Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Why is the first half of that video using Graze the Roof from Plants vs. Zombies as part of its background music?
Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
Why is the first half of that video using Graze the Roof from Plants vs. Zombies as part of its background music?
Operation Summer Storm: Part 1, False Dawn
- Location
- The Underdark
Operation Summer Storm: Part 1, False Dawn
October 8, 2064, Task Force Chicago set sail from Port Elizabeth; six battleships, six carriers, and a dozen each of Sharks and Governors escorting the Fifth Armored Division, loaded aboard cargo vessels and deep-sea ferries. One day later, October 9, 2064, Task Force Murphy set sail from Mahajanga, Madagascar, to meet up with the other element, with more battleships, a large flotilla of Sharks, and a handful of older frigates and destroyers to be used as missile barges. The combined fleet began making best speed towards Karachi, and their fateful day.
The landings were, in many ways, confined by the terrain. To the south, Karachi was defended by a network of shallow islands in the Indus River Delta. Further to the north, the way was barred by Red Zone 3. To make matters worse, the river Hub flowed approximately directly through the center of the combat zone to be. The primary landing area would be north of the city, along Sonmiani Bay, with the southernmost landings at the tip of the peninsula west of the city itself. This would be one of the larger offensives, with two divisions at the speartip, and many more following on behind. Egypt for example, the Initiative's last major amphibious campaign, was a lightning raid, with less than a corps ever committed, and the fighting over in less than a month. Here however, the Initiative was coming in much greater force, and with intent to stay.
For the OSRCT, the primary objectives were threefold, and the entire force would be landing as part of the initial wave of the invasion. First and most important of their goals was securing the Hub river dam, north of the city and about forty kilometers inland. If the dam was breached it would effectively stymie the offensive for multiple days, pinning the landed forces between a raging river and the pounding surf, while also doing significant damage to Karachi and its all important port facilities. The second target was the ridgelines that would allow the Shah's forces to rake the beaches in a withering crossfire if left under his control. Third and finally, there was the M-9, the best – and in some stretches only – road between Karachi and Hyderabad.
Operation Summer Storm is in many ways a refined version of an earlier operational plan, designated Eastern Paris. Eastern Paris however was a fundamentally broader operation. Rather than a limited strike on a single warlord, Eastern Paris envisioned itself as the first step of a broader reclamation of the Indian subcontinent. Rather than focusing entirely west of the Indus River, as Summer Storm does, Eastern Paris would have aimed its sights much further, aiming into what used to be the borderlands between Pakistan and India, searching for defensible positions on the borders of Bannerjee territory. To accomplish this goal, especially before the SADN came online, the planned course of action was an envelopment. A combined ZOCOM/Forgotten force combined with airborne troops would have assaulted out of the Red Zone, while the Air Force would have conducted a massive air superiority operation, with an emphasis on boost-phase interception of ballistic missiles, trying to kill as many of the Shah's missiles as possible before the nuclear attack was beyond the Initiative's ability to intercept.
Operation Summer Storm itself faced a winter storm at the start of its initial phase. Despite the algorithms saying that clear weather was expected, a sudden ion storm blew south from the Red Zone, grounding aircraft mere hours before the invasion would arrive, while for the naval elements it was too late to turn back. Too late to delay. War is, more than anything else, a team sport. With many of the players sidelined – the aircraft grounded, many of the guided weapons facing significant reliability problems, and lasers and particle beams significantly degraded, among other problems – the game would begin with both sides fighting a broken-backed war until conditions changed.
The landing began with the crack, crack, crack of railgun shots, the roar of dozens upon dozens of missiles. While the storm was too much for the carriers and land-based air, the former making best speed on a reciprocal track, heading back towards Madagascar, away from the battlefield, and the latter safe in their hangars, waiting for the storm to clear and the time for the Initiative to become its own storm over the land.
G --- D --- I
I shall not Fear, for Fear is the mind killer
I shall not Doubt, for we are united in One Vision
I shall not Waver, for we have One Purpose.
I shall not Falter in my pursuit of PEACE THROUGH POWER!
YZ-1, Former Pakistan, Karachi
For Azad Barzani, the day began like any other. Wake up two hours before the rest of the men in his unit. Ritually wash his hands and face. Read over the orders and prepare a sermon to focus their minds to the task of preparing to face the invaders in battle. The third chapter of the Principia, Ad Officium would do nicely. Opening the well loved hardcover book, passed down to him from his teacher and annotated in three hands, he found the chapter:
On Duties
A child of the Brotherhood has three key duties. First, to their fellows, second, to their leaders, and third, to themselves.
. . .
First, thou shalt care for thine brother and sister. For a cord of three strands is not easily broken, and we seek to bind the evils of the world. Look after your fellow laborers in the Great Work, for they are the strength of the Brotherhood.
It is by hands joined in labor, as brothers and sisters that the wrongs of the world shall be righted.
In service to one's fellows, there are many virtues, and equally many flaws. The first is to never ask another to do what you cannot do yourself. The keystone of leadership is service, and the keystone of service is leadership.
It is a poor brother who asks others to do what they are unwilling to do themselves.
Second, thou shalt obey those ordained to lead. All are part of the Brotherhood, but to all things there is a time and a place. When you are young your place is to follow; when you have grown in wisdom, your time to lead shall come. Those who lead the flocks do so for the betterment of all, so honor and obey them so long as they walk the path of Righteousness.
Leadership is not a glory to be prized, but a burden to be carried. A leader is a chooser of the slain, and must bear witness to the consequences of their decisions. A leader is humble, for they hold duties both to their brothers above and below.
It is by choice that we are separated from animals. It is by choice that we may build a better world.
It was as he put down the book that he heard the thunder and watched the sky light with a false dawn as the Initiative came to fight.
G --- D --- I
North Atlantic Ocean, 48.547 N 14.931 W
"When shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning, or in rain?"
"When the hurly-burly's done, when the battle's lost and won."
"Brother Mike, Sister Jie, must you indulge in obsolete references nobody is around to hear?"
"Of course, my sibling, that's the best time!"
"And the Bard is never obsolete! You must admit that it's relevant, at least."
The twice-modified Falak-class submarine Jormungandr's interior was not short of cramped, hidden spaces, despite the best efforts of the refit crews. Most submarines have this problem, but rarely have anything worse than a still or contraband luxuries secreted away. However, most submarines don't have a trio of well-trained, highly-motivated saboteurs with a love of things that go 'boom' as part of their crew complement.
The first sign of trouble wasn't anything exploding, though, but the shift coming off-duty running to the toilets. Three off-duty sailors going missing in the rush is not unexpected, but significantly delayed the response to the unfolding events. The next few things going wrong were not noticed, until the corpse of a missing mechanic was discovered in a parts cabinet, at which point the situation evolved very rapidly.
Guards hurried through corridors, cursing narrow spaces. They, mostly, converged on vital areas - the bridge, the reactor spaces, the missile holds... but not every one was available, and not every one of those made it. Traps killed several, small mines concealed among conduits. More discovered to their displeasure that one of the damage-control lockers had been converted to the exact opposite.
The corridor filled with carnage, dark-clad shadowy forms dashed to one hatch, checking the seal, and then dashed to another, opening it and hurrying through. Cursing, they ran through a small chamber, placing a few items carefully. Preparing seized weapons and checking seals on masks, they dashed through hatches, dropping gas grenades to get through clumps of seamen, until they circled around to another hatch, this one less-thoroughly sealed.
The hatch opened, and the three dashed into a large room filled with cylinders, and a blaze of laser fire. Guards fell from return fire... but so did one of the infiltrators. Cursing, the remaining two dragged the third into cover, then tossed grenades to drive the remaining guards back into cover. Taking turns firing in one direction or another, they removed a maintenance hatch, and connected to a port a silvery box, which shortly after began blinking in an oddly cheerful sequence.
"If it were done when 'tis done, 'twere well it were done quickly," one muttered, and held up 3 fingers. The other nodded, while the third merely checked their weapon, and scooted further into the shadows. Smoke billowed out, and then two dashed back through the hatch they had entered the room from. The one remaining watched a display with three lights go to two, then one, and sighed.
She coughed wetly, and then pressed buttons on two separate devices. "Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we'll die with harness on our back." A moment later, the cheerful silvery box overrode programming, and started the rocket motor for the missile it was connected to. The wave of fire incinerated everything in the large chamber, leading to a chain reaction which broke open the pressure hull.
InOps internal communication: OPERATION BIRNAM MISSION SUCCESS REPORTED; TEAM IRRETRIEVABLE
G--- D --- I
YZ-1, Former Pakistan, Hindu Kush
"Brothers, let the Infidel know the fury of the Faithful!"
Warning klaxons blared, the whine buzzing through the operator's ears as carefully concealed mountain bunkers opened, their payloads extending skyward. They would soon face the Initiative's desperate fury: Ion strikes pouring down, melting their bunkers to slag and scrap. But it would avail them not.
Dozens of contrails streaked across the sky, soaring high above as the swept-back wings cut through the air on their fateful journey. Air augmented rocket engines roaring through the cloud cover, each driving forward a nuclear warhead. As they soared into the endless blue of the open sky, each punched through the sound barrier, vapor cones forming and just as quickly dispersing, artificial clouds forming around the missiles on their journey.
Bastion 16, Jeddah, Arabian Peninsula
Everything was on high alert, and had been for over forty eight hours at this point. H Hour was approaching, and if there was a time for incoming, it was now. If Al-Isfahani had as much of an arsenal as he was reputed to, it was time for him to show it. Most of the men and women staffing the Bastion were quiet, bursts of words sharp and worried, bursts of shattered glass reaching from mouths as they waited for the inevitable.
As the first radar tracks emerged from the Iranian Red Zone, the relief was palpable. No more uncertainty, no more worry. Only targets, and hope that their hard work these last months to bring the defense network to full functionality were worthwhile.
The first intercepts fell to the barrage hulk floating off the coast of Bahrain. A modified Arleigh Burke – its services as a ship no longer required, but spared from the breakers for the time being – simply anchored, with power lines run to shore and its systems slaved to a central FCS. Dozens of Thunderbolt missiles launched from surface boxes and dozens upon dozens of VLS cells aboard the hulk – a veritable storm of missiles streaked skyward, soon joined by a hail of railgun shot, blasting holes in the air all around the Shah's missiles. A handful fell out of the sky or exploded in midair, the payloads scattering downard in a hailstorm of shrapnel and particulate from direct hits.
For Bastions 15, 16, and 17, the first weapons to engage were Infernium lasers, their simultaneous fires catching the missiles in a deadly crossfire, swatting contact after contact out of the sky, with leakers then being engaged by CBL and railgun fires. Over the next fifteen minutes, the network engaged over sixty targets, and not a single one passed through the inner band of the perimeter defenses, let alone reached the FDF 1 and FDF 2 lines.
G--- D --- I
Siobhan Carter, Hampton Roads, Virginia, Blue Zone 2
Today was a day like any other. Go into work, spend the day supervising the swarms of robots and cranes unloading TEU after TEU from the ships, and loading others on. It was a dance, and she was the conductor for her little section of the world. Simple work, most of the time. Unless the Initiative wanted to shove another MEU or AEF through her port, it would be a slow day, filing paperwork and checking boxes.
Sister Julie, Falak class SSNL Unwavering Faith, just offshore of Hampton Roads
Sister Julie stood in the command deck of the Falak at ease, and around her passed the hushed, serious tones of her crew hard at work as they communicated the vital information each needed to perform their roles amongst themselves. Sonar hunched over, listening for the tell tails of Initiative propellers. Operations off to one side marking time. The hustle and bustle of a ship the size of a Falak was all around her, yet she stood apart.
Few places were ever truly prepared for a commando assault – 'certainly not in the opening hours of the Third Tiberium War,' she reminisced with a sly smile.
Her route into the port through a shipping container had been enabled by corruption. A small but important trickle smuggling food aid and weapons into the yellow zones, and in return, fit young women like she had been sponsored by well connected donors who were happy to arrange some alternate routes into GDI, strictly off the books.
'Well, not exactly like she had been; hardly like her at all really,' she mused with a smirk reminiscing on her intense training as a commando. She almost wished she could have followed that thread a little further, it would have been quite a shock to receive her compared to who and what they'd usually received through that connection. But her work in the war had been important, striking a crippling blow against GDI. Their work today was likewise of utmost importance.
Now, with InOps strengthened, corruption curtailed, and the entire GDI economy and its plutocratic society uprooted, that meant that particular entryway into the Blue Zone had long since been sealed. And even had it been possible to get someone ashore, multiple checkpoints and layers of security around the naval base and between sectors made moving with stealth all but impossible. Worse, heavier patrols – better armed and equipped than some two decades ago – meant that discovery would lead to a rather heavier response than bored conscripts stuck on garrison duty. The home guard alone were heavily supplied with vehicles, and while some wouldn't have been out of place among the technicals utilized by Nod's third and even fourth line forces, others were surplus military vehicles with armor and weaponry to match. Old, but more than service-ready. And as if that weren't enough, heavier responses could be called upon with far faster response times than those of the Third Tiberium War.
All of which added up meant that Sister Julie had zero intention of setting foot ashore, or of sending anyone else into the waiting jaws of GDI. The scalpel had its place, but well, Hampton Roads called for a sledgehammer.
Even getting into position had taken weeks of travel, and she hadn't even known where she would end up. One envelope with a set of coordinates, then to open the next set of orders once she had reached the first checkpoint. If no-one had known where they were going, or even if it was a mission at all rather than simply a training exercise meant no-one could leak their objective. Weeks of avoiding GDI patrols at sea, then – as they made the approach to the Eastern Seaboard of North America – avoiding mines and proceeding at a sluggish pace to avoid sonar. Now, practically in the bay of one of GDI's biggest dockyards – utterly critical for their carrier fleet and naval logistics – the final set of orders had been taken from a locked safe.
