ARC ONE
OPERATION NORTHERN MAELSTROM
OPERATION NORTHERN MAELSTROM
The year is 2024, and the world teeters upon the brink of war.
It has been over a year since Kaskaidan president Rosara Kozyu was gunned down in the streets of Saigyu, torn to shreds by the arms of its southern archenemy. Brought to heel in the fires of the Great War in the aftermath of the humiliation at Patria, the Kaskaidan Union was turned into a shell of its former self, its sharpest point of national identity its hate for those who had stolen from it. As the years passed, some hoped the Kaskaidan Union would find new purpose past its failures and vitriol. Yet, it did not. The sons and daughters of Kaskaida did not forget so easily.
Anagonia, the proud product of cooperation borne of strife and forged by its bonds, carefully tended to its new domain straddling the Great Dragon Ocean. Some welcomed this incorporation into a fairer, cosmopolitan union- others balked at its presence, degrading much of what they had held dear. Many a powerful friend and foe it made, whose faces and motives varied as much as its own citizen species did within.
The Meridonian archipelago laid fairly upon the southern hemisphere, her islands home to a unique synthesis of native and colonial peoples. She had emerged untattered from the forges of that global war, tepidly stepping about its role in the greater globe in the footsteps of the northern colossus. As years grew, and it came to know what lay beyond and within, its people face a crossroads of a national identity, a conversation carried up on the barstool as much as the throne rooms of wary powers both friend and foe.
Sat upon the western reaches of Kistavich was the Arcadie nation, whose adventurers and merchants had once brought wealth, glory, and revel- now it watches jealously as that which it helped to spawn prospers; and finds common league with its Kaskaidan neighbors to the north in seeking to lay low its misbegotten daughter-islands.
Across the wide Marinan, the Kaichren nation lay, a land as bleak and hardy as its people. Through their surreptitious directive of subterfuge would they incidentally spin the webs of fate, and by it would they light a fire that would soon consume half the world. By their deftness, they would seek to emerge from the ashes supreme.
As eyes fall warily upon the mountainous slopes of the borders of the two continental powers, baited breaths await the next move, as one step more will plunge the world into a whirlwind of which it has not seen for seventy years.
KASKAIDAN-ANAGONIAN BORDER
09 NOVEMBER 2024, 11:21 PM ASHILOSAN TIME
As nightfall enveloped the continent of Kistavich, a gentle autumnal breeze swept through tree and grass alike, whistling past the Thetanic and Ashilosan Ranges with a steady flow as billions across borders nestled quietly within their homes for the night. This was an unremarkable night as far as they went, with wispy gray clouds occasionally blocking the view of a starry night’s sky, lights gently casting their reflection upwards and into the cosmos, the gentle chirps and reports of bird and insect joining a natural chorus which had played here for thousands of years unchanged and unebbed.
This was as true in the Confederate States as it was in the Kaskaidan Union. There, discreetly, in groups and convoys too small to arouse any disturbance, did military vehicles rumble across roads and dusty trails. As the minutes ticked on, over a front of a thousand miles, headlights flickered on and then off again, , engines rumbled to life, as did generators and turbines. This had been a facet of life on this border for what was close now to a year, with the components of over a half-dozen Groups nestled upon it in their bases and barracks and bivouacs.
Tonight, whispers spread across these camps, glances, nods, affirmations- quick and with simple meanings. As they had on many nights before, orders were given and disseminated by radio and runner. Transport-erector-launchers slowly came to complete stops upon pre-prepared clearings and highway rest areas; howitzers had control wheels spun upon them rapidly as their barrels trained skywards. In airbases scattered across the entirety of southern Kaskaida and upon strips prepared from highways, aircraft climbed into the soft black sky, smoke and fire trailing their climbs as their flight paths remained silhouetted behind the southern mountain ranges.
