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Glorious Arstotzka

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Glorious Moskurg

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Ingloriously Didn't Play

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Total Members Voted: 106

[Sensei]

The Cannalans

NikolaAnicic007 (Sensei recommends you read the original post!) warms up his jet on the deck of a carrier. He and IceHunter together have built the X-10 Gabriel Air-Superiority Fighter, an attempt at a full-on supersonic aircraft. It's extremely heavily armed, with two Can Perforators and ten missile mounts, plus an attempt at a radar early warning system to protect against missiles. It's a sleek craft, with curved jet intakes under each wing near the fuselage following a leading edge to break up transonic airflow, and canards like the Javelin. [1][4] The first prototype had an issue where the tail came off at the sound barrier, but hopefully Nid's revisions have made it viable. However, the pilot who was in the plane last time this happened refused to be involved in the project any further, leaving only Nikola to pilot the craft himself. It's also armed with Nidhunter's Veilfire Missiles. [1] "Hey- are those Veilfire missiles ready yet?" Nik shouted over the noise of a flight deck to prep team member near him. "The what? The fancy new ones that dude was working on? I heard they blew up! He's in the infirmary deck, it's pretty bad! Didn't you hear?"
Fortunately for Nik, KhazintheDark came through a few minutes later with a cart of six of the original eight planned Veilfire missiles, plus two anti-radiation missiles. [3] "I worked out the kinks. I think." The crew loaded the missiles onto the plane and Nik, cursing his own luck, climbed into the pilot's seat and beckoned a slightly unwilling Khaz into the gunner's seat behind him. He pushed the throttle into the open position and the craft tugged at its restraints for a second with a roar, before the catapult launch system emitted a bellow of steam and accelerated him off the deck. Continued at The Battle for the Armory.

Swiftsword was already at high altitude: he had flown for hours from behind the Cannalan front lines in his B3X6 'Serafin' Strategic Bomber & Ground Support Aircraft (conveniently named B3X6SBGSA for short) to be here when the shit hit the fan. [4] The massive bomber was based on the design philosophy of the Vengeful Charlotte, only nearly twice as large. It was held aloft by four state-of-the-art jet engines, and its airframe is optimized to allow it to cruise at an extreme altitude. Its real advancement is a focus on precision-targeted weaponry: its primary armament is eight two-ton "Mini Barracuda" guided bombs. Based on the Barracuda cruise missile, these free-falling bombs have a guidance system which allows them to focus on a Hornet's radio broadcast. Its secondary armament is a pair of Can Shredder turrets of the belly of the craft, fore and aft of the bomb bay doors. These are also capable of locking to a radar signal. All Swiftsword needs to do is have his pilot fly in range, and let the boys on the ground point the ordnance exactly where they need it, with no messy area bombing or unwieldy cruise missiles. He tried to make out the battle on the ground-viewing radar. It wasn't really clear enough to see what was going on amongst buildings and rubble, but he could see the Cannalan fleet was making their advance. Time to watch for Hornet tracking signals below and make a pass. Continued at The Battle for the Armory.

The Cannalan fleet stands at sea while El Presidente's yacht retreats to safety with a small escort. While well-positioned to begin shelling shore positions, there hasn't been much fire yet. With the amount of chaos on land, intel is still limited, so it's difficult to find and target Forenian positions. Most of the shore guns that haven't been overtaken by rebels have been destroyed in the initial fighting with modest losses on the Cannalan side. Among a couple Victorias and a lot of Walruses, AA ships and other cruisers, there are two ships custom built by the engineering team present:
dwennon has brought to bear the Kalamity Missile Arsenal Battleship, which is a Victoria-hull ship rearranged to carry as many missile vertical missile launchers as possible. [3] It operates on a fraction of the crew as below-deck space is used up for missiles. Most of the spaces on deck that aren't directly at the bow, stern or citadel are covered with missile hatches. AA guns are stationed at the bow, stern, and some places along the walkway around the edge of the deck, including ten 4x3 Balefire Missile box launchers. It should be reasonably able to defend itself while providing the cruise missile fire support of dozens of ships.
BBBence1111 has collaborated with TheFantasticMrFox to create the Cortez Class Battleship, commanded by Cortez himself. [5] Cortez, sitting at the helm of the ship, is in better spirits than anyone has seen him in a while. The CNS Cortez is a worthy flagship of a nation which prides itself upon its navy. Measuring in a world-record 900 feet in length, it's the product of scrapping a number of obsolete ships and a considerable redirection of the country's mining efforts besides. She's powered by state of the art diesel engines, and space not taken up by the massive guns (a scarcity) is cramped with AA guns, Balefire missiles, a few cruise missiles, and a pair of 'ptero landing pads. The layout is that of a citadel structure (which the diesel-electric transmission makes far more convenient) with two fore-turrets and one aft turret. [4] The guns are a project of their own: the Firefox Naval Armament consists primarily of three three-gun turrets bearing 23-inch guns, the largest deployed on any naval craft, and a national feat of engineering to complete. Positioned near the shore, this gives the Cortez the ability to absolutely hammer basically anywhere around the capitol, though each gun can fire only once every couple of minutes. Those guns are floating national monuments, but there are smaller guns as well: 2x2 16-inch guns outgun a victoria as mere secondary weapons with turrets on either side of the citadel, and there are 6 below-deck batteries of two 8-inch guns each protruding from the hull for defense against closer targets. In addition to normal APHE shells capable of destroying bunkers, the main and smaller guns have VT-fuzed AA shells and IR flares. Continued at The Battle at Sea.

On shore, a few Cannalan engineers prepare for battle alongside Arstotzkan rebels. Distant candles glow in the night, as well as flashes of gunfire. The city's electric lights have already suffered a power outage, so the rebels are carrying lanterns and flashlights, though some of them have also been given night vision systems. In addition to some standard Raiders and a couple Fighting Bulls, prototype vehicles stand at the ready fresh off the Walrus for their first test, many of them assembled at sea.
asdfhgjlk175, an engineer nicknamed for the difficult-to-remember substitution key with which he habitually encrypts all his correspondence (including, to the chagrin of many people, not only classified design documents but everything from personal letters to tax forms and even checks) has built what he calls the “Davy Jones' Locker Ultraheavy Assault Tank”. [6] He's spent months just assembling the individual armor plates to make the thickest armored tank that has ever or will ever be built by anyone. Even the wheels (tracks were deemed "too thin") are made of cast steel. The crew (himself) relies on air tanks to breath as there are no "unnecessary" holes whatsoever: Only an engine intake and exhaust, which are completed isolated from the cabin, and the hole through which the only weapon, a mortar, can fire. The hatch weighs 800 pounds and was lowered in place with a crane, making it impossible for him to exit the vehicle. He cannot see, relying on radio communication to navigate and operate his weapon. There is enough self-contained life support for a week. Miraculously, this objectively absurd tank is capable of moving under its own power. He is assembled (and his tank his assembled around him) at a Cannalan-controlled beachhead with the others who are making way to the armory:
Solar Admiral Scrublord sat in his M5AX Heavy Breakthrough and Defense Vehicle "Armadillo II", [1] which is an enormous, unwieldy vehicle. It's based on a Bull chassis, with a redesigned armor resembling the original Armadillo's 'upturned boat' shape and a large Predator V12 with an electric transmission replacing the turbine, which necessitated increasing the overall length by a few feet. Most importantly though, the whole thing is built around a 6-inch Nightstorm Longbow full-size naval cannon. The turret, containing the autoloader, a standing gunner, and hydraulic systems, almost makes the tank hull underneath it look humorously small. It stands thirteen feet tall overall, and the barrel of cannon is just a few inches short of thirty feet long with the muzzle brake included. It's dreadfully slow to move and the turret's operation is complicated enough to necessitate Scrublord’s direct attention. Navigating the streets without damaging the gun by colliding with a building will be a challenge.
joha4270 had finished socializing with the rebels (they said they liked the M1924 Portable Still [2] but Joha got a strong sense that they were just being polite), and had donned his Flamethrower Mobility Unit with the help of two assistants.. The contraption looks remarkably dangerous: it's basically a big fuel tank worn on the user's back, which feeds rocket motors capable of propelling the wearer into the air as well as a flamethrower, all on electric pilot lights. El Presidente had refused to wear it outright, saying "I won't use a flamethrower aboard my own ship! In fact, I ORDER you to go take that thing on land where you can't cause a fire in the coal bunker!" [5] However, Joha has already successfully tested the jetpack once, departing from the boat for a rough landing in the sand before receiving more fuel.
poketwo is last to arrive. Crawling out of a separate walrus, a giant four-legged walking tank, measuring fully 45 feet in length, pounds deep divots into the sand on the shore. [6] Beggaring belief from the stunned Arstotzkan onlookers (and the other Cannalans, who had yet to see it in motion), his massive creation outpaces the two oversized tanks also on shore as it moves into the city. Metal Pocken, as it is called, screams with turbine generators and whines with electric motors as it moves. The entire thing has elaborate electronic controls, allowing poketwo to maneuver iit solo, while a small crew of gunners controls the weapons. These include a cruise missile launcher, a Daybreaker turret on each side like the mandibles of a giant insect, and two Can Shredders for defense against smaller targets.

Together, the whole group marched forth to meet up with the main rebel push for the armory. Continued at The Battle for the Armory.

Aboard El Presidente's ship, a full team of engineers works to prepare El Presidente for a duel with his rival, the Red Mask. [3] Somehow, they've talked him into actually doing it, but he still isn't very enthusiastic. "Put on the armor! You'll look so cool!" "We'll take photos!" "Of course you have to fight him, that'll prove we can win a duel once and for all!" These had been the answers to questions like, "Is that even safe to wear?" "I'm more of a politician than a fighter, really..." or "Couldn't one of you do it?"
WorldOfHurt is the leader of the Presidente IMprovement Project (PIMP), with Mandemon's assistance. [3][2] The PIMP's central component is a suit of powered armor, not completely unlike the one made for the fight against the Juraki leader years ago, and it's equally unwieldy, though it has some new features: power is provided by a small gas turbine electric generator instead of a borrowed lawnmower engine, and the electric motors are an improvement over the old hydraulics. Despite some initial hiccups with the designs, the two engineers managed to put together this working adaptation of Mandemon Sr's design with considerable effort. Like the old version, the armor (which has excellent coverage) is immune to all but anti-materiel weapons, and there aren't the same vulnerable hydraulic hoses going everywhere, but it does have electric motors jutting out of the armor at the joints. It's also sealed against gas attacks. With El Presidente refusing to use Joha's combination flamethrower/jetpack, his armament is a Can Perforator, which the suit enables him to wield. The rate of fire is dialed down a little to conserve ammo. Continued at El Presidente's Yacht.


NEMO

Off the shore of the Forenian capitol, dozens of barges connected together by cables and catwalks. Divers assemble structures beneath the water and materials and parts are shipped in every day. Small signs designate it as the NEMO facility. The hundreds of workers have small badges which say NEMO on them. But what is NEMO? Despite being a project endorsed by several weapons engineers, it has gone largely unnoticed by Forenia at large. When asked, members will simply say that it is an offshore scientific research facility. Its exact purpose is multi-faceted, they will say. Its offshore position provides a useful perspective on the sea and sea floor near Forenia. It may reveal useful natural resources in the future. It's beneficial to advance technological research. When pressed further, however, members are notoriously tight lipped. Every time a minister inquires about the funding being funneled into the project, plans to deliver a report are made. The report must be highly detailed, of course - so much so that it won't be ready until the minister is out of office. However, the on-paper cost of the NEMO research project was only the tip of the iceberg. With the Engineering Bureau being nearly a proper branch of the Forenian government in their own right, they've been able to siphon money and materials off the top of other projects with almost no oversight. If anyone were to track all the money, material, and labor which had been put into NEMO, a feat which even its own members have taken care to make impossible, they would find it to add up to an absolutely startling sum.

Even against the huge amount of national resources poured into it, however, NEMO's goal is almost unthinkably ambitious. There are eight platforms in all, each with an enormous rocket. Together, their purpose is no less than the colonization of the Red Planet, Mars. Its name, in truth, is the New Existence on Mars Organization. There are seats for over four hundred colonists on the rockets, and even now people are being hurried aboard. With civil war breaking out and the NEMO launch platform within shooting distance of both sides, the decision has been made to launch as soon as conceivably possible.