Nothing less than a nuclear strike against GDI, here at the heart of its power. She had read the orders twice, confirmed the authorisation codes, and grappled with the weight of her duty. It could have been worse, Tiberium shard missiles, higher yield nukes, dirty bombs… And it helped to soothe her conscience that it was a clear military target. Even so, this was no small thing. Yet the letter addressing her by name had been flawless in its logic.
GDI had broken the truce, they had been warned of the consequences in the wake of the Regency War, and now they sought 'one last victory' with the 'blessing' of several warlords who had contested with Al-Isfahani and given their tacit approval. But despite the approval of the Bannerjees, Yao, and even Bintang, others within the Brotherhood didn't agree. They might not even like the Atomic Shah. And yet, a line in the sand had been drawn, one that GDI had willingly breached. Perhaps they thought their defense network would protect them against the Iranian warlord. Perhaps it even would. Yet a reminder was in order, that he was not the only remaining nuclear power, much less greater weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, biological, and chemical. GDI had removed dozens of lesser warlords in the Regency War. Still, other warlords yet remained and they could not, would not, stand idly by while their own were picked off one by one.
GDI had been warned. And more than that, they could not be allowed to strengthen themselves at the cost of the Brotherhood. A rebalancing of the scales was in order Even if it came with a heavy price.
"Ma'am," an officer called, voice low. They could, if they wanted to, bark orders at the top of their lungs (the Falak hull was well soundproofed and no amount of noise they could make would vibrate through the hull) but communications discipline and tradition meant all discussion was hushed. "She's back."
As close as they could get to Hampton Roads, a GDI patrol craft – one of the new Sharks – lay between them and their target, lazily drifting in the middle of the night, engines idling, crew on watch. If it remained on its course, it would interdict the Falak's missiles, shooting down dozens of missiles during their most vulnerable period.
One of Julie's subordinates, a fellow commando, had been tasked for a final act of sabotage. As low-tech as possible, with no electronics beyond what was utterly necessary and no assisted- mobility gear, she had left the sub in a wetsuit and scuba gear, swam to the vessel, planted explosives, and returned. Mark One human muscle power, to give as little chance as possible of anything turning up on any scans.
And so, her fellow commando, in one final act of sabotage, had prepared the scene. Sister Julie nodded to her XO, and he winced and marched up to her and the final sealed order. Even now, a part of Julie hoped that this might simply be a drill, despite knowing in her heart of hearts that it was not. He opened the letter addressed to himself. Stilled, read it again, his eyes slowly moving across the page before he nodded and moved to the central console, pulling out a keycard from the chain around his neck.
"On my mark."
They performed the countdown, and inserted their keys together. Warheads armed. Things were moving fast and yet every moment seemed to drag on. Deep in the bowels of the ship, missiles and launchers received final checks. Six tubes, four missiles each. 24 warheads of differing payloads aimed directly at the enemy asset.
"Synchronize the det charge on the Shark," Sister Julie ordered. "No warning." The explosive sabotage and the missile strike would be performed as close together as possible to leave as little a window for GDI to react as possible. Someone brought a detonator and her XO held it thumb primed. Her own hand hovered over the big red button responsible for the nuclear salvo.
"Mark" she ordered. Her executive officer, to his credit, didn't hesitate and somewhere far above the Falak a plume of flame would erupt from the hull of the Shark frigate, water gushing into the breach. More charges would have guaranteed its total destruction, but on a strict time limit, just one had been placed. Detonating just as the missiles were making their way skywards.
The Shark shuddered and groaned, water filling it, grounding out electronics, damaging who knows what. Aboard the ship lights flickered as emergency generators roared into life. Despite the late hour of the night, despite the damage, despite the sudden shock of sabotage and combat, whatever else GDI might have been, its soldiers knew their duty well and leapt into action. Laser batteries erupting in a cacophony of light and screeching superheated air. Twenty-four missiles. One, two, three, four, shot down as several broke off, slamming against the side of the stricken vessel and tearing through its structure. One battery was shattered into a slagged melting heap of metal, glass and composites even as its siblings continued their rain of searing red fire into the night sky.
Some emplacements landside took down their own fair share of missiles as Julie's crew called out readings and information. Gantry cranes for cargo were damaged by debris, docked vessels struck without warning, alarms blared.
And above Hampton Roads naval base, an artificial sun appeared in the middle of the night. Deep beneath the waves Julie couldn't see it, but the sudden spike in readings told her exactly what had happened and she felt a cold dread in her gut, it almost seemed a physical wave had knocked her back and she could have sworn she could hear geiger counters lost amidst the noise of her crew at work.
0.41 seconds later it happened again, and if it seemed to take a moment longer to reach them than the first that was surely a trick of the mind.
That then, was that.
"Successful deployment," a voice uttered softly, Julie couldn't have said which crewmember it was. Considerable damage had been caused of course, less than there might have been, more than Julie had expected. Not only one, but two nuclear strikes.
There were no cheers. The atmosphere in the command room was grim. Professional. They were soldiers, doing a job. "That's the easy part done. The blasts will have shocked GDI's network and comms but our job is only half done. We still need to get home safe. Before GDI sends every ship in the Atlantic after us. Others will survey and analyze the damage. Move with a purpose."
"One vision! One purpose! One brotherhood!" Her crew called out in response, their vessel already turning, beginning their long journey home. GDI's response might be confused amidst the sudden, shocking violence, but Sister Julie intended to be long gone before it could get organized.
G--- D --- I
InOps internal report, infiltration mission Fafhrd, with attached media files.
Nod secret airbase, codename Eistla
0137 hours, local time: External overwatch in place, surveillance begins.
0203: Site perimeter breached by local specialist, codename Greymalkin, sensors suppressed.
-"Okay, handsome, the bypass is in place, we've got three minutes." A curvy figure in dark grey holds a wire up, disconnected from the fence posts it had been attached to. Several others passed under, before it was stuck back to the posts with a gummy substance.
0205: Intrusion team passes through outer security perimeter, interior overwatch in place.
0219: Barracks security systems subverted, lockdown contingency placed on hold.
-"Nyeh heh heh." "Stop it, you're creeping me out."
0224: Munitions depot located, intrusion attempt begins.
0246: Munitions depot intrusion attempt abandoned, entrance sabotaged.
0248: Hangar entrance secured, security subverted, guards diverted.
-"You set the kitchens on fire?" "Cooking oil and a shorted wire, smoke but no real fire, and it looks like bad maintenance."
0249: Greymalkin last seen by InOps personnel until exfiltration.
0252: Nozzles for fuelling aircraft located, team begins to emplace sabotage packages.
0305: Sabotage packages placed within fueling lines and tanks, set to autonomous activation. Absence of Greymalkin detected.
-"Fuck, where is she?" "Wait, is that a note on your back?" "[suppressed swearing]"
0311: InOps personnel exfiltrate to outer perimeter, locate Greymalkin.
-"He~y boys, had to take a side trip. The commander's office had a surveillance system override, and some pretty trinkets too."
0315: Exfiltration complete, external security systems back online.
0400: Local specialists debark transport.
-"Aww, don't be so scowly, I got you presents! They're under your seats."
-Attached are images of items purportedly retrieved from site commander's office, including cultural artifacts.
-"Sir, is that...?" "T. S. Eliot, yes, and a first edition."
Monrovia Fusion Yards, West African Blue Zone
The Team Leader surveyed the Monrovia Fusion Yards one last time, meticulously tracing the security perimeter around the compound with his night vision binoculars. His attention momentarily lingered on a group of guards manning one of the watchtowers, exchanging careless banter instead of maintaining vigilance. Weak, soft, undisciplined, embodying the complacency of those living pampered lives within the Blue Zones, their minds numbed by relentless, insidious GDI propaganda. Oh, how much he felt hatred for the imperialist machinations of the Initiative, hypocrites masquerading under the guise of noble intentions while ruthlessly seeking absolute dominion over humanity, Earth and beyond, eradicating all opposition in their path. Long days and nights of witnessing shuttles departing for and returning from the void has forged his disdain, ferrying materials to fuel GDI's insatiable thirst for conquest and expansion, each shipment further fueling the monuments to their arrogance orbiting in the sky.
They might believe their precious space stations to be out of reach of the Hand of Nod, but they were fools to think so. The followers of Kane would find a way, sooner or later. He had heard rumors of plans to reenact the destruction of the Philadelphia, to signal the start of a start of a great offensive to, if not push back the claws of the Eagle, then to poison their precious Blue Zones with the venom of the scorpion. Meanwhile, all the ground-based infrastructure they needed for their plan to leave this Earth behind was much more within reach, and it was time to remind them of that. He checked the device once more, smiling under his helmet when all lights lit green, the charge primed and synced to their heartbeats.
One of Mehretu's nuclear suitcases had been carefully smuggled deep into GDI territory for occasions like this. It was a dagger, intended to be thrust deep into the heart of the Initiative and remind them that despite everything, they were merely sheep in the dark, vulnerable to a patient and persistent predator lurking in the shadows.
"Shadow Team, with the wind, going cold," he ordered, and his loyal subordinates complied, extending their gliders and leaping off their vantage point, flying toward their target under the cover of darkness.
The Team Leader's heart raced despite the potent cocktail of calming drugs coursing through his veins, much to his frustration. There was nothing to fear; the Eagle's eyes would not spot them. They could erect as many walls, deploy as many automated turrets, watchtowers, sensor clusters, cameras, drones, and guards as they desired; all the eyes in the sky were useless when there was nothing to see. Suits and gliders crafted from advanced nanocomposites, brought about by the technology of peace and the wisdom of the Brotherhood's finest minds, rendered them all but invisible. The surface of the suit was connected to a short-duration but highly powerful cooling cell that rendered them undetectable even to thermal sensors against the night sky, albeit for a limited time.
It would be enough.
As they breached the security perimeter, it grew uncomfortably warm inside the suits, the searchlights rhythmically swinging left and right over them to no avail. The landing itself was unspectacular, a routine they had rehearsed hundreds of times in training. The Shadow Team closed their gliders to quietly descend atop one of the massive manufacturing halls, symbols of the Initiative's growing dominion over the stars. Each member was a dead man walking, having made peace with their fate in the name of Kane and the Brotherhood of Nod. Their final moments were spent positioning themselves to inflict the maximum possible pain.
What transpired from that point remains somewhat obscured. Eventually, facility guards raised an alarm, initiating sporadic fighting with the Shadow Team operatives and eventually cornering them. Complicating the creation of an accurate after-action report was the subsequent detonation of a portable nuclear device, claiming the lives of everyone within the vicinity of the firefight and injuring many others even at a distance. The shockwave and fireball alone vaporized two of the assembly yards instantly and damaged several nearby ones. The ensuing radioactive and Tiberium fallout led to further casualties, military and civilian, necessitating a complete evacuation of the facility and surrounding urban areas. The result was a significant loss of production until decontamination operations could be completed and damages repaired, rendering the Monrovia Fusion Yards non-operational for a minimum of six months.
—
Johannesburg Myomer Macrospinner, South Africa
The sun hung high above Johannesburg, casting its shine on yet another typical day under the clear blue sky, untouched by the looming threat of Tiberium. People carried on with their daily activities, unperturbed and tranquil, while under the vigilant gaze of the Global Defense Initiative and the imposing SADN towers, armed with weapon systems and radar dishes scanning the horizon for potential dangers.
However, the peace abruptly shattered, turning a seemingly good day sour in an instant. Later accounts from those residing in the launch trajectory would describe hearing a deafening roar akin to thunder, but for the inhabitants of Johannesburg, the first indication of the attack came with the sudden appearance of a second sun rising amidst them. The fireball from a nuclear explosion, measuring in the single-digit kilotons, engulfed the sprawling facility of the Macrospinner, its shockwave obliterating everything in its path until it morphed into a deceptively serene yet ominously deadly mushroom cloud, slowly expanding out of the devastation, promising the looming threat of lethal radiation. SADN had kicked into action mere moments before, failing to shoot it down in time.
The sounds of air raid sirens and emergency services cut through the silence that followed.
<<Record Hit, Captain.>>
<<Deviation from target?>>
<<Appears acceptable from sensor readings, but difficult to hit from this distance.>>
<<Perfect, all available power to the railcannon capacitors, load the next missile and continue bombardement.>>
A short while later, a second detonation erupted over the Macrospinner facility, casting a blinding and searing light that afflicted all who dared or were unlucky enough to witness it. SADN control immediately sprang into action, scrambling to analyze the unfolding situation and determine the source of the attack as another mushroom cloud grew into existence over the facility.
The third time, preparations had been made, or rather, the automated defense systems controlling the area had been primed. They swiftly adjusted into position to concentrate all sensor and weapon capacity into the most likely calculated direction of attack, intercepting the third hypersonic missile with precision. The contact disintegrated into a cloud of similarly hypersonic debris, causing radioactive shrapnel to rain down upon the neighboring area.
<<No detonation detected.>>
<<It appears the Initiative dogs have realized our presence. Irrelevant, continue bombardment.>>
<<Yes, Sir.>>
<<And watch the skies, I don't want to be surprised when their eagles come to take our victory from us.>>
Once more, railguns and lasers from numerous batteries illuminated the sky, unleashing a storm of destruction. This barrage intercepted the fourth missile, causing it to lose control and crash into a nearby hill, leaving a gaping crater in its wake. The fifth missile met a similar fate, disintegrating into a deadly shower of shrapnel that mercilessly tore through a vertical farming tower, claiming the lives of all workers within.