At 11:25 PM, preparations had been completed, and the requisite reports had reached the Command Senior Staff in Saigyu as over a million and a half men at arms from east to west stood poised and ready for the task that approached, for a reckoning that had been three generations in the making.
KASKAIDAN UNION ARMED FORCES CENTRAL WAR ROOM- SAIGYU, KASKAIDA
09 NOVEMBER 24, 11:25 PM ASHILOSAN TIME
The room was as many others of its kind were; lined with large display screens and digital clocks, and staffed with a small legion of analysts and staffers. In the places not dedicated to the provision of intelligence information, portraits were hung- of heroes spanning a thousand plus years of history, from Kaskaida and Kaisam and their predecessors spanning all the way back to the original inhabitants of Kaihima from whence many Kaskaidan citizens could trace their lineage. Occasionally, the flag of the Union draped flat and spotlessly against the wood panelled wall, unperturbed by wind nor crease. It was here that the nexus of the Kaskaidan Union’s war machine was located, where the Command Senior Staff could coordinate the movements of the nation’s armed forces.
A pair of soldiers saluted her as she entered through the heavyset guarded doors, polished clean enough to see her own reflection in them. Senior Marshal Dahee Kim was the first woman to hold the post of the Chairman of the Command Senior Staff, but this mattered little to her, nor to anyone else in the room.
Ever since President Rosara had been assassinated in cold blood at the hands of an Anagonian machine gun, her purpose had been as one with the rest of the country. The fervor had ebbed in the months since the gunning, but it had never faded. Ever since the subtle ‘convincing’ of President Muk Young-Jae nearly one year prior, he- and everyone else in this room by now- was fully aware of the course their country had plotted. Her stolid expression betrayed little of her anticipation, to finally witness eighty year’s worth of retribution at the cusp of her hands.
Those about the table in the room snapped to attention as the officer guarding the door shouted her name, crisp salutes offered to her by every individual spare for one. President Muk remained the only individual not dressed in the gray service dress of the Union Armed Forces, sat at the head of the table, though his eyes tracked her, with quite a similar obeisance to the other members of the room who met her gaze not.
“At ease;” she finally voiced, gesturing for the room to be seated. Like clockwork, the senior officers who represented administrative and operational commands of every arm of the Union Armed Forces followed her instruction.
She offered none of them her gaze as her eyes settled on the large display at the far end of the room, mirrored on other televisions situated about the walls. The display was a summarized strategic view of the area of operations- the Kaskaidan-Anagonian border, with flashing symbols in red detailing friendly units of all stripes and purposes, blue denoting those of the enemy. It was there her vision settled as she finally spoke.
“General Ryong.”
The man sat up in his seat, quickly adjusting his thin spectacles before he addressed her inferred question. Full General Ryong Hye was the Commanding General of the Army, a man principally involved in the planning of the events yet to come.
“All preparations are complete, Senior Marshal;” the General sternly and proudly reported, though his missive did not move the Marshal’s own expression. “The 2nd and 11th are in excellent position to begin maneuvering through the Gap. 5th, 10th, and 8th groups will be ready to proceed on schedule once 33 Division makes landfall. All preparations are ready to proceed according to our strategy.”
She nodded, and her eyes then turned to another face- that of Full General In Daewon, the Commanding General of the Aerospace Forces. He had accepted a phonecall from a receiver on the table, and her eyes waited patiently as the man completed the call quickly. When he turned to face her, a more quiet confidence was evident on his face- the Senior Marshal barely hid a knowing smile. In was a close friend of hers, a man she was proud to have served beside on multiple occasions- perhaps one of the Marshal’s closest confidants.
“Senior Marshal;” he spoke as the handheld unit was returned to its base. “You’ll be pleased to hear that all preparations on our end are completed ahead of schedule. Primary and secondary strike forces all report in position and are capable of executing their objectives. Aircraft availability is slightly above our projected maximum- we will have to give praise to our maintainers for their efficacy.”