A short pamphlet has been distributed by recruiters to a small portion of Forenia. It has brought enough recruits into the program, some of whom are traveling to the launch site on boats even now. It reads:

Spoiler: NEMO Mission Plan (click to show/hide)

NEMO mission plan - introductory pamphlet

Dear citizen, if you are reading this you are on your way to join man's first endeavour among the stars themselves. At the same time, it is likely a time of chaos and danger, so we urge you and your family to stay calm, orderly and well armed. The part below describes our plan with all the details you will need to begin your new life.


Step 1) Gather your belongings and any family member you may wish to save. Then proceed to the northern dock of the capital, where you will find a guard post. By presenting this paper, you will be granted entry. Due to the dangers posed by guns in space, it is strictly forbidden to bring anything above 20 mm caliber. Leave anything in excess to that to the guards, who will use them to protect the docks and the launch.

Step 2) At this point you might see several tall metallic buildings a few miles off the coast. Do not fret! they are your destination. A ferry will carry you toward the fleet and then you will be assisted in boarding together with an hundred and some other brave souls. Once aboard, a NEMO officer will start instructing you on the details of life on board and you may be assigned some minor duties for the good of the community. Further vocational programs will be available during transfer

Step 3) Find your assigned pocket and strap inside. A comfortable pipe will be available to latch the provided buckles and belts. After everyone is boarded and systems are checked, or after a suitably inconvenient emergency occurs, the rocket will light its engines and lift off. The acceleration will be felt not unlike in an airplane an just as safely. You will hear some noise, of severe volume. However, in your pocket you will also find the provided notepad and pencil with which to communicate in case of hearing damage. You will hear 2 explosions happening during the ascents, after which the engine noise will suddenly stop. That is the rocket leaving its empty tanks and excessive engines behind. In case of a third such explosion, retreat in your pocket and wait for instruction by your local NEMO official or personal deity.

Step 4) After burning down most of the stored propellant, you will be en route to Mars. You will be on board of the fastest object ever built, but the solar system is also far bigger than any distance humans have yet explored. You will, in fact, take about 7 months to reach Mars. During the journey you will be provided rationed food and water, with limited cloth changes and the occasional personal cleaning. As the explorers of yore, discomfort is a necessary part of adventure. Still, thanks to our amazing life support system you may still eat fresh vegetable a few times during the journey, while at the same time enjoying actual air and mostly pure water. All this will require a little bit of extra work however: the reactor which provides power to the fleet is in a single rocket, while electricity is needed everywhere. Donning the NEMO standard issue survival suit, a team of engineers will run cables connecting the ships to allow transfer of power and communications. Large flexible tubing will also be attempted to allow transfer between ships without the survival suit.

Step 5) At this stage, you should see a large red disc quickly approaching. That is Mars. The power cables and rubber tubes will be removed and stored safely, then landing preparation will start. Once again, please stay in your pocket unless assigned to a critical task.  Things may be heated for a while, so keep your ice pack handy. The spaceship will enter the atmosphere and quickly lose its speed. A parachute will deploy to stabilize it in a vertical orientation, then the engines will fire a last time to land. Welcome to Mars!
If you wish to call home, The fleet's Babel radio has sufficient range to send the occasional message.

Step 6) Digboys will be lowered on the surface and begin tunneling, linked to the generator (plugs provided at the base of the starship). They will start digging habitats to transfer the population and equipment. The caves will be sealed and homes built thanks to the digboy in-built refinery.

Step 7) The rockets will be split in half and turned into greenhouses over the next year, to provide food for the colony. Infrastructure in the tunnels will be completed. Water and minerals from Digboys will provide all that is needed for industry, expansion of the EMS system, and fuel for the generator.

Step with food, water, shelter and resources set up, the future is in your brave, strong hands!

Step 9) The designs for this operation were left in trusted NEMO affiliated hands on Earth. Keep Mars in good shape and clean your silverware! Visitors may be coming when the political climate allows.

Andrea (Sensei recommends you read most of the NEMO designs if you want a full summary) is the leader of the NEMO project, responsible for the design of the rockets themselves. [6] Despite being a mastermind of rocketry himself, the project is massive and he's had help from others: Kot [5] has contributed a lot of time around the drawing board as well as rare, secret documentation from Kot Sr's “AS-SS-1935X”, which famously achieved lunar orbit, even if the crew possibly didn’t survive. Each rocket stands a full 150 meters tall in a three-stage configuration. The first two stages are, individually, the largest rockets ever constructed, and the third and final stage contains both its own propulsion and a 15-meter long section of payload. Half the rockets are dedicated to quarters, which have colonists strapped into "pockets" along the walls for comfort in zero-gravity, as well as storing food, water, breathable air, and other necessities. The remaining rockets store equipment and, if necessary, the crew who will operate them during transit. Once on the way to Mars, a particularly ambitious aspect of the plan will be carried out: all eight of the rockets will be connected by cables, transferring power, communications, and even air and water. Together the eight rockets will reach Mars to hopefully form a colony by creating living space underground and growing crops in greenhouses made from the rockets themselves. Andrea is not on the rockets himself; rather he stands guard at the launch platform (The Battle at Sea). Several other engineers have created equipment which is part of the NEMO project as well:

NUKE9.13 is in charge of designing NEMO's primary power source: a nuclear reactor, which will occupy a whole rocket. AigreExcalibur was his co-designer on this project, [3] [4] and the two of them have pulled off what many thought was impossible, successfully refining uranium in secret. Forenia's own mini-Manhattan Project necessitated the smuggling of concerning amounts of radioactive material out of Vlanlados while the design bureau proper stockpiled limited amounts and focused their research on more immediately rewarding technology. 'Nuke', as his fellow engineers now call him, has elected to call the final project the Low Expense Thermionic Brilliant Energy deLiverer (Uranium eXperiment), or LET-BE-LUX. Its design and operation is intended to be kept as absolutely simple as possible in the hopes that this groundbreaking new technology can be made reliable enough to run for months or years without access to replacement parts or downtime. In practice, it is still quite complicated to read and understand the various meters and gauges, and then control the fuel, moderator, coolant and generator. As a result, there are only a handful of people truly capable of operating it, including Nuke himself, all of whom have been stationed in the small, probably-irradiated habitation space in the same rocket as the reactor. It's projected to produce more than a megawatt, but it has yet to be tested to full power.
brightfractal is also part of the reactor project, but is more concerned with the generation of power than the refining of uranium or the creation of the fission reactor. [4] He's added an 'electromagnetic radiator' to the cooling system, which is basically a peltier effect device using heat pipes to extract power from the coolant and cool it down faster at the same time- hopefully, the radiator will be highly efficient in the vacuum of space. All three men are aboard the reactor-rocket.

Madman198237 is responsible for the creation of space suits for the NEMO project. Although nothing like it has been made before, a suit which can protect the wearer from the heat, cold, vacuum, and radiation of outer space and the Martian surface will be absolutely necessary. Without it, there will be no way to construct the colony or perform maintenance on the rockets during transit. [4] The UF-SSS-45XX NEMO Standard Issue Space Survival suit is bulky and cumbersome, but useable: it's tested to maintain pressure in a vacuum chamber, and it's possible (though difficult) to move in. This is accomplished with Forenia's own brand of nylon materials derived from those used in parachutes, as well as a number of metal structural elements, with many of the joint designs derived from those in Tiger armor. It includes a number of features: an umbilical cord is the main source of air, but there's a small canister as well. There's a helmet-mounted flashlight, a radio (the antennae come off the helmet and have little PAROI flags attached, like old Arstotzkan uniforms), and the visor is covered in patented FORENIAN SUNGLASSES™ coating to protect the eyes. It also comes with hooks for generic carabiner-clip straps, which enables a user to attach themselves safely to the outside of a craft. Madman himself is riding with Taricus to fight the rebels on land (The Battle for the Armory).
dgr11897 has contributed to the suits with an optional powered-exoskeleton attachment to allow workers outside to lift heavy objects in the absence of cranes or lifts. [3] Simply put, it's no PIMP. The suits are awkward and prone to jilted, exaggerated movements, with a limited range. He is on board one of the passenger-rockets.

Helmacon is responsible for NEMO's life support, another system which gets an entire rocket dedicated to it. The EMS, or “Earth-chan Memorial System”, is a number of separate machines designed to recycle water, air, and human waste, thus stretching the colony's resources as far as possible both during transit and in the colony. [4] The recycled piss-water still tastes a bit like piss, but it's drinkable, and the CO2 scrubbers should be a godsend. The large pinup/mural painted on the outside of Helmacon's rockets has drawn a lot of confused commentary, but apparently depicts a woman who anthropomorphically personifies the earth itself. This was generally seen as amusing at first, but once most colonists realised just how prolific depictions of the character were - not only in and around the EMS system but interspersed regularly through its documentation - they have begun to avoid him when they don't have a critical technical question to ask. Also included are seed stores and a supply of materials to help convert the rockets into greenhouses.. Helmacon is on board the rocket with his creation.

Rayiys "Chiefwaffles" Alfatayir (Sensei recommends you read the original post) has designed the UF-ER-45 "Digboy" [5] a tracked underground excavation vehicle, capable of independently boring out a tunnel and traversing underground. An individual Digboy, of which there are two on the Mars expedition and a third example being used for the defense of Forenia against the rebels, is about four meters wide and has an array of boring heads on its front. The entire vehicle is electrically powered. It has batteries but no generator, so to last for very long it needs to be attached to an external power source. It is sealed and has its own life support to last for a little while. Bored material is macerated before being dumped out the back, rendering it easily removed from a tunnel or used to refine resources. Working at a fast pace, and placing no support behind it, the Digboy can dig more than 500 meters in a day's work. Chiefwaffles, therefore, has his work cut out for him in using it to attack the Arstotzkan rebels, but he's fully intent on doing it anyway. Continued at The Battle for the Armory.

Jilladilla (AKA Nemonole) is in charge of NEMO's communication system, "Babel's Radio Station". This also gets its own rocket. The system is powerful enough to broadcast communications from Mars which can be received on Earth, which is its primary purpose. This will allow NEMO to signal the success of their colony and call for more colonists, if everything works. However, the radio system has two additional purposes. First, it has a variety of equipment for encrypting NEMO's own communication and decrypting received radio broadcasts, including the Cannalan frequency-switchers. Furthermore, it's capable of broadcasting a message or jamming signal on a huge range of frequencies all at once. Nemonole is already sitting in his launch seat from which he can operate the enormous radio along with his small team of fellow radio operators. He did not, however, sit idly by and watch the war take place: he had planned an information warfare attack to sow discord among the enemy.

Anyhow, as Nemonole waited in their Radio Command Center aboard the UFSS 'Voice of Forenia' as technicians scurried about completing final preparations for the unveiling of N.E.M.O.'s great work, he called a meeting of the operators of the 'Babel's Radio Station'. "Ladies and Gentlemen, as you are all likely aware, outside there is chaos as both Andres and the Cannalans make their move. Sadly, we can likely do nothing overtly against this; however, there is still a way to help our countrymen repel this act of treachery; without jeopardizing N.E.M.O. It's time to use this Command Center for its initial purpose. Let us add more fuel to the wildfire that is this fiasco, shall we?"

Their statement done, the center explodes into action; operators manning their posts, ready to cause as much chaos amongst the Arstotzkans and Cannalans invading their homeland even as they prepare to embark on their voyage to Mars. Patching themselves into Cannalan, Arstotzkan, Soviet, as well as the other factions radio systems, they prepare to fuel the bonfire of chaos...

Nemonole's plan continues at The Battle at Sea, along with the rest of the NEMO launch.