<<No detonation detected.>>
<<Still an excellent showing, give my thanks to the gunnery crew that they are making the brotherhood proud. It is because of their efforts that we will leave these Initiative dogs bruised and battered.>>
<<Our window for remaining undetected is closing, giving projections we will have two more shots.>>
<<Denied, we will remain until I order otherwise.>>
<<Sir?>>
<<First officer, do you really believe our mission is so limited as to destroy their precious macrospinner?>>
Missiles six and seven were turned into scrap over unpopulated areas.
<<I->>
<<Your vision is limited, First Officer, this is a demonstration of the Brotherhood might and reach. We must drill fear into these Initiative dogs, even if we have to risk our lives to do so.>>
Missile eight turned into a third mushroom cloud.
<<Record Hit, Captain.>>
<<Twenty-four warheads, we have twenty-four warheads to show them their arrogance. This is not a game of accurate shots and perfect aim, but one of mathematics. Rail-accelerated hypersonic missiles turn this fight into one of statistics, and we must show them that even with good odds like this they will lose eventually.>>
Missile nine suffered an engine failure and crashed into the ocean shortly after being launched from the Falak's main rail cannon.
<<Each time we make it past the Eagle's impenetrable shield, we win. Each missile that makes it through could have carried a warhead far larger and more powerful than these measly firecrackers given to us to destroy that facility.>>
<<Sir, we are not sure if the capacitors can handle this rough a handling.>>
<<Sir, we have radar contacts in their air, heading our way. Earlier than expected.>>
Missile ten turned into another mushroom cloud over the Macrospinner.
<<Record Hit, Captain.>>
<<Why are you surprised, my brothers and sisters? There is no place on the surface of this rotten world hidden from the all seeing eyes of the Eagle. They are above us, always watching, even as they struggle to find an orbital weapons platform to bring to bear on our location. This is the fight we must fight, I deny us the retreat until our means of bringing death have been exhausted. Ready for anti-air combat and return to your stations.>>
The next three missiles were intercepted.
<<This is our true mission, to remind these Initiative dogs that they are not invincible, that we have the means to take a thousand times a thousand lives with each strike. We could be striking their beloved Johannesburg right now with the all cleansing fire of the atomic age and there is nothing they could do to stop us.>>
A fifth nuclear detonation annihilated the main power transfer array for the macrospinner.
<<Sir, the starboard capacitors are overheating.>>
<<Impossible! Betrayal! Reroute reserve coolant and do a double heat cycle."
<<Sir, we have been running the systems too much already. We risk losing the ship if we push her any more.>>
<<GDI contacts are coming into firing range.>>
<<Sir, we completed our mission. Strat Analysis concludes the target is fully rendered inoperable with a chance of 89%. It is time to leave.>>
<<There will be a reckoning, First Officer, in Kane's name. But fine, the GDI has won this round, we shall return to the one place outside the Eagle's all-seeing vigil, the bottom of the oceans.>>
—
Iranian badlands, edge of Red Zone 3
"They're not happy!" Farah yelled over the thundering roar of the straining engine as they raced west through the desert dunes, bullets pinging of the titanium hull encasing them as the hiss and shriek of lasers screamed through the boiling air.
"Would you be?" Kalden asked back at her, his heavy foot all but glued to the floor pressing down on the accelerator, his eyes flickering among screens as he tapped out commands helping to direct the disco ball to shooting a pair of missiles that leapt from the chassis of the sleek, enclosed motorcycle that trailed them.
Compared to the labored, bestial rumbling of their own engine haphazardly repaired with scrap and spare parts that weren't quite good enough – the twin motorcycles following them were high-tech, even if the overall design hadn't changed much since the original iteration. Fast, powerfully armed with missiles, and surprisingly resistant to small arms fire the Brotherhood's motorcycles had been a mainstay for the fast moving faction, from warlords to raider gangs. The recon bike had seen service in every major conflict with the brotherhood. It was cheap, fast, deadly, and brutally effective. And of course, these bikes weren't alone.
"Why aren't they overtaking?" Markus called from the back where he was loading shells into a rotary grenade launcher. "They're faster."
"Don't have to." Aloysius murmured quietly, gesturing with a hand to the pack of Nod buggies and vehicles following their small convoy – a scattering of scrappy salvaged vehicles including former GDI armored personnel carriers, a pair of older Brotherhood buggies of their own, and more. Formerly-GDI Pitbulls among them spat missiles straight back, exchanging fire with their Nod pursuers and likewise seeing most missiles shot down by the lasers flashing between them. And of course, their own vehicle, a modified Reckoner with most of the infantry space swapped out for an array of electronics and weaponry to turn it into a modified command vehicle. "They know we're too slow to outrun them, so they can trail us and take potshots." Markus winced as a deep clang reverberated through the enclosed space, the result of a small explosion bursting against the outside of their hull.
Kalden watched as in response a burst of laser fire from one of their escorts focused on the recon bike responsible. The small bike's windscreen glowing a deep, dangerous red, it veered to the side and fell back to the rear of its pack, another of its fellows speeding up to take its place.
"At this rate we might just make it!" Markus yelled excitedly, seeing the same scene play out from a screen on the back, and as one three heads snapped round to glare at him.
You Never handed the universe a line like that.
And as if in response, one of the Nod buggies, a darker, bloodier red than the rest – likely coming to the same conclusion – began smoothly accelerating, a ripple flickering over it as it vanished from sight.
"Gonna kick your ass." Farah muttered to herself, straightening as much as she could in the (to her) cramped infantry bay and stretching with a roll of her shoulders as she unhooked an enormous railgun from the wall.
"Hook me," She spat out. Aloysius limped over to her tiredly and secured a line to her harness as she pressed a red button and one of the walls of the Reckoner slid open. Matter-of-factly, despite the bumps in the rocky wasteland, the lasers, bullets and missiles, Farah leaned out to the side, bare arms straining with muscle, and took aim as a dull electronic whine signified the railgun warming up, then – barrel aligned with another still-visible buggy – she pulled the trigger and advanced magnetic strips flung their payload at supersonic speeds front and center to the pursuing vehicle.
To say the raider buggy was destroyed was an understatement. To a human's eyes it seemingly obliterated it in a sudden explosion of tearing metal, flying into the air, rolling, shattered and broken scattering pieces of body and fragments of metal across the landscape. Were you able to see the impact in slow motion it would have appeared that at the point of contact between the dense railgun slug and the hood of the vehicles, the front end of the buggy imploded in on itself, wrapping around the slug, before the engine block tore itself apart and a spray of shrapnel was blasted back, into the vehicle itself, and through all its occupants before being blasted out of the newly opened hole in the back. Leaving behind scrap and parts. And causing what remained still attached to the vehicles to collapse in on itself, hit the ground and bounce before spinning and dashing itself to pieces.
Breathing heavily and with a fierce grin, the large Forgotten woman leaned back inside the Reckoner and placed the weapon back on its wall mount.
"Whoa," Markus breathed out, having never seen the ex-GDI weapon more commonly mounted on tanks used before.
"Don't get too excited. We only had the one shot, " Farah grunted. And it was true, the ammo for the gun could only be obtained from GDI – hyperdense space alloy slugs weren't exactly something the Forgotten could just whip up in a garage. Beyond that it drained the Reckoner's reserves of energy quite heavily, even if they had more than the one physical slug, a second shot would all but completely empty their energy reserves, leaving their home stranded.
Alas, they weren't to have everything their own way. As if in response to their attack the stealthed buggy reappeared, next to one of the Forgotten's own. Too close for the Forgotten buggy to bring its lasers to bear, a wild-faced, glowing-eyed figure leapt from the Nod buggy and clung on, they looked skywards and a moment later exploded into an inferno of roaring green flames as Nod's stealth buggy veered away.
With a roar and a yell Markus leapt to his feet and rushed to the still-open door, Farah forced to hang onto his back so he didn't pitch out as he wildly loosed the grenade launcher's entire magazine at the buggy. It veered wildly, but an explosion struck a front wheel, and the buggy – still careening forwards – began slewing drunkenly to the side, obviously no longer in control. A black clad figure leapt from the stricken vehicle and up in the air, face and body concealed by a pitch black motorcycle helmet and tight-fitting bodysuit. Wings unfurled, jets at their feet boosted the jump and the Nod Shadow landed on another undamaged buggy, knelt atop it and turned their hidden gaze to focus on them.
The buggy the Shadow landed on was not as high tech as its damaged cousin spinning to a halt somewhere behind them, damaged, but not destroyed. The new buggy put on speed, lasers flashed at them from another Forgotten vehicle – one of the ex-GDI Guardians – but with the bumpy, rocky ground and the high speed most missed. The Shadow's head turned towards the offending vehicle and with another jet-assisted jump they landed atop the APC. They drew a sword and slashed, the vibrating blade parting the turret from the vehicle's hull and leaving it to fall to the ground behind them. The crew of the Reckoner could only watch in horror as one of their clan members opened the hatch at the top of the APC, shooting wildly. Most of the shots missed, and the one that hit only drew sparks from the shadow's armored bodysuit as the bullet bounced off, then in an impossible blur they darted forwards and were inside the armored personnel carrier.
Some rounds from within blasted holes in the side, and then there was a sudden chill silence, hails over the radio ignored before their worst fears came to pass and the silent black-clad figure stood atop the slowing Forgotten vehicle once more, casually hopping to rejoin the speeding Nod buggy as it came alongside, as casual as if they were taking an evening stroll.
"Crystal damn those shadow ninjas," Farah spat out in frustration. More losses of good men and women, their mission to destroy a nuclear launch bunker a success, but at what cost?
"Guys, we're almost code red," Kalden called out. Markus sat weeping on the floor quietly, Farah hissing in anger next to him. The only one of them silent was Aloysius, knelt on the ground in silent power eyes aglow as the power of the crystal was gathered within him.
The last few minutes of the chase were dimly remembered. Flashes of laserfire, the rattle of bullets. One close call as a Nod missile was caught by their disco ball at the last moment – a rain of shards embedding themselves into the heavily armored Reckoner hull, propelled by a powerful Tiberium core explosion.
A Forgotten buggy blasted missiles at the Nod buggy bearing their shadow warrior, but the buggy's own laser turret unerringly shot down every missile. Farah allowed herself to hope that one explosion, very close might have hit them, but when the smoke cleared the ninja was still standing, having sped straight through the flames and she could almost imagine the figure within smirking.
Then, at last, Aloysius stood, casting off his robe – bare chest revealing tattoos and a swirl of crystals, embedded in, or perhaps growing from, his flesh, sparks jumping between them as the Forgotten's eyes were lit with a fell green light.
In the Red Zone around them, crystals pulsed in time with the shaman's heartbeat, and clouds gathered overhead. And with a yell, greenish arcs of lightning tore into their pursuers. Nod vehicles blasted to molten-glowing scrap, the ground itself churning as it was blasted apart by streams of energy. And throughout the wasteland the howl of the roaring winds was joined by the howls of beasts. A Nod recon bike – wildly serpentining to try and avoid the death coming from above – had no chance when what at first appeared to be an outcropping of crystals shook itself from its slumber, stood up as a vaguely bear-shaped mass the size of a van, and plowed into the bike from the side, knocking it over crashing into a field of shattering crystals even as the monster's claws tore into the soft hull to get at the meaty insides.
Nod got the hint. The Red Zones were the Forgotten's world, and trespassers weren't welcome. The last glimpse behind them for Farah was a view plagued with static and interference, but front and center, the black-clad Shadow staring after them, even as the buggy turned to flee abandoning the chase.
G--- D --- I
GDI landing zone, Sonmiani Bay, Pakistan
The march was slow, and silent. Willis Graham was unsure which was thicker, the air inside the helmet, or the water outside. Arrayed out behind him were the other members of his pioneer team, and then behind them, arrayed out in a skirmish line were the members of the Fifth Armored's infantry complement, ready for the long trek to the beach. The first step had been to clear the defenses below the waterline, between floating and pole mines, and the so-called "Belgian gates", designed to unbalance incoming hovercraft, and rip up the skirts. While clearing all of them would be near impossible, even if GDI had days instead of minutes, there was enough time to begin clearing pathways.
The underwater silence was cut through in seconds as the pioneer team stormed up out of the surf onto the beach proper; the overcast, stormy beach was lit with a bright false dawn, as lasers, railguns, and particle beams blazed out in a crossfire bright enough to blind unprotected onlookers. Graham's rifle was at his shoulder as he charged onward, battery pack ticking down with every step.
"Let's go, troopers!" he called, arm pointing towards one of the bunkers, a gatling gun pouring a constant stream of tracers down into the Initiative ranks.
Lasing the bunker, Willis became a spotter. "Bunker, Golf Two mark Delta Nine." Seconds later, a railgun shot from one of the ships tasked to fire support screamed in and gutted the concrete structure in a momentary blue-white flash tracing out to the ship that fired it. Up and down the beach, other railgun shots and missiles were taking their own toll. Bunker after bunker stopped firing down on the beach as the Initiative found them.
Even so, the landing was costly; for every meter, battle suits stumbled and fell, many cored out, with the trooper inside dead or gasping out their last breaths.
G--- D --- I
Marker, Call, Fire.
Two railguns rock back into their chassis, hypersonic bolts screaming out over the horizon. Autoloaders slammed home new bolts, and the capacitor banks hummed, drawing power from the ship's generators.
The sailors aboard the GDIS St. Helens performed few tasks that would really be recognizable by their century-previous spiritual ancestors aboard the USS Missouri during the Korean War, but the overall evolution would be entirely familiar. Main guns are now entirely fed by autoloaders, with no propellant needed for the railguns, and the turrets are empty of sailors while firing, but the overall rhythm of locating and servicing targets would be quite familiar.
