An Eventful Landing [Closed: Ajax Only – IC]

[Enyama]

11,000km above Dalian airspace

Minister of Foreign Affairs Sakata Emio had been undeniably bored as she lounged in the barely-comfortable seats in her transport. She was already onto smoking her fourth-cigarette, and her mind had wandered again and again from small-talk with her small detachment of Internal Troops bodyguards, to the always-updating feed of news and pictures and messages on her phone, to her own rather cramped position in the aircraft.

As the nation's secondary diplomat, she'd been sent to Uluujol, seeking a barely-planned diplomatic meeting with its leadership on the 'socialist question', as President Muratagi had put it in his quickly-assembled strategy meeting two days beforehand. She had no idea, practically, what she would discuss in specifics, outside of the fact that she would propose a mutual intelligence agreement, particularly focused on the socialist states of Jhengtsang and Liothidia, threats which seemed distant to everyone in government - the current focus was on all of this ethnic trouble with the Skaldanians, after all. What had slowly become more pertinent to her though, past Muratagi's geopolitical fascinations with far-away but ideologically similar countries, was the inkling of hers that this whole mission, this whole ordeal, waking her up early in the morning and disturbing her from her family retreat, had all been so that Muratagi could satiate his child-like drives left over from when he ran Karasuna's Gokudo, and test the aircraft in which she was riding right now.

She didn't know much about stealth systems, truly, outside of what she'd been told by advisers and what she'd read about other nation's successes in the field. Enyama had been working at this thing for almost a decade, and instead of focusing on something where stealth would undoubtedly have been more applicable - a fighter, or a tank, perhaps, they'd put all of their development money, almost two trillion Okane, into this project. The Kazenotairei , they called it, or Great Spirit of the Wind, for lack of an actual designation.

The plane had no windows - they were too vulnerable to radar detection, according to the Pilot. Instead, a low-resolution camera projected the outside onto a little screen where a conventional plane would have properly displayed the real world through thick glass. She could see dark clouds, bubbling up and dancing in all sorts of extravagant ways that clouds could only dance when looked at from above. The aircraft lurched a little, changing course. The co-pilot emerged from the cockpit, adjusting his drab blue coveralls and offering a quick and respectful bow at the minister.

"Minister, we're straddling the line between Dalian and Jheng airspace at the moment. From what we can tell, nobody has detected our presence, not here, and not earlier when we flew over the eastern seaboard. It appears The Kazenotairei is operating at optimum capacity. There are some minor problems, but-"

"I'm sorry, pilot, do I look like someone who cares about this? Keep the information on file and I'll relay it to the military when I get on the ground. Has Uluujol been notified of our arrival?" she asked.

The man looked down and shook his head. "They won't be notified of our early arrival until we enter into their airspace proper and drop into radar range - for all they know, you will be arriving in two days, with the rest of the delegation." said the man.

"Thank you, that is all." she nodded at him as he bowed again and left back for the cockpit. Muratagi had assured her that other diplomats, including her secretary and other non-essential personnel under her command, would be arriving on a conventional flight bounced through Belisaria and Latium in two-days' time, and that was the only flight that the Uluujoli had currently been informed of. Sakata wasn't fully sure if not disclosing this experimental flight was a good idea, especially when it came to building trust and new relations, but she also did agree with Muratagi that Enyama had to establish itself as a free agent, not overly respectful nor disrespectful to the expectations of any other nations. "It'll create a brash but easy-to-follow geopolitical identity for us," she remembered the president saying, around twelve years prior. Since then, the nation had bought arms and armor from just about every monarchy on the bloc, and done its best to disturb Skaldanian geopolitical interests in the region. This was different - this was international, and would focus Enyama in the international lens once news of the stealth aircraft got out.

She sighed, putting out her last cigarette as she felt the last rush of the ashes hit her head. She would be the face of Enyama for a brief few weeks, not Muratagi, who had himself gone away on a retreat somewhere, likely to sit cross-legged and sip sake while he felt superior to everyone. The co-pilot rushed back into the room, nearly stumbling on the door divider.

"Minister Sakata! There is an urgent problem!" he said, trying to maintain formality. Sakata looked at the camera-view, and saw nothing. "What is it?" she asked.

"The Jheng have sent fighters to intercept us - they want us to land immediately, and are threatening to open fire. What should we do?" he asked, looking a bit uneasy. She raised her eyebrows at the man.

"Well, what do you think, pilot?" she asked. Shit. she thought, a pang of anxiety hitting her heart like high-octane fuel. This whole situation just got a lot more complicated. she sighed. "Can we outrun them? Can we do anything but comply? Can we hit the Uluujoli border before they blow us up?"

The co-pilot shook his head three times, just as two more men emerged from the cockpit - her bodyguards. One spoke up immediately. "Minister, we have a minute to comply with their demands."

Sakata felt rather nauseous, but she stood up. "Fine, then. Land, but take your time, I need to make a call." she said to them, pulling out her phone and peering at it. No signal. This was a bad place to be. "Fuck!" she exclaimed out loud. "No phone, no way to outrun them. But...there must be a way out of this. Diplomatic or otherwise." she told them. "Just, don't be afraid, all of you, and don't panic. You won't be hostages," she sighed, feeling the plane move towards a path of descent. She peered at the camera again - she could see the pointy silhouette of the Unionite aircraft approaching slowly.

A geopolitical clusterfuck, this would be, she felt it. Muratagi had overplayed his hand in the interest of playing with his toys, and of course, she would be the one to pay the price - not him. So much for "being the face of Enyama". She closed her eyes and thought - the ground would be contentious, especially if they thought the aircraft's occupants would all be soldiers.

[Communist Xomaniax]

Fort Surta, 73^rd Special Air Defense Guard
Surtatsang, Lungwa Province
Ruig Socialist People's Republic
Union of Socialist People's Republics

Mongke Jigme leaned into his fifth drink of the evening, staring at his ever-shifting reflection in the glass. The hour was late and he'd long since shrugged himself out of uniform. His feet kicked up atop his desk, he resigned himself to the last few hours of his shift. In the corner of his office, some Liothidian jazz orchestra played a rendition of an old labor song. He lazed through the newspaper, The evening edition was mostly the day's industrial reports and c-list ideologues penning rants, but at least it had decent boxing coverage.

Mongke's peaceful evening was shattered by crimson alarm lights and klaxon wails. No sooner did his feet his the ground than the door to his office swung open, a panicked officer rushing in through its wake.

"Colonel, a foreign aircraft has been detected in our airspace." He spoke in between gasps. A lightning bolt shot through Mongke's body, his muscles tensing and his whole frame stiffening up. He wouldn't go down as the man who was drunk on the job.

"Is it just the one? Can we identify it?" He asked.

"No sir, we don't recognize the model. It's just the one, but it almost didn't get picked up on our radar. Do you want us to shoot it down?"

"No, dispatch a few jets and force it to land at the airstrip here. Mobilize everything, I want every missile we have pointed at that thing. I want tanks and men on the ground waiting for it when it lands, and I want spotlights on every inch of the strip." Mongke slapped his hand on the table to emphasize his orders.

"Yes, sir." The aid responded, saluting and darting off. Reaching for his desk phone, the colonel knew just who to call. He dialed the number for the Rose of Shambhala, the Party's newspaper. Mongke grinned widely, his face would be in the paper for this! He'd be in the news for weeks, and that surely would do wonders to boost his career. Perhaps he could even, eventually, be promoted to Central. The phone rang half a dozen times before it went through, a sleepy voice picking up.

"What can I do you for, comrade colonel?" A man said through the other line.

"Rigzin, I'm staring down the barrel of a major international crisis right now. How soon can you get a crew down to the airport?"

The newsman functionary paused for a few moments. Mongke could hear the clacking of computer keys.

"There's one filming a segment with some economist now for tomorrow morning. I can cut it short and have them out there in fifteen minutes."

"That's no good," Mongke barked, "I'm sending over a truck now. Let your crew know now." He heard Rigzin stifle a groan on the other side.

"Yes, comrade colonel." He said, ending the call. Colonel Mongke Jigme shot out of his chair and reassembled himself, quickly bringing his appearance and uniform into regulation. Darting through the concrete bowels of the complex, Jigme noted the chaos of his men scrambling into formation, pouring into transports with weapons ready. Mongke found himself in one of the Tachanka APCs, its flanks emblazoned with the hammer, sickle, and calligraphy brush of the Party.

"What do we know about the plane?" He asked of his assembled cadre.

"Just that it's a plane from Enyama and it's some kind of new stealth model,sir."

Mongke let that stew in his brain for a moment. They weren't hostile at all and didn't try to flee, which probably meant that this wasn't the speartip of a bombing campaign. What did that leave him with? It wasn't a civilian craft either. Maybe a spy plane? He wasn't sure. It didn't matter, he'd put the screws to whoever was inside to find out. No matter what it was, the Central was sure to be pleased.

Before long, Mongke found himself at the intending landing spot. Just as he'd requested, a film crew was already setting up to record. The runway was lit up like bright midday, flanked by rows of rumbling tanks and troops crouched behind sandbags. Finally the plane began to land, wheels touching down on unblemished runway. The camera crew filmed it all, following Mongke as he and the Tachanka inched closer. Someone handed the vehicle's receiver and he began to speak into it, his words echoing outward through its powerful speakers.

"Attention spies!" He bellowed. "Your sight-seeing tour is over! You are ordered to vacate the aircraft in an orderly fashion, in a single file line! If you do not comply within one minute, we will storm the plane and arrest you by force! Do not bring any unnecessary harm upon yourselves!"

He barked orders for boarding troops to come forward, each fully armored and armed. They all stood there, ramrod still the dead of night. None conversing, the only noise being the low roar of many different machines.

[Enyama]

Fort Surta, 73rd Special Air Defense Guard
Union of Socialist People's Republics

Emio peered at the glow of the halogen airport lighting through the external camera display, and then to the cavalcade of madness unfolding just in front of their intercepted aircraft. Her guards, the drab blue of their coveralls looking appropriately murky in the dim pastel light of the aircraft, had discarded their weapons on board, arranging most of them in a neat pile away from any conflict. That’d been on her orders, and they hadn’t liked them much, typically thrill-seeking as they were.

Then there’d been the pilots, both of which had taken to blaming themselves for being discovered. In their shame, they’d exited out of their cockpit as soon as touching down, and bowed rather respectfully to her. Humble. Fortunately for them, I won’t be laying the blame for this blunder on them. That all goes to Muratagi - the other ministers, I’m sure, have had their own problems with the bastard. Those machinations would have to wait for what seemed like the very distant future, for when she got herself out of this mess. She glanced outside at the massing Unionite forces.

She couldn’t deny her frustration, her poor disposition having become obvious for even her newest recruit of a guard. She missed her real entourage, the bustle of secretaries and personal assistants which had taken the normal route to Uluujol. Instead, the President had stuck her in this cramped plane, accompanied only by her jarhead guard and fidgety, perhaps even poorly trained stealth pilots.

It seemed that every minute, a new truck or tank rolled up to the scene. Eventually, she even saw what looked to be a camera crew arriving on the scene. There were minutes or seconds left until someone in that crowd, likely a general of some sort, instructed them to leave.

