Still floating above the world, watching the satellites fall, Aron turned to Nova and said, “Activate the replacement protocol.”{Are you sure, sir?}“Yes. It’s time for Vladimir to be put into place.”......Somewhere in Ukraine, near the Russian border.Vladimir had been operating as part of the forward forces, clearing the way for Russia’s troops to march on Kyiv. His orders from Russia were clear: sabotage whatever needed to be sabotaged and assassinate whoever needed to be killed to ensure that the Russian troops would have an easy time in their “special military operation.”He was in an outhouse, standing over the bloody corpse of his latest target, a militia commander of a hastily built force consisting of three squads of infantry with a few RPGs and a pile of explosives. The commander wouldn’t have had to die except that he woke up and stumbled out to the latrine in the middle of the night and happened to catch Vladimir in the act of setting demolition charges to take out the
Velyka Doblon, Ukraine, November 3, 2017.A gentle snow was falling on the small village of Velyka Doblon. The winter crops lay dormant under the white blanket that Mother Nature had pulled up to cover the sleepy town and its residents were still yet to wake up for the day. Their livestock was still slumbering in their sheds, dogs and cats lay near warm fireplaces inside the houses, and the roosters were just beginning to stir in preparation for their daily jobs of yelling at the sun and chasing the hens. Everything was the same as the day before, and the day before that, and the people living there thought things would remain the same tomorrow, and all of the tomorrows to come. They were simple folk, and, being far away from the hustle and bustle of city life, they thought they would remain safe from the conflict on the border with Russia.Today, they would learn that their thinking was wrong.The villagers were awoken, not by the sound of roosters, but of barking dogs and boots cru
The moment the first Chinese satellite crashed into another, America invoked Article 4 of the NATO treaty and called for an immediate emergency meeting. At that meeting, they planned to push for using Article 5 to declare Eden a belligerent nation that attacked a NATO member, thus allowing them to invade without an issue. At the meeting, the American representative presented a video recording of their interrogation of the recently captured Kim Jong-Un, in which he denied responsibility for the initial round of bombardment that targeted Seoul and blamed the entire thing on Eden. Once they saw that, the invocation of Article 5 was unanimously approved, and NATO began working on an invasion plan. But there was still work to be done on the home front for both America and Russia. “I’m sure most of you are already aware that something’s wrong with many of the things we’ve become reliant on,” Trump said in a speech after being briefed on the result of the NATO meeting. “Things like air tra
The Edenian Defense Minister announced a press conference scheduled for later that evening, at which they would reveal their response to the recent events. The announcement calmed the Edenian citizens, who were understandably worried about the entire world coming together to destroy their happiness. Thus comforted, they went back to their regular activities and would wait to see what their government had to say later. …... The day passed in the blink of an eye, and it was soon time for the press conference. Every Edenian citizen was glued to their television screen, and even activity on the internet had practically come to a screeching halt. The streets were clear of traffic, and without the liveliness that people bring with them, looked rather desolate. Businesses were empty, offices that normally had scattered windows shining light into the night sky were dark, and doormen were clustered around televisions at the reception desks in their buildings instead of manning the doors. Even
Moments after Aron’s address, Eden went on full alert. War had been declared on them, and forces were gathering on each side.……The first to take the stage were Eden’s newly printed and crewed submarines.The brand-new fleet of submarines had been ordered to patrol a 500-kilometer radius around Eden and sink any vessel that encroached on that arbitrary exclusion zone, which would soon be filled with Edenian fleets. It was time to finally build the reaction fleets, and the atomic printers at Poseidon HQ were working overtime producing Hugin class aircraft carriers, Odin-class battleships, and Thor cruisers in various configurations, along with a whole host of Heimdall-class destroyers, Njord-class frigates, and Sigyn-class tenders.“Captain, signal bearing 018 relative, distance 3 kilometers. Closing at 6 knots,” the sonar operator on the EV-616 Sigurd Hart reported.“IFF returns invalid, captain,” the comms officer added.“Tentative identification, Shang-class Chinese nuclear boat,”
A week later.Of the 196 countries in the world, 194 of them had finished preparing to deal with the final two, Eden and Esparia. Their forces gathered and the first phase of their preparations completed, they began their inexorable march toward the “terrorist and dictator” that ruled over Eden.America was sending eight of their twelve carrier groups, and every other country that had a navy was sending their own as well. China, India, France, and the United Kingdom had each sent a carrier group to join the eight American fleets; the only nation missing was Russia, whose only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Kuznetsov, had been damaged by a fire a month before and was currently undergoing repairs.But even without Russia in the mix, fourteen aircraft carriers with all of their escorts as well as a token from every other non-landlocked country in the world had gathered in the Pacific Ocean and were currently sailing toward what they thought would be a walkover vict
(Ed note: This title reference is a bit obscure, so I’ll give it to you as a freebie: it’s a dual reference to the 1971 Gill Scott-Heron song, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”; and the British TV series, “The Revolution Will Be Televised”, which ran for three series from 2012-2015.)With Poseidon and Aeolus both occupied with directing the Edenian missile defense response, the situation was tight, but manageable. After all, their big sister Athena was still watching out for them and picking up the slack while maintaining overall command and control. Thus, the entire defensive effort was moving along like clockwork and missile after missile was being taken down with the smallest amount of waste possible, leaving the allied forces completely flabbergasted by the efficient response.Only now did they realize that Eden’s capabilities were far beyond even their most pessimistic overestimations, but it was too late. They had already climbed on the tiger’s back and now they could do no
The image on televisions everywhere in Eden and Esparia was the flagship of the Edenian Reaction Fleet, the aircraft carrier EV Beowulf, and its task group. It was currently sailing to the east of Esparia, where the USS Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group had sailed in an attempt to outflank the Poseidon Navy defenders.In the flag bridge on the EV Beowulf.“Sir, the Carl Vinson and its escorts have entered our effective range,” the flag lieutenant reported. “Orders, sir?”“Signal the fleet: all stop,” Admiral Pedro Gutierrez ordered. Edenian naval doctrine emphasized independent battlefield commands, believing that as their theater of operations would only continue to grow, a centralized command structure would prove more harmful than beneficial. Especially once they started operating on an intergalactic scale. Thus, Athena and Poseidon had decided to step back and allow their commanders on the front line the freedom to command.“All stop, aye sir,” the flag lieutenant confirmed, then