Malikov sat in his office alone. He was currently nursing a headache, hoping it would go away before he had to meet with his advisors.
Keeping the Novinka gate a secret was tiring job. There were fake documents that concealed the true reason so much military equipment was being sent to Novinka, falsified stories of battling cults, and of course, the constant and blatant lies that Malikov had to feed the press. None of this came easy.
The press hadn't stopped hounding him since his last press conference. Everywhere he went, the number one question was always about Novinka.
The internet was wild with speculations and insane conspiracies. It didn't help that there were images taken by satellite of the gate in Novinka. Sure, they had claimed it was photo-shop, they said it was falsified, they censored it as well as they could. It didn't make the photos any less real.
Yet in spite of all the hassle it caused them, the Special Region was a literal gold mine. Yesterday, surveyors had found both oil and rare mineral deposits in the Special Region. It was an untapped land, ready to be exploited by Russian corporations.
The problem was, they'd never be able to conceal all of the equipment being sent in and the resources being brought out. There wouldn't be anyway to justify moving hundreds of tons of minerals and crude oil out of what they had stated to be an active combat zone. If they wanted to exploit the resources, they'd first have to make it public that Novinka was the site of a gate.
So for the time being, the Special Region would remain untapped.
President Malikov took a deep breath and swallowed a pill. There was a lot of work to be done before they'd get any benefits. He hoped it'd be worth it.
Caelia gripped her head in frustration, the villagers from Elna were useless. Not a single on of them knew what had destroyed their village, saying that they had fled their homes days before. Some claimed it was the gods, but she doubted that. Caelia needed to find the true source of the destruction.
She needed to find the Masked Men.
So far, Caelia had nothing but rumors to go off. Imperial deserters claimed that the Masked Men had slaughtered them in a large battle, but none of them ever went into detail. All they had said was that the men came from another world with powerful magic. Caelia took everything they told her with a grain of salt, she never trusted an Imperial.
Her heavy armor clinked against her longsword as she walked through the mess of wagons and campfires. It was all she had left. She'd run out of coin a week ago during her search. Caelia used to have a horse, but not anymore. She'd sold it to a villager yesterday in exchange for food. Now, in addition of not knowing where to go, she also didn't know how she was going to transport herself.
This had all just been a waste of time and resources. Now, she was stranded with a bunch of refugees. Her, a veteran mercenary, stuck with some peasants who'd never even seen a sword. All Caelia could do was shake her head and endure the humiliation.
She had one last thing to do. After that, Caelia would see if she was truly as fucked as she believed herself to be.
Walking far away from the main camp, she approached a small clearing that was lit up by the setting sun. Let's hope they didn't skimp out on the deal.
"I'm here, with everything as promised."
A tall man came out from the woods wearing a mix of Imperial and custom made armor. He grinned at her with a mouth missing several teeth. Several other men had followed him into the clearing.
"The jewels?"
"Right here." She said holding up a completely full bag. "Five emeralds, taken straight from the cold dead hands of a former lord."
The bandit's grin grew larger as Caelia held up the bag. He walked forward to take the bag from her. In response, Caelia yanked it back.
"Not yet, first my payment."
Looking rather annoyed, the tall man fumbled around in one of his pouches before he pulled out a small item. It seemed to be made of brass and was about half the length of one of Caelia's fingers. Her first sight of an other worldly item.
She stepped forward and handed over the bag, taking her prize in the other hand. Quickly, Caelia tucked it away in one of her pouches. She prepared herself for what would come next.
The bandit peered into the bag and squinted. "Eh? What the fuck is this?! These aren't em-."
He had been too focused on the bag to notice that Caelia had drawn her longsword. A fatal mistake.
The other bandits watched as their leader's head slid off his body.
Caelia was quick to face the other bandits. There were four more of them, each drawing their selected weapon of choice. None of them had anything more than some padding for armor.
One of them gathered his courage. He charged forward, axe in hand, and swung at Caelia's head. It was a crude and no doubt effective move, but it was basic and only worked on inexperienced fighters. Caelia was not inexperienced.
In one continuous movement, she brought her blade up to parry the axe to the side before making a slash into his neck, opening a wide gash in it. The man fell back, choking on his blood.
