Well chapter two is finally here for all of you to enjoy.
I also did some minor editing to the first chapter. Mostly realizing that Chuchi is the Senator for Pantoria, and not Notluwiski Papanoida, so I went and fixed that. I think I thought his name was Ion, which is the name of his son. (Probably because I don't think they ever actually use his first name in the episode he is in.)
And that my dear readers, is the importance of Wiki.
However I probably should mention that I own nothing… Except a laptop, I do own one of those.
I suppose this chapter is in many ways dedicated to the new Star Wars Battlefront, It is after all the primary reason it took so long for me to get this out.
But enough of that nonsense, you're here for the story.
Hearts of Iron: Chapter II –Of Aneurysms, Italians and Aneurysms caused by Italians.
Greater War Room 21XV, Coruscant - The Galactic Republic
Obi-Wan shifted in discomfort as Padme Amidala attempted to burn a hole through his head, with nothing but a mean look, for his most recent attempt to make everyone see reason.
Anakin's snickering at him from across the table certainly wasn't helping.
They had been at this for almost three hours already. Every time Chairman Papanoida, or one of the other senators with children in the lost Republic Cadet battalion, finished demanding an immediate armed reaction, Padme, or one of the other senators with her, would stand and decry a military intervention.
Half of the room wanted a peaceful resolution, and the other half was baying for blood. The worst part is they both had perfectly valid points based on what little information they all had available.
He smiled gratefully as an aid brought him the fifth cup of tea in less than an hour, he really did need to lay off the stuff but he knew his headache would be back with reinforcements if he did.
Bail stood up, looking as tired of arguing as Obi-Wan felt. "I have to agree with Kenobi on this one." Everyone snapped to attention. "Further arguing about this will get us nowhere, and it is clear that both sides will not back down." He continued undaunted as various glares intensified. "So it is obvious that a compromise will be needed to resolve this dispute." He raised his hands in placation as several people stood to interrupt. "I propose we send both a diplomatic force lead by Senator Amidala, as she seems the most adamant of everyone here on a peaceful resolution. That will arrive first. A second military force will follow us, only to approach the planet if things go south."
As various senators moved swiftly to disagree, Palpatine moved even swifter, "I think that your proposal will be one everyone can agree on." He fixed the assembly with his best, 'stern grandfather' look, and everyone abruptly sat back down.
Obi-Wan hid a smirk behind his teacup, the Chancellor generally didn't strong-armed anything so openly. But when he did, he certainly meant business.
The man himself clapped his hands together, a pleased smile on his face. "Now that we have settled on a decisive plan of action we can begin organizing both forces."
He nodded at Amidala and she began. "I have a brand new J-Type diplomatic barge and it carries a quartet of N-1 Starfighters, which should be more than sufficient for my needs."
"You're forgetting your Jedi escort." Anakin piped up from the corner, still smiling but looking slightly more seriously than before.
"And at least a squad of Senate Commandos…" The Chancellor gave Padme a stern look.
Obi-Wan sighed quietly as Padme gave him an understanding if disgruntled look. "Chancellor, with all due respect I strongly believe the presence of an armed force would agitate the locals. A lack of arms may be the show of good faith that's the deciding factor in negotiations."
He nodded genially. "I agree completely, however you will be representing the entire galaxy and some level of decorum must be maintained." He paused considering his options. "I'll concede the commandos are likely an unnecessary measure, however I must insist on a squad of Senate Troopers," he raised his hand to cut off her disagreement, "armed only with force pikes," Obi-Wan sipped his tea as he continued, "plus at least one Jedi, approved by the council, to act as an adviser." He nodded in the direction of Yoda and the rest of the Jedi.
A smile passed Obi-Wan's lips as he felt the chaotic ripples in the force smooth as the room relaxed, decisions were finally being made, and that placated the anxious Senators.
Notluwiski Papanoida rose from his seat to his full height, sending a swell on the force, his face openly exasperated. "I worry that even that will not be enough to ensure your safety senator." He paused for a moment, looking unusually tired. "The natives have already shown an abnormally aggressive nature, think of how they responded to the probes arrival. They sent an army to find something they should have thought was a meteor!" He fell back into his seat. "I fear for the safety of the cadets, Senator Amidala." Obi-Wan and the other Jedi in the room frowned as a physical weariness leaked from the man into the force, mixing with a growing fear in several other Senators.