“We were right to stand down, Minister. It appears they’re really making our mistake their event,” noted the co-pilot as he twiddled his thumbs. “Attention spies!”, she heard called from outside, and as if on command, the hair on the back of her neck idly began to stand. She sighed, hearing firsthand of the expected ultimatum thrown before them. “Alright. Let’s give them their show. Single-file line, then, people. Come.” she muttered as she staggered to her feet, her eyes wandering idly to the walls of the Kazenotairei. The aircraft had been an unbelievable waste of Okane, and it had gotten her into this mess, but at the very least, it hadn’t been a fighter, and its stealth technology had seemingly penetrable weaknesses, from what she’d construed.

The Enyamans exited the aircraft one-by-one, the guard coming in first, and then the pilots, and finally, Sakata Emio. She saw the wave of Unionite soldiers begin to constrict upon them like a jungle snake, and quickly she bellowed. “I am the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Enyama, Sakata Emio!” she called out in her Enyaman dialect; “We are a diplomatic transport en route to Uluujol!”

The Minister’s eyes peered around the line of soldiers and tanks to what she assumed was the command vehicle - likely the origin of the recently shouted orders, though from inside, she hadn’t been able to tell. Her guards looked fidgety and uncomposed; she did her best not to emulate them.

[Communist Xomaniax]

“I am the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Enyama, Sakata Emio! We are a diplomatic transport en route to Uluujol!”

Colonel Mongke Jigme watched the swine waddle out before him, their heads bowed meekly. Like children caught with their hands in the cookie jar. He thought to himself. Red Guardsmen quickly moved forward, forcing the spies onto the ground and cuffing them with zip ties. The majority of them were roughly handled, bounced against the tarmac and scraped up, then dragged up onto their knees. The woman was the only one who spoke words the colonel bothered to listen to, and even then only picking out a few words. It didn't matter, they would have plenty of time to talk about things later.

Rather quickly, an assortment of soldiers gathered with the hostages, taking a motley of pictures with their newfound hostages. Some were serious, shouting and waving their fingers in the Enyamans' faces, while others gawked giddily into the camera, hands around the besieged folk like one might a friend. The colonel was focused elsewhere, positioning a selection of officers just so, framing a portrait of his own. Eventually, the television crew moved into place, getting sweeping shots of the plane and the hostages.

"Alright, comrade colonel, we're rolling in 3. . . 2. . . 1. . ."

"This is special reporter Kelden Sherpa at Fort Surta in Surtatsang. I stand here this evening with comrade Colonel Mongke Jigme, the Red Guards commander of Fort Surta." The newswoman said, beginning her broadcast. The camera man offered up another sweeping shot of the spy plane.

"Now, in your own words, can you tell the Unionite people what happened here?" She asked.

"I sure can, Kelden. Not half an hour ago, our brave men and women of the 73^rd Special Air Defense Guard detected an Enyaman aircraft shortly after it had entered out space. It is an unfamiliar model, though if I can be frank," he said, sharing a chuckle with the newswoman, "I believe it's obvious that this is a spy plane, and that these are spies testing our proud air defense network."

Kelden let out a gasp, covering her mouth with a single hand.

"Do you think this is an act of war by the regime in Enyama?" She asked. Mongke turned to face the camera directly, the men behind him steely eyed and stone faced.

"I can't say, I'm just a soldier at the end of the day." The colonel began.

"But I don't think they would dare challenge the might of the Revolutionary People's Army. If I had to guess, the bourgeois dictatorship in Enyama sought to test out their new toy by entering our airspace. As you can see, it was a bad plan." Another shared laugh.

"Well whatever it was, it's clear that the military is always hard at work safeguarding the revolution, both from inside and out. This is special reporter Kelden Sherpa signing out."

The next few minutes gradually wound the situation down, the colonel making preparations to keep the air forces on high alert in case of further attacks. Patrols on base and around Surtatsang would be doubled, jets would fly all night. Civilian flights would all be grounded. The hostages were all quickly ushered into the back of an APC, the group squashed in with a squad of armed guards who were quick to turn out the Enyamans' pockets.

The vehicle moved quick, making several hairpin turns as it sought out a destination the crew could not see. Just as quickly, they were forced through the steel doors of a nondescript concrete building, and forced again into an elevator that took them deep down. They were not spared then either, being stripped naked and hosed down, then given prisoners' uniforms. From one room to another they were rushed, only to be again forced to wait.

Eventually they were broken off and forced into holding cells, each a bare concrete box containing a bed, a table and some chairs. They would be questioned, one by one. There was no distinction of time, no clocks or windows, only the rhythmic hum and sterile glow of fluorescent lights. Scant moments passed until the door to Sakata Emio's cell opened wide, revealing yet more soldiers and eventually the colonel. He was a short man, bespectacled and with a slight paunch befitting a man of his seniority. He smiled wide as he sat down at the table, gesturing for Sakata to sit and whispering something to his translator.

"He would like you to sit down now. You have some things to discuss."

[Enyama]

Fort Surta, 73rd Special Air Defense Guard
Union of Socialist People's Republics

Not long after she’d clambered down the poorly-designed steps to the aircraft, Emio felt a hand shoved into her face, and then she was on the ground with the rest of her crew, her well-fitted business suit contrasting with her mens’ dull blue fatigues. Silence and grumbling soon turned to showmanship in its rawest form.

Emio felt the denizens of Fort Sutra lock her arms with tight plastic, and poke and prod her for any shred of potential danger she might have complained. Her thoughts were true enough, and oddly somewhere far from the present at that moment. It hadn’t even been thirty seconds, and her mind had forced its gears back to problem-solving mode. How am I going to get myself out of this mess? she queried and quarreled with herself in her head, peering with a hint of disgust at the news crew and soldiers assembled before her. Her men were the first to get stood up. She looked at the Unionite grunts, sizing them up. They seemed enthusiastic, boisterous, and certainly ideologically motivated.

Oh, how Eijiro would like this. She again thought of the President as she looked upon the enemy. Despite the inherent ideological differences, the similarities in drive and passion were palpable. She felt a fist shove into her back, forcing the air out of her, and before long, she was up on her wobbly feet as well, led in single file to the back of a waiting APC. As she entered last into the dull interior of the vehicle, her eyes shot from side to side, and for a moment, just a moment, she caught the eye of the commanding officer, blabbering away to a news crew. Frowning, she went inside, and then drab, dull darkness overcame any emotion or words which might’ve escaped.


Kurata-hai Retreat, 891km NW of Karasuna
Federal States of Enyama

The bright blazing gold of the morning light danced gracefully across Enyama’s northern mountains. Long ago, before the settlers had come in their wagons from the west, only the sparse tribe of hunter-gatherers had truly known the peaceful streams and white morning mist which permeated this land. Truly, the place had an aura of natural calmness which much of the rest of Enyama, and perhaps the world, had come to lack with its constant drive for progress and change.

Muratagi Ejiro enjoyed tranquility very much, and that was why he’d come to build his grand private estate here, in the Ghostly Range. When not committed to the endless stresses of Karasuna political life, or to the micromanaging of his prize military, the President retreated here, to the Kurata-hai retreat. Three times a day he meditated, and more if he could ever help it. In the morning, he sat cross-legged, wearing old clothes and sipping on herbal tea. In the evening, he sat on his balcony and entertained himself with his lute, or with his various blades, sipping sake.

Nameless and faceless soldiers guarded him, day and night, equipped in a way which Eijiro had thought would inspire both fear and devotion. He’d wanted “master gunslingers and swordsmen”, and that is what High Command had provided to him. Thus far, the guards had not failed him, though he regretted seeing that the Generals had decided to throw in some women to stand idly in masks with the first batch of men. He didn’t like women very much, nor the aura they tended to give off for him. It’d taken him four failed marriages to realize that much.

It was just before noon, perhaps, when Eijiro heard the black wood door to his meditation room slide open; a masked guard bowed deeply towards the seated President, before parting to the side to reveal a well-dressed, balding fat man. Eijiro recognized his secretary, Arinori, but chose to respond to the man with only a fixed and blank expression. He continued to focus on his breathing, though he did notice the anger which now permeated his brain and heart.

This man was not to enter! How daft must he be?! How long until I find a competent one? His vindictive mind thundered on, interrupted finally by Arinori’s quiet and measured statement.

“Mr. President, sir, Minister Sakata and her entourage never reached Uluujol, along with the Kazenotairei prototype. They’ve been…” he paused quickly, measuring his words as his eyes darted to the ground. “They’ve been taken hostage by the Socialists in Jhengtsang. It was on television and news service hours ago.”

Eijiro felt his meditative instinct kick in, as he inhaled and then exhaled to clear his mind. Focus on the breath. He almost had the urge to smile - Sakata Emio captured? He’d always hated that woman. He went with the river of his mind, and out of his mouth came the first words of response which had darted through his head. “Leave them there. Emio will reap what she has sown.” he told Arinori.

The man looked flabbergasted, as he usually did. “B-but Mr. President, sir, What of the Kazenotairei? What of the men within it? What of the damage this could cause to our great nation’s reputation?” he asked, filled to the brim with politeness. The President looked into his servant’s eyes.

“Ah, you think they make us look weak, Arinori?” he asked coldly, the edges of his mouth curling into a rather unsettling smirk of satisfaction. Any in the room could see Eijiro had an air of decisiveness about him now.

“Perhaps you are right,” continued Eijrio, with a meditated exhale. “Let the situation unfold. Call a meeting of the cabinet, and the generals. And before you go,”

With a spring in his step, the greying President sprang to his bare feet and clasped his hand around Arinori’s wrist, who shuddered in fear. The guards on either side of the doorway stood still. “What did I tell you about disturbing my retreat?”

“I-I-it was urgent!” fussed Arinori, though he knew he had lost. Surely it’d been on his mind since he’d begun the long drive up to this tranquil place from the bustle of Karasuna.

“Not another word!” Eijiro shot a determined look towards one of the guards - a woman guard. “You, get your knife.” The woman nodded from behind her expressionless mask and brandished a small, serrated tanto, a typical issue of more elite Enyaman troops.

“NO!” cried Arniori his face scrunching up in a shade of distressed purple. Eijiro forced his servant’s hand to the ground, upon the mat on which he had been sitting, splaying out all of the man’s fingers. “Take half off all of his fingers, on his right. There, yes, like that.” he looked at the woman, who took aim and brought her knife down.

Arinori shrieked from the intense pain he felt. “Never disturb me again. Now, do as I commanded,” growled Eijiro as he saw the man in the blood-stained suit, grasping his bloody half-hand, stagger out of his meditation room. Blood had seeped into his mat, stray bits of finger still idly resting on top of it.

“You,” he gestured to the woman. “Get this out of here.” The guard bowed deeply and promptly removed all of the blood from the room, several of them giving the room a clean sweep before closing the door and leaving Eijiro alone again. He sat upon the dusty shadow of where the mat had been, his mind elsewhere. It was a shame. I liked that mat.

Fort Surta, 73rd Special Air Defense Guard
Union of Socialist People's Republics

Time blurred below ground. Emio knew not when or where she was, only that the Union had elected to strip her of any dignity she had ever had as a dignitary, ripping off her clothes in front of her men, before throwing her into fatigues fit for a work camp. She knew that somewhere, perhaps not here, but somewhere, there just had to be a ticking clock, and someone following its hands to glean some orders to actually interrogate her.

