen. If we want the general public and the Diet calmed down, just use one of our funds to lobby more fire safety research or something."

"Start work on finding explanations for the fact we've got to bury a few thousand? Wait crap, new numbers came it. Some tried to make a run for it. It's around. 15,000"

"Ugh. I keep forgetting that number's only rising. At least only 15,000 had to die today. Just imagine the toll if they didn't... When we find Captain Hiroyasu and the senior project staff I want them shot. I want them taken into the woods and shot. Officially they were in the town on a bar spree. A great tragedy and a devastating blow to the SSDF. It makes me sick in the mouth but makes sure he's buried with full honors. The last thing I want is for his family to ask questions. Make sure the body is properly incinerated if the questions get to that point."

"Anything else, sir?"

"..."

"Sir?"

"Nothing about this gets to the Prime Minister's office. Lord Protector Soryuu is already in a foul mood. She does not want to give the Cabinet more firepower to use against him. Are we sure other than this overlook, we're airtight?"

"We're airtight."

[Spy Satellite Record Log over Southern Santoak 12-12-2022 20:10]

[Source Nation: [REDACTED]]

[Kushimoto has been under a total information blackout since 17:04. Internet and landline have been totally severed.]

[At 17:15, Satellite shows that helicopters and what could possibly be armored vehicles have begun entering the town. Any individuals spotted on the streets are restrained but are detained within the surrounding buildings.]

[From 17:18 to 19:45 What are possibly multiple incidents of gunfire that are believed to occur.]

[At 19:46, all helicopters and armored vehicles withdraw rapidly from the town at once in unison.]

[At 20:03, infrared sensors detect a sudden heat concentration of one of the ridges overlooking the town. Heat concentration is matched to artillery and MLRS batteries.]

[At 20:04 multiple fires erupt with Kushimoto that spread incredibly quickly through the town and the forest surrounding it. Helicopters and armored vehicles turn around and form a perimeter around the burning town.]

[At 20:09, a van fleeing from Kushimoto on the South-Eastern is stopped by an SSDF APC. The APC halts the vehicle with its autocannon. The remains of the van are then towed back to the town limits and subsequently incinerated]

[At 20:10 cloud cover obscures location.]

---

One way or another your nation has somehow come across the recording of this Spy Satellite as all of Santoak falls into a period of mourning following one of the most devastating wildfires in history with over ten thousand of its citizens dead. What you do with it, is up to you.

---

OOC

[CONGOlese republic]

Notice from the Congolese Government The Kingdom of Congo will support the Santoakese government in managing the wildfire and finding the cause. Justice, Work, Prevail

[Nationalist Northumbria]

(Image) Notice from the Congolese Government The Kingdom of Congo will support the Santoakese government in managing the wildfire and finding the cause. Justice, Work, Prevail

Northumbria won't. Charity begins at home.

[Seorabeol Federation]

Seok Jo-Jeon(The Presidential office)
12/13/2022, 08: 50 A.M.


"Ms. President, I have an urgent report to make." The director of the FSS(Federal Security Service), Beak Kang, rushed to Seok Jo-Jeon in the morning and knocked on the door. If he came to report directly to the president, it meant that the situation was urgent or important, and the president immediately called in Beak Kang.


"You must have something important to do. I guess it's serious seeing you come here yourself?" President Han Bom greeted him with a smile.


"It's about Santoak. Our spy satellite was accidentally passing over Santoak when it filmed a strange scene." Beak Kang held out a tablet PC to Han Bom. Han Bom was handed a tablet and pressed the play button on the video.

[Kushimoto has been under a total information blackout since 17:04. Internet and landline have been totally severed.]

[At 17:15, Satellite shows that helicopters and what could possibly be armored vehicles have begun entering the town. Any individuals spotted on the streets are restrained but are detained within the surrounding buildings.]

[From 17:18 to 19:45 What are possibly multiple incidents of gunfire that are believed to occur.]

[At 19:46, all helicopters and armored vehicles withdraw rapidly from the town at once in unison.]

[At 20:03, infrared sensors detect a sudden heat concentration of one of the ridges overlooking the town. Heat concentration is matched to artillery and MLRS batteries.]

[At 20:04 multiple fires erupt with Kushimoto that spread incredibly quickly through the town and the forest surrounding it. Helicopters and armored vehicles turn around and form a perimeter around the burning town.]

[At 20:09, a van fleeing from Kushimoto on the South-Eastern is stopped by an SSDF APC. The APC halts the vehicle with its autocannon. The remains of the van are then towed back to the town limits and subsequently incinerated]

[At 20:10 cloud cover obscures location.]

Han Bom frowned. "It's a scene of the massacre of civilians. It is also aimed at its citizens."


"Yes, we have not yet figured out why they slaughtered the citizens of Kushimoto. But what's important is that the SSDF slaughtered more than 10,000 citizens," Beak Kang said.


"What do you think we need to do at the moment?" Han Bom put down his tablet and signed the documents that Beak Kang brought. The document was a request to allocate additional intelligence assets to understand the situation in Santoak.


"This is the only evidence we have at the moment. It's definitive evidence, but first, it seems important to figure out why they did it."


"What should we do if we can't figure out the reason for the massacre?" When do you think this information should be released?"


"Well, what's certain is that it's too much to disclose right now. We need to clarify the reasons for the massacre. We're not media companies, so I think we should approach this in a different way than media companies."


"Okay. Then please quickly find out why SSDF slaughtered their citizens."

[Independent Republic of Boldonia]

DOD Building, Boldonian Capital Territory
The satellite footage had simply been slipped into a filing cabinet as though it was a regular day at the office, because it was actually a normal day at the office. The next day an office worker was just sifting through files when he noticed the file stuck out from all the others.

*sigh* "People remember, foreign footage from Non-NATO goes in another filling cabinet not this one."

Another worker looked at the file eagerly.

"Just out of curiosity who is it then?"
"Dunno, don't really care."
"Oh come on, who doesn't like looking like classified documents?"
"Ah fine, we'll take a peek, just a peek."

They opened it and saw the footage of the disaster, and all of the military vehicles.

"Just regular troop movements, military engineers and other forces moving in to assist."
"Still it is our job to look into everything. Call up the navy let them send their Cyclone to look into it."

Filorose Naval Port
IRBS San Diego, a Cyclone-Class patrol boat, left the port and moved towards Kushumoto. The ship had been modified with a launching system for an Insitu ScanEagle to scout ahead instead of solely relying on radar and visual unlike previous expeditions of a similar nature. Once it got outside Kushumoto it would stop just outside the foreign maritime boundary and launch the ScanEagle to check in and make sure everything was okay in Kushumoto.

[Popular Resistance United Front]

Midnight. After every tick, it transported you closer to heaven, or was that the third Mai Tai? Ayuba couldn't put his chocolate-hued finger on it to save his life. Officially this was a vacation but work always found a way to catch up with him. His Santoakese contact promised to surprise him with something. If it didn't raise money ultimately for the PRUF then Ayuba would travel abroad elsewhere. Still disappointed that he wasn't tipsy he leaned back on his bar stool. On cue, a woman, anxious, slid into the next seat beside him. It looked like she hasn't seen the back of her eyelids in 24 hours He skipped the conversation starters and went straight to business, " You have something for me?"

The woman pulled a phone out of her pocket and enabled it to send a video to Ayuba's smartphone. It appeared to be a news crew warming up for a story before unmarked soldiers ended it. The same place their fire on the news? It was clear the video made the woman nervous and nervous meant a big payday. He pulled some luggage out from underneath the chair and gave a metallic silver case to her. Just a single diamond about less than fourth a size of a pea. It was extra but headquarters always drilled into the handlers that good faith can go a long way. Ayuba needed to inform his superior. It's a 24 hours operation so he would get his thru message eventually. The PRUF can't be the only one with this info, so he had to move quickly. He signaled headquarters to start sending some of his cadre buddies as advisors for the people of Santoak, just in case.