The heavy seas, high wind, radiative interference, and occasional Tiberium particulate all reinforced the standard practice for GDI sailors to stay below decks during combat operations, when possible. When possible, maintenance robots were sent out to clear debris, or use sonic tools to remove Tiberium adhesions. As time went on, and complications mounted, sailors occasionally needed to venture out onto the deck, carefully enclosed in protective gear and better-roped than many mountain climbers.
Lulls in the storm were seized to replenish the ship's magazines from available supply ships, both for railgun ammunition and missiles. However, such ships were not always available, because of factors including Nod raiders, the weather, maintenance casualties, or other less common factors. And, of course, even in calm seas transferring massive quantities of ordnance is not precisely easy. It is a task that sailors are trained for, practiced in, and familiar with, but it still involves two ships which are moving independently and unpredictably in three dimensions, at the best of times.
But all of these are, to a large degree, solved problems, because the ultimate end is delivering high-velocity explosives to a very specific point, when they are needed.
Marker, Call, Fire.
G --- D --- I
The initial beach assaults went about as well as could be expected; even with the entire force making the assault in power armor, it still took about four hours of heavy fighting, with multiple battalions being rendered combat ineffective before GDI's right flank secured defenses along the Hub river, and linked up with the forces assaulting the other side of the river at Goth Manjar. Goth Manjar was critical for another reason, as its marina served as home base for the mosquito fleet that had been lobbing nuclear-tipped close attack missiles towards the Initiative fleet since they had begun their final turn towards Karachi.
The CAMs had struck a horrific toll, with two Initiative battleships sunk, a further two forced to return home, making an emergency five kilometers an hour as they began their limp back to port. A Shark, with a modernized laser system, had been blown completely apart, with no survivors.
From there, now with a beachhead mostly secure, the heavy assets – especially tanks – could be brought in in serious numbers, and, most importantly, the supply ships could move in and begin making deliveries to the troops, without the intermediary of hover and landing craft that in many cases were having difficulties with the waves stirred up by the ion storm.
Launching up to the ridges saw even more heavy fighting, with the initial Initiative infantry assaults repulsed with heavy losses. The second, supported by armored fighting vehicles, was more successful, putting the Initiative on the first ridge, and from there, able to rake fire across the counter-offensives with fire from the military crest.
G --- D --- I
The initial landing around the Hub River Dam was one of the most chaotic and deadly parts of the operation. When planned, the goal was simple: land between the Hub River dam and the Kuraro Nadi, use the waterways to create a defensible position, and hold the dam until relieved. It was a daring operation to begin with, but one that was compromised before it was even launched. With air and airborne support both canceled due to the ongoing ion storm, the operation went from a risky strike with significant tactical advantage, to an utterly chaotic nightmare.
As soon as the drop hit the atmosphere, the winds, electrical and sensor disruptions, and the Brotherhood's attempts at defensive operations, all combined to create utter chaos. Rather than concentrating the OSRCT in a small pocket with supplies, munitions, and spare power armors, the drop was scattered over a circle with a roughly twenty kilometer radius, everywhere from the edges of Karachi itself, to ridgelines overlooking Sonmiani Bay.
The sheer chaos makes the fighting difficult to describe. For Sierra Towey, the action began on the outskirts of Karachi itself – her squad's drop pod failing to activate its secondary maneuvering thrusters and performing a lithobraking maneuver through an apartment building. Fortunately, she was able to escape the pod, and the building, along with the vast majority of her squad, despite being knocked around.
Moving north at the bounce, using jet packs to traverse open areas, the squad ran into the rear of a unit of six old-style Brotherhood Scorpion tanks, with the 105mm rifles. Repeated railgun shots eliminated four before they could reorient to bring her squad under fire. A fifth died as its first round flew high. The sixth laid canister shot into the squad, wounding or killing half their number just before Sierra and one of her squadmates laid rounds through the crew compartment.
Dragging the surviving wounded into a nearby building, Sierra and her squad had little choice but to bunker down, hold out, and wait for the rest of the Initiative army to show up. It would, but far too late for the wounded in her squad, and her people were soon forced to fight as riflemen, propping up the chemical weapons in the squad on makeshift bipods and tripods to stabilize them, rather than fighting from inside their drained suits of power armor.
G --- D --- I
By the end of the first day, GDI was firmly ashore, and while the OSRCT had been rendered nearly combat ineffective as a unit, it was in most cases quickly amalgamated into other ground forces, their own platoons and companies filling holes in larger battalions and brigades, readying for the major combats to come.
Many of Al Isfahani's shock reserves, including two battalions of new-generation human cyborgs, had made a night march, positioning themselves to launch into GDI lines from the north by dawn on the second day.
Much of the day's early fighting was attempting to dislodge GDI forces from the Hub river, getting operations close enough to destroy the dam and flood most of the terrain, which would wash away GDI strong points and the docks being used to bring men and material ashore. The first assault was turned back, railguns and now entrenched tanks proving to be too much for the cyborgs, launched headlong into an entrenched battle line, supported by deadly fire from the ships. The second however, proved much more successful, as many of the ships were reduced to simply providing naval gunfire support, their missile tubes nearly emptied in the first day's fighting.
The cyborgs, for the most part, seem to be a downgrade of the Marked of Kane's Enlightened pattern, trading out particle weapons for lasers and kinetics. While some few, mostly leaders, carried the particle beams, distinctive blue streaks marking their positions for counterfire, the vast majority were armed more simply. Especially given the quality of the work, this seems to be a result of the Bannerjees choosing to give Al-Isfahani an inferior breed, rather than a mark of the Brotherhood as a whole falling behind.
While they failed to reach the dam proper, the troops got close enough to begin laying fire into the structure, damaging it enough to force an Initiative withdrawal from the port against the possibility of a cascading failure, and a return to over-the-beach operations.
G --- D --- I
It took another two days for Initiative forces to be ready to strike towards Karachi itself, and in this time another two Initiative battleships took nuclear strikes. Neither were sufficient to sink them, but both were required to withdraw due to the damage.
As the Initiative pushed into the city, the Shah's forces had, for the most part, already retreated, but not before turning the advance into a crawl through minefields, booby traps, and crossfires of automated turrets, backed by old style Gana, expended in doomed attacks to disrupt the Initiative advance. At the same time, the port facilities were sabotaged, with port facilities set to be destroyed by a nuclear landmine.
Willis Graham found himself on the leading edge of the advance once more. His squad, now half made up of boys and girls from the OSRCT, pushed up, from building to building, providing bounding cover with another pair of squads.
It was a grueling slog, the danger of any individual threat outweighed by the constant need for awareness of possible threat from every direction. The advance continued through the remains of the city, all too aware that the timetable was slipping further, and that the cost for making up those delays was measured in precious lives.
G --- D --- I
However, it was in the north that things began to seriously bog down, as Initiative and Brotherhood forces skirmished on the road to Hyderabad. Essentially a fighting retreat for the Brotherhood, every few hundred meters of road there was a quickly deployed minefield, an enfilade, something to slow the Initiative down.
One of the new weapons was a shoulder mounted laser cannon. Designed around a set of Infernium prisms, rather than a continuous lasing rod, the shoulder fired cannons are, for the most part, distinctly oversized, but the prismatic array seems to have dealt with one of the more significant problems of Infernium laser systems, producing a much shorter firing delay compared to the standard. Captured specimens of the laser cannons have also been appropriated by the Initiative troops in many cases, rather than being sent to the back for engineering, specifically to spread heavy point defense assets around. With the troops attempting to advance under a rain of nuclear shells, the field-designated "Avenger" variant of the Pitbull, mounting four of these cannons onto an external turret, and using that to blast incoming fire out of the sky.
More than nuclear salvos, more than anything else, the Initiative forces were choked off by the iron laws of logistics. A kilometer's advance can be measured in shells, in tons of ablat-plates, in liters of fuel, and a hundred other ways, but that cost has to be moved from ship, to shore, to the main force inland; and making matters significantly worse was the Treasury's own construction battalions beginning to move ashore. Unlike the military battalions, which had been trained and equipped for over-the-beach operations, civilian ones are not. Instead, they, and all of the supplies that they needed to do things like construct medical facilities, port facilities, all of the things that in the long run would make the drive logistically cheaper, had to go through the same port facilities as much of the material to support the advance.
The Treasury had pre-positioned a great deal of material in advance, which would have been very useful if significantly more optimistic projections had been borne out. However, with the invasion running according to a slower schedule, there were warehouse complexes full of construction materials and equipment which otherwise might have been usable for resupply of ammunition and spare parts.
A/N: Sorry this took so long everyone. Life decided to seriously happen. Hopefully the next couple entries can come out this month, as they already have substantial numbers of words written.
A/N2: Buy ithillid a Coffee. ko-fi.com/ithillid as always, link. It does always help.
InOps sabotage rolls:
23, 78, 42, 97, 89, 80, 51, 40, 16, 41, 58, 34, 41
Nuke intercept rolls:
70, 7, 29, 20, 34, 59, 49, 98, 71, 8, 75, 32, 87, 55, 99, 87, 29, 82, 3, 7, 2, 57, 100, 51, 86, 71, 62, 52, 78, 41
Weather Roll 1
11
Weather Roll 2
89
Weather Roll 3
9
Combat rolls (GDI vs Nod):
79, 100
92, 45
13, 49
48, 56
28, 41
21, 55
23, 78, 42, 97, 89, 80, 51, 40, 16, 41, 58, 34, 41
Nuke intercept rolls:
70, 7, 29, 20, 34, 59, 49, 98, 71, 8, 75, 32, 87, 55, 99, 87, 29, 82, 3, 7, 2, 57, 100, 51, 86, 71, 62, 52, 78, 41
Weather Roll 1
11
Weather Roll 2
89
Weather Roll 3
9
Combat rolls (GDI vs Nod):
79, 100
92, 45
13, 49
48, 56
28, 41
21, 55
The landings were, in many ways, confined by the terrain. To the south, Karachi was defended by a network of shallow islands in the Indus River Delta. Further to the north, the way was barred by Red Zone 3. To make matters worse, the river Hub flowed approximately directly through the center of the combat zone to be. The primary landing area would be north of the city, along Sonmiani Bay, with the southernmost landings at the tip of the peninsula west of the city itself. This would be one of the larger offensives, with two divisions at the speartip, and many more following on behind. Egypt for example, the Initiative's last major amphibious campaign, was a lightning raid, with less than a corps ever committed, and the fighting over in less than a month. Here however, the Initiative was coming in much greater force, and with intent to stay.
For the OSRCT, the primary objectives were threefold, and the entire force would be landing as part of the initial wave of the invasion. First and most important of their goals was securing the Hub river dam, north of the city and about forty kilometers inland. If the dam was breached it would effectively stymie the offensive for multiple days, pinning the landed forces between a raging river and the pounding surf, while also doing significant damage to Karachi and its all important port facilities. The second target was the ridgelines that would allow the Shah's forces to rake the beaches in a withering crossfire if left under his control. Third and finally, there was the M-9, the best – and in some stretches only – road between Karachi and Hyderabad.
Operation Summer Storm is in many ways a refined version of an earlier operational plan, designated Eastern Paris. Eastern Paris however was a fundamentally broader operation. Rather than a limited strike on a single warlord, Eastern Paris envisioned itself as the first step of a broader reclamation of the Indian subcontinent. Rather than focusing entirely west of the Indus River, as Summer Storm does, Eastern Paris would have aimed its sights much further, aiming into what used to be the borderlands between Pakistan and India, searching for defensible positions on the borders of Bannerjee territory. To accomplish this goal, especially before the SADN came online, the planned course of action was an envelopment. A combined ZOCOM/Forgotten force combined with airborne troops would have assaulted out of the Red Zone, while the Air Force would have conducted a massive air superiority operation, with an emphasis on boost-phase interception of ballistic missiles, trying to kill as many of the Shah's missiles as possible before the nuclear attack was beyond the Initiative's ability to intercept.
Operation Summer Storm itself faced a winter storm at the start of its initial phase. Despite the algorithms saying that clear weather was expected, a sudden ion storm blew south from the Red Zone, grounding aircraft mere hours before the invasion would arrive, while for the naval elements it was too late to turn back. Too late to delay. War is, more than anything else, a team sport. With many of the players sidelined – the aircraft grounded, many of the guided weapons facing significant reliability problems, and lasers and particle beams significantly degraded, among other problems – the game would begin with both sides fighting a broken-backed war until conditions changed.
The landing began with the crack, crack, crack of railgun shots, the roar of dozens upon dozens of missiles. While the storm was too much for the carriers and land-based air, the former making best speed on a reciprocal track, heading back towards Madagascar, away from the battlefield, and the latter safe in their hangars, waiting for the storm to clear and the time for the Initiative to become its own storm over the land.
G --- D --- I
I shall not Fear, for Fear is the mind killer
I shall not Doubt, for we are united in One Vision
I shall not Waver, for we have One Purpose.
I shall not Falter in my pursuit of PEACE THROUGH POWER!
- Azad Barzani, Confessor of the Black Hand.
YZ-1, Former Pakistan, Karachi
For Azad Barzani, the day began like any other. Wake up two hours before the rest of the men in his unit. Ritually wash his hands and face. Read over the orders and prepare a sermon to focus their minds to the task of preparing to face the invaders in battle. The third chapter of the Principia, Ad Officium would do nicely. Opening the well loved hardcover book, passed down to him from his teacher and annotated in three hands, he found the chapter:
On Duties
A child of the Brotherhood has three key duties. First, to their fellows, second, to their leaders, and third, to themselves.
. . .
First, thou shalt care for thine brother and sister. For a cord of three strands is not easily broken, and we seek to bind the evils of the world. Look after your fellow laborers in the Great Work, for they are the strength of the Brotherhood.