Cannalan space program
Blood Librarian had toiled away for years on a project to create a rocket ship which would land on the moon in the name of Cannala. A pet project of the old El Presidente, his work to place a man on the moon seeks to accomplish what Forenia (or more accurately, Arstotzka) failed to do in 1935. The launch was scheduled for October 30th; unfortunately El Presidente could not be in attendance due to his involvement in the Forenian peace negotiations. Still, the rocket has drawn an enormous amount of national attention. With Cannala's residents weary after countless years of almost uninterrupted war, both Cannalans and Juraki alike are eager to add a page to their nation's history which will make them world-famous for something other than warfare. The rocket was huge, but so was its launching mechanism: rather than a simple launch pad, the entire vehicle sat on special rail cars which would be magnetically launched on a ramp which angled 60 degrees upwards and was over 400 feet tall. The rail structure itself had already become a national monument and world curiosity; its pillars start outside the capitol and end on supports over coastal rocks in an east-facing bay. [4] The launch itself, miraculously, went as planned. The entire train of booster stages accelerated to great speed under electromagnetic forces, the booster of the first stage lit before the end of the track with a plume of fire, and the rocket left the track safely while the rail cars dropped below with a splash. To the surprise of the onlookers, the rocket construction facility burst into flames under the stress of generating the electricity needed to launch the rocket and the launch rail collapsed, but this was actually part of the plan. Once in the air, control fins steered the rocket up to a steeper angle. Spectators could see the first stage drop off, then the second, and then the rocket disappeared into the blue atmosphere. In the cabin, Blood Librarian saw the blue sky turn to black and the curvature of the Earth below him. The third stage dropped away. After taking some measurements, it became clear that this rocket was not going to make it to the moon, or even close. It had only reached a sub-orbital trajectory, and the fuel in the lander itself wouldn't be enough to stabilize an orbit. Still, it held air, and a Cannalan was the first man in space (who still had a radio to confirm he was alive, unlike that Arstotzkan rocket). Thinking up something good for the record books, he declared on the radio to the watching world: [5] "I can see the seven seas of the Earth below me now, our ancestral home. Now that the great, black sea of space surrounds me I know that this, too, will belong to Cannala." Nailed it. After 24 minutes, the capsule began to re-enter Earth's atmosphere. [6] Even more miraculously than the launch, the re-entry went off without a hitch. The capsule survived re-entry without overheating, the parachute deployed, and he splashed down in the Atlantic some miles off the coast of Florida.

AndrewJTalon had far more ambitious plans for Cannala's space program, however. Where Blood Librarian had set out of a mission of peace and exploration, Andrew J Talon planned to place a superweapon in orbit which would render Cannala the mightiest of all nations. His initial plan called for a sort of "death ray", but lacking the scientific background, he had settled for an orbital missile platform instead. He set about designing and building his space station piece by piece. It would be crewed by eighty men, in the shape of a great ring which would spin to create artificial gravity on board, and hold hundreds of missiles. [1] A week before he was scheduled to launch his space station, he found his rockets missing. One morning his massive hangar was simply empty, devoid of the various component rocket boosters and the 50-foot truck trailers which they had rested on. Stationary tanks with hundreds of tons of hydrazine were empty. Police, guards, and investigators were utterly stumped as to how this could have happened. Then, on October 30th, he attended Blood Librarian's historic rocket launch... only to see his very own rocket booster on the platform! He screamed, raged, pulled his hair out, called the police ("This sounds above my paygrade"), called El Presidente ("El Presidente is in crucial talks with the Forenians right now"). As he watched his own rocket launch and splash into the sea, his rage reached its peak and he  vowed to strangle Blood Librarian with his own hands.

[Sensei]

The Battle at Sea

On the bridge of the Cortez, there were a half-dozen separate radio operators coordinating various requests from on land from soldiers who wanted 23 inches of death at their chosen position. Each of them relayed their requests to Cortez, who decided where to target first, and TheFantasticMrFox who was leading the fire control team. [2] "Hey, Cortez! Sir! I've got a weird request coming in!" "What is it?" "I have a 'Ricardo' no-rank no-squad with a weird accent who says there's a Forenian artillery position at these coordinates. That's top priority, but it's also about where Andres is supposed to be in a minute. What do you think?" "We'll try to contact Andres' men first. I wouldn't be surprised if those Forenians managed to get on our frequencies again somehow, the cowards." "Hold on sir! I have reports the Soviets are training their guns on us. The microphone sounds funny though. I think it might be the same chucklefuck. Uh. Sir!"

Nemonole's plan of trickery, then, was largely defused. His further messages exhorting Arstotzkans not to join the rebellion may or may not have had an effect- Kot is already gaining a large following which is splitting the Arstotzkan rebellion. The final part of his plan is to jam all non-Forenian radio channels. After flipping half a dozen switches, he does just that... [2] as well as jamming all the Forenian radio channels, and everybody else's for that matter, and melting a chocolate bar belonging to one of his fellow radio operators to boot. Throughout Forenia, radios fill with heavy static on all channels, jamming all kinds of communication. The whole continent, for soldiers and civilians on every side of the conflict, is in the dark.

On the Forenian sea-front, surface craft are being lost startlingly fast. The Forenian Cataphracts and Vodkas both leaving the harbors and returning to the capitol after being stationed up and down the coast are being lost at a rate two-to-one or worse that of Cannala's ships. Radar is fuzzy under Nemonole's Communication Catastrophe, especially the weak radar source in Cannala’s radar target designators, so ships are relying on guns primarly. The Cannalans' regular ships would be winning the battle on their own, while the Cortez and Kalamity (which have largely postponed ground-attacks for the moment) are quickly racking up kills. The submarines present are scurrying to spread out and dive so they can avoid being caught up large cannon attacks on groups of ships. This includes Forenia's four prototype submarines. While the Megalodon and Big Boot move ahead of the other ships and dive preparing to establish a position, the Wolfpack floats to the surface and lists awkwardly, already beginning to emit smoke and steam from her melting nuclear reactor. Here crew stands on deck, waving for help. Luckily, PirateJoe's Zingel, which is slow compared to the remaining submarines, is able to surface and pull up. The Wolfpack's refugee sailors scurry aboard as quickly as possible, but the surface submarine makes a tempting target for the Cortez. [2] POOM! POOM! POOM! Three massive cannon shells land in the water. The last strikes the Wolfpack, utterly destroying its bow section and damaging the Zingel badly with its mere proximity. [3] The Zingel is left unable dive as flooding begins in some compartments. Meanwhile, the Megalodon and Big Boot have made it out of the bay and submerged in the water.

The Russian navy begins to move away from the Cannalan fleet as the fighting intensifies. With all of their communications jammed, they're limited to semaphore flags for signalling each other and no way to confirm orders with outside command. Maybe the threat of force against the Cannalans was a bluff, or maybe the unanticipated circumstance of a Cannalan-backed Arstotzkan rebellion required input from a political higher-up to resolve. Either way, the Russian fleet is sitting out the battle for now. If a Forenian or Cannalan with a powerful enough telescope were to take the time at this moment in the pitched fighting to look closely at the bridge of the battleship Gangut, they might have seen the admiral of the Russian fleet sweating bullets as he watched the situation before him turn to chaos. However, an even more concerning sight would have everyone's attention in a moment.

From the Cannalan side, the naval battle is going well. The Cannalan ships are outperforming the Forenian ones, but the communication jamming is causing slightly poor performance from guided missiles. This is a problem for Cannala's anti-ship aircraft, but from a naval perspective it's forcing gun battles from Forenian ships whose big advantage has been missiles. Dwennon's Kalamity Missile Battleship [1] is faring poorly under the circumstances, having taken hits from Forenian shore batteries, and missing in the initial volley. She limps out to sea, still firing some compass-oriented missiles at the shore batteries, but many of them steer into random buildings near the intended targets of Overcompensator shore gun bunkers, and more precise semi-active radar isn't working under the jamming signal. The infrared AA missiles, on the other hand, are working just fine and have shot down a few planes which came close. The Cortez [4] is doing much better, having destroyed multiple Victoria battlecruisers, and damaged two submarines in one shot. "I hate submarines. More than I hate bird-brains. Don't let them get away!" Even though firing on the damaged submarine targets was already a top priority, and only the gun director team needs this sort of information anyway, General Cortez felt the need to announce this over intercom to every deck of the ship named after him. [6] vs [1] Another volley hit the Zingel directly, obliterating it. A short distance behind, the spot where the Wolfpack had sunk continued to bubble ominously and emit steam. The Cortez was now more or less free to attack targets on land. It was lucky for the Forenians that there was no communication between the ship, and Cannalan forces on land to direct fire, but the Cortez began shooting at targets visible on shore such as the Overcompensator guns.

"When I land, I'm gonna strangle the bastard who wired this up!" Tereshkova hit her radio's microphone on the walls of the Invictus' cockpit in frustration. For all she knew, it was only her radio that was reading static on every channel. After testing out her gun on a few Lancers and a Dragoon and finding it to her liking, she flew towards the ship marked Cortez. Normally this would be the time to say something witty on the radio, but with that option unavailable, she had to be a little more creative. She couldn't stand not hearing Cortez' last words before he was defeated, but a look at his face would have to do. Cortez saw an unusual silhouette of fighter plane flying low in the moonlight, with a dozen strings of tracer rounds chasing it from the deck of his ship and never connecting. His stomach sunk- the witch had arrived, and now, with no radio to call for air support. Tereshkova manually set the cannon as far to the right side as it went and buzzed the bridge of the Cortez, passing within only a few meters. [2] She rolled a little more than she planned to make the maneuver, and her cannon fired into the tower below the bridge itself. However, she did get the satisfaction of seeing the shocked look on Cortez' face, and Cortez got to see her middle finger illuminated by the deck lights. In her opinion, it was worth it despite taking a couple hits from the deck guns in the process. She lamented her lack of bombs as she set up for a strafing run, then turned her eyes in shock to the shore of Forenia as she saw... daylight?

The boosters of the NEMO rockets were all igniting on their platform offshore of the capitol. The Cannalans, Russians, and most Forenians (especially Tereshkova, who would never have approved of several hundred tons of rocket fuel being diverted to non-military use) had no idea that the largest rocket in the world was launching tonight, nor for that matter, that there were eight of them. With Nemonole's communication blackout in effect, there can be no broadcast to explain the rocket launch to onlookers either. Andrea, the leader of the project stood guard a distance away from the platform. The advance of Cannalan ships had forced his hand somewhat with the timing of the launch, but hopefully soon the rockets should be a safe distance away- from absolutely everyone. He sat at a Garlic anti-air salamander waiting for anything unidentified to come too close, but as the time for launch came, he couldn't help but watch his creation. The rumble was almost deafening even with ear plugs in, and the light from the rocket boosters forced him to shield his hand. [6] [2] [2] [5] [4] [5] [6] [4] Andrea watches the rockets lift up and away. One gradually lifted off the platform, and the rest close behind- one, two, three, four, five, six... enormous towers of metal, defying the rules of nature and gravity to leave earth on a pillar of flame- to him, the ultimate symbol of mankind's freedom to choose his own fate, rather than living life under the circumstances he is born into. But wait! Two rockets are still attached to the platform! The couplers are stuck, and the platform itself is now shrouded in smoke and flame. [4] Carefully, he positioned the Garlic's gun and fired and the launch tower, shredding a harness with shells, and the rocket pulled away with a small piece still attached. For the other rocket, he would have to move his vehicle a little... [1] the entire launch platform exploded with the impact of huge cannon shells from the Cortez. It looks like the Cannalans panicked at seeing huge rockets launch and fired. The entire rocket collapses and its contents, hundreds of thousands of gallons of liquid fuel, spill across the water, roaring almost a hundred meters high and brightly illuminating the entirety of the capitol bay in the dead of night with rolling, orange light. Andrea cannot stop to mourn, or even remember whether the rocket carried primarily equipment or colonists. There are planes moving towards the rockets in the air as well, all acting out of panic without orders, or perhaps following the lead of the Cortez. [5] Andrea trains the gun on a Vengeful Charlotte at high altitude, and makes an impressive long-range shot to bring it down. The only rocket now threatened is the one that detached from the launch platform late. [1] A Dragoon fighter looses its full load of three proximity-fuzed missiles before veering away, and from an altitude above the rocket. The first rocket steers steeply into the rocket exhaust and explodes harmlessly, the second detonates worryingly close to the rocket and the third is a direct hit. The rocket loses speed, then suddenly explodes in the air.

To be continued...

The Battle for the Armory

The Cannalan group pushes in from the shore. Metal Pocken leads the attack, handily maneuvering over rubble into the city streets. Passing around the corner of the Forenian Tailoring Company building, poketwo finds himself face to face with an ambush from two Bjorn tanks. [5] One fires at Pocken, glancing harmless off the leg armor, and then the crewmen operating two independent Daybreaker cannons fire and hit their marks, causing one Bjorn to explode and disabling the other, from which crew members file out of the hatch. When Joha jumps his flamethrower suit down the street to ambush them from behind, they surrender. The group waits a moment for the two slower tanks to catch up, as well as some Cannalan infantry. To their surprise, despite having secured the beach, fire gunfire erupts from behind: it's Auze, in his Boomer hovercraft.