“That we shall;” she concurred, allowing a gentle tug of her lips at the news. “What of our preparations on the strategic fronts? General Moobon, what have you?”
“Aye, Full Marshal.” General Moobon lacked the refined grace that most of the other officers at the table had. His was an unorthodox selection to lead a branch of the UAF concerned with cyberwarfare, intelligence, and strategic weapons. Since the Nichisara Incident of 2021, the Strategic Forces had been the runt of the Union Armed Forces- the appointment of an Army general for its highest post had been a slap in the face that was deemed well-warranted after the humiliating loss of nuclear weaponry to the rogue AI that now lay claim to a rogue Nivalian state.
“My forces report that all ordered and planned countermeasures are available for utilization upon orders. Implants within the telecommunication networks of major regional communication noduses will be able to give us at minimum a few hours of radio silence on that front. In Ashilosa, our advisors have made preparations to arm and organize the liberation units forming there in accordance for its reintegration, and they, of course, have reported above-expected rates of success in forming these. We anticipate that it should mitigate the resistance in that province immensely.”
“Very well. And of the Navy?” Her eyes then turned to a tired-looking man, Full Admiral Bok-Sang Ook, who simply offered her a nod at the question.
“As briefed, most of our forces will remain as a strategic reserve, to remain available in the Anagonian to assist in the blockading of the straits, and in the Marinan to defend from incursions from foreign powers. We anticipate the Arcadie navy will prevent any significant strike from that direction for some time- we shall aid them if this is no longer the case, but we anticipate the more immediate threat to our territories will remain from Janpian naval gropings, who will become our primary focus.”
“Very good;” the Marshal spoke, satisfied with her final review of the situation as her eyes looked at the opposite end of the room- towards, but not at the man sitting at the end of the table, the President. Her eyes looked past, towards the board with flickering lights, of units, of hundreds of thousands represented by squares and diamonds in blinking reds and blues. Her countrymen and her enemies. It was there she focused for a few silent moments before her lips parted to speak.
“..I suppose it’s natural to hesitate before the trigger is pulled;” Marshal Dahee finally spoke, running an idle hand through her gray-stained locks of blackened hair. “Was seventy years enough to repay the debt owed, I wonder?” Her musing went unanswered as the faces about the table instead cautiously hung on her next words. Only then did her eyes trail downwards to meet those of the President, sat in his black suit and red tie at the end of the table. As she did so, the other eyes of the room followed her gaze towards him.
“..President Muk, we still require your authorization. Shall we have it?”
The President balked at the enormity of the ask- such a simple question, yet with so many implications and permutations. The Marshal knew the weight of her ask. Even if she already knew the answer, she knew that it wasn’t quite as simple for him to give it to her. But eventually, he did, without words- his head dipped in a slow and sure nod, the Marshal satisfiedly smiling as she let her white-gloved hands come to rest atop the manila intelligence folders spread before her seat at the table. She sat up and finally spoke to the room at hand, delivering a sentence that with one stroke would set the course of history in motion.
“Very well. My countrymen- our retribution, finally, is at hand. Commence Operation Northern Maelstrom.”
KASKAIDAN-ANAGONIAN BORDER
09 NOVEMBER 2024, 11:41 PM ASHILOSAN TIME
This same drill had been practiced often. It had been conducted once a month when it had first begun some nine plus months prior, then three months ago it was thrice a month, and for the past month it had been at least twice a week. This was their first time this week performing it, and the actions across every unit in every segment had become routine, like clockwork. Maneuver into positions in full combat formations, establish preparatory positions, and await orders.
This time, it was different. The word had come to them only ten minutes prior to execution time- this was now nine minutes ago. The word was this time would be for real. In the dim red lights of cabins and cockpits crews stared, affixed to wristwatches and chronometers; as aircraft, hidden behind a blanket of electronic jamming noise from ground and air sources, rocketed to their altitudes.