It is by hands joined in labor, as brothers and sisters that the wrongs of the world shall be righted.
In service to one's fellows, there are many virtues, and equally many flaws. The first is to never ask another to do what you cannot do yourself. The keystone of leadership is service, and the keystone of service is leadership.
It is a poor brother who asks others to do what they are unwilling to do themselves.
Second, thou shalt obey those ordained to lead. All are part of the Brotherhood, but to all things there is a time and a place. When you are young your place is to follow; when you have grown in wisdom, your time to lead shall come. Those who lead the flocks do so for the betterment of all, so honor and obey them so long as they walk the path of Righteousness.
Leadership is not a glory to be prized, but a burden to be carried. A leader is a chooser of the slain, and must bear witness to the consequences of their decisions. A leader is humble, for they hold duties both to their brothers above and below.
It is by choice that we are separated from animals. It is by choice that we may build a better world.
It was as he put down the book that he heard the thunder and watched the sky light with a false dawn as the Initiative came to fight.
G --- D --- I
North Atlantic Ocean, 48.547 N 14.931 W
"When shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning, or in rain?"
"When the hurly-burly's done, when the battle's lost and won."
"Brother Mike, Sister Jie, must you indulge in obsolete references nobody is around to hear?"
"Of course, my sibling, that's the best time!"
"And the Bard is never obsolete! You must admit that it's relevant, at least."
The twice-modified Falak-class submarine Jormungandr's interior was not short of cramped, hidden spaces, despite the best efforts of the refit crews. Most submarines have this problem, but rarely have anything worse than a still or contraband luxuries secreted away. However, most submarines don't have a trio of well-trained, highly-motivated saboteurs with a love of things that go 'boom' as part of their crew complement.
The first sign of trouble wasn't anything exploding, though, but the shift coming off-duty running to the toilets. Three off-duty sailors going missing in the rush is not unexpected, but significantly delayed the response to the unfolding events. The next few things going wrong were not noticed, until the corpse of a missing mechanic was discovered in a parts cabinet, at which point the situation evolved very rapidly.
Guards hurried through corridors, cursing narrow spaces. They, mostly, converged on vital areas - the bridge, the reactor spaces, the missile holds... but not every one was available, and not every one of those made it. Traps killed several, small mines concealed among conduits. More discovered to their displeasure that one of the damage-control lockers had been converted to the exact opposite.
The corridor filled with carnage, dark-clad shadowy forms dashed to one hatch, checking the seal, and then dashed to another, opening it and hurrying through. Cursing, they ran through a small chamber, placing a few items carefully. Preparing seized weapons and checking seals on masks, they dashed through hatches, dropping gas grenades to get through clumps of seamen, until they circled around to another hatch, this one less-thoroughly sealed.
The hatch opened, and the three dashed into a large room filled with cylinders, and a blaze of laser fire. Guards fell from return fire... but so did one of the infiltrators. Cursing, the remaining two dragged the third into cover, then tossed grenades to drive the remaining guards back into cover. Taking turns firing in one direction or another, they removed a maintenance hatch, and connected to a port a silvery box, which shortly after began blinking in an oddly cheerful sequence.
"If it were done when 'tis done, 'twere well it were done quickly," one muttered, and held up 3 fingers. The other nodded, while the third merely checked their weapon, and scooted further into the shadows. Smoke billowed out, and then two dashed back through the hatch they had entered the room from. The one remaining watched a display with three lights go to two, then one, and sighed.
She coughed wetly, and then pressed buttons on two separate devices. "Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we'll die with harness on our back." A moment later, the cheerful silvery box overrode programming, and started the rocket motor for the missile it was connected to. The wave of fire incinerated everything in the large chamber, leading to a chain reaction which broke open the pressure hull.
InOps internal communication: OPERATION BIRNAM MISSION SUCCESS REPORTED; TEAM IRRETRIEVABLE
G--- D --- I
YZ-1, Former Pakistan, Hindu Kush
"Brothers, let the Infidel know the fury of the Faithful!"
Warning klaxons blared, the whine buzzing through the operator's ears as carefully concealed mountain bunkers opened, their payloads extending skyward. They would soon face the Initiative's desperate fury: Ion strikes pouring down, melting their bunkers to slag and scrap. But it would avail them not.
Dozens of contrails streaked across the sky, soaring high above as the swept-back wings cut through the air on their fateful journey. Air augmented rocket engines roaring through the cloud cover, each driving forward a nuclear warhead. As they soared into the endless blue of the open sky, each punched through the sound barrier, vapor cones forming and just as quickly dispersing, artificial clouds forming around the missiles on their journey.
Bastion 16, Jeddah, Arabian Peninsula
Everything was on high alert, and had been for over forty eight hours at this point. H Hour was approaching, and if there was a time for incoming, it was now. If Al-Isfahani had as much of an arsenal as he was reputed to, it was time for him to show it. Most of the men and women staffing the Bastion were quiet, bursts of words sharp and worried, bursts of shattered glass reaching from mouths as they waited for the inevitable.
As the first radar tracks emerged from the Iranian Red Zone, the relief was palpable. No more uncertainty, no more worry. Only targets, and hope that their hard work these last months to bring the defense network to full functionality were worthwhile.
The first intercepts fell to the barrage hulk floating off the coast of Bahrain. A modified Arleigh Burke – its services as a ship no longer required, but spared from the breakers for the time being – simply anchored, with power lines run to shore and its systems slaved to a central FCS. Dozens of Thunderbolt missiles launched from surface boxes and dozens upon dozens of VLS cells aboard the hulk – a veritable storm of missiles streaked skyward, soon joined by a hail of railgun shot, blasting holes in the air all around the Shah's missiles. A handful fell out of the sky or exploded in midair, the payloads scattering downard in a hailstorm of shrapnel and particulate from direct hits.
For Bastions 15, 16, and 17, the first weapons to engage were Infernium lasers, their simultaneous fires catching the missiles in a deadly crossfire, swatting contact after contact out of the sky, with leakers then being engaged by CBL and railgun fires. Over the next fifteen minutes, the network engaged over sixty targets, and not a single one passed through the inner band of the perimeter defenses, let alone reached the FDF 1 and FDF 2 lines.
G--- D --- I
Siobhan Carter, Hampton Roads, Virginia, Blue Zone 2
Today was a day like any other. Go into work, spend the day supervising the swarms of robots and cranes unloading TEU after TEU from the ships, and loading others on. It was a dance, and she was the conductor for her little section of the world. Simple work, most of the time. Unless the Initiative wanted to shove another MEU or AEF through her port, it would be a slow day, filing paperwork and checking boxes.
Sister Julie, Falak class SSNL Unwavering Faith, just offshore of Hampton Roads
Sister Julie stood in the command deck of the Falak at ease, and around her passed the hushed, serious tones of her crew hard at work as they communicated the vital information each needed to perform their roles amongst themselves. Sonar hunched over, listening for the tell tails of Initiative propellers. Operations off to one side marking time. The hustle and bustle of a ship the size of a Falak was all around her, yet she stood apart.
Few places were ever truly prepared for a commando assault – 'certainly not in the opening hours of the Third Tiberium War,' she reminisced with a sly smile.
Her route into the port through a shipping container had been enabled by corruption. A small but important trickle smuggling food aid and weapons into the yellow zones, and in return, fit young women like she had been sponsored by well connected donors who were happy to arrange some alternate routes into GDI, strictly off the books.
'Well, not exactly like she had been; hardly like her at all really,' she mused with a smirk reminiscing on her intense training as a commando. She almost wished she could have followed that thread a little further, it would have been quite a shock to receive her compared to who and what they'd usually received through that connection. But her work in the war had been important, striking a crippling blow against GDI. Their work today was likewise of utmost importance.
Now, with InOps strengthened, corruption curtailed, and the entire GDI economy and its plutocratic society uprooted, that meant that particular entryway into the Blue Zone had long since been sealed. And even had it been possible to get someone ashore, multiple checkpoints and layers of security around the naval base and between sectors made moving with stealth all but impossible. Worse, heavier patrols – better armed and equipped than some two decades ago – meant that discovery would lead to a rather heavier response than bored conscripts stuck on garrison duty. The home guard alone were heavily supplied with vehicles, and while some wouldn't have been out of place among the technicals utilized by Nod's third and even fourth line forces, others were surplus military vehicles with armor and weaponry to match. Old, but more than service-ready. And as if that weren't enough, heavier responses could be called upon with far faster response times than those of the Third Tiberium War.
All of which added up meant that Sister Julie had zero intention of setting foot ashore, or of sending anyone else into the waiting jaws of GDI. The scalpel had its place, but well, Hampton Roads called for a sledgehammer.
Even getting into position had taken weeks of travel, and she hadn't even known where she would end up. One envelope with a set of coordinates, then to open the next set of orders once she had reached the first checkpoint. If no-one had known where they were going, or even if it was a mission at all rather than simply a training exercise meant no-one could leak their objective. Weeks of avoiding GDI patrols at sea, then – as they made the approach to the Eastern Seaboard of North America – avoiding mines and proceeding at a sluggish pace to avoid sonar. Now, practically in the bay of one of GDI's biggest dockyards – utterly critical for their carrier fleet and naval logistics – the final set of orders had been taken from a locked safe.
Nothing less than a nuclear strike against GDI, here at the heart of its power. She had read the orders twice, confirmed the authorisation codes, and grappled with the weight of her duty. It could have been worse, Tiberium shard missiles, higher yield nukes, dirty bombs… And it helped to soothe her conscience that it was a clear military target. Even so, this was no small thing. Yet the letter addressing her by name had been flawless in its logic.
GDI had broken the truce, they had been warned of the consequences in the wake of the Regency War, and now they sought 'one last victory' with the 'blessing' of several warlords who had contested with Al-Isfahani and given their tacit approval. But despite the approval of the Bannerjees, Yao, and even Bintang, others within the Brotherhood didn't agree. They might not even like the Atomic Shah. And yet, a line in the sand had been drawn, one that GDI had willingly breached. Perhaps they thought their defense network would protect them against the Iranian warlord. Perhaps it even would. Yet a reminder was in order, that he was not the only remaining nuclear power, much less greater weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, biological, and chemical. GDI had removed dozens of lesser warlords in the Regency War. Still, other warlords yet remained and they could not, would not, stand idly by while their own were picked off one by one.
GDI had been warned. And more than that, they could not be allowed to strengthen themselves at the cost of the Brotherhood. A rebalancing of the scales was in order Even if it came with a heavy price.
"Ma'am," an officer called, voice low. They could, if they wanted to, bark orders at the top of their lungs (the Falak hull was well soundproofed and no amount of noise they could make would vibrate through the hull) but communications discipline and tradition meant all discussion was hushed. "She's back."
As close as they could get to Hampton Roads, a GDI patrol craft – one of the new Sharks – lay between them and their target, lazily drifting in the middle of the night, engines idling, crew on watch. If it remained on its course, it would interdict the Falak's missiles, shooting down dozens of missiles during their most vulnerable period.
One of Julie's subordinates, a fellow commando, had been tasked for a final act of sabotage. As low-tech as possible, with no electronics beyond what was utterly necessary and no assisted- mobility gear, she had left the sub in a wetsuit and scuba gear, swam to the vessel, planted explosives, and returned. Mark One human muscle power, to give as little chance as possible of anything turning up on any scans.
And so, her fellow commando, in one final act of sabotage, had prepared the scene. Sister Julie nodded to her XO, and he winced and marched up to her and the final sealed order. Even now, a part of Julie hoped that this might simply be a drill, despite knowing in her heart of hearts that it was not. He opened the letter addressed to himself. Stilled, read it again, his eyes slowly moving across the page before he nodded and moved to the central console, pulling out a keycard from the chain around his neck.
"On my mark."
They performed the countdown, and inserted their keys together. Warheads armed. Things were moving fast and yet every moment seemed to drag on. Deep in the bowels of the ship, missiles and launchers received final checks. Six tubes, four missiles each. 24 warheads of differing payloads aimed directly at the enemy asset.
"Synchronize the det charge on the Shark," Sister Julie ordered. "No warning." The explosive sabotage and the missile strike would be performed as close together as possible to leave as little a window for GDI to react as possible. Someone brought a detonator and her XO held it thumb primed. Her own hand hovered over the big red button responsible for the nuclear salvo.
"Mark" she ordered. Her executive officer, to his credit, didn't hesitate and somewhere far above the Falak a plume of flame would erupt from the hull of the Shark frigate, water gushing into the breach. More charges would have guaranteed its total destruction, but on a strict time limit, just one had been placed. Detonating just as the missiles were making their way skywards.
The Shark shuddered and groaned, water filling it, grounding out electronics, damaging who knows what. Aboard the ship lights flickered as emergency generators roared into life. Despite the late hour of the night, despite the damage, despite the sudden shock of sabotage and combat, whatever else GDI might have been, its soldiers knew their duty well and leapt into action. Laser batteries erupting in a cacophony of light and screeching superheated air. Twenty-four missiles. One, two, three, four, shot down as several broke off, slamming against the side of the stricken vessel and tearing through its structure. One battery was shattered into a slagged melting heap of metal, glass and composites even as its siblings continued their rain of searing red fire into the night sky.
Some emplacements landside took down their own fair share of missiles as Julie's crew called out readings and information. Gantry cranes for cargo were damaged by debris, docked vessels struck without warning, alarms blared.
And above Hampton Roads naval base, an artificial sun appeared in the middle of the night. Deep beneath the waves Julie couldn't see it, but the sudden spike in readings told her exactly what had happened and she felt a cold dread in her gut, it almost seemed a physical wave had knocked her back and she could have sworn she could hear geiger counters lost amidst the noise of her crew at work.