Auze has made a high-speed run up the beach, autocannons cutting swaths through enemy infantry and even the amphibious Raiders, all caught unawares. [4] He disables a Cannalan Bull tank with a rocket before zipping around behind the Walrus for cover, prompting the group of Cannalan engineers to move back towards the beach and fight him. [1] vs [5] He fires a Sarukh rocket directly into the Davy Jone's Locker. The giant artillery rocket creates a huge explosion and a cloud of smoke which doesn't dissipate for a while... then the Davy Jones fires back. Asdf managed to hit the hovercraft with his mortar, an extremely lucky shot. The left-side section of the Boomer's reactive armor detonates, and Auze retreats at speed, his hovercraft now pulling to the right as the skirt leaks air from the left side. [2] Scrublord begins rotating the enormous turret of the Armadillo II to bring his 6-inch gun to bear, but by the time he's aiming down the beach, Auze has escaped. Clear of the shore, the party of Cannalans equips night vision to as many soldiers as possible and advances.

Andres' party of rebels is progressing down the streets of the capitol in bloody infantry fighting. His AS-RG45 rocket-gun is proving highly effective in urban combat: highly mobile Salamander APCs are no match for it, and the 30mm rockets can kill soldiers hiding behind walls and inside of buildings. Tiger armor soldiers are defenseless against the weapon as their armor only makes them an easy target. Olith's bizarre radiation weapon may or may not be killing enemy soldiers, but it definitely cooked off a box of ammunition in a machine gun nest. After observing the wide area it appears to affect, most of the other Arstotzkans are keeping their distance from him.

On the Forenian side, soldiers are rushing to regroup near the armory after the start of the rebellion. On the way, they're encountering scattered pockets of resistance from Arstotzkan rebels besides those in Andres' immediate company as well as the Cannalan soldiers, who are moving in from the beach and dropping from the air. Ahead of the movement, however, is ChiefWaffles, in his Digboy tunneling vehicle. After seeing the rebellion break out, he began digging immediately for the perfect place to ambush Andres and his rebel scum. A whole crew of men watched the rubble-filled tunnel behind them grow longer and longer while the Chief himself counted the distance. "We should be about there. Increase altitude to... eight meters above sea level. [1] The crew dutifully angled the drill head upwards, and then suddenly, the tunnel broke free to reveal moonlight. Through some particularly unlucky miscalculation, the Digboy had emerged into the Grand Moskurg-Arstotzka highway, which was here dug into a deep ditch to facilitate overpasses, and so Chiefwaffles and his crew were teetering on the edge of a tunnel which emerged out of a wall a couple meters above the road below. One of the operators yelled "Shit! Back us up!" before awaiting further orders, [4] and stopped the machine from protruding past the wall. That wasn't the extent of their misfortune, however: Andres' party, whom they intended to get behind, was now passing this way above the underpass. Olith [3] began bathing the Digboy with radiation, to a cancerous-but-not-immediately-obvious effect, and the party with the Dogboy began exchanging rifle fire as ChiefWaffles desperately attempted to reverse. [5] vs [6] Chief's crew managed to put a rocket into some of the Arstotzkan rebels now investigating the noise and gunfire before reversing back into the tunnel. However, Andres made it to the scene with his AS-RG45 and fired a couple rockets which destroyed the Digboy with all hands, as its payload of electric batteries erupt in fire and acid.

Taricus leads a growing group with Kashyyk and some other Forenians, [2] but Powder Miner makes his own way, the two failing to find each other. [1] Encountering some Cannalan soldiers and armor on the way, Kashyyk takes out some enemies with his grenade launcher from behind the Demolisher tank before they are outmaneuvered by a Raider APC which flanks them with autocannon fire. Kashyyk dies in a blast of two-barreled Can Shredder fire while the Demolisher loses its ERA on the front and right side before supporting infantry destroy the enemy APC.

Powder Miner's Rabid Tiger Armor [2] isn't faring well unsupported. While he was making his way towards the armory, he took out some rebels but his leg was badly injured by a grenade, and he's moving slow on his feet. A Chupacabra flies overhead. Powder Miner wonders- how are they getting this far inland? What's happening with the Forenian Air Force? Hopefully unseen, he ducks in an alley and prepares his Horsekiller Mk II. Powder Miner emerges from the alley- but it looks like his luck has run out! He finds himself confronted with a Bull tank. A Cannalan soldier sitting out of the top hatch spots him, and fire a string off his machine gun- [4] no effect against the Rabid Tiger Armor. Then, the soldier shouts something and ducks into the hatch, and the main turret of the Bull begins rotating. With nowhere to run, Powder Miner raises his Horsekiller to fire, even knowing it will be ineffective. Bang! The enormous bullet leaves a small dent in the armor and nothing more. Then, a rocket streaks down from above and strikes the tank, causing smoke to billow from its engine vents- and another! This time the turret has stopped rotating. Powder Miner looks up to see, parachuting, the Senate of United Forenia.

Raafat "Evicted Saint" Al-Hayim is supposed to be among them, but his jump was mis-timed a bit. This, he reflected, was because he was a coward. No! He did not like to think things like that. Raafat was not with the rest of the parachuting group because he was not supposed to be parachuting at all, because he was not a soldier. Everybody in the damn country seemed to be obsessed with being a soldier, even the paper-pushing politicians who couldn't run a mile in ten minutes. Not that Raafat could necessarily run a mile in ten minutes, himself, but then he wasn't quite so prone to promising that he could resolve ammunition shortages by personally taking to the field and killing two Cannalans with one bullet, or whatever nonsense the ministers cook up to get elected. In any case, everything would be perfectly fine had a certain someone not seen fit to push Raafat out of a plane. Rebellion or no, he could be enjoying a tea right now. [5] After a moment of musing over his predicament of being in a state of freefall over an active warzone and all the life choices (of other bastards) which had led him here, he maneuvered his AR34 rifle onto his chest (he had originally brought one just for show) and his Trustfall parachute onto his back fortunately dropping neither. After deploying the parachute ("Hey! It works!") he took stock of his surroundings. Andres' party of Arstotzkans was getting dangerously close to the armory and has converged with some other Cannalans, while Kot's parade of non-rebelling Arstotzkans has met up with a bunch of Forenians and just about cut off their path. Many of the Cannalans are using night vision, so the groups of them moving in the moonlight are much harder to spot. It looks like it's going to be a big fight. High above the capitol, watching the flashlights and fires in the night, Raafat found himself at something of a crossroads. He could steer away from the worst of the fighting, land somewhere, maybe steal a car and get inland until everything blows over. Worst case scenario, maybe grab another plane and leave the country for America, if he can get a pilot to fly it for him. Or... he could get an interview with the Arstotzkans. A good, well written account of the battle first hand by a proper author could be the news story of the century. Maybe a good non-fiction account could be just the thing to set his career back on track after the novel series about wizards didn't sell. He hadn't liked writing it anyway... Nah. Better to steer away. It's not like you have to actually BE somewhere to write about what happened there, right? He could just write about what probably happened and it would be good enough. A short glance from up here probably told him more about what was going on that most civilians on the ground knew anyway.

Then, something else caught Raafat's attention. There was a light source about as bright as the sun just off the coast. Giant rockets! If only he had brought a camera. An orange glow pierced the mist and cast sharp shadows through the city streets below him. He watched in fear and fascination- were they missiles? Were they manned? The first few launched up and into the atmosphere, disappearing and becoming tiny trails of light in the atmosphere. Two more rockets started burning on the platform but didn't launch right away. One of those broke free, only to be intercepted by missiles in the air, and the then a Cannalan ship fired cannons at the launch platform. The explosion was so bright, Raafat was temporarily blinded. When his ears stopped ringing, he heard a chatter of radios- the communications were no longer out! It then occurred to him that he didn't have a radio, and if he could hear a radio, he was probably very close to the ground, which was where all the people with radios were. Then, he hit a light post.

High in the sky, two Cannalan radios came back online in particular. "Gabriel, this is the Serafin. Cover us, we've got a good picture on ground radar and we're moving for fire support."

The Battle at Sea, part 2

The communication jammer must have been on that rocket! Across the deck of the Cortez, separate radio operators began frantically fielding requests. The Kalamity could be seen launching missiles from all tubes, most of them to be fine-aimed by radar guns on the ground. A radio operator shouted to Cortez: "Andres says there's a counter-insurgent group of Arstotzkans! They're a big threat so we want to hit their coordinates hard! Just don't hit the armory, they should still be able to take it." Cortez agreed, and ordered the firing crew to aim all guns. Before they were in position, there was an explosion on the aft of the ship and one turret stopped moving. The witch again! Still, the remaining turrets got into position and fired, with a series of man-made thunderclaps. Zeus himself would have been envious of this power. Cortez, as was his custom, violated a bunch of military protocols by picking up a radio and dialing in to a channel he knew Tereshkova would be listening to. "Is that all you've got, Witch? You can't sink a ship with with tiny women's cannons!" As always, she answered back. "I bet your ship's cannons are the only ones you have that can elevate! And I'm gonna break those, too!" "I'll have you know-"

[4] The Megalodon fired all tubes at the Kalamity, about a minute ago, and just now it hit with most of them. From bow to stern, five explosions erupted below the water. Dwennon called on the intercoms: "Damage control team! What's going on down there?" [1] Multiple voices spoke over each other on the intercom at the same time. "We've got fires in section 14, we're trying to seal-" "flood in eight, nine, ten..." "Engine's stopped!" "three through six are flooding as well..." "Missile rack is about to collapse!" Dwennon decided to make the call to abandon ship. "All hands - " he started, but he didn't get the chance to finish. The remaining portion of the Kalamity's missile payload went up in a Kalamitous explosion. Once again the entire bay around the capitol was lit up, this time much more briefly, and as a pillar of burning rocket fuel and warheads rose into the sky, a boom louder than than of the Cortez' cannons shattered windows on ships nearby and buildings on the coast.

Cortez was in shock, and though it hurt his dignity, he immediately began communicating with the two 'pteros which were patrolling near the Cortez, which had been launched from its deck. "There's a submarine around here! Not one of the regular little ones, but a big bastard! Duckling 1 and 2, starting looking for it immediately! In fact, any 'pteros near the coast, pull back to the bay and start looking for subs, that's an order! We need out main fire support on the sea more than we need your little guns in the air!" He hadn't bothered to sync up encryption first, so Tereshkova had the opportunity to overhear. "What's that? You really need those slow, vulnerable flies?" [1] She buzzed within sight on the Cortez and destroyed one of the Chupacabras around it, but her desire to fly close and show off caused her to take another string of AA fire. One engine burst into flame and the Invictus fighter listed to the right. She trimmed her flaps to compensate, then made maneuvers to dodge a couple of homing missiles launched from the deck of the Cortez. As she juked the missiles, she could feel the plane losing thrust.

While the Megalodon was targeting the Kalamity, the Big Boot was also sneaking underwater, and her crew had nearly determined a firing solution for the Cortez. After radio communication had come back, Happerry had dived to periscope depth and was communicating with a Forenian Iceberg at high altitude to make sure the Cortez isn't changing direction. Because the Cannalans lack sonar or depth charges, their only defense against submarines is to locate submarines visually, which will usually be done by a Chupacabra helicopter. Once the Chupacabra has spotted a submarine, such as by the periscope or its shadow underwater (relatively visible from directly above), it can it can attack with its own cannon or bombs, or try to communicate the location of the submarine precisely enough that a nearby ship can fire cannons at it. This isn't extremely effective, especially with Forenian fighters in the air making their job a very high-risk one. [2] vs [4] TheFantasticMrFox is on deck in the Cortez, communicating with the Air Force. "Has anyone got eyes on a sub?" "This is Bourbon-two, I think I've got a sub under my spotlight." "What's your position?" "Look bearing three-" and the radio cut off. Not surprisingly, Tereshkova came from the west, having destroyed another one. But, this gave him some idea of where to look. "Listen Cortez, there's a sub right on us, west somewhere, change heading and full throttle, forget about the land targets for now!" "I'm more concerned about an air target, but you're right, Helmsman, full starboard and full engines!" The Big Boot was safe for now, but its quarry was alerted. [3] vs [5] A minute later, men on the deck of the Cortez could see the wake of torpedoes moving in a spread past the stern.