Obi-Wan spoke quietly. "You should get some rest Chairman." The man nodded listlessly and sighed.
"I suppose giving myself a stroke won't help anyone." He shot a look across the table as he and his son Ion stood to retire for the evening.
After he and Ion left, Chuchi rose looking nervous. "In the absence of Chairman Notluwiski I volunteer myself to advise the armed task-force, in the interest of those present with Cadets at stake."
Palpatine blinked, scanned the room with his eyes, and then sighed quietly. "I suppose you're not going to be reasoned with?" Chuchi shook her head. "Alright I'll leave the overseeing of the task-force's operations to your discretion." Seeing no objections he continued. "I think Major Ozzel should be available to command this endeavor." He gave a grandfatherly smile. "He just returned from a battle near Bothawui."
Obi-Wan frowned as he took another sip, feeling the disapproval from the other Jedi through the force. Major Kendal Ozzel was a well-known buffoon, putting him in charge of anything more complicated than system patrols was bound to end in disaster.
Although knowing Ozzel he could find a way to screw that up too…
Before he could protest, Palpatine shot a knowing look at Padme. "And I'm going to guess you won't want a large fleet presence?"
Padme frowned in response. "I would rather not aggravate the natives any more than they probably already are."
"I believe I can get Fleet Command to scrounge up a few of those new Arquitens-class Light Cruisers, would that be sufficient Senator?" He smiled in relief as Padme nodded; Chuchi looked like she wanted to protest for a more sufficient force but simply settled for a sigh.
As the meeting finally began winding down Mace stood, radiating determination through the Force. Obi-Wan squashed the fleeting impulse to Force push the other master through the room's window and decided to see if whatever he was about to do would cause another threehour argument first.
"With all due respect Chancellor, is there anyone else available to lead the task-force? As much as I am sure we all respect Major Ozzel," Obi-Wan had to physically stop himself from snickering, "he is not exactly known for his… delicacy." He shot Obi-Wan a cautious look from the corner of his eye. "I have a feeling that this mission is not suited to his particular skill set."
The Chancellor gave a small chuckle. "Come now Master Windu, have you so little faith in the good Senators?" He gave a nod to Chuchi and Amidala, who had stood and moved to a corner of the room to speak privately. "If all goes well, the military force won't be needed at all," he began walking toward the door, "and if things go poorly we can always send a larger force." He declared as he strode from the room.
Obi-Wan stood and walked up to the frowning Mace. "He's messing with us on purpose."
"Mace," Obi-Wan replied with a small smile, "the Chancellor is too shrewd to fall for such a direct approach."
Mace's frown deepened. "And how would you deal with him?"
"Make him think your idea was his all along, you must." Yoda pipped up as he hobbled out the door.
III
2/25/95, Switzerland – Somewhere Above the Border to Italy
Francesca Lucchini was bored.
That alone was normally enough to send people running.
But today she was especially bored…
Here she had come, to the greatest of Europe's meat grinders, one of the places where three of the four world superpowers sent masses of fresh, bright-eyed, young soldiers for their first tour of duty. To return home as grizzled combat veterans or corpses…
And nobody had fired a shot in almost three weeks.
In actuality, all three high commands had ordered their ground forces withdrawn to the furthest fortifications, to help discourage any "incidents". Leaving the massive maze of the trench land completely abandoned.
The almost constant thunder of artillery and anti-aircraft guns, the cheerful chatter of machine gun positions… all silenced, no toxic gasses slipped slyly over the blasted earth to poison unsuspecting infantry. The clumsy duels of green and greener pilots didn't play through the skies; no bombers flew out to drop deadly payloads.
And it was so boring…
Lucchini had waited five long years to get here. Hoping for her first deployment to be in a place she actually would have the chance to actually dogfight, and when she had finally arrived, the party was apparently already over.
