Indomitable Spirit
-
(OOC: IC secret, everything that is being done here is beyond evil)
"General," he said, as she entered the room.
"Well, then," she said coolly, "what exactly are we going to do? If we are going to commit suicide; invade Reitzmag, invade Vayinaod, how will we go about it?"
Another woman came to her, carrying sheaves of paper. "The plan; and, just as a warning, madam - it is our responsibility to follow our head; and to kill all those who refuse or oppose. I'm sure that you are a patriot; what you've said is but a slip of the mouth. Don't make it again; otherwise, I will take great joy in eating the flesh of another traitor."
"You yourself would be a traitor for implying that one of our Head's most loyal servants is a traitor; but of course that was a slip of the mouth, too. Very well. The plans."
"The primary ideal of our invasion in Reitzmag is not to eliminate the Reitzmic people. Hardly. Rather, it is to integrate them into our society; to rid them of their Western-ness. The first day is crucial. We have mustered about one million individuals who are willing to settle the Reitzmic territory. Per our policy of universal arnament, they are, of course, armed, which is crucial. With our new campaigns in the non-Helts speaking regions, we believe we can use current government policies to drive further settlement of the region. Illegal, of course, but necessary. We're all sure, of course, that Meinl-Reisinger will not last long. Reitzmics, on the other hand, will be taken - perhaps 3/4 of them - into our territory, and spread across widely. A new language will be developed for them to speak, in time, and hopefully they will integrate. However, they will not be allowed to remain European in nature. Of the 1/4 who remain in the territory, half will be expected to integrate and the other half to adopt our new culture. But for an explanation. Our offensive must be rapid, and it must be quick. Those who do not integrate remain Westerners and traitors; all of them must die. It does not involve the Vardic territories - not yet. That will come in about three days, once we have sufficiently installed ourselves in the territory known as Reitzmag. Our primary plan is to fortify our border with Vayinaod, taking advantage of the existing Wall, moving anti-air installations into the area. In order to prevent the death of our people, our cities are being evacuated. By tomorrow, no one will be left there; they will be scattered across the countryside, the government safe in the National Redoubt in the mountains. Secondly, about half of our military - 70,500 members of our ground army, and most of our air force, although personel will remain in Istkalen - will be moved to Reitzmag, where it will quickly infiltrate the border on both sides of the Urals. Within the Urals themselves, we are deploying guerrillas, within the region marked dark red. If you are wondering about the region marked as such in the countryside of Reitzmag, those too are guerillas, who will be deployed from the east towards the river and during our primary offensive. Our military must push over a hundred miles through the day and the night, the settlers behind them - the area marked a light red on the map before you. All property belonging to the people of Reitzmag will no longer be theirs; it will be ours, and will be redistributed among our settlers. They will, in return, receive land in our Istkalen, provided they integrate. It will be the responsibility of the settlers to enforce this, with the arms that they hold. On the second day, it is a necessity that we divide Reitzmag in two. With greatest haste - without stopping from the previous day, our military will continue to advance towards Reitzmag territory - marked off-white - settlers, hopefully, still behind them. Over the next few days, a guerilla campaign against what remains of Reitzmag - marked in regions red - will commence. We may then turn to Vayinaod. I'll send the details to you later.
However, this is only the land offensive. It is of necessity that anti-air installations are installed in the territory taken as rapidly as possible; this will occur in territory light red by the beginning of the second day, and similarly in the same staggered configuration. Secondly, during the campaign, we will be using our air force as much as possible. Every city, every military installation, within these territories will and must be attacked and destroyed, totally, within the first day. None of them can be left operable; we will deploy as soon as our ground forces are in their general area. Regarding infrastructure in the area, all of it will become primarily agrarian in nature, with small and artisan industry continuing to exist alongside developed, village-like communities. No city will be allowed to stand in the region after the end of the invasion. Culture is more complicated. We will allow them to remain what they are; we will, however, aggressively push a pagan religion we have attempted to reconstruct from ancient Reitzmic texts; this religion will be in Reitzmic schools, taught alongside our reconstruction of Old English that will be used in the region from now on; there will be restrictions, of a severe nature, on all other religions, although none shall be criminalized. When we are finished, Reitzmag will be unrecognizable - totally."
