Magdaran Nightmare (IC- See OOC)

[The Macabees]

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ṢUʿŪDIYŪN, HYGANAN

War ebbs and flows. Gains in Central Magdaran came as quickly as losses. The PRR's spectacular Western Magdaran offensive had outrun its supply lines. A triumphant offensive became a rout, and the pendulum now swung violently back toward disaster. Although the Ordenite-backed UNF forces had not yet continued the offensive toward Hyganan, the bombed-out city was once again in a very precarious position.

As the PRR continued its western offensive, weary-faced ṣuʿūdiyūn had been ordered to dig in within and around the city. These lines were pushed up somewhat to accommodate a growing number of forces, but also to provide some room for maneuver to the defending troops in case the Ordenite-UNF army decided to eliminate Coalition-aligned units in Hyganan once again. By now, Zenitharian numbers had increased to just under 250,000. This number would have been almost 100,000 men larger had it not been for the horrendous casualties suffered during the first phase of the drive toward Hyganan. Alas, the ṣuʿūdiyūn would be suffering many hundreds of thousands more casualties by the time this war was over.

While these men continued digging trenches, preparing fortified defensive positions, and littering their battlespace with decoys to soak enemy munitions, a separate army of laborers had driven up from Kalinog in the interim. Following a strict coastal route to avoid being caught by the withdrawing PRR frontlines, about 10,000 civilian contractors were moved into Hyganan to begin the reconstruction of the port facilities. Having their work cut out for them, their toil started with clearing out the rubble that now made the harbor largely unusable.

Regardless, these port facilities would do neither the ṣuʿūdiyūn nor allies any good if the SLOCs to it and Kalinog were cut off by the Ordenites. In this sense, the fate of the Hyganan strategy lay in the hands of the Coalition fleets slogging it out with the Ordenites.

All the same, Kalinog remained the primary port-of-entry in Western Magdaran for imperial supplies, equipment, and proxy personnel. Through this harbor moved thousands of tanks and artillery pieces, tens of thousands of mortars and machineguns, as well as millions of munitions. With them trudged through thousands of jihadists precedent from New Empire, the determination on their faces not yet fazed by the venomous realities of war. These forces would soon be brought up to snuff in terms of combat capabilities. But with Ordenite fleets pressing the sea lanes and whispers of a renewed UNF-Ordenite offensive in the sector, the success of that plan balanced on a knife’s edge.



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DOMINGA, ISLA DOMINGA

Fascinating how bright days for some could be dark for others.

The conditions set by the new heads of the Commonwealth's freshly minted ruling party were accepted. Nobody in the Imperial Bureaucracy wanted to let the opportunity to reshape the Commonwealth's government go, both in a bid to strengthen it and to increase imperial influence on their military decisions. Over the long run, the minutiae would have little relevance anyway.

Providing the new government with as stable a start as possible was the immediate priority. Kríergrup Beda Fromm, anchored directly off the western coast of the island, was the primary protagonist of this process on Isla Dominga.

Almost 6,000 naval infantry, known as terkos, offboarded on the western side to rendezvous with Commonwealth forces on the island. These combined troops, along with additional local security forces, were responsible for arresting politicians, judges, police leadership, and other individuals deemed potentially dangerous to Queen Trinidad's rule. Their names came from "war crime" lists provided by the Golden Throne and then refined by the High Committee of the Commonwealth (HCC), which in practice implied removing excess names from the original lists. These included between 20,000 and 40,000 names, though a significant share lived under PRR or UNF rule. While the Imperial Bureaucracy was inclined to eliminate these threats through on-the-spot military trials, the HCC was able to moderate even this approach. Instead, the arrested individuals were crammed onto civilian passenger ships, placed under military guard, and shipped to the provinces. They would receive their trials in Fedala, whereupon, if found guilty, they would be sentenced to exile in the "new cities" of eastern New Empire. Surrounded by Zenitharian migrants transplanted from Ordenite Scythia, as well as tens of millions of settled imperial military veterans, these exiled Magdarans would be well-guarded in what was one of the most remote and mountainous corners of the empire.

Meanwhile, a communication line was opened with Vietnamese command on the island. Per Mokan-provided intelligence, the RVN led Coalition forces on Isla Dominga. A meeting was requested between Beda Fromm fleet command and local Vietnamese command, in which the situation and objectives were plainly laid out. The Golden Throne's primary intention was to reassure the RVN that the Commonwealth would continue to honor its Coalition commitments, and that the regime change was an attempt to reinvigorate and shore up Commonwealth leadership in the face of its crumbling hold of the mainland and outlying islands. Nothing would change in the war effort, except hopefully a more effective ally in the Commonwealth.

More importantly, by directly communicating with the RVN, it was hoped that a greater degree of coordination could be achieved between the Coalition members. This would be crucial if the Coalition were to take western and central Magdaran again. Otherwise, the mainland would undoubtedly fall to the UNF and PRR, both of which were considered enemies despite the shaky alliance-of-necessity between the Dominga-based Commonwealth government and the PRR.

Another priority was to begin carrying out the Golden Throne's commitments to the new Commonwealth government. Primarily, the empire was now responsible for arming and training the Commonwealth military. In this, it had a head start thanks to the efforts of the RVN, but these efforts were immediately shored up with new military instructions from Arras. Also arranged was the almost immediate departure of the first wave of new equipment for Commonwealth forces, starting with those on the island. This first wave focused almost entirely on defensive equipment, including land-based surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missile launchers, as well as sea mining equipment and other area denial weapons deemed an immediate priority given the overall strategic situation. Offensive weapons would come in subsequent waves of military aid shipments.

However, the lack of clarity over the ongoing naval battle's outcome pushed back one of the empire's initial goals. Fuermak High Command, which was now dispatching advisory leadership to Isla Dominga to help direct the war effort, wanted the Commonwealth to reinforce the ṣuʿūdiyūn's position in Hyganan. This was as much to bolster its defenses against a potential enemy attack as to secure the local political initiative. There was a growing anxiety that the PRR would make good the decreasing presence of the Commonwealth on the mainland to entrench themselves in the political apparatuses of the territory they held. This would make dislodging the PRR from these areas much more difficult when the time for that came.



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ISLE BAGARANA

Kríergrup Quitiruzú, named after its primary port of operations (a city in southern Nicaro), straddled both Mananakop Island and Isle Bagarana. More of an inevitability given the geographic proximity, rather than a conscious choice. Until now, the Golden Throne had little interest in the island north of Mananakop. After PRR and UNF forces had been soundly defeated, the Commonwealth position was more or less assured.

However, with the regime change in Dominga, it was crucial to secure the loyalty of the Commonwealth's General Rizaldo Guillermo. Guillermo essentially now ruled over Bagarana like a feudal lord, or rather he could if he wanted to given that the island's military force was loyal to him. To avoid splintering over Queen Trinidad's contested ascension and its imperial backers, the Imperial Bureaucracy authorized Kríerlords Surr and vis Konkordán to cut a deal with the commander.

After a flight to Mananakop City from Matagalpa, Surr and vis Konkordán boarded a tiny eight-person propeller aircraft and made the turbulent journey to the city of Fayuria. There, they'd meet with their host.

To avoid politics, jealousies, and setbacks, these negotiations took place largely without the HCC's involvement. The HCC was made aware of the Golden Throne's intentions and objectives, but they were not kept to date with the day-to-day. The Golden Throne would inform them of the outcome afterwards. Regardless, given the empire's investment in the new government, it was evident that ultimately whatever was agreed upon would be in the interests of Queen Trinidad, the HCC, and the National Unity Party (NUP). To sweeten the deal, the kríerlords offered to expand, equip, and train Guillermo’s forces into a modern strike army. Included would be the provision of 4.5-generation fighter aircraft. All of this, of course, to the end of fueling the commander's grand vision of moving his forces off the island onto the mainland.

However, there was a catch. If General Guillermo agreed to the deal, he would have to look the other way as the Golden Throne quietly purged the island of inconvenient persons.

If he didn't agree, the Golden Throne would need to find a way to replace him with someone more friendly to the new regime and its imperial backer.

[State of Ordena]

SEA NEAR HYGANAN.

The Southern Task Force had driven hard against LCTF-1 and LCTF-2’s positions near Hyganan’s coastal waters, only to find themselves initially ensnared in an elaborate ambush. Yet the ambush proved clumsy and ultimately failed to inflict meaningful enoughdamage on the advancing Ordenite force. The Task Force’s response was swift and disciplined ASW-capable countermeasures were brought to bear immediately, cutting through the confusion with calculated efficiency.

The damage that was done was extensive. Several U-Boats had been sunk in the springing of the ambush. Along with several frigates and cruisers that had either been sunk entirely or were suffering from various degrees of battle damage.

Even as the ships adjusted formation, alarms shrieked through the fleet radar and sonar operators confirmed a significant barrage of ordnance screaming toward them. Crews scrambled to battle stations, missile countermeasures were readied, and gun crews trained their batteries skyward to intercept the incoming threat. But as eyes strained across the darkened sea, it became clear that the crisis would not fall upon them.

Instead, the barrage veered, seeking targets amid the chaos of jamming and spoofed signals. In a catastrophic twist of miscalculation—born from the tangled electronic warfare that now choked the battlespace LCTF-1 and LCTF-2 were struck by the very salvo intended to cripple the Ordenite push. The explosions lit up the horizon, columns of flame and shattered hull plating visible even from the Task Force’s decks. The sea boiled with debris as the enemy flotilla buckled under the weight of their own misplaced firepower, torn apart in a maelstrom of confusion and miscommunication.

Yet there was no celebration aboard the Ordenite ships. The commanding Admiral, eyes locked on the developing tactical picture, wasted no time. Orders snapped through the fleet’s comms to press forward at once, press the advantage, and strike the Mokan fleet before them. Reinforcements from Fustera were already sliding into the battlespace, linking up with the battered but still-potent Task Force. An additional Task Force of over 400 combat vessels surged into the operational theater, swelling the Ordenite presence into what would henceforth be designated the Southern Fleet. With it came two more carrier groups bristling with strike aircraft, fresh surface combat squadrons, and a new U-Boat group that would prowl the deeper waters for Mokan prey.

As the vast armada reconfigured, the Southern Fleet formed into an L-shaped formation: the original Task Force held the longer line, poised to engage the Mokans directly and absorb the brunt of resistance, while the newly arrived reinforcements swung into position on the exposed flank. A dedicated screening element fanned outward to guard against sudden counter-thrusts or submarine incursions.

With targeting data finally resolved through the haze of electronic countermeasures and fleeting radar ghosts, the order came to unleash hell. Dozens of destroyers and cruisers roared to life, vertical launch systems hissing open as they disgorged an initial volley of anti-ship missiles. These hunted first for the Mokan fleet’s defensive screens—destroyers, frigates, and picket ships designed to blunt such blows—seeking to tear open gaps through which the heavier elements of the enemy line could be gutted and broken.

The Southern Fleet pressed on, steel slicing through rolling seas, its guns and missiles promising ruin to whatever fleet dared stand between it and absolute dominion of Hyganan’s contested waters.

OPEN SEA SOUTH OF HYGANAN SEA BATTLE.

Lurking in the cold depths of the southern seas, far from the thunderous clash of the naval battle raging off Hyganan, a silent menace crept ever closer to its mark. A detachment of Guided missile submarines had slipped into position under a cloak of stealth and patient calculation, their hulls gliding through dark waters with deliberate caution. Spread wide to avoid detection and minimize risk, they held their distance both from one another and from any hostile picket lines, waiting for the final order to strike.

Their mission was grim in its simplicity: to sever the lifeline that kept the Coalition war effort in Magdaran alive. Since the fiery ruin of Hyganan, the port city of Kalinog had become the beating heart of Coalition logistics a sprawling artery of supply convoys, warehouses, and war materiel flowing steadily to the front. As long as Kalinog stood intact, the Coalition’s armies would remain fed, armed, and relentless. So while battles raged above the waves, the predators below readied the only blow that could truly cripple the enemy’s capacity to fight.

Inside each submarine’s launch tubes waited 98 Kaliber cruise missiles silent, cold, and primed for annihilation. Once the final checks were made, once all six boats signaled readiness, the order was given. One by one, the oceans split as columns of water burst skyward and the missiles surged forth, trailing fire and steel as they clawed their way into the sky.

Two hundred and thirty four warheads in total now hurtled towards Kalinog. Over half were locked onto the port’s sprawling docks, drydocks, container yards, and ship berths—every quay and crane that kept the Coalition’s lifeline intact. The remainder sought out fuel depots, rail yards, military garrisons, command posts, and the tangle of roads and rail lines that funneled men and munitions to the front. It was hoped that, in a single, merciless stroke, Kalinog would be reduced to ruin and fire a shattered hub that would force the Coalition to stretch its supply lines overland, exposed and vulnerable to further strikes.

Should the strike prove successful and if the Southern Fleet’s clash with the Mokan Fleet delivered the dominance they now gambled for then the sea wolves beneath the waves would remain on station. Their orders would be clear: to isolate Kalinog entirely, to hammer any attempt to rebuild, and to ensure that the embers of this port city never rose again to sustain the enemy’s war machine. In the depths, engines hummed, hatches closed, and the ocean’s silent hunters waited for the first blossoms of fire to appear on the distant horizon.

[Imbrinium]

Philotas islands, Marcelo Naval Base,

The mission was straightforward: fly in and launch cruise missiles at the forward command posts, which were calling the shots on the new offensive toward the PRR and Commonwealth forces. The base had been a hub of activity since the civil war in the commonwealth had started.

The mission was slated to support the alliance in their withdrawal south. The mission had to be carefully planned due to no air cover or support and a high air defense network. The bombers would take off and refuel just off the coast to refill main tanks and to fill up onboard special tanks inside one bomb bay.

The twenty-five-support aircraft will be EB-90AR block 20s; these were the newest EW aircraft in the RIAF capable of launching decoy drones to jam and spoof enemy radars, GPS, and radio traffic of the enemy. These drones also have a kill code to be used once the fuel reaches a certain level or the mission is completed, and they pick the nearest target and kinetic kill that target. Nothing is wasted, granted, they don’t have a warhead, but the weight of force of the missile hitting the target.

Late afternoon, the crews were ready the aircraft were prepped. The crews were called in for one last mission briefing on the current situation on the ground. The target's current position and air defense network.

The bombers with their crews loaded sat ready to go as they watched their support aircraft taking off. The command and control are already airborne.
About an hour after the air refueling air had taken off and were in their racetrack positions. The go call came over the radio.

One by one, the aircraft took off with the EB-90ARs being first to take flight. The bombers are right behind them.

Feet dry over the Mag,

The command-and-control aircraft relayed a message to all aircraft before going radio dark.

“All aircraft, this is Mainsail standby message follows”

“All commands this Skydaddy message follows”

“delta, tango, whiskey, alpha, four, three, foxtrot, sierra, lima, india, ocar, six, two, echo, hotel, kilo, November, victor, Juliet, zulu, Charlie, tango, xray, mike,”
“Skydaddy out.”

“Mainsail copy mainsail out.”

And with that, the aircrews looked up their message in their code books.

Four hours after the feet down, the EB-90ARs prepped their systems and decoys it would only be another hour before the first launch.

An hour late, the first EW aircraft had reached their launch point, their bomb bays open, and the rotary pylons. These drone missiles would fly at supersonic speed till in range of the enemy radar system, then go subsonic and act as a dozen or so bombers on enemy radars. Theses drone missiles don’t fly in a straight line, they will fly and spread out to make on radar at least look like dozens, if not more, bombers on radar, while jamming enemy GPS and Communications.

As one after another, drone missile was released and spread out over the area, a the EB-90ARs turned on their jamming and spoofing systems for a jamming in depth. Some aircraft had multi-pods that spun out an almost mile-long wire cable with an arrowhead on the end to spread out the jamming and make radars pick up on a different target off the main plane.

The bomber force was thirty minutes behind the jamming wave, the bombers having their jamming systems still on standby till the EW aircraft had burned through on their drones and or own jamming systems. So far, the mission has been going on as planned. The bombers moved to their launch positions and began to do their pre-launch checks.

As the bombers came into range of their targets, the bombers opened their bays and launched their payload of Helion 2 cruise missiles toward their targets of forward command and control posts and forward depots.

As the last missiles were launched, the bombers turned and high-tailed it out of the area to try and avoid enemy fighters and long-range SAMs.

Now, some 300 Helion 2 cruise missiles are in flight towards their targets, with 150 jamming drones paving the way ahead.

[Holy Marsh]

Operation: Tin Guard One: Greyhounds and Bulldogs - Central Magdaran

The air above Central Magdaran crackled with Commonwealth engines, while the ground shook under the weight of two converging hammers. From the west, the 10th Commonwealth Corps and Morridane 2nd Army surged forward, their eastern push precise and relentless. From the east came the 3rd Corps and a massive Coalition force-an amalgam of Morridane, Mokan, and Solisian units, each battle-hardened and meticulously timed to match the thrust westward. The plan was for the two thrusts to cut through the Nationalists. Hopefully, encircle and annihilate Nationalist core formations left exposed in the center, collapse the heart of enemy logistics, cutting supply to multiple fronts. And, if successful, deal a psychological rupture to the Nationalist war effort.
Nearly all available Commonwealth air assets were diverted to support the operation: Electronic warfare craft jammed communications across the center. Strategic bombers targeted rear depot complexes and rail hubs. Close air support and fighter-bombers operated on near-constant rotation, protecting armored advances and pulverizing defensive formations.

The ground attack itself moved with deadly harmony. Columns advanced under synchronized artillery coverage. Engineer units cleared river crossings and fortified junctions mid-fight. Rear security elements followed each spearhead to secure and screen flanks against the inevitable enemy counter-thrusts.

Operation: Tin Guard Two: Wrongfooted and Cut Open - Central Magdaran

The Coalition Salient’s eastern thrust struck like a blade through an open flank. Nationalist command, convinced the 10th Corps would push northward toward Sibulangon, had repositioned key elements and diverted reserves-leaving their eastern holdings vulnerable to a blow they never expected. The result was catastrophic.
As Commonwealth and Morridane armor surged east, the Nationalist front found itself in disarray mid-transition. Divisional headquarters were caught during relocation, leaving subordinate battalions without orders or support. Several formations were fragmented on the spot, overrun before they could even establish coordinated defense. Entire sectors collapsed under pressure, their fortifications falling within hours, not days.

Coalition dominance in the skies became a decisive edge. With the Commonwealth’s full aerial architecture focused on the operation, hundreds of sorties were launched with ruthless efficiency. Strike fighters tore supply lines to pieces, close-air support decimated armored counterattacks, and reconnaissance craft directed artillery onto moving columns with pinpoint precision.
The Nationalist air force, already thinly spread due to crises across the mainland, could not respond in kind. Interceptor wings arrived late and under-equipped, and anti-air defenses-stretched over too wide a front-were overwhelmed or bypassed. The Coalition owned the sky, and they wielded it as both sword and shield.

By the time the Nationalists fully understood the direction and scale of the attack, it was too late. Their posture had unraveled, and they were left fighting piecemeal, with shattered divisions scrambling for cohesion amidst a maelstrom of fire and fury.

Operation: Tin Guard Three: From Angbani With Love - Central Magdaran

The terrain between Angbani and the attack that now came had long been shaped by war-ridges carved with trenches, river crossings wired for demolition, forest strips burned into jagged chokepoints. It had slowed earlier offensives and became a stubborn drag on both sides. But the 3rd Corps and the vast collection of Coalition assets at play, hardened and reinforced, did not stall for long.
Once the push began in earnest, the line broke open like a brittle shell. Nationalist forces across the Angbani front already thrown off balance by the 10th Corps’ assault, found themselves hammered from the Angbani direction. Defensive sectors were overwhelmed and multiple tactical breakthroughs achieved.

The attack from both directions wasn’t merely a tactical success – it was a a vicious dagger plunging the Nationalist central command into chaos. Communications lagged behind battlefield shifts. Frontline commanders, expecting reinforcement or rotation, received instead silence-or orders to abandon positions already compromised. South of the crumbling axis, Nationalist units still locked in attritional combat against the PRR failed to grasp the scale of the disaster unfolding just north of them. Their minds were on the battered and bruised enemy before them, where constant skirmishing had not caused significant losses but had engaged them thoroughly. By the time they realized what lay to their north, it was almost too late.

It wasn’t until maps started turning blue in chunks and supplies ceased entirely that Nationalist command moved. And when they did, it was with the grim calculus of damage control. Orders were issued for a staged withdrawal, not as a concession-but as an emergency tourniquet to slow the bleeding and block the PRR from cleaving into their now-exposed flanks.

Operation: Tin Guard Four: Coal Into Furnace - Central Magdaran

The arrival of Ordenite reinforcements, long anticipated and sorely needed, did little initially to help the situation. Instead of forming a bulwark to turn the tide, the incoming divisions were greeted by a battlefront already fracturing in motion-a theater of shredded lines, failing radios, and unrelenting seek and destroy sorties from the air.

The Nationalists had been operating under the assumption that Sibulangon would bear the brunt of the Commonwealth’s offensive. Maps were marked with northern arrows, and key counterstrike plans were drafted for terrain the Coalition hadn’t yet touched. So when the Coalition salientstruck east instead-with full aerial support, coordinated ground attacks from Angbani, and precision logistics-the Nationalists were left reaching in the wrong direction with reinforcements prepared for a battle that never came.

Reformatting their response became a logistical nightmare. Division-level formations were rerouted in real time, often with contradictory orders and inaccurate intelligence. Some armored units arrived at forward positions only to discover they had already fallen. Infantry regiments blitzed through unprotected corridors, ambushed before reaching staging grounds. Coordination collapsed as command structures destabilized due to events elsewhere, communications broke down often locally, and battle plans turned into improvisations scrawled in blood.

The Coalition saw the fissures and pressed into them. Task forces splintered off to intercept incoming formations before they could assemble, forcing Nationalist units into firefights while still moving into position Artillery tracked the movement of newly arrived troops, raining shells before they could entrench. Air superiority meant even rear columns were hounded without pause.
Casualties soared. Not just from direct conflict-but from confusion, misfires, and sheer systemic disintegration. Ordenite reinforcements, fierce but unmoored, bled fast. The Nationalists had numbers-but they arrived in pieces, and were swallowed one by one.

Operation: Tin Guard Five: The Guns of Tabangi - Central Magdaran

Despite the encirclement threats and cascading failures on multiple fronts, the Ordenite forces and Grand Republic of Magdaran Armed Forces did not fracture. Their cohesion thinned, their control lines tangled-but they did not break. Orders roared through jammed comms: hold the southern corridor. Allow the retreat. Delay the inevitable.

The Tabangi Fields, long the cradle of Magdaran’s harvest, became the crucible in which empires bled. Stretching wide across the heartland, once dotted by irrigation canals and seasonal workers, it now churned with the fury of armored apocalypse.

The earth groaned under the pressure of thousands of tanks and armored vehicles clashing with thunderous intent. From ridge to irrigation line, the confrontation was total. Mechanized infantry regiments surged behind armored vanguards, weaving through smoke and shell craters. Helicopters darted between tracer fire, launching precision strikes against artillery nests and mobile command posts. Above them, wings of attack aircraft sliced across the sky, dropping payloads that turned ripe wheat into flame and ash.

Artillery from both sides shook the horizon, their rhythms overlapping into a ceaseless drumbeat of destruction. Barrages fell not in waves, but in tides, blanketing square kilometers with steel and dust. The fields were no longer terrain-they were memory, churned under tank treads and reduced to tactical markers. What Tabangi lacked in defensive fortifications, it made up for in open space and visibility. It was not a battlefield of cunning-it was a slaughterhouse of momentum. Coordination frayed into instinct, line cohesion splintered into duels, and leadership narrowed to whoever could stay upright long enough to signal the next volley.