And so she sat of the cockpit of the Focke-Wulf 156, the German plane in new Italian colors. That her new commanding officers had so graciously provided it to her, probably having reassembled it from several different wrecks shot down earlier. Lucchini stared into the smoggy overcast and silently contemplated how bored she was, and how grateful she was that she had been chosen to be a pilot, and wasn't one of the poor bastards that had to fight it out in the endless maze of bunkers, trenches and artillery craters that had engulfed much of the mountainous nation between three warring superpowers.
"Not like there's any fighting going on anyways…" She griped aloud as a pair of far off Bulldogs flew low and relatively fast over what was probably the British or French reserve line. The biplanes would have made good kills; provided their defensive flack guns didn't peg her, but her commander would tear her more than a few superfluous holes if she disobeyed the very clear orders she had been given.
Her Flight Lieutenant, Giuseppina Ciuinni, had been quite clear on the matter. "Don't get into any dogfights with the Allies, don't get into any dogfights with the Axis, and for fucks sake Lucchini don't get into any fights with our own forces." She could almost hear the ever forgetful Lieutenant's frustrated voice still lecturing her. "Just get the booze and get your scrawny butt back here."
That had been over an hour ago, and she had spent the in-between time scanning the silent landscape, and flying through smoggy overcast night skies.
Even arriving had been boring. A completely average landing on another reserve airfield, followed by tracking down a bored Brazilian officer, even the booze itself had been in a big sealed container which was no fun at all… 'No Lucchini, bad Luchinni! No lightweight's flying drunk!" The voice of her flight school's instructor blasted through her head and smashed the devious thought.
The dark clouds flashed dimly overhead and her radio hissed oddly, Francesca's brain barely registered it, too wrapped up in idle thoughts to pay attention to what was probably just a far off thunderstorm.
Besides Francesca even knew who was to blame for her boredom. "The Bolsheviks and the Fascists…" The tiny Italian pilot hissed under her breath, conveniently ignoring the fact that Italy was itself a fascist nation.
The top brass was trying to keep the whole thing quiet, but everyone had heard something. You couldn't stop the greatest war in human history dead in its tracks without having some sort of reason after all.
Something had crashed in the USSR according to the gossip around base… something not of this world, if the rumors were to be believed.
And to add insult to injury the Soviet officer leading the armored unit investigating the thing had apparently gotten a medal for killing it. Lucchini rubbed her fabric flight helmet, 'lucky bastard…' she thought.
"What chance do I have of enemies just falling from the sky?" It was just an idle thought on her part, but it seemed to carry all the weight of the voice of God.
A second later a bold of incandescent crimson slammed through the overcast about a mile off her left wing, screaming bloody murder the whole way down. Lucchini took a moment to simply gawk in disbelief as the object suddenly decelerated, shedding the bubble of super-heated atmosphere as it slowed from terminal velocity to something that couldn't quite be called a soft landing. Pancaking into the now empty trench lands with far less force than something like the super heavy artillery shell that she had initially assumed it to be.
Lucchini whooped with glee, pitching her plane's nose to the ground with a pleased grin, the dive speed on the 156 wasn't great but that was ok. She needed to float. He neck craned and she looked out of the bubble cockpit, past the fog into the blackened sky. There were lots of red dots in the night sky.
Her hand unconsciously flipped her radio to an open channel. "Uh… hey guys… anybody on the wireless?" Her planes radio was a piece of shit, to put it lightly, but sometimes she could get a message back to the airfield. And considering that the trenches were empty right now contacting the reserve lines was about all she could hope for.
"The hell did you do you Italian piece of shit!" Her wireless screamed at her in French.
Francesca blinked at the gibberish spewing from her radio, and pointed the nose of her Focke-Wulf towards the object before replying. "Hey… any of you guys speak Italian?" Her plane dove slowly towards the crash site; meanwhile the red lights in the sky were getting larger.
"Seriously Clostermann, can you not be an abrasive asshole for like five minutes?" This bit of gibberish was in English. "I mean seriously… how one Italian could have possibly caused that." Lucchini didn't speak English but the voice sounded derisive.