Headquarters decrypted the message from Ayuba. And immediately conducted the diplomatic core inform Santoak with the sentence, "We don't have satellites and even we know what you did." The message read on, "We ask for your cooperation in rebuilding the area in question and PRUF also asks you to give our citizens freedom to move around the country for half a week to ensure all our citizens are safe. Or else we leak this on youtube." Unofficially it could be called a bribe even though Ayuba already knew the next steps without receiving orders. Hopefully, the influx of PRUF citizens wouldn't appear suspicious.

[Santoak]

Filorose Naval Port
IRBS San Diego, a Cyclone-Class patrol boat, left the port and moved towards Kushumoto. The ship had been modified with a launching system for an Insitu ScanEagle to scout ahead instead of solely relying on radar and visual unlike previous expeditions of a similar nature. Once it got outside Kushumoto it would stop just outside the foreign maritime boundary and launch the ScanEagle to check in and make sure everything was okay in Kushumoto.

"Has to be related. This isn't a coincidence."

"Not a coincidence anymore. The space agency confirmed that they detected an object above the South when we gave the order. Clear cloud cover as well for a brief window. It was just a blip, they assumed it to be a fragment of Calamity still in orbit."

"Enough?"

"I would wager a guess."

"Do we know who it belonged to?"

"We're working on it. But what do we do right now with that ship? It's too close for comfort."

"Use the current State of Alertness we have from the Kamchatka war. The ship's close enough to our waters to justify an interception."

"Won't it look suspicious of us heading off such an attempt?"

"Wouldn't it appear just as suspicious as a foreign government spying on us? Besides we need to give the clean-up crews more time to dispose of the last remains. We're still detecting traces on the corpses."

"Yabai... even after that inferno?"

"Even after. Are we any closer to finding Captain Hiroyasu?"

"Hound Team raided the compound an hour ago. The place had traps rigged with C4 to blow the block down. Nothing the Hounds couldn't handle. But we must have just missed Hiroyasu. By the time we got to the compound computer mainframe, he had detonated thermite charges in the servers. We're still trying to dig something out... but he did leave this behind. For us."

"He wanted us to find this. He wants us to watch whatever is on here. Do we have a safe network to plug this in?"

"IT guys are bringing a safe laptop and monitoring gear up here."

"Alright. In the meantime, we deal with one international incident at a time."

The Socialist Principality of Santoak
The South Sea of Santoak

The seas of Santoak were azure blue as the sun began to finally come up, like a ripe amber fruit across the horizon. In the distance to the mainland, only a small dark smudge of a massive smoke pillar suggested that anything was wrong. Gentle waves buffeted the few fishing boats this far out this early. Nets were thrown into the water and the masts of the small boats creaked in the dawn winds. The fishermen began to wait for their catches to come in.

Suddenly a great breeze swept through and the many fishermen looked up to see three grey shapes against the deep dark blue of the lightening sky. With a single thrust-vector engine, variable tail, and swept-wing designs, the trio of Asf-X Shindens streaked away from the mainland at high speeds before turning parallel at the boundary between Santoak and international waters.

They began to shadow the strange boat off their waters, pinging it multiple times with their radars as they kept just out of reach to cause an incident but close enough so that the ship knew the true reason they were there.

Ping.

Ping.

Ping.

The Shidens were like sharks circling a floundering prey.

---

Headquarters decrypted the message from Ayuba. And immediately conducted the diplomatic core inform Santoak with the sentence, "We don't have satellites and even we know what you did." The message read on, "We ask for your cooperation in rebuilding the area in question and PRUF also asks you to give our citizens freedom to move around the country for half a week to ensure all our citizens are safe. Or else we leak this on youtube." Unofficially it could be called a bribe even though Ayuba already knew the next steps without receiving orders. Hopefully, the influx of PRUF citizens wouldn't appear suspicious.

The reply was simple, passed only through a note at the embassy.

Message from the Principality of Santoak The Popular Resistance Front has been deemed a non-threat and even a potential ally to the sanctity and security of the Socialist Principality of Santoak. If it should continue to issue unwise threats against our nations, we will have to change your designation from non-threat and act appropriately as a result. Your citizens were always free to move around this nation so long as they obey our laws and customs. While your proposal assistance is greatly appreciated we, unfortunately, have to kindly refuse. It would appear your nations would be more in need to funds than ours. As for this threat of leakage, we encourage the PRUF to use such unorthodox means in order to pursue their dreams of ambition through the use of deception. The citizens of Santoak are more than able to tell true from false. "Land of the Rising Sun and the Land of rising hope"

"Subtle."

"Sometimes you have to put these countries in their place. Let them publish what they want on the internet. This isn't the first time that we've had enemy nations host propaganda on the internet. I mean just search the word "Santoak Conspiracy" on there and they'll bloody say Evangelions are made from the first dead M.A.G.E! Nevermind the fact that Dr. Serizawa's bomb vaporized it. I would have loved the chance to have my best men crack it open back then... imagine the lives we could have saved before the Evangelion project got off its feet."

"We're getting off-topic."

"Ah. Well, the point is: we don't need to worry about them. Not unless they do something stupid. If they do. We just respond the way we need to. We have more immediate issues now. How close are we to finishing the decryption of the drive Hiroyasu left behind?"

"They're still working on it in the next room over. A few more hours maybe."

"And that lead?"

"I've go an agent giving me rumors he's in the ruins of Old Tokyo. By the docks."

"That can't be him. He knows we know about that place."

"Can't hurt to check."

"Shoot. The other teams are occupied with other locations. We can't spare the few men we can trust right now, especially on a false alarm. Put the docks on the back burner. We'll send a team out when they're done with their job at the moment."

"That could take a day."

"It's a chance we'll have to take."

"A lot of chances we're taking lately... and not all of them are going well..."

[Independent Republic of Boldonia]

IRBS San Diego
South Sea of Santoak

"Three bogeys on radar" a crew member said in a monotone voice.
"Roger, attempt radio contact if possible" the captian responded. He moved to the front of the bridge and pushed the alarm for general quarters.

"General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations but do not engage. All crews crewing anti-air missiles do not activate the missiles, we don't want to alert the RWR."

As crew members scurried on deck the captian was handed a radio aimed at the three jets in hope of making peaceful contact.

"This is Captian G. July of the IRBS San Diego, a ship belonging to the Independent Republic of Boldonia Naval Forces. We mean no harm and are simply confirming information concerning events at Kushimoto. We have observed fires and are making observations to determine if we should send humanitarian assistance. We are looking to help you, not attack, while we may be a military ship we are still used for peacetime operations. Do not fire, we mean no harm."

He let go of the button and spoke to a crew member.

"Contact Boldonia City, tell them to have an Arleigh Burke on stand-by."

[Laka Strolistandiler]

Lakan Army Manned Orbital Surveillance Station D.XII, “Major Henderson”

Service aboard Army space installations was usually a quite and mundane one. Unlike the Space Force and the Royal Flying Corps’ space assets, which were either put through dozens upon dozens of trials or had to rapidly change their orbit, forcing the crew to live in a near constant acceleration (which is bad to one’s health), the Army orbital installations were more automated, keeping the crew only for use in repairs or maintenance. In peacetime, they usually orbited at geostationary orbits above places of interest, passively surveying them and monitoring their satellite coms. It was a quiet life- until something happened, but when it did, all hell broke loose.

The “Major Henderson” was amongst the station detecting heat concentration- although unable to record the initial arrival of the vehicles (it’s cameras were pointed elsewhere), it was neither the less able to record the retreating vehicles after the immediate rise in temperature. Its crew, finally ecstatic about something happening, have immediately sent out a short coded message to the “mothership”- the permanent Flying Corps command center sitting at high orbit. Then, it’d abandon it’s surveillance orbit and move to a higher one, before sending a more detailed message through a series of relay outposts, intended purpose of this being to make it harder for the enemy ELINT assets to tap into this data. After doing this, the reconnaissance station would return to its orbit, continuing to monitor the situation.