That wish came true when she finally peered upon the face of the Colonel which had caused her and her people so much trouble earlier. She sneered at his smile, though she suspected the man was used to that by now. He’d brought with him a show of force, naturally, and a translator. Finally. She gave an idle look to the translator. Mayhaps the man was Tsurushiman or some related ethnicity from the Old Country, or perhaps a local with knowledge of the language nonetheless. All of the opportunities in his life had led him here, for some “things to discuss”.

“We do,” she began. “Do you know who I am, Colonel?”

[Communist Xomaniax]

Fort Surta, 73rd Special Air Defense Guard
Union of Socialist People's Republics

“We do. Do you know who I am, Colonel?” The translator winced at her impudence, then looked back at his superior. He gave Mongke the woman's words dutifully, though the colonel never broke from here gaze, nor did his cheery disposition falter. He had been in the military all his life, he loved it and it had given him bounty in return. He loved the Party, the vanguard that had delivered his nation from the grindstone of time. His hate for imperialist swine, and their lickspittle minions, was just as pure.

But he had never had one before him like this, never had such a brazen thing under his heel. He felt like a dog that had caught its tail. Her words were, in a way, a kind of comfort. It was good that she didn't so readily capitulate. Her eagerness to grapple with him for the momentum of the interrogation was like a slap in the face of a tired man. He felt refreshed. Ten years younger. The colonel removed a chocolate bar from his coat, unfurling the wrapper and taking a piece for himself. He slid the rest of it across the table and gestured for her to eat.

"You must be having one hell of a night." He offered sympathetically.

"My name is Colonel Jigme, I'm the commander here. Let's try and make it nice to meet each other. Probably not much more than twelve hours ago, you were probably doing just fine. Thought to yourself, "Hey, things are gonna go just smoothly"." Mongke waved his arms out wide, the translator gesturing to emphasize the colonel's points.

"But life's got a way of shitting in your lap," he removed a photo of the spy plane, and slid that towards the woman as well, "and wouldn't you look at that, you had your new white pants on when it happened." He laughed wryly.

"I found you in a spy plane conducting an unauthorized flight in the Union's airspace. You and a crew of men. Do you think I care who you personally are? Of course not. You're not human to me, who you are is so beneath me that it would be an insult to even give your personhood a second thought. I know you're a spy. I know the others are spies. Let's not waste each other's time by pretending that that isn't the baseline here." He leaned in, resting his elbows on the table.

"You can tell me your name, who you are. But then I want to know the exact nature of why I found you where I did. I want you to paint me a picture so clear that I couldn't possibly mistake it for anything else but the truth. Maybe then, once I'm satisfied, we can talk about what to do with you. Maybe we won't even have to hose you down again." He gestured to the guards, who leered at her with ill intent.

Palace of the Proletariat
Kalapa, Bontsang Special Administrative Province
Jheng Socialist People's Republic
Union of Socialist People's Republics

Urukhai Khan sat at his desk, the soft, low light of his office contrasted with the sterile glow of his computer screen. He had been working all night, just like many previous nights. There was a Party Congress coming up, one that, it was rumored, someone would challenge him for the Chairmanship. The thought sent a chill through his innards. Reflexively, he finished another cup of po cha. He smiled. It was the good stuff, made with yak instead of cheap cow butter. The heat of invigorated his spirit.

Things were looking good for him, the state's investments were stable, construction of a new headquarters had just been finished in Benejaab. The Timargis and Zhangs had quieted down, the state distribution system continued to roll out new products. He affectionately patted the screen of the computer he had poured himself into. A Dmar Skar'ma-17. Rolled out just last year. Yes, he swore to himself, I've done good. They'll recognize that. But still his doubts lingered.

He'd been brought in a Chairman on as an emergency measure. His predecessor had died suddenly in office and, rather than call a special election, he'd been quickly appointed by the Central Committee. He looked at the date and frowned. Seven months. Plenty of time. Plenty of time until he'd be judged worthy or not of the Chairmanship. Things would go well then because they were going well now. But still, why did he have this lingering dread? Why can't I shake this restlessness?

A knock on on the door woke him from his thoughts. The clicking sound of the intercom coming to life broke his stupor.

"Comrade Supreme Chairman, the Defense Commissioner is here to see you." His secretary seemed as surprised as he was.

"Let him through."

The Chairman pressed a button under his desk and the office doors hissed and clanged, the hermetic seal broken and the magnetic locks disengaged. Through it was ushered General Choenyi Pandita, who in one motion pulled a chair and sat down, resting his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers. Before Khan could speak, the general began.

"Have you checked the news? Read any of the reports?" He asked, a hint of desperate glee in his voice.

"Reports? No, I don't think. . ." He trailed off, looking down back at his computer and suppressing a groan. He must have not gotten to it yet.

"I've been a little cut off in here, what's going on?" The Chairman asked.

"We caught an Enyaman spy plane. It, and the crew, are being held in Fort Surta over in Surtatsang. It's all over the news." General Pandita responded, removing his phone from his pocket and showing him a newsfeed.

"What do we know so far?" Khan asked.

"Just that they're Enyaman and we caught them. That's it. I tried to get the base commander there on the horn but I could only get his aide. A Major Mongke Jigme is in charge there. I think he's doing the interrogation himself. Already talked to the news about it."

What a weird guy. The Chairman thought.

"Keep me informed on this, General. Once we have some more information, let me know. I'll need to call up an emergency Central Committee meeting."

"Understood, comrade Chairman." General Pandita rose from his position and saluted his superior, leaving the office as quickly as he had came. It was only when the doors shut that Khan let his excitement shine upon his face. This was exactly what he needed. A solid foreign policy success, something that he could hold up as an example of his ability to safeguard the revolution. He poured himself another cup of po cha, his hands trembling. Things were going to work out just fine. The Chairman pressed the button for his intercom.

"Ms. Drakpa, let the Central Committee know that we'll be meeting in an hour. It's an emergency."

"Understood, comrade Supreme Chairman." She replied back.

Urukhai Khan leaned back in his chair and laughed. Things were going to work out just fine.

[Communist Xomaniax]

The Rose of Kalapa
There is No God Higher Than Truth

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International Edition - English

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HEROES OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PEOPLE'S ARMY DEFEAT FOREIGN SUBTERFUGE, CAPTURE HIGH TECH SPY PLANE

Soldiers raise their weapons in triumph at their victory over the capitalist-imperialist spies

SURTATSANG, UNION OF SOCIALIST PEOPLE'S REPUBLICS - At approximately 3:30 AM this morning, elements of the 73^rd Special Air Defense Guard detected and grounded an aircraft conducting an unauthorized flight in Lungwa Province in the northern Ruig Socialist People's Republic. Although little information can be safely corroborated at this point, it is known that the plane in question is of Enyaman origin, and heavily speculated that it was conducting espionage in the skies above the Union. Initially appearing to struggle, the spies were quickly spotted and apprehended.

The officer in charge of the operation, Colonel Mongke Jigme, had this to say:

"I believe it's obvious that this is a spy plane, and that these are spies testing our proud air defense network. [. . .] But I don't think they would dare challenge the might of the Revolutionary People's Army. If I had to guess, the bourgeois dictatorship in Enyama sought to test out their new toy by entering our airspace. As you can see, it was a bad plan."

While a statement from the Defense Commision is still being prepared, the Commissioner has stated that it is unlikely any "serious information" was compromised in the attack. The Rose of Kalapa will have more on this story as it develops.

[Enyama]

Fort Surta, 73rd Special Air Defense Guard
Union of Socialist People's Republics

Emio watched the brown lump of chocolate come within reach, and idly scooped it up, breaking off four squares of it before leaving the rest back on the table. "You must be having one hell of a night." she heard the translator replicate accurately, though her eyes drifted for only a moment to the man before her focus returned to her captor-in-chief. “You could say that,” she answered the Colonel briefly.

”My name is Colonel Jingme.” she heard the man do his best guesswork and couldn’t help but form a smirk, which came first in her mind, and then, when the Colonel cracked his joke, again in person. She felt rather disassociated, and hearing the man drone on and on wasn’t making her feel any more connected to the vast and terrible world of whatever was outside of her mind. She closed her eyes and ate the chocolate as she listened to the translator, who had been conveying the general’s words rather admirably.

As the man explained his expectations, Emio couldn’t help but sigh, feeling herself plunge straight into muddy waters as she contemplated which approach she would take in this matter. She had no loyalty, truly, none at all left for her former overlord Muratagi, but she also didn’t quite wish to concede to the Jheng entirely, for that would be viewed very poorly upon her (supposed) eventual return to Enyama. The middle road, then.

“Well, I do regret you don’t view me as a person. I was ready to extend you that very courtesy.” she began, looking at the general wryly. “I’m the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Federal States of Enyama, Sakata Emio. If you don’t believe me, look my face up on the Internet, if you even have that here.”

“The men with me are members of the Internal Troops Asenbura Guard. If you had taken the time to, well, actually read their documentation, you would have known that, too. We’re not spies. Our plane was headed to Uluujol for a diplomatic mission, and you intercepted us. The plane wasn’t my idea -I know nothing about it. Go to the pilot if you want to hear about the plane and its apparently poor design.”

Her eyes fixated briefly on the surface of the table in front of her. Her mid-length black hair, normally straight, now drooped messily on either side of her face.

“I’m surprised you think we’re spies. Do you really think Enyama needs twelve people in a discount stealth jet to get information out of here? I’m afraid it’s far easier than that.”

Asenbura Briefing Chamber, Karasuna
Federal States of Enyama

As the sun crossed its apex in the top of the sky, a steady bustle emerged over Karasuna, the capital of Enyama. Situated at the tip of the fork of the two rivers which defined the city’s landscape, the Government Complex, normally tranquil, now found itself crowded by various entourages, from the media, to politicians and their assistants, to the Internal Troops and the President they guarded.

President Muratagi rarely made public appearances in this manner, but the developing matter in the West needed addressing in public, and quickly. He felt all eyes were fixated on him now, ready to hear of a decisive decision on the already well-circulated information that the Minister of Foreign Affairs was missing, and perhaps even captive in a foreign land. Curses, thought Eijiro. Complicated plans make more complications. Why couldn’t the focus stay put on Akutera and the Socialists to the south?. Now, he sat, cameras flashing at him, at one end of the Briefing Chamber, taking his ceremonial seat at the table. To his right sat Grand Speaker of the Asenbura, Ouchi Kyoko, and to his left, the First Senator, Shirole Jireasu, who these days mostly served as a glorified coat-hanger, doing his best to make any occasion seem “official”.

Ouchi Kyoko was a short, old, and fierce old woman who had come from the same murky corners of the nation as Eijiro, and she had been his closest ally in the Legislature since his rise to power. What concerned him more now was the burgeoning opposition, who would finally seize this chance to levy criticism on him for all to see, thanks to the television. Kubota Fujimaro, leader of the opposition’s Horizon party, sat just to the right of Ouchi, and seemed to sneer gleefully when Eijiro entered the room.