0.41 seconds later it happened again, and if it seemed to take a moment longer to reach them than the first that was surely a trick of the mind.
That then, was that.
"Successful deployment," a voice uttered softly, Julie couldn't have said which crewmember it was. Considerable damage had been caused of course, less than there might have been, more than Julie had expected. Not only one, but two nuclear strikes.
There were no cheers. The atmosphere in the command room was grim. Professional. They were soldiers, doing a job. "That's the easy part done. The blasts will have shocked GDI's network and comms but our job is only half done. We still need to get home safe. Before GDI sends every ship in the Atlantic after us. Others will survey and analyze the damage. Move with a purpose."
"One vision! One purpose! One brotherhood!" Her crew called out in response, their vessel already turning, beginning their long journey home. GDI's response might be confused amidst the sudden, shocking violence, but Sister Julie intended to be long gone before it could get organized.
G--- D --- I
InOps internal report, infiltration mission Fafhrd, with attached media files.
Nod secret airbase, codename Eistla
0137 hours, local time: External overwatch in place, surveillance begins.
0203: Site perimeter breached by local specialist, codename Greymalkin, sensors suppressed.
-"Okay, handsome, the bypass is in place, we've got three minutes." A curvy figure in dark grey holds a wire up, disconnected from the fence posts it had been attached to. Several others passed under, before it was stuck back to the posts with a gummy substance.
0205: Intrusion team passes through outer security perimeter, interior overwatch in place.
0219: Barracks security systems subverted, lockdown contingency placed on hold.
-"Nyeh heh heh." "Stop it, you're creeping me out."
0224: Munitions depot located, intrusion attempt begins.
0246: Munitions depot intrusion attempt abandoned, entrance sabotaged.
0248: Hangar entrance secured, security subverted, guards diverted.
-"You set the kitchens on fire?" "Cooking oil and a shorted wire, smoke but no real fire, and it looks like bad maintenance."
0249: Greymalkin last seen by InOps personnel until exfiltration.
0252: Nozzles for fuelling aircraft located, team begins to emplace sabotage packages.
0305: Sabotage packages placed within fueling lines and tanks, set to autonomous activation. Absence of Greymalkin detected.
-"Fuck, where is she?" "Wait, is that a note on your back?" "[suppressed swearing]"
0311: InOps personnel exfiltrate to outer perimeter, locate Greymalkin.
-"He~y boys, had to take a side trip. The commander's office had a surveillance system override, and some pretty trinkets too."
0315: Exfiltration complete, external security systems back online.
0400: Local specialists debark transport.
-"Aww, don't be so scowly, I got you presents! They're under your seats."
-Attached are images of items purportedly retrieved from site commander's office, including cultural artifacts.
-"Sir, is that...?" "T. S. Eliot, yes, and a first edition."
Monrovia Fusion Yards, West African Blue Zone
The Team Leader surveyed the Monrovia Fusion Yards one last time, meticulously tracing the security perimeter around the compound with his night vision binoculars. His attention momentarily lingered on a group of guards manning one of the watchtowers, exchanging careless banter instead of maintaining vigilance. Weak, soft, undisciplined, embodying the complacency of those living pampered lives within the Blue Zones, their minds numbed by relentless, insidious GDI propaganda. Oh, how much he felt hatred for the imperialist machinations of the Initiative, hypocrites masquerading under the guise of noble intentions while ruthlessly seeking absolute dominion over humanity, Earth and beyond, eradicating all opposition in their path. Long days and nights of witnessing shuttles departing for and returning from the void has forged his disdain, ferrying materials to fuel GDI's insatiable thirst for conquest and expansion, each shipment further fueling the monuments to their arrogance orbiting in the sky.
They might believe their precious space stations to be out of reach of the Hand of Nod, but they were fools to think so. The followers of Kane would find a way, sooner or later. He had heard rumors of plans to reenact the destruction of the Philadelphia, to signal the start of a start of a great offensive to, if not push back the claws of the Eagle, then to poison their precious Blue Zones with the venom of the scorpion. Meanwhile, all the ground-based infrastructure they needed for their plan to leave this Earth behind was much more within reach, and it was time to remind them of that. He checked the device once more, smiling under his helmet when all lights lit green, the charge primed and synced to their heartbeats.
One of Mehretu's nuclear suitcases had been carefully smuggled deep into GDI territory for occasions like this. It was a dagger, intended to be thrust deep into the heart of the Initiative and remind them that despite everything, they were merely sheep in the dark, vulnerable to a patient and persistent predator lurking in the shadows.
"Shadow Team, with the wind, going cold," he ordered, and his loyal subordinates complied, extending their gliders and leaping off their vantage point, flying toward their target under the cover of darkness.
The Team Leader's heart raced despite the potent cocktail of calming drugs coursing through his veins, much to his frustration. There was nothing to fear; the Eagle's eyes would not spot them. They could erect as many walls, deploy as many automated turrets, watchtowers, sensor clusters, cameras, drones, and guards as they desired; all the eyes in the sky were useless when there was nothing to see. Suits and gliders crafted from advanced nanocomposites, brought about by the technology of peace and the wisdom of the Brotherhood's finest minds, rendered them all but invisible. The surface of the suit was connected to a short-duration but highly powerful cooling cell that rendered them undetectable even to thermal sensors against the night sky, albeit for a limited time.
It would be enough.
As they breached the security perimeter, it grew uncomfortably warm inside the suits, the searchlights rhythmically swinging left and right over them to no avail. The landing itself was unspectacular, a routine they had rehearsed hundreds of times in training. The Shadow Team closed their gliders to quietly descend atop one of the massive manufacturing halls, symbols of the Initiative's growing dominion over the stars. Each member was a dead man walking, having made peace with their fate in the name of Kane and the Brotherhood of Nod. Their final moments were spent positioning themselves to inflict the maximum possible pain.
What transpired from that point remains somewhat obscured. Eventually, facility guards raised an alarm, initiating sporadic fighting with the Shadow Team operatives and eventually cornering them. Complicating the creation of an accurate after-action report was the subsequent detonation of a portable nuclear device, claiming the lives of everyone within the vicinity of the firefight and injuring many others even at a distance. The shockwave and fireball alone vaporized two of the assembly yards instantly and damaged several nearby ones. The ensuing radioactive and Tiberium fallout led to further casualties, military and civilian, necessitating a complete evacuation of the facility and surrounding urban areas. The result was a significant loss of production until decontamination operations could be completed and damages repaired, rendering the Monrovia Fusion Yards non-operational for a minimum of six months.
—
Johannesburg Myomer Macrospinner, South Africa
The sun hung high above Johannesburg, casting its shine on yet another typical day under the clear blue sky, untouched by the looming threat of Tiberium. People carried on with their daily activities, unperturbed and tranquil, while under the vigilant gaze of the Global Defense Initiative and the imposing SADN towers, armed with weapon systems and radar dishes scanning the horizon for potential dangers.
However, the peace abruptly shattered, turning a seemingly good day sour in an instant. Later accounts from those residing in the launch trajectory would describe hearing a deafening roar akin to thunder, but for the inhabitants of Johannesburg, the first indication of the attack came with the sudden appearance of a second sun rising amidst them. The fireball from a nuclear explosion, measuring in the single-digit kilotons, engulfed the sprawling facility of the Macrospinner, its shockwave obliterating everything in its path until it morphed into a deceptively serene yet ominously deadly mushroom cloud, slowly expanding out of the devastation, promising the looming threat of lethal radiation. SADN had kicked into action mere moments before, failing to shoot it down in time.
The sounds of air raid sirens and emergency services cut through the silence that followed.
<<Record Hit, Captain.>>
<<Deviation from target?>>
<<Appears acceptable from sensor readings, but difficult to hit from this distance.>>
<<Perfect, all available power to the railcannon capacitors, load the next missile and continue bombardement.>>
A short while later, a second detonation erupted over the Macrospinner facility, casting a blinding and searing light that afflicted all who dared or were unlucky enough to witness it. SADN control immediately sprang into action, scrambling to analyze the unfolding situation and determine the source of the attack as another mushroom cloud grew into existence over the facility.
The third time, preparations had been made, or rather, the automated defense systems controlling the area had been primed. They swiftly adjusted into position to concentrate all sensor and weapon capacity into the most likely calculated direction of attack, intercepting the third hypersonic missile with precision. The contact disintegrated into a cloud of similarly hypersonic debris, causing radioactive shrapnel to rain down upon the neighboring area.
<<No detonation detected.>>
<<It appears the Initiative dogs have realized our presence. Irrelevant, continue bombardment.>>
<<Yes, Sir.>>
<<And watch the skies, I don't want to be surprised when their eagles come to take our victory from us.>>
Once more, railguns and lasers from numerous batteries illuminated the sky, unleashing a storm of destruction. This barrage intercepted the fourth missile, causing it to lose control and crash into a nearby hill, leaving a gaping crater in its wake. The fifth missile met a similar fate, disintegrating into a deadly shower of shrapnel that mercilessly tore through a vertical farming tower, claiming the lives of all workers within.
<<No detonation detected.>>
<<Still an excellent showing, give my thanks to the gunnery crew that they are making the brotherhood proud. It is because of their efforts that we will leave these Initiative dogs bruised and battered.>>
<<Our window for remaining undetected is closing, giving projections we will have two more shots.>>
<<Denied, we will remain until I order otherwise.>>
<<Sir?>>
<<First officer, do you really believe our mission is so limited as to destroy their precious macrospinner?>>
Missiles six and seven were turned into scrap over unpopulated areas.
<<I->>
<<Your vision is limited, First Officer, this is a demonstration of the Brotherhood might and reach. We must drill fear into these Initiative dogs, even if we have to risk our lives to do so.>>
Missile eight turned into a third mushroom cloud.
<<Record Hit, Captain.>>
<<Twenty-four warheads, we have twenty-four warheads to show them their arrogance. This is not a game of accurate shots and perfect aim, but one of mathematics. Rail-accelerated hypersonic missiles turn this fight into one of statistics, and we must show them that even with good odds like this they will lose eventually.>>
Missile nine suffered an engine failure and crashed into the ocean shortly after being launched from the Falak's main rail cannon.
<<Each time we make it past the Eagle's impenetrable shield, we win. Each missile that makes it through could have carried a warhead far larger and more powerful than these measly firecrackers given to us to destroy that facility.>>
<<Sir, we are not sure if the capacitors can handle this rough a handling.>>
<<Sir, we have radar contacts in their air, heading our way. Earlier than expected.>>
Missile ten turned into another mushroom cloud over the Macrospinner.
<<Record Hit, Captain.>>
<<Why are you surprised, my brothers and sisters? There is no place on the surface of this rotten world hidden from the all seeing eyes of the Eagle. They are above us, always watching, even as they struggle to find an orbital weapons platform to bring to bear on our location. This is the fight we must fight, I deny us the retreat until our means of bringing death have been exhausted. Ready for anti-air combat and return to your stations.>>
The next three missiles were intercepted.
<<This is our true mission, to remind these Initiative dogs that they are not invincible, that we have the means to take a thousand times a thousand lives with each strike. We could be striking their beloved Johannesburg right now with the all cleansing fire of the atomic age and there is nothing they could do to stop us.>>
A fifth nuclear detonation annihilated the main power transfer array for the macrospinner.
<<Sir, the starboard capacitors are overheating.>>
<<Impossible! Betrayal! Reroute reserve coolant and do a double heat cycle."
<<Sir, we have been running the systems too much already. We risk losing the ship if we push her any more.>>
<<GDI contacts are coming into firing range.>>
<<Sir, we completed our mission. Strat Analysis concludes the target is fully rendered inoperable with a chance of 89%. It is time to leave.>>
<<There will be a reckoning, First Officer, in Kane's name. But fine, the GDI has won this round, we shall return to the one place outside the Eagle's all-seeing vigil, the bottom of the oceans.>>
—
Iranian badlands, edge of Red Zone 3
"They're not happy!" Farah yelled over the thundering roar of the straining engine as they raced west through the desert dunes, bullets pinging of the titanium hull encasing them as the hiss and shriek of lasers screamed through the boiling air.
"Would you be?" Kalden asked back at her, his heavy foot all but glued to the floor pressing down on the accelerator, his eyes flickering among screens as he tapped out commands helping to direct the disco ball to shooting a pair of missiles that leapt from the chassis of the sleek, enclosed motorcycle that trailed them.
Compared to the labored, bestial rumbling of their own engine haphazardly repaired with scrap and spare parts that weren't quite good enough – the twin motorcycles following them were high-tech, even if the overall design hadn't changed much since the original iteration. Fast, powerfully armed with missiles, and surprisingly resistant to small arms fire the Brotherhood's motorcycles had been a mainstay for the fast moving faction, from warlords to raider gangs. The recon bike had seen service in every major conflict with the brotherhood. It was cheap, fast, deadly, and brutally effective. And of course, these bikes weren't alone.
"Why aren't they overtaking?" Markus called from the back where he was loading shells into a rotary grenade launcher. "They're faster."
"Don't have to." Aloysius murmured quietly, gesturing with a hand to the pack of Nod buggies and vehicles following their small convoy – a scattering of scrappy salvaged vehicles including former GDI armored personnel carriers, a pair of older Brotherhood buggies of their own, and more. Formerly-GDI Pitbulls among them spat missiles straight back, exchanging fire with their Nod pursuers and likewise seeing most missiles shot down by the lasers flashing between them. And of course, their own vehicle, a modified Reckoner with most of the infantry space swapped out for an array of electronics and weaponry to turn it into a modified command vehicle. "They know we're too slow to outrun them, so they can trail us and take potshots." Markus winced as a deep clang reverberated through the enclosed space, the result of a small explosion bursting against the outside of their hull.