At thirty seconds prior, a second pro-word was issued across every tactical control frequency in the Union Armed Forces, confirming for the final time the validity of the message from the Command Senior Staff, erasing any lingering doubt.
Thirty seconds turned to fifteen as safeties were disengaged. Keys turned aboard launch consoles, switches flipped aboard aircraft, latches toggled upon firearms. Targeting data was confirmed one final time, as fingers and hands slowly hovered above inputs.
Prayers slipped from the lips of some in the remaining ten seconds. From others, breaths of nervousness, excitement, anger, focus, determination.
At five, the Kaskaidan ambassador to Anagonia had delivered and confirmed the receipt by the government of the Confederate States the declaration of war he had been holding all day. As soon as the envelope was broken, his smile disappeared as he turned quietly to leave for home.
At four seconds, the Kaskaidan mission in Anagonia was detonated by preplanted explosives placed upon all of its servers and remaining fileblocks, setting the building aflame into a pile of brick and rubble.
At three, an enormous cyberattack, conducted with nearly the entire resources of the Strategic Forces, was initiated on global messaging and communications applications, and secure communications pathways for the CSAF.
Two seconds prior, the final orders were given in attacking aircraft, tank convoys and launcher vehicles, and at one fingers reached for triggers.
At 11:42 PM on 09 November 2024, northern Kistavich erupted into flame.
From missile silos and launcher vehicles positioned across a hundred thousand square miles of northern borderlands, cruise and ballistic missiles shot into the sky in their thousands with arcs of flame and jet, pillars of smoke marking their ascent. Thousands of howitzers thundered in cacophonous volleys like musketmen of old as hundreds of thousands of pounds of explosives entered their ballistic arcs into the skies above, piercing through the flaky clouds as they hurtled above mountaintop and tree alike into their targets beyond. In the sky above, strategic bombers unloaded volley after volley of additional cruise missiles before arcing home, heavier and older jets adding to the same volley as naval vessels in the Anagonian Ocean and submarines both there and in the Great Dragon Ocean launched their volleys. It was the single largest launch of precision munitions in history, and in the forty-five minute span of the attack, it made the Meridonian Shadow Hand attack in New England, or the Neo-Korean attack upon the Matsumese Northern Fleet, seem like childsplay.
Civilian sites were intended to be spared- those that had no military importance, that was. Saturation attacks were targeted at military bases, depots, warehouses, airfields, static defense lines, railway hubs, logistics stations, vehicle yards, shipyards and moorings and ports, oil depots, refineries, power stations, telecommunications hubs, radar sites, even police stations. Civilians, however, were by no means safe. A Malas Airlines-flagged L150 bound for Kohaku was vaporized by a ballistic missile as it began its takeoff in Ashendelle, killing a half a thousand people, as the rest of the runway was rendered inoperable by follow-on missiles. In cities like Starreach and Aurorahaven which housed expeditionary garrison forces, the line was plenty blurred between military and civilian targets- but the strikes fell all the same, devastating housing and depot areas even as they lay in city parks and football fields surrounded by civilian housing. Casualties both collateral and semi-intentional quickly amounted to the tens of thousands as rounds fell elsewhere.
In cities, towns, and countryside around the northern ring of the Great Dragon Ocean, sonic booms at ground level clapped like the arrival of thunder. The ground shook with their impacts as billowing pillars of smoke and flame leapt into the sky, explosions silhouetting against clouds with their enormity as the hated enemy of the Kaskaidans at last felt the fire of its wrath. What air defense was available to the Anagonians desperately attempted to effect a defense, to only minute avail.
With very few exceptions, every single electronic warfare aircraft available to the Union Aerospace Forces had already penetrated Anagonian airspace by the time of execution, utilizing their powerful jamming equipment to distract and degrade the tenuous coverage provided by radar systems. These known air defense sites were priority targets for the overwhelming opening shots, with each area doused with a hail of explosives falling upon it like sledgehammers. The simultaneous detonations of hundreds of known ammunition depots up and down the northernmost coast gave the appearance of the detonation of small nuclear detonations, even from orbit in some areas as the massive warheads coalesced into enormous, land and air-wrending explosions.