"And what of supply lines? Was there any thought into that?"
"The operation - Indomitable Spirit - will not last long. Given that it is primarily land-based, it should not be particularly much of a worry."
"And upon the conclusion of the current stage?"
"Reitzmag will be weak enough; it will certainly surrender. There should be no worry, none whatsoever."
"I share none of your confidence; this will likely fail. Regardless, I don't really care. 'Everything for the nation." She laughed. "Now, when does it begin?"
"It already has."
"Well, then..."
-
Idiots, all idiots. Those below her believed not in what existed; they believed that the fervor of the nation would deliver. The fervor of the nation would, in their minds, make it possible for one million people to be moved into the territory of Reitzmag in a matter of three days; possible for the entirety of the military to mobilize itself; possible for so many outlandish and ridiculous things that she was on the verge of howling with laughter.
They all were insane; all insane. And she was here surrounded by them, ideological hacks, the only sane person in the whole of the higher echelon of the Meinl-Reisinger regime.
She had gotten there only through trickery and lies. She had pretended to be devoted to the Social Democratic Party; pretended to be loyal, pretended to be an ideological hack like all the others. What else was she to do? The state of the whole country was a mess, the military, the economy, politics itself; everything was controlled solely by loyalty to the Social Democratic Party even beforehand.
Any job, every job, was given to you if you were loyal to the Social Democratic Party. Ministries? Given to you dependent on your loyalty, or if you were a genuine threat to the hegemony of the party. That was why a streetsweeper from some village, population 11, occupied the position of Minister for the Economy; why the state treasury was being "robbed," although no one could or was allowed to admit it, constantly; why the whole of the country was going downhill.
Elections? When you're paid to vote for a party, paid and promised good positions, you will.
Istkalen was a hole of corruption; and the affair of the Party of the Spanish People was perhaps the sole thing that could have brought it down. Enough sane people occupied the seats of the National Assembly to realize that the affair was against the principles of the party; voters, at the same time, certainly care that the treasury is being given to people they don't like (unfortunately, because they would have gotten less - a price to pay, perhaps).
And now it had all gone crazy. Meinl-Reisinger's insane plans, her midnight scribblings drawn up as she sat on the toilet, all of it had come again to life. The restoration of the time of the National Resurrection. But what the National Resurrection had done right - liberal-ness in the spheres of politics and society, and the management of the country by technocrats - she planned to undo. She screamed that it all had caused the time of the Resurrection to end and to be replaced by the corrupt democracy that, paradoxically, she and her predecessors created and maintained; screamed that the nation needed unity and the strong leader that the Resurrection had provided it.
And now it was all spelled out. Irrational anger against false enemies; the sudden driving of the country into war as to further purge the population and unite it behind her figure; mass killings of all those who did not fit in perfectly into the image of Istkalener society that she wished to mold the country into.
Not a single veneer of democracy left; everything centralized beneath her. No rights but that to be endlessly devoted to her; nothing but her. She believed that Istkalener society was too divisive, and that it needed to be one - everyone the same in any way, functioning as machines in a harmonic vision of a nation, guided entirely by its engineer, by its mother - her.
It was her responsibility to carry out her insane plans out. She had managed to escape the terrible duty of having to order mass killings; but now, now she had to carry out a genocide, with nothing except for ideological fervor.
She wouldn't. Everything would go wrong; she would implement everything as badly as possible - which wasn't that difficult a task, the state's plan that had been given to her to implement as she saw fit was ludicrous and unworkable - and hopefully cause an invasion of Istkalen, an invasion celebrated by what she hoped was a majority of the population, and the end of Social Democratic order, forever, in Istkalen.
-
"Oh, so it's going badly, isn't it?" she said. An inevitability, one she wanted; but one that these people seemed to be surprised at. They had literally thrown unprepared, barely armed people into battle; when they were dying, surprise everywhere.
"No, not particularly. Many of our forces have died; supplies and reinforcements are days if not weeks away; but we are holding our positions."