Caelia felt a thud impact on her back plate of her armor. One of the other bandits had tried to stab her in the back with a short sword. She was fortunate that plate armor wasn't easily pierced by swords.
Immediately, Caelia retaliated with a thrust of her own. The blade pierced through the man's padded armor and skewered him in the chest.
Caelia yanked her blade out of the dead man. She could see the remaining two were having second thoughts about fighting her. All they needed was a little shove.
"I'll give you a generous offer. Get the fuck out of here and I won't kill you." Her smile was illuminated by an orange glow, given off by the setting sun. "Sound fair?"
That did the trick. The two men immediately started running through the woods.
Caelia took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. She always got jittery after a fight. The adrenaline slowly left her body and Caelia was able to stop her fingers from shaking. Fumbling around her pouches for a moment, she pulled out the piece of brass that she had just killed for.
It looked like this wasn't a complete failure after all. She still had no idea where to go and no means of transportation, but at least she had proof that the Masked Men weren't just rumors.
A side effect of this encounter was that Caelia was no longer broke. With the bandit's money, she'd be able to afford a warm meal from the Elna's villagers. Mhmm... a warm meal by a campfire sounds just about right.
The BTR-82A was by no means a quiet vehicle. It was a fantastic machine in many regards, but it was not built for any sort of stealth. Because of this, it was no surprise when Viktor found the entire camp gathered to watch the BTR drive into their makeshift home.
He sighed as the horde of people ran to where he'd ordered the driver to park. This many people was a serious threat, who knew how many Imperial soldiers were disguised in the crowd. While Viktor severely doubted any hostiles would be capable of harming them while inside the BTR, you couldn't exactly introduce yourself from the inside of an armored vehicle. Viktor knew they'd have to dismount.
"Alright everybody, masks up. I don't think any of them have cameras, but we can't take any risks." He pulled up his balaclava while he spoke. The rest of the squad followed suit. Viktor looked through his periscope once more. "Igor, you pop out of the top hatch with your RPK. Be ready to gun down anyone who gets too close."
"Understood, sergeant." He said with a yawn.
"Demian, Alina, you're coming with me outside." They both nodded in confirmation.
"The rest of you, open the firing ports and be ready to fire. I hope this will go well, but we have to prepare for everything." Viktor said with a sign.
Everyone got into position, ready to do as Viktor had told them. Taking a deep breath, Viktor opened the side hatch and stepped outside.
Behind him, he could hear the top hatch open and Igor positioned his RPK. The firing ports on the side all simultaneously opened and the muzzles of several Kalashnikovs pointed out. Viktor opened his language book and looked for the right words.
"I here be friend. Who you leader?" He could only assume that they understood his broken gibberish.
An old man stepped forward, it seemed villages in the Sadera were always led by the elders. He spoke so fast that Viktor could barely keep up. "I am the chief here. Who are you and why have you come?"
"We from Aquila Hill. We wish information you give." Viktor hoped he wasn't making any major mistakes with his speech.
"Aquila Hill... you're the men from another world? The men the Imperial soldiers were waiting for?"
It seemed they had a reputation. "Yes. That's us."
The elder thought for a moment before talking again. "We can deal with you then. Those soldiers are no friends of ours. Elna is a ruin because of their actions. They forsook the gods and the gods punished them."
Viktor internally grimaced. The man probably didn't know that his squad was responsible for the 'punishment' that the soldiers had endured.
Looking around at the mass of civilians around them, Viktor didn't really want to be negotiating with so many people here nearby. "We speak private, yes?"
The old man understood. "Go back to your fires, we have private business to discuss!" He yelled at the surrounding villagers. Slowly, they began to disperse.
Viktor relaxed at bit, now that there weren't as many people around. Now it was time to get information. "We ask knowledge for currency." He said, holding up a bag of strange coins that they'd been issued while preparing to leave Oyrol Base.
"Oh? We're going to be need a lot of coin in the future." He muttered to himself. "Very well, ask away."
"Describe city called Bellnahgo, please." The Russian forces knew it was a big city where a significant part of the Imperial Army had fled, but that was about it.