When the dust was settled from the massive standoff attack, the sky was cut by the piercing blue-gray forms of Kaskaidan tactical aviation penetrating the airspace in spread out arrowheads and echelons, unmolested by the presence of Confederate aircraft- those which attempted to rise from the thin land circling the Dragon Sea were quickly targeted by escorting fighters and shot down; with only few exchanges of missiles being mutual. Interdictors, guided by reconnaissance drones and communications from special forces teams that had infiltrated days prior, were quickly honed in on targets that had survived with less damage than others, releasing bombs and glide weapons upon them that descended from the skies without the speed of the prior munitions but with the end results all the same. Longer-ranged bombers lobbed cruise and ballistic missiles at higher altitudes towards known naval targets at port, sparing those further out to sea for a second strike so as to maximize the amount of immediate casualties. Dancing through the smoke and flames, the Kaskaidans knew full well it would be at least an hour until more southern-based air assets would be in position to impede them. The bulk of the fighter force earmarked for this operation were prepared for this eventuality, and by the time the Anagonian’s technologically superior and numerically identical force was able to respond to them, the bombing aircraft would be sheltered behind a line of missile-armed fighters.
As missiles and bombs rained from the heavens above them, all of the 80 border crossings on the Kaskadian-Anagonian border were obliterated by artillery salvoes. Within minutes, armored fighting vehicles were plowing the rubble out of the way and engaging any remaining border guards who refused to surrender. Once the way was clear, fighting vehicles, trucks, anti-aircraft vehicles and towed artillery streamed forward in their veritable thousands, with missile and gun vehicles scanning the skies with their radars and attack helicopters swooping overhead protectively, engaging any vehicles that looked remotely military with gun and rocket
Targeted heavily by the opening barrage, the dazed and surprised remnants of the pair of Confederate Army corps meant to hold the Thetanic Gap were surrounded in their garrisons and would be destroyed in detail over the span of the next three days in sporadic and scattered battles. Formations melted as withering numbers assailed them from all sides, and by the evening of the third day those who had not been killed or surrendered melted into the forests and villages, many eschewing their military clothing as they sought refuge among the civilians there.
The city of Starreach in western Ashilosa was the first major population center to fall as an entire Group worth of vehicles enveloped and surrounded the sleeping town on all sides. What resistance was offered was paltry and disjointed, trampled through the enormity of arms and violence of action of the Kaskaidan armored columns that rolled through the streets like a green-grey tidal wave. It would be a stretch to say its capture lasted an hour- for most of its citizens and occupants, they had barely woke when the black and red flag of the Union was fluttering from the building tops. In short order afterwards, its armory, police stations and city hall were evacuated and its occupants detained, and shortly after the former two locations were detonated. Security forces trailing the column retook posts as the Army proper rolled onwards.
The first real resistance of any kind came when militia forces hastily attempted a defense in depth towards the town of Aurorahaven. Their position was rapidly acquired by advancing surveillance drones as they had positioned roadblocks along the highway, some twenty miles ahead of the advancing force. Before they could even truly begin to consolidate their positions, they were pummeled by a withering torrent of artillery and aviation attacks, with jets they could hear but hardly see screaming over treetops to douse them in napalm and cluster munitions, methodically, much the same as a crop duster might treat a field. The earth rumbled as howitzer shells sent shrapnel and fragments everywhere, with little regard for tree nor tissue. The barrage was absolutely withering, with the firepower allocated to this assault more than enough to vaporize a formation many times their number. As the attack from above showed its first signs of receding, just beyond the splash lines appeared the armored vehicles of the Kaskaidans to contribute with autocannon and machine gun fire, a deadly overmatch of firepower that gave them little opportunity to resist. Unable to withstand the assault, the militiamen subsequently melted into the countryside as tens of thousands of mechanized and armored vehicles streamed down the highway, peppering the retreating would-be ambushers with small fire as they went for the woods.
