AN: In chapter 3, I changed the island names to accurately reflect the islands that France (and thus the Francois Republic) had controlled.

Credits to Gremlin Jack for being the editor.

"I apologize for interrupting your island visits Chancellor and Deputy Chancellor, but there's this message from the BND." as the telegram operator handed me a paper.

North Bharat building up an army. Possible Rus mages were spotted training their mages. Most likely NKVD mages. CSR mages were seen meeting with the Rus mages. Road constructions at the CSR and North Bharat border.

I rubbed my forehead. That's one hell of a response to South Bharat's government's continuing insistence that North Bharat's government is illegitimate.

"All three are going to war to finish off South Bharat." Vishia said as she also read through the message.

A Korean War right next to Albion's and Francois Republic's colonies would kick off a massive wave of independence, possibly pro-communist ones. I know the United States' Domino Theory back in my previous world was controversial, but I have no way of knowing what the CSR intends on doing with their non-communist neighbors. They already intervened in the Russy civil war, backed insurgencies right on my doorstep in the new republics, and now they're sticking their nose into North Bharat's business.

"We're going to need to head back to Berun. I need to talk to Albion's ambassador to determine if we need to get involved with the conflict, and if so, how much we might have to do to prop up South Bharat."

"You're not going to run head on into the fight are you?" Visha teased.

"Of course not. That would be ridiculous of me."

"What about the time when you were in the Francois Republic and Legadonia Entente?"

"The first one was because they didn't want to come out and fight us after the first encirclement, and Lugo being stubborn even when he lost yet another large portion of his army. The second one was because I was itching to kill some commies, and that itch has been satisfied."

"Can you promise that you won't be on the front lines in South Bharat?"

Damn, she led me straight into a trap. A mixed blessing when you train your subordinates so well.

"Well it's a long distance from Berun."

"Tanya, don't dance around the question."

"Look, I won't be wandering around at the front line."

"TANYA!"

"I'll be safe, I promise!"

"So you won't be going to South Bharat?"

I'm afraid of making an ironclad promise because there's no way of knowing how things might turn out in the future, but she's certainly not going to take a non-answer, and would just keep wearing me down if I don't give in. Is this what people call "We compromised, as in the spouse got everything they wanted?" when it comes to relationships?

"I won't."

She gave me a bear hug. Of course she had to wedge my face into her chest. While both of us were still in the bathing suits. And in front of the telegram operator. I tried breaking out of the hug, but she activated her strength enhancement spell to hold me in place. I used my own strength enhancement and body reinforcement spells in an attempt to wiggle out of the warm and soft suffocation, but Visha responded by ramping up her strength enhancement to maintain her grip and then used her height advantage to lift me off of my feet by arching her back backwards. A Teflon spell would have been useful to get out of the crushing hug. This would have been a textbook definition of harassment at the workplace. Because there's no elected President and I'm her only superior, I would have the final say for disciplinary actions instead of just submitting reports to superior or a committee for them to make the final decisions.

The telegram operator took one glance and immediately turned around to pretend to be busy doing something else.

After what it felt like an eternity, she let go. When I finished gasping for breath from the suffocation, I motioned at the telegram operator, "Tell the navy command to expect possible hostilities between North and South Bharat and make preparations for it. Also, inform the BND to mobilize the press to have coverage of the border areas, including foreign press."

There was someone I was forgetting. Ah, who else could it be. The one that publicized photos of the tank parade through Parisee, the peace talks with Lugo in Parisee, Russy Federation's indiscriminate bombing of Legadonia Entente of which some called it terror bombing and other as strategic bombing, and the genocides in the Russy Federation.

"And be sure to include Miss Caldwell for that foriegn press invitation."

The telegram operator spoke up, "We've already called for a plane to come pick you two up and fly to Ildoan Somalialand, where there will be connecting flights all the way back to Berun. The plane will arrive in a little over two hours."

"Thank you."

I motioned to Visha, "An hour and half at the beach, and then we get ready for the plane. There's going to be a punishment for trying to suffocate the Chancellor."

We both blushed. I could sense the telegram operator was trying his best to remain fully focused on his job.

About a minute after the two women walked out and took off flying to another island, an officer stepped into the shack.

"What was going on?" he asked.

The telegram operator was unresponsive for several seconds, and then said "Nothing. I saw nothing."

1943, January 26th, in Berun:

I haven't seen Mr. Lloyd in a while ever since we worked out the future of the new republics from the Russy Federation's corpse. Then again, while OZEV was demobilizing and dealing with the insurgency problems in the new republics, the Allied Kingdom was busy putting down one colonial uprising after the next.

When he walked into my office, he had a minor surprise look on his face before suppressing it.