Nodding his head, the elder spoke. It is a large city, very beautiful. Bellnahgo is home to the temple of Hardy. Many go there to pray to her."
"Hardy?"
"The goddess of the underworld. Ruler of hell."
Viktor nodded in understanding. He made a mental note to try and get a book on the local religions for the research teams to study. "Imperial Army come through?"
"The Imperial Army came through our village days ago, they left a few hundred men in it while the rest of them continued to Bellnahgo. They forced us out of our homes and left us to fend for ourselves. We are much slower than they were, so they're probably in Bellnahgo by now."
That only confirmed what aerial reconnaissance had already discovered. There was only last thing he needed; a map of the Empire. While aerial recon had managed to map out the immediate surrounding area, they didn't have any accurate charts for the rest of Falmart.
When asked, the elder told him to wait while he retrieved it. Several minutes later, the man came back with a large hand drawn map. While probably not completely accurate, it was better than nothing. Viktor took several pictures of it with his phone.
"We thank you. But must go. Need find place to camp for night." He handed over the large sack of coins. When the elder looked inside of the pouch, his eyes widened substantially.
"No, please stay. You are so generous, we must let you stay. Besides, I hear Caldus is making a large pot of his famous soup tonight, you don't want to miss out."
Viktor was divided within himself. On one hand, it was probably less safe to stay with them. His fears about hidden soldiers still hadn't subsided. On the other hand, a warm meal would do wonders for moral, especially after such an intense day. Soup did sound far better than field rations.
He decided that they needed the moral boost.
Pellio Co Sorio looked over his caravan of slaves. He was heading to Imperial Capital after purchasing some slaves for cheap from his source in Knappnai. The recent defeats of the Imperial Army had caused banditry to spike and made slaves harder to purchase, driving up the price. Pellio knew it was dangerous to be traveling so far, but the reward would be well worth it.
Besides, his guards could handle anything they came across.
Currently, they were waiting for the slaves to rest. While Pellio and his guards rode horses, the slaves were on foot and many of them didn't have shoes. It was a minor inconvenience that they had to stop and wait for them to rest their feet, as much as he wanted to drive them on, damaged slaves sold for far less.
With plenty of time to kill, Pellio wondered about about miscellaneous things. He though about his childhood growing up in Rondel; the city of mages. Pellio hadn't been magically inclined so he was ostracized from the other noble children he grew up with. His only friend had been Tullus, another boy that was poor at casting magic.
He wondered where Tullus was now. The two hadn't spoken to each other in many years, with Tullus shunning Pellio for dealing with the slave trade. Tullus instead chose to join the Imperial Army. Something Pellio thought was stupid. The army was nothing but a dead end. Trading slaves had made Pellio wealthy.
How long do those fucking slaves need to rest for?
Pellio wanted to be at the next city in their destination by sundown. They wouldn't make it if the slaves kept taking forever to rest. He grabbed his wrip in one hand and rode over to where they were sitting.
"Get up, you lazy fucks!" He cracked the whip in the air. "On your feet, slaves!"
They groaned as they stood up. A couple of them fell down and had to be carried by other slaves.
Suddenly, a loud noise sounded throughout the valley they were situated in. It was similar to a coughing sound, only much louder. There more coughing noises sounded out.
Four thuds followed the coughs, they came from behind Pellio. Looking back, he was shocked to find that all four of his guards had fallen off their horses. All of them dead. What the hell?
He looked at his local surroundings. Nothing but grass and a few trees. No one was here, so what killed his men? Suddenly, a section of grass stood up. Not grass, just a man dressed like grass.
Two more men dressed like grass stood up. They all held strange sticks in their hands and were pointed them at Pellio in a threatening manner. So... these are the men from another world.
One of them spoke with an accent so thick, he could barely understand him. "Pellio Co Sorio, you come with us."
Viktor had been right, the soup tasted amazing. There wasn't a single person who didn't like it. Everyone in the squad went to bed with a full stomach that night.
This made Viktor far more relaxed about security. Instead of having a guard shifts throughout the entire night, he decided to trust that the villagers were truly genuine in their friendship. Besides, it wasn't as if they villagers would be able to harm them while they slept inside the BTR.