Francesca knew she would need all her elegance and English speaking skills to communicate successfully "Bulldogs! Look up!" Both planes pitched down instinctively reacting. "God Damn!" The dismissive voice from earlier, having caught sight of the odd streaks of fire shrieking towards the place where the first had landed, began shouting into the radio as the pair of ungainly biplanes promptly de-assed as fast as their oversized Jupiter engines could propel them.
Lucchini pulled the throttle back, turning the Focke-Wulf 156 into a wide loop of the apparent landing zone as tank sized metal pods slewed into the ground in front of her.
"Two, three, four, five," She didn't stop counting until the last pod hit the ground, "Fifty."
The two Bulldogs were back, circling warily above their own lines, now lit up like Christmas trees with spotlights. 'Cowards.' Francesca thought as she spun her plane around, intending to make a low observation pass over the half mile square of land the pods were spread over.
As she swooped down to buzz the landing zone the big metal eggs hatched, in the darkness the foggy ground was swarming with strange scuttling shapes.
Then something the size of a small skyscraper dropped through the cloud cover almost on top of her going way too fucking fast.
Hardcell-class Interstellar Transport, "Salutation" – Somewhere on Aldebaran 4
Junior Lieutenant Colonial Riker Linnet's face hurt.
This wasn't exactly an unusual occurrence, Riker had always fancied himself a bit of a playboy and the girls on Kuat tended to hit pretty hard.
Actually that was one of the reasons his parents had had enlisted him in the Republic Cadets in the first place.
As he lay on the floor, slowly regaining consciousness, he examined his situation. 'OK, face hurts, why?' Coming up with and answer took longer than he usually would have liked. 'Is it because I took my helmet off like an idiot? And hit my head on something?'
With that thought the dizzy, lightheaded feeling that had clouded his thoughts since he had awoken vanished, leaving only a cold feeling filling his stomach as he remembered why he was on the floor.
The Xenology experts had just retired to the ships lounge to argue over the newest recorded gibberish when Corporal Lut, who was manning the sensor console, reported three objects had been detected in low planetary orbit. Director Argonne had promptly left the bridge under Riker's command so he could go notify the eggheads.
Not five minutes of relative monotony had passed before the three objects deployed fifteen smaller, faster objects. The three original objects had then begun a slow de-orbit maneuver and the fifteen small ones had continued on what Lut had assured him would only be a close pass.
"Closest one'll pass about a quarter mile from our stern." The stubby Corporal had assured him.
He had been right too, of course by the time they had a good enough sensor lock to figure out that they were not invitations to a welcoming party it had been too late to move the ship to avoid them.
What followed had been the brightest, most violent five seconds of his life. His corneas still burned from the intensity of it.
And he had probably slammed his head against the command console when the ship had started to spin out of control!
Still lying on the floor he thought harder than he had ever before. If the Salutation had fallen from orbit he should be dead, and hadn't the Jedi always said that being dead was a painless thing?
As he pushed himself off the floor, the world spun with black spots, a helmeted head suddenly filled his vision. "Good morning Major!" The irregular star on the helmets brow identified the irritatingly crisp, no nonsense voice as Junior Major, Sila Wilik.
"Morning Sila," he grinned in amusement as she helped him off the floor, "you know as much as I like waking up to a pretty girl, I thought you were a lesbian?"
Her head tilted and the frown on her face-mask became more pronounced. It was a look that said one more quip out of you and I'll vent you from an airlock. "Sir, how hard did you hit your head?"
"Ignore that for now Major." Now standing up, he glanced around the ships now trashed bridge. "So, what happened while I was out, and why didn't anyone wake me?"
"We were a tad busy stopping the ship from lithobraking at orbital velocity." A gravelly voice he immediately identified as belonging to one of the battalions tech experts Mark Atile grumbled, his upper body almost completely jammed inside a damaged control panel. "As much fun as waking you from your beauty sleep and listening to you scream like a little girl while we free-fell through the atmosphere would have been, it wasn't really a priority."
A peek through the windows revealed a dark and dreary sky. "So what exactly happened while I was out?" Something flashed in the gray skies. "I'm assuming that those contacts from earlier weren't the openhearted greeting we were hoping for."