"It's probably the tan and sunburn I have on my skin, isn't it?"

"I presume you were somewhere in the southern hemisphere?"

"Everyone needs a break from time to time. Although mine was interrupted when I was informed about recent events in North Bharat. Please, take a seat. I already had tea made for you."

"Thank you."

Mr. Lloyd sat down and picked up the tea cup to smell it before taking a sip.

"I am curious to hear about the Allied Kingdom's position regarding the situation between North and South Bharat." I asked. "I am concerned about the possibility of the Bharat subcontinent being united under North Bharat's red banner."

"North and South Bharat have been squabbling as usual, but it's just rhetoric and some minor border skirmishes."

"It's not their speeches that is what concerns me. It's their behind the scene activity. We spotted Rus and CSR mage involvement in North Bharat, and all of it involves military training or building roads at their mountain borders. Do you know if South Bharat has been doing anything on a similar scale?"

"We have some military advisors over there."

"Do you think that would be enough to counter the Rus agents that are hell bent on revenge, and the CSR deciding to start getting involved in international affairs?"

"Our forces have been busy with putting down mass disturbances in our oversea colonies."

"I understand the Allied Kingdom has been busy with unruly colonies, but if the entirety of Bharat falls under the boot of the Chinese Soviet Republic and the Russy Federation, that's a lot of manpower the communists would get access to. It could spell the end of everyone's colonies in Asia."

"And what do you suggest we do?"

"You're the only country that South Bharat is familiar with, other than North Bharat. You need to convince South Bharat to build up their military. If they refuse, we will need to come up with a plan to prevent them from entirely collapsing should North Bharat crash through the border. The Francois Republic will also need to help out, although they hate us more than they hate you and both of you have the same colonial problems. The Legadonia Entente might also listen to you."

"Chancellor, what is in it for you?"

"CSR's and Russy Federation's backed insurgencies are preventing us from fully demobilizing our military. The CSR has been moving westward using the Trans-Sibyria railways and Moskva is within reach for them, and the only way they can do that without having to shoot their way through Sybira is by backing specific Russy factions. They are the only ones that have the resources to cause major havoc in Kazakh and Caucasia Republics. Communism is spreading again, and we need to put a stop to it."

Mr. Lloyd put down his tea.

"I can talk to my superiors about having a small force in South Bharat. If they are attacked, then North Bharat will have effectively declared war on us as well. What is your plan?"

"You probably already know this as your navy has consistently shadowed our navy. We already have one carrier task group in South Bharat conducting exercises. The other one had departed from the Baltic Sea to head to the same area via the Suez Canal. I am hoping to see a similar level of commitment to containing communism."

Another country showing more initiative with their navy deployment to defend a former colony than the Albion's own navy should be enough to convince them to match our level of contribution. They shouldn't be worried about me turning South Bharat into my own colony or puppet state. I have enough on my plate to try to play a colonial game where everyone loses.

"I'll talk to the Francois Republic to see what they can chip in. It would be a shame if they lose their Southeast Asia colonies. And the Legadonia Entente as well. By the way, have you spoken to the Americans?"

"The impression I got was that it would be difficult to justify to their public to go to war over a faraway land, especially with the Russy Federation crippled. They don't see the Chinese Soviet Republic as a major threat, unless South Bharat rapidly falls or their Philippines colony is threatened. You could also try to talk to them."

"That's… disappointing. I'll bring up my concern, because if we fully commit to South Bharat, another region would be left vulnerable. Hopefully they will change their mind before South Bharat falls. What about OZEV?"

"Their consensus is that if CSR is backing North Bharat, they're worried that it could just be a distraction from future communist plots against the new republics, and they're not interested in fully committing to another war. I might be able to encourage individual volunteers, but not much more than that."

"A reasonable concern. Losing Bharat would be bad. Having the Russy Federation being restored to its original territory would be far worse. We would rather not see them show up in the Baltic Sea or Black Sea again."

After several more minutes of getting an idea of how much the Allied Kingdom could contribute, we shook hands and wished each other well.

I'm not interested in throwing away Germania's lives for Albion's unwillingness to fully commit to saving South Bharat. Maybe we can get something worked out before some damn fool lights the powder keg.

Zhang Wentian was sitting in his office staring at a set of reports. Their informants based in South Bharat had heard rumors from fishermen of Germania's navy conducting a lot of exercises, including amphibious landing operations. Their NKVD informant at the Suez Canal reported that Germania's second carrier task force was scheduled to transit through with a large merchant fleet convoy, and the Allied Kingdom navy is tailing behind them. The NKVD informant at Aegyptus airport reported an uptick of connecting flights destined for South Bharat or the South Bharati Ocean.

