AN: Credits to Sunny, gdstriker, and perfect_shade for the revisions.

My Ch 54 draft version is complete, but I am holding off on releasing it as one of my reviewers is adding additional scenes to it and I can't see their work-in-progress writing as they're doing it all offline. This also means I have to hold off on my work for Ch 55 in order to maintain continuity with what the reviewer is adding. I am releasing this rewrite chapter in the meantime.

I will also be rewriting Ch 13-14 after coming up with a major plot revision for those chapters, which may include an Aegyptian military misadventure in the Bharatian War and later consequences for the Middle East.

Fanfiction site doesn't allow images or links to images. My story on Spacebattle and Archive of Our Own has map drawings showing the locations discussed in this chapter.

The old chapter 4 is at the bottom of this page.

December 7th, 1942, in Berun:

"Our recruitment program within the Russy Federation has succeeded… beyond our preparations. Our hopes even." Elya had an edge of nervousness in her voice while I skimmed through the report. "It seems the combination of winter and the chaos of the civil war has pushed many of them over the edge to wanting to work with us. It could also be that the NKVD has caught wind of our program and is trying to infiltrate agents into our country."

"Instead of a few hundred Rus engineers, philosophers and other intellectuals and technical experts, we ended up with several thousands, and those are just the ones we directly recruited? And there are still more that want to come over?" I set down the report and pondered.

"By my estimates, there are likely far more of those who made it on their own to Germania or elsewhere in OZEV. Probably at least three or four times of those that we identified and recruited." Elya pointed at one of the figures in the report.

The empire had a history of taking on the fleeing Rus masses, so I didn't find it surprising that their reputation of integration and opportunity for prosperity would precede them. Enough for many to make their own trips instead of waiting for someone to come rescue them.

But after two great wars, partition and strife I would have figured Germania to have lost some of its attractiveness. And while I did put in a lot of work to restore the nation, why would those fleeing the Rus not put an ocean between themselves and the NKVD by heading for the Unified States in the first place? Instead settling on the middle European nation struggling to keep up… for what reason? I also would have expected the Rus to have run out of people willing to flee by this point, but I supposed that was one thing the communists still produced more than enough of.

Though thinking of the past, at one point Germania had similar fools taking foot. I then tapped on my desk. "Elya, remind me again, what happened to the rank and file communists when the highway works and other social programs were launched?"

"Mostly ceased to be a problem on their own." I snapped my fingers when I saw the realization dawn on Elya's face.

Something that is easily overlooked in economics are human resources, particularly those that are highly skilled. Countries have been harmed by brain drain, sometimes resorting to desperate measures such as East Germany's Berlin Wall system to stop their skilled labor from fleeing to West Germany.

And a Russy Federation deprived of their best talent means it will take much longer for them to rebuild their industry and military to threaten us again.

"Well then!" I smiled while clasping my hands together in glee. "Let's make their stay in Germania comfortable, for their entire family and who else they bring with them. Let them pursue their line of work without political constraints, which is something that many of them will be grateful of. For those that do cause trouble, do make them aware that they and their family will get the express trip back to the Russy Federation, just so we're clear on our messaging. To them and the rest."

"What will we do with the inevitable sleeper NKVD agents amongst them?"

"That's a risk I'm willing to take when we can reap the reward of pulling the best human talent from the Rus. While we rocket ahead in science, industry, culture and other fields, the Russy Federation will be fishing for scraps from their sleeper agents!"

That couldn't be all of course, I remembered just how much knowledge could be stolen if given the opportunity. "Though Elya, better work out some measures to make sure they do only get scraps. Keep an eye on who we know and if they're sending out suspicious amounts of correspondence, those that start to make visits with suspiciously new contacts or those that try to slip back to the Russy Federation, you know the works."

"I see," Elya nodded, jotting down a note before shuffling some more papers with a sigh. "I have noticed there are two particular fields that we had trouble recruiting. There are extremely few recruited people that worked with mage technology, and the ones that we have recruited reported that those who did not cooperate with the NKVD or ran to the Chinese, have often been killed or gone missing. The second field is those involved with human physiology. While the NKVD is far less aggressive about retaining talent for that field, my agents reported that Chinese agents have an unusual interest in recruiting them."

"Mage technology and human physiology…" I tapped my chin. "Something must be driving the communists to prioritize those fields, compared to every other science field."

"That is something that has worried me," Elya looked down at her feet.

"Doctors only make sense, they are expensive to train and necessary for any person to have." I mused. Also typically enjoyed higher standing and comfort no matter what the commies wanted so they tended to be easier to retain, tied down in their communities. "But ensuring operational security for the mage branch bothers me. Why specifically the mages? They've always been third rate compared to our own, maybe second after the leak with the dual core tech which we're past but is one of those things I don't want a repeat of as I said before. Keep a particular eye on whoever we do get with magical expertise, alright?"