And yet, through all this, the Nationalists did hold. Not everywhere. Not perfectly. But enough to keep the southern artery breathing, enough to allow columns from beyond the pocket to flood northward toward escape.

Operation: Tin Guard Six: Grim Satisfaction - Central Magdaran

The Nationalists, though gutted by the velocity of the Coalition offensive, clung to the southern escape corridor with the desperate resistance. In the Tabangi Fields, their formations fought with a deliberate ferocity that defied logic. It wasn’t tactical elegance. It was sacrificial purpose.This sacrifice came with escalating, terrible casualties, much higher than the Coalition. But still, they held.
Columns of armor charged into exposed flanks simply to draw fire away from retreating units. GRM battalions sealed avenues with their bodies, mounting countercharges against superior firepower with nothing but resolve and spent ammunition. Casualties were staggering. Entire company rosters vanished between hourly updates. Medical stations became morgues before they could stabilize. And through it all, the flames grew.

The fertile land of Tabangi, so long the symbol of life and growth, now boiled under the weight of war. Fires roared high enough to black out midday. Civilian settlements, caught between artillery arcs and the wild flailing of retreating formations, suffered heatstroke en masse. Farmers collapsed in their cellars. Children were pulled from smoke-choked fields. Yet, even here-under skies red and split with ordinance-the line held. When the Coalition’s advance finally paused to assess, it was not out of triumph but fatigue. The offensive had churned through distance and opposition-but not all resistance. What remained of the Nationalists had forged a thin line, straining under pressure, bending under flame, but still alive. A line composed not of fortification, but of burning tanks and blood-soaked grit, layered with artillery salvos still falling in erratic rhythm.

And through this scorched vein, the survivors ran-not triumphant, not whole, but free from the pocket. The encirclement was not complete. For now, escape was still possible. Barely.

Gods of Thunder and Fire – Sky Above Magdaran

Across the vast sprawl of Nationalist-held territory, the air was torn open by a sudden and sustained barrage that redefined the boundaries of modern warfare. Imbrinium and Andrenade, operating in separate spheres but aligned in objective, unleashed a parallel air campaign of devastating scale-an onslaught that hammered infrastructure, decimated supply routes, and shattered significant strategic resources.

From border provinces to industrial heartlands, the sky flickered with the trails of cruise missiles and the predatory silhouettes of long-range strike aircraft. Fuel depots were hit with kinetic precision. Power stations collapsed into roiling blackouts. Munitions factories, once churning with wartime production, were left burning and inert. Military command nodes, airfields, logistics hubs-each became a beacon for destruction. Arrayed against this storm was an aerial defense architecture already buckling from strain. The mainland had been bleeding for months-its fighter wings fragmented across multiple theaters, its intercept systems overstretched and compromised. Surface-to-air emplacements sputtered from lack of updates and overuse. Radar networks flickered with incomplete coverage. Central command could no longer guarantee control over the air-it could only guess at survival.

Andrenade’s sorties dove in aggressive formations, using terrain and jamming to break radar locks. Imbrinium’s strategic bombers operated in cold, clinical precision-launching waves of destruction from standoff range, then vanishing before retaliation could be framed. There were no safe skies. There were no quiet places. Civilians watched columns of smoke rise above familiar skylines. Aircraft, redirected from the front to defend against the bombardment, now wondered if reinforcements would come-or if they'd been made obsolete.

Birds of Prey – Sky Above Magdaran

The Nationalists had prepared their skies for war-but not for this. The systematic destruction of key airbases-scored earlier by Marshite bombardments and Griffon strikes in Western Magdaran-meant the mainland’s response capability was already limping. The northern installations, once strategic launch points for interceptor coverage and reconnaissance, had become rubble. Southern sites, critical to resupply and maintenance rotations, were either cratered or overwhelmed. Though air defense networks were properly layered and strategically placed, they were designed to contest a manageable threat-not the overwhelming tide that now descended. The targeting arrays functioned. Missile batteries fired in cadence. But the sheer volume of incoming threats-from precision-guided cruise missiles to relentless aircraft waves-was simply beyond the system’s capacity. The defense buckled, not from incompetence, but from exhaustion.

On the front lines, the skies belonged to the Coalition. Squadrons flew in aggressive formation over both Central and Western Magdaran, helping the pincer movements, as if daring retaliation. PRR commanders, desperate to shield collapsing ground elements in Western Magdaran, threw everything into the air. The entirety of their air force took flight, wing after wing roaring toward the contested zones. There was too much, arriving too fast. For every successful intercept that struck true, two more were ruined failures. The comms channel between Magdaran air command and front-line pilots filled with chaotic demands, pleas, and death notices, while anti-air installations barked again and again before going silent.

Silvered Hells and Death’s Bells – Sky Above Magdaran

Imbrinium’s Hellion-II barrage arrived, systems the Nationalists were familiar with. The Nationalists, steeped in pre-war doctrines and stockpiled with Hellion systems, anticipated the strike. Their radar nets were prepared. Counter-electronic warfare protocols were primed. And when the missiles came screaming, their defenses responded in earnest. But preparation meant little now- not when so much happened so quickly. More than one hundred and forty Hellion-II cruise missiles surged successfully through the airspace, weaving through interference, riding algorithms designed to mimic weather anomalies and radar ghosts. The impact was catastrophic.

Communications networks blinked out, severed not by code but by concussion. Strategic relay nodes vanished in plumes of plasma and debris. Military convoys burned where they stood, engines stilled mid-redeployment. Commanders were evacuated, rushed to bunkers not for coordination-but survival. Tertiary locations, deep inland and barely mapped, suddenly became nerve centers for what was left of direction. Some survived the flames. Many didn’t.
Power grids collapsed, throwing entire sectors into darkness. Rail lines disintegrated, slicing logistics arteries in half. Weapons factories were torn open, machinery rendered useless under twisted beams and ruptured ground. The death toll soared-thousands dead as the buckling aerial infrastructure continued to sustain blow after blow.

Heaven’s Swords – Sky Above Magdaran

If Imbrinium’s Hellion-II barrage cracked the walls of the Nationalist defense, Andrenade’s strike broke the spine. Its timing-coinciding with the Hellion bombardment-meant it arrived in a theater already lit with fires, confusion, and overextended defenses. Nationalist high command, scrambling to mitigate the immediate devastation wrought by Imbrinium’s missiles and the scale of Coalition and PRR air operations, had not prioritized Andrenade’s signatures with equal urgency. The assumption: smaller waves, fewer assets, slower tempo. That assumption proved fatal.
Andrenade did not come slow. It came sharp. Strategic squadrons surged from multiple vectors, targeting not infrastructure in the abstract, but the living nerve centers of the Nationalist war machine. In Western Magdaran, command compounds that had survived earlier strikes were now turned to slag. Logistics hubs coordinating reinforcement and resupply routes vanished under high-altitude bombardment. Entire Nationalist formations were caught mid-mobilization, still charting eastward advance routes when they were shredded from above.

Leadership figures, both military and administrative, were targeted with surgical precision. Motorcades didn’t reach bunkers. Convoys were ripped apart on scorched highways. Some died mid-call. Others simply disappeared-swallowed by explosions that came without radar warning.
Western Magdaran became a graveyard of momentum. Columns routed through its valley systems never arrived. Ammunition caravans meant for Tabangi were never loaded. Forces destined to move south against beleaguered PRR forces were hamstrung. Those destined to move to attack the Coalition near the salient found their leadership crippled. The greatest danger wasn’t just the casualties-it was the sudden removal of decision-making capacity. Orders stopped flowing. Relief efforts scattered. Surveillance coverage went blind in key sectors. The effect on operations across the nation was profound. Fatal.

No Way Out – Sky Above Magdaran

The GRM Air Force, faced with an unstoppable tide of destruction, responded not with hesitation but with absolute commitment as they threw everything skyward. Hangars emptied in waves. Aging strategic bombers, unable to reach the enemy, were retrofitted mid-crisis with standoff air-to-air loads-being used as little more than missile boats in a desperate fight to survive. Suicide drones, some barely tested, were launched in dense flocks, colliding blindly with incoming missiles in a bid to blunt the storm.

Interceptors, outnumbered and outclassed, fought into enemy formations with reckless precision. Pilots who had never fired live in combat became aces by dusk-heroism born in the final breath, victories that would never be recorded as their aircraft eventually whirled out of the sky in flame. Wingmen perished before names could be written. And still, they flew. But valor could not turn the tide.
GRM squadrons were shredded in open climbs and hunted down while the situation for the air force and air defense in general grew darker by the moment. Emergency landings became death sentences. Forward bases glowed with fire from end to end. And for every act of resistance, another pilot met his unsung end.

Savion Masipag Braña, head of the GRM Air Force, the architect of what resilience remained, was found in his private command chamber, dead by his own hand. For days, his name was erased from dispatches. His funeral was unmarked and veiled, attended only by Padilla's closest advisors-no uniforms, no anthem, just faces weathered by a war they were now struggling to comprehend a victory from.

The People’s Flight; The People’s Fight – Hyganan

The 2nd People’s Corps, once the spearhead of revolutionary fervor in Western Magdaran, found itself drowning under a ceaseless Nationalist assault. PRR jets screamed overhead, chasing artillery and pinning down armor columns with precision, but below, the defense crumbled. Bombs fell true. Targets were neutralized. Yet the Nationalists pressed forward-ferocious, unyielding, and perfectly adapted to exploit a fractured enemy.

Cohesion within the 2nd Corps, already frayed by exhaustion and prior retreats, disintegrated under pressure. Platoons lost track of battalion command. Field orders contradicted reinforcements. Supply routes were interdicted before being established. Those meant to hold fell without signaling. Some tried to regroup, falling back toward positions carved from earlier victories. But the terrain was no longer familiar-former gains had been swallowed by the same fire that now chased them. Within days, the decision was no longer tactical-it was survival. The 2nd People’s Corps began a full retreat. Not in formation, not with ceremony, but in waves of scattered units abandoning what had once been considered irreversible progress.

As the 2nd People's Corps disintegrated into retreat, the PRR refused to let the collapse spiral into total regional failure. In swift response, the 1st People's Corps, still battered but intact, was rerouted toward Dimalaya Province, carrying with it the promise of renewed discipline and organized resistance. They were not alone. From distant factories and devastated suburbs came hundreds of volunteer brigades, some hastily formed from local militias, others composed of ideological fighters drawn from PRR political cadres. Ragged uniforms, patched weapons, uneven training-none of it mattered. What they brought was will, and both Hyganan and Dimalaya needed every ounce.

Their task was clear: secure Hyganan, reinforce defenses along arterial passes, and stabilize a province now pulsing with strategic volatility. The real key, however, lay in their alliance with the jihadi factions, already embedded and fortifying terrain in anticipation of Nationalist reprisals. These were fighters of faith and fire-entrenched, resolute, and well-versed in sacrificesin Hyganan. Their doctrines were different, but in Hyganan, the goal aligned: deny the enemy, hold their ground, and demand the future by blood and by blood alone.

[Greater Viet-Nam]

Joint Coalition Command
Dominga, Magdara

To say the entire situation on Dominga was a dumpster fire in of itself was alongside the mainland was an understatement.

Not long after after she had reached out to the Commonwealth Forces on Dominga, things were set in motion where Marichoness Trinidad had ascended the throne and with her came fleets from the Golden Throne. Chaos nearly came to ahead when marine detachments from the Golden Throne had started making their rounds of arrests unilaterally, supposedly as part of efforts to prosecute those responsible for the attrocities committed by the previous regeant in power. It took the deployment of MPs from the RVN Airborne brigades already stationed on the island and the appearence of General Trưởng herself to deescalate the situation.

And now here she was, waiting at her desk alongside representatives of the Magdaran Commonwealth on the island, as well as representatives from the other RVN branches stationed on the island, alongside representatives from other nations also stationed on the island. As the leader of the Golden Throne's Fleet had requested an audience with her, with the explanation being to set up communications between them and the Saigon government and to provide a better picture of what was to happen in the war, and how it could end.

Already they were shipping arms and ammunition to the island to bolster defense, and supposedly, they were also shouldering the burden of training leadership for the new Magdaran Commonwealth forces.

The intent there was known through their actions, the Golden Throne was making the war theirs.

With the war at sea between them and the mainland still being contested, the tension could be felt in the office.

---

Elsewhere on the Island...

"And you're telling me you were here to trade all of this Otaku shit for supplies?" asked Nguyễn Hồng Vinh, an ARVN Airbrone MP.

The man he was questioning shrugged, "Apparently, there's a demand here, on top of the Đồng we're pouring in to buy locally. Hoàng Hà Phương was a supply officer for one of the RVN Airbrone brigades on the island. Officially, she held the task any supply officer had in any military: keep the army fed and supplied. Things had improved greatly since the seventies and sixties, South Vietnam's military had been able to domestically produce their own rations and had been able to root out a good chunk of corruption within the ranks.

Regardless of these developments though, there had always came a demand for more freash ingredients for better meals, 'An army marched on its stomach.' the saying went. That combined with the slow trickling of supplies from Saigon, as well as the need to prop up the Magdaran Commonwealth meant that just like they had in the Vietnam War, the RVN armed forces stationed on the island one again bought local to augment their own rations.

Vietnamese Đồng did well enough but as with any free trade in wartime, came a separate underground trade for more hard-to-get items.

Normally the Military Police could uncover smuggling rings for oil, weapons, maybe even chocolate bars.

But this took the cake.

Vinh had pulled Phương over for reckless driving when her jeep barrelled down the highway like it was on a mission. It didn't take long after that for him to ask her what was inside the crates her jeep was carrying to find boxes and boxes of cartoon pony merch, manga and anime, seemingly all of them labelled under, "Propaganda materials" produced by the Political Warfare Division...

Clearly, they didn't come from the Poltical Warfare Division.

"It's not like I'm doing anything wrong officer. I'm still trading them in money, they just wanted something extra that they weren't able to get since this whole damn thing started."

Vinh raised an eyebrow, "And you have these contacts how?"

"Trade secret, officer."

Vinh sighed, "Right... and you're saying this is all above board?"

"Why tell ya when I can show ya?" Phương asked, nodding over to the seemingly innocent war-weary shop that had survived the bombings on the island by the skin of its teeth.

Vinh sighed again, this time exasperatedly. God, why did he choose this job? "Fine, but if this is even a little bit shady...

"It isn't I swear!"

"Sure, sure, keep moving." Vinh said gruffly, and so the two went in to meet Phương's contact.

Only to find a body.

The supply officer shrieked as Vinh drew his nightstick and gently pushed her away from the crime scene, "What the hell happened to him? I swear, I had nothing to do with that!"

Vinh glanced back at the body behind him, unsure of what to say, before he glanced back at Phương and radio'ed it in.

It wasn't long before sirens could be heard in the distance, as ARVN MP jeeps and local law enforcement arrived to cordon off the area.

Someone had gunned for one of their suppliers.

[Holy Marsh]

Movements of Sorrowful Souls – Jubalaistan

The death of the Imam did more than silence a voice-it created a vacuum of leadership and a growing chasm of interpretation between students. Within Jubalaistan's Islamic Council, the declaration of a full month-long mourning period rippled across mosques, ministries, and homes as both reverence and directive. Yet it did not come without friction.
At the center of the challenge stood Sheikh Abbas ibn Ramil Bailey, whose words reached corners of Jubalaistan that even official decrees struggled to touch. Charismatic and deeply versed in the Imam’s teachings, he argued not from defiance-but fidelity. According to Abbas, the Imam himself had mourned his beloved wife for ten days, believing that grief should be private, restrained, and not burden the functioning of state or spirit indefinitely. To push beyond that, the Sheikh insisted, would be to honor grief more than legacy.

His chief opponent was Commander Faisal al-Din Arnel Santos-not just a military strategist but one of the Imam’s most devoted spiritual students. To Santos, mourning was not merely symbolic-it was sacred. He recalled with clarity the Imam’s response to his own teacher’s death, where a full month of mourning had been declared to reflect the depth of guidance and spiritual inheritance. That precedent, he claimed, was the truest mirror of the Imam’s expectations.

The disagreement between Sheikh Abbas and Commander Santos was not marked by hostility. Each man believed he was protecting the Imam’s legacy. Each had seen the Imam mourn. But one remembered the brevity of sorrow; the other, its full embrace. Though Sheikh Abbas and Commander Santos cloaked their conflict in theological debate, the heart of their divergence ran deeper-into the marrow of power, personality, and how to mold a nation in the image of a prophet long gone. Each man had sworn loyalty to the Imam's vision, but what they saw in that vision was profoundly different.

For the Sheikh, religion was not rigid-it was living, adaptable, and meant to thrive in the complexity of global reality and modern diplomacy. He had brokered deals across sectors, drawn foreign investment into Jubalaistan, and cultivated relationships that blurred the edges of strict orthodoxy in favor of material prosperity and pragmatic cultural fusion. To him, the Imam's teachings were a foundation upon which evolution must be built.

Commander Santos saw no evolution-only adherence. The Imam was not a guidepost, but the final shape of truth, and deviation from his example meant diluting the very soul of Jubalaistan. He trained his soldiers not just in warfare, but in ritual. His camps ran on discipline shaped by scripture, not secular policy. To Santos, compromise was corruption. Both men were willing to fight for their ideals-proactively, decisively, and beyond mere debate. They built alliances in silence. The Sheikh deployed his wealth and networks; Santos, his brigades and loyal commanders. Each step in the mourning dispute was not only a reflection of grief-it was a chess move on a board where legacy, future governance, and ideological control were up for claim.

The eleventh day shattered the stillness with a quiet coup. Across Jubalaistan, while adherents of the thirty-day mourning remained in solemn silence, supporters of Sheikh Abbas ibn Ramil Bailey emerged into mosques and community halls. From the rural hamlets of Al-Mashriq to the bustling quarters of eastern Hubayra, they invoked legal technicalities-a dormant clause in regional governance law that permitted civic mobilization when majority quorum was absent.
And the absence was engineered.

With rival factions still honoring the mourning period, the Sheikh’s followers acted swiftly. They passed a flurry of localized resolutions: appointments to neighborhood councils, revisions to charity oversight boards, and shifts in clerical representation-minor on paper, but each tightening the Sheikh’s control over grassroots infrastructure. The timing was as brilliant as it was audacious.

Commander Faisal al-Din Arnel Santos and his allies erupted. In a letter circulated through military ranks, Santos condemned the meetings as illegitimate manipulations, “a betrayal not just of mourning, but of the Imam's discipline and order.” Other religious figures backed the charge, warning that Abbas had "mourned the man by reshaping his shadow."

When the two met-lifelong friends, bonded in study, divided by vision-the conversation collapsed into fury. No protocol. No reconciliation. Raised voices spilled into accusations, memories weaponized, and the sound of their conflict echoed far beyond the walls it was meant to stay within.
Publicly, nothing happened. Knowledge of the divide was hushed. The press was muted, footage suppressed, the gathering hidden beneath bureaucratic fog. But in private corners, the story moved like electricity: the Sheikh and the Commander had broken.

Beneath that fractured surface, a gesture of hope emerged. Both men contacted Mufti Karim al-Salman Datu Agustin. Growing in esteem, known for his willingness to listen, and never drawn into faction, the Mufti had become a spiritual ballast of Jubalaistan-a voice both revered and untethered. If anyone could reconcile reverence with rule, it was him.

Red Moon Over Kalinog – Kalinog

When the Ordenite missile barrage began, Kalinog didn’t panic. For weeks, the city had pulsed with preparation. As the logistical lifeline of the anti-fascist campaign, Kalinog had become a fortress in everything but name. Supply convoys traced their routes back to its rail yards, command centers flickered with multinational updates, and its sprawling defensive network had grown layer upon layer under PRR oversight.
Ordenite missiles, precision-engineered and launched en masse, closed in with deadly intent. But they didn’t meet an open target. The attack was detected near immediately and the layered defenses of the city sprung into action. Tiered interception systems lit up in sequence, catching missiles at range and closer with overlapping fields of fire. Radar arrays, hardened and obscured, fed targeting solutions to kinetic interceptors already primed.

Even as sirens wailed and skyfire laced the horizon, the city’s lifeblood didn’t stop moving. Trains kept arriving. Signals kept pinging. Troop concentrations continued to spread outward-not from safety, but from certainty that Kalinog would endure.
For all its fortifications and calculated defense layers, Kalinog was not invincible. The Ordenites, disciplined and determined, had arranged their attacks brilliantly. The missile barrage found weak seams and exploited them with grim precision. Cruise missiles struck key logistical hubs, obliterating warehouses, fuel depots, and transit coordination centers that had supported the anti-fascist effort for months. The city’s vast rail spine, once humming with the movement of materiel and wounded alike, twisted under the shockwave of successive detonations. The damage wasn’t total-but it was precise, and it bled the city’s rhythm.

Kalinog’s sprawling harbor, a node of Coalition supply and international aid, suffered direct hits across its infrastructure. Docks splintered beneath explosive impact. Shipping cranes collapsed into flame. Fuel reserves ignited, turning the shoreline into a wall of heat and smoke visible for miles inland in some places. Vessels were caught mid-loading, their hulls torn apart before alarms could clear crews to safety. Some ships burned until morning-others sank in place.

Throughout the night, PRR defense forces scrambled, tracking incoming waves and coordinating last-minute intercepts. Mobile launchers repositioned in real time. Firefighters raced toward impact zones while aircraft launched interception sorties through jammed coverage.

When morning broke over Kalinog, the city was heavy with smoke but intact. As the echoes of missile strikes faded and sirens fell silent, PRR command teams emerged from hardened shelters to assess what remained. The results were grim. Hundreds lay dead, civilians and soldiers alike. Among them, several respected local commanders-men and women whose tactical fluency had shaped regional logistics. Their loss was personal, felt in quiet corners of barracks and briefings alike. The city's port, once a seamless conveyor of supply and reinforcement, now staggered into action. Efficiency dropped, coordination lines lagged, repairs needed more hands than schedules could afford.
But the city still lived.

The final report, compiled and vetted across military and civil sectors, made the case clearly: Kalinog had endured. The missile impacts had hurt, but they hadn’t crippled. Infrastructure remained functional, supply lines-though bruised-still flowed. No strategic objectives were lost. Damage, while extensive, was well within operational tolerances. Relief swept through leadership like a tide. Not celebration-but exhalation. No declarations were made, no banners unfurled. The PRR knew victory didn’t come from surviving a strike-it came from staying ready for the next one.
And so, while rebuilding began, it was the defensive grid that took priority. Interception arrays expanded. Detection systems recalibrated. New launchers moved into new positions.
Kalinog would mourn. Kalinog would rebuild. But most of all-Kalinog would prepare.

Ready and Willing – Bagarana

On Isla Bagarana, where the surf whispered quietly now that the only was pacified, Kríerlords Surr and vis Konkordán arrived from the Golden Throne with the weight of empire at their backs. Their meeting with General Rizaldo Guillermo, architect of the Commonwealth’s success, had all the trappings of alliance-except its core. They came bearing gifts wrapped in steel. Advanced weapon systems and everything needed to finetune his veterans into elites. And even better, a fleet prepared to ferry both corps of Guillermo’s forces across the straits-quickly, safely, and without the headaches that had plagued him thusly.

But the price was not measured in coin or land. They wanted silence. Not neutrality. Silence.
Specifically, they requested Guillermo look the other way as they purged Isla Bagarana of elements considered disloyal to the new Queen of the Commonwealth. He assumed this would not simply be dissidents in arms-but skeptics, whisperers, those who questioned the legitimacy or pace of the regime shift. The island would be unified behind a singular banner when it was done.

