Tuesday the 1st of August, 10:00am, North American Federation, Revere, Octavian way
San Francisco had been a great port city long before Second Impact and the rise of the Federation. But even then, comparing what it was to its current state, the old city would have been dwarfed.
The entire bay had been converted into perhaps the largest port ever seen, named "Nova Ostia" after the old port of Rome. Ships sailed in from various Federal territories and the other powers of the pacific, all under the constant vigilance of "Classis Scutum", a combined fleet of sea and sky ships that protected the beating heart of the North American Federation.
From this port, great highways stretched for two miles to the city itself.
Revere, named after one of the founding fathers of the old United States.
The city itself sprawled over the landscape, in all its utilitarian grandness. Huge apartment blocks, rows of houses, great shopping malls and skyscrapers were all laid out in an orderly and concise fashion. Their architecture clearly took many cues from old Rome, columns being everywhere, but had a level of thickness and advancement in comparison.
Grey Federal banners were everywhere, the black eagle being the most prominent symbol in the entire city.
All of this was centred around a single avenue that ran from one end of the city to the other, the Octavian way, flanked by monuments to victory and the greatness of their society, mighty triumphal arches present every five hundred metres. Connected to the road that came from Neo Ostia, it eventually lead to "Saratoga square" in which resided the Senate house, Federal Guard high command, the Washington Opera house, and the grand palace of the Princeps.
Neatly ordered in a manner which each building took up a side, a grand fountain at its centre, it could only have been the work of Construction Praetor Arthur Sachowski.
If the sub humans need any proof of why we should rule...they should just look at this...
Tutela Manipulis Junior Storm Leader Tiffany Johnson leaned back in the leather seat of the luxury limousine sent to pick her up. The Princeps required her presence, and she would never disobey.
The car pulled up at the very steps of the palace, the door being opened for her by a TM trooper. He saluted the girl who was his superior officer, getting one back instantly. Briskly walking inside, Tiffany felt herself move with a spring in her step.
Today, she wasn't just having an audience with the Princeps. But she would also see her father again. Legate Gregory Johnson, commander of the 6th Legion and conqueror of Provincia duo.
The former nations of old central America.
Upon thinking of that land and the people who'd inhabited it, a stab of guilt cut into her heart. Her held behind her back fist clenched as it tried to fight off memories of a crying little girl. Tiffany scowled.
There was no other choice. Traitors and degenerates must be shown their place.
Whilst the interior of the palace was still grand, it was plain. There were a few paintings, but no carpets, just floors of marble. Princeps Abrams was not a man who enjoyed excess, and his private residence was the epitome of his philosophy and that of the nation he made.
Harsh, efficient, and powerful.
At every door she was saluted by a TM trooper, they being the only armed people in the building. Each and every single one of these men where hand picked by Praetor Hirst for their loyalty. They had to be, as their charge was among the most powerful people in the world.
The palace they guarded, was a centre of power in the Federation. In here was the Princeps Office, and the Party Chancellery. Where much of Virtus policy was discussed and decided upon, before being presented to the Senate. Considering every single senator was also a Party member, rare was the occasion Abrams be refused.
Eventually Tiffany arrived at the office, finding two "honour guards" standing there. The honour guard where the only members of the Tutela Manipulis that wore armour, making them appear to be much taller than her.
"Junior Storm Leader Johnson here to see the Princeps." She snapped to attention.
"Oh, sorry, Junior Storm Leader, you just missed him." A guard said back.
"Just missed...fine, where is he?"
"In the main dining room." A new voice caused the three TM to snap out their arms in salute and bark "Foedoratio sine fine!"
Their Praetor, Harrison Hirst, repeated both the verbal and physical salute, before continuing.
"You'll have to forgive his Excellency. Unfortunately, Junior Storm Leader Johnson, your father's had a long journey and he insisted on breakfast before his appointment. And as the Princeps doesn't like delays...well...Legate Johnson's appointment came to him..."
There was some chuckling at that, Tiffany struggling between embarrassment and mirth.
God damn it, Dad! Do you really have to do this now?
"I presume his Excellency does not want to be disturbed?" She asked.
"No. I was actually sent up here to find you. As I said, Henry doesn't like people being late. Go on." Harrison nodded in the direction of the dining room.
"Thank you, sir." Tiffany saluted again then darted off, her Praetor watching her as she went.