"I'll make note of it." Elya responded curtly. Cocking her head in thought. "We could be seeing the NKVD returning to form to prevent any 'counter revolutionaries' acquiring mage tech? They've always had a tight control of anyone gaining enough power to resist a bullet to the back of the head."

"Even when it was to their detriment, during the great war." I snorted, that alone hampered their operations and made dealing with their tanky orbs far easier back then.

"Still strikes me as strange." I once again glanced over the very limited list of potential human resources. "If anything we should be seeing more attempts at defection being hunted down with how they treat their mage researchers. Unless they have some reason to think we wouldn't take them?"

I knew some companies had a problem with hiring due to raising expectations too high. Particularly workers without a perfect record easily being discouraged by their perceived or real lack of skill. "Even if they're out of date a job maintaining older orbs in the civilian sector would still be a step up from working at gunpoint."

"I can see if that argument convinces some more people?" Elya asked, to which I nodded her assent. It was worth a shot. "Any other ideas, I'm not expecting much success with this either?"

"Not particularly, no." I shook her head. "We just don't know enough to make any useful guesses.

"Don't I know it." Elya snapped her little black notebook closed with a sigh. "Alright, will put some focus on gaining insight from anyone we can get our hands on. But not holding out hope, they're all pretty low level."

January 5th, 1943, somewhere in the South Bharatian Ocean, onboard a 'fishing vessel' sailing across the vast Bharati Ocean:

Wang Ming rubbed his eyes as he looked out of his large binoculars at a distant island, and an Albish warship sailing away from it.

Our cargo ship is a few hours behind us, the next one is two days away, and the others have likely already crossed through the Malacca Strait to enter the Bharatian Ocean.

Wang turned to the captain and spoke in a rough Albish language. "There's a lot of construction activity going on there, and an Albish flagged cargo ship is anchored near the shoreline… What island is that over there again?"

"Hulhule Island," the captain yawned.

"This is the second island of the Maldives island chain that we saw with construction projects, including an airfield and harbor enlargement." Wang rapidly tapped his foot. "We had been sailing around since November and suddenly in the past week, the Albish is rapidly building up what looks like military infrastructure on their islands. They seem to know what we are up to…"

Wang thought for a moment. "Captain, is there a way for us to avoid the entire Maldives island chain? Eventually the Albish patrol ships and aircraft will take notice of our shipping patterns with their greatly improved forward operating ports."

"Not possible," the captain set down his cigarette. "A detour like that would add almost 2000 kilometers to our journey. If your suspicion about the Albish already knowing about our operation is true, then any detours will only delay the inevitable boarding and inspection. I'm not sure if we even have enough fuel on board for such a detour, and stopping for fuel anywhere close to the Bharatian subcontinent also risks boarding and inspection."

Wang tightly clenched his hands. 'This is going to be an interesting conversation when I meet with the NKVD to grill them because someone talked and now our entire arms delivery operation is at risk. They were the ones who demanded the delivery! Why are we even bothering to work with the foreigners?! And I have to pass the word back to Nanjing that our smuggling operation may have already been blown.'

"Should we continue onward to North Bharat?" The captain asked.

"No, we need to sail by the Maldives island chain to determine the military buildup level around here." Wang put down his binoculars. "We could be looking at South Bharat potentially making the first move in a war. There is no other reason why the Albish would be militarizing some remote islands. Nanjing and the NKVD need to know about this development."

Meanwhile, on one of the Seychelles islands:

"I love how every island has their own unique environment," Visha hugged me as we walked across the beach, with the waves going up to our knees at times.

"To be honest, other than our visit of Malagasy, the past two islands we visited have been a bit of a blur for me." I stroked Visha's hair in return.

"You probably spent too much time in the office, processing piles of paperwork and holding meetings. Out of touch with nature."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh I had plenty of experiences with nature."

"We're not being shot at, so we can actually take in the scenery!" Visha lightly punched me. "Relax a little!"

"I'll relax when I don't have dumpster fires to put out," I grumbled.

"Tanya, there you go again. Playing hero." Visha huffed. "You're going to run yourself ragged from running around to hammer down every problem you see. At least promise me that you'll be at home most of the time, instead of going off on long adventures around the world."

"I promise…" When the next wave crashed in, I slapped some of the water at Visha. "See, I am relaxing!"

It didn't take long for us to splash water at each other, and then transition to a high speed swim through the waves.

January 14th, 1943, Nanjing, at Li Kenong's office:

"I warned you this was a foolish scheme for us to be involved with! And now you want to double down by sending even more ships, when the Albish already knows what we are doing?!" Li Kenong screamed at a patiently sitting Kang, saliva droplets flying out of his mouth.

"We still have a window of time to maximize our arms shipment while they are building their island infrastructure. If your mountain road and railroad constructions weren't taking so lo-" Kang was abruptly cut off.