Guillermo listened, weathered and unmoved on the surface-but beneath, there stirred a tension between duty and pragmatism. The offer could empower his forces beyond expectation. It could save lives on the mainland. It could shift the balance. And yet-he knew the kind of silence they asked for. The kind that costs memory. The kind that stains reputation. The kind that buries names without funerals. If he were other men this would bring disquiet. The general was beyond caring about such trivial matters now, though.
He did not hesitate forever. When he answered, there was no ambiguity. The Kríerlords had come with power in their pockets and blood in their intentions, and Guillermo met them on their terms with teeth bared. “If someone’s going to get in the way of the new regime,” he said, eyes sparkling behind the smoke of his cigar, “I hope they’re dragged outside and executed. We don’t have time for bullshit on my watch. Hang, burn, shoot whoever the hell you think needs to fucking go.”

He wanted the weapons. He wanted the logistics. He wanted his forces on the mainland, tearing holes in fascist trenches, stomping out communist cells, and executing his own brutal arithmetic on traitors who dared to muddy the Commonwealth’s future. The details didn’t matter. The politics didn’t interest him. His agenda, refined by years of attrition and betrayal, had narrowed to one truth: he was there to put people in the ground.

He gave no ceremonial farewell, only a curt nod. “Good luck. Do what needs doing,” with that, he turned from the Kríerlords and their cold elegance, walking toward the war that awaited him-not on islands, but across straits and open plains. He would be pleased to show those pussies in 10th Corp and those high-flying fools in the 5th what some real war fighters could do.

He left instructions with his aide, sharp and unambiguous. They shared the full operational layout of the two Commonwealth Corps stationed on Isla Bagarana. The report detailed their supply status, readiness percentages, and projected landing zones once maritime corridors opened under escort. Clarified the political leanings of all notable officers, and established new coordination protocols for integration with Coalition forces upon arrival, should it come to that.

For Guillermo, this wasn’t about trust-it was about momentum. The Kríerlords had offered movement. And movement meant pressure-pressure that could be turned against fascists, against communists, against anyone foolish enough to stand in the way of his campaign’s brutal arithmetic.
With fates delegated and silence paid for, Guillermo moved to his next task: rallying his Corps commanders. Behind closed doors, he would chart the tempo, hammer out discipline, and fuel the fire. The mainland beckoned-and with it, the promise of steel and blood.

[Mokastana]

Defudi, Middle of Magdara

The dockyards of Defudi were busy with Federal transport ships. Military transports up and down the docks were unloading tanks, trucks, armored fighting vehicles and more. This was the initial deployment zone of the 1st and 4th Corps of 8th Army, the original professional core of the Mokan, then Federal Army.

Roughly 400,000 Federal soldiers were unloaded and organizing here for the march north, aiming to secure logistic routes north. With Kalinog nearly overflowing with forces from all over Greater Dienstad, and large numbers of communists moving into Daban, the Federation moved to claim Defudi as their own. Technically the local government was still the communist government, and the Federation had no intention to change that, but military control was becoming more and more important.

From Defudi, the Federation would secure highways and train tracks north, ensuring a steady supply of logistics towards the Commonwealth and Coalition pockets.

Solisian Islands, roughly 1,000 Kilometers from Dominga

The first Battery of Kruzyel-E Anti Ship missiles clicked on, crew scanned the seas with radar while others tested communications with observers, including flights from Dominga. Although the range of the Kruzyel-E was only around 400 kilometers, its supersonic missile would make short work of any attempted landing on the Solisian Islands. To support the Kruzyel-Es, Whirlwind batteries, loaded with LY4045 Anti Ship Missiles, had the range to keep combat ships away from the Islands, as long as they had targets.

Three batteries of each were deployed to the Islands, a full Anti Ship Missile Battalion, here to provide moral and military support to the Solisians. They would soon be joined by an Air Defense Battalion. If this was going to be the final supply line into Dominga, the Federation would aid in keeping it open.

Operation: Tin Guard - Central Magdaran

The 1st Corps of the Federal 7th Army had arrived in the county only a few weeks ago. While three other Corps dug in and built defensive rings around Kalisgon, 1st Corps was the Reserve, ready to be deployed to plug gaps or take advantage of breaks. While Generalissimo Minor Nataka had wanted Generalissimo Minor Anthony McCready to play it cautiously, McCready was an External Army Commander who knew the best defense was a good offense.

Seeing the Morridanes break through the lines with no plan of what to do now, McCready gave them the order to push east, and in response, his 1st Corps pushed west, leading any available coalition forces with them. For days they battered the fascists and now, so close to encircling the enemy, but they held a corridor to escape from.

If they couldn't break the lines, then he could turn the thin strip into hell. Every available bomber and missile at his command was sent to destroy the Ordenites and fascists trying to escape north. MLRS batteries erased grid squares and artillery pounded, trying to make the escape route a gauntlet of fire and death.

[Mokastana]

Etiquette and Politics
Amadah, Jubalaistan

Almost two weeks after the passing of Imam Bayani, Sheikh Abbas ibn Ramil Bailey was invited to the hotel suite that the PUF was using as its embassy while the real one was being built. The Division within Jubalaisti society was becoming clear to anyone with an ear to listen for it, and the Federation wished to avoid a civil war in the new country so soon after it was freed from fascist occupation. If war was inevitable, then the PUF was going to ensure the victor was someone they could trust.

The Naval Infantry guarded the Hotel like a military base, with a full Platoon of Embassy Defense Group Special Forces protecting the building directly. With nearly 200 thousand Federal Troops now on the island, whatever happened next, the PUF would be a determining factor in.


Ambassador Thea Cunanan greeted the Sheikh, offering local beverages along with Motokatan Tea for the meeting.

“Sheikh Abbas, thank you for coming. I want to offer the sympathy of the People of Motokata, and the rest of the People's Unified Federation, for the passing of the Imam Bayani. Although I never had the honor of knowing him in person, his impact on the people of Jubalaistan shall be felt for generations to come. May those who follow in his footsteps continue to guide this great country to success.”

Ambassador Thea Cunanan allowed a pause out of respect for the late Imam.

“The Federation wishes to provide the AIS with economic and military support, in the form of investments, construction, and stockpile. We are already working on restoring the dockyards of your major cities. Our engineers can help build factories, both for civilian and military production. The Federation has thousands of aircraft and ships in storage that would benefit a newly created nation. Maintaining these older weapons cost money, so by accepting these as gifts, you will be helping us in the long run, while giving your nation a head start on its future.

To be clear, the People's Unified Federation wishes to continue to see prosperity and goodwill come to Jubalaistan. However we have concerns with the schism occurring between yourself and Commander Santos. Division does not often lead to prosperity. Commander Santos has influence over the military, and the remaining jihadists. Although lacking in skill they do have numbers. This schism can lead to much destruction if not healed soon.

Motokata and the Federation aims to see a Jubalaistan that welcomes international trade, but can also support its religious siblings across the region in their own fights against fascism. Commander Santos will be valuable to the future of Jubalaistan, but if his ideals bring harm to the island, then the Federation will understand if such ideals need to be removed.

The Federation is willing to support your efforts in bringing Jubalaistan into the future.”

[State of Ordena]

CARINATAN.

Gregor Körver paced restlessly around his makeshift command post in the provincial capital of Carinatan, the city only recently retaken in blood and fire. The stale air inside the commandeered municipal building was thick with cigarette smoke and the sharp tang of sweat-soaked uniforms. Dispatch riders came and went in a steady stream, each delivering reports more dire than the last.

Word had just reached him of a renewed Coalition offensive one that had caught the entire Army Group Center off guard. Intelligence had insisted that the enemy’s main thrust would come from the south, driving on Sibulangon in a direct confrontation. But instead, the Coalition had struck like a hammer from Dimayala and Angbani, surging forward under the cover of overwhelming air superiority. Their sudden breakthrough had torn a gaping wound in Central Magdaran, sowing confusion and panic among units that had barely recovered from the last round of fighting.

Gregor had been trying for hours to reach Generaloberst Haring, whose formations were supposed to anchor the central line. No response. He switched to Army Group North, hoping Brandt could shed light on the unfolding disaster again, only static. Even Generalfeldmarschall von Kohler, the overall theater commander, could not be raised. The silence pressed down like a vise on Körver’s mind, and the grim expressions of his staff told him they were thinking the same thoughts he was too afraid to say aloud.

When the field telephone finally rang, its shrill tone cut through the oppressive gloom like a blade. Körver seized the receiver, half-expecting the weary voice of Haring or Brandt.

“Generaloberst Körver, are you receiving me well?” crackled a voice through the line, distorted but unmistakably calm.

“This is Körver speaking,” he snapped back, tension sharpening his words. “Who is this?”

“This is Generaladmiral Wilhelm von Falkenberg, Navy Group Command, Western Dienstad. It does my heart good to hear your voice, Generaloberst.”

Körver ran a hand over his damp forehead, pushing aside a stack of communiqués littered with red exclamation marks. “Generaladmiral, I’ve been trying to reach anyone—Haring, Brandt, even Von Kohler himself. There’s nothing but silence. What the hell is happening out there?” His voice cracked, the question spilling out more like a plea. He glanced at a map pinned to the wall, its surface riddled with pins and handwritten notes, most now meaningless.

A tense pause crackled through the line before Falkenberg spoke again. “They’re gone, Körver. There was a concentrated airstrike heavy bombers, precision strikes on command convoys and forward headquarters. We have confirmation that Haring, Brandt, and Von Kohler were all among the dead. The enemy’s aim was clear: decapitation. And they nearly succeeded.”

Körver’s breath caught in his throat. He exhaled slowly, the reality settling like cold iron in his chest. In one devastating blow, the Coalition had severed the head from the body of the Krijgsmacht in Magdaran. The silence on the other end of the phone pressed in again until Falkenberg continued.

“I have assumed overall operational command for now,” Falkenberg went on, his tone formal but edged with fatigue. “But you are the senior surviving ground commander. Effective immediately, I am transferring Generalfeldmarschall von Kohler’s authority to you. You will command the Krijgsmacht in Magdaran.”

The words fell like a hammer blow. Körver forced himself to stand straighter, shoulders squaring as the weight of it settled. Around him, staff officers watched, eyes wide, hands hovering over maps and radios. Outside the walls of Carinatan, tens of thousands of men looked to him now—men who had no idea that their chain of command had been gutted in a single night.

He nodded stiffly, though Falkenberg could not see it. “Understood, Generaladmiral. There is a corridor still open—reports say we can still withdraw forces toward Sibulangon before the Coalition closes it and crushes what’s left of Army Group Center. I’ll need to relocate the headquarters to Baidenia immediately. Carinatan is no longer suffice.”

“Do what you must, Körver,” Falkenberg said. There was a brief pause, then softer, “And may God watch over you. Over all of us.”

As the line went dead, Körver set the receiver down with deliberate care. He took a final look at the cluttered command post—maps, half-empty mugs, the stale remnants of stale cigars. He turned to his staff, his voice hoarse but steady.

“Pack it up. We’re moving out for Baidenia. Have the surviving corps commanders assembled there. We’ll rebuild the line, piece by piece if we have to. And someone get me a list of every commander left alive we’re going to need new generals by dawn.”

CENTRAL MAGDARAN.

Army Group Center had been brutally unraveled by the sudden, coordinated Coalition offensive that struck from directions it had not fully prepared for. From Angbani and Dimayala the enemy surged forward with ferocious resolve, pressing their assault with the bulk of their available air power to shatter the already strained front. The results were catastrophic: entire formations were thrown back in disarray, with Army Group Center and GRM forces forced into a frantic withdrawal through terrain that had swiftly become perilous killing grounds under relentless bombardment. Once more, the Ordenite Army attempted to stitch the bleeding front together, but these desperate efforts only compounded the carnage, leading to further slaughter and mounting losses.

The Tabangi Fields became, in grim theory, the final bastion an improvised last stand and staging ground for a more orderly retreat, a desperate bid to stave off total encirclement and annihilation. Heavy sacrifices were made by rear-guard units and armored spearheads alike to keep a narrow corridor open, buying precious time for entire armies to slip the noose that threatened to close around them.

The 120th and 97th Panzer Armies bore the brunt of these delaying actions, suffering punishing losses to prevent the Coalition from collapsing the corridor outright. What remained of these once-formidable armored hosts could now muster scarcely 36% of their original fighting strength. The 87th Field Army and the battered 9th Krasnovan Army fared little better—both ground down by the ferocity of the Coalition’s advance and relentless strikes from above. For these exhausted formations, the order of the day was clear: survive, hold the passage open at any cost, and fall back to the relative safety of the friendly lines near Sibulangon.

Additional formations hastily assembled to reinforce the withdrawal took the brunt of the fighting as well. The GRM’s veteran 4th Army distinguished itself as a critical bulwark, its sacrifice pivotal in keeping the escape corridor from collapsing altogether. Yet the cost was heavy alongside them, the 101st and 99th Panzer Armies, supported by elite contingents from the Republican Guard and the GRM’s battle-hardened 3rd Army, paid dearly to buy the retreat westward.

Amidst this chaos, Army Group Center suffered a further blow with the sudden, untimely death of Generaloberst Haring. For a brief but dangerous moment, the command structure buckled as subordinate commanders scrambled to coordinate what was left of their shattered forces. However, this paralysis did not last. Gregor Körver, recently appointed as overall theater commander, moved quickly to reestablish communication and assert control over the unraveling front. Under his orders, all remaining formations within the threatened pocket were directed to break contact and funnel through the corridor with all speed, pulling back to regroup behind defensive lines further west.

What emerged from the inferno at Tabangi was a battered remnant—bloodied but unbroken clinging to the hope that the sacrifice bought with so many lives would grant them time to regroup, rearm, and one day return the favor to the Coalition in kind.

SIBULANGON.

The city of Sibulangon had, until now, been spared the worst of the brutal fighting raging further east. Yet it had become the final bastion of relative safety for the battered remnants of Army Group Center, whose retreat through the tenuous corridor pried open at great cost despite relentless Coalition attempts to sever it had become a grim procession of exhausted soldiers and battered columns of armor and artillery. It was widely anticipated, with the Coalition’s decisive successes in the central sector, that Sibulangon would soon become their next target.

The city’s population, which had swollen to over 650,000 with refugees and displaced persons, was now being hastily evacuated westward. Relentless air strikes had left infrastructure across the Greater Regional Mandate in ruins, and the civilian masses were seen as a much-needed reservoir of labor to clear debris, rebuild roads, and keep vital supply lines open deeper in the Ordenite rear. Only about 20,000 conscripted laborers would remain behind in Sibulangon, their lives effectively signed over to the garrison to dig fortifications, repair airstrips, and man supply dumps as the noose inevitably tightened.

Beyond the city itself, the entire province had become the staging ground for a massive reinforcement effort. More than 600,000 fresh Ordenite troops had landed on the coast several days prior, their arrival delayed but not deterred by the Coalition’s ferocious air campaign that had pounded port facilities and convoys. Alongside them came a formidable array of anti-air batteries, radar systems, and mobile SAM sites, rapidly deployed in concentric rings around Sibulangon and its approaches to blunt the Coalition’s dominance in the skies.

For the survivors of Army Group Center shattered after weeks of attritional battles to hold the corridor open—the influx of reinforcements was nothing short of salvation. Among them was the GRM’s battered 4th Army, which had bled itself dry to keep the vital passage intact. Now they regrouped and rearmed, shielding what remained of the central front behind the steel curtain of the newly arrived Ordenite formations.

High above, the renewed might of the Ordenite air arm roared to life. Squadrons of fighter-interceptors and electronic warfare aircraft carved contrails across the sky, screening waves of Racher Strategic Bombers and Condor Heavy Bombers as they droned eastward toward the sprawling front. Once within range but still far enough to avoid Coalition interceptors the bombers began unleashing volleys of air-to-ground precision munitions and long-range cruise missiles. Priority targets included troop columns, field depots, and the vital arteries feeding the Coalition’s forward momentum each identified by an expanding constellation of drones loitering far ahead.

The first waves would strike, turn back to rearm and refuel, and be replaced by fresh formations, in a relentless cycle meant to grind down the Coalition’s newly won gains and remind their commanders that Ordenite air power could still reach deep behind enemy lines. To many in the high command, this renewed offensive in the skies echoed the ferocity of Operation Rebound in Western Magdaran a bitter hope that, once more, the Coalition would pay dearly for every mile gained in Central Magdaran’s charred plains and broken cities.

For Sibulangon, the reprieve was ending. Its streets, once crowded with fleeing columns and refugee carts, now bristled with new anti-air batteries, camouflaged fuel convoys, and infantry battalions digging in for the storm to come. Everyone knew the city’s days as a haven were numbered; the question was how much blood could be exacted before its streets burned like all the others.

[Morrdh]

Dominga Ops,
MEF Dominga
Isla Dominga

The naval battle still hung in the balance, both sides having taken a battering but Coalition reinforcements were starting to trickle in. Attack runs by maritime strike aircraft hadn’t gone as well as hoped, suffering losses for negligible gains against the Ordenite fleets. Admiral Mallett given the decision to launch another such strike to the air officers, they had the expertise to determine whether another strike was feasible and importantly whether it would be worth doing.

Nipping away at the Ordenites, “death by a thousand cuts”, would work if the numbers game stayed in the Coalition’s favour. Ideally if they could smash the enemy fleet to the north of Dominga it would make dealing with the southern element that much easier. With the arrival of additional Coalition forces he was more willing to be bolder.

Going round the room he got confirmation from an officer that Morridane submarines, both nuclear and diesel, were in position even if he wasn’t told their exact location. Next up was the air officers who reckoned that strike aircraft could be sent out for another attack run, though the recommendation was for a series of four plane groups to attack the Ordenites from different angles and over a sustained period of time. It would help keep the pressure up on the Ordenites and, amongst other things, gave them plenty of distractions to worry about.

Mallett started giving out orders; the Morridane carriers to the north of Dominga were ordered to sail west with minimal escort and remain on the far reaches of the ongoing battle. Next he ordered for the remaining cruisers, frigates, destroyers and attack boats of his north fleet to form up into a single formation. This formation was to then sail at full speed directly at the Ordenite and, in Mallett’s own words, “Ram and board the bastards if you have to!”

It would be bold, but it remained to be seen whether fortune would favour it.

---

Central Magdara

The land on land had gone better than expected with the near collapse of the Nationalist lines, heralding a resurgence of the Commonwealth’s fighting spirit. Granted there was a degree of caution, mainly to avoid overextending and overstretching supply lines. It was agreed by the Morridanes that there was a need for consolidation, improve supply lines, but it was felt that the pressure should be kept up on the Ordenite-Nationalist forces. So skirmishes were the order of the day, along with other attempts to keep enemy forces on the backfoot for as long as possible whilst the preparations and strength were built up for another big push.

Making a return to the battlefield was the Morridane 1st Army, joining the battle alongside the 2nd Army to allow it some breathing room. With both field armies deployed, a unit rotation system was put into practice to allow the Morridane soldiers the chance to be pulled out of the line to rest and to rearm. It was all a balance between keeping the pressure up on the enemy, keeping troops fresh and having a ready reserve in the event of a major attack. Though intel and observation activities were stepped up to give as much a warning as possible of an impending attack and possibly even head it off.

Further forces were inbound with the confirmation being received that the Morridane 3rd Army would be deployed as part of a surge in troop numbers. Amongst these fresh forces would be troops from Norgorka in Central Greater Dienstad, a mixture of veterans of the various Krasnovan Wars and newer recruits. It was partially to support Morridane efforts but also to provide more combat experience that could filter back to the rest of the Norgorkan military, especially as the prospect of war in Central GD was rearing it’s head.

Conscious of the need to control the skies, the Morridanes brought up air defence units closer to the front consisting of RMAF Regiment manned SAM batteries with heavier Skyguard units operated by the Morridane Army. Fighter jets of the RMAF would be heavily committed, seeking to engage attacking Ordenite aircraft in mass dogfights. Bomber aircraft would slowly begin to arrive, though it would be a while before these would see action as the RMAF’s main focus was still on low-level strike aircraft attacking enemy airfields.

[Holy Marsh]

Makhaisara was a city built on contradiction-where sacred devotion met the shattered outer edges of a civil war. Once a modest border city known for its shrines and fertile lowlands, the war had transformed it into a strategic lynchpin in the new order. After the Theocratic Matriarchy of Holy Marsh annexed the Northern Provinces at the invitation of their war-weary inhabitants, Makhaisara found itself straddling the border of two worlds: the stable Theocracy and the bleeding heart of the Magdaran Commonwealth.

The city boomed. Its streets, once lined with the modest business environment a city its size desired, were now filled with rapid modular housing, packed in rows like steel reeds against the northern wind. Taller business buildings and government complexes were being rapidly constructed. The influx of refugees-men, women, and children fleeing the encroaching violence further south-poured into Makhaisara by the tens of thousands. The Theocracy, true to its reputation, did not turn them away. Instead, it unleashed its formidable state machinery in a massive act of divine charity.

Refugee camps became permanent districts. Hospitals were erected nearly overnight, bearing the flags of the many Sardas of the Marshite faith. Supply convoys trundled in like clockwork from Pushania, their armored columns equal parts relief and deterrence. Food, medicine, clean water, and holy texts were all distributed with the precision of a sanctified machine. Marshite clergy walked alongside security forces and engineers alike, their chants harmonizing with the rumble of industry and the cries of the displaced.

Though overcrowded and overburdened, Makhaisara became a symbol-both to those who found refuge and those watching from afar. It was proof that faith could build as well as it could conquer. Here, the edicts of the Arsi’Elkon were law, but they were not imposed with a gun. They were lived, in food lines and public sermons, in healing tents and rebuilt schools. Life was not easy, but it was safe. The prayers at dusk were loud, and for many, they were thankful.

For all its order and piety, the Theocracy was not immune to the jagged resistance of transition. Makhaisara, a city both blessed and burdened by its sudden prominence, now sat beneath the full weight of the Karda’s will. With the annexation came not just Marshite protection and charity, but the complete submersion of the region into the Theocracy’s political and spiritual architecture. Secular institutions-courts, councils, civil offices-were swept away with a quiet but absolute efficiency. Their remnants were either absorbed or dismantled, their personnel dismissed or retrained under Marshite guidance. Where once a city council met to resolve disputes, now sat a conclave of Inquisitors, cloaked in the vestments of their particular Sardas, tasked not with representation, but with order.

The Inquisition, that most fearsome instrument of the faith, assumed all responsibilities of law enforcement. Their presence was immediate and unmistakable: armored patrols in fighting vehicles with the Inquisitors on top, checkpoints with iconography etched into ballistic plating, and swift judgments rendered on street corners in the name of harmony. Those local officials who pledged themselves to the faith and its laws were integrated and uplifted. Those who balked-whether out of confusion, loyalty to a failed order, or fear-were quietly reassigned, reeducated, or removed.

Marshite law now stood alone. To many, it was a welcome trade. Order was preferable to chaos, sanctity to slaughter. And unlike the rulers of old, the Marshites came bearing both doctrine and bread. For the vast majority, particularly the refugees who had already lost everything, the stability was a balm.

But even those with faith understood the truth: this would take time. Even the most radiant systems stumble in new terrain. The city’s old bones creaked under the weight of divine bureaucracy. Permits were delayed, rituals misunderstood. Some city blocks saw fuel deliveries double-booked, while others went dry for days. A small but growing black market emerged, something borne less out of bucking trend and more out of the confusion of the highly capitalistic mindset being replaced by the considerably less so Theocracy. Even the Inquisition, mighty as it was, faced shortages of trained interpreters and local guides, leading to occasional oversteps and miscommunications. None of this sparked revolt. The people of Makhaisara had seen worse. It barely even registered as a notable concern, as all but the least educated had understood that with the safety of the Theocracy came the enforcement and reorganization according to it’s will.