He took a deep breath, almost feeling his head do a flip as he finally exhaled. This encounter was already stressful for the President, and no real words had been said. Others joined the table, too, of course. Generals, chief among them Yakumo Toyokuni, sat and idled briefly as they dodged questions from the media. Eijro cursed Kubota and Au (of the Socialists) behind his breath as he sat. If they had agreed to his request, this whole thing could have taken place in private.

But they knew what they were doing. This was his failure, and they would be the first sharks to come for the delightfully smelly blood.

“So glad of you to finally join us, President Muratagi. As we’ve all learned recently, it appears one of our very own Ministers is trapped in Jhengtsang.” said Kubota, his words stinging.

“I shan’t discuss strategy at the table, not with all of these cameras pointed at us to freely propagate it, Mr. Kubota.” murmured Eijiro. “But I wish to make it clear to all of you, that we in the Government of the Federal States are doing our best to bring Ms. Sakata and her entourage back from Jhengtsang, as well as the aircraft in which they were traveling.”

He paused, reading the room briefly. Internally, he sighed. They all looked to him, as they used to. For many agonizing moments, he’d been dreading the possibility that his power was slipping away from him now, at such an inopportune time. He would have to rethink his strategy on the Opposition after this.

“And I will announce now that,” Eijiro paused, briefly scatterbrained. “That, that, Enyama will not tolerate the captivity of its politicians in a foreign land. The Union’s lack of honor and respect for other nations has become clear with this unfortunate, and I hope our allies will join us in condemnation. That being said,I hope, as I’m sure you do, Mrs. Ouchi, and you, Mr. Kubota, that this situation resolve peacefully and cleanly. We in Enyama are not in the business of actively seeking out bloodshed on faraway continents.” he paused, hearing brief clapping and flatly percieving an assault of cameras on his face moments afterward.

“Mr. Kubota, Ms. Au. Both of you and many others have made your distrust of me...known, especially throughout our latest political cycle. But now, as I had predicted, a foreign power threatens some of our people directly. I wish to make this clear, and I’m sure I speak on behalf of all of those in Green sitting before us today, when I say that any further harm bestowed upon our captive comrades shall be returned tenfold with the vengeance of many spirits, on those who have caused that harm.”

Scattered clapping. Kubota opened his mouth to retort, but Eijiro couldn’t quite reach what the man was saying. All of it became farther away, and farther away still. He could hear the flowing water. The places where had power had never been more plentiful, yet at that moment, for Muratagi Eijiro of Enyama, they seemed very scarce.

[Communist Xomaniax]

Fort Surta, 73rd Special Air Defense Guard
Union of Socialist People's Republics

“I’m the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Federal States of Enyama, Sakata Emio. If you don’t believe me, look my face up on the Internet, if you even have that here.”

The translator looked back at the gathered guards and the colonel, slowly repeating the woman's words. His tone betrayed no emotion, though he shared a look of confusion with the men. The colonel touched his finger to his chin, pursing his lips and swallowing. He nodded to himself, as if tasting Emio's words, letting them digest and process. His mask did not betray him, though inside he fought down a violent rage.

"Inter. . . net?" He said, feigning stupidity. "Sorry, we don't have any of that fancy shit here. We have to use smoke signals. Hell, my phone's just a cup on a string." Mongke joked, eliciting a laugh from his men. This was good. Joking is good. Mongke thought to himself, cracking another smile. It was important to keep cool in these situations. After all, he had been taught, an interrogation is as much a battle of wills as it is anything else.

Removing his phone from his pocket, he logged into the Btang, the Jheng intranet. Sure enough, he found the woman. Sakata, Emio. Minister of Foreign Affairs for Enyama, that far flung reactionary filth pile. Why was a cabinet minister aboard a spy plane? That was unusual. He had no doubt in his mind that the rest of the "crew" were spies, but this woman was a wrench thrown in his original hypothesis. Her words only further served to sting him, her demands that he speak to the pilot like a sharp stick jabbing him in the ribs. He imagined all the things he could do to her. His men and he could ravage her, or let the dogs tear her apart. The thought of watching the fort's hounds tearing into her skin, shaking her apart, summoned a hearty chuckle.

“I’m surprised you think we’re spies. Do you really think Enyama needs twelve people in a discount stealth jet to get information out of here? I’m afraid it’s far easier than that.”

"You're right, it seems like you would need more. Clearly, twelve people isn't enough." Mongke leaned back in his chair and yawned.

"You're not the only person being interrogated right now. We don't do that here, it's way too slow. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that you're something else, you've got me there." He wagged a finger playfully at Emio.

"In all honesty, right now all of your men are being interrogated. You should be happy, you're getting the soft gloves." The colonel held up his phone, showing her the screen.

"Nobody is pulling up any red flags on what you've said, so I'm inclined to believe you." He put his phone down.

"And when you put a torch to somebody's balls, they get real honest." Another joke, another laugh from his men. He had to laugh, it made it easier to swallow his rage. Suddenly, this affair had become complicated. He could see this woman already floating far above his pay grade. The spies too, they'd have to be moved. Someone was probably already on their way to fetch them. His shoulders sank and he sighed. It was over, time for honesty.

"You really fucked up telling me that lady, now I can't keep you here. Now I gotta report this to my superiors, and I have no fucking idea what's going to happen from there." He stood up. "Thanks, now this interrogation is over. We didn't even get to any of the good parts."

He turned to his men.

"I got all dolled up and ready for the show, now I'm getting fucking blue balled." He grumbled. The men erupted into uproarious laughter, filing out of the room in his wake. A few of the guards stayed in the room, one holding a large hose and another a large bag of white powder, while another kept his gun trained on her. The door behind them shut, the mechanical clink of the magnetic locks sounding. The door's window covering slid open, revealing the leering face of Colonel Jigme.

"I've gotta make some phone calls. You stay put, okay?" The slot closed only for a moment before reopening once more.

"Oh, you should eat the chocolate now, before it melts from all the hot water. See, I figured that since you've been in there so long, you're probably feeling a little dirty. Well we don't have any showers down here for prisoners, but since I'm such a nice guy I volunteered a few of my men to clean you up. Let's get you half a dozen showers from the hose, and some delousing to make sure nothing's crawling around on you. I'd stand back though, I hear the water pressure can knock a grown man down." The slot closed, muffling the colonel's laughter. He couldn't do to her what he'd wanted, what he'd had his heart set out for. But at least he could blast some stuffy foreign aristocrat with a hose for a while. It wasn't much, but it was something.

His checked the time and winced. He needed to make some phone calls.

---

The train came into Fort Surta's station just as the sky had begun to lighten, a ruddy orange not quite yet touched by the sun. He sat at the bar, his mind having oozed out into the aether. He was tired, he'd finished a late shift filing paperwork. That fucking bastard Ladakh had checked out the day before, cashing in all of his vacation time at once and leaving his coworkers with an extra workload. One that he'd been up all day and night getting under control. Now, after one phone call, he was sitting on a train in the ass end of nowhere. Major Suyastavya sighed heavily. He was looking at ten, maybe fifteen more hours on the job. I'm going on vacation after this.

With Ladakh gone, that had left Song as the senior-most ranking official at the bureau who'd done any field work. He stood up from perch at the train bar, finishing his glass of rice vodka in one gulp. The fire of it warmed him, made his eyes open and his back stop slouching. He stuck his ration card into the machine and tapped away at the screen, mixing himself a drink to go. He pressed another and got a cigarette with a complimentary match. He missed when the trains still had crew.

The only others who got off with him were a few soldiers, their stumbling suggesting they'd gotten a little too friendly with the drink machine. Song walked quickly, his eyes following the signs. Ah, 1306! Song thought, finally seeing the number he'd memorized on the right featureless, concrete cube. He flashed his badge to the machine and was buzzed through the steel doors, quickly finding and greeting the soldiers who were no doubt waiting for him.

"Good morning comrades, I'm Major Suyastavya." He showed them his badge. "I'm with the State Security Directorate. I need to speak to your commanding officer. He should already be aware."

The soldiers sprung into action. They walked him through the building's labyrinthine halls and within minutes he was in the office of a Colonel Jigme, who he'd been briefed on. He looked older than in his file photo, paunchy and bespectacled. The man was ruddy faced, he'd clearly been drinking himself into a lather. The major decided he'd omit that from his report. Their conversation was brief, just confirming what Song already knew. The foreign minister of Enyama and eleven personnel had been caught in an experimental aircraft. Song had passed along his own orders, and much to the colonel's chagrin, the prisoners were to be moved to a more secure location.

Another short walk and an elevator ride later, Song found himself in the right cell block. He'd read the colonel's report, they'd gotten a little information but they had to put the screws to some of them. That meant medical attention, but it could wait. They'd tormented the foreign minister as well, though the colonel had assured him they hadn't "done anything noticeable". That choice of words stuck with him, though he'd held his tongue. It didn't matter so long as she wasn't dead or crippled. Soldiers came down to bring the men to the train waiting for them. Major Suyastavya strode through the foreign minister's cell door.

"Sakata Emio, I presume?" He stepped further into the cell, clearing from the entrance and gesturing for her to follow him.

"I'm Major Suyastavya, with state security. Come with me, I've got a train waiting to take you back to the land of the living."

[Enyama]

Fort Surta, 73rd Special Air Defense Guard
Union of Socialist People's Republics

Emio sat back in the chair, briefly closing her eyes as Jingme began to figure out who she was. She had expected that her men might have been interrogated too, and knew that whenever the implications of the information she’d given were properly absorbed into the bureaucracy, she couldn’t concede any of her men. She knew that the last thing Muratagi’s Enyama needed was a foreign crisis. The President had been gearing up the military to present a bigger deterrent to Skaldanian interests in the area; in her mind she was certain that the President and his power-driven mind would use this opportunity to flex the nation’s military might if she couldn’t avert the crisis herself in its opening stages.

“Listen, General. I’m not a fan of needless conflict; detaining my men—especially in unsavory conditions—could instill more. You got your photograph already. My men come with me, intact and unharmed. I’m sorry that you didn’t understand that this interception of yours was to a transport to Uluujol, and not a spy craft.”

She could have revealed the fact that she had thought the whole flight plan bordered on mistake, or worse, deliberate baiting of Jheng airspace by Air Force Command. Instead, she decided to keep her words scarce, delivering the occasional glare to the Colonel upon hearing his jokes.

Her face seemed to instinctively twitch in brief confusion when the colonel opened the little slat on the door. Her mind had construed an expectation of finality, but instead it seemed she was getting a final touch of conversation.

“...Let's get you half a dozen showers from the hose, and some delousing to make sure nothing's crawling around on you. I'd stand back though, I hear the water pressure can knock a grown man down."

Fuck. Her head went numb with dread when she heard she was to receive a rather enthusiastic deep cleaning. “My--the government will hear about this! The world will hear about what you dogs do here!” she called out in defiance as she heard the laughter shrink away down the hallway.

Presidential Residence, Karasuna
Federal States of Enyama

Among damp skies and a bustle of traffic outside, Eijiro sat in a circle in the basement of the Presidential Residence. He’d retrofitted much of the building since moving into it in ‘05, turning it from a 16th-century wooden relic into a rather well-standing and modernized palace for the modern President.