"I know you have your informants, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that building roads through the Himalayas will take at minimum a full year, and the railways will require even more time! I can't build a railway from the Russy Federation to North Bharat while the Rus civil war is still raging and Afghanistan has no relations with us. I can't build a railway through southeast Asia because Burma is in the way, and they are under Albish control."

"If you cancel the Great Leap Forward, that would speed up the road and railway constructions," Kang narrowed his eyes.

Li Kenong scoffed. "You'll have to convince Chairman Zhang to do that, and even if he agrees, what happens when we get sucked into an attrition war with an underdeveloped infrastructure and industry, against the Allied Kingdom and their assortment of capitalist lapdogs? Where will Peng get his ammunition?"

"This won't be an attrition war if North Bharat wins a quick and decisive victory before the Albish remobilizes to rescue South Bharat. Now, I need your ships."

"You aren't getting any more than what I allocated; I need those for my own smuggling operations to acquire resources that otherwise wouldn't be available for us, because Southeast Asia is still dominated by the European colonies and puppet states." Li Kenong crushed his cigarette into the ashtray. "And even if I gave you the ships, I would still have to redo my intricatel production schedules to accelerate military production to load something into the extra ships. If I were you, I'd suggest finding the mole that tipped off the Albish about our smuggling operation before they alert the Albish about us sending even more ships, and pull some deception on the Albish to keep them away from our ships. All the extra cargo ships in the world won't help when the Albish navy intercepts them."

"Your smuggling operations are only viable because of the work of my agents," Kang narrowed his eyes.

"You want to tell the Chairman that you are going to strangle his Great Leap Forward over this petty dispute?"

Kang stared at Li Kenong for a moment, then got up from his chair and walked out of the office.

"This isn't over yet," Kang muttered before shutting the door.

Meanwhile, on one of the Seychelles islands:

We were sunbathing on a beach when Visha suddenly spoke up.

"Tanya, remember when you ranted about running off to Argentina with me?"

"The what?"

"It was the night after you got the Treaty of Triano canceled."

Now I remembered. The appeasement that everyone was offering while the Rus was gearing up for their adventure in Europe. And I had gotten completely drunk when I had no idea how to deal with the Rus when the Unified States and Allied Kingdom had just thrown the Francois Republic under the bus instead of just asking me to be exiled to a tropical island.

"Sort of. Why are you bringing it up now?"

"You mentioned wanting to go somewhere warm and safe. And building a villa. Raising horses here might be a bit difficult, but I don't mind going without them. Is this the 'Argentina' that you were talking about?."

"Hmm. Villas." An idea then sprung from the thought, "We're already building ports and airfields, and other infrastructure for people to live on the island. Tourism is only the next logical step."

Visha raised an eyebrow before smiling in amusement, "Tourist destinations? Who would be coming to the islands?"

"Everyone from around the world is looking for sunny and warm beaches, far away from society. It won't just be limited to Germania or OZEV."

Visha hummed, "Speaking of tourists from around the world, I was told that you were learning Akitsushiman."

Elya must have noticed that newspaper and told Visha about it! That's the problem with having a competent intel director - they can also spy on you. Maybe I could try downplaying the situation.

"Oh it's nothing much, just some basic phrases."

Visha scooted to be right next to me.

"Well you were reading Akitsushima Dominion's newspapers, weren't you? Those can get complex."

I could feel my face become warm. "It is important to learn the languages of allies instead of just relying on translators."

"Maybe you are a fan of the Akitsushima Dominion's culture?" Visha then clambered on top of me, with her face only centimeters away from mine.

Now I could definitely tell my face was red when getting caught. "No, Visha."

"You surprised the Akitsushiman ambassador when he had the mochi brought out, and me as well when I learned how much you knew about Akitsushiman desserts. The number of Germanians that have a remote idea about their main dishes is a minority. An even smaller minority even knew about that specific dessert," she teased me while putting her hand on my face. "Oh my, your face is very warm right now." She tilted her head and blinked prettily, "Are you having a fever?"

She was definitely right about most Germanians not knowing much about the world outside of Europe, or even the Empire's territories. There was no internet to browse through, and TVs were just starting to become commonplace which meant there was very limited broadcasting of shows featuring foreign countries, so one had to go to a library and find specific books about foreign countries, or go to a foreign restaurant though even in cities like Berun those were rare.

I brushed her hand aside and she immediately put it on my chest. "And a rapid heartbeat. I think Elya mentioned something about rapid heartbeats and polygraphs."

I could now feel the color start to disappear from my face. The last thing I want is for Elya to inadvertently pry knowledge about my previous life from me while practicing lie detection. One, or both of us, would be declared as mentally ill and get thrown into a padded cell.

"I think we should go swimming." I quickly deflect, "I do like the beauty of the reefs."

