Original story based on and including characters and material created by Project Aces for Namco Bandai. The author claims no ownership over them.
Thy Enemy As Thyself (Knight)
Chapter 1: The Facade
"All nations want peace, but they want a peace that suits them." - Admiral Sir John Fisher
Windsor Building
76th St & 5th Av
Gracemeria, Emmeria
31 March 2016
1828 hrs.
"Aw, shit. This is 4-13-Actual, we got bodies all over the Grand Ballroom. It's a fucking massacre in here."
"...can you confirm how many?"
"I'm counting at least 20. Freshly dead too. At least 5 Stovies too, some grunts and at least two officers. Both male."
"Scorched fucking earth. Did they-"
"No, looks like these Stovie shits were killed afterward."
"Resistance, maybe?"
"From the look of it...they shot each other. Death pact maybe?"
"Taking the world out with them sounds about- Hold on...one of these Slav shits' moving."
"Check him for a suicide vest."
"Shit- Okay, I got his guns. No...no bombs or grenades either. What'll we do about him?"
"4-13-Actual to Broad Street. We got a live one. Looks like a Major or Colonel. ...yeah...okay. We're gonna bring him in."
"Fucking hell, man. Can't just shoot the fucker right here? For all these people?"
"Those are major's stripes? HQ's gonna milk 'em for the guys that ordered this shit before they toss his pretty little ass into Santo Matteo. Get him out of here."
"Hey Bricktop! I got IDs from those two girls there...Oh shit."
"What?"
"...you're not gonna believe this..."
Albert Genette
Sidrgrade, Estovakia
August 2017
If there was one lesson to be learned from history repeating itself, it was that no plan ever survived, period.
As I stepped out of the plane from Cinigrad into Sidrgrade-Jovanovic International Airport, and made my way through immigration and baggage claim toward a bus that would take me to the city's central bus terminal, I was immediately greeted with the evidence. The advertisement-covered construction blockades that funneled passengers into narrowing passageways concealed the damage of war that seemed only too recent.
Outside on the arrivals roadway, I got a better glimpse of a similar scene only magnified to the span of Sidrgrade itself. It seemed as if the entire city and all its rubble were - perhaps finally - being uprooted like weeds, or at least being covered in glass.
The Federal Republic of Estovakia - now simply the Republic of Estovakia - had only started to recover from two decades of conflict and destruction that left so many plans and dreams in its wreckage.
President Dalibor Jovanovic was the first Estovakian leader to subscribe to the idea of a United Anean Republic during the Cold War as he tried to ease his country out of Yuktobania's sphere of influence. But with the Ulysses impact boundaries redrawn to include Anea, they turned back to Yuktobania to fund the Chandelier. Despite the tensions, things seemed to be going well until the project was suddenly ordered stopped in 1998.
There were no clear answers as to why. Some believed that the project violated the Boltzmann Treaty by its design, which apparently pointed directly at Emmeria. Or perhaps it was because Estovakia refused to make one political concession too many for Yuktobania. Whatever the real reason was, ending the Chandelier's funding ultimately sealed Estovakia's fate.
The country limped on for a few more years, thanks mostly due to Yuktobanian aid and imported Belkan technology keeping the military placated. But after Gründer Industries fell, whatever stability was left in Estovakia collapsed with it.
The end of the Anean Continental War finally buried the idea of the United Anean Republic for good. As soon as the last General was toppled, the territories once held by the different factions began to assert their independence from the central government, and the new administration was happy to let them go.
Kajnia, comprising the peoples of the provinces united under General Mijo Lyes, had suffered some of the worst ethnic cleansing atrocities of the civil war as well as the Generals' administration. They were the first to secede, their separation from the former federal republic hasty enough to cause a minor border conflict.
The next to secede were the Covanians whose islands comprised their Coalition, followed by the resource-rich Hrno Gorje of the Trade Tariff Federation, and finally the northern highlands province of Parlatia. The "new" Estovakia was barely a quarter of its former size, but still maintained its historical capitol of Sidrgrade - the "anchor city."
There were echoes of the old Belka in the news coverage, replete with the memories of Estovakia's albeit-brief military strength. And like Belka, it was left to the new rising stars of the corporate world to invest bringing these ruined nations back to life. Both General Resource and Neucom were among the first to offer lucrative contracts to the new governments, and the people, tired of war and seeking new prosperity, were quick to accept.