Now, he sat in what he called the “preparation room”, and what most of everyone else around him called the “war room”, for it did fit that typical mental conception, from all the old war films and television shows; there was a large digital map of the world projected on one of the walls, and the scraggly borders of Jhengtsang were highlighted in bright red for all to see.

He hadn’t brought his doubters into this room; for now, he would sit comfortably and smugly in his echo chamber, listening to the mostly sound advice of his generals, and chief among them, his closest ally in the military which he commanded: General Yakumo Toyokuni, who had helped him ascend to power nearly fifteen years before.

Toyokuni peered at the map, then back to Eijiro. “Alright, well. They’ve got Mrs. Sakata somewhere around here.” The map of Jhengtsang zoomed in to where Enyama believed Fort Surta to be, based largely on transponder data from the downed aircraft. “I don’t think anything we can do militarily can succeed without causing a major international incident for which we aren’t prepared, Mr. President. I must urge caution. Kubota is right in this situation.”

Eijiro felt the beginnings of a sneer emerge on his face at the mention of Kubota. Other generals chimed in with either pertinent strategic information, or a tone of general acceptance for General Yakumo’s course of action. It appeared, that, in a rare stroke of luck, Eijiro was wrong.

“Very well, then. Sakata’s department would have normally handled communications with foreign governments, and seeing as we haven’t sent any ambassador to that shithole of a country, I think the onus now rests on you all, the military, to deliver our stern expectations to the Union government.” explained Eijiro. “I have already made my public statements on the matter, which are sure to have circulated the world over by now, but I wish for Military Command to draft a message urging both caution and quickness in returning all of our people, intact and unharmed, as soon as possible.”

“We may have to send negotiators to properly convey our terms,” noted Lt. General Azuma.

“I am aware,” continued the President. “And they will have to be qualified not only to return our people and negotiate properly, but to serve as a lens for us to see what the inside of that corruptible Union is really like. We need our aircraft back, too, let’s not forget that.”

“Mr. President,” said Yakumo, “Are you sure that the Kazenotairei should even be considered? We should get our people back first, the aircraft won’t do them much good either way.”

Eijiro raised a thin and scraggly eyebrow at his friend. “Careful with your words, Yakumo. I love you, but know you step on hot coals when you insult my design skills.”

Yakumo gulped, clearly tensed by the reaction. Eijiro rejoiced, relieved that Yakumo still knew on which side of the fence he sat, and to whom he should be directing his respect. The General did a small bow of gratitude. “Of course, Mr. President, forgive my words.”

“You are forgiven, General Yakumo. Have no fear. But go forth, and do as I say. This is a time for the Enyaman people to prove their spirit to the world.”

Fort Surta, 73rd Special Air Defense Guard
Union of Socialist People's Republics

Emio had never truly reflected on the relativity of time until she spent what felt like an eternity being doused by brutal jets of cold water, each of them as stinging as the last. Raw pain emanated throughout her body, the top layer of her skin often shaved off entirely by the water. Just enough to irritate, without truly hurting.

These Unionites were a master at their art. Eijiro would truly adore being the lackey in charge of this thing. She felt her doubts about her boss raise to the forefront of her mind again; this experience was changing her, despite her party affiliation.

Something was wrong here. She heard a clambering outside, and before long, a man entered, and speaking fluent Tsurushiman at that. "I'm Major Suyastavya, with state security. Come with me, I've got a train waiting to take you back to the land of the living."

She staggered to her feet, slowly. As calm and collected as the man did seem, she hesitated to confront him directly, or complain about the rough handling. Nevertheless, she had a job to do, and she pointed a dented brow at the man as she neared him.

“My men come with me. No more separation. You’ve already taken us out of the sky while we travelled to a diplomatic mission, manhandled us like pigs, and treated me with disrespect. Frankly, in this moment, I have no care for our ideological differences,” she paused. “I don’t care if you, like this Colonel of yours, have no regard for human decency, because our ideas work differently.”

She took a breath as she crossed her arms with a hint of defiance. I’m still one of the top diplomats of a sovereign country! “I know I cannot change either the past, or your nation’s policies. But I’m telling you this now, Mr. Suyastavya with state security, the sooner this situation gets resolved and the status quo is returned to what it was yesterday, the better this will go for both of our nations, and the world. You’ve had us in a pit for long enough that I know my volatile and passionate compatriots back home will make decisions with far more vitriol in their hearts than I will.”

Honesty. It can be a dangerous savior, but perhaps that is preferable to a beautiful lie. she thought, looking the man up and down as she stepped through the door to follow the man.

[Communist Xomaniax]

Fort Surta, 73rd Special Air Defense Guard
Union of Socialist People's Republics

Major Suyastavya yawned at the ambassador's words, half-listening to her diatribe on the importance of the status quo. He was tired, though he kept up his friendly visage. Red eyes and a warm, haggard smile meant to convey a sense of ease. No doubt the bumpkins of Fort Surta had been giving her a hard time. She was soaked and stank like delousing powder, no need to twist the knife any further. When Emio demanded that her men accompany her, the major creased his brow and nodded, seemingly deep in thought. His orders were to take them all, anyway. If making her think she wrangled something out of him got her more relaxed, loosened her tongue a little, well that wouldn't be so bad, would it? He made a show of choosing his next words carefully, stifling another yawn in the process. He settled on a deep, theatrical sigh.

"Yeah, fine. It's more paperwork, but fuck it." The major said. "Your men can come along too. I'll have my own clear a spot for them." Suyastavya pulled his cellphone from his pocket and sent a message to the rail station operator. Their exit train would be prepared immediately.

"I've got a vehicle outside waiting for us. We'll all board the train, where your men can get some medical attention. We used the kid gloves on you, not so much on some of the others. Come along, then. The rest of your crew are being gathered now." He gestured her to walk through the door, and quickly they were traversing the labyrinthine halls of Fort Surta. Before long they were piling into a long rail car, doctors present to treat any potential wounds and enough military rations to feed the entire crew. Suyavstaya dug into his own, eating the caffeinated chocolate bar first. He needed the jolt of energy. Sagging into the overstuffed leather seats of the train, he turned to face the ambassador.

"You're going to the capital." He said in between bites. "My guess is they'' figure out what to do with you. Don't get too comfortable though, I doubt you'll be going home any time soon."

The major knew the train was about to take off before it moved. He heard the pneumatic hiss of the doors sealing them in, the click of the magnetic locks engaging. More jazz came on over the intercom, accompanied by a woman's wails. He recognized the Sunrise Electric Orchestra, though this singer was knew. The train rumbled forward, first slowly and then picking up speed. They were on the express, the local base commander only too happy to lend them use of his shiny new magnetic train. It wouldn't be a very long ride.

---

Palace of the Proletariat
Kalapa, Bontsang Special Administrative Province
Jheng Socialist People's Republic
Union of Socialist People's Republics

One month later

A month of preparations. A month of the bureaucratic gears turning ever so slowly to churn something out. Every second had been agonizing for the Supreme Chairman, excited and anxious as a child with an unopened present in his hands. The foreign spies had been dropped in his lap, a big, fat present all wrapped up in a pretty little bow. He could practically feel the thing in his hands, fingertips trembling at the paper. But it was just out of reach, never quite fully in his grasp. Getting them relocated into the city, under his eye, had been easy enough.

But the Defense Commissioner had raised a stink when they were put in a local jail, insisting that foreign spies had to be held in a military facility. Like a fool, Urukhai had acquiesced. He winced at the thought. Doing that had unleashed the floodgates. The military had had them under twenty-four hour surveillance, subjecting them to sleep deprivation and a constant white noise. Which itself wouldn't have been so bad, if they also weren't being interrogated hourly. The thought made his ears burn. It'd taken a State Commission vote to overrule Commissioner Wangchuk when he refused to transfer custody, which finally put them back under the thumb of state security. That was better for the spies he supposed, but more importantly it was better for him.

A few days previously, they'd been transferred to one of the sub-basements deep under the capitol building. The so-called white room, named for its featureless, white expanse and the loud hum of its fluorescent lights. His security chief had begged to put them in solitary confinement, where they could be more easily interrogated and monitored, but the Chairman overruled him. It wasn't necessary, the spies weren't going to tell them anything they didn't already know by then. They had the spy plane, but a fat lot of good it would do them. Their better radars could pick up on it.

The Chairman pressed the button on the elevator doors, ornate brass doors sliding open. He stood there in silence as it descended, passing by his apartment and heading deep into the bowels of the building. Soon enough he found himself in the sub-basement, that featureless web of hardened concrete corridors where so much of his country's ugly work was done. The stink of iron assaulted his senses, though he pressed on, the hard soles of his and his guards' shoes clacking on the floor. He made a note to have the source of that smell cleaned up. They passed by a few others, security men in suits doing god-knows-what.

The trip couldn't have been more than twenty minutes, though it seemed to take hours. They passed by row after row of featureless doors, from one skinny corridor to another. It reminded him of when he'd first been down here, back when he was a security man himself. It was easy to get lost down here, as he'd done. Finally they came across a door unlike the others, this one a solid, sterile white. The Chairman ran his security pass across the access panel and heard the locks disengage and the hiss of the hermetically sealed chamber opening. The bright glow from the inside made him shield his eyes as he walked in.

The white room was big, vastly bigger than it needed to be, and circular. An array of slabs, which the Chairman took to be beds, jutted out from the walls in a ring, broken only by the entrance of the door. In the middle of the room was a table, itself a white platform jutting from the ground by a thin, white pole. He was annoyed by this place already. He could only imagine how the spies must be feeling. He looked at them, clothed in white jumpsuits and held down by white shackles. His eyes cast then to the guards across from them, in their white uniforms and masks and gripping their white painted rifles. The whole scene was dizzying. There were no clocks and no windows, the air of the room oppressively silent. It was Urukhai who broke it.

"How are you folks doing?" He asked, sitting down at the table across from them. "That's me." He gestured to the framed portrait of himself on the wall, a feature mandatory for all government buildings. He grinned.

"We've had you down here a couple months now," he lied, "and personally, I think that's long enough. You lot look like hell. I'm thinking you've learned your lesson by now." He went on, letting out a soft laugh. He locked eyes with the Enyaman foreign secretary.

"Miss, I think we can both admit you got caught with your pants down here. You want this to be over and I do too, so here's the best course of action. I've got the press gathered up there," he gestured towards the ceiling, "just itching to hear about what's going on. We've been dodging their questions all month and wouldn't you know, they're good and frenzied. I bet your government back home is real eager to hear back from us, too.

"We're all going to go up there and I'm going to make a big speech about the importance of independence and international law and when I'm done, you're going to publicly apologize for spying. Then you're going to tell the world you're being treated fairly and that President Muratagi needs to comply with all of the Union's reasonable demands." The Supreme Chairman hesitated for a moment.

"If you could, would you mind working up some tears for that part?" He asked sheepishly. "The boys in the propaganda bureau think it would look really good if you seemed to be pouring your heart out." Urukhai checked his watch. Fifteen minutes.

[Enyama]

Palace of the Proletariat
Kalapa, Bontsang Special Administrative Province
Jheng Socialist People's Republic
Union of Socialist People's Republics


Silence: the human mind’s greatest oppressor, for it is always broken at the earliest opportunity. Emio reflected silently on it as she sat cross-legged near the tabled center of the near-empty white room for the hundredth-or-so time. Some old and famous quote drifted into her thoughts, that “all man’s problems would all be solved if he could sit with himself alone for an hour”.