"Tsk. Tsk." Visha shook her head as I absentmindedly began swimming away from her. "An indomitable soldier, commander and politician, but can't handle a heart-to-heart conversation."

February 16th, 1943, in Londinium:

'Just when I thought I could capitalize on the post-war demobilization to retire, I got sucked right back in.' Ian Flemons grumbled to himself, then stood up from his chair as Foreign Secretary Viscount Guysborough walked into the room.

"Apologies for keeping you waiting, and please, you can remain seated." Guysborough smiled as he took his own seat. "I am curious about what is going on in the Bharat subcontinent, especially for the Royal Navy to begin pushing back on demobilization."

"The activities around the subcontinent specifically," Flemons nodded as he unfolded a map, withdrew photos of the base constructions from a folder and placed them next to the marked islands. "Both the Germanians and the communists are up to something."

"I was aware that the Germanians are building bases on the Seychelles islands, because they directly informed us about their claim of needing those bases to respond to future communist activities in Southeast Asia or East Africa." Guysborough then frowned. "When you say the communists are up to something out in the ocean, are you referring to North Bharat?"

Flemons furrowed his eyebrows. "That is interesting, the Germanians might also know about the communist arms smuggling activities that I was about to discuss, if they are being fully truthful."

"Arms smuggling?"

"Ah yes, that." Flemons then withdrew additional photos, this time showing a ship's deck covered in weapons and ammunition. "We boarded a cargo ship for inspection and uncovered their illicit business of delivering their goods to North Bharat. While our investigations are ongoing, we know only the Chinese Soviet Republic or what is left of the Russy Federation could be the source of the arms shipments. Especially since many of the weapons are Rus designs."

Guysborough leaned back in his chair. "Let your superiors know that I'll be briefing Churbull, and recommending that we step up patrol activities in the waters around the Bharat subcontinent."

"Even if we reactivate retired ships, manning them in the midst of our demobilization…"

"Perhaps South Bharat would appreciate a gift of our ships that were slated to be scrapped. They can provide the manning to run the ships," Guysborough struck a match to light his cigar. "What do you say?"

Flemons frowned for a moment, then stopped it. "It'll require some time to properly train them, and while I'm uncertain of how South Bharat may interact with us in the future, shutting down North Bharat's smuggling activities is the best option we have for deterring them from going to war."

"Anything else?" Guysborough looked prepared to get up from his seat.

Flemons cleared his throat. "There is something else I want to bring up. It might be a coincidence, or that Degurechaff might have aspirations for South Bharat."

"Oh?"

Flemons retrieved the last photo from his briefcase, which Guysborough's eyes quickly widened.

"Is that… Millicent Caldwell?" Guysborough stared at the photo.

"Indeed," Flemons sighed. "Our boys sighted her touring South Bharat. While we can't prove for certain that she is acting on behalf of the Germanians, she has been known for being uncomfortably close to Degurechaff. And the other information I was recently informed about was King Ismail of Aegyptus and his brief visit in South Bharat. An informant in Aegyptus reported that the king only visited South Bharat due to Degurechaff's request, and it was his visit that ended up causing the Lalji riots in South Bharat. I don't know if she had instructed him to cause the riots, but given how she never showed up to see him and Germania's sudden interest in the waters around South Bharat, something isn't right."

"Thank you for your advice. I hope you won't be retiring soon, as peace won't last." Guysborough got up from his seat. "It appears war is coming, both from the communists and Degurechaff."

'Bloody hell, so much for my retirement plan!'

April 4th, 1943, in the Northern Arabian Sea, 60 kilometers west of Bombay (Mumbai):

Wang cursed as he watched a South Bharatian warship approach a cargo ship.

His cargo ship. This particular one was loaded with Rus drilling and excavating machinery and a few train engines. Not exactly something that could be easily concealed by using sacks of rice. And he had orders to protect it at any costs, even if it meant losing the other cargo ships in the process. Unlike his colleagues, no cargo ships have been lost on his watch, but he wasn't going to accept having to lose one anyways, not when it would cost his perfect record.

'What are the South Bharatians doing here?! We're far outside of their territorial waters, and so close to North Bharat!'

The other annoyance was that it wasn't just a fast boat with weapons bolted on. It was an Albish corvette, and a few weeks ago he had seen it flying an Albish flag. The South Bharatians didn't even change the hull number or repaint the ship.

Wang gritted through his teeth. "I have a plan. It's not an elegant one, but it'll distract them from boarding our cargo ship and blowing open our entire operation to the world."

"What is it?" The captain looked uneasy.

"Broadcast communist propaganda and insult them," Wang slightly smiled. "Get their attention. We have nothing incriminating onboard, other than some weapons that we'll throw overboard without them noticing. I'll just have to go into hiding."