Meanwhile, much further out to sea, Urist Mc Dwarf's Poison Salamander has gone unnoticed amidst the fighting of much larger ships, and approaches El Presidente's yacht. [3] The amphibious armored vehicle is reaching its limits as the waves grow higher further out, and it's taking all of Urist's concentration to ride the waves in a straight line, while the gunner is bailing out sea spray with a bucket. Nonetheless, El Presidente's yacht is close, visible in the moonlight. All the deck lights have been turned off to prevent the unwanted intrusion of Forenian anti-ship missiles or bombs. El Presidente was surely on the ship somewhere, so the Poison Salamander's flamethrower turret wouldn't be much use. Now, it was time for the Forenians to become the pirates. Urist Mc Dwarf slung a grappling hook onto the railing, and his men in the Poison Salamander fired tear gas canisters onto the deck. Urist made his way up the ropes, followed closely by his comrades. [1] vs [1] Urist was caught by surprise to find El Presidente, in his suit which fully protected him from gas, pointing a Can Perforator autocannon directly at him, supported by his powered armor. El Presidente thought he was ready for him, but he fired his gun and immediately fell over on his back. For a moment while El Presidente is unable to stand up, Urist retorted with his own weapon: An AS-MC16 (easier to carry up a rope than an AR34) and emptied the entire magazine against the PIMP armor without effect. [1] vs [6] Urist, hands shaking, tapped his next magazine against the receiver in an attempt to reload his gun. El Presidente, getting the hang of his power armor, stood up and fired a burst of shells past Urist's ear, to which Urist flinched and dropped his gun, sending it clattering off the deck and into the sea. "Surrender!" El Presidente's voice was enhanced by a vacuum-tube amplifier, which frankly was necessary for Urist to hear his voice above the ringing in his ears. He could do nothing but hold up his hands, stunned. "Take them to the brig!" Sailors held Urist's hands behind his back, and marched him and his men below deck.

"So that wasn't the Red Mask?" El Presidente spoke to Mandemon and WorldofHurt, who were checking his suit over for damage. "Doesn't look like it, El Presidente, Sir." Mandemon hefted a new belt of ammunition into the box on the suit. "They said there were only Forenians with them, no Juraki in sight." "Damn. Stay alert then." A little later, a Chupacabra approached the yacht. Men prepared to refuel the incoming helicopter. From the deck, El Presidente could see a man in the con tower wave flags signalling a radio failure. The Chupacabra bears the marking "Bear-3". Mandemon wonders to himself- where the hell were they deployed? They don't sound familiar. WorldofHurt notices that the bombs on its winglets aren't standard. [2] However, these realizations come too late. Even as the two engineers begin shout "El Presidente, get down!" the Chupacabra diverts from a landing path and drops two canisters, which land on deck and emit a red gas. Crewmen scramble to put on gas masks, some of them fall over choking and struggling before they can seat the masks to their faces. [5] El Presidente reacts quickly: he plants his feet square on the deck turns his Can Perforator upwards to the Chupacabra. Sparks scatter off the heavy lower armor in a line until the helicopter passes over him and swings around the deck to bring its gun to bear. Presidente Charpez fire a second burst at the upper mass of the helicopter, no longer directly above him and destroys the engines. One rotor seizes and the other collides with it, throwing chunks of rotor blade about the yacht, and the helicopter collapses against the tower and lands on the deck in a burning heap. The crewmen who have their masks on are trying to pull their choking comrades to safety or put out fires. From the smoke around the wrecked 'ptero, a man emerges. His silhouette with the flame and smoke behind him shows armor plates and a drawn curved sword. As he advances further, a red mask can be seen on his face, painted with the visage of a demon in antiquated style, but its classic shape is interrupted with the shape of two air filters protruding near the mouth. El Presidente hefts his double-barreled Can Perforator to fire, but it's empty. He raised his voice into his suit's megaphone while the Red Mask walked closer. "Coward! You call this an honorable duel?" The red mask shouted back over the chaos on deck. "We had a deal! All you had to do was hold up your end!" He charged and swung his sword at El Presidente, who lifted up his gun to block it. "Now, the-" BLAM. [6] Mandemon discharged a 1911 Mano Derecha through the back of El Presidente's attacker. There was a splatter of blood on the PIMP armor's chest. In the commotion, Mandemon had managed to get his gas mask on and walk up completely unnoticed with his sidearm. The Red Mask slumped over, lifeless.

"What was that about a deal?" For a moment the two men who had played long roles in Cannala's history stood catching their breath amid the smoke, orange flame and blue moonlight while everyone else around them ran to control the damage to the ship. "Nothing." The poison gas had already dissipated, and El Presidente took a moment to unclasp his helmet, unmask his face, and look Mandemon in the eye. "Don't worry about it." El Presidente set down his enormous double-barreled cannon, and fumbled for the clasps on his helmet. The gas was already dissipating. “Help me with this.” Mandemon unclasped the cumbersome armor piece by piece until El Presidente could step out of it, leaving the suit standing on its own. He produced a fat cigar from his coat pocket, and WorldOfHurt instinctively retrieved his lighter and lit it for him. “I’m sure you understand: you will never speak again of what you saw here today. To anyone.” “Yes sir, El Presidente sir,” replied both of the engineers. El Presidente took a slow puff, and replied, “Good.”

Back near the shore, casualties were quickly mounting on both sides. With the radio jamming over, Cannala has been sending their radar-guided missiles to shore and Forenia has started making more use of their anti-ship missiles. Most of the Forenian surface navy has been destroyed or routed, but the submarines are slowly picking off Cannala's ships. Cannala has very weak defenses against submarines, so the main limiting factor is that the Boot subs are slow as molasses and don't have a ton of firepower. Forenia's air superiority is somewhat shaken by Cannala's effective Dragoon fighters, but they're still hitting ships with Saltseeker missiles. [3] Before returning inland, NikolaAnic and Icehunter, both flying in the X-10 Gabriel Air-Superiority Fighter, had managed to shoot down a couple of bombers and at least keep fire off of the Cortez. Luckily, he managed not to run afoul of Tereshkova, who was still harassing the Cortez directly. Despite the amount of fire against it, the Cortez continued to hammer away on shore with a few more rounds from its massive cannons. However, not only was the Big Boot dead set on the Battleship's trail, but the Megalodon had maneuvered around for a piece of the action as well. [5] [2] vs [3] The Cortez continued to dodge the Big Boot's torpedoes, but in the process, went straight into the path of the still-unseen Megalodon's next salvo. Tereshkova, still flying in the area, watched with satisfaction as two explosions shook the Cortez, and Cortez himself. The ship wasn't sunk just from that, though, and BBBence aimed her secondary guns at his best guess for the Big Boot's position, which they had been watching based on the torpedo wakes and 'ptero reports. [4] vs [1] Bence ordered the firing of four of the 16-inch guns. They splashed into the water, and he watched with satisfaction as another, smaller splash appeared from below the surface a moment later. Aboard the Megalodon, the radio operator stopped receiving communication from the Big Boot. Bence announced his accomplishment over the intercom, and the crew cheered in celebration. Cortez, as usual, picked up the radio: "One of your subs won't be surfacing again, Tereshkova!" She didn't have a witty comeback for that one. In fact, her plane was visibly limping in the air. She made a pass at a Chupacabra, one of the reinforcements from a carrier some distance away, and missed. "Sinking, Tereshkova? Let me know if you need me to lower a lifeboat for you! Hahahahaha!"

The Celebration may have been a little premature, though. The Cortez steered as hard as a 900-foot ship could, reacting to another set of torpedo wakes. [1] vs [2] Another minor hit. The Cortez fired at the Megalodon, or at least, a pretty loose guess of where she was. [1] vs [3] The crew of the Megalodon listened to cannon shells splash down through the sonar system: they weren't even close. Underneath the waves, Ebbor addressed the crew of his submarine in a red-lit room. "I've had enough of this! That monster is blowing up whole city blocks on shore, and if the intelligence I'm getting is right, our boys on the ground need all the help they can get! Set the throttle to full and bring us in as close as you can. Those salty bastards aren't getting away!" [2] vs [2] Despite his bravado, the Megalodon still can't land a decisive hit on the Cortez, which hasn't lost any essential systems or taken a hit close to the citadel, and Bence can't repeat his miracle feat of nailing a submarine with cannons. Seeing the battle raging on, Tereshkova made a last, desperate pass on the Cortez' bridge. "Hey look up you... swarthy... man!" That could have come out better. [6] The attack worked though: her plane's aimable cannon hosed down the command deck with explosive shells. [5] Cortez was knocked off his feet relatively unharmed, but consoles and controls destroyed, [1], [1] and most of the other people in the room including Bence and Fox were killed. Cortez leaned his head out the destroyed window behind him to see Tereshkova's burning plane splash into the water. "HahahaHA! Was it worth it, you witch?" He shouted into the wind, even though nobody was listening. Well, he thought to himself, better tell the guys on the lower deck that they're in control now since the steering wheel up here is gone. He tried the intercom- busted. Nothing to do now but hobble down several flights of stairs. [5] Then, 10ebbor10 finally got the torpedo hit was looking for. A whole salvo, dead on the center of the ship, one after another, broke through multiple chambers and torpedo-hulls and various other defenses. In moments, the ship was rapidly flooding. [4] The Megalodon's helmsman dived under the Cortez to avoid colliding with it, going too fast to stop. By the time Cortez climbed down the stairs to the main deck, the Cortez was already listing steeply, and the ship was bending somewhere between the bow and stern. "Abandon ship!" In a minute or so of his absence, lesser officers were already giving the order. Normally this sort of thing would demand a serious reprimand, but there was really no misinterpreting the situation. This wasn't Cortez' first time on a sinking ship. All that 'a captain goes down with his ship' nonsense was seen in Cannala as rather wasteful and not very piratey. "Launch the boats! Move, everyone!"

[Sensei]

The Battle for the Armory, Part 2


Andres was pleased to find his radio officer's Cannalan-issue radio had begun working again. He picked up the handset: "Sidorenko, what can you see up there?" "Lots of them gathering outside the armory. Tanks, rocket trucks, infantry, the works. Mostly north side. I'm changing channels, got to figure the coordinates for Cortez. Have your men get around and start radar spotting. Oh, and the Cannalan army has come with a good distraction to lure them out." Right on cue, the sound of rhythmic pounding cut through the background noise of distant gunfire and shouting. Then, Andres saw it- a Cannalan weapon which he'd been told to expect, but didn't think would really work. "Metal... Pocken?!" Poketwo's creation, a heavily armored walking tank, marched down the street, breaking the pavement and crushing obstacles with each step. Joha, in his flying flamethrower suit, was riding on the roof to conserve fuel, while Scrublord's Armadillo II traveled a little further back to make use of its huge cannon from a distance. Poketwo announced over a megaphone, "We're missing asdf, so watch for him to bring up the rear."

In fact, asdf's Davy Jones' Locker, the slowest tank in the war, had been locked in a duel with auze's hovercraft, the fastest tank in the war. [1] vs [3] This had resulted in asdf driving into a small ditch, becoming totally immobilized. Auze's already-leaking hovercraft tore up its skirt on rubble in the city while making hit and run attacks, expending all of its ammunition of trying to penetrate the DJL's armor without effect, and asdf's mortar was similarly ineffective against the armor of the Boomer. Auze, hung up on a matter of pride, was now leading his crew in an attempt to pry open the "hatch" of asdf's tank without much luck. Asdf himself had resigned to putting up his legs and eating a sandwich.

Meanwhile, the fate of Forenia was being determined. Metal Pocken marched into the line of fire, drawing the Forenians out. [3] Machine guns, RPGs, and cannonfire tested its armor, as the Forenians revealed their positions. A 100m shell from a Bjorn tank hits one side, destroying one of the Daybreaker cannons. It buys enough time, though, for someone with a radar gun. Guided bombs from the Serafin converge on Forenian tanks and positions. Those who are judged unworthy in the eyes of Cannala are sentenced to death, as no armor is defense against the bombs. Further back, a battery of Sarukh trucks is wiped out by Cannalan cruise missiles. Forenian infantry lead a counterattack, staying low to craters and bombed-out buildings, only to be hit again: the enormous shells fired from the Cortez turn whole buildings to rubble in an instant. The Forenian forces, at first greatly outnumbering the rebels and invaders, are thinning and withering under various sources of long-range fire.