“Major Henderson”‘s crew were not the only Lakans interested in this. There was also the large autonomous freezer trawler “K-31”. Registered in the port of Formosa, it would fairly often venture into these waters, its operators previously securing some good fishing deals within the EEZ. During its previous stay in the port of Kushimoto, it’s left a pair of it’s crew ashore- they have been suffering from food poisoning and were subsequently admitted to a local hospital for treatment. The K-31 then fished near the shore, awaiting for its crew to call back and to continue its journey. Of course, it noticed the towering smoke and of course it rushed back into the port, even with some of its crew attempting to rescue the civilians and receiving light burns in the process.

Because of the nature of the situation and the Crown subjects being wounded in the matter, it’s only natural that the Lakan branch of Interpol expressed their interest in the matter. Through diplomatic channels, they express additional grievances to the Santoak government, noting of their wish to join the investigation and assist it by all possible means. The Lakan embassy in the country would also hold a few mourning days, forcing all staff to dress all black and flying the flag lower then usual, in respect to the perished. Major Henderson meanwhile was to move to a lower orbit and take positions shadowing Santoak comms sats used by the government to do some SIGINT. For additional safety measures.

A couple of Naval Intelligence Bureau “black submarines”, officially not existing and designed solely around the idea of reducing active and passive sonar profiles as well as other means of detectability to an absolute minimum (it even lacks any offensive weaponry and has it’s 30-men crew crammed into hellish WWI-ish living conditions to reduce size) are ordered to move into the area. These submarines, running liquid-metal nuclear reactors are the smallest and the quietest nuclear submarine ever developed in Laka, usually moving strictly below thermal layer and silent running whenever anything remotely able to detect them runs close (thanks to Major Henderson for giving them that data). These submarines officially do not exist, and the people aboard them are all dead- either killed in accidents, arranged by the NIB or KIA.

[Popular Resistance United Front]

Predictably Santoak declined cooperation. They always do. As per protocol and upon Ayuba’s recommendation on the ground inside a small town in Santoak, the ultimatum would be followed through.

First was the easy part buying thousands of personal Santoak citizens’ cell phone information from the dark web. Next sending the quick video of the soldiers ending the news bulletin short, with no fanfare added to each, through unofficial channels. The reigning CEO decided to keep this within the nation and not to international recipients. Ultimately it would be Santoak’s own people who would put things together and ask the tough questions. Hopefully, it would be picked up nationally on SSN.

In the meantime, Ayuba coordinated the further infiltration of Santoak. He estimated they could make do with 100 souls dispersed around the country. The plan here would be to acquire drones from electronic outlets and survey the ruins of Kushimoto. Maybe they can further add gasoline to fuel the fire for the people to rise up and give the PRUF prioritized business rights. All communication was done with an exotic lingo called Seko. It would appear like gibberish to anyone else.

The primary cell drove a few miles beyond the cordon zone and released the first quad-copter drone to take a closer look at Santoak military activity. Ayuba waited for their report…

[Popular Resistance United Front]

Another cell was hard at work posing as Santoak social media personas thru programmed bots and A.I. blended Santoak profile pictures. This was a computer-based cell. The lead operative contacted Ayuba through a courier who exchanged messages at a nearby park. Did you know the meaning of Ayuba? It has Hausa etymology: "Endurance". However long it would take for Santoak to crack is however it needs to take. There were no deadlines on this operation unless Ayuba ordered them to stop. Their mission: see how strong a grip the Santoak government held on their citizens. After a loss of a city even after mysterious circumstances, the lead operative pondered whether nonlethal means would change anything. He and Ayuba were both loyalists and would do whatever Headquarters felt would bring the PRUF on top. On social media, the cell created protester meetups and spent less than a hundred thousand dollars on ads probing users to question the government troop response to the fires. They would sow the seeds of discord as they took every precaution that everything trace back to Santoak itself.

No matter what there were always other cells. This next focused on the end game. If the government could take out a city then a bullet would be needed at some point. They had preemptively bought plastic 3d printing sets while collecting springs and pins. They didn’t how heavily secure the border was so they opted to build their arsenal themselves. Finding ammunition would be a problem and search for a black market to supply them some even if it's risky. No one would know what they were buying for until it was down the stretch when nothing could be done about it.

[Santoak]

The Socialist Principality of Santoak
Tokyo-2

Across Tokyo-2 thousands of phones rang as a mystery phone number came on. Of these thousands, a fraction actually clicked on the message from an unknown number. A further fraction actually decided to throw aside all warnings of viruses and click on the video. Even fewer actually watched the whole way through the moment they saw a reporter Rinon Ohshima on, the rest having assumed it was just a clip of a normal broadcast. Only a minuscule amount that watched everything bothered the raise a fuss.

On internet forums, there were a few mentions of the censored SSN broadcast that were quickly drowned out by newly created accounts blaming it on the reporter for trespassing or raving about how SSN was an anti-national "fake news" broadcast that was funded by Eastern funds.

Some did contact SSN, Rinon Ohshima, and Tatsuya Honda about it. Only Ohshima ever responded saying in a forum post: "Yes it was strange. I talked with Honda about it. The soldiers took his camera but later returned it, saying sorry since they thought they were actually looters fleeing after breaking into a video store. I tried to contact the execs about the missing footage and they said that because our website is very old we have very poor archival. But we have made inquiries with the SSDF about the incident and if we get a response we will likely have an article about it."

The SSDF never gave a response.

Ruins of Kushimoto

All the quad-copter drone got was a brief glimpse of a gathering of military vehicles in a wood clearing near the town before one of the soldiers raised a strange-looking rifle at it. Suddenly all footage was cut and the drone never returned to sender, automatically descending downwards as its signal was hijacked.

In response to the drone SSDF patrol units were executing a perimeter sweep of the area with armored cars and soldiers trudging in a cordon. If they didn't find anything in a twenty-kilometer radius or near any other townships they would give up. They didn't want to raise too much attention after all.

The internet

The SSDF didn't take this lying down as they would attempt to launch a cyberattack against the PRUF's servers with the intention of infecting them with a virus that would cause a self-deletion of all files. It wasn't as strong as they wanted it to as they made an emphasis on disguising the true source of the hack, trying to route it to appear as if it was coming from Chong Qing.

---

The Socialist Principality of Santoak
The South Sea of Santoak

The trio of Shidens swept low again in formation, their engines buzzing loudly as they constantly buzzed at the ship. At points, they flew so low sea spray was thrown up in their wake. If anything this was more like the actions of a peacock spreading its feathers to scare another from its territory.

They were coming closer with each “performance” but they were careful to never point their nose at the destroyer.

<<Captain July,>> came a voice through the radio, <<You are encroaching on sovereign seas. Your attempt at violating our airspace with your drone has not gone unnoticed.>>

As if on cue one of the Shidens broke off the formation and began to follow the drone from behind. The drone would begin to receive warnings of radar bouncing off its propeller.

But at this point, the drone was now just close enough to the coast that it could observe a devastated township. The fires had started to die off and the morning breeze had blown away some of the massive walls of smoke that had engulfed the landscape. There was nothing left of the town that stood higher than a man. There wasn't a single inch that wasn't covered in soot or completely incinerated in some manner. Even brick and the few apartment complexes within the town had been utterly blasted apart. Simply just fire couldn't have blasted those buildings apart in such a manner.

All ships that had been in port when the fires had truly begun to rip through the township had been sunk, their masts sticking out of the water like gravestones for their watery cemetery.

Even more, interestingly it recorded no temporary housing. No humanitarian camps for survivors or anything of the like. Just smoldering ruins.

Then it detected the launch of an air-to-air missile against it from the Shiden trailing behind it.

<<Captain July your attempt will be forgiven if you withdraw at once. We will not repeat.>> the voice said. <<Your aid is not needed.>>

---

Video Log Recording of Captain Hiroyasu at 12-12-2022 7:17

[Captain Hiroyasu sits on a couch in a living space that has been identified as the break room of Riken Research Site-2, located in the Higashimuro district. He is clearly disheveled and likely ill with something as his skin is pale and his eyes bloodshot.]