Nonetheless, it was important for concerns to be addressed as they arose. That is what drove the former Governor here. Governor Amarjit Singh stood tall on the observation platform of the makeshift office he had co-opted for his time in the city, his saffron shawl catching the wind. His eyes, sharp despite age, took in the expanse of Makhaisara with something more than nostalgia-something closer to a resigned pride. A city in rebirth. A people in transition. And an old order quietly walking itself off the stage.

He had always known this moment would come.

As a senior Sarda official of Marshism in the region and the last civilian governor of the Northern Provinces under the Commonwealth, Singh had long balanced the line between secular administration and religious identity. He had fought for autonomy, for rights, for recognition-not to defy those who came in good faith, but to prepare his people for the day that faith was forever shattered. When that day came in flame and blood, and the Commonwealth tore itself into pieces, it was Singh who had gone to the Theocracy in the north and asked-calmly, soundly-for annexation.

It was the only sane path. And now that it had come, he welcomed it.

Makhaisara was now under the Karda’s rule. The laws he once enacted had been discarded, the officials he once appointed quietly transitioned into new roles-or none at all. Singh, for his part, asked for no exemption. He had never sought power for himself, only stewardship. And if the Marshites believed others better suited, then he would guide where he could, and retreat when asked.

Today was about guidance. His arrival had been unannounced, at his request. He didn’t want fanfare. He wanted honesty. Alongside him strode Commander Rajinder Kaur, the steel of the old world still clinging to her posture. Where Singh was serenity, Kaur was unbending discipline. Once the head of provincial security forces, she had been overseeing their demobilization and retraining for weeks now-working side by side with Marshite commanders to reshape her officers into pious warriors of the new regime.

The two moved from meeting to meeting, speaking with Inquisitors and clergy, local elders and relocated officials. They toured a soup kitchen where magenta-robed monks distributed lentil stew alongside armored Marshite clergy.. They stood in the charred husk of a former civic hall, now draped in blue and gold scripture, where disputes were judged by faith instead of statute.

Concerns were raised-gently, and with the care of people who knew the danger of speaking too freely. Shortages. Delays. The suddenness of the change. The confusion of the refugees, many of whom came from outside the Marshite faith and were unsure what was expected of them. Singh listened carefully, offering what small reassurances he could. Not promises-those were not his to make-but a hand on a shoulder, a whisper to an Inquisitor to show mercy, a quiet word with clergy to be patient.

“This city breathes,” he told Kaur as they walked toward a new dormitory block. “But its lungs are unfamiliar with the air. We must help it breathe deeper, or it will choke.”

Kaur did not reply at first. Her eyes scanned the rooftops, alert by instinct. Finally she spoke, her voice low.

“I served a system that died screaming. I’m not eager to do the work of building a new one when we have those better suited to do so.”

Singh nodded. He did not argue. She was right.

And still-this was the path. The only path. And though he knew there was no true seat for him in the Marshite order, he would walk this road as long as it would carry him. And for now, it carried them further into the day, longer into the night.

The day had been full-full of walking, full of listening, full of navigating the gentle but unyielding tides of the new faith-made state. Governor Singh and Commander Kaur had played their parts as they always had: steady, deliberate, understanding their place in a world that no longer belonged to them. But the city still stood. The people still hoped. And the day had ended without violence. That was more than most could claim in these years.

They returned to their hotel near the city center, a low-built but elegant place of stone and timber that had once housed bureaucrats and merchants in more stable times. Now, it was ringed with Marshite sentries and Inquisitorial liaisons, but within its walls, it remained quiet-almost defiantly so. A place suspended, momentarily, from history.

Their room overlooked the southern edge of Makhaisara. Not far from the rail station where refugee convoys arrived and departed under the gaze of armed faith. Their bags were sparse. Neither had traveled with much. It was never meant to be more than a temporary visit. But as they slipped behind the closed door, and the layers of duty fell from their shoulders like ceremonial cloaks, it became clear that time-however short-was theirs.

Theirs in a way it had not been in years.
Their relationship had begun in secrecy, back when the world still wore masks of civility. The Queen had become incredibly anti-religion in her declining years, viewing many of its officials and clergy as potential traitors. As such, they both knew they had to keep their feelings concealed, lest she view them as enemies to be destroyed. Meetings under cover of official business. Glances exchanged behind speeches and briefings. Two lives bound not just by affection, but by the same dream-a future where they would not have to hide. The war had changed that. And strangely, it had made their love freer. Not easier, never that. But open.

In the dark, they held each other with a quiet intensity, not desperate, not afraid. Simply knowing. The silence between them was full of all the things they didn’t have to say.

They slept.
At 4:11 AM, Kaur’s eyes opened. Old habits. A soldier’s instincts. The city was calm, but her body refused peace.
She rose, ever careful not to disturb him. The soft light of the hallway bathed her in amber as she stepped barefoot to the small, cheap kitchenette that the hotel offered in its suites, poured a glass of water, and walked to the window.

The skyline of Makhaisara stretched before her- new spires, low domes, faint ribbons of moving headlights on relief trucks, many of them painted in the Theocracy’s colors- varied, depending on Sarda. To the south, the lights of refugee camps glowed like restless embers. How many called this place home now? She struggled to consider the fact that soon enough more refugees would call this place home than its own residents. And beyond them, in the far distance, a flickering horizon-the dull red flashes of artillery. The smallest pinpricks of helicopters or aircraft. The contrails of missiles that like silk threaded small lines across an unforgiving sky.

The front.

Somewhere out there, Commonwealth forces clashed with the UNF and their Ordenite allies. A dirty, grinding conflict of heroes and drone strikes, of massed infantry and cybernetic misdirection, of suicidal pilots and daring tank commanders. The Theocracy had not yet been pulled in directly, but it was a fiction to believe it could last.

Sooner or later, the tide would reach Makhaisara. It had always been a matter of time.
But for now, the city breathed. Even with its strange new lungs. She took a sip. The water was cold and mineral-rich. From the mountains, likely. Like the kind her grandmother once drew from a well near the orchard. She closed her eyes.

The rustle of sheets and the creak of the old mattress signaled his stirring. Governor Singh opened his eyes slowly, blinking into the dimness of the room. The silhouette of Rajinder at the window, glass in hand, was painted gently against the horizon by the deep blue of the pre-dawn sky. He rather enjoyhed the view.
"You’re awake early," he said, his voice heavy as he awoke slowly.
She turned her head, offering a faint smile. “Couldn’t sleep.”
He sat up, drawing the blanket around his bare shoulders as the cooler air crept in from the window. “Something wrong?”
She shook her head. “Just thinking.”

He rose and crossed to her side, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind. The glass in her hand trembled ever so slightly before she steadied it. He kissed the top of her shoulder, letting silence fill the space between them.
“I was dreaming,” he murmured. “Of walking through a schoolyard. Children were laughing. Some wore uniforms, others red robes. Marshite and local. All learning together. In peace.”
“A nice dream,” she replied, voice soft.
He nodded. “Maybe a sign.”
She tilted her head against his. “Or wishful thinking.”
“Same thing, sometimes,” he replied with a grin, coaxing a dry chuckle from her.

They sat together on the edge of the bed a few minutes later, the city quiet beyond their window, the sounds of battle too distant to reach them here. His hands rested on hers, fingers worn from age and work, her palms still calloused from years of command.

“The annexation,” he said, “it’s going better than I expected.”
“It is,” she admitted, “in many ways. The people are cooperating. The Theocracy is...intense, but organized. And sincere. That counts for something.”
“I thought we’d be fighting even now,” he said, shaking his head. “But no. The Sardas are filled. Supplies are arriving. Even the Inquisition is behaving, mostly.”

She didn’t laugh. But she didn’t argue.
He looked at her, his eyes searching hers. “We’ve been given something rare, Raj. A second chance. Not just for us, but for all of this. For the north. For the people.”
Her expression softened. “I want to believe that.”
“Then do.”
She exhaled slowly, letting the air leave her chest like a burden set down. “I want to retire,” she whispered. “Buy that old vineyard near the border. Open a school. Teach girls how to shoot and grow fruit trees. Necessary skills for a necessary people.”
“You’ll be terrifying,” he said with a smirk.
“They’ll be the best damned farmers this side of the border.”

He leaned forward and kissed her, gently, full of the years they hadn’t had-and maybe, just maybe, full of the years they still would.
“I’ll raise goats,” he said when they parted. “Terrible, noisy, smelly goats.”
“They’ll match you well,” she replied dryly.
Laughter echoed in the room, soft and shared.
For a while, their worries melted into quiet hope. The annexation, the politics, the war-they became shadows at the edge of the light they allowed themselves. In the warm silence of the hotel room, two weary souls found a fragment of peace. The world outside was complex, dangerous, and uncertain. But here, in this small room above a city on the edge of history, there was still room to dream.

The darkness had just begun to pale with hints of violet and silver when the lovers settled back into the quiet calm of their room. The buzz of the city remained hushed, like the world itself held its breath before the dawn. Beneath the window, rows of tents and makeshift shelters mingled with crumbling brick and polished steel-old Makhaisara and new Marshite reconstruction sharing uneasy space.

She lay beside him, her head resting against his chest, listening to the slow rhythm of his heartbeat. The silence, comforting in its simplicity, was broken only by the faint crackle of the heating unit and the occasional distant boom of the war not quite far enough away.

“I received word about my transfer,” Rajinder said softly, almost absently.
Amarjit’s arm tightened around her slightly. “You’re going?”
She nodded. “Orders came right before we arrived. Reassignment. No real explanation, but it smells like a formality. A final ceremony. A gentle shove out the door.”
He chuckled gently. “You always wanted a clean exit.”
“I wanted a necessary exit,” she replied with a half-smile. “Now it’s just a change of uniforms. No real need for old soldiers like me. Too old to train in their style.”
“You're not old,” he murmured, saying nothing about the training.
“I feel it.”
He tilted his head slightly, brushing her hair from her cheek. “I’ll be in Mar’si next week. Some kind of honors committee. Likely to end with a title, maybe a sash, and a long retirement as a statue no one visits.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Will they spell your name right on the plaque?”

He smiled. “No faith?”
“In you?” She kissed his collarbone. “Always.”
They shifted, facing one another fully now, their limbs tangled in the worn sheets of the hotel bed. Outside the room, the quiet of Makhaisara held firm-no horns, no boots on pavement, just the soft electric hum of a city trying to become something new.

“I look forward to it,” she said quietly. “To being forgotten. To raising goats and screaming at clouds.”

He kissed her. “We’ll do it together.”

As the clock struck 4:19 AM, its digital glow marking another minute passed in a city not yet awake, they leaned in, lips meeting with the slow certainty of people who had shared fear, fire, and faith.

And then-
a flash.
White.
Brighter than anything they had ever known.
Brighter than God.
In an instant, the room vanished in light-swallowed by the silent scream of the impossible. Shadows burned onto walls. Time shattered like glass. And all things, great and small, were returned to dust.


************************************

At 4:19 AM local time, beneath a new sky mottled with the earliest suggestion of dawn, a cargo truck parked on a residential thoroughfare in the southern industrial quarter of the city ignited with an unnatural light. There was no siren, no forewarning. The detonation of the thermonuclear warhead was immediate and absolute.

For one ten-millionth of a second, the heart of the device reached temperatures exceeding several tens of millions of degrees Celsius - hotter than the core of the sun. The truck itself ceased to exist in any meaningful sense; its matter vaporized in microseconds, the steel molecular bonds unmade. In that first flicker of annihilation, the device released a flash of light and radiation so intense that it turned night into something beyond day.

Observers up to 150 kilometers away would later describe the sky as briefly splitting open. Closer still, within the core urban radius of 5 to 10 kilometers, the light was not merely blinding - it was searing, carving shadows of fences, lampposts, even human figures onto walls and sidewalks before those structures were consumed. Anyone within that inner zone who had line of sight to the detonation point - whether soldier, refugee, worker, or child - died instantly, their skin and corneas charred in the act of perceiving.

Within the first millisecond, a fireball over 1.5 kilometers wide had formed, pressing downward into the ground and upward into the sky, sucking in air at hurricane velocity. Temperatures in the immediate blast zone reached over 5,000 degrees Celsius. Concrete boiled. Asphalt liquefied. Steel skeletons of buildings softened and bent like wax under a flame.

At ground zero, every physical object, animate and inanimate, was converted into plasma. The human body, composed mostly of water, had no resistance. Muscles, organs, and bones vaporized into carbon mist. There were no screams here, no cries for help - only sudden absence.

Above, the fireball climbed, trailing a stem of pulverized earth, iron, and ash behind it. A mushroom cloud began its rise into the dark, uncaring sky.

Immediately after detonation, the pressure wave began to expand in earnest - a hemispherical wall of compressed air and particulate force erupting outward from the site of the explosion at over 1,000 kilometers per hour.

The wave struck indiscriminately. Structures within 1.2 kilometers were not merely flattened but shredded into splinters and dust. Reinforced bunkers, command posts, housing blocks - all folded in on themselves as if made of paper. Survivors at the margins of the fireball, already grievously burned, were hurled like ragdolls or simply reduced to red smears against broken concrete.

Between one and two kilometers out, the destruction remained total. Hospitals, emergency shelters, entire apartment towers collapsed or were shorn of their outer layers, the contents of people’s lives - photos, letters, curtains, toys - mingling with broken bodies in flame-lit air. Refugee camps, hastily constructed and overcrowded, vanished beneath the crushing hand of overpressure.

At three kilometers, the overpressure was still over 20 psi - more than enough to demolish buildings and rupture human lungs. Glass imploded inward with scything force, embedding itself into the faces and necks of those who had turned toward the light. Cars were flipped, buses overturned, transmission towers snapped in half.

Further still, five to ten kilometers away, the effects were less total but no less terrible. Windows shattered. Trees were stripped of branches. People were flung down streets, into walls, beneath collapsing ceilings. The lucky ones were already unconscious. The unlucky ones were buried alive.

The blast wave wrapped itself around the city, echoing through the valley, reverberating off high-rises and rock faces, creating lethal interference patterns that sent shock pulses slamming through structures already weakened by neglect in the years before.

Then, a moment of silence - the eye between terrors - before the roar of collapsing buildings and the scream of rising fire took its place.

Above it all, the mushroom cloud now towered - kilometers high, a pillar of annihilation visible from dozens of surrounding provinces. Its lower column churned with pulverized earth, carbonized corpses, and radioactive soot, pulled upward into the roiling, incandescent cap.

Within moments of the shockwave’s outward march, the city - or what remained of it - fell into an unnatural quiet, broken only by the distant groaning of steel, the brittle collapse of ruined buildings, and the shrieking of car alarms that had somehow survived. Dust hung in the air like a curtain over a funeral pyre. Then came the fire.

From the epicenter outward, the blast had ignited tens of thousands of secondary fires. Gas mains ruptured. Vehicles turned into rolling furnaces. Apartment blocks lit up floor by floor. A firestorm, like the breath of some ancient god, began to form.

The intense thermal updraft drew oxygen from every corner of the city, turning alleys into wind tunnels, drawing curtains of flame through entire neighborhoods in seconds. Survivors - those who had taken shelter in basements, in garages, behind reinforced walls - emerged choking, only to find themselves surrounded by roaring walls of fire and no direction in which to flee.

The mushroom cloud continued to climb. Now at nearly 15 kilometers in height, its top flattened and billowed outward like a thunderhead pulled from the depths of hell. Within the stem, black ash spiraled alongside fine, pale-gray dust - pulverized concrete, bone fragments, and irradiated debris - rising higher with every second.

Then, as the convection began to slow, the fallout began to descend.

The first particles were microscopic, invisible to the naked eye - hot, glowing specks of death drifting down like a silent snow. But soon came the heavier ash, peppering the destruction with flecks of black and gray. Over the next half hour, across hundreds of square kilometers, a slow, fatal rain began to fall. Roads turned gray. Rooftops became caked in fine dust. Water sources were poisoned. Skin itched. Eyes burned. And those who inhaled it - especially the children, the elderly, the already wounded - would carry the death with them, into tomorrow, into next week, into their graves.

The winds, cruel in their indifference, began to carry the fallout further - westward, toward towns that had watched the cloud form in the pre-dawn light, toward rivers and plains and refugee convoys. The radius of death expanded like ripples in a poisoned sea.

Beneath the cloud, the fires still raged, and among the flames, the dying crawled. A woman with no face searching for her child. A man with hands melted to the rifle he would never fire again. Silent children, hair burned away, eyes too wide, mouths too dry to scream. The lucky ones had been taken in the first moments.

thirty minutes after detonation, the sky above the city had gone dark. Not with night, but with soot, smoke, and irradiated ash. The sun rose behind a veil of death - a faint orange glow swallowed by a horizon turned charcoal. The city, once a place of life and motion, had become a wound upon the earth. From the air, it was as though a giant thumb had pressed down and smeared it out of existence.

The crater at the epicenter was nearly 400 meters across and nearly as deep - a raw, glassed cavity filled with molten debris and shadows that would never leave. Around it, concentric rings of destruction extended for kilometers, each layer telling a different story of annihilation. The inner rings were simply… gone. Beyond that: blackened husks of buildings, burned-out shells of buses and tanks, streets littered with scorched corpses and the debris of lives interrupted.

Civil defense systems, such as they were during the transition, never had a chance. Communications had died with the pulse. Hospitals vaporized. Government centers obliterated. Military units tasked with local defense had ceased to exist as organized formations within seconds. Entire companies vanished from the order of battle - not defeated, not routed, but unmade.

The civilian refugee camps that had swelled the city’s population to over a million had been clustered in the industrial district and southern rail yards – some of them less than a kilometer from the point of detonation. Rescue was not coming. Not immediately. Any nearby forces were reeling, stunned. Roads into the city were impassable, bridges collapsed, rail lines twisted like ribbon. The air itself was poisoned. Attempts to enter the outer perimeter met with confusion, panic, and vomiting responders who didn’t yet know they were dying.

Farther out the effects were subtler but no less insidious. Thousands suffered burns, trauma, and radiation poisoning. Livestock fell dead in the fields. Rivers and aquifers downstream of the blast zone absorbed the silent poison. Power outages rippled outward. Food lines broke.

By 07:42, the fallout had begun to settle - but not end. The winds, cruel in their timing, had shifted from their usual drift and pushed the irradiated ash north toward the low hills, the river basin, and the farming communes beyond. What had once been verdant countryside now found itself under a gray snow that glowed with a killing light.

In the fields, animals lay twitching or already still, flies refusing to land on their steaming hides. Children miles away stared at the sky as the cloud unfurled across it like a dying inkblot, their parents unaware that death now rode on the wind. Schools that had opened early to distribute bread rations were instead sealed - and within hours, emergency services were overwhelmed not by injuries, but by symptoms: nausea, blistering, blindness.

Hospitals dozens of kilometers away took on patients who did not yet know they were poisoned. The triage officers marked them red not because they would die quickly, but because they would die slowly - and no one could help. Outside the city’s vaporized heart, a ring of radiation sickness and environmental ruin widened by the hour, like bruising on a corpse. Crops would not grow here again for decades. Water would run toxic for generations.

*********

THEOCRATIC MATRIARCHY OF HOLY MARSH
PRIORITY CABLE – EYES ONLY – LEVEL: SCARLET
FROM: FIRST CATHEDRAL, MAR’SI
TO: ALL RELEVANT PARTIES, MAGDARAN THEATER
RE: DETONATION – MAKHAISARA

04:19 local – nuclear device detonated in Makhaisara.
Ground burst. High yield. Civilian center. Confirmed Marshite dead: extensive.
Weapon traced. Analysis ongoing.
Initial data confirms origin not foreign to region.
Protections extended to Makhaisara were explicit.
Expectations regarding sanctity were understood.
Boundaries, now crossed, cannot be redrawn.
Assessment concluding.
Determinations will be made.
Response will follow.
No further clarification required.

*************

The flash had barely faded from the scorched sky over Makhaisara when the vast machine of the Theocracy roared to life.

From aircraft and high-altitude surveillance arrays the nature of the blast was already confirmed. A nuclear detonation. Ground burst. Thermonuclear in yield. Estimated dead: unknown.

But the Theocracy had planned for this. It always planned for this.

Within 43 seconds, the First Radiant Crisis Crusade was activated. Headquartered in the secure underground city of Teneth-Lar, it was an elite rapid-response force composed of Resilin-robed Cleansewardens, mages trained to counteract the aftermath of weapons of mass destruction through arcane methods. Joined with them were the Sages of Decontamination, artificial priests fused into armored suits, carrying salvation-and incineration-through sacred flame and chemical decontamination. The Holy Order of Saint Tazrim the Clean, a cyber-monastitic corps that maintained and deployed mobile containment temples and hospitals, capable of both housing survivors and isolating danger zones. These and a dozen other unique, specialized formations were activated and moved to action.

While these were the strange and unique responders, the true force of the Crusade came in the dozen specialized NBC Containment Divisions that were moving by hook and crook. They were a mix of dedicated hospitaller forces and combat engineers on a divisional scale, chemical and radiological specialists par none in the military. It was an automatic, practiced response, honed over centuries of apocalyptic warfare. Not an ounce of panic touched the system. No doubt, no hesitation. In the moments that followed, the Marshite defense matrix began to shift as well: skies cleared for inbound forces; quarantine zones were remotely declared; and more quietly, judgment assets were placed on silent alert. In the coming hours, entire civilian sectors would have pre-drawn orders sent out to request millions more for the effort.

Even before the Karda had finished composing a public statement, millions were already in motion.

Beneath the sacred spires of the First Cathedral, in the fortified sublevels known as the Sanctum of Strategic Revelation, the air was heavy with incense. The meeting chamber, shielded from both arcane and technological surveillance, bore the hushed urgency of a war council-not a new experience for those present, but no less dire for its familiarity.

At the head of the table stood Director Ashkar Ruedas Maagad, head of the Marshite Strategic Analysis Department. His reputation preceded him-pragmatic, unsparing, and never taken by surprise. He looked drawn but alert, dark circles under his eyes evidence of decades already spent in motion. He began without preamble.

“At 0419 local, a nuclear detonation occurred in Makhaisara. Estimated yield: 475 kilotons. Ground burst. A single warhead-truck-based delivery.”

A projection shimmered to life above the blackstone table: a topographic map of Makhaisara, the city rendered in ghostly grey, with a pulsing red bloom at the hypocenter. Ripples of destruction unfurled from it in perfect circles.
“Initial detection was visual. Multiple observation posts in the border region reported the flash. Our early warning systems registered the detonation seconds later. No advanced warning. No signal intelligence. No sensor tripwires. No shielding-arcane or otherwise. We believe it was moved in during the chaos of annexation, when our order displaced the disorder of the Commonwealth, and local oversight was fractured. There were too many convoys, too many zones operating with incomplete Marshite integration. The perpetrators exploited the transitional period-gaps in local chain of command, fractured jurisdictions, humanitarian overload of localized administration. We let it happen. We did not see it in time.”

Few heads lowered. Most stared flatly ahead.

“Governor Amarjit Singh and Commander Rajinder Kaur were both killed. At the time of detonation they were sharing the fruits of union in a hotel not far from the epicenter. We do not expect to recover their remains. No reports of communications from any group claiming responsibility. This was an act of war… or one meant to look like it.”

Grand Matron Raalka Veys, of the Inquisition’s Inner Council, narrowed her eyes. “And our working assumption?”

Director Maagad clenched his jaw as he laid out the working assumption- one he hoped they disregarded, as he had already in his heart. “UNF elements-possibly high command or remnants operating independently. Ordenite backing is likely, though we lack direct evidence. It was unshielded-transported in pieces or as a fully assembled warhead. Our working theory is it entered disguised among Commonwealth rolling stock during the early phases of the refugee corridor’s conversion.”