A month was far from an hour, but Emio had tried to make the best of the sensory deprivation that she had been subjected to for the past...month, or so. Time tended to blur, as it had before at Fort Sutra, but here the Union had made the fatal mistake of expecting her to be as tortured by raw deprivation as most people tended to be. Though she’d struggled with angry thoughts and pointless rumination for the first two weeks or so, she remembered the old Enyaman tradition that had gotten her willpower intact through her youth - meditation. The Art of Doing Nothing.

It was one of the few domains in life where she and Muratagi actually seemed to be on the same page, for whenever she’d visited him at any office, home, or other miscellaneous abode he had decided to inhabit, she’d found him sitting the same as her, in silence, doing little else but focusing on his breath and perhaps strengthening his increasingly strange beliefs. Perhaps he’s doing it now, she mused internally as her ears tuned into the raw buzz of the halogen lamp dangling above her - a sound that had become familiar without devolving into being numbing.

Few of her men, which on this occasion had been entombed with her, had remotely as much mental willpower as she had been exerting. Many had cried, sparred, wretched in anger and reacted in a way typical of desperation towards any interrogation brought towards them. Undoubtedly the interrogators knew they’d eventually be forced to push the Union narrative, as they had, and she couldn’t blame them, though she expected that they’d receive no sympathy from the Enyaman government overseas. She thought of Major Suyastavya and that brief exchange they’d had on the train, where, to her surprise at the time, he’d allowed her men to go with her. She hadn’t had the White Room in mind when she’d made that supposition.

Now, from everyone’s aggregate count, it had been a little over a month in her compact hellhole - and by this point, many of her men had taken after her teaching, trying their best to replace the feeling of desperation with the noticing of desperation. Unusually, despite the typical constitution of men selected to be Internal Troops guards for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, none had quite reached the acuity of acceptance that she had.

The door lurched open, and everyone’s heads turned distracted towards the visitor; Emio maintained her breath as she listened to the lurching footsteps of what she assumed was yet another interrogator. "How are you folks doing?", came the voice, and immediately did Emio’s eyes lurch open as she peered upon the familiar face of Supreme Chairman Urukhai. He continued talking through his picturesque grin, and Emio locked eyes with him as she stood and moved closer to him.

“Supreme Chairman Urukhai. What a pleasure to finally see a face worthy of my presence.” she said idly as she listened to him throw out a list of demands, of ways to act, of what was going to happen next. A grilling in front of the press - that was something she was far more familiar with than any white room.

“Forgive me for assuming when it comes to this, but I’m afraid I do have more than a couple assumptions about you, Mr. Chairman. I assume that you, as I have heard, have been born and bred in this engine of the worship of the worker which you have established here in Jhengtsang. I expect that you take all of these socialistic ideas to heart, and that in that respect, you are some sort of idealist. You do actually care about the worker, and not just your own power? Right? Good assumption?”

Her eyes didn’t move away from the Chairman’s as she spoke in her Enyaman dialect.

“I also assume, being a man of power and a man of the world as you are, that you have seen much, and that you know to some degree how human nature is. In that degree, I assume you to be a realist. I also know that you have never met Muratagi Eijiro, Mr. Chairman. You don’t know him, his idiosyncrasies, his quirks, the sorts of things that unfortunately tend to make or break the quality of a leader. So I’ll say this. I’m not going to play your propaganda games, not the way in which you want. I’m certainly not going to put on some emotional show, because, even if I were caught spy, and not a misplaced diplomat, that wouldn’t reflect what I am feeling right now.” She paused, wishing she had a smoke - her one vice that had truly escaped her, and one that she had now been forced to confront.

“Why won’t I play these games? Because they won’t do anything but to piss Muratagi Eijiro off - and if you care about the international worker, as you claim to, then you should know that angering President Muratagi will unfortunately only do harm to the Enyaman people, and by extension, the Enyaman worker, which I’m sure you hold very dear. I certainly hold both of those groups very dear, whether you’d all choose to believe it or not. Have I been getting it right? I’ve had a lot of time to think in here.” she offered him a smirk - she oozed a strange confidence one often didn’t see in people who were constantly preoccupied with the past or future, as many in her own entourage were. But not her.

“If you want, however, I am ready to demonize Muratagi Eijiro in front of the world - on my terms, not to push your narrative.”

[Communist Xomaniax]

Palace of the Proletariat
Kalapa, Bontsang Special Administrative Province
Jheng Socialist People's Republic
Union of Socialist People's Republics

The guards in the room winced at Emio's barbed words. Her rebuke of his demands and the revilement of his request made faces red in and fists balled with anger. The Supreme Chairman's grin never withered, his eyes never quite ceasing to twinkle in amusement. He held his hands up in front of her and chuckled at the unexpected grilling. He had expected her to be cross, that was something the security and military men had agreed on, but to be questioned on his ideological commitment and ideals? What a whirlwind! Urukhai thought. He felt like a boy in school again, a boy in debate class.

"Ms. Sakata, you poor woman." He offered her in a fatherly tone, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You don't need to scheme and gamble with me. I understand your frustrations, I really do." He sat down at the table, gesturing for her to do the same.

"Capitalist democracy is a river, Ms. Sakata. The private forces in your country that control the means of production pull your leadership ever rightwards, ever towards reaction and meltdown. You can dam it up, you can swim against the current, but eventually the river flows and everything you built in its path gets washed away. You can't tame capitalism anymore than you can tame the flow of a river or the heat of the sun. If your Muratagi harms the workers of Enyama, it's only because the organs of the state allow him to do so, and he was merely the most recent to do so." The Chairman let out his little rant and opened up a pack of cigarettes, striking a match and taking a long drag.

"Muratagi is not the first enemy of the Enyaman working class, nor will be the last. You're as much to blame for lending him legitimacy and aid in that endeavor, Ms. Sakata. Everyone in your government is. The capitalist state as a whole is a weapon of warfare by the bourgeoisie against the working class." He wagged a finger at Emio like one might do when scolding a child. "This fundamental truth doesn't change regardless of what you or I do." A few more drags and he put the cigarette out, one of his men quickly scrambling to hand him an ash tray.

"You go ahead and say what you want to say up there, Ms. Sakata. I'm not going to kill you for speaking your mind. Your men have all signed written confessions, that's all I need. Go ahead and walk the tightrope you insist is there. Deny that you're a spy or that it was a spying mission, it will be very easy for us to say that you were not aware of the true purpose of the expedition. Personal squabbles amongst your leadership leading to the withholding of information from the foreign minister, dangling her and her men like bait to tempt us. This is the basic truth as it will exist, Ms. Sakata. Everything beyond that is window dressing" he stood up, pushing the chair in and preparing to leave.

"This has been enough discussion. You and your men will be gathered in ten minutes for the press conference. Gather your thoughts and prepare your statements." With that, the Supreme Chairman left the room, his men following him. All that was left was the quiet of the room and the steady hum of the lights.

[Communist Xomaniax]

Palace of the Proletariat
Kalapa, Bontsang Special Administrative Province
Jheng Socialist People's Republic
Union of Socialist People's Republics

Fifteen minutes later

The press room was, if anything, massive. All glossy fiberglass and smooth, white concrete, its circular walls seemed to rise forever, blending into a huge, domed ceiling. The concrete floor had been painted a deep, brooding blue, seeming to drink in the light offered by the fixtures above. They seemed to turn the area into a midnight sky, alive with starlight from above. The chandelier, a featureless, silvery-pink disc, bathed the elevated stage in a golden glow. It looked like it might call the stage up to heaven at any moment, or as others had giggled, a UFO. Behind the stage was the national emblem, itself flanked by murals of proletarian art.

The Supreme Chairman stood at the podium, his fingertips digging into the polished wood. A hundred cameras stared him down, which he did his best to shrug off. Perhaps five times that many eyes were cast upon him. Urukhai Khan looked down at the papers before him, a copy of his speech he had read and re-read for hours. This was a momentous occasion, a chance to flex his muscles at foreign aggression. A chance to demonstrate that he was, above all things, steady in the face of provocation. The Enyaman foreign minister's words were in the back of his head, annoying him like a grain of sand might annoy an oyster. Would Muratagi use this as an excuse to crack down on the Enyaman workers? That could play out poorly.

He flashed the press his signature grin and waved, the room erupting into applause and camera flashes. That irritation would produce a pearl. He was going to go off script, if only slightly.

"Greetings, comrades of the press. I have welcomed you here today to discuss the Enyama question." He began, stressing that nation's name as if it were a vile curse.

"As you all know, one month ago an Enyaman aircraft was caught in Unionite airspace. Initially, we believed it to be a spy plane conducting espionage against us. It was quickly and peacefully grounded and the crew humanely secured. But it was at that point that more information came in." No sooner did he finish his statement that he pointed to a frantically waving reporter.

"Comrade Chairman, are you saying that it was more than a spy plane?" The reporter asked, his face agape. They had all been briefed beforehand about the conference and this was not in it.

"I am." The Supreme Chairman responded. There was an audible gasp amongst the gathered crowd. "There is no doubt that the crew of the plane were spies and that they were engaging in acts of espionage against the Union. This much is a well known piece of the record. However, several members of the crew have been identified as agents of security for the Enyaman regime's elites. Through the clever interrogation of our brave troops, we discovered the greater intentions of the affair and the full scope of the operation."

It was at that point that Emio and her men were trotted out, flanked by guards in well pressed dress uniforms and bearing silver-plated rifles. Of the Enyamans gathered, the plane's crew wore grey jumpsuits. They had large signs hanging around their necks which declared that their intentions were to spy on the Union, their names and ranks listed in bold, red lettering. The 'spies' were forced to stand in a line and bow deeply to the gathered audience, as if begging for forgiveness. The men tasked with Emio's security wore blue jumpsuits, their signs declaring their crimes as aiding and abetting espionage. Finally was Emio, dressed in a white jumpsuit. Her sign listed her simply as Foreign Minister Sakata Emio.

"The Enyamans sought a meeting with the government of Uluujol, with the intention of seeking a combined effort to subvert the people's revolutions in Ochran. A startling, reactionary escalation of the class war that grips not only the continent, but the world. But all too often we believe the agents of reaction to be united, we underestimate their capacity for internal politicking, the scourge of bourgeois electoralism. We think that, because they are united in opposition to progress, they are united in their methods and ideals of reaction. But history is littered with examples of their squabbling, and stained with the blood of the workers who paid the price.

"The Foreign Minister of Enyama, Ms. Sakata Emio," he waved a hand in her direction, "was, unbeknownst to herself, thrown to us as bait. She was simply there to discuss with the government of Uluujol the possibility of a united front against socialism. But elements of her own government, perhaps rogue or perhaps not, put her in a highly advanced and intricately designed stealth craft, and as a part of its flight plan straddled it between our borders.

"Perhaps seeking a plausible alibi for such spying, but perhaps instead for provocation. The Enyamans sought to gather fresh information on the Union in preparation for their meeting with Uluujol, and put both her men and the Foreign Minister herself in grave danger to do so. Perhaps elements within the Enyaman regime believed we are monsters, and hoped that we would prove so with these people's deaths." He turned now to face the cameras directly.