The captain looked around in the pilot house and pointed at one of his sailors. Wang wasn't sure what to make of their local language, but took notice of the sailor having a wide grin on their face as they confidently strutted over to the radio set.

'I hope the South Bharatian warship doesn't just sink us outright in rage.' Wang bit his lips as the sailor began to go on a long, bombastic rant over the radio.

As the minutes passed by with the sailor laughing as they argued with the increasingly angry South Bharatians over the radio, Wang noticed the warship was veering hard away from the cargo ship, and now bearing down straight at his fishing vessel.

"Okay, we got their attention; you can have him stop." Wang had a look of worry on his face as the captain set for full speed on the engine order telegraph.

"No, I need him to radio the North Bharatian Navy to retrieve our corpses, if any are still floating by the time they show up. We're going to meet our doom," the captain sighed.

"What did your sailor say over the radio?!" A horrified Wang grabbed the unfazed captain and shook him.

"Typical sailor talk, but it seems the South Bharatians have taken it hard when he brought up the religious topic and made jokes about the theft of the golden statues, the following Golden Statue Riot, and the deaths of thousands of people over the golden statues. Then kept talking when they warned him to stop talking about the statute incident."

The South Bharatian ship then fired a cannon shot, its shell splashing about a kilometer away. Then a second shot, this time closer to the fishing vessel.

About an hour later:

Wang coughed up water and gasped for breath, then looked around in daze and confusion, finding himself on the deck of another vessel.

"Stay still. You're safe now." A fellow Chinese agent motioned at him to stop.

"Where are we?"

"You're on a North Bharatian torpedo boat. We found you floating in the water after a group of us responded to your fishing vessel's distress call. But don't worry, your cargo ship made it safely to North Bharatian waters."

Wang breathed heavily. "What happens now?"

"Well, the crew on this ship and other ships want revenge for the sinking of an unarmed civilian vessel. So we might be the witness to the start of a war between two countries, all over a sunken fishing vessel."

A few hours later, in South Bharat, Bombay:

Caldwell looked down at her watch while seated at a restaurant, then took a sip of her masala chai, which she then saw a car come to a stop and Balakrishna Savarkar, the Minister of Home Affairs, stepped out of it. Her guide ceased his conversation with someone else, and opted to relocate himself farther away.

She got up to perform a namaste welcoming gesture. Savarkar smiled as he offered a handshake instead. "I appreciate your gesture, it's rare for foreigners to pick up on our customs. Anyways, I understand that you wanted to discuss politics?"

"I just wanted to learn more about how people are getting accustomed to their relatively recent independence," Caldwell smiled as she took his handshake. "Would you like some masala chai?"

"No, I should be ordering it for you." Savarkar chuckled as he took his seat and quickly said something to a waiter, before turning back to her. "It's been a tough time, but I believe we can overcome the challenges soon."

"What are some of the challenges?"

"With a country this large, there are bound to be many different voices. And that comes in the form of numerous political parties, some determined by religious or ethnic lines, and others by competing interests of what South Bharat's future should look like."

"I see…" Caldwell scribbled in her notebook. "What do you envision South Bharat's future to be?"

"An unified Bharat," he stretched out his arms horizontally. "There is a major political opposition that would rather seek peace and maintain the status quo, with the flimsy justifications of wanting to focus on other matters. Don't even get me started on the socialists that are skirting the definition of the banned communist party."

"And how would you unify Bharat? I would expect North Bharat to have their own ideas."

"If diplomacy doesn't work, then by military force." Savarkar hardened his face. "Especially if North Bharat demands unacceptable terms for peaceful unification. Their recent proposal of South Bharat adopting a socialist system and to remove the ban on the communist party in South Bharat was an insult to us!"

"Is South Bharat prepared for a war?" Caldwell raised an eyebrow as Savarkar thanked the waiter for his drink.

"It's a work in progress," he let out a long sigh.

"I'm assuming the defense minister's corruption scandal and the accusations of him tolerating corruption among the military senior commanders have been a major impediment?"

"Indeed, and it certainly hasn't helped with my argument for a sustained military budget to be passed. One that allows planning for longer than a year, instead of constant short term ones." Savarkar took a sip of his masala chai. "I'm going to let the investigations finish before making any public statements about my colleagues. Can we change the topic?"

"Do you have an update on the Lalji riot investigation?"

"No, I'm not discussing that controversial topic." Savarkar shook his head dismissively. "I already made enough political enemies from criticizing those that exploited the riots for their own political gain. It's hard to get a military budget passed when everyone is wasting their time with that drama."

"I apologize for that," Caldwell looked briefly flustered.

"I apologize as well, I shouldn't have lashed out like that to a lady like you. It's just not a good time to talk about it."

After another hour of interviewing, Savarkar got up from his chair and slid a torn piece of paper with his contact information. "It's been a pleasure speaking with you, but I must go now. I can get you in touch with my colleagues if you are interested."