I... I'm doing what I need to. General, I know you're watching this. I know what you've silenced. What happened with those protestors in Kamchatka... it wasn't the first time. I can't stay silent about this. The SSDF is cancer upon Santoak. Even almost fifty years downward the legacy of the First Impact is still with us. The moment the SSDF took power in those chaotic few days, it set the end of a path we had no idea what we were walking down. A path that can only end in our destruction.

[He runs his fingers through his hair, several clumps falling out]

You're so obsessed with protecting the Home Islands. We said we cast off the yoke of Imperialism in the Revolution. But we just gave it a different name and hid the more unpleasant elements under the carpet from the public. We continue expanding in the name of buffering our Home Islands. Endless growth and endless war that the public is too depoliticized or apathetic to care because you've spent the last fifty years doing nothing but convincing an entire generation that the common man can never have an influence on the SSDF.

[Captain Hiroyasu becomes more agitated]

Santoak is the SSDF! To speak against the SSDF is to speak against Santoak! That's what they all think. And the few of us in the next generation, young enough to still have hope are told to sit down and shut up because we need to know our place and let the elders talk! Confident that strife will never come from the inside you keep expanding, sending our best to be butchered on distant islands or freezing northern wastes while you Generals clink glasses with the War Profiteers after taking your slice. You use whatever backhanded justification or false flag you can to start "interventions" in smaller nations we're confident we can bully around just to keep the war industry going. How many chances for peace have had but missed? How many times have conflicts escalated not because they had to, but because you wanted them to? How many massacres were we responsible for? My massacre...

And where does this even lead in the end? If the SSDF wants to retain its power it must retain its relevancy through constant war. But what happens when we run out of those easy targets? What if we run out of the small guys to bully and have you now have no choice but to confront the great powers of this world just because you want to keep your power?

That's why the SSDF is cancer slowly leading Santoak to its death.

Do you know what we do with cancer? In chemotherapy, we hurt the body in order to save it... and I'm just doing what needs to be done to save us all.

Will innocents die? Yes, and I will regret that. But far more will die if I just stand by.

First. I have to reveal to the world what you truly are. I will reveal upon them the crimes that you've tried so hard to hide. If you're watching this, that means this step is almost done in Kushimoto. I know you'll stoop to no end to cover up any hint of weakness.

This was just an experiment. I'm not going to stop here.

We've been so accustomed to wars happening far away that we can ignore them. We won't be able to ignore it when that war comes to our own soil. And when we can't ignore it, the people will know who is to truly blame.

[Captain Hiroyasu reaches forward to move the camera, jostling it to reveal an insignia on the wall:Unit 731, Kamo Detachment]
<End Tape>

"He's... he's insane!"

"Yes. Insane in his goals but not his methods. He predicted what we were going to do to Kushimoto."

"But we had no other choice!"

"Exactly. He made sure of that the moment the reports came in when he claimed that there was a leak in Kushimoto. He played us like a fiddle."

"Redouble the search efforts. You heard what he said, this was just his first step toward whatever this traitor has planned."

"And play into his hands again? Do you really want to bring more elements of the SSDF in on this? The more we bring the higher the chance that the full truth of the matter gets out. You saw what the PRUF attempted. The reason we limited our response is that the tighter we grasp, the more control of the situation slips between our fingers like grains of sand."

"The more time we spend not finding him, the more time he'll have to execute whatever sick plans he has. He said it himself he's not afraid to kill in order to bring the SSDF down. I'm assigning more men, we can say Captain Hiroyasu's arrest warrant is unrelated. The most explanation we need to give is that he's a traitor who sold military secrets. Shoot on sight."

"That will only raise questions we don't want to be answered."

"We have no choice."

"Exactly we're playing into his hands."

"And what do you suggest we do? Just sit around and let him enact a plan that will kill more?"

"..."

"My god."

"Let's be honest. The only reason we destroyed Kushimoto and incinerated everyone within it wasn't to stop the spread of the infection, it was also to silence them in case you've forgotten. The worst of the situation is contained. Any other actions he intends to do he does so as a lone wolf with a small cell of radicals with him. Any casualties that result can be considered acceptable and we can contain public perception."

"I can't believe you're even suggesting thi-"

"Don't be naive. You heard what he said. He may be an insane maniac but he's right on a few points. We must resort to any means to protect the glory of Santoak, even if it means our blood has to be spilled."

---

Large autonomous freezer trawler “K-31”

Somehow in all the chaos in the smoke and fire, a trawler leaving the port had been initially missed. The ten burnt citizens that had escaped loudly thanked the crew. They said that for some reason the SSDF soldiers in gas masks in armored cars and helicopters had barged into the town and begun tying the townspeople up with wrist binds before forcing them into buildings. These buildings had been sealed. Some citizens resisted and the soldiers shot them, later bringing in a flamethrower to incinerate the corpses.

Another citizen described how a soldier had gotten into a hand-to-hand struggle with one of the townspeople and her mask had been ripped off, eventually resorting to stabbing the man with her combat knife. Then she had looked at her fellow with desperation in her exposed eyes before her commanding officer stepped forward and shot her in the head. Then her body had also been incinerated.

Once the soldiers had run a hasty sweep of the town to make sure no one was out they suddenly retreated quickly. Moments later, there was a distant thunder in the mountains and the entire town had been engulfed in flames. An old veteran among the survivors likened it to having been on the receiving end of a Malaysian battleship's bombardment when he had fought on Iwo Jima.

Then one of them coughed. Then two. Then three. Before all ten of them were coughing or sneezing loudly and uncontrollably. Their eyes had begun bloodshot and their skin pale. One of them reached to brush their fingers through their hair, only to find clumps of it falling off.

One of them mentioned that he had heard one of the officers say something about an "infection."

Seorabeol Federation

Outside in the Federation's embassy as the rain poured heavily, an anonymous figure in a raincoat suddenly came through the doors with his hands raised up, empty save for a USB drive in his right hand.

"I am Technician Yoshimura Hisato of the Santoak Intelligence Services. I am announcing my intention to defect with information. I can't allow our government to hide this."

In that USB was the recording of Captain Hiroyasu's video.

[Vichnaya]

Kapusta-Class Communications Ship 'Mika-53'
Maritime Forces of the Federal Republic

110 Miles away from the South Sea of Santoak

Tis' a fine day for sailing. The waters were semi-calm, the sky was a beautiful blue, and the air actually seemed clean for once. If one were out fishing or simply sailing for pleasure, then today would be the perfect day. Well, it would be if the general-communications channels over the ship weren't having a constant stream of insults, complaints, and other proverbial nonsense typical for sailors out at sea. At least the bridge was relatively calm for today, for the sailors and helmsmen were simply just out of tasks to do.

3rd Rank Captain Alexei lowered his binoculars, again disappointed for his only sights of today were more calm, blue waters. What else did he expect? A seaman attempting suicide? A missile strike from a hostile vessel? An airstrike directed onto the bridge?

He'd scoff, he knew life wouldn't let the 43-year-old Captain die that quick of a death. That simply would let him off the hook before his time was due and, as everyone within the Federal Armed Forces of Vichnaya knew until every single drop of life was sucked out of their body, their service would not end, not until the very heavenly stars above have withered and died. No, he would man his post diligently, hour after hour, year after year. That was expected of a proper Vichnayan sailor, and an expectation he would duly fulfill.

He'd shift his head towards the right, toward the Mika's escort, the Lider-Class Destroyer Userdiye. It was a run-of-the-mill destroyer that was constructed in the early 2010's and entered service around 2020. It was armed for anti-air, anti-ship, and anti-submarine duties, so it was no wonder why it was assigned to escort a communications ship that, in comparison, was lightly armed. Its Captain, 2nd Rank Captain Vianka, was a good friend of his. After all, the two were from the same oblast, so they were practically brothers anyway.