Marshal-Veritas Temura Rin, Supreme Commander of Mar’si Radiological Command, interjected. “What of the radiation pattern?”

“Standard for a device of this type and yield. No signature irregularities. It burned cleanly for its type.”

Ashkar turned to a final slide: aerial imagery, rows of refugee tents and soldier barracks now reduced to heat shadows. “Nearly one-point-one million personnel and civilians were within the city and its environs. Initial counts suggest deaths may be in the hundreds of thousands already. Most of them were not members of the Faith, but they were under our protection.”

The room tightened. The Theocracy had faced annihilation before. It had endured many nuclear attacks, especially during the Three River Campaigns over the late 2050s and early 2060s LW (OOC-1950s/60s). Two decades earlier, the First Cathedral had been struck by an atomic weapon that started the first such exchange in Mar’si history. In that vein, the destruction of Makhaisara didn’t register on the strategic level. It was even doubtful it would be the leading story in the papers. But this was a violation of sacred duty, a crack in the divine covenant of shelter. An insult. A provocation of a deadly order.

“Strategic response is already underway. M-SAD, the Inquisition, and the Faith Militant have begun full-spectrum responses. Recovery, of course, will continue regardless. But before the fires are fully out, I expect we will have names.”

The flickering projection above the blackstone table shifted-maps giving way to a split-screen of the blast site and satellite images of regional activity. The room remained silent for a beat longer, until Inquisitor-Mother Domitila Vajis, her robes shimmering with scripture-thread, leaned forward and spoke through an ancient, crackling voice box that had replaced her real vocal chords since before the time of the Long War’s ending.
“The UNF or the Ordenites gain nothing from this. They are not winning this war so badly as to invite the Theocracy’s full fury upon themselves. If anything, they are overstretched. To provoke us like this-here, now-would be a fatal miscalculation.”

Across the table, Director Maagad gave a small, approving nod, arms folded behind his back.

“Go on,” he said, quiet and interested.

Varis tapped her fingers against the edge of the table. “Makhaisara was secure. We had not yet begun operations in earnest along the southern borders. The humanitarian corridor was stable. The Faith was trusted. This attack undermines that without meaningfully damaging our fighting capacity. This is an insult, not an attack.”

The Marshal-Veritas frowned. “You’re implying a third party?”

“Yes,” Varis said flatly. “Or a fourth.”

“But who?” asked Machine-Queen Amedra Vosk, her deep, vibrant green and black headdress casting a long shadow over the table. “The communists? The PRR? They hate the Ordenites more than we do.”
“Perhaps not them directly,” said Maagad at last, stepping forward. “But someone who wants the Commonwealth and the Theocracy at odds. Someone who benefits from instability in our union. Someone who fears our advance on their behalf, should we will it. We currently have left the Commonwealth to it’s fate, but that may not have been enough for some.”

A younger intelligence official at the far end of the table spoke up. “There are factions within the PRR-militias, revolutionary cells-who consider our annexation of the Northern Provinces a betrayal of anti-fascist unity. Radical elements who would also still be angered by our quick invasion and conquering of Eastern Magdaran.”

“Possible,” Maagad allowed, “but we have no reason to suspect them of having the ability to so easily smuggle such a weapon past us. Despite the issues we have already discussed, it still would take considerable time, effort, and skill to bypass even our weakest Inquisitorial efforts. We do not currently believe the PRR, or any communist-aligned force in the region conflict, possesses the specializations necessary.”

The Grand Matron of the Inquisition leaned back, steepling her fingers. “We’ve seen strange bedfellows in this war. It is not wholly unlikely this attack could have come from any faction.”

The Director nodded slowly. “This is why we must not assume. The default hypothesis I presented earlier came from junior analysts under intense pressure. It was always suspect.”

“And your own, Director?”

A beat passed before he nodded. “Operation: Tanpiere has not found any direct evidence, but we have reason to believe that the theft of Commonwealth nuclear assets involved transport through Romandeos into the south. We have not discovered much more than that, but I would bet significant sums of Marshians that this detonation is linked to a stolen weapon.”

“The Commonwealth blames the fascists for that, no?”

“They have, but we have reason to believe that is a suspect conclusion and they know it. It is our understanding that no one truly knows what happened to the weapons. Tanpiere would point to them heading south.”

he chamber darkened again as the holoprojector returned to life-this time not with tactical overlays or heat-bloom images, but with a 3D rotating model of a fragmented warhead casing. Its serial tags flickered, reassembled, and were highlighted in gold, while internal isotopic readings scrolled across the side in ancient Pushanian, Macabean, and modern Pushanian.

A voice crackled over the cathedral’s hardline from the deep analysis cell.
“Radiological signature-Uranium-235 with trace Americium, no Neptunium. Decay pattern consistent with Commonwealth tactical warheads. Estimated yield: 475 kilotons confirmed.”
A second analyst joined the call. “Confirmed, Director. Radiological block aligns with Epsilion warheads.”

Maagad finally turned away from the projection, his back straight as a swordblade. “Then this becomes not merely an act of terror, but one of profound provocation. Someone, somewhere inside the Commonwealth or connected to it, wanted to punish us for this annexation.”

Varis nodded grimly. “A new city of our faith, rebirthed and soon to be reforged, struck by a relic of the old regime. A device built for their enemies, now used against us. Whoever planned this understands the poetic weight of their atrocity.”
“And it will have poetic consequences. The Faithful will demand them,” Vosk exhaled slowly.

Maagad’s voice was colder now.
“Then we must determine not only who did this…but who let them. We know where the metal came from. The next question is: through whose hands did it pass?”

The low hum of the cathedral’s secure doors parting drew every head in the chamber toward the entrance. A trio of armored guards stepped through first-visors polished obsidian, weapons held vertically in a salute of silence. Behind them, clad in flowing white, blue, and gold robes with a mantle of deep-black armored silk, Arsi'Elkon Luboski entered.

The officials around the table stood in immediate reverence, some bowing their heads, others pressing their palms to their hearts in ritual devotion.

“The Faith Triumphant,” they said as one.
“The Faith Triumphant,” she replied, beckoning them down. “Please,” she said, her voice soft but resonant, “sit. Time is not your ally.”

Director Maagad greeted her with a respectful nod.
“Arsi'Elkon. You honor us with your presence.”
She gave a small smile, cool and knowing.
“It honors me to walk among those doing the Karda’s work in all matters.”
Vosk spoke next, providing a succinct briefing: the nature of the detonation, the origin of the warhead, the confirmation of Commonwealth manufacturing. As he spoke, the rotating image of the broken device returned to the holoprojector-now framed by theological symbols denoting sacred threat.

She listened in silence, eyes fixed not on the image but on the faint glow of a votive lamp set into the cathedral wall, flickering as if in nervous anticipation.
When the briefing concluded, she turned to the table.

“We have suffered a blow-not to our armies or our borders, but to our divine compact. We are the sword and sanctuary of the faithful, the shield that protects those who seek peace beneath our wings. Today, that trust was tested by fire. And still, we stand. Our soul endures. But our silence must not.”

She let that hang for a moment, before continuing.
“This was not a battlefield. This was Makhaisara. It held scholars, healers, converts, refugees, the wounded, and the weary. And they were killed unjustly. They were murdered. We shall repay this crime tenfold.”

Marshal-Veritas Rin cleared his throat.
“We are still tracing the trail of culpability. There is evidence of rogue elements-”

She raised her hand lightly. “That is for now. The evidence may shift. Truth must emerge. But regardless of who lit the fuse, it is vital that the world knows that the flame shall not touch our borders without consequence.”

Her expression grew hard, carved from stone. “We must make our first act within twenty-four hours of the warhead’s detonation. Enemies must be eliminated by 4:19 AM- no later.”

A murmur spread. Even for a nation as vast and responsive as the Theocracy, twenty-four hours meant no time for second-guessing. It meant resolve.
“This act may not be final,” she continued, “but it must be unmistakable. They must know-all must know-that to strike at our sanctuary is to invite devastation. Not just from weapons, but from the unshakable certainty of our will.”

She looked toward Maagad. “Find who did this. Find who let it happen. I want names. I want examples. And I want the world to watch.”

She turned to the others.
“Let us recover, yes, but let your heart turn to the new work by darn. By then, I want our voice heard in fire or thunder, whatever the truth demands.”
The silence that settled over the chamber following the Arsi’Elkon’s words was thick and final. She turned to Director Maagad, eyes sharp and unwavering. “Director. By midnight, I want every viable lead-every source, every name, every piece of credible intelligence-on my desk. If it whispers of complicity, if it breathes near guilt, I want it in front of me.”

Director Maagad bowed immediately.

“Yes, Arsi’Elkon. Nothing withheld.”

“No filters,” she continued. “No assumptions. If it comes from the Commonwealth, if it came through our borders, if it came from the void itself-I want to see it. And I want it organized by origin, plausibility, and strategic consequence.”

She paced slowly as she spoke, her robes trailing across the tile like the edge of a blade being drawn. The crimson and black marked the sacred and the lethal in equal measure.

“We will respond. The world must see that to violate the protection of the Matriarchy is to invite annihilation. But we will not lash blindly,” she turned back to the Director. “Bring me everything. Midnight.”

Without another word, she swept from the chamber. Her Inquisitorial guard flanked her like cloaked vultures, boots echoing off marble as doors slammed shut behind them.

The gathered intelligence officials stood still for a moment, processing what had just been demanded. Director Maagad exhaled slowly through his nose, already keying commands into his encrypted tablet.

“Every lead,” he murmured. “If it breathes, lies, or glows in the dark… we’ll have it.”

He looked to his staff.

“Spread the net. Don’t sleep. Midnight is hours away.”

From the Desk of the Arsi’Elkon-

To our trusted allies,

At 04:19 local time, a thermonuclear device was detonated in the city of Makhaisara, a territory under the protection and lawful jurisdiction of the Theocratic Matriarchy. Yield measured at approximately 475 kilotons. Ground detonation. Centered in a densely populated urban district. Civilian and refugee casualties estimated in the hundreds of thousands. Marshite faithful, pilgrims, and servants of the Karda are among the dead.

There was no warning. No claimed responsibility. Initial hypotheses presumed enemy powers of the current Magdaran conflict. However, material analysis has now confirmed that the nuclear signature does not belong to Ordenite or external actors. Early evidence indicates that the weapon was of Commonwealth origin, either stolen or deliberately employed.
This truth has narrowed our path forward.

We are not unfamiliar with suffering, nor unaccustomed to tragedy. But Makhaisara was not a battlefield. It was a sanctuary. A city under our promise. That promise was broken—not by our hand, but by a shadow now cast over all Magdaran.

We do not ask for assistance, only understanding. The Karda will not permit this transgression to go unanswered. A reckoning approaches—not indiscriminate, but absolute in its clarity.
You will be informed as decisions are finalized.

The Faith Triumphant,
Arsi’Elkon Luboski

[Eitoan]

The Executive Residence
Vladarsik, Eitoan

President Shrdlu had risen early that morning, enjoying the prospect of a relaxed, balmy day. That was not to be.

As he sat down to breakfast, savoring that first cup of coffee, he casually perused the website of Eitoan One News. This was not to be a tranquil day.

No party in the Commonwealth War claimed credit for the bombing. Foreign Affairs was still tracking down information about the explosion. There had been no word from the Marshites, the Morridanes, The Mokans.

Cutting short his breakfast, he called his Defense and External Security Secretary, Eugene Maska. They patched in HIgh Command Chair General Wanda Koincov. An hour of heated discussion and speculation ensued. Defense and Foreign Affairs scrambled throughout that morning, with Maska and Koincov frequently breaking out to sidebar with their reports. The foreign legations in Vladarsik remained silent.

The President's frustration built steadily. Which player ordered this? Was this a message to all in the region? Was it sabotage? Had someone taken leave of their senses?

Shrdlu reached a boiling point. "Gene, full deployment of all antimissile defenses at all levels. Issue Class A thermonuclear to strategic locations in Western Federal Ralkovia. This is not for public knowledge. Of course, the western nuclearization is to be at the highest level of confidentiality.

No, wait - second highest level. Our friends will understand. As for the troublemakers, they can consider this move fair warning if something bigger is underway"

[State of Ordena]

NEU-HAFEN MEDINA.

Neu-Hafen Medina once a modest Scythian harbor town on the southern coast had undergone a dramatic transformation in the aftermath of that nation's total capitulation. Rebuilt with cold precision and monumental ambition under Ordenite direction, the city now stood as one of the regime's most critical strongholds along the southern seaboard of the continent. With towering drydocks, mechanized cranes, and sprawling naval infrastructure, it had become a crown jewel of the Ordenite Krijgsmarine the headquarters of Naval Group Command Central, the most strategically vital of the Navy’s regional commands.

From within the austere halls of the newly built Marinebastion, Generaladmiral Karl-Heinz von Steinhorst presided over the Central Command’s operations. A veteran of two major campaigns and an architect of naval doctrine, von Steinhorst had grown increasingly concerned with the shifting tides of war. He had called his senior staff to the upper war room for a classified briefing urgent new directives had arrived from Maritime Warfare Command.

“The situation has changed,” he began, voice calm but clipped. “We have received operational orders for full strategic escalation. Group Command Western Dienstad will be coordinating with us under elevated alert posture. This is not a drill the war has entered a new phase.”

The gathered staff exchanged glances. Everyone in the room had heard the reports: air raids launched from Imbrimium-held Philotas Islands, precision strikes by Andrenadean forces, and joint operations that had crippled logistical nodes across the GRM-administered Magdaran region. Key leadership figures had been killed in the strikes a calculated attempt to destabilize Ordenite control and embolden the Coalition.

Von Steinhorst continued, tapping the tactical display. “Our new tasking includes expanded deployments into the North Vanguat Sea, and increased presence along the maritime corridor between Solisian mainland and Isla Dominga. Surveillance and if necessary interdiction operations will begin in the Sea of Crowns, particularly through the straits between Philotas and Daemonopolis. We are to initiate retaliatory operations upon confirmation of targeting packages.”

The room was still as the scope of the orders settled in. These were not precautionary maneuvers they were a prelude to confrontation on a broader, more international scale.

Von Steinhorst leaned back slightly, stroking his closely trimmed beard, his eyes fixed on the map before him. He understood what was at stake. These strikes from foreign powers cowardly and calculated could not go unanswered. To preserve regional dominance and deter future incursions, the Krijgsmarine would have to respond with force. The age of limited engagement in Magdaran had ended.

"Signal the battle groups," he said. "The oceans will burn before they think they can strike us with impunity."

NORTHERN VANGUAT SEA.

Since the earliest stages of the Magdaran conflict, the Ordenite Krijgsmarine had maintained a robust and persistent presence in the Northern Vanguat Sea. This initial deployment comprised seven surface battle groups and two U-Boat wolfpacks, totaling over 300 warships and submersibles. Their primary objective was the protection and control of the critical maritime corridor dividing the Far Western Dienstad from the Faith Continent on which the embattled Magdaran territories lay.

Throughout the early months of the war, these forces operated with measured aggression, focusing on patrols and sea lane security. However, as the conflict widened in scope spilling beyond the Magdaran theater and drawing in regional and ideological adversaries the strategic calculus shifted. The Northern Vanguat was no longer a secondary front it had become a pivotal maritime battleground.

In response, the Krijgsmarine initiated a massive expansion of its naval posture in the region. Reinforcements began arriving from both the Ordenite homeland and its allied holdings in Fustera. What had begun as a containment flotilla was soon restructured and renamed the Northern Vanguat Fleet a formidable armada designed to project sustained maritime dominance.

This reconstituted fleet would ultimately comprise over 600 additional vessels, including aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and a significant number of advanced U-Boats. Combined with the original force already stationed in the theater, the Northern Vanguat Fleet would now field over 900 warships making it one of the largest concentrated naval forces in Non-Ordenite waters since the last major war with the Golden Throne.

Its mandate was clear: to secure absolute control of the Northern Vanguat Sea, and provide full-spectrum naval support for operations on the Faith Continent. The fleet was not expected to redeploy any time soon. For the foreseeable future of the conflict, the Northern Vanguat would remain its permanent post—a heavily fortified bastion of Ordenite sea power.

SOMEWHERE AT SEA BETWEEN SOLISIA AND ISLA DOMINGA

Operating in the shadowy silence of the deep, a pair of Type 224 Poseidon-class nuclear-powered attack submarines prowled the cold waters between the Solisian mainland and the contested Commonwealth-held island of Isla Dominga. These advanced SSNs were tasked with a critical mission: to covertly lay naval mines in key maritime chokepoints, hindering the Coalition's growing naval presence in the theater.

With naval engagements escalating ever closer to the Magdaran coast, the Ordenite Krijgsmarine had begun deploying U-Boat detachments for clandestine sea mining operations—an effort to sow chaos and attrition behind enemy lines. Rather than being equipped with their standard loadout of Seelöwe heavyweight torpedoes, the Type 224s had been retrofitted with specialized mine-deploying torpedoes. These torpedoes, once launched, would travel a programmed path before releasing moored mines at predesignated depths, creating unseen fields of lethality beneath the waves.

Slowly and deliberately, the pair of submarines launched their payloads, dispersing mine after mine in a precise pattern designed to disrupt Coalition convoy lanes and deter amphibious operations. The deployment was methodical, almost surgical—laying a deadly curtain across one of the sea's most critical corridors. But the operation didn’t end there.

Once the forward torpedo tubes were spent, the submarines ascended slightly to prepare for the second phase. One by one, the Vertical Launch System (VLS) hatches opened. From them erupted a series of specialized Aquaferne sea-to-sea subsonic missiles, each modified to carry and deploy encapsulated naval mines at standoff distances. The missiles broke the surface in plumes of white spray, arcing across the sky before descending toward waters just off Isla Dominga. Upon impact, the missiles deployed their payloads beneath the waves, where the mines activated and sank into a waiting posture—ready for any unsuspecting vessel that entered their lethal radius.

Having completed their mission and with their onboard magazines expended, the two Type 224s descended once more into the deep. Silent and unseen, they turned away from the mined zone, fading into the oceanic abyss—leaving behind an invisible web of destruction and uncertainty in Coalition waters.

The battle for naval dominance was no longer confined to ship-to-ship skirmishes above the surface. Below, a quiet war was being waged one where a single false move could mean death, and where victory might belong to those who struck without ever being seen.

WATERS BETWEEN PHILOTAS ISLANDS AND DEAMONOPOLIS

The Crown had long stood as a persistent adversary of the Ordenite Reichstaat, its antagonism tracing back to its pivotal role in igniting the last great war against The Golden Throne and the wider Triumvirate alliance. Now, history repeated itself this time in the contested theater of Magdaran. Aligning itself openly with the Commonwealth and its Coalition partners, the Crown had once again drawn the ire of the Reich by launching a wave of strategic bombing raids deep into Greater Republic of Magdaran (GRM) territory, leaving infrastructure crippled and casualties mounting. Such audacity could not go unanswered.

In response, the High Command of the Kriegsmarine authorized Operation Steinadler, a punitive strike intended to both degrade the Crown’s forward air power and send a clear strategic message. A full squadron of Type 220 Speerfisch guided missile submarines, engineered for stealth and long-range strike capability, was dispatched under strict orders to operate just along the seam between international waters and the territorial boundaries of Deamonopolis close enough for effect, far enough to maintain plausible deniability.

Once in position beneath the thermocline and with active emissions minimized, the submarines synchronized their targeting through orbital reconnaissance relays. High-resolution satellite imagery and SIGINT from theater assets identified a web of key military installations across the Philotas Islands a strategic Crown controlled archipelago serving as a launchpad for aerial sorties and logistical operations across the southern AO.

Then the order came. In rapid succession, vertical launch cells on each Speerfisch vessel erupted to life, releasing wave after wave of Kalibr long-range cruise missiles into the night sky. Over 400 missiles were launched in the span of minutes each one programmed to seek out hardened bunkers, runways, radar sites, munitions depots, and command infrastructure with high-precision kinetic strikes.

The coordinated barrage was not merely an act of retaliation, but a calculated effort to decapitate the Crown’s ability to conduct further strategic bombing campaigns from the Philotas theater as the missiles carved through low-altitude routes across open sea and coral atolls.

The Reichstaat’s message was clear: Any act of aggression would be met not only with immediate reprisal, but with a scale of force designed to deny the enemy the ability to strike again. The Crown had taken its shot—now it would have to reckon with the consequences.

SEA BETWEEN ISLA DOMINGA AND MAGDARAN

The protracted naval struggle unfolding off the coast of Isla Dominga continued to lean in favor of the Ordenite Krijgsmarine, though at a steadily increasing cost. What had initially seemed like a swift push to isolate the island from mainland support had transformed into a grinding battle of attrition. Coalition naval forces, fiercely determined to defend the vital strategic island, had launched a series of effective counterattacks—most notably the Republic of Vietnam Navy (RVN), whose precision strikes inflicted serious damage across the Ordenite line.

Among the heaviest losses was a Type 110 Ordena-class aircraft carrier, which sustained multiple hits that left it crippled and effectively out of action. Much of its air wing was lost either in combat or aboard the stricken vessel, now limping away under escort as emergency crews fought to keep it afloat. Elsewhere, the RVN and its allies had succeeded in knocking several major surface combatants out of the fight, momentarily slowing the Krijgsmarine's advance.

The Morridane Navy, too, played a decisive role. From positions north of the island, they launched wave after wave of strike aircraft in an effort to break the Ordenite hold. However, the sheer density of Krijgsmarine defensive formations layered with destroyers, missile frigates, and screening corvettes—blunted many of these attacks. A sky crowded with flak and missile trails told the story of high attrition on both sides.

Reinforcements arrived in dramatic fashion. Over 400 additional warships surged into the combat theater under the Ordenite banner, welcomed with relief by the battle-weary fleet. While these new arrivals were not fresh—many had already seen combat in other operations they were sufficient to absorb the mounting losses of both the Krijgsmarine and the now virtually annihilated GRM Navy, which had ceased to be an organized fighting force.

In a bold and unexpected maneuver, the Morridane naval elements positioned north of Isla Dominga suddenly surged forward, attempting to break through the perimeter. Their advance was met with immediate and overwhelming force. A ‘wall of steel’ awaited them—Ordenite warships unleashing volleys of anti-ship missiles designed to intercept, scatter, or destroy the oncoming threat. The sea lit up with explosive detonations and missile plumes as the two fleets clashed in a brutal mid-range missile exchange.

Elsewhere in the combat zone, Ordenite destroyers and cruisers maintained a brutal tempo of retaliatory strikes against the Coalition's southern and northern formations. The battle was not just a contest of firepower but of endurance, as both sides struggled to maintain their momentum. Ordena-class aircraft carriers still in fighting condition continued to project air power—interdicting incoming attacks, conducting reconnaissance, and coordinating missile strikes against high-value targets across the theater.

Meanwhile, far to the north of Isla Dominga and in proximity to the Solisian archipelago, a darker and more covert phase of the war was unfolding. Taking advantage of the chaos gripping the central naval theater, a detachment of three Speerfisch-class guided missile submarines had quietly maneuvered into strike positions near the northernmost Solisian islands closest to Magdaran.

Assisted by real-time satellite reconnaissance, these submarines launched a coordinated barrage targeting military infrastructure across the Solisian forward operating zone. Airfields, munitions depots, naval facilities, and command centers were all within the crosshairs. Over 200 Kalibr cruise missiles erupted from the waves and soared toward their designated targets in a display of calculated escalation.