Although none of the new countries turned down either company's offer, the twin titans started their large developments in different territories - often on opposite sides of the country or even the same city. Analysts tracking their developments on a map quickly noticed that the former Estovakian territories were marked in a checkerboard of orange and blue, almost like they were mapping out gang territories.
And that drew the ire of the Valahia, who wanted to unite not only Anea but the world under their anti-superpower ideology. The dawn of their insurgency attracted sympathizers not just from the ranks of the Generals, but from former faction leaders in every corner of the former Estovakia.
If the Ulysses, the civil war, and their war against Emmerian hegemony was the injury, then having the ashes scooped up and thrown in the dustbin by corporations and their perceived puppet governments was both the added insult and the salt in the wound.
In the former Estovakia, their attacks quickly escalated from bank robberies and IEDs to head-on assaults on police stations and even military bases. It only seemed a matter of time before they would even get their hands on the successors to the dreaded Estovakian Aerial Fleet, fully-built and stowed away in hangars after the Generals deemed them too costly to deploy during the war.
Although the chaos had yet to approach Sidrgrade, I could see personnel of General Resource's new Security Enterprise PMC patrolling the streets alongside local police forces. Their strikingly modern equipment and vehicles sharply contrasted with the police still driving Yuktobanian-manufactured vehicles that still bore scars of the civil wars before.
The rising corporate star was no doubt as eager to protect their investments as much as if not more than the people that benefited from them. And that concerned their CEO Francis Mondeci, who seemed to be increasingly drowned out by those members of his board that favored more ruthless expansion into the industries he openly abhorred.
The more they leaned toward becoming that kind of corporation, the more the face of GR turned out to be another mask for a monster, the more they would incur from their critics - vocally and physically.
I manage to take a few pictures of the contrast as the airport bus weaved deeper into the city. Battered Yuktobanian-made sedans and farm trucks mixed into traffic with brand new sport compacts and luxury cars. Street vendors mingled with businessmen and senior citizens using Verese-branded tablet PCs. Ironically it is the sense of normalcy that pervades amidst the city's transformation that made these scenes feel more evocative, as if society had inherited the idea of changing masks after their leaders did.
With all those tempers about to flare over, I had already begun questioning if there was really a real environment of peace or if it was all just a more visible downswing in the cycle of conflict - and if there would be hope for those trying to escape it.
I try to keep to myself as I make my way through the city's central terminal to a more dilapidated bus that would take me outside the city to one of those people. Although I seem aged enough to blend in, I only have a tourists' phrasebook knowledge of Estovakia and no interpreter. Anything that could happen to me here would be outside of the Osean media complex's protection.
The two-faced city disappears behind me as the dilapidated bus slips onto an expressway and into the countryside. The ride predictably takes longer than it's supposed to, thanks to potholes being filled and those yet to be filled snarling up traffic.
The man I came here to meet lives in a small house out in the countryside of Mosporica, about an hour outside of Sidrgrade. Far from finding peace after being involved in two wars, his struggle only looks set to deepen for being caught up in the middle of a third.
As a few small clouds make their way across the sky, I notice the house has fallen into a state of disrepair, its paint peeling, drainage pipes rusting and vines starting to creep up the sides. But it still looks better for wear than other buildings not under renovation in this part of town. The door still manages to hold as I knock on it a couple of times.
The man that answers the door looks even worse for wear given his age, but he still manages to force a smile underneath his stubble-covered face. He is slightly shorter than me, with sandy blonde hair.
"Ah, Mister Genette," he begins. There is a twinkle in his darkened green eyes.
"Major Dragovic?"
"Please, call me Nemo." He smiles softly as he shakes my hand, seemingly knowing that I wouldn't be disturbed by a voice laced with tragedy. Still, hearing an Estovakian speak perfect Nordlish tinged with a San Salvacion accent surprised me. "Come in."
The house is old and sparsely furnished, our footsteps making audible thumps on the old wood floors. His martial living style left little in the way of luxury, except for perhaps a fully stocked bookshelf - an oddity in an era where both genuine and knockoff e-readers could be acquired for the right price greasing the right palm in even the most open market.
Sunlight permeates through the rust-lined glass windows, breathing a sense of hope and contentment into the old dwelling.