That said, it wasn't like VSS-53, or it was more commonly referred as Mika-53, was a complete pushover. It was built off of the hull of a Kirov-Class Battlecruiser and decorated to look similar to that of the General-Purpose Cargo Ship Mika-50. Armed with six AK-630 CIWS, a pair of 76mm guns, and with a recent upgrade, a pair of 3K95 Kinzhal Missile systems, it could handle itself against a few hostile aircraft or angry ski-boats before inevitably sinking to the bottom of the cold, dark sea.

The door behind him swung open, "Captain?"

He'd sigh, lowering his binoculars and letting them fall onto his chest, "Aye, Midshipman?" Alexei turned over, looking back over his shoulder.

Midshipman Nadka stammered before clearing her throat, "The...The political officer, Senior Lieutenant Rodya, is requesting your presence at the communications center, the one at the 3rd Deck, Sir."

"Did he specify anything, Midshipman? PKKV Officers aren't exactly all that interested in Naval Matters, especially in a ship like this."

Midshipman Nadka shrugged, yawning before speaking. "My apologies, Captain, Lieutenant Rodya never specified anything other than the previous order."

He'd sigh, "Is it specifically me he wished to summon?"

"Aye, the sorcerer summons thy specifically, Captain."

"Unfortunate," He'd briefly take off his cap and wiped off some sweat, "Very well, inform the helmsman to maintain heading to the East, we don't want to breach territorial waters, don't we?"

"Aye aye, I'll inform the helmsman now."

Nadka snapped a crisp salute before running over to babble to the sleep-deprived helmsman, barely gripping onto the controls with his tired hands. That was good, everyone still seemed able to perform their duties to the best of their extent. Captain Alexei looked over to the clock mounted at the back of the bridge, the time was currently 0800. In a few minutes, the second shift would take over and exert themselves to the same degree as the current schmucks here.

Traversing the cold, dull-grey halls was a boring and tedious endeavor, especially since the maintenance elevator closest to the bridge was under maintenance. A few sailors greeted him, a few others gazed at him tiredly, though most were busy with their usual duties, with one poor man trying to prevent a rat from nibbling away at a copper wire with nothing but a broom and pure determination.

Eventually, he reached the information room that the PKKV Officer had set up shop in, sliding the bulkhead door aside with some difficulty. Inside were around 23 of his sailors, a Naval Infantryman whose name he strangely knows to be Steve and another man in the middle of the room. He wore a pristine olive-green service dress with azure uniform piping, a service cap, and a grey greatcoat.

He stepped forward.

"Lieutenant Rodya,"

"Captain Alexei!" The Political Officer opened his arms as he stepped forward, a bright and warm smile plastered on his face. "It's good to see you you've come, I was worrying you wouldn't."

Alexei forced a smile, stepping forward and hugging the man. "It's my duty to, Lieutenant. I can't simply discard or ignore any requests, can I?"

"Good, good. It's good to see you didn't disobey orders."

Truthfully speaking, Alexei was put off by the political officer's friendliness, even if they were always like that. He didn't know the reason why, it was just that he always had an off feeling whenever Rodya was around. Ever since the start of the Kamchatska War, it seemed this man only grew friendlier and friendlier, with his infamous smile following suit.

Perhaps that's why he was called over. Little information was shared with him regarding the state of the Vichnaya, much less the geopolitical situation of the world. Though in the few times he passed over the information center, he did overhear some sort of conflict developing at Kamchatska after the death of its monarchy. Frankly, he didn't actually care all that much about the entire ordeal, if anything, it just made his job rougher as Naval Surface Warfare Command assigned his vessel to intercept any radio signals from the multiple nations that took in an active role.

The Captain took his cap off, stepping back. "Do you have anything notable you want to report, Lieutenant? As you see, I'm quite busy and I'd rather not stay away from the bridge for much longer, time is life after all."

"Da! Indeed I do, Comrade Captain." Rodya now reached into a folder, slipping out a few photos and sliding them over a nearby table, "As you know, VSS-53 is assigned near the territorial waters of Socialist Principality of Santoak for the purposes of SIGINT, ISTAR, and ELINT. But your main question may be this, why here and not near Kamchatska? Why not near the invasion forces or any combative units?"

He'd clear his throat, "To be frank, Lieutenant, I never particularly cared all that much regarding the conflict, nor have I exactly questioned why I was ordered to sail this ship to this direct area."

Rodya, for the first time, frowned somewhat. He'd shake his head and sigh, sliding Alexei a photo. "Take a look, It might pique your interest."

They were satellite photos. The first photo was grainy at best, with great streaks of black and white painting the photo. The second one, colorized, wasn't all that great either, with poor quality making it hard to differentiate anything. Though he was somewhat able to make out some details from the two, mainly smoke of some kind. Alexei looked up towards Rodya, "A fire? I fail to see anything noteworthy regarding this?"

The Political/Information Officer chuckled, "Of course! That's because I didn't show you everything," Like a card shark, Rodya placed down his third and final photo. "The satellite that was in orbit noticed a significant spike of thermal activity in the region, more specifically a town. That in itself isn't special as dumbasses tend to burn things down, however.."

"..It was two things that piqued the Ministry of State Security's interest, one was the temperature of the fires themselves; the temperatures recorded seemed to indicate a large fire, one that seems it takes up half of the population center. Now originally, we would have the Ministry of Foreign Affairs send their bullshit 'We are deeply concerned for the people and offer to extend a helping hand' offer but-"

Alexei nodded, "But there's a catch, something abnormal?"

"Da, soon after the department yours truly is from, we picked up an immediate information blackout in the region, and a few hours after that, the local internet from the nearby nations seem to report something extremely off, from rumors and conspiracies that a three-headed monster called 'Ghidora' attacked, all the way to reports that a single gas station explosion wiped the town off the face of the earth."

"And I'll assume that, with the equipment onboard and the current distance, NAVINTCOM wants my ship to conduct signals or electronic intelligence?"

"You deduced that rather late, Captain." Rodya smiled, though..it felt off, emotionless if anything. "...But I guess it's better late than never, as they say in the west."

Alexei ran a hand over his face, shaking his head. "Whatever the heavenly stars above demand, we shall grant." He'd look back up to Rodya, "What're the parameters set for us, any clue how close we must go?"

Rodya circled the table before taking a seat, there were a few pregnant moments of silence before he raised his head to face Alexei. A smile crept up his face, "NAVINTCOM dictates VSS-53 and her escort skim the territorial water line of Santoak, neither breaching it nor leaving it. Like how one balances themselves on a tightrope, so to say."

"Very well, whatever is demanded, we shall grant. We will arrive near the Sea of Santoak in approximately 5 hours or more, depending on the weather conditions we shall face, Lieutenant."

"Very well, I no longer need you, Captain. It was a pleasure talking to you!" Rodya extended his hands, still giving his semi-emotionless smile.

Alexei shook his hand back, "It was a pleasure to talk to you too, Lieutenant. I shall keep in contact with you until our tasks are done."

"Understood, Glory to the Sacred Stars!"

"Glory to the Sacred Stars."

Approximately 31 Hours after leaving port, two ships identified to be the Kapusta-Class Communications Ship VSS-53 and the Lider-Class Destroyer VVK Userdiye were reported to be heading towards the South Sea of Santoak. At 42 Hours, both ships were only 20 miles away from the international line, with the Lider-Class Destroyer hanging back at around 20 miles away from Mika-53.

Communications from NAVINTCOM instructed the VVK Userdiye to make itself appear it was harassing/shadowing a random civilian cruise liner, something the destroyer has done quite a few times.

[Bluteistan]

OFFICIAL PUBLIC COMMUNIQUE OF THE CONGLOMERATE OF BLUTEISTAN Greetings. A tragedy has recently struck the Principality of Santoak, and the Conglomerate announces that it is deeply affected by this human tragedy. Therefore, the Conglomerate is offering the Principality of Santoak various low-interest loans to assist in the recovery of the nation. Also, construction and rehabilitation contracts are proposed to assist in the reconstruction of the territories. The Conglomerate is also offering to send free humanitarian aid and medical volunteers to the Principality to assist civilians on the ground. The Conglomerate announces that planes loaded with humanitarian aid are ready to take off, and that they are only waiting for the green light from the Principality to take off. A shared prosperity is a shared peace.