This strike was not merely tactical it was strategic signaling. The Ordenite high command hoped the overwhelming show of long-range precision firepower would force the Solisian Union and its regional partners to reconsider their deepening involvement in the war. The message was clear: continued belligerence would carry costs far beyond the immediate battlespace of Isla Dominga.

[Greater Viet-Nam]

Dominga Territorial Waters
Dominga, Magdara

The initial strikes conducted by the Morridane naval forces had not succeeded in eliminated Ordinite naval forces in the area, Moka's naval forces in an act of fratricide, accidentally struck the mercenary fleets that had been stationed alongside them. Those two actions alone had destroyed any sort of advantage they had regarding surprise, even with RVNN F-35's in play.

Regardless, the Morridanes were invigorated by the trickling of reinforcments, and their northern fleets had apparently been ordered to do a full frontal assault against the Ordinite fleets, supposedly there had even been orders to prepare for boarding.

With the situation unfolding before them, Thạch ordered for additional sorties to be scrambled out, to put pressure on the Ordinite forces and force them into a delimma as they were being pushed in from all sides. Some F-14's were outfitted with harpoon missiles, and were linked up with their Loyal Wingman counterparts as they, too were equipped with such armaments. Their objective was simple: Provide cover for the Morridane and Mokan forces while they recovered from their first failed attempt, and wrestle back air and sea superiority from them.

Quickly the aircraft were scrambled, escorted by F-35's and EA-18 growlers towards their targets. Meanwhile, the CIC prioritized targets, and launched their own compliment of Harpoon missiles against the Ordinite formation.

The air was thick with tension, their first two attempts from their allies had already failed, and the Commonwealth were forced to deal with the Ordinites and the Nationalists alone in this sector, if this attack failed, it would mean that much more pressure would be on them and the northern fleets. It wasn't long before the air formation merged with the Ordinite's CAP. They had lost the element of surprise, but the F-35's were able to hold their own against them regardless, while the F-14's geared for air to air engagements sniped from a distance, working alongside the AWACS to provide overwatch for them.

Some F-35's remained with the Growlers and the Bombcats, with the former gumming up enemy radar and answering enemy SAM's with HARM. Once they got into range, the air formations launched their harpoons and bolted back towards the carrier groups. Command CIC held their breath as the fleet harpoons caught up with the air-launched harpoons.

Just then, some of the dots on the radar range began to disappear, and the radio broke the silence.

"Command, splash one carrier, we're witnessing explosions in the distance."

There were sighs in relief at the report, but now they held their breaths, waiting to see what was the price for their victory, as they made a fighting retreat back to the Coalition lines.

VNN CAP remained on alert and covered their withdrawal, while the carrier groups launched another volly of harpoons to keep the Ordinite feets and the relief supressed as the Morridane fleets made their moves.

---

Dominga,
Magdara

Under the backdrop of a naval furball, the Vietnamese expiditionary fleet finally arrived alongside their Solasian counterparts, and had began to offload their supplies, men and equipment. The Vietnamese Marines were still prepping for a landing on the Magdaran mainland, and infrastructure was slowly recovering from the previous attacks. While their naval counterparts joined in on the ongoing efforts to combat and hunt Ordinite U-Boats, as well as efforts to clear enemy minefields when they were eventually discovered.

But despite all of this, the preparations were not the only chief worries for RVN forces on the island.

What started as a routine murder investigation prosecuted by both the RVN Military Police and the Commonwealth internal security apparatus, further dove into a rabbit hole. Turns out Phương's contact had dealt more than with the Vietnamese. The more they dug, the more they found connections to a more seedier, underground element.

While that alone seemed innocuous, news then came in of a nuclear device that had been detonated in the Marshite Kingdom's newly annexed territory as geiger counters on the island screeched in alarm as the fallout flew into the wind and blew down to the island. No one had claimed responsibility, but it was clear that this combined with the recent attacks on Dominga were no mere coincidence. Alarms were raised to make preparations for the potential for NBC threats launched through foreign and domestic means.

General Trưởng all the while, scheduled a meeting with the Commonwealth head of Internal Security, the Golden Throne's Representative, Moka's representative, and the commander of the Republic of Vietnam's Military Provost and the Central Intelligence Office station on the island.

Her glare was cold behind the veneer of her aviators and her fists clenched as she prepared to ask them what the hell happened regarding tracking down programs related to Citra, and put pressure to prevent such attacks from happening under her command, let alone under the general command of the Coalition.

---

Presidential Palace,
Saigon, South Vietnam

"They're using What!? Yelled President Ngạ at her Minister of Defense in outrage.

"General Trưởng and her staff confirmed it, Madame President, as did the Marshite Kingdom and many other sources, a nuclear device had been detonated in the Northern Provinces of Dominga, currently annexed by the Marshite Kingdom."

"Do we have any indicators that whoever were behind this planned to attack other coalition nations?"

"Unclear as of yet, Madame President. Tracking down the reponsible parties takes time."

"Time which we may not have. Whoever planned these attacks pose a significant threat to all parties involved in this war, both enemy and allied, military and civilian. Reach out to the Marshites, work with them on the investigation, and tighten counterterrorism efforts both on the island and here at home."

The minister of defense nodded. "At once, madame." He then gave a brisk nod and left her office, as Ngạ massaged the bridge of her nose and turned towards the TV, currently broadcasting the carnage unfolding in the Northern Provinces.

The Presidential Palace
Saigon

---

Official Statement Regarding the Recent
Nuclear Attacks in the Northern Provinces

The Republic of Vietnam offers its thoughts and prayers to the people of both the Marshite Kingdom, and the Commonwealth of Magdara in light of the sudden and deliberate attacks within the Northern Provinces. The Vietnamese people empathize with the victims as we have felt the effects of war and turmoil at home as far back as our founding over fifty years ago. Every man, woman and child lost in this conflict is someone's son, someone's sister, someone's beloved.

In light of recent events, the Republic of Vietnam is willing to contribute humanitarian aid to the areas affected, and to provide assistance in the current investigation into these attacks. Additionally, we are willing to host talks between the Magdaran Commonwealth, and the Holy Marshite Kingdom regarding disputes surrounding these regions, and urge all parties involved to practice reason and calm in these troubling times.

Regards,

Triệu Ngọc Ngạ

Triệu Ngọc Ngạ, President of the Republic of Vietnam

[Solisian Union]

Island of Dominga, Western Waters, lanes between Dominga and Eastern Solisia

One convoy was no longer considered adequate. Though it has delayed them, the Solisians have added ten more ships and formed another convoy. After making sure that the two convoys were finally ready to go, the admirals of the New Solisian Union's navy approved their requests to set sail.

Thirty ships—all of them carrying significant amounts of food, drinking water, and many more precious supplies—were all the Solisians could use.

Trouble, however, made itself known.

Mines laid in secret had caused serious damage to five of the ships that were part of the convoy. Two of the escorting destroyers were also damaged, but they were able to turn around for repairs in Solisian ports. The seriously damaged merchant ships, however, were not going to make it. They were immediately abandoned and their crews rescued.

So, only 25 made it. But that was what mattered. They had made it! Under heavy escort by six Eastern Fleet destroyers and a squadron of 15 planes from Solisian carriers, the convoy had finally reached Dominga. One by one, these ships were gently taken to the ports waiting for them. Carefully, but surely, the supplies on board were offloaded as quickly as possible.

The island was successfully resupplied. It would be a great relief to the defenders and it would mean greatly to improving the relationship the New Solisian Union and her Nannasian ally were trying to form with the coalition forces fighting for Magdara's fate.

Such an achievement would likely be overshadowed by the ongoing fighting. The war at sea was not kind to the coalition and the Ordenites held the north and east and south. Worse, enemy attacks on the island itself were doing damage not only to its defenders but also to the convoy. Enemy missiles struck two ships which were still offloading supplies at the ports. While the rest of the convoy continued their offloading and gradually left the western ports of Dominga, the two which were hit had to be abandoned. Their crews and a few volunteers from the other ships would remain at the ports to help with the problems caused by these two ships which are now stuck as wrecks.

It also gave a rude reminder to the Solisians about the whole situation: Only the western approaches were free of enemy control. Only the lanes between Solisia and Dominga lay open. But for how long? The mines that struck the convoy on its way to Dominga would complicate things for the Eastern Fleet. The ongoing fighting at sea and the attacks on the island also added to the frustration.

But no more can the Solisians simply do nothing.

There was no more the Solisians could do to delay the inevitable. No matter how prepared they were now and no matter how much effort they put to preparing still, there was the possibility that this wouldn't be enough. It may only be changed with the joining of surviving coalition forces and the long-awaited arrival of Nannasian reinforcements. Their chances of survival, of victory even, may be improved by the reinforcement of defenses on the easternmost Solisian islands close to Dominga by both coalition and Directorate forces.

And though the recent actions by The Golden Throne roused some measure of suspicion among the Solisians after Solisian personnel witnessed Golden Throne naval infantrymen went around arresting certain individuals and reported what they saw up the chain. There was nothing the Solisians could do about it, but the leadership advised caution. Now was not the time to make quarrel with allies.

Focusing on the war was the most important thing they had to do, the only thing they must do. Yet, unfortunately, the forces of the coalition and The Golden Throne appeared reluctant to do more with the New Solisian Union. Though there is now some willingness shown, especially among the Vietnamese and the Mokas, the rest of the coalition didn't seem to... respond.

The Solisians wouldn't forget that, but it doesn't mean they would just drop the fight.

Nothing, not even the nuclear destruction of a city in the Northern Provinces under Marshite control would make them drop a fight for national security.

And regardless of whether they'll get more cooperation with the coalition, with anyone, the Solisians will have to act.

It is now time. Better now than never. Though late, it will have to do.

[Nannasian Union]

The New Solisian Union's Eastern Fleet was moving again. After they have positioned themselves well enough, they were now given orders to close the distance with the Magdaran War. That meant that it was now time for them to get in harm's way.

Escorts from the Dominga supply convoy were rejoining the Eastern Fleet at once. The small but fast ships warned that enemy mines were present in the waters between Solisia and Dominga. With that warning, the Eastern Fleet wasted no time sending out her minesweepers with escorts. Helicopters and search planes assisted them.

But the Eastern Fleet couldn't afford to focus solely on that problem. The rest of the Eastern Fleet had to carry on with the rest of Operation Marcia.

Getting closer was an important step. Time would be wasted if they started fighting all the way from Eastern Solisia. Their earlier efforts at positioning have succeeded. All they needed to do now was to get into battle. That was easier said than done. It was also why they had to get close to the Desaan Islands.

When they were close, they gradually made contact with a larger fleet coming down from the north-west. At first, warnings among the Eastern Fleet spread, but the commanders of the Solisian ships were slowly calming their crews with news from the homeland.

When it was confirmed that the arrival of this larger fleet was to be expected, nobody feared it to be the coming of the enemy. Instead, crews and officers rejoiced as the unknown ships identified themselves in transmissions with a common language, one embraced by two homelands. And it only added to their joy when they saw that these ships flew the red and blue flags carrying the white stars, sun, and moon of the United Provinces of Nannasia.

The Nannasians had come. At long last, they had come. Though they were late, for the distance between Varathron and Greater Dienstad was not forgiving, they had come.

And they had come with great force.

They had come to the region with strength that made many Solisian sailors and naval officers yearn for the days before the civil war.

What felt like a great fog of war surrounding the Solisians would all vanish as the Combined National Nannasian Fleet pierced such a fog and made themselves known.

This was their largest and most powerful force. Though the Nannasians could not promise all their strength, they certainly meant it when they told the Solisians that they would come with their best.

The Eastern Fleet only had at least 200 ships, the Nannasians had brought well over 600. They had brought not only warships, but also vital ships loaded with reinforcements and supplies. Though these would go directly to the New Solisian Union or to the Marshite ports, some of the Nannasian warships would immediately join the Eastern Fleet. The rest had to escort the ships carrying vital supplies and men to their destinations before rejoining the CNNF.

Before the Nannasians, the Eastern Fleet had only 7 frigate squadrons, 5 destroyer squadrons, 2 helicopter carrier groups, 1 submarine group, and 1 carrier group. But with the Nannasians now here, the Eastern Fleet was expecting to include 11 frigate squadrons, 6 destroyer squadrons, 6 submarine groups, 6 corvette squadrons, 5 cruiser squadrons, and 3 carrier groups.

And leading the CNNF was its pride — the Nannasian United Carrier Group or NUCG. It would provide the united forces of Solisia and Nannasia its newest carriers, their escorts, and 150 aircraft, fixed and rotary. Its flagship, the Loyal Daughter, would sail together with the Eastern Fleet's own Nyrra, the flagship of Solisia's only active carrier group in the war, the Nyrra Carrier Group.

From here on, Solisian admirals Hilaria Calderó and Aira Yamashita would be joined by the Nannasian admirals, Narania Seppo and Ernestina Adriana Mlakar.

But this joyful union of forces would not forever be free of conflict. News reached both the Eastern Fleet and the CNNF of attacks by the Ordenites against the Desaan Islands.

Missile attacks. Though information was still coming in, it set into motion one thing on the minds of the Solisians and Nannasians:

They had to fight, and they had to fight NOW.

[Solisian Union]

Ever since the civil war ended and Queen Wessa restored order to the country, the New Solisian Union had wasted no time ensuring the security of Eastern Solisia. That included Desaan.

That meant that the Solisian forces guarding Desaan had been awake, alive, and alert for quite some time already. It had been reinforced again and again. It had been fortified over and over.

On the ground, without counting the reinforcements sent by the coalition and by the Directorate, there were two divisions of Solisian infantry. They stood guard over the islands, protecting the air and naval bases vital to Solisian operations this far to the east. They also were responsible for helping the two Solisian anti-ship battalions and two Solisian anti-air battalions do their jobs.

At sea, the forward elements of the Eastern Fleet patrolled. Without counting allied ships, there was one frigate squadron, one destroyer squadron, and a submarine group. There were smaller boats and ships also present, at least fifty of them, either patrolling or waiting for fuel, men, or other things.

In the air, helicopters and planes kept coming out of the airbases and airports, returning only hours later. They, too, have been conducting patrols to watch for enemy action. With the war so close, it was only a matter of time until the enemy came for the Desaan Islands.

And come they did.

The Solisians had spotted the submarines near Etrica and Actera, but it was too late to stop them. Just as soon as they unleashed a squadron of anti-submarine helicopters and a pair of destroyers against them, the Ordenites have already launched their attacks.

Early warning systems quickly filled the Solisian islands with information. Ordenite missiles, at least 200 of them, were racing against Solisian military assets.

As quickly as they could, Solisian anti-air defenses, with the help of their allies, engaged the incoming missiles. Red tracers and flying missiles filled the sky as the Solisians tried their best to protect themselves from the enemy projectiles. Alarms rang everywhere as Solisian personnel rushed to shelters or hurried in saving important files and things before the missiles reached their targets.

It was only a matter of time until some lucky missiles finally reached their targets.

Elsewhere, especially in the Solisian mainland, reports from the Desaan Islands had come. Though the stream of reports were quickly cut by the attacks, perhaps by missiles striking the communication centers on the islands, it had confirmed to Solisian leadership that the Magdaran war had finally come.

An attack on Solisian soil. An attack in Solisian waters. An attack violating Solisian airspace.

It meant nothing else except one thing.

War.

There was no more holding back.

With Desaan under attack, with ships sunk by mines and missiles, and with troops already fighting on the ground, it was now undeniable.

Just 4 hours later, Queen Wessa I made a public announcement on radio, television, and more.

---

I come to you by voice and by appearance with an urgent message to tell all of you. On this day—after many, many days have passed since our fellow Solisians have answered the need to intervene in Magdara—war has come.

Our easternmost territories, the Desaan Islands, have come under enemy attack. We are still receiving reports and we are still trying to fully understand what is going on in the east, but we cannot afford to wait for more information anymore. We cannot afford to be passive and we cannot afford to push back the day when we will have to face down war, war not with ourselves but with foreign threats.

I regret that your government—my government—couldn't avoid war. For we were faced with a choice—allow the enemy to establish a presence so close to us or sacrifice peace now for peace in the future. We have chosen to sacrifice peace to make war for peace in the future.

I now call on the entirety of our New Solisian Union to stand united with us, to contribute all you can to winning this war, and to hope that all this shall be over and done with.

[The Macabees]

___________
ISLA DOMINGA

"By the gods," she said, "who?"

"We do not know, Your Excellency," replied the adjutant. "The Agén is gathering HUMINT."

Lara scoffed. "The Agén should have been collecting intelligence on this a long time ago. The target of the attack is uncharacteristic of both the Ordenites and the communists. They would have used that warhead much sooner on each other than in provoking the Marshites into war. No. This is someone else. But who? Terrorists? There are militant anti-Marshites, you know. Like that business in Levante." She was referring to some backlash against a burgeoning Marshite expat community in an important imperial territory that had to be suppressed by local law enforcement. "But who has access to a nuclear warhead of that size?"

Her adjutant shrugged. "A reliable source told me that they are questioning the arrested" — he meant those arrested for alleged war crimes — "with regards to this attack now."

"And what would they know?" she said.

He shrugged again. "I think any lead is a lead at this point."

Thinking for a moment, Lara looked out a large window that overlooked much of the city of Dominga. The kríerlord moved from location to location daily, but this place was one of her favorites. You could see the beautiful blue sea separating the island from the mainland. Ships dotted the horizon, some of them belching columns of smoke that marked them with death. She wondered what was more dangerous now. The Ordenite fleet? Or, an errant nuclear bomb? That last question gave her pause.

"Lorient," she said.

"Yes, ma'am?" he replied.

"Send a message to the HCC, as well as the heads of all foreign allied commands in the city," she noted. "Raise the viability of temporarily evacuating key leadership from the city to avoid catastrophic loss in the event of a nuclear attack."

He arched an eyebrow. "You think there will be another bomb?"

There was concern in her eyes. "Absolutely. And if they are crazy enough to attack a Marshite-controlled city first, they are crazy enough to explode another warhead here."

"Assuming they could bring it from the mainland," he interjected.

"Yes, well," Lara replied, smoothing her jacket, "I'd rather not make any assumptions at all and just assume the worst. Move us back into an aircraft carrier with the fleet offshore. I suggest the Commonwealth's leadership do the same. We also need to widen our intelligence efforts to figure out who is behind the attack. Because another bomb might not just go off here next, it might also go off in Mananakop City. Send a message to the Agén putting them in touch with Generals Gregorio Martinez' and Rizaldo Guillermo's people. Whoever did this has access to military-grade nuclear warheads, meaning they know what they're doing. That screams ex-military to me. Have the Agén question military officers and the soldiers; somebody has to know something. I want the Agén to work with Martinez and Guillermo to allow our operators as much freedom as possible in their questioning and methods."

"Your Will is my command, Your Excellency," said the adjutant. Stopping before turning, he asked, "What do you think the Marshites will do?"

"I think they will smite whoever did this into oblivion," she answered. "And if they do not get answers soon, all I know is that they are capable of committing unspeakable violence in the quest to discover the culprits. It is an open question what the nature of the collateral damage of their retribution campaign will be. All the same, I will make it known to them that their Inquisitors have full access to any individuals arrested by the Golden Throne in connection with our investigation into crimes against humanity. And I will advise the Commonwealth's government to extend that offer more generally to whoever the Marshites want to talk to."

The adjutant grimaced and said, "I pity their enemies." Then turned and left to carry out his instructions.

Lara sat there for some time longer. Her mind busily sped through the quagmire that this war had become, including another new problem, this time to do with the zenitharians in Jubalaistan. Their leader had died and there were two contestants. The Mokans favored one, but the Zenitharian rabble precedent from New Empire favored the other. For now, the peace was kept while it suddenly became a priority to redeploy all the remaining ṣuʿūdiyūn from Jubalaistan to Hyganan, where they wouldn't be able to make trouble even if they wanted to.

Another new problem was the sinking of the mercenary fleet. The Lourens task forces represented significant investments for the Golden Throne, and it did not sit well that their forces had been swept aside so easily. Suffice to say, that contract would not be renewed. The Golden Throne was taking a new approach anyway, one that involved arming, training, and funding the Commonwealth's armed forces directly. Already, ships full of weapons, munitions, and supplies of all kinds were arriving in Dominga, Kalinog, and other ports daily. And thousands of imperial troops, from those three million gathering on Mananakop Island, fanned out across Isla Dominga and Isle Begarana to start training their new mentees on weapon use, tactics, and other crucial skills for building a competent fighting force.

A sudden knock at the door disturbed her train of thought. A second later, she said, "Come in."

"Your Excellency," said a young man, out of breath and his face pale, "You will want to read this."

He passed her a USB drive and then left. As the door closed behind him, she slipped the USB into the slot on her device. On her screen opened a folder with just under a dozen files, including one named 'SBP GMT XXVII.' She opened and scrolled through it, her eyes darting about as Lara quickly digested the report. She sighed. Another problem. The Ordenites were striking against allied and friendly bases in the Solisian Union, Philotas Islands, and elsewhere, while heavily mining their SLOCs. It was expected.

The recent airstrikes on Ordenite military leadership in Magdaran would have angered anyone, and by conducting the strikes from bases outside the direct theater, these countries had (consciously or not) willingly added their own territories to the enemy's list of military targets. Lara hoped that the Coalition states knew what they were doing, but doubt still predominated within most of the Imperial Bureaucracy.

She immediately penned a short, curt letter that an aide would turn into an official dispatch forwarded to all Coalition and Commonwealth-aligned governments.

IMPERIAL DISPATCH — EYES ONLY
FROM: Kríerlord Lara Surr, Dominga
TO: Coalition-Aligned Governments, Military Liaison Offices
SUBJECT: Escalatory Strikes & Regional Stability

Further expansion of strike operations into new territorial zones is both unnecessary and strategically irresponsible. The existing network of Commonwealth and Coalition airbases in theater is sufficient to support all required operations.

Continued expansion will prolong conflict, disrupt neutral trade corridors, and harden Ordenite responses.

Let us be clear: states under attack will respond. That right is not conditional. Restraint now prevents a broader conflagration.

—Surr

That done, she swiveled her chair to look out the window toward the sea again. She opened it a bit, and a strong breeze with the scent of salt water swept through the room. It gave her mind clarity.

A nuclear bomb had gone off, the war was expanding, and cracks were beginning to appear within the Coalition's lines. And the Ordenites were suffering heavily too. It was clear to her that the moment was now to de-escalate the Golden Throne's involvement. The Lourens Consortium contract would be closed, and the arrival of ṣuʿūdiyūn fighters would be steeply curtailed after sufficient forces had been built up around Hyganan. Now that the Commonwealth's government was better arranged, the empire would focus on funding, arming, and training the Commonwealth's political and military machinery to outlast and outfight both the UNF and PRR.

[Mokastana]

Panthers in the water
The Second Battle of the Kamnorom Sea
Hyganan Front


The 44th Assault Fleet watched as their missiles streaked towards the Ordenites, or what they thought were the first line of defense of the Ordenite fleet. Successful hit after successful hit was recorded, computers began calculating the firing pathways for the next ring of the Ordenite vessels. The Federal fleet was used to punching above its weight class, and this was no exception.

… at first.

It was the AWACs that first noticed something was wrong, they saw the impacts and tracked vessels, sending data back to the fleet and marking which ones Central command believed were ghost fleets, real targets or misidentified. The outer fascist ships were taking hits just as reports were coming in of the mercenaries being struck and sinking. They were screaming something about the wrong target, that inbound missiles were destroying them, but the battle net showed no inbound missiles on their location.

Seconds ticked by until one operator saw the impact hit a fascist warship just as the radio broadcast from a Mercenary vessel went silent. This enlisted radio operator was the first to realize there was a problem. He immediately flagged for a senior officer who heard his cries of potential friendly fire. The officer watched the reply, aware of the confusion that the mercs were running SOS calls, and ordered a high powered scan of the mercenary fleet location.