Johnson...that is going to be one hell of an esteemed name in years to come. If her nerve holds...
He'd heard of the mess his troopers found her in, after only putting down a sub-human. At first he was pleased to see the strength of her resolve in taking out one of the young ones, only to later discover it was an accident.
Still got my work cut out.
The dining room was a vast hallway, with a wooden table leading from one end to the other. Here the great and good of the Federation would gather and celebrate, or the Princeps himself would eat alone.
Today, the sandy haired man with a few grey strands, the architect of four million deaths, sat at his usual seat, with a man of much darker skin colour sitting a little further away from him. This dark skinned man, clad in the grey of the Federal Guard, tucked into a full plate of pancakes covered in maple syrup.
Both men looked up when she entered. Tiffany flashed a glance at her father, then saluted with a cry of "Ave Abrams!"
The salute was returned by both men, before Henry gestured at a seat near the middle of the table. Complying immediately, as she had been taught from youth, Tiffany pulled out a chair and sat down.
"Was your journey comfortable?" The Princeps said in an uncharacteristically subdued tone.
"Yes, my Princeps. Your private limousine does its job well." The black haired girl confirmed.
"Good. You must forgive your father here, he is stubborn at the best of times." Henry sighed in resignation. Gregory Johnson, Legate of the 6th Legion, swallowed some pancake and huffed.
"You try and fly all the way from the Russian border when you haven't eaten for a day straight. It isn't fun..." he trailed off, wolfing down some more of his breakfast.
"Wall Alesia has perfectly adequate cantines last time I checked."
"With all due respect, my Princeps, they can't even do waffles right."
"Legate." Tiffany chastised.
"What?" He shrugged, as if he'd done nothing wrong.
When one looked upon father and daughter, it was hard to see they were even related. Tiffany had got everything from her mother, her green eyes, her black hair, even her pale skin. She and her father did not look much alike, aside from that terrible scowl they could give.
"Moving on to the business at hand...your deployment orders have been finalized." He pulled out a sheet of paper and slid it down the table to her.
"Once final testing of Units 07 and 08 has been completed by NERV Nevada, you and Unit 04 will be deployed with them." Henry continued, the Junior Storm Leader nodding in acceptance.
"Understood, my Princeps."
"I don't understand why they're being so...obstructive in getting this done. Christ that organization is so inefficient..." Henry grumbled.
The Federation had always been semi-hostile to NERV, especially after their refusal to share their technology during the invasion of the fatherland. After the Imperials took Washington DC, they'd had to move. Abrams had been adamant though, as evidenced by his screaming down the phone at Gendo Ikari.
"You keep that shit away from our cities, you sub-human slime."
"One more thing before I let you both go..." Harshness slipped into his tone, his brown gaze fixing on Tiffany.
"We are allies of convenience with the other powers. Once that convenience stops, when the Seraphim are exterminated, they will turn on us. That is why we are deploying three Evas to Japan...for when the time is right."
The fifteen year old girl nodded, whilst her father had to fight back a wince.
God damn it. If we keep leaping at fucking shadows there'll never be peace... Gregory Johnson allowed a bit of sadness to filter into his eyes, to see his beautiful angel be ordered to kill fellow human beings.
On a hunch.
All whilst going toe to toe with eldritch abominations.
Fucking project E, will my family ever be free of it?
"I will do what is necessary, my Princeps. As a member of your Tutela Manipulis, I will not allow any threats to the fatherland persist." Tiffany said with steel like resolve, her chair scraping back as she stood up. Her father did the same.
They stretched out their arms in salute and cried "Foederatio sine fine!" Abrams returned it, then gestured at the door for them to leave.
The two left the palace quickly, and walked out of Saratoga square in the direction of the "Franklin Shopping Forum." Once out of the square, they stopped and immediately wrapped their arms around each other.
"Missed you, Dad." Tiffany said softly.
"Missed you too, my little angel." His thick and powerful voice did not do Gregory's soft nature any justice.
They pulled apart after a minute, the bond father and daughter shared being immensely strong.
"How's Grandma and Grandpa...and David?" Tiffany smiled, thinking of her old and cantankerous grandparents, whom had marched with Martin Luther King long ago. And of the little brother she'd practically raised.
"Fine. Grouchy, but fine. They can't wait to see you, Tiff." Her father smiled back.