The only plausible reason for those coincidences is that Germania and the Allied Kingdom somehow know about the invasion plan, or are at least spooked by something.

He couldn't act right now as North Bharat was simply unprepared and the mountain roads were still completely insufficient to send anything more than a token amount of supplies and men through. The mountain railroad that would connect CSR to North Bharat through the mountainous Tibet region was going to take at least a few years to finish at the cost of delaying the building of a few mines and two rail lines within the CSR. He could make use of a large number of combat mages to accelerate the construction, but that would require pulling mages from the Sibyrian army or the training staff in North Bharat. And an incomplete railroad would only just create logistic bottlenecks at the terminal end if the mountain roads aren't sufficient. But if he waited too long, North Bharat would be running into a prepared field of blades and fire.

And while the NKVD agents were willing to help train his mages on how to use the Type 97 orbs, they won't give them the orb production schematics unless he helps out with the invasion of South Bharat. He knows that they're using that as a leverage against him to get him to do their bidding. His mage research department still can't figure out how to build an exact copy of the orbs on a mass production scale. His agents in the Russy Federation were only able to find emptied out orb production facilities.

"Why can they just let the North and South Bharat remain at the status quo?" he grumbled. "It would have been so much simpler instead of kicking open a hornet's nest."

He flipped to another report. The mage augmentation researchers had focused on the energy liquid pump and tank contraption. The augmented C-tier mages still can't match the B-tier mages, but they can use basic spells for a limited duration, and then would have to stop to recover to avoid hospitalization. To try to match a B-tier mage would mean they would be looking at a few minutes of usage before needing hospitalization. Some people exhibited higher tolerances than others, which would need to be investigated to help understand how the liquids are being metabolized.

There was a side note about the possibility of using off-the-shelf components, establishing standardized surgery procedures for mass usage, and using traditional medicine to improve the energy liquid mix. The off-the-shelf components would make the system heavier, but potentially greatly reduce the manufacturing costs.

When he looked at another report, he raised an eyebrow. The NKVD agents had requested logistics support for long running "operations" in the Middle East. They wouldn't go into detail of what their goals were other than stating that the region just needed a continuous amount of "little" pushes over a period of time, but Kang Sheng reported there has been a rise in nationalism, religious and ethnic movements in the various Middle East countries ever since the Allied Kingdom had issued public statements that they were reducing their involvement with other countries' internal affairs, North and South Bharat became independent, and Francois Republic's crushing defeat and their military downsizing. All of those factors were certainly emboldening the nationalist and anti-foreigner movements, who were chafing at the heavy presence of Albion, Francois Republic and Unified States in their lands. And it would make sense for the NKVD to have an interest in fueling those movements in retaliation for the dismantling of the Russy Federation. If the Europeans can't make use of their Suez Canal, it would be much harder for them to maintain their iron grip on their Asian and East African colonies and threaten the CSR.

He wrote an order to be sent out to his council members.

"Accelerate all phases of Plan 38. Put the railway on hold. Overall timelines reduced by half. They know."

A second order to Kang Sheng to support the NKVD through any means necessary, as long as the CSR is able to maintain plausible deniability should the NKVD's operations be revealed, and to also try to use the logistics support as a leverage to get their assistance with the Type 97 orb manufacturing and training. The groups that the NKVD are backing do not have to be communist.

He wrote a third order, this one to Li Kenong. "We will need more rolling stock and other materials for the railway systems. I expect future expansion of railways in case we have a long running war."

And a fourth order to Peng Dehuai, instructing him to have the researchers look into developing a mass production model and a standardized surgery procedure. He didn't like all of the side effects associated with the surgeries and energy liquid, but it was good to have an option in case the B and A tier mages simply need extra bodies for specific missions.

As Wang Ming stepped out of Kang Sheng's office after their meeting, on the surface, his face looked neutral.

Inside, not so much.

"Back opposition groups against the imperialists. But they don't have to be communists?!" he screamed mentally. "This goes against what our country was established on!"

He was already annoyed that there would be no collectivization of the peasants' farms, the freeing of political prisoners and aristocrats from the Russy Federation's gulags, the CSR was engaged in a brutal fight against some of the Rus factions instead of trying to broker peace between those factions and CSR allied factions, and the army that was sent to Sibyria could have been used to fully bring the autonomous Tibet province under CSR's control instead of waiting for the rebels to rip up the half-hearted peace deal. The Sibyrian army's losses after the winter campaign were severe, and could have been avoided completely if they had gotten peace before the winter. But he was willing to let that slide until now.