"Is that so? Well then, where are the supplies and reinforcements?"
"138 kilometers away, in Kereva, Nūs."
"We will retreat there then. All forces, in fact, south of Kereva should retreat there. We are unprepared; we need to concentrate as many of our forces in one area as to repel the attacks of the colonizers," she said.
"The Head was correct when she chose you. You are evidently a devoted and intelligent woman."
The person before her must have been more incompetent than the rest. Yes, certainly, concentrating all of one's entirely unprepared forces in one area, far away from civilian settlements, and leaving everything else near-unprotected is a very intelligent plan.
"There are other things we must do. We must concentrate the energies of the nation towards this battle. We are weak, for we are somewhat divided; we need complete, total unity. And to unite a people, we must have martyrs. The people in the territories that are to be 'evacuated,' so to speak, temporarily by the military, cannot fight. The West must see that we are a peaceful people; when they try to detain us, an anger shall rise, and we shall gain our unity."
"Quite good. In fact, I may recommend to the Head that she designate you as her successor. You know our nation intimately; you are evidently deeply and loyally connected to it in eternity."
"I am but a humble servant of the Head. In any case, tell the people that they are, as I said, not to fight; that they must suffer, for some time, to become truly liberated, to unite the nation. The retreat will be ordered."
-
"Sir, a communique from the Reitzmics" she said.
His mind was on other things. To have organized all this so quickly was no short of amazing. Drugging Meinl-Reisinger, having her dragged away to some asylum far away; replacing her government, and restoring sanity to the nation; he was barely aware himself of how he had managed to do it all.
He read over it quickly. Laughable and ridiculous; a work of comedy equal to the ultimatum issued to Czech Slavia in its hilariousness.
"Well, at the very least, we will have unity. The energy of Meinl-Reisinger's crazed followers would be redirected, the People's Committees would unite under our government. Istkalen will be one again. I will be preparing a statement, of course; this is beyond ludicrous."
-
Advance of the Popular Militia
Twangste Region"Is it done?" she asked softly, the satellite phone held tightly to her ear. The day was eerily calm; in the distance, the white dots of the Reitzmic encampment remained still, perfectly still.
Before her, before her fellow citizens who stood next to her, in a great circle around that horrid center of occupation, brush. Dry leaves, dry bush, paper, if it could be spared.
An answer came, from so far away, all the way on the other side of the Urals. The Committees had coordinated this; everything would happen at exactly the right time and second.
The sound of drilling from away. The roads, the bridges were being taken apart, made non-traversable; eventually, they would be repaired, rebuilt, better than the ruins they were before.
All of it for a single purpose. The Reitzmic occupiers, who had lied to them, who were trying to take their lives from them - they had seen the howitzers pointed to their cities, had seen the barbarians marching into their cities and pushing away those who dared protest as though they were but children's toys - must be expelled. The Vards would not make this demand; no one else would have made that demand, and thus they were, reluctantly, welcomed. But the Reitzmics did, and thus they were to be expelled at all cost. Every person in Istkalen would sooner die than give away their homeland and their lives.
Silence from the other end. And finally, as they stood in the darkened fields, a response.
"It is time. Yes, it is time. It must be done."
"Matches, matches!" she shouted to those next to her, to everyone who could hear. "Matches!"
And a growing clamor rose, of that word, repeated again and again, flowing down the great circle they had made, down and back again.
She lit several matches she was holding, throwing them onto the dry brush collected before her; those around her, those far away, did the same, little off-yellow sticks falling from their hands, a plume of bright yellow, bright red, bright orange, rising from each.
They fell onto the brush, and it began, flames rising, gradually, ever so gradually, dark smoke, barely visible, climbing ever higher into the sky of the dark morning.
It was done. They would have to tend it, nourish the fire that they had created; but it was done.
A soft burst from the distance. The bridges, the bridges. Another one condemned, another one demolished. Or perhaps it was a road, or who knows?
Liremer Region
The hills of Liremer were quiet. Early morning; the sky pitch-black, save for the stars and the moon, shining amidst all that was going on.