"I know, that's why we're going shopping. Didn't Grandma and Grandpa want a new microwave or something...ugh, and David probably wants another book on science fiction."
1:00pm, Union of Western Communist Republics, Socialist Russian Federation, Moscow, Litveko's
Russian summers were as ferocious as its winters. This vast country had always been a place of extremes, in weather, in politics, and people. Not that this crossed the Warrant Officer's mind. The ice cold taste and sheer strength of Vodka touching his lips was one of the few things which put feeling into him.
This coupled with Vasily being Russian, meant he could drink more of it than the uninitiated ever could.
Despite being a communist nation, where the state supposedly owned all forms of businesses, there were dozens, hundreds of independent bars dotted around Moscow alone. As long as you had a state permit, paid 40% of your profits to the state, and abided by worker's rights laws, you could start a business and run it in whatever way you saw fit.
A shockingly capitalist policy of a nation supposedly devoted to its destruction.
One of the few things Vasily had a firm understanding of was irony, and he found every single nation that tried to follow the ideas of Karl Marx to be dripping with it. Although, that was not nearly enough to make him rethink his loyalties. The motherland was everything, his own thoughts and feelings were irrelevant. To question was to court treason.
And treason would always be punishable by death or the gulag in the Socialist Russian Federation. Whilst modern day Russia was not even on the same level as Stalin's terror, thousands of people would be reported to the secret police, the KGB, and whisked away to the frozen wastes of Alaska to work on the extension of the "trans Siberian railway."
Vasily did not fear a thing, his conditioning prevented that. But even he had little desire to end up there. That was unlikely though, this was not the Soviet Union of 1948. People did not inform on everyone else they knew just to get in the state's good books. President Flipov had actually put in legislation that punished those who did.
The Russian Warrant Officer poured out another glass of vodka from his bottle and swallowed it whole, savouring its strength. It could be said his only current pleasure in life was sitting down and having a quiet drink. A luxury shared by many of his fellow "comrades."
For the communist economy was proving surprisingly prosperous. The Party maintained an iron grip on the banks and businesses, whilst simultaneously providing a small amount of room to manoeuvre. Living standards had improved, no one was starving any more due to the GSRT, or State Agriculture Distribution Centre, handing out necessary sustenance for the people of the less fortunate regions.
It was harsh and a little unfair, many did go hungry, but no one died from starvation or thirst anymore. This was simply the best that could be made out of a bad situation, and leagues better than the idea of reintroducing "collective farming."
Said idea, and those who proposed it, had been quietly laughed out of the Kremlin some years ago. After the failure of Stalin and Mao, even an ideology as inflexible as Communism recognized a foolish idea where it saw one.
Politics...I am a soldier, it is not my position to think of such things. Yet I do...
Vasily took his mind off all the unpleasant things Pravda never reported but everyone knew about. Instead, he watched the world go by. As it was mid day, there were no children scampering to school, nor workers frantically scrambling over one another to get to their jobs.
Now, there was only people on work breaks, or lovers walking the streets, hands linked together.
Love...an emotion he struggled with. Like any teenage boy, Vasily had little understanding of his own feelings, even less of those around him, not at all helped by his training. For the Seraph war, Russia had desired something akin to super soldier.
And that was what they got.
Beaten and broken until he was strong by the Spetsnaz's finest since the age of four, his body flooded with steroids to bolster his muscle mass, his very mind overridden with obedience to the Communist Party.
To mother Russia.
Vasily was now capable of putting down six fully grown men at once. But that had come at the cost of whatever childhood he may have once had.
The sixteen year old tried to dismiss these thoughts, trying to focus on the passing world. New problems arose when he found his hazel gaze fixing on the happy couples enjoying their day.
I wish...I wish...
He gripped his shot glass a little tighter. He did not wish for anything save for the destruction of the motherland's enemies. Besides, even if he could...pursue such a thing as friendship...romance...he would not succeed. All the world would see is a terrifying, cold Russian soldier garbed in the uniform of his army.
Behind him, a man keeled over and collapsed on the hard floor, merrily gurgling away. His friends roared with drunken laughter at him, whilst Vasily looked on stony faced.
What is funny?
He turned away and took another gulp from his glass of vodka, pushing the nagging sensation of loneliness aside.
I don't remember the last time I laughed...it does not matter. I must do my Patriotic duty. It is all I know.