"I'm so glad you came over," he continues, a calm sincerity flowing through his voice.
"I am too," I reply, more thankful than sincere.
Six years on, my grand expose of the events of the Ceres Conflict had cemented my legacy as a one-hit wonder. I had moved up in the Journal, becoming one of its lead international correspondents. But apart from the Interview with a Nightingale for the anniversary issue of Brett Thompson's documentary, I hadn't even come close to any event of world-shaking prominence apart from the international conferences that the Editors-in-Chief personally vetted me to cover.
Most of it was for my safety. Many of the remaining Gray Men had been able to retreat to the shadows, planning their next move despite (and sometimes with) the efforts of the superpowers' governments. The Osean media industry's protection had also kept me from going to any particular danger zone where I could be much more easily picked off and passed off was a war casualty or street crime statistic.
But perhaps most of it reflected my own disappointments dampening my motivation. Any lead that seemed to really interest me led to much more mundane ends. Maybe I was just waiting for another story to happen to me, much like the last war.
Getting to meet Blaze before our paths parted ways only seemed to worsen those feelings. To see an albeit cynical man like him give up any sliver of hope to accept his fate did not bode well for the peace he gave so much for,
Yet the moment I got back home from declaring my intention to take a small sabbatical from the Journal, I received an e-mail from a very familiar name that seemed to alleviate those feelings. Although this would be my first trip to Estovakia, further correspondence with Nemo over the phone piqued my interest when he elaborated on why he reached out to me specifically.
"I received a letter from North Point," he continued as he withdrew an envelope sitting openly on one of the bookshelves. "I can't believe they wrote back!"
Although the letter was written in Nordlish, the bilingual letterhead was dominated in the giant block calligraphy and the large, red split triangle that was characteristic of only one military force in the world.
"It's from the Self-Defense Force," he replies with a child-like, innocent smile. "They want me to go to the consulate downtown and meet him tonight."
The wording of the letter did not seem to indicate it would be a meeting with a specific person, only that he was given an appointment regarding his inquiry to the NPSDF's 118th Tactical Fighter Wing, and that he could bring a guest that they had to vet beforehand.
"And that's why you called me?"
"To be truthful, I could hardly think of anyone else," he replied wistfully. "And I cannot trust myself to write the end of my memoirs."
With that in mind, the ending of his 'story' would also be an exclusive scoop in and of itself - the end of a journey that dominated of his life on two continents.
After his release from prison, Nemo penned a series of memoirs retelling his story growing up in the Usean country of San Salvacion after the fall of Ulysses, and the moral paradox he would endure as he came to befriend the man indirectly responsible for orphaning him at the war's outbreak. It tells of his involvement with two factions diametrically opposed to, yet as human as each other.
And most importantly, it was specifically addressed to the pilot that shot that man down: Mobius 1, a man whose identity had long since been concealed for his own safety. It asks what he thought, what reason he had for fighting, and how he retained his humanity amidst it all.
Nemo's own search for purpose would lead him to fight his own battles during the latter half of the Estovakian Civil War and the later war against Emmeria. It is a story of finding family and love. And it documents a struggle that very nearly lead him to the defendant's chair of the International Court of Justice.
"So that means we're leaving now?"
"Yes! There's no time to waste!" he beckons.
I turn to follow him out of the house toward his car, a late-model Yuktobanian-rebadged Fiat that ran but clearly never ran well like others from its time period. Before we get in, he paces ahead and gives the car a walkaround almost as if it was his personal plane, though it's not to check if the car runs.
A small corporate etching on the glass reveals that it is bulletproofed, or at least advertised as such.
"Good, we should be safe," he replies, the first seriousness I have heard from him since we met.
Rather than be surprised, I simply nodded in approval as we opened the doors to get in. His inspection is a grim reminder to the both of us that the sword makes enemies as much as the mighty pen.
"Nemo" is Major Nemanja Dragovic of the Estovakian Air Force, 71st Air Regiment, 9th Fighter Wing.
Zmaj 1, named after the legendary dragon for his versatility in the air, as well as the sense of morality he had tried to seek, piece by piece.
A morality he had finally found by losing it.
To Be Continued...
Author's Note: So yes. It's going to be a stretch to bring the storyteller boy from AC04 to Estovakia but I fear I might be able to actually pull this off.