"Thank you for your time," Caldwell smiled as she pocketed the paper.

Suddenly a half dozen low flying aircraft rumbled overhead. She quickly got up from her seat with a camera already ready for snapping photos.

Then another aircraft flew overhead towards the ocean.

Caldwell snapped a few photos, then turned to Savarkar. "Those are military aircraft! What's going on?"

"I have no idea, ma'am," Savarkar looked on with confusion as yet another aircraft flew in.

Caldwell's guide came running back. "I lived in this city for most of my life and have never seen anything like this."

"All three groups appear to be heading to the ocean. Let's head in that direction to see what is going on."

Her guide nodded and waved down a rickshaw for them to board.

"Stay safe," Savarkar waved as he ran off to his car.

A few minutes later, Caldwell heard the crack of cannon fire in the distance, and as they approached the waterfront, she could see in the distance a damaged and listing warship sailing towards the bay, firing its weapons wildly at a loose group of smaller vessels that were pursuing it.

"Stop!" Caldwell shouted, while her guide yelled at the rickshaw operator. She then hopped out of the rickshaw and pushed aside the growing crowd of spectators, this time clearly seeing that the pursued warship was flying a South Bharatian flag, and the pursuers were flying North Bharatian flags. She snapped a photo as a South Bharatian aircraft dived for a strafing run on a North Bharatian vessel.

"What are the communists doing here?" Caldwell's guide looked on with horror as the vessel exploded, while the now climbing aircraft had its tail shredded by another North Bharatian vessel's gun fire.

"I don't know, but I hope this doesn't lead to war." Caldwell sighed as she continued taking photos of the naval skirmish.

April 6th, 1943, in Berun:

"North Bharat is accusing South Bharat of sinking an unarmed fishing vessel and killing everyone onboard, and insisting that territorial waters were invaded. Meanwhile South Bharat has been equally mad about the naval battle that took place right in front of their capital. And now the two of them have escalated the matters with skirmishes all along their border." I whistled as I set down the newspaper, Millie's photos were plastered all across the front and second pages. "So what did your Albish counterpart have to say?"

Zettour lightly chuckled. "They insisted they had the matter under control, and it was not something we should be concerned about."

I looked back at the newspaper, specifically at a section that discussed the territorial water definition controversy, with North Bharat's claim that they never entered South Bharat's territorial waters based on the three mile limit, while South Bharat claimed their territorial waters extended out to 30 nautical miles, and would be utilizing their newly established navy to enforce such claims.

"Is there anything that we should do in the event that war kicks off?" Zettour rubbed his chin.

"I hope Defense Minister Lergen's planning for the training and logistics will be ready, and his appointed South Bharat expeditionary commander, General Von Romel, is also ready with their developing strategy."

"Ah, Romel." Zettour smiled. "He won't be short on information with his selected military personnel that are pretending to be tourists in South Bharat."

April 23rd, 1943, in Nanjing:

"What do you mean they want to start the war now? Less than one year of preparation and they want to jump into the raging river of war?" Zhang put a hand to his forehead.

"Reports from my agents indicate that the Albish patrols around the Maldives island chains and South Bharatian patrols in the waters south of North Bharat have been significantly stepped up after the Bombay incident." Kang bitterly noted. "Even my best agent who had zero lost cargo ships on his watch has reported the situation is becoming increasingly untenable. Shipments through the mountains are not possible right now, so it's either start the war now or wait for years. And the NKVD is unwilling to wait."

"If anything goes wrong with the war, we won't be able to send much forces to the south." Peng also seemed equally bitter. "Not until we can end the Russy civil war. Hostile Rus factions are tenaciously holding onto Moskva's outskirts, which I can't pull my forces away from that theater. Not taking Moskva will embolden our enemies."

"We need to persuade the NKVD to wait for the road and mountain constructions in the Tibetan region to complete. Or they find a way to quickly end the battle for Moskva in our favor." Li Kenong had an edge of dismissiveness in his voice. "Otherwise North Bharat will have to mostly fight with what they have so far, as our supplies only come in as a trickle over the existing mountain paths. Even if our military is fully available to march south, they would have to build their own roads as well!"

"We do have mages that we can send over to North Bharat, by having them fly over the mountains." Kang tapped his finger on the table. "That way we can keep up the fighting in the Russy Federation's territory and also help ensure North Bharat's quick victory."

"I'm not liking the constant assumption of a quick, victorious war." Li Kenong then desperately looked at Zhang. "I know you've extensively studied historical wars. How many of them that were planned for a 'quick victory' turned into a long running slaughterhouse?"

"We've committed too much to back out of our arrangement, we already sent over many shiploads of goods and are nowhere close to getting the orbs." Zhang was looking distressed, then pondered for a moment. "But our mages can fly over the mountains… How many transport planes can we get from the NKVD?"