Mark snorted and his arm slid out of the computer he was disemboweling, throwing a fistful of wiring onto the floor. "I'm almost one hundred percent sure they were nuclear warheads of some type. Nothing else I can think of would have been able to generate that great of a power to weight ratio. They didn't even hit us and they blew the shield generators from absorption overload, and short-circuited half the electronics in the ship."
Sila hissed beneath her breath as Mark continued grumbling about cheap Techno Union electronics. "Well after the stabilizers shorted out your face had an unscheduled meeting with the captain's control panel, we ended up free-falling into the upper atmosphere."
"And we're not dead why?"
"Apparently Po is more competent that we gave her credit for. She managed to get the computer core restarted from engineering during the free-fall."
"Ok, somebody is getting a promotion, but I'm sensing a "but" there."
"Don't worry there absolutely is one." Sila bent down and picked up a helmet from the floor, and Riker realized it was his; she tossed it to him before continuing. "Apparently the scum-sucking morons they got to program the ship and the droids on-board didn't actually overwrite the core programming, just coded over it," Riker looked up from his helmets frowning face and raised a questioning eyebrow at her uncharacteristically colorful language. "Her words not mine."
"And that means?" He had a strong suspicion of exactly what it meant already but wanted to hear it from her.
"It means that when she restarted the mainframe the ships original programming kicked in, thankfully we're apparently still considered friendly forces. But that, plus the damage to the ships physical controls means we no longer have command of the ship, which is why we ended up landing on the surface."
"And why the Droids were deployed." Mark chipped in as he withdrew completely from the computer dropping a hydrospanner as he struggled to get his arms around a bundle of electronics.
Riker just groaned. "Where's the director?"
"In the medical bay," was Wilik's curt reply.
"Why?" Riker asked, feeling exasperation flood his tone.
Mila simply gave a crisp nod. "He was apparently injured worse than you were."
"And the eggheads?" He didn't like where this was going.
Thunder pealed outside as Mark replied. "Most of them are in engineering, with Po."
"The Jedi?"
"In the medical bay, seeing to the director and the other injured," Sila answered.
"So… what do we do now Captain?" Mark asked in an only slightly mocking tone as Riker slid his helmet on.
And that really was the question wasn't it? With the director out of commission he was "technically" in charge of the ship.
First things first, he needed to finish getting information on their situation. "Sila, what have the droids been doing?"
"The ship's computer deployed the drop pods ahead of our touchdown; the deployed probe and crab droids have formed a loose perimeter around our landing zone. The Vulture droids are still docked to the outer hull."
"Get them deployed, we need to shore up our perimeter." He turned to Mark as Mila nodded and started speaking over her helmets headset. "So Mark…" Riker drawled. "Why exactly are you disemboweling the computer terminals?"
His helmet glared back past an armful of electronics. "We need working parts to set up a new command center." Something in the room's corner sparked. "The EMP from those bombs melted a distressing number of electronics, and a lot of the computers here are garbage." He waved at the mostly unlit computer terminals around the room.
Well it looked like he didn't need to worry about getting a command center running, but Riker was still a little insulted he had been left unconscious on the floor. He supposed that just left securing the ship then reinforcing the perimeter.
"Alright Mark get the ship up and running again, tell Po we need the mainframe back under our control ASAP. Sila I want you to see if you can get the vulture droids online, we need them up and running.
Mark nodded and swept out of the room with his computer parts. "Where are you going?" Sila asked him as they turned to follow Mark.
Riker gave her a small smirk. "I figured I'd get an expeditionary force together and go and greet the bastards that shot us down."
"Just try not to get killed." She rolled her eyes at him and marched towards the ships storage.
Riker smirked in triumph and hurried down another hallway towards the mess. If he knew his cadets, and he did, they would be arguing about the current disaster over food.
2/25/95, Switzerland – Third Allied Defensive Line, Fortification 144
When Orange Pekoe walked up onto the stronghold's concrete battlements, for the second time that day, she wondered again what the heck had happened to make this particular group of Japanese so crazy.