"President Muratagi, the Unionite people are not monsters nor boogeymen. The enemies of the Enyaman people are the same as the enemies of all peoples: the global bourgeoisie and their agents of reaction. There is no need to continue this era of hostility and provocation. Let the sun shine down upon our two nations. Though the Revolutionary People's Army stands ready to defend our borders from any and all attacks, we seek only peaceful coexistence. The Union seeks only peace. I believe that you seek peace and prosperity for the people of Enyama as well. Let's put this behind us and stake out a new era for our two nations. An end to the era of coldness is necessary." He turned away from the camera and adjusted his papers.

"Are there going to be talks?" Someone asked.

"We are seeking out a diplomatic conference with the government of Enyama as we speak, yes. I'm sure Ms. Sakata and the others want to go home." The Supreme Chairman joked, which elicited a laugh from the crowd. Urukhai nodded back to one of the guards, who had Emio rise and approach the podium.

"I would now like to give Ms. Sakata a moment to speak. She has told me that Enyama is a peaceful and friendly nation that seeks only cooperation abroad." He stepped away from the podium.

[Enyama]

Palace of the Proletariat
Kalapa, Bontsang Special Administrative Province
Jheng Socialist People's Republic
Union of Socialist People's Republics
In The White Room


As Emio listened calmly to the Chairman’s words, she couldn’t help but to interpret some sort of air of condescension about them, and perhaps that was what the man had intended in the first place. Still, she couldn’t help but feel an inkling of a long-forgotten feeling of giddiness as she saw that the Chairman had voraciously chomped at her ideological prodding.

“Oh, oh, watch out, Chairman, that’s an argumentative fallacy.” she cocked her eyes briefly away from the chubby man as he ignited his cigarette, having delivered what she assumed was an ideological throughline about capitalism in general. “Rivers flow in many directions, and some dams last for generations. A flawed metaphor - and one that you could use for just about any force of nature in life. Capitalism isn’t some monolithic ideal - or some boogeyman word to throw around - and I don’t claim to support those who see it that way. The same goes for socialism. I simply wish for prosperity and happiness without sacrificing freedom of thought - and that’s the real unstoppable tide, sir. “

And then the man began digging into Muratagi, and she admitted to herself throughout the course of the conversation that perhaps the Chairman was, in his own strange way, right about Muratagi not particularly giving a damn about the working class.

“You’re old enough that I thought you would have realized that there’s no such thing as “fundamental truth” when it comes to dealing with anything remotely sociological. You can keep telling yourself stories so you can sleep well at night, Chairman, but the working class as you think it exists doesn’t truly exist now, and it certainly won’t exist in a hundred years. I can say what I want, and you can get every confession you want, but I’m telling you that unless you heed my advice, you are going to start a fire in Muratagi’s mind - and that could lead to violence on an unprecedented scale for Enyama. Keep it in mind.”

And with a few closing words, the Chairman stood up and went his own way, and guards glaring at her, Emio again was left with just herself. Her men, who had sat idly and watched the rather charged discussion, now peered side to side in frustration and suspicion. Hm. Telling yourself a story. she reflected on her own words towards the Chairman, and the gears started turning in her head...

Palace of the Proletariat
Kalapa, Bontsang Special Administrative Province
Jheng Socialist People's Republic
Union of Socialist People's Republics
At The Podium


Emio stood idly, her mind on the moment of totality which slowly inched its way towards her. As she heard the Chairman speak, she cocked an eyebrow in curiosity as he appeared to change his narrative - absolving her of any spying allegation. Perhaps she had struck a chord after all, or perhaps the Chairman was a vastly more savvy operator than she had ever given him credit for.

A hint of annoyance escaped her thoughts and rushed through her head. Him and his grin, that fat fuck she thought briefly, her frustrations culminating in a little mental outburst which had gotten the better of her. She hoped she hadn’t showed it on her face - and from the looks of it, she hadn’t. She was at the podium now - this was her chance to speak her mind. Her mind shifted back to the tightrope metaphor which the Chairman had brandished in the white room. Perhaps there was a way to prevent an Enyaman reaction, rebuff Muratagi, and humiliate her captors? Either way, she couldn’t imagine Muratagi would get out of this whole ordeal calmer than before.

“Thank you, Chairman,” she paused, watching the man step back. She locked eyes with him again - and she truly hope that her gaze betrayed her intentions. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly, no. The Enyaman people are some of the best humanity has to offer in this day and age. That I have seen examples of, and I continue to see examples of everyday. But the Enyaman government, unfortunately, continues to make mistake after mistake, and refuses to own up to them in any way that would constitute taking true responsibility.”

“This has been an elucidating month for me, and it’s become increasingly hard to grasp the real truth among a steady haze of ideology. Jhengtsang and Enyama, for all of their stark and seemingly impossible-to-reconcile differences, have shifted into surprising similarity to me, in a lot of ways.” she paused.

“Narrative is a dangerous thing. It can wow us at the theater or make us smile and revel at our own accomplishments. But it can also deceive, and paint reality as something else than what it truly is. Look at all this art,” she said, pointing her finger at the images of smiling, industrious workers plastered on the walls around her. “A beautiful ideal, isn’t it? It isn’t a bad thing to strive for the best out of humanity. Ask any one of the guards that brutalized me with a high-pressure hose earlier, and they’d agree. They’re serving the greater good, from their perspective. And who can blame them? I thought I was, too.”

“I miss my home, I truly do. I miss my bed, and my cat, and all of the creature comforts which I have been denied. But I haven’t just been missing what I lost for the last month, as much as my stay here has been less than pleasant, and rife with all sorts of indoctrination and psychological and occasionally physical torture. No, Enyama has been headed down the same path I see here. There’s a new narrative in town, and my boss is at it’s head. Muratagi Eijiro, can you hear me? I find it odd that even though I ideologically have nothing in common with Chairman Khan over there, he acted with an air of civility that has been missing from the Asenbura for the last nineteen years and counting. The Enyaman people and government, for all of the good they are all inherently capable of simply by being born into this wonderful and temporary dance we all call life, have been deceived by narrative, just as people here have in a way that differs only in words and not in methods.”

“Some were born into it; can they even help themselves? If the truth was all they’d ever known, and all they’d ever known was plastered on every wall and every textbook as being this, or that, could you blame them for thinking that way? They’re like children in that respect, even if they’re fifty. Lots of soldiers in Enyama, I’ve noted, are like that. Lots of soldiers and guards here are like that. Chairman Khan is one of these people. Others, however? They have no care for this sort of thing. They manipulate to gain personally, to uphold some story they tell themselves. They know they’re doing it - they know they’re telling lies, even to themselves, and they don’t care. They do it because they live in fear. Afraid of criticism, of death, of madness, of some other inevitability of life. And so they insulate themselves behind layers of guards and boogeymen which they have instituted upon themselves. Anything, please, anything but fear! Muratagi Eijiro is one of those people. All of us have been manhandled by narrative, in one way or another.”

“To some extent, I have no idea why a blanketly flawed design of a stealth plane as the Kazenotairei was flown as close to the Jheng border as it was. I know the pilot just followed his flight plan. I know the guards were just doing their duty. They aren’t operatives or spies. I hate to say it, but I’m not sure they have the capacity for independent thought to the point where they could be.” she paused, scanning the room and the cameras fixed on her. This was an international broadcast - who knew how many millions of people here, and in Enyama, and throughout the world were watching this unfold?

“...I have utterly no clue why I was put on a mission away from the rest of the cabinet members who were heading to Uluujol. I have suspicions, but they don’t measure up to the truth. The truth is, there was some sort of unwillingness to accept imperfection along the way. Perhaps the borders were prodded with the plane to see how its seemingly perfect stealth systems would stack up. The thought of it not working never even crossed Muratagi’s mind, I don’t think. He had no intention to spy, only to beat his chest like a proud gorilla, on a geopolitical scale. Note that I say how, and not if, for that is the narrative which I was given, and that was the trust which I put in my system. And look where I ended up…

Let’s all resolve this like people who can think rationally about suffering, and not as people so locked into their own narrative that they can’t see the forest for the trees. If my government wants to prevent peace, it should hold Muratagi Eijiro accountable, and not those in Jhengtsang. People here don’t think that deeply except in ways that they allow themselves to direct their attention towards. They saw a blip on their radar and they made up their minds; they’re on autopilot. The people of Enyama have a choice - will they get us out with a rational mindset, or will they react to something in a violent way when they ultimately have a choice not to react to? Let’s solve this.”

Asenbura Joint Branch Situation Room
Karasuna, Karasuna Special Administrative Zone
Federal States of Enyama


The television flickered offline, and only seconds later did Muratagi Eijiro stand up and throw the porcelain teacup from which he’d been drinking at the television, splattering a mix of tea and shards of fine china all over the ground, and turning the functioning flatscreen into a web of flickering shards, expanding outward in circular pattern.

“Spirits!” said Speaker Ouchi Kyoko, who had been sat looking intently at the TV. Muratagi growled, his mind having snapped back into reality from the river in which he had let his mind sink, as he fought intently with Sakata’s words inside his head. He turned around to the cavalcade of political figures of his party and various generals sat before him. He could only imagine what the progressive and socialist reaction to Emio’s words would be - he was made to look a fool, and in more ways than one.

“That savvy bitch! She’s played us, she’s played us good.” The President woefully admitted. “This is what between a rock and a hard place feels like, then?”

“Careful, Eijiro. Her time will come. For now, we need to appear strong to the world. We need to get those people out of there.” said Kyoko, twiddling her thumbs as she stared down the rather contorted face before her.

“Let me think about this. We will get them out. Give me a day and convene the damn government in the chamber first thing tomorrow. Keep all of our channels open.” And with those words, the President stormed out of the room, leaving the idly sparking television to set the mood.

[Communist Xomaniax]

Palace of the Proletariat
Kalapa, Bontsang Special Administrative Province
Jheng Socialist People's Republic
Union of Socialist People's Republics

Emio's words elicited a confused mixture of laughter and applause, the assembled press not quite sure how to react. The Chairman's face was stern, iron-hard eyes staring down some unseen target beyond space. His brows furrowed, his face a deep frown as if he struggled to come to grips with an enormous discomfort. He adjusted his glasses and stepped toward the podium, placing a hand on Emio's shoulder. He leaned in ever so slightly, taking primacy of the microphones. A tumult of emotion seemed to well up in the Chairman as he spoke.

"Thank you, Comrade Sakata, for that brave speech. Most folk in your position would speak only lies, parroting their own government's line, or seeking to placate their perceived captors. He took her hand in his own and locked eyes with her.

"I can only tell you that I am ashamed to hear your accusations of mistreatment. The Union is a nation that respects freedom and human rights above all else, so I promise you that this will be investigated immediately and thoroughly." Quickly she was ushered back, ceding the podium to the Chairman in its entirety. A wave of thunderous applause echoed throughout the chamber.