"I'll tell them to give all of them, and other things that are required such as the aviation fuel, or we won't be able to support North Bharat until the mountain roads are completed." Kang had an ecstatic smile as Li Kenong looked on with annoyance.

"If we're switching from smuggling over the ocean to the air for North Bharat, I need your agents to resume the smuggling operations in the rest of Southeast Asia, now that the Albish concentrated their naval forces around South Bharat." Li Kenong stared at Kang.

"No, I'm retasking my agents for the air operations." Kang continued to smile.

"Give most of the smuggling agents back to Li Kenong, we still have the Great Leap Forward plan to execute. I don't have time for petty squabbles." Zhang got up from his chair. "This concludes the meeting."

May 19th, 1943, in Berun:

"I'll have to admit Mr. Lloyd, I was not expecting the sudden change of wanting me to be involved with the Bharatian subcontinent after previously giving me the cold shoulder." I took a drink of my coffee before putting my cup back down. "Something in the subcontinent that is making you worried enough to not wait for Foreign Minister Zettour to return from his medical leave?"

"Yes, the activities in North Bharat suggest they are planning for something, and we need to put a stop to it." Lloyd fidgeted in his chair.

"What kind of activities?" I narrowed my eyes. "You don't just summon the President of Germania over a bedtime nightmare."

"We were monitoring the rapid construction of airfields with long runways in North Bharat after we stepped up patrols in the Bharatian Ocean, and now it's clear what their purpose is. Transport aircraft with no markings, whose models match the Rus transport aircraft that we've seen in the previous war, have started flying back and forth to deliver supplies and equipment. Simultaneously, North Bharat has begun mining their coastal waters about the time when they ceased their illegal smuggling activities."

"And why is this my concern now?" I raised an eyebrow.

"I thought you wanted to keep the communists in check at every possible moment?" Lloyd looked baffled.

"Until you spurred my offer for help months ago. There's a saying, of 'you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink', and it would be impolite of me to just barge into South Bharat." I shook my head dismissively. "I concluded that you wanted no interference in your overseas colonial operations, and thus last week I just instructed Defense Minister Lergen to resume our demobilizations. After all, didn't you want a Germania that wasn't maintaining a suspiciously large military?"

I expected the Albish to procrastinate on doing the right thing, so while I did indeed tell Lergen to publicly continue downsizing our military, I also asked him to continue working on developing plans for an involvement in South Bharat.

"We don't need your military in South Bharat," Lloyd slightly smiled.

"Then what are you asking for?"

"Your presence at the upcoming diplomatic talks between North and South Bharats, to implicitly remind the communists to not take rash actions." Lloyd continued to smile. "The communists will get the message of the potential consequences if they try their luck. A question I do have is in regards to your offer from months ago, what was it in for you at the time?"

"Stopping the spread of communism as always." I shot an annoyed glance at him. "My message hasn't changed, for how many years now?"

"Do you later intend on seeking an alliance with South Bharat?"

"And then deal with the additional headaches of maintaining an alliance halfway across the world?" I rolled my eyes. "I'm already busy with OZEV. Look, a strong South Bharat will benefit everyone other than the communists, because a weak one would just keep inviting unwanted communism influence or outright invasion. As long as South Bharat isn't under threat, I won't be interfering with your Majesty's sphere of influence."

"I see; perhaps I misunderstood you. I apologize for that."

"When are the talks happening?" I prepared to get up from my chair.

"On May 27th."

How bold of him to dictate the date to me, after begging for my help…

I proceeded to stand up. "Make it the 23rd, I have some personal matters scheduled for the 27th."

"I will reschedule it to your preferred day then," Lloyd sighed.

May 23rd , 1943, in South Bharat, Bombay:

As I stepped out of my aircraft and down the stairs, I glanced at the small crowd that was observing me behind the picket line. They seemed more curious about who I was, and what I was doing here.

Millie seems conspicuously absent from the crowd. Which is strange because she is often coincidentally conveniently at the perfect locations to photograph and interview me.

Well, if this all goes well, I'll be in and out of here. Maybe just in time for Visha's upcoming 'surprise special dinner'. I did pack a flight suit, rifle, some ammunition, energy bars and a spare computational orb just in case I end up having to shoot my way out of a mess and fly myself back home.

A voice beckoned to me, "President Degurechaff! Good to see you here!"

I looked down and saw the Albish ambassador Allen Shone waiting for me at the bottom with four cars idling nearby. I proceeded to quicken my steps downward while he extended his hand out for a handshake.

I took his offer and shook his hand. "It's been a strange time with things being all tense again, almost less than a year since the peace in Europe."

"Well, things certainly haven't calmed down here. The past 24 hours have been interesting…" Shone trailed off as we took our seats in one of the cars.

"Oh, what happened?"