3:00pm, People's Republics of Asia, People's Republic of China, Beijing, Tiananmen square
"Thank you!" Liu Zhou said politely to the stall tender, his boxes of warm noodles held firmly in hand. The elder woman smiled warmly, nodded, then served her next customer.
Quickly moving back into the centre of the square, he found Kim Hye at the fountain where he'd left her.
"I couldn't get any Japche, so I just got sweet and sour pork for us both." He said sheepishly, eliciting a sigh from his girlfriend.
"For God's sake, Zhou. You know I'm not too fussed with food." She patted the spot next to her, beckoning him to sit down.
Hye would have preferred a native dish of her homeland, but was ultimately untroubled. Mostly because, as a child of old North Korea, she didn't really complain about what food she got...
Without another word, Zhou sat by her side and they both tucked in, basking in the sweetness of the taste and the brilliance of the sun above them. Here, in the open, the blue sky above, the Forbidden City behind, the two felt a tiny bit liberated. Not least by simply wearing ordinary clothes, not their uniforms.
Zhou could only imagine what his girlfriend would look like in a dress, probably something like ten million Yuan. But, as was part of her charm, Hye was quite the tomboy. Dresses were not her thing, skirts infuriated her.
Not like I need to imagine anything now...
He had to fight off his blush, try to push down memories of unfathomable pleasure back into the dark recesses of his mind.
It had been the happiest night of his life. A fine dinner, a good film, laughter echoing throughout her apartment, kissing and...what came next. There really was no way he could describe it to someone who hadn't experienced it. He'd felt complete, whole, when he was with her, in both spirit...and in flesh.
Hye however, noticed immediately and nudged him.
"Honestly, you think about that now?" She chided.
"Sorry...can't help it..." Zhou stammered, causing his girlfriend to laugh.
"Oh it's to be expected. You are a man after all." She let her head rest on his shoulder, enjoying his company and the sun shining down upon them. They stayed that way for a while, not just doing what any lovers of their age would do, but also waiting.
As they were here for a reason.
In times gone past, the flag raising ceremony was performed on only the most special of occasions, National day and such. Now, with the "Encouragement of sacred Patriotism amendment" it was raised every day in cities across the PRA. Attendance was not mandatory, but woe betide any member of the vast eastern block that didn't carry it out.
Soldiers would march out into the centre of Tiananmen square, hook the crimson banner onto a flagpole, then hoist it up whilst "march of the volunteers" was played by the Military Band of the People's Liberation Army of China. For those who despised Beijing and communism, it was a monument to their suppression. To those of a patriotic disposition, Zhou among them, it was a small celebration of what made China great, and how this greatness was spread to all.
"Silence for the flag!" A loudspeaker boomed.
As if on que, a great hush fell upon the square. Boots slamming against pavement echoed, the steely faces of the troopers assigned with so important a task, being barely visible. The band hurried to their position, and took up their instruments. A minute later, the flag of red and gold was attached and ready to be hoisted.
"Stand for the national anthem!"
The band didn't play straight away, waiting for the noise of thousands of people standing up to abate. When it did, they began the tune. Slowly, the men of the 500th division, hoisted the flag upwards.
As the trumpets reached their crescendo, the trooper unfurled the flag in a grandiose manner, then snapped back to attention. The words of the Chinese national anthem, were then sung by all present in the square.
"Qilai! Buyuan zuo nulide renmen!
Ba womende xuerou, zhucheng women xinde changcheng!
Zhonghua minzu daole zui weixiande shihou.
Meige ren beipozhe fachu zuihoude housheng.
Qilai! Qilai! Qilai!
Women wanzhong yixin,
Maozhe dirende paohuo, Qianjin!
Maozhe dirende paohuo, Qianjin!
Qianjin! Qianjin! Jin!"
It flew so proudly, that banner of crimson with gold stars on it. From the age of four, Zhou had his life devoted to the cause of that flag. To live, breathe, and die for China, for the revolution, and for the dream of Chairman Mao. But it had not been until he met Hye, who brought him out into the real world, to meet the people he was meant to protect, that he saw the true face of his country.
Now he would gladly give his life for China and the People's Republics of Asia, not because he had been taught to, but because he chose to.
Hye rested her head on his shoulder, contented.
Captain Liu Zhou had his reason to die for his country. But the girl who stood next to him, hand laced around his, was his reason to live.
By the heavens, I will come back to you.