Kalden watched as in response a burst of laser fire from one of their escorts focused on the recon bike responsible. The small bike's windscreen glowing a deep, dangerous red, it veered to the side and fell back to the rear of its pack, another of its fellows speeding up to take its place.
"At this rate we might just make it!" Markus yelled excitedly, seeing the same scene play out from a screen on the back, and as one three heads snapped round to glare at him.
You Never handed the universe a line like that.
And as if in response, one of the Nod buggies, a darker, bloodier red than the rest – likely coming to the same conclusion – began smoothly accelerating, a ripple flickering over it as it vanished from sight.
"Gonna kick your ass." Farah muttered to herself, straightening as much as she could in the (to her) cramped infantry bay and stretching with a roll of her shoulders as she unhooked an enormous railgun from the wall.
"Hook me," She spat out. Aloysius limped over to her tiredly and secured a line to her harness as she pressed a red button and one of the walls of the Reckoner slid open. Matter-of-factly, despite the bumps in the rocky wasteland, the lasers, bullets and missiles, Farah leaned out to the side, bare arms straining with muscle, and took aim as a dull electronic whine signified the railgun warming up, then – barrel aligned with another still-visible buggy – she pulled the trigger and advanced magnetic strips flung their payload at supersonic speeds front and center to the pursuing vehicle.
To say the raider buggy was destroyed was an understatement. To a human's eyes it seemingly obliterated it in a sudden explosion of tearing metal, flying into the air, rolling, shattered and broken scattering pieces of body and fragments of metal across the landscape. Were you able to see the impact in slow motion it would have appeared that at the point of contact between the dense railgun slug and the hood of the vehicles, the front end of the buggy imploded in on itself, wrapping around the slug, before the engine block tore itself apart and a spray of shrapnel was blasted back, into the vehicle itself, and through all its occupants before being blasted out of the newly opened hole in the back. Leaving behind scrap and parts. And causing what remained still attached to the vehicles to collapse in on itself, hit the ground and bounce before spinning and dashing itself to pieces.
Breathing heavily and with a fierce grin, the large Forgotten woman leaned back inside the Reckoner and placed the weapon back on its wall mount.
"Whoa," Markus breathed out, having never seen the ex-GDI weapon more commonly mounted on tanks used before.
"Don't get too excited. We only had the one shot, " Farah grunted. And it was true, the ammo for the gun could only be obtained from GDI – hyperdense space alloy slugs weren't exactly something the Forgotten could just whip up in a garage. Beyond that it drained the Reckoner's reserves of energy quite heavily, even if they had more than the one physical slug, a second shot would all but completely empty their energy reserves, leaving their home stranded.
Alas, they weren't to have everything their own way. As if in response to their attack the stealthed buggy reappeared, next to one of the Forgotten's own. Too close for the Forgotten buggy to bring its lasers to bear, a wild-faced, glowing-eyed figure leapt from the Nod buggy and clung on, they looked skywards and a moment later exploded into an inferno of roaring green flames as Nod's stealth buggy veered away.
With a roar and a yell Markus leapt to his feet and rushed to the still-open door, Farah forced to hang onto his back so he didn't pitch out as he wildly loosed the grenade launcher's entire magazine at the buggy. It veered wildly, but an explosion struck a front wheel, and the buggy – still careening forwards – began slewing drunkenly to the side, obviously no longer in control. A black clad figure leapt from the stricken vehicle and up in the air, face and body concealed by a pitch black motorcycle helmet and tight-fitting bodysuit. Wings unfurled, jets at their feet boosted the jump and the Nod Shadow landed on another undamaged buggy, knelt atop it and turned their hidden gaze to focus on them.
The buggy the Shadow landed on was not as high tech as its damaged cousin spinning to a halt somewhere behind them, damaged, but not destroyed. The new buggy put on speed, lasers flashed at them from another Forgotten vehicle – one of the ex-GDI Guardians – but with the bumpy, rocky ground and the high speed most missed. The Shadow's head turned towards the offending vehicle and with another jet-assisted jump they landed atop the APC. They drew a sword and slashed, the vibrating blade parting the turret from the vehicle's hull and leaving it to fall to the ground behind them. The crew of the Reckoner could only watch in horror as one of their clan members opened the hatch at the top of the APC, shooting wildly. Most of the shots missed, and the one that hit only drew sparks from the shadow's armored bodysuit as the bullet bounced off, then in an impossible blur they darted forwards and were inside the armored personnel carrier.
Some rounds from within blasted holes in the side, and then there was a sudden chill silence, hails over the radio ignored before their worst fears came to pass and the silent black-clad figure stood atop the slowing Forgotten vehicle once more, casually hopping to rejoin the speeding Nod buggy as it came alongside, as casual as if they were taking an evening stroll.
"Crystal damn those shadow ninjas," Farah spat out in frustration. More losses of good men and women, their mission to destroy a nuclear launch bunker a success, but at what cost?
"Guys, we're almost code red," Kalden called out. Markus sat weeping on the floor quietly, Farah hissing in anger next to him. The only one of them silent was Aloysius, knelt on the ground in silent power eyes aglow as the power of the crystal was gathered within him.
The last few minutes of the chase were dimly remembered. Flashes of laserfire, the rattle of bullets. One close call as a Nod missile was caught by their disco ball at the last moment – a rain of shards embedding themselves into the heavily armored Reckoner hull, propelled by a powerful Tiberium core explosion.
A Forgotten buggy blasted missiles at the Nod buggy bearing their shadow warrior, but the buggy's own laser turret unerringly shot down every missile. Farah allowed herself to hope that one explosion, very close might have hit them, but when the smoke cleared the ninja was still standing, having sped straight through the flames and she could almost imagine the figure within smirking.
Then, at last, Aloysius stood, casting off his robe – bare chest revealing tattoos and a swirl of crystals, embedded in, or perhaps growing from, his flesh, sparks jumping between them as the Forgotten's eyes were lit with a fell green light.
In the Red Zone around them, crystals pulsed in time with the shaman's heartbeat, and clouds gathered overhead. And with a yell, greenish arcs of lightning tore into their pursuers. Nod vehicles blasted to molten-glowing scrap, the ground itself churning as it was blasted apart by streams of energy. And throughout the wasteland the howl of the roaring winds was joined by the howls of beasts. A Nod recon bike – wildly serpentining to try and avoid the death coming from above – had no chance when what at first appeared to be an outcropping of crystals shook itself from its slumber, stood up as a vaguely bear-shaped mass the size of a van, and plowed into the bike from the side, knocking it over crashing into a field of shattering crystals even as the monster's claws tore into the soft hull to get at the meaty insides.
Nod got the hint. The Red Zones were the Forgotten's world, and trespassers weren't welcome. The last glimpse behind them for Farah was a view plagued with static and interference, but front and center, the black-clad Shadow staring after them, even as the buggy turned to flee abandoning the chase.
G--- D --- I
GDI landing zone, Sonmiani Bay, Pakistan
The march was slow, and silent. Willis Graham was unsure which was thicker, the air inside the helmet, or the water outside. Arrayed out behind him were the other members of his pioneer team, and then behind them, arrayed out in a skirmish line were the members of the Fifth Armored's infantry complement, ready for the long trek to the beach. The first step had been to clear the defenses below the waterline, between floating and pole mines, and the so-called "Belgian gates", designed to unbalance incoming hovercraft, and rip up the skirts. While clearing all of them would be near impossible, even if GDI had days instead of minutes, there was enough time to begin clearing pathways.
The underwater silence was cut through in seconds as the pioneer team stormed up out of the surf onto the beach proper; the overcast, stormy beach was lit with a bright false dawn, as lasers, railguns, and particle beams blazed out in a crossfire bright enough to blind unprotected onlookers. Graham's rifle was at his shoulder as he charged onward, battery pack ticking down with every step.
"Let's go, troopers!" he called, arm pointing towards one of the bunkers, a gatling gun pouring a constant stream of tracers down into the Initiative ranks.
Lasing the bunker, Willis became a spotter. "Bunker, Golf Two mark Delta Nine." Seconds later, a railgun shot from one of the ships tasked to fire support screamed in and gutted the concrete structure in a momentary blue-white flash tracing out to the ship that fired it. Up and down the beach, other railgun shots and missiles were taking their own toll. Bunker after bunker stopped firing down on the beach as the Initiative found them.
Even so, the landing was costly; for every meter, battle suits stumbled and fell, many cored out, with the trooper inside dead or gasping out their last breaths.
G--- D --- I
Marker, Call, Fire.
Two railguns rock back into their chassis, hypersonic bolts screaming out over the horizon. Autoloaders slammed home new bolts, and the capacitor banks hummed, drawing power from the ship's generators.
The sailors aboard the GDIS St. Helens performed few tasks that would really be recognizable by their century-previous spiritual ancestors aboard the USS Missouri during the Korean War, but the overall evolution would be entirely familiar. Main guns are now entirely fed by autoloaders, with no propellant needed for the railguns, and the turrets are empty of sailors while firing, but the overall rhythm of locating and servicing targets would be quite familiar.
The heavy seas, high wind, radiative interference, and occasional Tiberium particulate all reinforced the standard practice for GDI sailors to stay below decks during combat operations, when possible. When possible, maintenance robots were sent out to clear debris, or use sonic tools to remove Tiberium adhesions. As time went on, and complications mounted, sailors occasionally needed to venture out onto the deck, carefully enclosed in protective gear and better-roped than many mountain climbers.
Lulls in the storm were seized to replenish the ship's magazines from available supply ships, both for railgun ammunition and missiles. However, such ships were not always available, because of factors including Nod raiders, the weather, maintenance casualties, or other less common factors. And, of course, even in calm seas transferring massive quantities of ordnance is not precisely easy. It is a task that sailors are trained for, practiced in, and familiar with, but it still involves two ships which are moving independently and unpredictably in three dimensions, at the best of times.
But all of these are, to a large degree, solved problems, because the ultimate end is delivering high-velocity explosives to a very specific point, when they are needed.
Marker, Call, Fire.
G --- D --- I
The initial beach assaults went about as well as could be expected; even with the entire force making the assault in power armor, it still took about four hours of heavy fighting, with multiple battalions being rendered combat ineffective before GDI's right flank secured defenses along the Hub river, and linked up with the forces assaulting the other side of the river at Goth Manjar. Goth Manjar was critical for another reason, as its marina served as home base for the mosquito fleet that had been lobbing nuclear-tipped close attack missiles towards the Initiative fleet since they had begun their final turn towards Karachi.
The CAMs had struck a horrific toll, with two Initiative battleships sunk, a further two forced to return home, making an emergency five kilometers an hour as they began their limp back to port. A Shark, with a modernized laser system, had been blown completely apart, with no survivors.
From there, now with a beachhead mostly secure, the heavy assets – especially tanks – could be brought in in serious numbers, and, most importantly, the supply ships could move in and begin making deliveries to the troops, without the intermediary of hover and landing craft that in many cases were having difficulties with the waves stirred up by the ion storm.
Launching up to the ridges saw even more heavy fighting, with the initial Initiative infantry assaults repulsed with heavy losses. The second, supported by armored fighting vehicles, was more successful, putting the Initiative on the first ridge, and from there, able to rake fire across the counter-offensives with fire from the military crest.
G --- D --- I
The initial landing around the Hub River Dam was one of the most chaotic and deadly parts of the operation. When planned, the goal was simple: land between the Hub River dam and the Kuraro Nadi, use the waterways to create a defensible position, and hold the dam until relieved. It was a daring operation to begin with, but one that was compromised before it was even launched. With air and airborne support both canceled due to the ongoing ion storm, the operation went from a risky strike with significant tactical advantage, to an utterly chaotic nightmare.
As soon as the drop hit the atmosphere, the winds, electrical and sensor disruptions, and the Brotherhood's attempts at defensive operations, all combined to create utter chaos. Rather than concentrating the OSRCT in a small pocket with supplies, munitions, and spare power armors, the drop was scattered over a circle with a roughly twenty kilometer radius, everywhere from the edges of Karachi itself, to ridgelines overlooking Sonmiani Bay.
The sheer chaos makes the fighting difficult to describe. For Sierra Towey, the action began on the outskirts of Karachi itself – her squad's drop pod failing to activate its secondary maneuvering thrusters and performing a lithobraking maneuver through an apartment building. Fortunately, she was able to escape the pod, and the building, along with the vast majority of her squad, despite being knocked around.
Moving north at the bounce, using jet packs to traverse open areas, the squad ran into the rear of a unit of six old-style Brotherhood Scorpion tanks, with the 105mm rifles. Repeated railgun shots eliminated four before they could reorient to bring her squad under fire. A fifth died as its first round flew high. The sixth laid canister shot into the squad, wounding or killing half their number just before Sierra and one of her squadmates laid rounds through the crew compartment.
Dragging the surviving wounded into a nearby building, Sierra and her squad had little choice but to bunker down, hold out, and wait for the rest of the Initiative army to show up. It would, but far too late for the wounded in her squad, and her people were soon forced to fight as riflemen, propping up the chemical weapons in the squad on makeshift bipods and tripods to stabilize them, rather than fighting from inside their drained suits of power armor.
G --- D --- I
By the end of the first day, GDI was firmly ashore, and while the OSRCT had been rendered nearly combat ineffective as a unit, it was in most cases quickly amalgamated into other ground forces, their own platoons and companies filling holes in larger battalions and brigades, readying for the major combats to come.
Many of Al Isfahani's shock reserves, including two battalions of new-generation human cyborgs, had made a night march, positioning themselves to launch into GDI lines from the north by dawn on the second day.