"We must seek justice for all peoples. To right wrongs means a dedication to criticism and self-criticism. The Foreign Minister," he gestured towards Emio, "has shown that dedication today, no doubt having absorbed the tenets of our nation's great and monolithic ideology. A chaos has seized hold of the Enyaman regime. Different factions of the national bourgeoisie there, united only in their greed and self-interest, fight among themselves for scraps of power. Great sums of blood and treasure is spent on these disputes, to the detriment of the Enyaman people and international peace." The Chairman shifted from a somber, apologetic tone to a righteously indignant one, knocking his fist on the podium to emphasize his condemnation.

"President Muratagi, your foreign minister and your spies miss their homes. They miss their families. This has been an embarrassing blemish on the national record of Enyama, though it is one I believe that can be put behind us. It's time to come to negotiation table. We should resolve this peacefully, swiftly and without retaliation, the better to bring to a close this shameful chapter of history." More thunderous applause, the crowd jumping to their feet in a standing ovation to their honorable Chairman. A storm of camera flashes threatened to blind them, the Chairman smiling and waving before walking off. Emio and the other prisoners were shuttled away, back to the white room.

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All-Union Boxing League Headquarters
Kalapa, Bontsang Special Administrative Province
Jheng Socialist People's Republic
Union of Socialist People's Republics

Chonden Repa stretched his back, wincing as he heard a myriad of pops. He wasn't used to sitting in a chair all day. Without thought he undid the buttons of his tunic and let it wrap around his chair. He wasn't used to wearing dress clothes every day either. He'd only been chairman of the national boxing committee for a few months, brought in when the last one stroked out and went into retirement. A shame it was, the old, fat bastard had been good to him, good to the sport. But he was glad there was new blood in charge now. That thought made him feel guilty, though he shook it off.

"Chairman Repa, you have a phone call."

The artificial voice of his "secretary" came in over the intercom. In reality it was a basic AI program, something he'd drawn the short straw on in terms of which unimportant department got chosen to test out a new toy. It awaited a verbal response. He sighed.

"From who?" A few moments as it read the number.

"The Central." Chonden's eyes nearly bugged out of his skull. There was only one person in the Union who got ID'd as the Central. The phone continued to ring, Chonden finally coming to grips and picking it up. No sooner did he touch it to his ear than the Supreme Chairman spoke.

"Greetings, Comrade Repa. How are you liking the new job?"

"Just fine, Comrade Chairman." Chonden blurted out, his whole body seeming to come to attention all at once. The Chairman seemed to hear the commotion and chuckled.

"Relax, relax." The Chairman soothed. "I'm just calling to ask for a favor. Do you think you can do something for me?" Chairman Khan's voice was kind but firm, his tone evoking a sense of fatherly finality.

"Of course, comrade. What do you need?" Chonden asked.

"You've got contacts with your counterparts in Enyama, right? I need you to get in touch with them. We don't have any kind of official channel with the regime there, so I need you to tell somebody important that we're trying to negotiate. I'm sending you over the terms that you're to present to whoever you need to in Enyama. Think you can do this for me?"

Chonden was beside himself for a moment, not quite sure how to respond. Before his appointment to the committee he'd been a boxer, a year into retirement. His wife didn't give him any choice, it had been years since his last title shot and his doctor told him that he was one knockout a way from Parkinson's. It was a stroke of good luck that his predecessor fell out so suddenly, even luckier that he'd been appointed to the position. He stared at his gloves on the wall, framed in a crystal case. He felt like he was back in the ring again, anxiety welled up in his gut.

"Of course I can, comrade." He managed to choke out.

"Excellent! Glad to hear it, Comrade Repa. You're really doing the Union a favor here. I left my number with your secretary, let me know when it's done." With that the line went dead. Chonden opened up his laptop and checked his official email account. Sure enough was the Chairman's file. It was mostly blank, save for a series of dates marked down as potential times for negotiation, as well as several potential locations. Below that were the government's terms: an official apology for attempting to spy on the Union and the release of the old imperial Jheng's gold held by institutions in Enyama. The latter was an old source of soreness and much griping by the government and the elderly, that Enyama had accepted several lamas in the wake of the revolution, and allowed them to flee with a sizable portion of the imperial treasury.

He opened up his contacts list, seeking out the few Enyaman numbers he had. Mostly fellow athletes, though he had the number for a prominent boxing organization in that country. Sighing to himself, he picked up his phone and dialed the number. He just hoped it was the right one.

[Communist Xomaniax]

The Rose of Kalapa
There is No God Higher Than Truth

Home - Domestic News - Foreign News - Economics - Defence - Socialism - Life - Opinion - Pictures and Video

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International Edition - English

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RACIST, HYSTERICAL ENYAMAN FOREIGN MINISTER CONDEMNS ENYAMAN REGIME


Supreme Chairman Khan keeps composure as Foreign Minister of Enyama Sakata Emio insults the Unionite people

KALAPA, UNION OF SOCIALIST PEOPLE'S REPUBLICS - "Jhengtsang and Enyama, for all of their stark and seemingly impossible-to-reconcile differences, have shifted into surprising similarity to me, in a lot of ways." the Foreign Minister of Enyama, Sakata Emio, began her speech. The Supreme Chairman stepped away from the podium, offering the declining woman a moment to speak her peace. Fueled by a tempest of emotion, the Foreign Minister thundered a condemnation of the regime in her country and its corrupt dictator. Lambasting the regime's ineptitude and cruelty, she went on to describe the embattled President Muratagi as a delusional madman, willing to employ any and all measures to cling to power.

Ms. Sakata went on to condemn the Unionite people, denying their intellectual capacity and freedom. In full display was the ignorance and condescension of a member of the bourgeois class, the sociopathic worldview not only held by the Foreign Minister but by all agents of international capital. The Foreign Minister also went on to condemn her treatment while in detention, though only going into the vaguest of details. No doubt because she had made it up on the spot, her face a visage of petty venom at the honorable Chairman's agreement to let her speak. Her tirade came to a close with an emotional plea for negotiation between the governments of the two nations and for President Muratagi to make the rational, humane choice.

Without losing a moment of grace, Chairman Khan went on to echo her calls for peace, and made it clear that any abuses perpetrated by a citizen of the Union would not be tolerated. An investigation is pending on the matter.

[Enyama]

Asenbura Chamber Floor
Karasuna, Karasuna Special Administrative Zone
Federal States of Enyama

A cavalcade of representatives gathered themselves in the faux-Belisarian stylings of the Asenbura, the two-house parliamentary building located in central Karasuna, in turn located in central Enyama. When the new capital of colonial governance had been built all those centuries before, few could have imagined that it would become host to a monster as untenable as that of the New Frontier party. Though only barely in power, with the lower house of the Gikai having maintained a majority of one over the opposition for the last for years, the joint session of the Asenbura called today had shown where the New Frontier was overwhelmingly dominant: Enyaman flags draped idly over every second-floor balcony, and the Kaigi, the Upper House, presented itself as a near-wholly pro-Muratagi force. There'd been both idle and proactive discussion of what could be done about the "Jheng question" for the last four hours, and condemnation, and opposition voices, but all had turned to noise, as many watching both at home and in person knew where the final decision would be made.

Muratagi took his spot at the brown and intricately carved podium; here is where he would have to execute his masterwork in front of the Enyaman people. Now was as good a time as any in the past fifteen years to consolidate unity and solidarity, and he knew he would face resistance. Already, crowds had gathered to belittle his name outside the building, spurred on by Sakata’s highly divisive words. He had seen that the Union had already painted her as delusional, and, in a slight bout of admiration, agreed that this was perhaps the best angle of light to cast her in domestically as well. That would come later. And, as if on command, before the lights turned on, his now-fingerless assistant rushed over to whisper something in his ear. "They've contacted the Narashina Fighting Championship headquarters, Muratagi, sir. The Union - it appears they want to negotiate through them. They also want their gold, the Fujikawa gold."

Muratagi nodded at his assistant and furrowed his brow as he glanced at the prepared remarks before him. So, they finally want to properly negotiate? And through the Narashina? Do they know about me? Where I worked all those years ago, before the paradigm shift? The fact that the Jheng of all would have a pin in his past as a mixed martial arts and boxing organizer didn't surprise him, if it were true - he had even visited Jhengstang back in those early days of youth, though he'd never participated in any fights himself while there. And then, there was the issue of the gold. That might need to be a necessary concession, but he couldn’t make it look like an easy one. And there was still the question of the Kazenotairei. He didn’t like the idea of aircraft he had personally designed in foreign hands.

The lights turned on, and slowly he took them up and crumpled them, before placing them over to the side. He would have to improvise; luckily, he knew himself to be especially competent at improvisation.

"This chamber has re-convened, and I, as President, now must inform all of you...honorable people placed before me today, that the offer for negotiation has finally reached our ears. The cowardly hostage-takers in Jhengtsang have resolved to contact us through Narashina Fighting Championship, of all of the possible institutions available to them. Why?! I find it ironic that the conflict-bringers would use a fighting championship instead of a distinct diplomatic mission to list their demands, outrageous as they are. People of Enyama, compatriots! They have demanded what they think is their gold! When the lamas arrived here decades ago, wealthy as they were, they arrived as Enyamans! Will we let them take our gold?!”

A generally negative answer came from the murmur of the crowd. Crowd control. Good. thought Muratagi as he thought of where to take it next. “Regardless of their petty tactics - we will be driving forward into the unknown, and seeking the diplomatic solution for which we have all yearned. It is our duty as Enyaman countrymen to prevent them from incurring any further mental torture upon Mrs. Sakata or her brave delegation. But this is not where we shall cease! We want our plane back! It’s a tremendous plane, the finest Enyama has to offer, and so we will not stand idly by as the Jheng engineers attempt to copy its ingenious design.”

He paused, looking down and attempting a dramatic inflection. The cameras always loved the show, especially when they painted him in a positive light. The lighting shining on him had already done that with its relatively low and heroic angle.

“This has been a dark and harrowing time for the Enyaman people. Storm clouds of destruction threaten us on all sides. Heinous influences seek to infiltrate and dismantle this great government...this great constitution which we have held on our shoulders for centuries. In times like this, in times of great alienation, it can be comforting to fall back on our ancestor’s axiom: that life is suffering. But it doesn’t have to be that way for the Enyaman people. Under my leadership, I assure you that we will jump every hurdle placed in front If the Skald or the Union think that their petty attempts to destroy us will work, then they will soon find themselves gravely mistaken. We are here, and we shall survive. We are Enyaman! But only when we are one. So, I urge you all, I strongly do, to come together under one voice, one banner, and one ideology. Only divided we will fall.”

His words rather explicitly referred to the currently peaceful protests which Emio’s words had spurred outside the doors of the very hall in which he and the government were stood at this very moment - and to his surprise, the response from the chamber was a barrage of agreement and positivity. He glanced around at the opposition side of the semicircular chairs before him - and found them fully filled, but not with the typical scowling faces of socialists and progressives he expected to see. He smirked, turning around and leaving from the podium.

He had negotiations to run, but his thoughts still ran a domestic thread, as he internally giggled like a giddy child at the thought that the plan for control he had enacted fourteen years earlier seemed to have finally had a political effect - the Socialists and Progressives must have been out in the street. And when they were out in the street, they were just ordinary citizens. He picked up his phone, intending to make a call regarding detainment before he contacted his old friends in the martial arts world for the Jheng negotiation...