Moska :

In one of Moska's large commercial towers, the Advisory Board met to hold a meeting of the utmost importance. The recent tragedy in the Principality is a real opportunity. The Principality has always been reluctant to sign contracts with the Conglomerate, and recent events could prove beneficial. The opening of a new market in the area would be an opportunity not to be missed, and the Advisory Board felt that sending humanitarian aid and offering mutually beneficial contracts would be beneficial to both sides.

Also, the Advisory Board deemed it necessary to conduct an investigation into the incident. The GIIL has been activated in order to retrieve as much information as possible from the net.

[Independent Republic of Boldonia]

South Santoak Sea
IRBS San Diego
"They found the drone."
"Stingers up!"
The two quad mounts for FIM-92 Stinger missiles were turned on, but were aimed away from the jets for now.
"Let's get out of the AO."
"Roger!"
The ship left, but it never contacted the fighters.
"Call up the DOD."

Boldonian Capital Territory
DOD Building
A phone rang on the desk of the Secretary of Defense.
"Let me guess, there's more to this ... of course there is, when is there not. So much for trying to help out for once huh? ... Look let's not try and escalate this any further, we do have an intelligence agency you know, the ones from the CIA that have an instant line to Washington ... Look I'm not saying we need to get Washington on this, we just need to wake up the BIA and set them on Kushimoto, I'll stop by their HQ soon."
The Boldonian Intelligence Agency was "woken up" and began it's search for any information regarding the incident, but while not the worst intelligence agency in the world there were many that were certainly better. They'd just have to make do with what they had and piece together the pieces.

[Laka Strolistandiler]

The “K-31”, known amongst her crew as “Hàiqúnzhīmǎ”, Formosan for “Black Sheep”, was one of the the most capable vessels in the Crowned Formosan Republic’s fishing fleet. Because of it’s relatively high autonomy of 120 days and high automation levels, she had a relatively small crew of just 60, of whom 45 were operating the fishing machinery- to navigate the ship only the crew of 15 were needed, which could potentially be reduced even lower, to a skeleton crew of 5. Moreover, as a fishing vessel able to fit a sonar, she was considered a part of the Royal Formosan Reserve Marine- theoretically, in wartime, she’d be mobilized to serve as a military countermeasures officer, however in peacetime, her duties were rather dull, being restricted to using her sonar (usually being used to search for shoals of fish) to help map out deepsea areas. Responsible for this was the onboard Naval Representative- a tired, extremely bored Navy Lt in his mid 30’s, demoted to this “dead-end” position due to his failures during the development of the new targeting system for the Formosan naval aviation. Interestingly enough, he quite liked this position, just a few more months of this quite service, and soon he will retire with a good pension…
This, or so he thought. When it became apparent that the “incident” was not your usual fire, he sprung into action- not due to it being what he wanted to do, but what he needed to do. Such situations were, surprisingly enough, included in his manual, described as “Local Civil Conflicts Type IIA”, instructing them to immediately cease all communications except for the “Caretaker” device, report all activity via it and immediately move to the nearest allied port.

Pictured: the “Caretaker” being readied for action

The “Caretaker” was your usual military-grade encryption equipment scaled down and simplified to be usable by civilians. Able to send messages to select comms sattelites (with the sattelites’ location being fed into the machine via punched cards, by the officer. He was informed of the worsening of the condition of the locals while busy programming the machine.

The K-31 had acceptable medical facilities for a ship of her size- a medical post with four beds, a ship’s surgeon and his assistant- a nurse. 10 of the crew members have also received previous training and could be used as orderlies. Some of them were already mobilized, treating the civilians when the first signs of the infections have “kicked in”. Immediately, the surgeon has quarantined all of the crew members who have interacted with the civilians as well as second-level contactees, forbade all movement between different parts of the ship without direct orders from captain or the military officer, however all hell broke loose when the said officer was informed. As all Formosan military personnel did, he had received extensive CRBN training, so did most of the crew- the ship was equipped with enough gas masks to protect every crewmember and some more, even more importantly, it came equipped with 10 CRBN suits- RFMR ships would from time to time participate in the rescue or humanitarian efforts. Finally, it has two high-protection firefighting suits, which would with some use of duct tape and a small doze of ingenuity be turned into something resembling a CRBN suit. All crew members considered essential for the functioning of the ship were then orders to don the CRBN suits, including the captain, first mate, military officer and the ship’s surgeon, who was now the only one allowed to work with the patients. Although she was now certain that it was a question of mere time until it “his time” could come, with hard work she could increase the chance of ag least some of the crew making it home, or even better- helping her comrades back home to better understand the illness- so that she’d be remembered as a hero, and bring honor to her family. She’d try to identify the cause of the illness, including testing the patients using Geiger counters for radiation, sampling and then testing their blood and other samples, she’d run several standard tests designed to identify presence of viruses or bacteria in their blood. Finally, she’d put the samples into a culture medium, intending to test them later on.

An atmosphere of eeriness would surround the ship- an atmosphere which made nearly everyone rather understanding of their slim chances of survival.

The message sent by the “Caretaker”, made as hard to intercept as feasible, would read:
“CIVIL SITUATION TYPE IIa, SUBCLASS D, POTENTIALLY INCIDENT OF CLASS 8 (biohazard), TWO LOCALS ABOARD, MAJOR THREAT TO OPERATION, REQUESTING PERMISSION TO OPEN WEAPONS CASE”

After the permission was granted and the fishing trawler as permitted to face the might of the whole Santoak Navy with it’s two M1 Garand’s and 3 revolvers, a vessel of the Royal Australian Navy, conducting innocent passage near the EEZ a couple of hundreds of kilometers south (it was underway to Vladivostok, going there to receive several previously purchased Mi-17’s), was ordered to merge with the K-31 and assist it with means necessary. The vessel was your usual Aussie cargo ship- a Bunga Mas’ like converted container ship, armed with a barely functioning CIWS system and some MANPADS

[Russia18]

South Santoak Sea
Just outside of Santoak airspace


4 Tu-95MS Bear-H Strategic bombers had took off from an undisclosed Imperial Russian airbase in Manchuria and arrived near Santoak airspace nearest to were Kushimoto was located. 6 SU-57 stealth fighters are 20 km away from the bombers and ready to assist if asked.

[Popular Resistance United Front]

PRUF servers were always under siege. In fact, there would be an attempt to hack them once every minute. If someone wanted to attack from Santoak from a Chonq Qing router then it would be lost in the clutter and moved to the queue for investigation with all the rest. With all the traffic backlogged, it would be a week before a corporate case officer reviews the data. The attack would fail as they didn’t have usernames, passwords, or server offer credentials.

A motorcyclist clad in all black viewed the three-star hotel from across the block. He expected a grey rental car with two occupants if they didn’t show in the next five minutes then he would be the canary sounding the alarm. They were already late. Still, he was at the bottom of the PRUF organizational pyramid. Hopefully, their trip was productive from an intelligence-gathering viewpoint. Just like most on this mission, he was issued a tourist visa dated a day before the Kushimoto fire by another cell. He actually enter the country a day ago and didn’t know the cell he was checking on personally. Perhaps God is with them.

The duo in charge of the drone reconnaissance quickly abandoned all their equipment once the drone feed was terminated. They could take comfort that the feed was saved in the cloud. Since the video was concluded prematurely then they knew they must have struck a weak point in the Santoak military machine. The long-range drone had a ten-kilometer range so they had a head start. They avoided weaving through commuters. Instead, they were efficient with their time and practiced their stories. Technically they were tourists, they came, they saw, and they enjoyed the views even if those views were burning. There was a checkpoint five cars ahead now. It was hastily barricaded with mobility vehicles present. It is unknown to the courier if the cell was born lucky and would be waived through in time.