Now he could see why Lev Bronstein was right about counter revolutionaries pretending to be communists were no better than capitalists. And he became more furious when he remembered how his incompetent superior, Kang Sheng, refused to allow Lev Bronstein to seek refuge in the CSR after Jugashvili dangled the promise of returning Manchuria back to the CSR, a promise that was conveniently delayed until the Russy Federation imploded.

As he walked back to his office, he searched his mind of who would be willing to stand up against a counter revolutionary Chairman Zhang Wentian and his cronies. He needed his own reliable allies if he was going to steer the country in the right direction.

The 28 Bolsheviks group. He was part of that group of students that had studied in the Russy Federation before Lev Bronstein's ouster, and he knew them well. Some of them were also subordinates of the Chairman's direct subordinates.

And the one nice thing about being Kang Sheng's go-to subordinate is that he would have advanced notice if someone in that group tries to betray him.

1943, March 8th, Bombay:

When Anna had told her that something big was going to happen in the Bharat subcontinent, Millie Caldwell had packed her bags and headed to South Bharat. Now it had been a little over a month and while the local newspaper occasionally mentioned the North and South Bharats' governments butting heads and tensions along the border, she was starting to doubt Anna's tip off. Instead she spent her time traveling through South Bharat, documenting their cultures, languages, religions, food, geography, historical places and everything else she could think of. Given how big the country is, she was fairly certain that she wouldn't run out of topics to write about.

It was also her visits to temples where she met Mr. Gandhi, and ended up having a full day interview with him, extensively documenting his personal life, beliefs and views on various topics ranging from religion to politics.

When he was heading up to North Bharat as part of his routine visits for prayers and promoting peace, she went along with him, partially due to wanting to explore North Bharat to see what life is like under the new communist government.

Perhaps Anna was wrong about the tip off, but she was looking forward to publishing her works when she chooses to head back home. It could be months, but she didn't mind.

After they got off the bus, they waited in line at the border crossing. When it was their turn, Gandhi walked up to the booth and presented his documents. The border agent stamped his passport and let him through. It was her turn to step up.

"Papers, please."

She gave him her passport.

"Where is your visit authorization card?"

"I'm with Mr. Gandhi. I'm working for the New Amstreldam Observer to write about life in Bharat."

"That does not matter."

Gandhi spoke up. "She is my guest, and wants to learn about my life and my work."

The border agent stared at Gandhi for a moment, then turned to me.

"Wait."

The border agent dialed his phone and slammed shut the shutter. Then after finishing the phone call, he opened it again and ordered the next person to step up. Minutes past by.

Someone walked into the border agent's booth, handed him a set of papers and then walked out.

"Miss Caldwell, come here."

I walked up to the booth and he pushed a set of documents towards me.

"After this, go to the security office to wait for your appointed escort. You will have an escort with you at all times. All of your material will be subjected to a review before you send out anything or leave North Bharat. Sign these documents."

She glanced through it. It looks like that border agent needed three signatures from his bosses for this to be allowed. Lots of restrictions and threat of severe punishments, but the alternative was to stop the interview with Gandhi early and not be able to write about life in North Bharat. She signed it and gave the documents back to the border agent. He signs it, and tears off montan wax carbon paper copies to hand to her.

"Welcome to North Bharat. Cause no trouble."

As they were about to walk away from the booth, they heard shouting in the distance, followed by an alarm going off. A soldier was running from the north, cutting through the first barbed wire fence, and dived into a drainage trench as gunshots rang out. She pulled out her film recorder to take footage as the soldier began to return fire at the distant border guards.

She suddenly heard a stray bullet whizz by, and then hit someone next to her. She spun around with the film recorder and saw Gandhi was falling to the ground from a hit to his neck.

She rushed over to Gandhi. Unsure of what she should do, she put the running recorder on the ground and decided to try to press down on the severe wound to slow the bleeding. She could hear him say something, but couldn't make out what it was. Border guards from both sides of the border came running over to Gandhi as well, some of them crying or had a look of horror on their faces.

About 10 minutes later, Gandhi was pronounced dead by a doctor. Miss Caldwell, covered in blood, was feeling numb and unsure what to do as one of the guards laid a cloth sheet over Gandhi. She picked up her still running recorder and aimlessly walked back towards the South Bharat's border. A North Bharatian border guard noticed the recorder and ordered Miss Caldwell to halt, which she did not notice as she was still trying to comprehend what happened.

The guard ran towards her, grabbed her right before she could cross over to South Bharat, and was about to pull her back into North Bharat when two South Bharatian guards grabbed her as well to pull her back into South Bharat. A third South Bharatian guard punched the North Bharatian guard in the face.

It didn't take long for the other guards to join the brawl.

AN:

Wang Ming is a loose adaptation of the real life Wang Ming. You know it's going to be a good time when Mao considered Wang Ming to be "dogmatic".