"Now we have the advantage!" Andres declared to his men, looking at a small wasteland which had yet to be re-occupied by the Forenians. "Charge!" He led the Arstotzkans into the smoke. Something ahead moved- an enemy soldier? He turned his gun and fired as his opponent ran from cover to cover- but Andres was too slow. Or, the shape in the smoke was too fast, faster than a man should be. [3] A tiger! It lunged out at Andres, pouncing and clawing his face! He wrestled for a moment to get his rocket gun under the beast, then fired, blowing a hole in the beast's torso before the round continued to take a chunk out of the third floor of a building behind it. He touched his hand to his face, and it came away shining red with blood... but the wounds were only superficial. [1] Back behind him, however, his men were having far more trouble with a sudden onslaught of tigers, and from seemingly all directions. He saw one man waist deep in a manhole, screaming and clawing at the street with his fingernails before being dragged into the darkness. Another soldier tried to kill the tiger attacking his comrade, but riddled them both with bullets. Some men dropped their guns and ran, their panicked shouting echoed back through the streets as they passed around the corner and out of sight. ...Disgusting. Wasn't this some kind of war crime? These shameful hijinx are exactly the sort of reason why allying with the Moskurgs was always a terrible idea. [6] From above, Sidorenko began picking tigers off with his rifle. One of the old Arstotzkan snipers who had earned the country its reputation for excelling at long-range combat, Tereshkova had beat him out in a bid for General back in 1937. He fired ten bullets and killed ten tigers, then Andres was able to rally his men again.

Up in the air, the Serafin bomber had attracted the attention of a couple of Arstotzkan fighters. [1] A Hayat fired off one of its huge Noose missiles before pulling away, a ton lighter. At this range, there would be no time for the Serafin to bail out. Nikola steered his Gabriel fighter behind and Khaz released two Veilfire missiles- one infrared seeking and on semi-active radar homing. [6] Nikola stayed on the tail of his target and guided the radar missile to a hit, sending one Hayat down in smoke. He rolled the plane over and looked up at the ground, with buildings hanging off of it, and found the Serafin still flying... and totally unharmed. The other Veilfire missile had actually intercepted the Noose, as evidenced by two converging trails of smoke. He didn't have time to celebrate, though, another Hayat remained. [6] Nik shot down this one as well, and easily. He was on his way to becoming an ace, and the Serafin was free to keep bombing.

Raafat Al-Hayim regained consciousness. Right now, he was more dazed and confused than the time he and the other engineers decided to test if they could still get drunk off of jet fuel when they reforumulated it for the new VVF jets. Sights and sounds assaulted his senses, but the first thing he began to comprehend was voices shouting. Actually, it was just one person shouting a speech, and punctuating his pauses with roars from a motorcycle engine. What happened? Airplane, parachute... rockets! Raafat tried to stand up. His legs kicked in the air. He was dangling, from a street light, by his parachute. As his head settled, he could hear the speech more clearly. "...not for the fallen, but for our fallen country! If we do not do this now, then the deaths of today will be few compared to the deaths under a Cannalan Arstotzka! I wil not die under the heel of a foreign regime!" The speaker appears to be... Kot, the crazy Arstotzkan who shows up in parliament sometimes. Raafat cut himself down from his parachute and landed gracefully on the ground [2], is what he planned to write later. He didn't actually bring a knife. "H-hey! Excuse me! I need help getting, uh, down! Please." A couple Arstotzkans stood under him and discussed how to get him down amongst themselves. One tried to prod him down with a Horsekiller Mk II, but unfortunately he hadn't opted for the bayonet attachment so he couldn't cut the straps. After a couple tries, one managed to throw Raafat a knife, so he cut himself down and landed in a heap on the floor. "Get up!" One said. "Unless you want to be a Cannalan, we fight."

Luckily, Taricus's Demolisher had survived the artillery attack. Since the Bjorns hadn't been enough to bring down the Cannalan walking-tank, he and his 120mm gun were to lead the attack. It looks like Metal Pocken hadn't given up on leading the attack either; its walking form emerged ahead of the rebel Arstotzkans. Infantry assembled in the area scattered away, knowing their RPGs would probably have no effect, and Joha launched his rocket-suit to harass them, leaving a duel between the Demolisher and Metal Pocken. [2] vs [1] The battle between the two was short and decisive. The Demolisher's cannon fired first and struck a leg joint, causing Metal Pocken to collapse on its nose. However, Metal Pocken fired a missile into the air. This was guided unseen by Sidorenko's radar gun, and while the Demolisher fired another shot which started a fire on Metal Pocken, the missile found its target and turned the Demolisher into a crater. Poketwo and his crew were forced to abandon Metal Pocken, but the loyalist Arstotzkans are showing no quarter. Nader Jabal, with his Rabid Tiger Armor, charged the retreating men down. [6] vs [4] Joha intervened, jumping into the middle of the battle, and sweeps wildly across Nader with his flamethrower as he lands. However, he didn't hit well enough to stop Nader, who subsequently blew him away with both of his guns. [6] Poketwo successfully retreated back to the rebels, while Nader fell over in pain from his burns.

Much of the armor on either side had been destroyed, and Scrublord, with his vehicle most effective at long range, moved back a couple blocks. The fight was now primarily infantry on infantry, with a few Cannalan Raiders coming in as reinforcements. Inklings of sunrise were beginning across the water to the east. The loyalists set up machineguns in the clearing in front of the armory, and the rebels moved in to take the last few defensible positions between them and their goal. Olith took a lead this time, pointing his radiation monstrosity at a makeshift trench, a mere crater with sandbags. [2] vs [1] Powder Miner moved up to defend. He waded into the fire, bullets deflecting off his armor and radiation maybe reflecting off of his armor or maybe cooking him. With a couple shotgun blasts, Olith went down, badly injured. However, he left himself exposed for Sidorenko, who had set up in a nearby building with a Cannalan M1944 Anti-Materiel rifle. Sidorenko gunned him down in the field, the .50 round penetrating the front of the armor and stopping inside the back plate.

Kot, unarmored, had speed as his defense. He rode his motorcycle through what flat ground remained, shouting to each group of his men he passed, "Hold the line, Arstotzkans! Hold the LINE!" He peeled out on his bike after dropping a box of ammo in front of one machine gun nest, and a .50 caliber bullet obliterated a sandbag just behind him. He shouted to a group of men, "There's a sniper! About there!" He pointed his finger, then rode off quickly before the next shot. It so happened that group of men included EvictedSaint, and the men who he had followed on the off chance they might know a safe place to stand. (This, he reflected, was not a safe place to stand.) [2] He summoned all of his courage, pointed his gun, and fired, before quickly ducking down again. It didn't look like he had hit his mark, because a second later, a shot rang out and the man next to him lost his jaw in a small spray of gore. The Arstotzkan fell down, not quite dead but twitching in pain and shock. Raafat tried hopelessly to stop the bleeding with his hands. After a period of seconds which felt like an eternity, the soldier on the ground stopped breathing. In that moment, Raafat Al-Hayim learned what it really meant to see bloodshed firsthand in a way that years of reading about it, talking about it, writing about it, watching films about it and even seeing fighting from a distance never had. That guy was just gone, like that! He dropped his weapon, and, hands shaking, and ran to a trench a little further back. [4] The men in this trench were arguing over a weapon. "It doesn't shoot! How do I cock it?" "I don't know, you figure it out, and get me another belt!" While one man was operating a Sorraia machinegun, the other was trying to figure out a weapon which Raafat had seen before: Kashyyk's UF-MGL45 "Jackrabbit" grenade launcher. Memories came back to him. About a month back, Kashyyk had shown the grenade launcher at a meeting. He had mostly gone on about how this grenade launcher he was trying to sell was the weapon Forenian forces needed, or something. While Raafat wasn't completely sold on it, he did remember one thing that had been impressed upon him many times: "This lever doesn't go back! It goes UP and OVER!" The two Arstotzkan loyalists looked at him, and Raafat realized that he had repeated the quote out loud. "What? Oh. You've used this?" "No no, I just- I've got to go!" [3] Raafat made an untactical retreat, while the man with the grenade launcher fired it into the window of a tall building a short distance away. Raafat never found out if they hit that sniper, but he did avoid being shot in his retreat.

Kot had now set out on his primary mission: Kill Andres. [4] He didn't have much trouble finding him. As his men stalled, Andres had moved up to use his rocket gun, leaving himself somewhat exposed. Kot came around from the flank, launched his M17A off some convenient rubble and fired off his RPG28 in Andres' general direction. [4] vs [5] The RPG killed some men behind Andres, while a rocket passed through Kot's rear wheel without detonating on the spot. Kot landed and his motorcycle skidded over on its side. He threw away his rocket launcher and stood up, pistol in his right hand, and unsheathed his sword with the other. His red cape blew in the wind, visible even at a distance, and Scrublord, whose cannon couldn't take a clear shot without risking harm to Andres. He didn't come up shooting: there was an Arstotzkan way of doing things. That way was remembered by both Kot and Andres, who almost exactly ten years ago had worked and fought side by side for the glory of Arstotzka. Andres took a moment to reload his weapon. "You should have joined us, Kot. We could make Arstotzka rule again." "Not the real Arstotzka. Not as puppets. Not like this." Besides the soldiers still fighting, it felt as though the eyes of hundreds of dead bodies around them watched to see if their sacrifice had meant anything. [3] vs [5] Kot raised his pistol. Andres readied his gun. They both lunged to dodge and missed, but Kot was struck by shrapnel from the rocket round which exploded behind him. [4] vs [4] Kot dropped his pistol from his wounded arm and charged with his sword. Andres fired and missed, and then Kot was in arm's reach. He forced Andres' gun upward, and the next shot went into the sky. [5] vs [3] Kot wrestled with Andres and tried to stab him, only getting a strike in with the pommel of his sword. Andres' gun clattered to the ground as he used both hands to defend himself. The three claw marks across his face started bleeding again from the stress. [1] vs [2] Andres wasn't above using a knife: he drew his, and tried to slash Kot across the gut. Fortunately for Kot, he had worn armor and only took a small cut in the gap on the side of his torso. [6] vs [6] The two wrestled each other to the ground, both reaching for Andres' huge gun...
[2] vs [6] Kot was younger than Andres by about twenty years. Although he had known Andres and worked with him during the Forenian War, it was Kot’s father who been there since the fateful day the Engineering Department was founded. Andres’ hair had turned grey and the years had added lines to his face. Kot, in his youth, was faster. He shoved Andres away from him and grabbed the gun, then stood up to fire the killing shot. Andres, in his age, had far more experience. He swept his leg, and kicked Kot’s feet out from under him. Kot fired, and the rocket-round skipped off a piece of rubble near Andres before flying a hundred meters up and exploding in the air. Andres rose to his feet and towered above his former comrade. Kot, though still lying on his back, aimed the gun up and pointed the barrel straight at Andres's chest. Kot pulled the trigger, but was caught off guard by silence after a quiet click. The magazine was empty. Andres didn’t flinch: he had been counting. Kot froze for a moment, which allowed Andres to grab the gun out of his hands, hoist it up by the barrel, and krump Kot over the head with it. Kot mumbled, “Traitor…” before his newfound concussion got the better of him and he collapsed.

Raafat cowered in the armory itself. His fear of death was almost too great to move, but his curiousity was also so strong that he couldn't help but place his eyes over a hole in the wall. While he used his coat to wipe the blood from his hands, he saw Kot and Andres fight until Kot was beaten down. Then, the remaining Forenian soldiers between Andres and the armory fell one by one. A few scared men ran into the armory as well, having dropped their weapons.  By the time the Arstotzan rebels got close to the gates, it was clear that there could be no resisting them. Raafat listened as some commander, or man who had been forced into the position by deaths in the chain of command, spoke through tears and gave the order to raise a white flag. Arstotzkan rebels poured in, then started rounding up Forenian soldiers and loyalists and forcing them into one of the hangars. Raafat made an attempt to stand in a corner, but one soldier walked up and brusquely grabbed him by the shoulder, saying nothing, then motioned with his rifle to join the rest of the prisoners. "a-AAH!" Raafat exclaimed, "D-don't shoot, I'm a j-journalist!" [5] The soldier took a look at Raafat. He had no weapon, he was dressed in a pair of slacks and a blood-stained white button-up shirt with a tie, and he simply didn't have the demeanor of a soldier. (This is a polite way of saying there was a wet spot around the zipper of his pants.) "You can, uh, stay right there. Don't move."