Shone looked down at his watch. "Yesterday, Gandhi suddenly fell ill while being interviewed by Miss Caldwell. Overnight, Minister of Home Affairs, Balakrishna Savarkar, narrowly avoided an assassination attempt, but his only son was killed in the attack. Well, he technically has another son, but disowned him for joining North Bharat. As of 7 hours ago, it was discovered that Gandhi's tea was poisoned."

"Is Miss Caldwell okay?" I looked on with alarm. While I may be suspicious of her, I certainly didn't envision her being dead with Gandhi.

"She is in police custody for investigation, but for some unknown reason, she already has a legal team assembled to represent her even though she never made a phone call to lawyers." Shone rubbed his chin. "The other strange thing is that the suspects for both assassination operationswere quick to publicly declare that they did it for religious and political reasons and then turned themselves into the police. After they were arrested, they denied any involvement with communism. But some of them had friends or relatives who were communist members. Nevertheless, if the communists were involved and seek to sow chaos, they succeeded. Because a few hours ago, I received reports of political and religious protests, and riots, across South Bharat. Simultaneously, there has also been an increased North Bharatian military activity just north of the border."

"So our upcoming peace talks are going to be a bit heated…" I mused while looking out the window, observing what appeared to be a protest group assembled at a plaza.

"Indeed," Shone held the bridge of his nose as if he was in pain. "I always knew the NKVD were seeking to settle a bloody score after the collapse of their homeland, but it seems they are determined to ignite a conflict. In retrospect, Londinium should have invited you to the previous peace talks."

"Previous ones?"

"Those were less of a peace talk, and more of a shouting match, with North Bharat making major demands that South Bharat and Londinium would not accept. That should have been a warning sign to Londinium that North Bharat may have been looking for excuses to start a war."

"And is South Bharat ready for war?"

"Absolutely not," Shone looked up at the ceiling of the car. "All the reasons why Londinium should have taken this more seriously instead of treating me as an alarmist. They don't seem to understand that while North Bharat isn't a military powerhouse, the communists don't need to be one when South Bharat's military offers little resistance and lacks the processes for rapid mobilization."

A couple minutes passed when Shone looked out the window. "Ah, we're almost there. That's the building over there that we will be having the pea-"

And then it exploded with a bright flash, with the shockwave of the blast rattling the car.

"I think we should prepare for war, right now." I facepalmed as Shone looked on with horror at the large cloud of dust enveloping the area and screams echoing in the distance.

AN:

wiki/1969_Gujarat_riots

Albish corvette reference: wiki/Flower-class_corvette

wiki/Engine_order_telegraph

wiki/Masala_chai

wiki/Three-mile_limit

wiki/Namaste

Also, as a teaser for Chapter 54, two snipplets from it:

"Speaking of toxic assets, the Frankish Indochina colony is falling to the communists." Foster Dullas finished his glass of brandy. "They're down to a couple isolated fortified coastal areas with only their naval bombardments keeping the rebels at bay. There have been reports of the Vietnamese rebels being increasingly better equipped and possessing heavy equipment, and a few reported instances of Frankish jets being shot down by missiles. We all know where the rebels are getting their goods from…"

"It seems they decided it was more important for them to cling onto their colonies than to pay their debts," Moores Dullas shrugged. "I'm curious if both the Francois Republic and the CSR will double, then triple their efforts in the Indochina slaughterhouse. Which could make debt collection efforts… interesting."

"I'm not sure if the debt holders are going to be happy with the Frankish government's excuse for non-payment on the basis of them bleeding the communists out. President Fitzgerald Kennedy is going to have to find a way to appease both sides."

"Ah yes, Kennedy…" Moores Dullas had a dismissive look. "I've always regarded him as someone who was only selected for vice president just so that President Taft could gather enough votes to win. He's way out of his league."

"So we're just going to bypass him?" Foster Dullas raised an eyebrow.

"Let him smile and wave to the public. We'll do our business in the shadows. He doesn't need to know about all of our little details. I'm not going to allow him to just overrule us with his inexperience."

...ooo...ooo...

Pierre Bidault rang the phone at his hotel.

Someone else on the line picked it up.

"Who is this?" the phone answered.

"Pierre Bidault. I have obtained Germania's assurance of non-involvement, and while there are some demands they made, they pale in comparison to if we had antagonized them. I've done my part, so it's your turn now."

"What if they make more demands in the aftermath of what we do?"

"I'll handle them," Bidault sighed. "You let me focus on my job, and worry about yours."

"Very well. We shall commence our operation."

"Good luck." Bidault heard the click of the phone.

'May God forgive me for what I had to do…'

OLD CHAPTER 4, IGNORE THE BELOW WRITING IF YOU ARE NOT INTERESTED IN SEEING WHAT MY WRITING BACK IN 2021 LOOKS LIKE

"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.