[East Blackacre]

East-Blackacre Government East-Blackacre Congress Yansia Message from E.B.G The East Blackacre government has shown great interest in this event, and continues to follow the development of the situation to determine its own position. E.B.G.PM Lukas

[Chong Qing]

Chongqing People's Government 重庆市人民政府 Chongqing People's Congress 重庆人民代表大会 Yuzhong District 渝中区 National 官方 Message from （消息来自） C.P.G （重庆市人民政府） We believe that Santoak's irresponsible transfer of responsibility will seriously damage our international interests and reputation. We will impose comprehensive trade sanctions on Santoak to combat its economy and plan to send a maritime police force(militia) to recover the Diaoyu Island. C.P.G （重庆市人民政府）

[Seorabeol Federation]

Department of State


"What do you think we should do about this?" Secretary of State Yun Ji Hyeon pointed to one part of the tablet PC screen to FSS Director Beck Kang. Unit 731, Kamo Detachment's insignia was visible there.


"First of all, we need to bring Yoshimura Hisato, who is at the embassy, to our country safely. If that's impossible, we have no choice but to protect it inside the embassy."


"I'm not asking for Yoshimura Hisato's disposition. What should we do with this video?" Yun Ji Hyeon took a sip of coffee and replayed the video on her tablet PC.


"At least we can speculate that the SSDF planned the massacre. It's not just that. As you may have guessed from a long time ago, the video shows that the SSDF is in control of much of the political power in Santoak now. What if SSDF doesn't stop here? If they threaten neighboring countries to stay in power, things will get worse." Yun Ji Hyeon spoke enthusiastically.


Beck Kang shook his head. "I think so, too. It's clear that at least someone has to stop the SSDF runaway. But how? We now have satellite images of the massacre in Kushimoto in our hands, but it is unlikely that the situation will be solved even if we inform the media indiscriminately. Rather, SSDF on the defensive can cause something tremendous."


"Then you think we should just bury this information.”


"Yes, this is not the time. We need to approach this issue more carefully. If you want to stop SSDF, you shouldn't disclose information right now."


"Is there anyone else who knows this information?"


"No, I'm sure only some executives at the FSS, including myself, and some officials at the Department of State know."


"I see."


Dae Gyeong


Late at night, two men were exchanging drinks in a fairly leisurely bar. One was Lee Yoo-Chul, vice minister of the Department of State, and the other was Oh Byung-Seok, a reporter of SBC.


"How are you these days?" I heard that the Department of State has more work.”


"Damn it, it's too much work. I'm drinking for the first time in a month today. I don't know why the government is so interested in other countries affairs. I wish I could rest now."


"You've been busy since college. You studied while working part-time, and in the meantime, you were active in the student council. And you're still busy now." Oh Byung-Seok drank a glass of alcohol. "Hmm, the alcohol tastes good today. Is there anything particular that bothers you these days?"


Lee Yu-Cheol filled a large cup of water with alcohol and drank it. "I think what happened in Santoak caught the attention of the Secretary of State. I'm too busy right now because of that.”


"What happened in Santoak?" Oh Byung-seok's eyes widened for a moment.


"Well, there was a big fire in a city called Kushimoto, and it wasn't a normal fire, but, In fact, SSDF shelled Kushimoto."


"Really? How do you know that?" Oh Byung-Seok barely said, suppressing the cheers that were about to burst from the inside. This was a scoop.


"Wait," Lee Yu-Cheol took something out of his pocket. It was a few pictures. It was like a satellite image.


"This is a picture taken by a reconnaissance satellite of our military. I happened to take a picture passing by there, and if you look here, you see the MLRS of SSDF shelling Kushimoto.


The photo pointed to Lee Yoo-chul showed rocket shells being fired as flames soared from MLRS. Another photo showed Kushimoto in flames.


"You shouldn't tell this to anyone. secretary of state said absolutely no disclosure.”


"Okay. I won't tell anyone." However, Oh Byung-seok's hand secretly packed some satellite images, contrary to his words. Lee seemed unaware of the fact.

[Santoak]

Tokyo-2
National Ministry of Defense Headquarters

"What's the progress on the cleanup?"

"Heavy equipment is being moved off the trainyard as we speak. We'll make sure that nothing is left by the end of tommorow day."

"What's the official story we're running on it?"

"Officially it'll be us searching for survivors and a general clean-up to restore basic use to the ports. We have other villages in the area that need to use it after all. We'll have respect for the dead and having a Kannushi on TV put the spirits to rest."

"I can only hope the spirits can forgive us for what we did..."

"There was no other choice."

"Was there really?"

"For Santoak's glory. More lives would have been lost if we were humiliated internationally for a viral leak of this level. Panic would have spread and with it the infection. It wasn't even our fault. The damn Captain forced us to do this."

"Very well I suppose. So- what is it Kazuhara? Give me that paper."

"What is it?"

"Shit!"

"Going to gather it's not good."

"The analysts were going over the CCTV footage when we first moved into Kushimoto. We were going to destroy the footage but I wanted no loose ends."

"Let me guess, the cordon wasn't as tight."

"A right proper fuck-up. I'll have Colonel Yoshida's head for this. We have a ship that docked during the initial containment, a large autonomous freezer trawler named “K-31” belonging to Strolistandiler."

"How did we miss a damn trawler?"

"The smoke from the fire must have obscured it when we re-established the cordon after the bombardment. The CCTV shows at least two infected being brought on board. Everyone on that ship is now a dead man walking. Symptoms and the air-borne cough period should have begun only now."

"You're missing the bigger problem. The Strolistandiler now have a potential sample in their grasp. Never mind it's obvious they picked it up in Kushimoto, the moment they reverse engineer it they'll know it came from our labs. The moment that happens, Prime Minister Soryuu and the Diet will use it as justification to reduce the power of the SSDF. And the both of us will be dead."

"God..."

"He's not going to save us. We have to do it ourselves. How many aircraft do we have in the area?"

"We have that trio of shidens we sent to chase off that destroye-"

"They're equipped with anti-ship missiles?"

"Of course, they should each have a pair of Type 93 Air-to-Ship Missile in their internal bays."

"Send them in. Launch every single missile they have until K-31 is beneath the waters."

"That's insane! That's basically asking for a war!"

"It's war, either way, the moment they find out what we've been developing. We would have done the same. At least this way the likelihood of it further spreading is reduced. Explanations can be made later."

"Wait! Wait! Maybe we're being too hasty. As infectious as it is, our highest level of biohazard gear can still resist it. We need to merely force the vessel to stop and turn back to Kushimoto. Take the infected off and liquidate them, after that we can figure out what to do with the rest of the crew. It will still be an international incident but at least it won't for sure bring a war like a sinking."

"How do we even spin that without revealing we caused the infection on accident? We'll be made a laughing stock."

"We've already declared the Captain to be a traitor internally. We can justify our boarding as a bid to arrest a suspected terrorist that is extremely dangerous. We can say we would have gone through the normal diplomatic channels but we neither had the time nor could we risk alerting the suspect. It will raise eyebrows but certainly less than a sinking."

"And if the ship refuses to stop?"

"We storm it. If the attempt to storm and take control of the boat fails you can have your Shidens in backup and sink it. We can say we had no other choice but for the lives of Santoak citizens, we could not allow them to escape."

"Alright... this will be on your head then."

"There's been enough death. Let's try to avoid it if we can."

"How fast can we get a mobile task force?"

"They're already in the air."

---

Initial Gieger tests showed nothing. Viral tests showed a relation to Yersinia Pestis (plague), just enough to match it to the records.

The last time something had been recorded was when a strain of it was developed by the Russians in the 80s in violation of an international treaty.

It was primarily pneumonic and airborne, like the Black Death strain of Yersinia Pestis was. Like the Black Death, the pneumonic plague of this strain becomes contagious as an airborne pathogen before symptoms develop. People would run from an infected area where people are dropping dead while feeling fine and infecting others unknowingly. So it would spread rapidly.