She had thought when command had said that they were going to get some veterans of the Hunan Campaign; that they would be less weird than the battalions the Japs had already sent to help man the giant naval guns scattered throughout the second and third defensive lines.
That meager hope had been dashed completely when this group had turned out to be even crazier; the five had been transferred less than a week into the ceasefire and their commanding officer hadn't left the parapets yet. Considering they had arrived almost three weeks ago, Pekoe was sure the MP was more than a little unhinged…
Then again her commander had a habit of collecting and wearing random outfits when she wasn't spouting random idioms, Pekoe liked to think she was almost used to people being crazy. Living in close proximity to Darjeeling, one tended to become desensitized.
But even their arrival had been weird. She hadn't really known what she had been expecting when she had heard they were getting decorated advisers. The brass had simply sent a very official looking form notifying her that the group had experience in driving the Russians back during their big push into Chinese territory a few years back, that they had been integral in beating back an entire German tank platoon.
She should have known better, when the customized SS-D Minesweeper had come rolling down the road in its muddy grey camouflage, but it wasn't until she had seen the fist-sized hole in the front plate she had finally started getting uneasy.
When it pulled out of the rain and into their vehicle bunker, a hatch had opened. The smallish girl in an Imperial Japanese Marine uniform had introduced herself as Yuuki Utsugi in passable Engrish, and immediately asked if they were in Sweden.
Pekoe had proceeded to inform her, as politely as possible, that Sweden was part of the Northern Reich under Finland, that they were on the border of France and that they were indeed where they were supposed to be.
The five had then piled out of the vehicle, Yuuki plus three identical individuals in full Japanese MP Riot gear and a tiny, sleepy looking girl in an orange driving jumpsuit.
The apparent leader of the MP trio had marched up to her at a brisk pace and she experienced a slight feeling of intimidation at the medals on the girl's armored chest plate. Then she actually got close enough for Pekoe to realize that even in full riot gear the girls helmet head only barely reached her eye level.
And Pekoe knew that she wasn't even all that tall.
In crisper English than Yuuki, she introduced herself as Midoriko Sono, and her compatriots as Moyoko Gotou and Nozomi Konparu. She then introduced their driver, who had slumped down next to their SS-D and presumably passed out, as Reizei Mako.
What followed had been, for Pekoe anyway, an exercise in futility. As the three decorated MP's had promptly marched their way into the arms depot, stolen a pair of field glasses and an anti-tank rifle and set up shop on the battlements, staring out at no-mans-land.
That had been three weeks ago and so far, they had been content to sit and watch the empty trenches… well the three MP's had. Reizei had spent most of the time sleeping in their "personal" minesweeper and as far as Pekoe could tell Yuuki was the only one doing anything close to what they had been sent there to do. Attempt to advise Darjeeling.
Orange Pekoe wished her the best of luck; God knew she had been trying to do the same thing for over a decade without success.
And to top it off Darjeeling had "ordered" her and Assam to help the newcomers acclimate to their new environment, which meant among other things, bringing them food when they decided to fall prey to paranoid delusions and spend three weeks watching empty trenches.
And speaking of Assam, the girl in question leaned over Sono's shoulder as she approached the group on the fortifications. "You know Midoriko, a watched pot never boils."
Pekoe took every ounce of her willpower to not drop the tray of food and throw her over the wall, and simply settled on a deep breath instead of murder.
Yuuki, Gotou and Konparu stared.
Sono glared daggers.
Reizei snapped awake with a snort. "Sodoko if you keep making faces like that it'll stick like that."
Sono's head swung like a battleships main gun until it was pointed at her completely unfazed driver.
While the pair drifted into arguing in Japanese, Assam turned back to her. Pekoe continued to gawk. Assam had been infected, she was sure of it.
"You're staring really oddly at me Pekoe, do I have something on my face?"
Pekoe intensified her gaze. "Just how much time have you been spending with Darjeeling?"
Assam opened her mouth to spew lies in her defense but the buzzing of airplane engines cut her off.