Their delay brought only momentary respite for the town, which was reached some eight hours later with minimal delay. It was here the Union Army met the first organized resistance in the form of elements of the 15th Ashiloshan Cavalry Division, where much of the same tactics were repeated- the absolutely overwhelming numerical advantage of the Kaskaidan forces allowed them to bypass the town and then encircle it from all sides as columns rumbled over side roads and open fields to ring the town. Tracerfire shot out from both sides, but the volume made it clear that the defenders were egregiously outnumbered and outgunned. From over the horizon, defenders could do little more than watch as brief flashes illuminated the horizon silently, their distant gunfire deafened by the constant thud of impacts throughout the town. From overhead, any large formation, heavily-occupied building, or open vehicle would be plinked by Kaskaidan aviation, with every bomb and shell that fell on Aurorahaven turning it more and more into a collection of rubble. The ceaseless advance of the Union Army allowed little to stand before it for any long period of time. The weight of the Eastern Frontal Group’s supporting aerial and artillery assets were ruthlessly brought to bear on the town with devastating results, and as the battle carried on, the increasingly desperate question the Anagonian forces asked was no longer how long they might delay the Kaskaidan advance- but how many more hours they might be alive.
As another hour came and went, and another after that, the Anagonian forces within the town steeled themselves against the onslaught. Even as the town collapsed about them and their numbers continued to thin rapidly, they stood, despite the ultimate futility. Their bravery would not see them to their next sunrise. Saigyu and Liberty City received the reports at roughly the same time; however isolated pockets of resistance continued to harass the new occupiers of the city until just after midday as battalions and brigades melted into companies and platoons until they were snuffed out, the last flames of organized resistance dying in the city.
As the sun rose on the 10th, the world awoke to the horrors of the night past, those who had not been already roused from their sleep. The Vice President of Anagonia, Franklin Johnson, now Acting President in the stead of President Mileethus Canisilus, who effectively was out of action following his attempted assisination some weeks prior, was already whisked away to the Joint Command Center in Liberty—the same facility which housed the recovering President in its well-stocked hospital facilities. His reaction had been the same as most of the Generals and Admirals in the Confederate Military—a reaction that was reminiscent of everyone in Anagonia; total surprise, shock, and a sense of doom and fear. Military forces were effectively scrambled in situations that otherwise would have introduced smooth complexity through countless, well-trained drills. The reality on the ground was stark, reported the news-media, and the central government did not lie about the situation in the morning news.
As midday rose on the first full day of a new war, the 37th Corps of the Confederate State Army- one of the few remaining high-level organizations of the Anagonian military remaining in Ashilosa- began to mobilize. While forces at the northeastern extreme of the land border fought to repel an incursion from the other easy land corridor into the northern Anagonian territories, the 37th would be the bulk of what forces remained to attempt to prevent the Eastern Frontal Group’s further incursion into Ashilsoa proper.
They chose to make their defense in a range of mountain peaks running south from the border- the Ashendelle Range, named after the town situated to the east of it in which they guarded. There, they were supplemented by both organized and individual reserves and militia formations as they arrayed themselves in the defensive positions afforded by its peaks and saddles to await the onslaught that came from their west.
Forward elements of the Eastern Frontal Groups made contact and began to skirmish with the defensive positions in the midmorning of the 11th, with reconnaissance vehicles and helicopters trading glancing shots over the hills and coastal plains. As the full mass of the Kaskaidan forces began to arrive in their numbers, they pivoted to thrust southeastwards. The 37th and their cohorts maneuvered to meet them and prevent their breakthrough- and as the afternoon turned to evening, the opening phases of the first full-scale engagement of the war- the Battle of the Ashendelle Range- thus began.