Each second was potentially costing lives, but they had to be sure. And there it was, clear as day, nothing was there. The supposed location of the mercenary fleet was empty sea. The Mercenaries were incorrectly marked. The battle net assessment was wrong.

Abort orders were issued and the remaining missiles were detonated over the sea, some only a few kilometers from impact. There would be time to process what happened later, but for now they needed to find the enemy and continue the battle, less the fascists sink them in the confusion.

What was thought to be the second line of fascist ships was most likely the first, but now the analyst was in question. Yet there was no time to verify, missiles were inbound and launch vectors already calculated, the second line would be fired upon. The first line was marked as unknowns, if a surviving vessel was confirmed as mercenary it was marked so, but for safety everything previously marked as a first line target was deprioritized and marked for verification.

The battle would continue, prices and discussions and investigations would happen later. For now, they were outnumbered and under attack, all there was to do was continue fighting, and pray the electronic warfare teams could resolve their problems in time.

[Andrenade]

T MINUS-5 HOURS BEFORE ATTACK
Northern Solisian Isles

Officially, the ADN’s presence in Solisia remained non-operational and technical. A continued response from the crises that affected those within the Northern Vanguat Sea. Unofficially, Taskforce Riptide had expanded further in scope and size, while amassing resources to sustain large scale conflict. The reality behind sanitized words failed to describe the scale of it all, with thousands of soldiers, contractors and machines replacing the masses of tourists that once frequented the area, all doing their part in fortification. A brave, stubborn few locals remained, looking to the east with an adamant dread.
Mere months ago, many fought against each other. Now, they are fighting for their right to exist, which was now surely threatened by Ordena’s expansion. Now, the defense was total at the isles of Elbosa, Nairas, Etrica and Actera. Parking lots reinforced with composites.Anti-Air and strategic artillery batteries lay across the landscape, shifting positions at random. Every highway was a potential airstrip for the constantly sorting Esprit-EVO fighters to land and be serviced under cover. Boardwalks and coves converted to USV launch points.

In addition to actual fortification, further protection came from a complete spectrum of deception installed into the island, courtesy of Andrenadian “disruption teams” augmenting the engineers.
Over a dozen command centers had already been deployed between the four isles: thermally active, radar-scattering, and broadcasting fake radio chatter. In actuality, they were merely recreational centers, with sacrificial lambs manning the posts to make it more authentic.
Engineers quietly carved false tank trails into the hillsides and vacant shelters. Drones scattered chaff and IR decoys, carefully tuned to mimic the heat signatures of jet engines idling under netting. The deception wouldn’t last forever, but they didn’t need to. It only had to last long enough to absorb the initial salvos of a first strike for counter-battery assets to do the rest. deterring the reliability of the over relied upon satellite and OSINT.

The crown jewel of it all was a reinforced subterranean complex complimenting existing anti-flooding infrastructure, made by the autonomous D3Av-Terracon autonomous Tunnel Boring Machines, having been released from their shipping connexes, were consuming rock and stone and reinforcing the walls behind it with a three meter diameter, internally-mixed composite hole. Behind them, men and machines reinforced the tunnel complex further with textiles and beams. The mountains that offered shelter
As below, so was above with tethered surveillance aerostats, camouflaged as commercial weather balloons. In silence, they were passively monitoring the Magdaran and Domingan coastlines for electromagnetic anomalies, any of which were met with quick sorties.

Joining the islanders eastbound were the planes of Crosswind, filling the air with wind and whines.Staying were an ad-hoc scandrille of Presage fighters, and a half-Delta of Seras, accompanying dozens of Prism CUAVs. The majority remained in-flight, to be fueled at either continental Solicia or on the way through tankers.The Battle damage assessments from the then-labeled “Package-SP Strike” were still being determined about the, yet it was presumed to be no less than a chain of mass casualty events for the UNF, thousands of collective scholastic and military experienceship, leadership, AD personnel, and many inactive SOF assets, found themselves ordained by hellfire.
War hadn’t come this far west yet. But the islands were no longer paradise, It was becoming a bastion of ordinance that could not be sunk. The southwestern forces were now entrenched, dispersed, quietly waiting. Ready to recontextualize “sunken cost fallacy” to the hostile fleets to come. Revenge was surely to follow.

T PLUS 20 MINUTES AFTER ATTACK
Actera Armada Operations Center

The northern isles were spared from the attacks, yet it halted what little celebration there was. Damage assessments were still unfolding, slowed by the suboptimal cooperation between the ADN and their Coalition proper, which could be described as developing, at best. But the recent attack was considered an allowance to embolden their presence. It was presumed that this was largely a dead-hand type attack executed by sparse intel, but intel fed by moles. Not wishing to wait for the Solisian Union to respond, the ADN coordinated a rapid counterattack. Tercer-Sentinel Banzet rubbed his tired grey eyes as the Joint ASW Operations Map slowly lit up. “Our immediate options are limited,” the Sentinel admitted to his staff. “But we don’t need to match them boat for boat. We just need to deny them freedom to operate. If they can’t safely commit an offensive without an effective reprisal, they lose strategic initiative. The Coalition's failures at sea will not dictate our successes that came and those to come.” Forensics dictated that the missiles were high subsonic, low profile, and submarine launched within a hundred kilometer diamater of here. It was enough for a response but more verification was required for absolution.

A brief word to his diplomatic counterparts was to notify them of further actions, as to avoid concurrent fratricide. At his command, a Section of DX-6 Syrphid helicopters were now airborne and configured for anti-naval operations, skimming the waves off the eastern coast, dipping sonars in an expanding pattern like bees pollinating grass flowers. From high above Esprit-EVOs AESA radars watched the and skies waves fed the Sea Tiger AI fusion node, which stitched every passive and active anomaly into a 3D dynamic kill box. He pointed to a flashing triangle on the large display at the front “These subs thought we’d hesitate. They shall join their land based peers soon.”

At sea, within one of the many Accretion-class destroyers, Commander Huran led the search effort. pointed at his own 3D bathymetric map as it updated in real-time to his superior’s display. “We’ve initiated the pattern Seaspider-9. it’ll bottleneck Ordenite subs trying to hide in the Hualien Basin or transit to Yilan. They’re used to exploiting this basin, but we’ve closed the net; To fight us no differently than they do the Coalition was a grave error. ”
A signal pulsed red. “One hit,” the Commander reported. “Consistent with twisting cavitation, sub-20 knots. Course erratic—possibly avoiding capture.” Excellent work, Tercer-Sentinel Banzet reported through his radio. He turned to his staff. “Queue the gun gallery. We have a good idea of where they intend to dock. If they evade our hunting party, I want a firing solution to batter the coastline in 3 minutes.
Deployment “Silent Reef” Protocol Activated

Two pods of Horizon vessels repositioned themselves from general screening into an offensive posturing. No less than four times smaller than their counterpart, they compensated by their inherent lower signature and surface seaworthiness, an unusual trait for this class of vessel and its most important defensive measure. Being the farthest out and closest to the presumed aggressors, they formulated into a three dimensional positioning, differing in depth and location. Two of the surface vessels aligned themselves in a tight row and utilized the entirety of their active scanning suite, acting as both a seeker and bait for the subs mimicking a command vessel. Accretions primed their standoff missiles, awaiting target telemetry favorable enough for a successful engagement while expecting to snipe picket ships.
Joining them were air-surface composition of Accretion and Mosaic class ships, Esprit-EVO fighters and Iris AWACKs planes. High subsonic, launched from the Divinity’s airstrip to skim the ocean surface to dip their subsurface surveillance well ahead of their nests. It was only a matter of time before they were caught. “Confirming several more hits” confirmed the Commander. “Outstanding. Prepare to engage.

24x Horizon-class submersible-hybrids
12x Accretion-class Destroyers
2x Mosaic-class CUAV Carriers
24x Esprit EVO Fighters
6x DX-6 Syrphid Attack Helicopters
2x-DSr-21 Iris (AWACKS + EW)
50x

-Cordon waters south of Solisian Isles by mimicking a ham fisted anti surface effort, obscuring the true scope of the operation.
-Deter UNF-Aligned reconnaissance efforts
-Screen for mines and non participating combatants
-Unofficially contest Eitoanian maritime assets by engaging presumed assets suspecting of subverting
Coalition war efforts.

Primary Targets
-Type 220 Speerfish Submarines

Target acquisition:
-AI Enhanced OSINT mapping
TF-Riptide subsurface active and passive anomaly scanning
-Iris identifying vehicle and RF traffic patterns
-Mokan targeting telemetry
-Solisian targeting telemetry

Secondary Targets
-Accompanying Surface vessels
-Hostile Aircraft
-Non-aligned observers.

[Holy Marsh]

The Magdaran Air War – Magdaran Commonwealth

Following Coalition dominance over Magdaran airspace, the Ordenite military initiated a large-scale aerial offensive designed to challenge control. The operation involved the deployment of significant assets launched from whenever and however they could- aircraft carriers, temporary highway runways, and degraded tarmac infrastructure repurposed for mass mobilization.
The resulting sortie introduced a substantial volume of Nationalist combat aircraft into theater airspace. Their objective was to disrupt Coalition air formations, contest air corridors, and degrade the effectiveness of expanding aerial strike and surveillance missions. Hopefully, they could eventually come to own the skies themselves. Despite the scale and persistence of the offensive, the Coalition’s integrated air defense systems - comprised of overlapping SAM networks, radar coverage, and electronic warfare nodes - remained operational and adaptive. These systems, combined with the experience and coordination of frontline Coalition air units, limited the strategic impact of the Ordenite effort.
While the engagement marked a notable escalation, Coalition air superiority was not significantly compromised, and the defense network retained both operational integrity and confidence across sectors.

As aerial operations over Magdaran continued to escalate, the Coalition faced a concentrated challenge from Nationalist forces deploying highly experienced combat pilots and advanced platforms. These assets - many drawn from elite units across Greater Dienstad - engaged in persistent efforts to contest control of strategic air corridors. The scale was intense, and civilians soon beheld a shattered sky.
Coalition defenses responded with methodical coordination. Morridane systems provided layered interception across high-value sectors, while Commonwealth fighter groups focused on disruption and air interdiction. Coalition-wide electronic warfare units operated effectively, maintaining pressure on Nationalist targeting and navigation capabilities. The engagements were intense and prolonged. Dogfights unfolded across variable altitudes. Missiles launched from beyond the horizon traced the sky endlessly, and aircraft came tilting out of the sky in fire with grotesque regularity. Nationalist aircraft executed terrain-hugging routes and precision strikes in attempts to dislodge Coalition air defenses. Broken men and metal sang an unsung war. Despite their technical proficiency and tactical aggression, the Nationalist formations were increasingly constrained by reduced maneuvering space and the durability of Coalition systems.

Although losses occurred, particularly among advanced interceptor formations, overall Coalition air control remained stable. Command networks held, electronic suppression remained functional, and reinforcement cycles allowed for continued pressure. The tactical balance favored the defenders, and the airspace, while contested, did not shift away from Coalition dominance.

As the aerial conflict matured, loss rates across both combatants clarified the strategic condition of the Magdaran theater. The Coalition maintained air superiority - not only over Commonwealth-controlled zones and frontline sectors, but extending several hundred kilometers beyond active hostilities. This control allowed for continued aerial reconnaissance, strike operations, and flexible force mobility throughout the region. Conversely, Nationalist air forces, despite incremental improvements, remained limited in their ability to project sustained control. Operational capacity allowed for localized contestation near strategic nodes and massed for for specific frontline battles within Nationalist territory, but broader dominance over frontline or rear-area skies remained unattainable. Only in the urban defense corridors did they reign, and even then it was a question of what may be should the Coalition push the issue. Their improvement over initial conditions was measurable but did not meet pre-offensive strategic expectations.

Within the Commonwealth Air Force, however, structural fatigue became increasingly acute. While several elite squadrons remained combat effective, overall force integrity had deteriorated substantially due to sustained operational exposure. Personnel reserves were diminished; training pipelines were drawing from reduced pools, and accelerated programs risked deploying insufficiently prepared pilots into active combat zones. Strategic planners acknowledged a pending transition: the eventual requirement to cede control of aerial operations to Coalition partners with greater resilience, higher operational tempo, and intact logistical ecosystems. The Commonwealth's contribution, while critical, was now facing limitations that could impact long-term viability in the airspace domain as they fought to spread the fires of liberation.

he Nationalist bombing campaign, increasingly constrained by the loss of sustained air superiority, shifted toward reliance on long-range standoff platforms. With traditional vectors into Commonwealth-controlled zones interdicted by Coalition interceptors and air defense grids, Nationalist strategic bombers were limited to isolated penetration efforts and high-risk deployments. Their capacity to project force effectively diminished outside peak operational windows during their attempted resurgence. During that brief apex, when Nationalist formations temporarily widened access corridors through contested airspace, bomber units reached deeper into Coalition territory. However, broad effectiveness remained marginal. Most sorties resulted in minor infrastructure disruption, with Coalition early warning and interception protocols mitigating significant damage. In several cases, Nationalist aircraft suffered losses en route or during exfiltration, further limiting campaign viability.

One exception, however, emerged.

Electromagnetic interference traced to a nuclear detonation in the Northern provinces generated distortions across key sectors of the Coalition's air defense network. The timing coincided with a scheduled 5th Corps command meeting, hosted at a forward-deployed field headquarters. The attack ended with the death of the leader of 5th Corp and other major leadership figures, though it would take days or weeks for the situation in the area to be fully realized after the nuclear detonation caused chaos. While the broader campaign remained limited in strategic impact, this strike marked a rare operational success during a period of declining Nationalist aerial capability, a bolt from the blue and a strike from skies unknown.

Operation Tin Guard Final – Central Magdaran

The Nationalist retreat from Central Magdaran unfolded under severe operational duress. Encircled by Coalition forces on multiple vectors, remaining exit routes narrowed into a confined corridor subject to sustained interdiction. Coalition artillery units saturated the escape axis with precision targeting, bolstered by missile platforms and periodic aerial strikes that further restricted movement.

While prior engagements - marked by deliberate sacrifice and rearguard action - enabled the retreat to commence at all, the withdrawal phase proved exceptionally costly. Ground infrastructure deteriorated rapidly; primary roads became congested with disabled and burning vehicles. Personnel losses escalated as convoys were struck en route, and casualty recovery efforts proved unfeasible under prevailing fire conditions. Ditches and embankments filled with remains, complicating passage and morale simultaneously. On the periphery of the withdrawal zone, frequent low-intensity engagements continued. Coalition and Nationalist skirmish elements clashed persistently in fragmented exchanges that yielded limited tactical gain but imposed a consistent drain on manpower and munitions. These engagements, while not decisive individually, compounded stress across both formations and accelerated the Nationalist disaster. It was up to the heroism and tactical brilliance of individual units, sometimes a single squad, executing impossible missions in impossible situations, that prevented a total collapse of the cordon.

Despite near-total encirclement of Nationalist forces in Central Magdaran, Coalition command refrained from initiating a full closure of the remaining escape corridor. Intelligence and battlefield observation indicated continued Nationalist resistance near the exit vector, marked by layered defensive formations and intermittent artillery cover. Coalition planners assessed that another attempt to seal the route could result in a localized tactical failure, creating vulnerabilities exploitable by concentrated Nationalist force regroupings or a sudden counter-offensive.

Instead, Coalition operations pivoted to focus on strategically relevant sectors. Precision attacks were authorized where force ratios and terrain advantage supported measurable tactical gains. These maneuvers aimed to solidify defensive lines, enabling logistical reinforcement and combat readiness ahead of a projected joint Ordenite-GRM counter-attack, expected to materialize across multiple fronts. The withdrawal from Central Magdaran formally concluded as Coalition forces advanced into the vacuum, immediately engaging remnants of Nationalist rearguards with coordinated fire missions and direct assault. Contact was sporadic but decisive; resistance elements suffered substantial attrition, marking the final phase of the encirclement with heavy casualties.

Assessment of Nationalist force integrity revealed widespread degradation. Surviving formations bore significant losses across personnel, material, and command cohesion. The majority of heavy equipment assets were abandoned during the withdrawal -vehicles, artillery systems, and mechanized platforms either disabled, destroyed, or rendered logistically inaccessible. Similarly, critical light materiel, including medical supplies, small arms, and field communications, was severely depleted. Captured intelligence caches further compounded the strategic setback. Coalition positioning in the wake of the retreat solidified as Morridane, Mokan, and Solisian forces executed link-up operations. Joint photo documentation involving 3rd and 10th Corps leadership publicly framed the outcome as a significant operational victory, reinforcing both morale and international confidence in anti-Nationalist momentum.

From a Nationalist perspective, the result was unequivocally a defeat - but not a total collapse. Approximately 125,000 personnel successfully evacuated, representing a core combat force capable of future redeployment. Though disorganized and materially diminished, the surviving formations retained operational experience and cohesion sufficient to pose substantive challenges if given recovery time. Strategically, the engagement transitioned the war's posture: Coalition control extended, Nationalist capacity contracted, and the stage reoriented toward consolidation and preparation.

Nowhere to Run – Eastern Magdaran

The first move fell in the east.

Within hours of the Makhaisara nuclear attack, the Theocratic Matriarchy initiated a wide-scale purge and security operation in Eastern Magdaran. This region, formerly under the control of the People's Revolutionary Republic, had long been marked by the Theocracy for its past aggression. The PRR's previous invasion of the Northern Provinces-provoked by an ideological commitment to state atheism - had been answered swiftly at the time with military conquest. Now, in the wake of the nuclear atrocity, that response had evolved

The Inquisition, supported by occupational forces and allied local authorities, executed Operation Denier's Flame - a massive and ruthlessly efficient sweep aimed at eradicating potential subversive threats, in the hope that they had facilitated transport of the weapon. Intelligence databases compiled since the annexation, alongside local testimonies and Marshite informant networks, were activated with clinical precision.

Over 110,000 individuals - including former PRR officials, pardoned fighters, ideological agitators, educators, propagandists, and known anti-Faith organizers - were apprehended within the first seventy-two hours. Those who resisted were met with immediate and overwhelming force. Thousands died in armed clashes with inquisitorial teams or were summarily executed for defiance. Their bodies would be repurposed for soil within hours.

Countless more vanished into the Theocracy’s interior, transferred by sealed convoys and transports under the auspices of the Inquisition. Their fates were no longer their own, but the Faith's. There would be no leniency-not while Makhaisara smoldered. Interrogations would be absolute. Truth would be ripped from silence.

Eastern Magdaran became, overnight, a landscape of silence and fear. Streets emptied. Curfews went from symbolic to sacred law. Sardas once shunned by local populations now burned with incense and righteous fire, as the Inquisition declared:

“The blood of Makhaisara calls for judgment. We are the answer.”

Nowhere to Hide – Kalisgnon

Kalisgnon, jewel of the Coalition’s mainland operations and the beating heart of the Commonwealth’s war effort, had enjoyed a brief moment of perceived security. With recent gains along the frontlines and stability in rear areas restored, the city had become a staging ground for coordination, replenishment, and intelligence operations.

That illusion of safety shattered exactly forty-eight hours after the Makhaisara bombing.

The HMIS Regional Interrogation Center, buried under bureaucratic camouflage and official anonymity, went silent at 03:17 hours. A classified node masquerading as a civic administration building, it housed Commonwealth agents, intelligence officers, and a wide array of suspects deemed sensitive or dangerous.

No alarms were raised. No distress signals were sent. But by sunrise, the absence of routine communication triggered investigation. Local Coalition security units dispatched to the facility encountered a building utterly devoid of life. Offices, cells, surveillance rooms, even the security checkpoints - all empty. No signs of struggle. No evidence of a firefight. No sounds beyond the flicker of broken fluorescents and the quiet ticking of a wall clock.

The only thing left behind: a single sheet of parchment placed in the center of the warden's desk, emblazoned with the seal of the Inquisition.

“These men and women have been invited to answer for themselves. Answer for the investigations. Answer for their crimes. They shall be returned when they are found to be free of lies. Should that never occur, then they are where they belong.”

To some, it was impossible. Kalisgnon was far from Makhaisara. How could they have moved undetected? How had they breached one of the most secure black sites in the entire Commonwealth?

Answers would come slowly - trickles of evidence found across abandoned checkpoints, erased security logs, and surveillance corrupted or looping endlessly. The working theory: Inquisitorial agents, some embedded long in advance by local Sardas, utilized a specialized gas to knock out the occupants. How they were moved remained a mystery.

Among those taken was Garel Haskellaban, former ISD operative of the United National Front. He had risen through the ranks of the UNF’s infamous security and intelligence directorate during the height of their terror campaigns, and was widely believed to be one of the few living individuals with knowledge of the Epsilon Facility - a deep black weapons complex that had been raided months earlier under mysterious circumstances. The Commonwealth had captured him during 3rd Corp’s counter-attack, holding him in secret and subjecting him to extended interrogations by the HMIS.

To the Commonwealth, he was a war criminal and a vault of priceless information. A scapegoat they were comfortable with until this very moment. To the Inquisition, he was a man who had held uncertain truths in his hands. Whether the Inquisition had removed him because of what he knew - or because of what he had not revealed-as unclear.

Within secret cathedrals carved into the living rock of holy mountains, the Marshite Inquisition would show men like Haskellaban and Maagad that there were truths buried so deep only death could unearth them - and that even death, in the presence of the Faith, was no barrier at all.

Imperial Legacy – Romandeos

In the southern reaches of Romandeos, the Theocracy’s grip - though firm - was being tested. While the annexation of the former monarchy had been widely accepted across most of the country, the southern borderlands, adjacent to the fractured Magdaran Commonwealth, remained turbulent. Dissent simmered in provincial towns and hinterland estates, driven by regional identity and old loyalties to a vanished royal court.

It was here that Operation Tanpiere, launched months prior by the Inquisition to investigate reports of unexplained disappearances, unusual cargo movements, and unmarked convoys, entered a new and volatile phase.

Tanpiere teams operating in Parselta Province intercepted encoded transmissions and began observing increased activity along the old Jendar Spur railway, a half-defunct line that had seen no sanctioned traffic since annexation. What they found were temporary stops and refurbished waystations receiving suspicious deliveries under heavy guard - no manifests, no authorization, and no clear origin. The shipments were always short, rapid, and timed irregularly.

Simultaneously, Tanpiere Combat Unit 9, tracking leads near the border town of Carrelon, came under fire. Surveillance footage and brief contact reports identified the assailants as Romandean mercenaries, well-armed and operating in organized formations. Analysis suggested they were receiving logistical support from across the Commonwealth border. Several firefights occurred under the cover of darkness. The Inquisition responded with local force multiplication, deploying black-armored units to silently neutralize key encampments. Casualty numbers were not disclosed.

Though the connection was unclear, patterns began to emerge. Railway investigations in Seronelle, Mar Denat, and Fiskarun yielded near-identical findings - abandoned military rail yards with signs of recent, high-security transits. At each location, residual arcane tracers and elevated background radiation suggested something far more dangerous had passed through.

With evidence mounting, it became clear what had happened. Some force had stolen live nuclear weapons from the Epsilion Facility. They were transported through Romandeos to parts unknown in the south. Preliminary analysis of the rail traffic’s trajectory indicated a consistent drift southward - not toward coastal ports or active battle zones, but deeper into territories presently held by the People’s Revolutionary Republic. These regions were believed to house elements of the PRR’s logistical backbone: fortified rail hubs being stood up, repurposed industrial zones, and a dense network of political cells. The border zones themselves were underdeveloped jungles, excellent smuggling territory. Worse, its known internal factions included radicals unshackled by conventional restraint, capable of acts as reckless as they were horrific. Spiritually offensive.