In a flash "Sodoko" had drawn a pair of binoculars and was sweeping the darkened sky with all the paranoia of a seasoned combat veteran.
Pekoe set the tray of food down next to Mako, who promptly stole a biscuit, and glanced into the darkened skies. "Calm down Sono, it's probably just the Buffalo's flying another patrol."
"Actually, I think they should be back by now." Assam interjected as unhelpfully as possible.
Everyone on the bastion twitched…
Then the air raid siren started, low and mournful at first but sweeping into a panic inducing crescendo in only seconds, anti-aircraft guns swung towards the dull sky and the great spotlights flashed onto the clouds.
As people scrambled to battle stations Pekoe noticed Sono was still locked in place staring out across the trenches. "I'll be damned, it's not Germans this time." She hissed low, beneath her breath.
"What?" Pekoe replied quietly, Assam and the other Japanese had ditched into the massive concrete fortress, left Pekoe alone with what she considered to be a barely stable MP. "Surely it isn't the Italians?" The Neo-Romans were many things but she didn't think they were dumb enough to break a ceasefire like this.
Sono only pointed towards the south and Pekoe finally realized what she had been staring at through the field glasses. In the distance, through the fog above the trenches she could see little specks of light against the clouds, spotlights from the German and Italian fortresses that pierced the gloom in search of something.
And for a brief moment it was almost calm, if one ignored the shrieking of the siren. Everyone, whether sitting strapped into an anti-aircraft gun or in the bottom of one of the conveniently nearby slit trenches stared wide-eyed at the sky.
They were not disappointed. A streak of brilliant crimson fell from the sky like an angel banished from the heavens, at an angle too steep to be an artillery shell or some falling plane, disappearing into the maze or trenches between the different, usually warring factions.
And for the next several minutes a flurry of crimson streaks followed after the first. Screaming through the clouds and dropping into the trenches.
When the smoke settled there was only a lone single-engine fighter flying a loose circle around the landing site.
Then as the pilot took the plane into a dive, presumably to get a closer look, a small skyscraper dropped from the clouds, almost landing on top of the poor guy.
"Interesting isn't it Sono?" Spoke a voice from Pekeo's immediate left as the building slowed to a crawl with a massive incandescent blast below it, landing like some giant version of a Focke-Wulf Triebflügel.
Pekoe nearly had a heart attack at Darjeeling's question, the woman having managed to arrive onto the rampart completely unnoticed. Sono for her part showed no more surprise than a sharp inhalation.
"I wouldn't exactly say that." Midoriko's eyes never left the glasses. "I see lots of movement near the base of the ship." Pekeo was barely paying attention to their conversation, having seen the distant little monoplane level out. "Sono what is that pilot doing." She asked the ornery MP as cautiously as possible.
The girl whipped the field glasses around for a moment before speaking. "I'd say that stupid Italian is strafing the landing zone." Her head popped back and she adjusted her kabuto's chinstraps and glanced at Darjeeling. "Are they even allowed to do that?"
Darjeeling, with a mysterious smile on her face, stroked her chin thoughtfully before replying. "Pekoe, Sono I want the two of you to get every soldier you can find. I'm going to call up the Fritz and see if they want to help us stop the Italian's from getting themselves killed."
Sono gave her a crisp salute, passed Orange Pekoe a rather bland look and started mumbling about the Macaroni's under her breath as they both ran back into the bunker's door to alert the rest of the base.
Sweet Christ was this chapter long in coming and I am very sorry about that.
I would blame Fallout 4 and Star Wars battlefront, and the new IL-2 expansions and a host of other things, but in reality I simply lost track of time between now and then.
So in that sense I am terribly sorry about it taking so long to get this chapter out and I hope future updates will take weeks not months.
But on the other hand there are fics on this site that have gone years between updates so… Hurrah for mediocrity?
As always, you may feel free to leave comments and criticisms, or speculate about the wholesomeness of my ancestry. I do read comments and will respond to questions, I'm just not always online so please be patient.
Next Time on Hearts of Iron: Amidala learns that not everyone likes diplomacy, Miho reminisces about old wounds, and Hartmann and Barkhorn get lost in their own base…