While his comrades slept, Viktor sat on the roof of the BTR in the dark, enjoying a cup of some strange tea the villagers had brewed. It tasted far better than the juice Russian forces were given in their field rations.
By now, most of the villagers had put out their campfires, only a few dimly glowed in the night. Viktor wouldn't have minded staying with the villagers for a couple more days. These people were a nice relief from the insanity of the Special Region. So far, they'd been the only ones who hadn't tried to kill Viktor and his squad.
He'd learned that the villagers were trying to head to Bellnahgo for safety. Viktor thought about warning them about what was going to happen to the city, but decided it wasn't worth it. Bellnahgo would be in Russian hands before they arrived anyways.
He took another sip of his tea.
The Russians weren't the only ones in the Special Region, he wondered if the JSDF had encountered the same problems that his squad had. Maybe the Japanese were facing a less aggressive enemy than the guerrillas the Russians had been fighting or maybe they were facing an even more difficult enemy in their area of the Special Region.
Viktor's grandfather had fought the Japanese towards the end of the Great Patriotic War. He claimed that the Japanese were ferocious and fanatical fighters, prefering to fight to the death rather than surrender. But that had been seventy-four years ago.
From what Viktor understood, the modern Japanese military bore little resemblance to the one that had fought seven decades ago. Instead of an army, it was a self-defense force, one that hadn't ever seen modern combat.
They were probably following the American doctrine of securing "Hearts and Minds" in the local population. Viktor always felt that restricted the military from truly doing its job. While having civilian support was important, a military shouldn't be prevented from doing what is necessary to destroy the enemy, simply for the sake of the thoughts of civilians. It was only at actively killing civilians for no justifiable purpose that he drew the line.
Viktor doubted the JSDF would have been willing to execute prisoners or order airstrikes on villages.
His thoughts were interrupted by movement in the dark.
Sighing, he put down his cup of tea and picked up his AK-12. Viktor didn't have his night vision attached to his helment at the moment, so he pulled out a small flashlight. He climbed down the BTR and clicked on the light.
"Anyone there?" He first said it in Russian, then repeated it in the Saderan's language.
No response.
Viktor heard something move on the other side of the BTR, prompt him to move to investigate. As he turned to the corner, he was immediately charged at by a figure in armor. Unable to bring his Kalashnikov up in time, the intruder tackled him down.
"Fuck!" He cried out as he hit the ground. Both Viktor's rifle and his flashlight had been knocked out of his grasp, he was unarmed and effectively blind.
The figure brought its fist down onto Viktor's face. He tried grapple with his opponent, but they were clearly far superior in terms of hand-to-hand combat.
The intruder touched his helmet and suddenly leapt off him for some reason. They backed away from Viktor with their hands up, he still couldn't see who they were in the dim moonlight.
Scrambling for his rifle, Viktor sat himself up and aimed at the person.
"Who the fuck are you?!" He spoke in Russian. Then realizing his mistake, he switched to the Saderan's language. "Who you?!" There was no response, only the faint sound of sniffling.
It was at this time that one of his ever vigilant squadmates decided to come out of the BTR.
Alina popped out from the top hatch with flashlight in one hand, rifle in the other. She spotted Viktor's assailant, a crying young woman in plate armor, and then Viktor with a rifle pointed at said crying young woman. She immediately glared at him.
"Viktor, what the fuck did you do?!"
Reviews:
Spatialyeti8: While I'm not saying no, its unlikely I would continue this fanfiction after I re-uploaded the entire chapters and you have to consider that I am working with my other two Gate crossovers.
kasrkinsquadtrooper: Haha! I doubt my timeline would even be complete after my crossover and its only Book 1. If your implying to working together with me, sorry man. I'm an independent person, so you have to find somebody else. :(
Platypus Killer: Of course not. Russia may has a problem of human rights, but they are not barbarians from ancient times. They are only in the Special Region to avenge their dead citizens and rescue the rest of their people.
Obviously, they would. If you read the original 'Little Green Men', you find out that they did just that in later chapters. Just not the capital though.
Well, what do you expect?
If corporations have permission to enter the Special Region with their respectful governments, then they would do it as long it help them.
EvilTheLast: Thanks! :)