Light, in great circles, now rising from the plains before him, smoke, barely visible, flowing into the heavens.
They had done it; they had done it.
But he was to wait; wait for the imperialists to come. The dark hills, covered with long grass, undulating as they rose into great mountains, would hide him.
A little road meandered in a little valley below him, workers running across it, lit by bright torches they carried. Demolishing it, he supposed; that was the great plan. They would not, could not, move any more. They would be pushed back, into the arms of him and his fellow citizens, the partisans of Istkalen's mountains and hills and plains.
They would be shot, driven out of the country forever.
He had supported them just a few days ago; he had opposed the government he was now sacrificing his life for. But everything had changed; the country had united as the Reitzmics threatened to kill them all, with their howitzers pointed as to destroy their ancient cities, as to kill and subjugate their nation, the first of their annexations already plotted, taking so many, too many, citizens - their livelihoods, their souls - with them.
And now, he was lying in the hills of his homeland, tightly holding a long gun, pointed below.
They would come, they would burn, they would kill. And his nation, to which he owed his life, would fight for its life. They would try to strangle it; but they would hold on to the end. The Reitzmic cancer would be removed; and the nation could prevail.
It was a necessary duty. His opposition to the head of the nation stood; his opposition to the new National Resurrection did as well. But everything was like this; the nation needed to stand united.
And thus he would wait, patiently, loyally, for the Reitzmics to storm their way through the plains and valleys of Liremer, to come into his line of sight.
And then, then, he could act.
There were many like him, everywhere. Members of the Popular Militia, of the opposition, or simple volunteers. So many were now devoted to the cause of Istkalen because of the Reitzmic threat of annexation, because of their intent in the weaponry they had placed outside their cities; and this would be the result.
A nation united against a single threat; a nation willing to die for itself; a nation that would expel the Reitzmics.
State Complex, Mīlij Region
"Now, their bases, where are they?" asked the Head of State. A simple enough question; necessary.
"Scattered across the regions of the south they have taken," responded the Minister of Defense. Reliable, experienced, and sane; an expert of expert. "We have identified four - per the People's Committees, we believe that they are called C-EC, C-EF, C-ED, and C-EG, that are of particular worry. We have deployed a fleet of drones - small, don't worry, we are not willing to risk too much - to damage or destroy them. Preparation has been ongoing for some time, but it has just finished now. We also have identified, as the general public has been fearing for such a long time - howitzers placed outside of major cities in occupied and unoccupied territories. We do not have a military force there prepared enough to take them, nor do we have enough information about the level of arms extant among the Reitzmics; we thus will have to take quite an extreme course, and again target them, or at least some of them, with drones. This will be less dangerous; but we are not taking a single chance. Most of our fleet will remain in the north, per, of course, the Provisions."
"What are the dangers?"
"We don't know what exactly the Reitzmics have. The Popular Militia and the People's Committees are attempting to cut off roads and any other form of transportation or even communication the Reitzmics could use. They may very well have a large stockpile of anti-air weaponry with them; at the same time, we may very well be inviting the total destruction of our nation - through the use of missiles, or other such weapons - by doing so. On a more positive note, however, it appears as though our Union of Pharmacists, among others, has decided to - well, entirely independently of the state, but it isn't really of real importance - has decided to dispense hallucinogenic drugs to Reitzmics who ask, for example, to fill their prescriptions, or in other cases for bread, etcetera etcetera. There haven't been many; but it may be of some importance."
"Worrying, but of course that is interesting. Now, would I be correct in assuming that this is happening now?"
"Preparation is almost over, and it will begin within the hour. Everything is prepared; hopefully, we will expel the Reitzmics."
"Yes, yes."
-
A Meeting
"And one last thing," asked the Head of State, "what chance does this have of pushing them back?"
"Upon the strikes, ground forces will push into the region, and liberate it, with the organizational help of the Popular Militias. To avoid leaks, I can't really give anything else apart from that."
-
Areas of Concentrated Guerilla Activity - OOC, for general reference
Red lines mark areas of most concentrated guerilla activity (on the lines, not within them)