This was the perfect time for Raafat to make a daring escape! He didn't see an escape route, so he stayed where he was. Then, another group of men arrived. It was a bunch of Cannalan commandoes, most of them using night-vision scopes. They rolled in with half a dozen Raiders or more, and then they kept coming, until their yellow-badged uniforms seemed to outnumber the red Arstotzkans two to one. Even though the the battle had ended, they ran with urgency to every corner of the armory. Then, he could hear what sounded like a heated argument. There were a few gun shots. [2] He saw three men wrestling Andres into the back of a Raider, and slam the door. Some of the other Arstotzkans were being marched around like prisoners. The Cannalans must have decided that Andres and his rebels had outlived their usefulness. One of the commandoes approached Raafat. "J-, uh, journalist? Journalissimo? Journal-o." The soldier looked at him in non-comprehension. "I write!" Raafat made pen-on-paper gesture with a finger and an open hand. "Get in the vehicle, civilian." The Cannalan spoke in Russian, which Raafat understood well enough to comply. He was locked up in a Raider separate from the other soldiers, alone with his thoughts. With the armory fallen, there would be no sustaining the remainder of Forenia's forces. When the Moskurg army - his own neighbors - reached the capitol they would surrender or be destroyed. The war was lost. This was a feeling Raafat was well acquainted with from the end of the first Forenian war. He had hoped to forget it.

Elsewhere...

Man of Paper paid absolutely no attention to the war going on around him. Instead, he was focusing on a project he called BEES: Bright Energy Emitting System. [1] BEES was a television set, using technology from Forenian radar display screens. It was monochromatic with a strong green hue, it made a buzzing noise which could be heard from a room away, and worst of all, it had a visible 20hz circular refresh. Its only upside was that the radio encoding equipment, and the set itself, were considerably cheaper than the better-looking American standard televisions with a 525-line progressive refresh. [4] Fortunately, his Moskurg factory location (the labor was cheaper there) left him relatively untouched during the civil war fighting, and he went on to achieve modest financial success.

An airliner the UFAF-MTA-45 Shepard, impeccably furnished and loaded with gold and luxurious liquor, carried a load of war orphans away from the fighting. [6] It went untouched through the combat zone, and its passengers found asylum in the United States. Its maker, Salim Shahid, was not on board, and he disappeared during the All Saints Day Crisis. If he survived that night, which many did not, he never used the same name again.

[5] Lightforger, not a combatant and armed with no special weapon, waited out the battle in the woods near the airstrip after giving General Tereshkova the airplane he had built. He survived, but was dismayed to find the wrong flag over the capitol in the morning.

[3] NAV fought with some regular Forenian infantry after deploying his trained tigers. He was shot during the battle, but carried to safety and made a full recovery, except for a slight limp. Many paid a higher price for the pride of defending their nation. [1] For example, not a single one of his trained tigers survived the battle.

[1] Dwennon did not survive the catastrophic sinking of the Kalamity. Aboard the Cortez, [2] [2] BBBence and TheFantasticMrFox were both critically injured, and while they were carried off of the ship by able-bodied crewmen, they will be confined to wheelchairs for their remaining days, Bence with only his right arm and Fox with only his left eye.

[2] asdf, unfortunately, ran out of oxygen before attempts by a Cannalan construction corps team to drill into his ridiculous tank could be completed. He survived the experience, but only with serious brain damage. As for the tank itself, it was easier to leave it in the ditch it drove into, build the road into a roundabout around it, and call it a monument, than it would have been to remove it.

[3] Poketwo, after escaping the wreck of his Metal Pocken, survived the battle, but not without a measure of ignominy as he ran full tilt away from the combat zone rather than continue to fight.

[3] Raafat Al-Hayim was treated well in prison and released after a couple days. He would go on to write about his brutal experience in the forced labor camps where prisoners starved to death while working 16 hours a day.

Zanzetkuken’s Plan

[5] [5] [6] Three submarines slipped undetected past Cannalan U-boat patrols and close to the shore. Cannalan U-boat patrols, which lack sonar, do not have a very good reputation for being effective. This is compounded by the fact that the crews of many such ships follow the logic that, if they are terribly unlikely to actually encounter an enemy submarine regardless of what they do, they may as well sneak extra rum rations aboard and turn their ship into a publicly-funded pleasure yacht.

Still, Zanzetkuken had not thought so far as to create a remote delivery method for his fungal agents. The going plan was to simply surface the Boot submarine, paddle to shore in an inflatable life raft, then open up a few cans of freeze-dried war crimes and shake them out over the ground. [3] A group from the first submarine came ashore near a wooded area, which didn’t necessarily seem ideal for blighting farm crops, but they decided it was better to deploy their Red Rot strains here than go near a more populated farm and potentially get shot. They escaped without issue. [6] The group from the second submarine came ashore a short walk from a major sugarcane field, and spread their payload with gleeful, yet dastardly abandon, like evil children frolicking through the fields.[2] Their return was less triumphant than they had hoped - their surfaced submarine had been found and boarded by some Buccaneer Boats. With their submarine captured, the group decided it was best to just keep walking. They are missing in action, but possibly at a pub. [3] Zanzetkuken’s sub surfaced a decent walk from any crops, but he led an expedition on land which found a vineyard. Grapes weren’t one of the targeted crops, but he tried it anyway, deciding it was worth an attempt. [6] A group of beach bums were hanging out around the surfaced submarine when he returned, but he summoned his best Spanish-speaking skills and successfully convinced them that he was running secret submarine trials for the Cannalan Navy. He then paddled back to the submarine, and put on his brightest smile as he waved at them and closed the hatch. Once the submarine was sealed and began to dive, he said aloud: “Enjoy your poisoned grapes, stupid yokels!”


On a Lifeboat

Tereshkova allowed two men to pull her up into a lifeboat. Two Cannalans. She had lost planes before, but never until now had it resulted in her being captured. Her shame turned to outright embarrassment when she was who was at the head of the lifeboat: "You!" Cortez and Tereshkova both exclaimed at once, in their respective languages. However, Cortez had been practicing his Russian. "I finally shot down your plane! Witch!" The shipless admiral beamed, while his sailors could only look at the conversation in confusion. One of them growled, "I thought you said you saw one of our sailors this way. Why are you acting like we're done looking?" Cortez only ignored him and continued speaking to Tereshkova in a language his men could not understand. "Well? Aren't you going to admit that I'm better?" "Your worthless ship sunk too!" She shouted back, and punched him in the face. A couple sailors who had sidearms raised them at her and a couple more grabbed her arms, but Cortez gently pressed their guns down and motioned his men to let her go. A couple sailors spoke amongst each other. An old sailor with a white mustache whispered "What the hell is he doing? Back in '22, if we found strange girls in the water, we shot them before they could cause any more trouble! I seen 'em floating like they oughta surrender, then jump ten feet in the air with a spear!" A younger sailor with his broken arm tied to his chest whispered back, "I heard he's always talking about this Forenian ace who kept dropping bombs on his ships. You don't think it's this... woman?" "Makin' women fight ain't right anyhow." A burly sailor whose wide shoulders almost took up two spaces said, "Is it true he never married? I kinda of assumed he was into, you know..." Cortez shot him the sort of death glare that a man is only capable of after being responsible for the deaths of hundreds or thousands. Then, Tereshkova got his attention again. "Since you can't sit over here like a coward, shooting my homeland with huge guns anymore..." she looked in the direction of the sinking ship named after Cortez, now only her (his?) bow was visible. "I bet my country is winning." "How about we a bet? When we get on land, I think we both need a drink. If Cannalan is winning, we'll have some proper rum. If Forenia is winning, somehow, we'll stomach some of your vodka swill." Tereshkova turned away to hide her face from him. "...deal."

In Space

Years ago, AS-SS1935X, the first rocket to make it to space, disappeared behind the moon and hadn’t been seen since. Less than 48 hours ago, Blood Librarian's Cannalan Moon Rocket made a brief sojourn into the heavens, then descended back to Earth. Now in Earth's orbit there were yet to be any satellites, space platforms, discarded booster stages, or any kind of evidence at all that mankind had traveled among the stars. Six NEMO rockets floated above the Earth utterly, completely alone, the only man-made artifacts in space and within them, the only men and women in space. They looked through tiny windows at their former home. Not only had the earth become smaller, but now they could see that Forenia and Turbados were dwarfed by Earth's larger landmasses. This is something they all knew, of course, but the maps they had grown up with in school had, frankly, lied about the sheer disparity. Everyone present is excited, and congratulating each other on making it this far. Passengers carefully unharness themselves and take their first movements in microgravity. Aboard one of the habitation rockets, designated HAB-1, an officer of the program addressed the crew. "We've got OK sound- offs from... HAB-2, Okay. HAB-4, Okay. GAIA... fuel leak reported. LUX, okay. DIG... sounds like some equipment came loose, but they're handling it. Nothing from HAB-3 and BABEL. Give me a minute..." There was a tense silence. The Officer sat at the head of the rocket, and listeners from three levels crowded around the central ladder to hear him. "I'm confirming... HAB-2 saw this, BABEL and HAB-3 didn't make it." A few shocked murmurs, but mostly, silence. "We... knew everyone might not make it. Right now, without Babel, we've got no reliable way to broadcast to Earth, and for whatever reason, we're not getting anything from the broadcast station on the launch platform right now." He waited a moment, and took a breath to steady himself. "Now that we're up here, there's no turning back. We can only begin to rendezvous with the other rockets, and prepare for our burn to Mars. Everybody, get to your stations. Connector crew, put on your space suits. Engineers, test the directional thrusters. We'll need a few spotters. Mikhail, our first partner is HAB-2 and then DIG, so get on the radio with both of them. Everyone else, stay out of the way."

"Remember, everyone..."

"Mars, or bust."

In a Dimly Lit Room

Andres squinted as a guard pulled the bag from over his head. There was a bright light shining in his face, but when he tried to shield his eyes he found his hands were tied to the back of his chair. His eyes adjusted a little bit, and he could see there was another man tied to a chair, still with a bag over his head. Three guards were in the room, and in the shadows behind the bright lamp on the table there was another figure, though this one wore a flat-brim hat and a suit with square shoulders. “Explain how you got the ship.” His interrogator’s voice sounded familiar, but he was silhouetted in the dark. “Vlanlados…” Andres said. The man grew angry, and pounded the table. “I wouldn’t let my kid swim with a pool floater made in Vlanlados! They can’t build a damn ship!” He took a breath to calm down. “The ship you came to us in was our very own ship, wasn’t it? You hijacked it. The CNS Aztec. Don’t try to lie about it, we already captured it. We already scoured the new paint off, and found the paint from the old name. When did you get it? What happened to the crew?”

Andres couldn’t suppress the urge to laugh a little. “I saw one of your newspaper articles about the, uh, Turbados Triangle? That’s what I think they called it. Ships disappearing? Spooooky, right?” The man in charge of the interrogation made a hand motion, and one of the guards slapped Andres in the back of the head. “Answer the question.” “Okay, so that was us, of course. After the rebel scum took over Forenia, we Arstotzkans needed ships. We got some gold from the Arstotzkan national bank on the way out. Then, we simply found some ships we liked, and bribed your captains to give up the ships for a fraction of their worth! You don’t pay your captains enough! Or, maybe you should have tried not priding yourself on being a nation of people who use boats to get rich illegally”

At another gesture from the interrogator, a guard removed the sack from the other man’s head. Andres found himself staring at Kot’s blood-soaked face. “Is this true?” Kot, still dazed, took a moment to respond. When he did speak, he did so slowly. “Maybe. I wasn’t there.” “Hit him,” the man in charge said. The guard gave him a solid punch in the head. “AH! That’s still tender!” Kot exclaimed, “I mean it, I never left Arstotzka! Not even when it was Forenia. The difference between me and him is that I’d never flee my country, and I’d never, ever EVER rely on help from filthy pirates.” He rasped the last word with particular hatred. “When you first started trading favors with them, you lost the right to your GORYL! Now look where we are!”
The interrogator clasped his hands and allowed his two subjects to speak. Andres rebutted, “You didn’t have the guts to do what it takes! Maybe you don’t know because you were a child then, but the old Arstotzka wasn’t clean! It was glorious. But High Command had to play dirty to keep the order.”
“You call leading the enemy to our doorstep so they can put you down like a dog when they’re done with you fighting dirty? I call it rolling around in shit!”
“Stupid kid! If you had just joined us when it was time, we could have been six times as strong in number, and they’d have to sit down and make a deal instead of capturing us. We could have got our country back! Instead, your Arstotzkan ideals are sooooo strong you had to go killing other Arstotzkans!”
“Enough!” The man leading the interrogation was ready to ask more questions. “So, you took your ship. OUR ship. I need a cigar...” A guard produced one and lit it for him. “That’s better. You took our ship, and what did you set out to do with it?”
“We set sail for Vlanlados to get resources.”
“No, I don’t think that’s true. You see, we’ve asked a lot of Vlanladosians about their involvement. Unless they’re collectively the greatest spies of our time, I think they are in fact utterly incapable of subtlety. Most of them seem eager to outright brag about their state secrets. They agree on the date you first arrived, when you started stealing equipment from Forenia, the weapons you started producing, all of it. You didn’t go there for years after you first stole a ship, and when you did, we know, because they immediately started telling everybody who would listen.” He puffed his cigar. “Now. Where were you on January 12th, 1938?”