Where pneumonic plague normally kills within 48hrs; this strain could kill as quickly as 24hrs. Pneumonic plague in general had an untreated fatality rate of around 99.9%- so one was not living without treatment-and this strain was often asymptomatic until the last hour, but also sometimes until death, meaning dropping dead can sometimes be the first experienced symptom. So generally one wouldn't know they needed treatment until it's too late.

It was modified to be resistant to all but the rarest antibiotics and was further genetically engineered to internally generate a whole host of toxic proteins harmless to it but deadly to humans. These would be released upon the death of plague bacteria cells and then harm the host.

And given that the locals had been on the ship for a while...

---

Suddenly two dozen blips appeared on the radar of the two ships. They were heading from Santoak directly towards them at rapid speed. Given their altitude and the speed of some of the contacts it appeared to be a mixture of helicopters and naval jets.

A voice came over the radio.

<<K-31 and Australian Vessel, you are to turn around a dock at Kushimoto port at once. You are suspected of harboring an extremely dangerous terrorist. If you do not comply we will resort to force up to sinking both your vessels. I repeat we will sink if you do not comply. Turn around now and dock under escort.>>

[Laka Strolistandiler]

The K-31’s Caretaker device, possessing it’s own power system and essentially autonomous was ablaze with activity, receiving and sending lots of messages every hour, with the military officer extremely busy receiving, decrypting and sending new messages. Due to security reasons, only he knew the elaborate and artificially complicated procedures- and yet despite this, he was interrupted by the ship’s doctor who’d gather his blood for testing. Because the Lakan military by large was well-invested into CRBN, the moment the haphazardly assembled “crisis team” back at Utadeh, consisting of several RCDC (Center for Disease Control), RHS (Health Service) and military personnel understood that they were probably stumbling across a

The Zoom call between the RCDC, RHS, RAMC and several other uniformed servicemen was alight with activity- every hour they were receiving more and more information from the fishing vessel- and upon further discussion, they were getting close to finally understanding the situation at hand. It was clear that the infection was an extremely infectious one- by the time the onboard hospital was finally able to test everyone suspected (and some more)- it’d become obvious to everyone what they were dealing with- a biological weapons link. As correctly guessed by the Tokyo-2, by this point the Lakans themselves were mostly interested not in saving the crew of the trawler, but in gaining a sample of the weapon. The HMAS Patha- the Australian cargo ship, would receive her new orders- obtain a sample of the disease, provide palliative care for the crew of the K-31, under no circumstances to surrender.

Unlike the Royal Navy, infamous for their negligible approach to the crew of the military cargo ships, the Australians took it seriously- ever since the Second World War, the sheer importance of the protection of singular cargo vessels was really understood and appreciated. The Patha would be yet another example of this. By the time she’d merge with the K-31 and receive the message, through additional testing equipment delivered aboard her SH-60 helicopter, they’d finally understand the sheer danger of what they were facing. Both ships would take measures necessary to keep them afloat and operational for as long as possible, such as dumping most of the cargo aboard the Patha and programming ballast tanks for counter-flooding. Both of the crew knew that they were in for a bad situation- however they’d be ready to do what had to be done.

An answer came to the radio message, relayed by the Patha’s captain (who was sounding a bit muffled- like the rest of her crew, she was in an NBC/fire hazards suit. “((whatever the Santoak callsign’s are)) is the Australian warship Papa 141, we assure you that the MH361 (K-31’s callsign) is conducting transit passage in recognized international waters, while we are conducting innocent passage. Under international law, our passage must not be impaired, intruded, obstructed or hampered. Please confirm that you are not intending to violate international law by unlawfully attempting to board MH361 and ourselves, over!”
Still legally bound by the innocent passage requirements, she’d be unable to activate her CIWS’ active radar system- better yet, there was no real reason for her to do so! The Major Henderson orbital station, still within the area, could use her high-wavelength radar to search and track the aircraft- while it could detect them with abysmally awful precision (think several dozens of meters)- which would still be enough. The Patha also possessed a search radar- and while it would be unable to track out stealth aircraft, it’d still be able to track the helicopters and detect the stealth aircraft- they are hard to detect, but not impossible. The atmosphere aboard both ships, steaming parallel to each other mere dozens of meters separating them was of a last stand, however, oddly enough, most of the men aboard were actually looking forward to dying- in death, they’d earn their families much glory, and be remembered as heroes- and this was what essentially the whole Lakan culture was built around- the sacrifice of the individual for the good of the family or clan.

Major Henderson, meanwhile, would also continuously record both ships through its onboard camera, images from which, with some level of technical fuckery, would be shown directly to the Santoak ambassadors, which’d be immediately called upon to report to the Department of the Exterior in Laka as well as in Formosa and Australia. Although having multiple foreign policies ministries would make a unified response hard to organize in such a short time, due to the Crown’s personal involvement, most of the issues would be sorted out rather fast. If the ambassador would still refuse to arrive, they’d threaten the Santoak government to transfer all of the received informatIon to major Lakan and foreign media- the sheer amount of the information transferred from the K-31, including amongst other things images and medical tests readings (as well as victims testimonies, which were rather haphazardly gathered while they were dying) were all painting a rather clean picture. They were offered a choice- either to keep their face and most of the situation “under the rug” (and allow the Lakans to receive the bodies of the crew as well as the bioweapon) or to do otherwise and risk a more open confrontation as well as suffer a semi-major political “situation”

The latter part about the confrontation was not bluffing. The Formosa was one of the major Lakan “military colonies”, housing a lot of military units, personnel and equipment- it was their original purpose to be the first layer of defense against the Qing Dinasty (it is THIS old). Several Royal Navy Air Squadron, Royal Flying Corps and even the Royal Space Force were being readied, with two squadrons of long-range patrol interceptors (think 4++ CF-105’s), a couple of tankers as well as two or three tanker aircraft. They all will attempt “innocent passage” through the EEZ, because they can.

[Independent Republic of Boldonia]

BIA Headquarters
Boldonia City, Boldonian Capital Territory

After a couple of days of searching the BIA had come up empty, associates in the CIA had also come up empty. This down time led to some agents scrolling social media to pass the time, until one of them finally realized something.

"Wait a minute, what about the civilians? What are they saying?"
"You're right, they could be posting some pictures and some information on Kushimoto."
"Let's start browsing those socials then."
"Wait, wouldn't this be spying on foreign citizens?"
"Nonsense, we're just browsing publicly available posts available on the internet. If we do somehow need to spy in on any emails or other private things, call up the CIA so that if it all goes wrong they might think twice about calling them out lest they get reminded of the US defense budget."

The BIA started to look on social media for anything relating to Kushimoto and did some basic research on the area. Looking up any military bases, power plants, or factories in the area.

Filorose Naval Port
Filorose, Centros

IRBS San Diego returned back empty handed and one drone down. After it refueled and replenished the ship was docked. The navy was aware of the BIA's efforts and had orders to not provoke any further confrontation, but also to support intelligence efforts.
The navy took this order very liberally and decided that sending more ships might help with intelligence. An Arleigh Burke class destroyer, IRBS Amber, was prepared and together with IRBS San Diego they departed. This time they would stay 30 miles away from Santoak territorial waters and their EEZ, no drones would be launched aswell unless it was absolutely necessary. Both ships had orders to not fire first, so that if they were attacked Boldonia could play victim and call in foreign support. Many in the DOD became skeptical of the true intentions of the navy until in a private meeting an admiral flat out said, "Intelligence? Pfft no, this is a show of force, Boldonia doesn't back down and to dissuade the world from attacking us lest we forget we have allies around the world."

[Soveiniesberg]

"Get surveillance UAVs up, get them up and IN the air." Said a grouchy old man, dressed in some sort of uniform."Sir, I think- I think we have all the evidence we need. This is a blatant genocide!" Said someone noticeably younger than him. "Why don't we just get boots on the ground? Send someone who knows what to do and knows what they're doing in there!" Everyone nodded at this notion, and agreed that it happened to be quite the idea, but they figured, first, drones, then spies, or other sorts of intelligence gathering methods.

The Foreign Intelligence Service would be getting more budget after this.