Much of the day's early fighting was attempting to dislodge GDI forces from the Hub river, getting operations close enough to destroy the dam and flood most of the terrain, which would wash away GDI strong points and the docks being used to bring men and material ashore. The first assault was turned back, railguns and now entrenched tanks proving to be too much for the cyborgs, launched headlong into an entrenched battle line, supported by deadly fire from the ships. The second however, proved much more successful, as many of the ships were reduced to simply providing naval gunfire support, their missile tubes nearly emptied in the first day's fighting.
The cyborgs, for the most part, seem to be a downgrade of the Marked of Kane's Enlightened pattern, trading out particle weapons for lasers and kinetics. While some few, mostly leaders, carried the particle beams, distinctive blue streaks marking their positions for counterfire, the vast majority were armed more simply. Especially given the quality of the work, this seems to be a result of the Bannerjees choosing to give Al-Isfahani an inferior breed, rather than a mark of the Brotherhood as a whole falling behind.
While they failed to reach the dam proper, the troops got close enough to begin laying fire into the structure, damaging it enough to force an Initiative withdrawal from the port against the possibility of a cascading failure, and a return to over-the-beach operations.
G --- D --- I
It took another two days for Initiative forces to be ready to strike towards Karachi itself, and in this time another two Initiative battleships took nuclear strikes. Neither were sufficient to sink them, but both were required to withdraw due to the damage.
As the Initiative pushed into the city, the Shah's forces had, for the most part, already retreated, but not before turning the advance into a crawl through minefields, booby traps, and crossfires of automated turrets, backed by old style Gana, expended in doomed attacks to disrupt the Initiative advance. At the same time, the port facilities were sabotaged, with port facilities set to be destroyed by a nuclear landmine.
Willis Graham found himself on the leading edge of the advance once more. His squad, now half made up of boys and girls from the OSRCT, pushed up, from building to building, providing bounding cover with another pair of squads.
It was a grueling slog, the danger of any individual threat outweighed by the constant need for awareness of possible threat from every direction. The advance continued through the remains of the city, all too aware that the timetable was slipping further, and that the cost for making up those delays was measured in precious lives.
G --- D --- I
However, it was in the north that things began to seriously bog down, as Initiative and Brotherhood forces skirmished on the road to Hyderabad. Essentially a fighting retreat for the Brotherhood, every few hundred meters of road there was a quickly deployed minefield, an enfilade, something to slow the Initiative down.
One of the new weapons was a shoulder mounted laser cannon. Designed around a set of Infernium prisms, rather than a continuous lasing rod, the shoulder fired cannons are, for the most part, distinctly oversized, but the prismatic array seems to have dealt with one of the more significant problems of Infernium laser systems, producing a much shorter firing delay compared to the standard. Captured specimens of the laser cannons have also been appropriated by the Initiative troops in many cases, rather than being sent to the back for engineering, specifically to spread heavy point defense assets around. With the troops attempting to advance under a rain of nuclear shells, the field-designated "Avenger" variant of the Pitbull, mounting four of these cannons onto an external turret, and using that to blast incoming fire out of the sky.
More than nuclear salvos, more than anything else, the Initiative forces were choked off by the iron laws of logistics. A kilometer's advance can be measured in shells, in tons of ablat-plates, in liters of fuel, and a hundred other ways, but that cost has to be moved from ship, to shore, to the main force inland; and making matters significantly worse was the Treasury's own construction battalions beginning to move ashore. Unlike the military battalions, which had been trained and equipped for over-the-beach operations, civilian ones are not. Instead, they, and all of the supplies that they needed to do things like construct medical facilities, port facilities, all of the things that in the long run would make the drive logistically cheaper, had to go through the same port facilities as much of the material to support the advance.
The Treasury had pre-positioned a great deal of material in advance, which would have been very useful if significantly more optimistic projections had been borne out. However, with the invasion running according to a slower schedule, there were warehouse complexes full of construction materials and equipment which otherwise might have been usable for resupply of ammunition and spare parts.
A/N: Sorry this took so long everyone. Life decided to seriously happen. Hopefully the next couple entries can come out this month, as they already have substantial numbers of words written.
A/N2: Buy ithillid a Coffee. ko-fi.com/ithillid as always, link. It does always help.
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I mean, strategically, things are going alright. the offensive slowed but they broke out the Nukes real early and didn't drop it on the advance or on population centers, they largely were used as terror tactics and industrial denial.
Our Drop companies got savaged but they did their jobs as new age paratroops.
Our Drop companies got savaged but they did their jobs as new age paratroops.
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- Location
- Washington DC
Well that went...less than optimally. Big ouch. I guess it was too much to hope for Nod intel to not know when we were coming and counter us immediately. I'd hoped for better from our counter intel, though honestly, stopping a boomer with sealed orders is kind of basically just a question of luck.
Having the ion storm catch us by surprise hurts. A lot. To the point that I'm unsure if it's 'surprise' or 'Surprise! We can summon ion storms!'.
Discovering that the Nod sub fleet is indeed big and capable and nasty is...not particularly surprising. Also, Nod Atlantis still definitely possible, definitely a nightmare too.
Having the ion storm catch us by surprise hurts. A lot. To the point that I'm unsure if it's 'surprise' or 'Surprise! We can summon ion storms!'.
Discovering that the Nod sub fleet is indeed big and capable and nasty is...not particularly surprising. Also, Nod Atlantis still definitely possible, definitely a nightmare too.
- Location
- his hidden lair
Honestly that just seems to underline the utter ineffectiveness of the SADN. It wasn't even on as of H-Hour at Johannesburg and I bet you those railgun launched missiles aren't that much faster than the 7/kms a conventional ibcm is known to achieve on final approach. It just seems another example of an idiot ball rather than impressive enemy. An over the horizon, railgun accelerated nuke is impressive but would have been a lot less dangerous if SADN was actually on, and if we weren't stupid enough to not have any Ion cannons covering major critical GDI infrastructure
I'd be more interested in the concept if we ever commit to nuclear deployments of our own, but any heavy ordinance of ours has the magical property of never being available outside of a single set piece battle. None of the ion cannons seemed to have been in position for intercepting or punishing nuclear strikes on critical infrastructure. Even if they had failed to intercept missiles, the fact we had no response to a Falak revealing itself and going nuclear despite dominating the orbitals with kill sats feels incredibly frustrating.
I understand it's hard to write a story if 'the good guys proceeded to smite you with orbital fire the moment you showed up to fight them' but it would be nice if we saw NOD making a mistake and running into a ion cannon they really didn't think would be there. As is, a bunch of GDI's cool stuff just feels like it never shows up.
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- Location
- Northish
Getting real tired of Nod being able to basically walk up to our critical areas with nukes despite years of fornication and investment in security. Where are our giant constellations of orbital ion cannons, sonar nets, and such? We should be able to melt most these problems but I struggle to find a single instance when our ion cannons actually accomplished anything.
- Location
- Somewhere in the area
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
I mean, we've had Stealth Disruptor Tech sitting on the docket for practically the entire quest without being touched. All the defenses in the world don't matter if you can't see where the enemy is hitting you from.
I'm torn on that ion storm. On one hand, it grounded our air support. On the other hand, it almost certainly also grounded the air branch of the Shah's nuclear triad.
As for the Johannesburg strike, it felt like the shots were been lobbed more "terrain skimming" than typical strikes, and may have been hard to spot on sensors when that SADN location may have been expecting high altitude incoming that would've given more warning for getting the systems online for intercept. And they rallied pretty well, given that they intercepted the third, fourth, and fifth shots. I'm not going to be angry over the systems not being fully online, because you don't keep critical defense systems fully online 24/7 without causing additional maintenance issues (that's why you have great sensors so you can detect the incoming further out and can pop systems online from standby). I'd expect that they were ready for ground or air based strikes, rather than sea based ones from a different direction, and so weren't quite looking the right direction. And again, despite getting caught out looking the wrong way, they still pivoted and started intercepting before more than two strikes landed.
As for concerns regarding Nod getting into various areas... defense has to work 100% of the time. Infiltration only has to work well enough once. We don't see the hundreds or thousands of times Nod infiltration attempts failed. We do see a handful of the generally more successful attempts.
As for the Johannesburg strike, it felt like the shots were been lobbed more "terrain skimming" than typical strikes, and may have been hard to spot on sensors when that SADN location may have been expecting high altitude incoming that would've given more warning for getting the systems online for intercept. And they rallied pretty well, given that they intercepted the third, fourth, and fifth shots. I'm not going to be angry over the systems not being fully online, because you don't keep critical defense systems fully online 24/7 without causing additional maintenance issues (that's why you have great sensors so you can detect the incoming further out and can pop systems online from standby). I'd expect that they were ready for ground or air based strikes, rather than sea based ones from a different direction, and so weren't quite looking the right direction. And again, despite getting caught out looking the wrong way, they still pivoted and started intercepting before more than two strikes landed.
As for concerns regarding Nod getting into various areas... defense has to work 100% of the time. Infiltration only has to work well enough once. We don't see the hundreds or thousands of times Nod infiltration attempts failed. We do see a handful of the generally more successful attempts.
cryptoam
building an 1980s encrypted protocol
- Location
- in lockdown waiting and bored...
There were many successful launches and they were not traditional "lobbed" quasiballistic shots but more akin to terrain skimming systems. If it were not for SADN interfering, we would be seeing significantly higher losses(imagine what would have happened had every sucessful launch that wasn't engaged at the site of launch been a hit?). The damage may have enough to make this entire invasion an outright failure strategically in just the first exchange in that case.
Keep in mind that our orbital assets have only limited effectiveness against anything endoatmospheric(so very depressed trajectory hypersonics, infiltrator nukes, and cruise missiles are not valid targets). Also keep in mind that NOD puts considerable effort into their ability to hold at threat GDI targets using the delivery methods available to them and develops those capabilities with focus on the defenses that said targets would have.
Honestly, I'd say this wasn't too bad of a showing. Yes, we got hit hard in multiple places and defenses were less than ideal but all things considered, we came off fairly lightly.
Actually, the SADN was very effective.
Like, the ICBMs? None of those got past the outer perimeter lines of Jedda, and Jedda was the primary target of the nuclear strikes. Nod's successes are notable, to be sure, but they all required dedicated, strategic assets, deployed extremely closely to their targets to permit the absolute minimum response time. And in each of the cases shown, more than half the nukes didn't actually detonate, with the SADN, once active, cutting down nearly everything.
As for retaliation at the launch facilities, take a look at this part;
The ICBM silos certainly expected that the moment they pushed the buttons, GDI would hammer the launch sites with ion strikes.
GDI is also not going to deploy nukes of their own. Ion strikes work just fine, have similar yields, and in those rare cases there is an ion inhibitor active, well, those things are expensive and orbital command does have other options.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The SADN systems are quite recent installations, and do not necessarily have perfect systems availability or synchronization. It looks as though the Johannesburg SADN sites were, importantly, not at maximum readiness around H-Hour, and that was extremely embarrassing, but we note that SADN seems to have contributed to mitigation of the damage at Hampton Roads. So that may be a problem with the Joburg garrison in particular, or with them being downgraded in priority and only getting their SADN sites physically built a few months ago and still undergoing systems integration.
Also, a railgun-launched missile may not be faster than an ICBM reentry vehicle, but it's coming in at a much flatter trajectory. Unlike an ICBM, which would have been tracked for minutes before entering the engagement range of the SADN terminal intercept defenses, these missiles may well only be visible for much shorter periods of time, and are coming in from vectors the system was not prepared to intercept.
Of the major instances of reasonably successful WMD attacks on GDI facilities here, let us consider what we've seen:
1) Falak attack on Hampton Roads
2) Shadow team attack on Monrovia
3) Falak (???) attack on Johannesburg
An ion cannon is not going to be very effective against a Falak, as it is submerged. An ion cannon is worse than useless in trying to deal with a facility being infiltrated by shadow teams with backpack nukes; the phrase "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" comes to mind.
We didn't see GDI ion cannons being deployed in the fighting around Karachi, and that frankly is the thing I missed the most. That, logically, is where we'd see significant use of both preplanned and reactive ion cannon fires.
Or that happened to a significant extent off-screen, because Ithillid can't write infinity combat scenes.
GDI's strategic strike arm is called 'we have a constellation of orbital death rays called ion cannons with kiloton yields'.
- Location
- New England, State of Confusion
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I for one would like to say that the response of using strategic nuclear weapons is one that would only make things worse for us in the long run, as well as being an escalation that leads to the already battered population of humanity suffering another series of body blows to both morale and raw numbers. Nuclear war is not something I want us to feed into.
A worldwide nuclear first strike is an escalation unseen even at the height of Tib War 3. That is us openly declaring, by action if not intent, that we are meaning to wipe out Nod, civilian casualties be damned. And besides being morally repugnant as a concept, it burns the chance of a successful long-term peace or re-integration post-war.
A worldwide nuclear first strike is an escalation unseen even at the height of Tib War 3. That is us openly declaring, by action if not intent, that we are meaning to wipe out Nod, civilian casualties be damned. And besides being morally repugnant as a concept, it burns the chance of a successful long-term peace or re-integration post-war.
Theunderbolt
"Prepare for trouble..."
- Location
- USoA
Well an uninspiring start to the Karachi offensive...
Nottheunmaker
Altman be praised
- Location
- USG Ishimura
No, because we don't want MAD, we want to win. There's no winning if all we win is glass sand.
That said, this hurt, but we're accomplishing objectives. We knew what we were getting into with this. I'd be disappointed if Nod couldn't do this much, and wonder why we hadn't been pushing harder if Nod couldn't slow us down and hit back.
- Location
- The Underdark
If the weather had not been crap, you would have. The issue is that when the entire battlefield (effectively) has OSRCT troops on it, you are not going to be unleashing your multikiloton death rays.