“Fine! You’ve figured it out.” Andres did his best to stare him in the eyes. “We were in Cannala. We shelled your sorry asses, and you were all too drunk to catch us for it!”
Kot turned red with rage. “YOU STARTED THIS! You ATTACKED THEM! You put us all into war for your STUPID REVOLUTION! You wanted to bring Arstotzka back, BUT WE WENT FROM FORENIA TO CANNALA AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!” Kot started scooting his chair closer to Andres to kick him in the shins.
“Ow!”
A guard scooted Kot back away from Andres, who continued speaking. “Yes, looking around me, I can see it didn’t go according to plan. But, I had to try. Arstotzka deserved her victory, she deserved the whole continent, her own sovereignty, nothing less. If I could go back, the only thing I’d change is to win the fight. I’d shell Cannala again, and I’d put up the Cannalan flag and shell Forenian again too for just one chance-”
This started Kot up again. “You WHAAAT?” He lurched towards Andres, and his chair fell down. Even though his hands were tied behind his back, he was still so frothing with rage that he bit at Andres’ ankles. “TRAITOR! TREASON! SCUM! YOUR FAUUUULT!”
The man in the shadows turned the light back out of Kot and Andres’ faces, revealing himself as Eduardo Charpez, El Presidente de Cannala. “Thank you. It’s been most informative. Lock them back up, boys.”

[Sensei]

Dawn

In the morning, more of Forenia's army arrived from places further from the capitol, but the fighting was brief. With the Cannalans controlling the armory and its critical munitions, and having cut off Forenia's military leadership, the remaining partisans were disorganized and short on supplies. Over the Parliament Building, an Arstotzkan flag flew, with a Cannalan one below it. The city was patrolled by Cannalan soldiers and APCs, some citizens who attempted to continue fighting back or riot were shot in the streets. Even though there continued to be sporadic fighting throughout Forenia, negotiations began in Parliament that very day. Surrounded by Cannalan soldiers, a few people decided the fate of the continent. Those people were El Presidente, a representative of the Russians, a very few Forenian ministers who were not prisoners of war, and a man going by the name of Ilya Ivanov, who had assumed the leadership of the separatist Arstotzkans, after Andres had been killed by the loyalist Arstotzkans in the battle for the armory. There were, of course, a a good number people of both sides who had seen that it was a bomb which killed Andres. Of those people, at least a few recognized it for one of the Cannalan guided bombs which had been instrumental in the night's fighting. They, however, had not been permitted to speak at these negotiations.

With the wide galleries of the Parliament unoccupied, the negotiators sat around a table in the central arena. A shaft of sunlight filtered through the dusty air from a large hole broken in the wall above. “Forenia started this war with their shameful, undeclared attack on our capitol. They cannot be allowed to do so again.” El Presidente announced, glancing down at his notes, "It is in the best interest of everyone involved in this tragic war that there be no nation of Forenia from here on. Arstotzka and Moskurg should be separated into their own country." "Yes, we're better off without the Moskurgs." Ilya parroted the Cannalan leader. One Moskurg minister, who had a black eye, said nothing. "Furthermore, both of these territories should be occupied for not less than one year." Now, the Russian spoke: "Arstotzka should remain an ally of Russia, in the spirit of international communism." He was immediately disappointed when Ilya replied, "While we are all allies, we would like to minimize our relationship with the Soviets who supported the Forenian war machine." In fact, he was not only disappointed but taken aback, as the Russian support for Forenia was supposed to be a low-key affair. El Presidente then declared, "Arstotzka will be occupied by Cannalan forces, and we will govern the paying of reparations and rebuilding of this region." He passed a map with the regions declared to be "Arstotzka" around the table. They were a little generous. The Russian representative waited for a rebuttal from Ilya, but when he did not speak, it became exceedingly clear that he was directly in El Presidente's pocket, practically more Cannalan than Arstotzkan.

The pair of Moskurg ministers in attendance negotiated a tentative occupation of Moskurg by the Soviets rather than the Cannalans or Americans: they weren't enthusiastic about communism, but they feared less abuse from the country that had supported them in wartime rather than fought against them. Arguing over the capitol itself, a valuable asset, resulted in a tentative plan to split the capitol itself between territories, which would necessitate strictly controlled border checkpoints and a fence through the middle of the city. This riled the actual Forenians, but the two foreign interests were both too loathe to give up the largest city in the region. With the Cannalan-occupied region due to pay reparations to Cannala and the Russian occupied region due to pay reparations to Russia (in exchange, it was reasoned, for giving valuable technology to the Germans in Europe), each economic center was fought over stubbornly. The regions would have separate parliaments, with candidates approved by occupying officials.

The matter of what to do with existing military assets, and the many prisoners of war, was delayed by the late arrival of the two generals who were supposed to be present at the negotiations. Unexpectedly, Cortez and Tereshkova stumbled in the Parliament Building arm in arm, without an escort, and absolutely wasted. Even as the most politically important people in the region stared gravely at them, Tereshkova giggled and slurred: "Okay, maybe boatsh aren't SHO bad, we can go on a boat ride shometime." Cortez detected the death glares in his direction, the sort which can only come from people responsible for starting and ending years-long bloody wars, and made a concentrated effort to stand up straight. "Welcome, Cortez, and uh... Miss Tereshkova, I presume?" Said El Presidente. "We have to discuss the matter of-" "Prisonersh?" Cortez had a little trouble speaking clearly as well. "Oh yeah, they're probably all fine, just lettem go, they'll... sort themshelves out..." "Sir, I think there is a little more to it than that."

Negotiations eventually sobered up and developed a schedule for the release of prisoners, and the divisioning of war assets, some to be sent to the United States, Cannala, or Russia in a technology exchange program and some to be used for the purpose of occupation. Occupying military would consist of minimal amounts of local soldiers, with squads made of strangers from different regions, with foreign officers. Private weapons were to be confiscated. Most of all, the Forenian Engineering Department was to be disbanded. The building was to be demolished, the documents to be confiscated, engineers to work in civil capacity only and no more than two former military engineers to be in the same company or facility. Tereshkova was able to get Cortez on her side and walk this back a bit, but the department was to be shut down and its documents locked in an archive nonetheless.

Already, in the streets outside, ordinary citizens begin to do the only thing they know how. Pick up the rubble, replace the broken windows (in record time, as this is a Forenian specialty) and persevere.

For the Cannalans, celebrations are in order. The capitol is not quite overwhelmed with parades and revelers in the streets, like the end of the last war. Cannalans still remember being stabbed in the back, the last time they let their guards down. Juraki wait with some tension, hoping that the military returning home won't make life worse for them. After the intense fighting that finished the war, many Cannalans receive news that their loved ones have been lost. But, slowly, people begin to relax.

As for the surviving Cannalan engineers, they've all been summoned to El Presidente's yacht after the day's negotiations. He looked at the battered and weary men who had earned him his victory. He looked at the Cannalan rum he had set out. "You know what, forget that stuff. I've got something much better- a cask from Louisiana. You've earned it."

The war is over. There is peace... for now.

Now that the fighting has ended, the surviving soldiers can finally come home to their families. Many of them have known only war in their lives. Both countries begin to rebuild everything that was lost in the fighting. Every factory, every business, and every family changes their daily routine for life in peacetime.

In Forenia, this is a bitter process. Some businesses which were destroyed in the capitol are not rebuilt there but instead moved further in Arstotzka or Moskurg, according to the whims of Cannala and Russia. In Moskurg, Russia takes measures to begin collectivizing businesses and fixing prices in the markets. However, Russia is also recovering from war and supply shortages, so the enforcers of Russian law are thin on the ground.  Many Moskurgers begin trading at vibrant 'night markets' held in the wilderness or in private residences, where they barter goods at the prices of their choosing. Some even manufacture products from clothes to vehicles and machinery in their garages. For now, the Russian officials have denounced the practice but they don’t have the manpower to stop it.  Arstotzka is occupied by the Cannalans, who have a more lax way of doing things. Rather than involve themselves in day-to-day business, they’ve simply placed a steep “reparation tax” on most goods. Soldiers who surrendered during the war are held in prison camps, but small groups are released every day as neither Cannala nor Russia has a desire to feed an idle populace who could be working instead. However, high-ranking politicians, rebels, and officers are being sequestered in remote camps indefinitely. Attempts to confiscate weapons in both regions have been stymied at every turn. Citizens bury tanks in the dirt, hide guns in the walls of their homes, and whenever native Arstotzkans and Moskurgs are recruited to search for weapons, they only ever seem to turn up rusted or broken guns. For now, the entire populace remains defiant to their occupiers. It becomes evident early on that the Arstotzkans are a poor fit politically for the Cannalans and the Moskurgs are a poor fit for the Russians, compared to the opposite arrangement, but the Cannalan spies in the former Arstotzkan rebellion act to justify the Cannalan occupation while Russia is left with moskurg. Off the coast of the capitol, sickly and mutated fish begin appearing regularly, and there is a spot in the bay with emits bubbles of steam day and night.

In Cannala, the country sets a new record for the longest period of peace since their founding; four days without a shot fired in anger. The returning military helps to keep the peace between Juraki and Cannalans. El Presidente wastes no time to lead a public relations campaign to celebrate the returning Juraki soldiers, and more of the Cannalan population begins to accept the Juraki as members of their single, united country. A windfall of war reparations and seized goods doesn't hurt either. There is one sour note, in that the "Sour Grapes" blight joins the Red Rot in Cannala's list of agricultural problems. Crop molds thrive in the equatorial climate. Publicly, the moderately successful Cannalan Space Program is celebrated as a world-first accomplishment. By all rights it should be overshadowed by Forenia's rocketry accomplishments, but the details of the NEMO program are little-known to the public because of its secrecy, and the communications blackout which surrounded its launch. There is a popular rumor among both the Cannalans and Forenians that the rockets constitute some sort of weapon which might return to Earth and destroy Cannala at any time, even though there are a few survivors trying to get the story straight. There is a more realistic threat in the early rumblings of the Cold War. Cannalan investigators are trying to prove that Russia provided Forenia with materiel in the war against Cannala. This would have serious implications as Russia and Cannala were supposedly allied with the United States and the rest of Western Europe against the Axis, of which Forenia was a member. Many Cannalans opine that the entirety of Forenia should have been occupied by Cannala, and the splitting of Forenia into two regions is a last-minute power grab on the part of the Russians. Behind closed doors, Britain and the United States discuss Operation Unthinkable, a plan to potentially fight the Russians in Europe alongside re-armed Poles and Germans. It is not lost on them that, in addition to forming the Eastern Bloc in Europe, Russia now holds a piece of land in the Pacific which is disturbingly close to the United States. Behind closed doors, it is agreed: this is unacceptable.

[10ebbor10]

I think I survived?

The megalodon kind of buggered of after sinking the Cannalan fleet.

[Kot]

tl;dr

[evictedSaint]

Oh yeah, Raafat comes out on top, baby B)

[NUKE9.13]

Bravo, sir. A forum game accomplishment unlike anything I've ever seen. Truly remarkable.





Anyway when's the next one starting?

[Man of Paper]

Sweet, my BEES worked.

[Kot]

I've totally won the entire thing. NEMO worked, Andres has been defeated, Moskurg is now communist. Shame about the rest but I can only blame it on eS's cowardice.
Goyrl to Arstotzka!

[Olith McHuman]

A 6! I thought for sure I'd roll a 1 and go out in a burst of subatomic glory. Maybe next time 

[Powder Miner]

I honestly didn't think I'd see this come to an end.
Shame that we got totally fucked lmao, but this finale was something of an epic and the whole game was a fucking landmark for this forum. Man.

[auzewasright]

The Boomer did better than I expected, if only I had Kevlar to work with...

Anyways, at least I got the record for first Hovertank to be used in battle, unless the Soviet program succeeded in this timeline.

[helmacon]

We made it to Mars fellas.
Good work.

[Sensei]

Anyway when's the next one starting?

Not for a long time. I have some ideas as to where to go from here though. When it happens, you'll probably hear about it in the Discord channel first.

We made it to Mars fellas.
Good work.

Don't celebrate just yet. It's a long way to Mars.