Tanpiere Ongoing – Romandeos

For all that the Marshites had already done - raids, seizures, demands, shadowed movements through the borderlands - what was more telling was what they had not yet done.

There was no invasion.
No massed air campaign.
No calling down of sacred fire, no thunder of a righteous strategic response.
The heavens had not yet opened.
The hammer had not yet fallen.
Because the Theocracy had not yet decided who deserved it the most.

From the peaks of the Northern Provinces to the salt-scarred southern marches of Romandeos, the flow of troops became an unignorable signal. Nearly one million Marshite soldiers surged into the annexed north, augmenting occupational garrisons and fortifying border checkpoints, creating an iron veil between Theocratic territory and the fractured mainland.

At the same time, two million more were mobilized, dispatched in waves to Southern Romandeos, reinforcing Inquisitorial teams and strategic watchposts, anchoring themselves along the volatile frontier. Recon flights increased tenfold. Tactical satellite networks adjusted their orbits. Three tactical fleets moved into position. The message was received, by friend and foe alike: the Karda had not yet made its judgment. Until that moment arrived, every actor in Magdaran lived under the shadow of the unknown. The Theocracy had become the variable that no faction, no alliance, no nation could afford to ignore. Commander repositioned forces. Every intelligence officer scrambled to understand which way the wind would blow when the Gods finally stirred.

And above them all, Mar'si watched in silence.

A Job Well Done – Southern Jungles

Kilo Facility, Deep Jungle – Unknown Location
Director Serrano, Observation Control

The low hum of power conduits echoed through the concrete skeleton of Kilo Facility’s command center. Blue light bathed the room, emanating from dozens of holotable displays and data interfaces blinking in silent calculation. Serrano stood with gloved hands behind his back, eyes fixed on the flickering theater map projected across the central table. Glowing red circles marked recent troop movements - Marshite surges from the north, imperial activity in the Commonwealth’s heart, and Ordenite formations hardening like tumors along contested roads. The game was unfolding.

He smiled.

The Marshites, so righteous, so gloriously predictable. They searched for villains with straight lines and clean labels. They’d bring their armies, their agents, their fire. They would only wait so long before their natural inclination towards holy massacre brought disaster. And in doing so, they would force the rest to act. The Throne would gird itself to protect its pet queen and her brittle little High Committee. The Ordenites would lash out in fury. The PRR would sniff weakness and overreach. All of them, set to motion by the Queen’s hand.

He turned to a nearby display. The cities lit up: Baidenia, the gilded jewel. Dominga, the traitor’s heart. Kalinog, oh Kalinog - what a loss it would be. Sanglosan, poised like a loaded weapon. Each marked. Some nearly ready. Others further off. All of them ready to replicate the beauty of Makhaisara. Four new judgments to breed a thousand new atrocities, ten million new punishments, a billion ashen souls.

"Let it spread, you delirious fools," he murmured.

He raised a hand in mock salute to the map, eyes alight with venomous satisfaction.

"Die slowly, die screaming. Die. All of you."

The Queen’s Fire had only just begun.

[Solisian Union]

La Victoria, capital city of the New Solisian Union

A cabinet meeting has come to an end again. As ministers left the conference room and aides cleaned things up, the Queen stood by the windows as rain fell down on her capital.

Lee was purring and brushing himself against her leg. She let him be, her focus on Carmona and the Nannasian Lieutenant General they were talking to. The Solisian looked serious, but their counterpart appeared more a mixture of irritation and shock. Both officers had their eyes fixed on the copies of the messages the New Solisian Union had just received from The Golden Throne.

Wessa wished that she could do more for them.

Hours ago, the cabinet meeting had seen shouting and arguing. They had all seen the messages. First, the message from the First Cathedral in Mar'si. There had first been silent shock, then one by one Queen Wessa's ministers spoke out. Some recommended they help the Marshites and the Northern Provinces. Others argued they must focus on the war. It was only General Carmona who recommended that they first get their ministries ready for greater escalation, especially reminding them of the Ordenite attacks on the Desaan Islands. Although it could be argued that the nuclear bombing of Makhaisara was not confirmed to be Ordenite, Carmona insisted that they prepare. Queen Wessa's government had to be ready for anything, even if that meant being ready to survive a nuclear war.

Then, of course, there was the message from The Golden Throne. Even before Queen Wessa took the throne, the manner in which The Golden Throne behaved toward Solisia during the civil war did not leave a nice impression. Yes, it was appreciated by the former monarchists that they offered refuge to many Solisian nobles and royals. That very move, on the other hand, was not so liked by former republicans who felt that The Golden Throne only cared about its own interests first than it did about actually extending refuge to outsiders. Regardless, the message sent by Krierlord Lara Surr was one of those things that The Golden Throne did to leave a rather mixed impression.

On this matter, there was more talk.

"They have a point," said Kinte, scratching her head, "and we cannot risk more of our territories coming under attack. What if the Ordenites start hitting the Elizaran islands? The mainland?"

"But if we commit to restraint, what will our allies think? What will these Ordenites even do? It will not guarantee that these tyrants would even stop!" said Mendes. The economic minister then rose from his seat and turned to the Queen. "Your Majesty, if we do this, we may lose face. It could hurt our internal trade between the mainland and the islands."

"Mendes, we risk more than just the loss of face. We are going to risk the whole country and all our work at reconstruction and recovery if we simply keep allowing strikes from our territory."

On and on that went, but eventually it was not General Carmona who calmed things down but the Prime Minister herself. Elena, with Queen Wessa's approval, proposed that they consider the message and that Morales instead send a reply to the Krierlord about it. While he would work on that, she assured them that any direct action against the country would be met by a Marshite response. It calmed them down for now. But at least Elena nudged them away from despairing over their chances of survival.

Now, it was just Queen Wessa, her cat, her trusted military advisor, and the Nannasian chief of staff for the Magdaran war.

She turned away from the officers and looked out the window again. Her mind was already made up about these issues. Her decisions had already been made. For now.

--------------------------

NEW SOLISIAN UNION
PRIORITY CABLE – EYES ONLY
FROM: LA VICTORIA
TO: KRIERLORD LARA SURR
RE: Advice

Restraint is admirable. We have gone over this from time to time, just after we received your message box. Our Queen has seen it fit to request negotiations over this sort of thing. It is our belief that you For now, we must talk with our people.

---------------------------

As for dealing with the nuclear bombing of Makhaisara, Queen Wessa would make a statement about it later on. But for now, she knew that she couldn't say anything about it. Instead, all she could think of was making sure her healthy was tame, that she was good.

[State of Ordena]

BAIDENIA.

Despite the chaos encircling it, Baidenia—capital of the Grand Republic of Magdaran remained unbroken. The city had endured multiple enemy attacks, yet none had succeeded in delivering a decisive blow. Attacks either fell short of expectations or failed entirely to inflict lasting damage. As the war stretched into its later stages, Baidenia was not only surviving—it was transforming.

The conflict in Magdaran had drawn ever-deeper involvement from the Ordenite Reich, and nowhere was this more evident than in the capital. Shipments of war materiel, equipment, and combat personnel from the Ordenite Krijgsmacht flowed in day and night, turning Baidenia into a logistical nerve center for the war effort. Convoys of armored vehicles rumbled through the streets. Transport aircraft circled above. Trains unloaded endless crates of munitions and crates bearing the black insignia of the Greater Reichstaat.

The capital had become a strategic bulwark of the Ordenite military presence in Magdaran. All across the city and surrounding region, Krijgsmacht installations were springing up fortified depots, command centers, radar stations, and air defense silos. Entire regiments of Ordenite-manned air and coastal defense systems were deployed around Baidenia in anticipation of further strikes, transforming the city into a near-impenetrable bastion under the protective umbrella of the Ordenite Air Force.

On the ground, security was equally robust. Elite formations from the Ordenite Army, along with a full brigade from the Siegfried Security Consortium—a quasi-private, state-mandated paramilitary corporation were stationed throughout the capital. These forces, many of whom had arrived in the early phases of the Ordenite deployment, took the lead in securing critical infrastructure and government districts. While primarily tasked with the defense of Baidenia, they also served as military advisors and trainers to loyalist Magdaran recruits raised by the GRM’s emergency mobilization programs.

In tandem with military reinforcements, the Central Office for Technical Construction Work (Zentralamt für Technisches Bauwesen) managed rapid expansion of infrastructure and repair of war-damaged facilities. The effort relied heavily on forced labor from the occupied Sibulangon region, who toiled under strict supervision to erect fortifications, repair roads and rails, and support the war economy. Temporary housing, munitions depots, and hardened bunkers now dotted the capital and its outskirts.

A convoy of Kommando 4x4 armored vehicles approached the secured central government complex where a high-level war council had been called. From the lead vehicle stepped Generaloberst Gregor Korver, the new overall commander of Ordenite forces in Magdaran, appointed following the death of his predecessor, Generalfeldmarschall Von Kohler. At his side was an OSUP political liaison, a senior representative of the Ordenite Socialist Unity Party—his presence a reminder that Baidenia’s autonomy was, at best, conditional.

Inside, President Eduardo Padilla of Magdaran waited, flanked by members of his wartime cabinet and security advisors. Haggard and pale, the president bore the heavy weight of command in a nation wracked by war. Dark circles beneath his eyes and a strained expression revealed a man deeply affected by sleepless nights and relentless pressure.

Korver offered a crisp nod as they exchanged formal greetings.

“President Padilla, as you know, I have assumed overall command of the Krijgsmacht in Magdaran. Despite the setbacks we’ve recently endured, I assure you—we can still turn this around,” Korver began firmly.

Padilla stared blankly for a moment before nodding, his voice tired but resolute.

“We lost much of the Central Plains, yes. But the corridor held. Over 100,000 troops managed to pull back in good order. They’re now being refitted and redeployed. The Northern Front remains quiet, and following Operation Rebound, the Southwest is still under our control.”

For a moment, there was silence. Then Padilla straightened in his chair, voice strengthening.

“There is good news,” he added, addressing both Korver and the OSUP official. “Our industrial base has been fully retooled for war. Production has surged—rifles, shells, tanks, fuel, uniforms we’re reaching levels we haven’t seen in decades. The reallocation of labor has paid off.”

He paused before continuing.

“More importantly, we’ve achieved tight control over internal information. Our people believe we are winning. Propaganda and censorship mechanisms are holding. Civilian morale remains high even defiant. The Magdaran spirit is alive.”

The Ordenite official smiled thinly at that, making a quick note on his dossier. Korver leaned forward.

“Then we still have the foundation to pursue total victory. As long as the people remain steadfast, and the lines hold, we will grind down the enemy block by block, field by field.”

Padilla gave a solemn nod. Despite everything, the embers of resistance still glowed in his eyes. Baidenia had become more than a city. It was the fortress-heart of a beleaguered republic propped up by its authoritarian ally, hardened by war, and determined to endure. The battle for Magdaran was far from over, but in Baidenia, the war machine was very much alive.

SIBULANGON.

Walter von Lichtenau, now serving as the acting Generaloberst and commander of Army Group Center, found himself under immense pressure as the strategic situation in central Magdaran continued to deteriorate. Recent setbacks at the hands of the Commonwealth-led Coalition had exposed serious vulnerabilities along the front, and with each passing day the burden of command grew heavier on his shoulders.

The once-vital Central Plains, seized during the ambitious Operation Iron Storm, had now been lost following a determined and well-executed enemy counteroffensive. The area, once a symbol of rapid Ordenite-GRM momentum, had become a graveyard of shattered divisions and broken dreams. Yet even amidst the chaos, a silver lining emerged: a critical escape corridor had been held open just long enough for over 100,000 troops—comprising battered elements of the Ordenite and Grand Republican Magdaran (GRM) forces to avoid total encirclement and retreat to more defensible positions.

By the time these exhausted formations limped into the fortified urban zones behind the lines, they resembled ghosts more than soldiers hollow-eyed and worn, their equipment in tatters and morale frayed from weeks of relentless combat. They had fought hard, endured enormous hardship, and paid dearly for the failed gambit in the heart of Magdaran. Yet they were alive—and alive meant they could be withdrawn to the rear echelons for badly-needed rest and refitting, their scars a testament to the ferocity of the fighting.

In their place, the Ordenite Army moved in new blood—fresh, fully equipped, and highly motivated formations that had been staging for weeks in the hinterlands of the Magdaran provinces. Unlike the piecemeal deployments of earlier phases in the war, which often saw understrength and under-supported divisions flung into the cauldron, these new formations had arrived in full force. Among them were the 75th Panzer Army, the 61st Field Army, and the 69th Panzer Army a combined fighting force of over 600,000 troops. They were emboldened by the desire for revenge and inspired by the memory of their fallen comrades. The morale in these formations was notably high.

Operating alongside them was the GRM’s battle-hardened 4th Army, which had played a key role in maintaining the vital escape corridor and had absorbed its own share of losses in the process. Their familiarity with the terrain and the enemy’s tactics would prove invaluable in what was to come.

Within the forward headquarters of Army Group Center, debate raged. Could they risk a counteroffensive so soon after the disastrous losses in the plains? Some within the high command urged caution, citing the Coalition’s growing air superiority and the fatigue of the local GRM units. Others, including von Lichtenau himself, feared that hesitation would spell strategic doom—not only for Army Group Center but for the very survival of the GRM as a sovereign entity. The window for regaining the initiative was rapidly closing.

Meanwhile, the Ordenite Air Force had already begun independent operations, launching limited air strikes against Coalition supply nodes, troop concentrations, and forward operating bases. Results were mixed; while some tactical successes were reported, Allied air defenses remained formidable, and several squadrons suffered attrition in exchange for minimal gains. Still, the pressure was something—and pressure, however small, could shape momentum.

Ultimately, the decision was made: Army Group Center would commit to a full-scale counterattack, a move originally slated prior to the unraveling of the Central Plains campaign. The operation would harness the full striking power of the newly arrived Ordenite armies and center on an aggressive push toward the Angbani region, aiming to exploit seams in the Coalition’s lines before they could fully consolidate their recent gains.

The battle plan called for a pincer movement. The main thrust would come from the south, with Corps sized elements of the 69th and 75th Panzer armies leading the spearhead. Simultaneously, elements of GRM’s 4th Army would advance due north from Sibulangon, aiming to roll up the Coalition’s northern flank and stretch their defensive posture thin. Ordenite air assets would be redeployed en masse, focusing not only on softening frontline resistance but also on deep strikes into Coalition rear echelons, targeting command posts, supply lines, and reserve staging areas. The 61st Field Army would remain behind acting as strategic reserves whether the outcomes were good or bad for the counter attack.

This would be a massive and decisive undertaking—a gamble made not from a position of strength, but out of necessity. Army Group Center’s senior staff understood the stakes clearly: should this counteroffensive fail, it would likely open the floodgates for a general collapse of GRM resistance in Central and Western Magdaran. Such a collapse would leave the GRM dangerously exposed, politically humiliated, and militarily overstretched.

For Walter von Lichtenau, it was no longer merely a matter of regaining lost territory. It was about seizing fate by the throat and restoring initiative before it was too late.

SOUTH-WESTERN MAGDARAN.

It had become increasingly clear that the evolving strategic landscape in mainland Magdaran could no longer be left to the whims of fortune. The current disposition of forces demanded decisive action. Despite recent setbacks, Army Group Center was regaining momentum its leadership determined to reclaim the initiative and wrest control of the battlefield from the Commonwealth and its coalition allies.

Meanwhile, Army Group South, buoyed by its resounding success during Operation Rebound, stood poised to build upon its victories. Brimming with confidence and martial fervor, its commanders were eager to exploit the shifting dynamics and join the effort to turn the tide of the campaign. This formation was by far the most formidable of all Ordenite-led groups operating in the theater, composed of several fully mobilized Ordenite field armies, elite formations from the GRM Republican Guard, and the seasoned 3rd Army. Its strength gave planners the flexibility to both reinforce the front and project power deep into contested sectors.

In coordination with Army Group Center, which had already begun launching probing attacks and limited offensives, corps-level formations from the 101st and 99th Panzer Armies were ordered to commence their own strikes. These operations were designed not only to achieve tactical gains but to pin down Coalition reserves and complicate their strategic response to the renewed tempo of Ordenite-GRM joint offensives across the front.

Complementing this ground effort, the Ordenite Air Force intensified its operations in the southwestern sector. The skies over Magdaran saw a surge in sorties, with Ordenite aircraft aggressively targeting Coalition air defense networks, logistics hubs, and rear-echelon concentrations. The objective was clear: establish localized air superiority, disrupt enemy command and control, and sow chaos behind the lines to pave the way for deeper penetrations by ground forces.

The coming phase of the campaign would test the endurance and cohesion of both sides—but for the Ordenite High Command, the moment to seize operational initiative had arrived.

[Morrdh]

Flash! Flash! Flash! Fallout warning black. Assume NBC state four-romeo. Out.

This was the message that spread across Morridane military comms nets in Magdaran in the aftermath of the atomic destruction of Makhaisara made itself known as a sun briefly flared on the earth. The ‘Flash’ at the start was just a prefix, one to signify that the message had the highest priority over all other comms traffic. Then came the body of the message in the form of a warning and an instruct, chiefly for Morridane troops to don their NBC suits and their respirators. ‘Out’ marked the end of the message and that no response was expected, though the troops would be busy with other matters.

In response to both the nuclear detonation and the resultant warning, various Morridane contingency plans were put into action. As well as increasingly it’s nuclear defense posture, the Gaelic Commonwealth leveraged it’s resources to determine the origins of the atomic blast and to track the fallout from the blast. The latter was particularly important as it would affect military operations, suited up in full NBC gear would have an adverse effect on troops in the long run and thus it was important to know which areas were safe.

Additionally, the Gaelic Commonwealth publicly announced that it was offering support to the Theocracy to help deal with the aftermath of the nuclear detonation. Whilst the Marshites had already stated that they would not ask for assistance, the Morridane offer would still stand. Likewise, Morridane intelligence efforts would drastically increase if anything to prevent a reoccurrence of the attack.

[Imbrinium]

Philotas Islands

The Philotas Islands were the vacation spot for the Crown, with white sandy beaches and attractions. Among those attractions was the regional surf competition, among other festivals.

Since the first civil war, the conflict has grown into the war that is today. The government of Philotas Islands has ordered a higher state of alert for the Islands. With that came the 24-hour CAP and doubled the AWAC patrols. On the ground, military convoys are moving from marine bases to staging areas to move onto ships for deployment to the Mag.
Air defense units had moved into deployment points all around the islands; most of these sites dated back to the last war and had only been used during training operations. An increase in military patrols on the streets. Public announcements were on all media platforms instructing civilians where the local shelters were and what to do in case of an attack.

With the first attack in the Mag going so well, leadership knew it was on a matter of time before the Ordenas took revenge on the Crown.

The attack:

The night was like most nights on the Islands, warm and breezy; you could stand on the beach and watch naval ships moving in and out of ports, along with civilian cruise ships and local fishing vessels. The waters were always busy.

Couples walked along the boardwalks and beaches, along with other nightlife attractions. As the peaceful nights were being watched over by a sophisticated network of air defense, air patrols, and sea patrols.

At Umberto airbase, another raid was prepped for attack against the GRM and Ordena forces. These bombers on this strike would be the new B-90 Wraiths stealth bombers, each carrying RBS 89 Excalibur Hypersonic boost-glide missiles. This mission was to be the first of a series of missions to strike deeper into the held territories in northern Mag.

With the loading finished, the bombers started taking off one by one into the night sky. With all 50 bombers airborne, they moved northwest to meet with a tanker, which would be their last fueling before going dark and going into the Mag.

Southeast off the main island of Philotas and AWACs plane code name sky guard south. Picked up a trace vertical signature, then went dark. The radar operator reported the sighting to the lead operator, who then reported the sighting to Crystal Palace, which was the main joint operations base.

The air defense networks were then alerted to possible targets incoming from the south. Minutes counted down, and nothing was reported. The alert aircraft were told to take off, and with that, interceptors launched with their afterburners on full.

“Ripper flight to Crystal Palace, we are airborne, requesting approach vector to possible inbounds.”

“Roger Rippe,r flight move southeast on heading off on a 070 degrees, check out the area and report”

“Roger that!”

As the flight of AEJ 39 Lich headed southeast at high supersonic speed toward the possible contacts to intercept if possible.

This was a normal thing for possible attacks from the Ordena or their allies. This was a one to a few times a week ordeal.

“Ripper flight to Crystal Palace, we have no targets dead horse.”

“Roger Ripper flight RTB”

With that, they turned around and headed back to base. Between them and the islands, some 400 missiles skimming at wave-top level snuck passed the interceptors, not expecting low-flying missiles.

This would be a fatal flaw for the Crown and the Philotas Islands' military and the citizens of the Islands.

Hill position 34

An air defense radar site picked up the missiles just 30 minutes out from the islands and sounded the alarm.

“VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE!, INCOMING MISSILES TRACKING OVER AN HUNDRED MISSILES IMBOUND!”

With the alarm sounding, the air defense network kicked into high gear with radars lighting up the incoming missiles and anti-missile interceptors launching from their racks. The long-range missiles flew into the night air, as air raid sirens started to go off on all the islands. Radar operators were hard pressed to track and lock on incoming missiles.

“This is the Crystal Palace. We are closing off the palace!”

And with that, two thick steel and concrete doors began to shut, to seal off the bunker from the outside strike. The complex was designed to take a near hit by a nuclear warhead.

All across the islands, military and civilian alike rushed for bunkers, some hardened to withstand a nuclear strike, some just hardened for conventional missiles.
Once the missiles were in range, the medium and short-range air defense systems started to open up, hitting more missiles inbound with counter-missile systems.
Active jamming systems switched from standby to active.

Naval ships moved at high speed around the islands with their air defense radars and systems being switched to automatic mode.

Civilian aircraft inbound to the airports were told to emergency hold, and civilians caught outside unable to make it to bunkers took shelter as best they could.
The first missiles impacted, hitting the southern areas, taking out some harbor port tank farms, which exploded with a blinding fireball, killing several military and civilian personnel. Next was the depot a few miles away, which held spare parts for the fleet and aircraft for the Philotas navy.

As the missiles hit their intended targets, some locked onto civilian targets due to the extreme jamming in the area, now or being hit by interceptors and crashed into local areas.

Some ships were hit, being mistaken for targets in ports, destroying some areas and knocking out naval ports, at least being used at 100% until fires were contained and damage fixed.

A number of air defense network support facilities were struck and destroyed. The naval air force bases were struck, hitting bombers and fighters, and support aircraft, setting them aflame, destroying some runways.

All over the island chain, fires raged and damage was extensive, but not total. Some smaller air strips survived not being in all the time use. All three fleet headquarters were hit, with the logistical hubs being hit and some destroyed, but also the headquarters buildings where the Philotas islands fleet command and the west and far west fleet commands were destroyed and ablaze. The death toll wasn’t known, but it looked like the strike had killed hundreds, some within command of the navy and air forces.

Thousands of civilians were injured by flying glass from those missiles that lost their way and hit civilian buildings. Fires raged in the capital city along with other cities.
The grand hotel in downtown of the downtown capital was on fire after a missile hit the hotel, the fire raged from the tenth floor, moving up fast. People could be seen jumping to their deaths from the heat and smoke, as others lucky enough to make it to the rooftops were being rescued by military and local helicopters.

Cormond, Imbrinium

The king was woken up by an aide in the early morning, just hours before daylight, with the first reports of the attack.

“Assemble my advisors and have them here within the hour,” the king ordered.

“I want to know how bad we are hit and how this changes our operational standpoint in the West and Magdaran.”

The civilian airports were to be fully militarized for the war, so that any help requested by the Philotas Islands would be granted fully.