**THE PRESENT DAY, BORDER PATROL UNIT G-9, COLONGO-ALLEGHANY FRONTIER BORDER**

The group waded through the dry tall grass that made up most of the frontier land between Alleghany and Colongo, you would be able to cross the border unknown to even yourself if there hadn't been mile upon mile of rusted barbed wire and tank traps from wars past. They were a 16 troop team, split into two eights and walking side by side a few yards apart, in four rows of two per eight. They were lead by Optio Jenene Forest, a hardass officer with a no nonsense attitude. They were all dressed in the expeditionary forces uniform, desert camouflage fatigues and black Alice packs, each one carrying the weapon that corresponded to their position, for the Optio it was a rifle. They had been assigned to this section of the border for a week now and it's been all quiet, the only time they had discharged their weapons was at some local carnivores that got too close, looking down at her map she guessed that they were half a mile out from an old derelict border-crossing checkpoint, and from the sounds of distant trucks she was right. She furrowed her brows, 'distant trucks?' she ordered her troops to get down, gesturing for them to crouch, they remained crouched for the next half mile until they crested a hill overlooking the dilapidated check point. There were 12 identical trucks, six on one side of the border and six on the other and between them were people, civilians, transferring crates from the trucks on the  Alleghany  side of the border to the ones one the Ereatian side, it looked suspicious enough but it turned dangerous when one of the pairs handling a longer crate dropped it, spilling it's contense. What must have been a dozen submachineguns poured out of the tipped wooden box and the group around them produced weapons from their clothes in alarm. 
"Shit," mumbled the Optio in shock, as she watched the scene through a pair of field-glasses, "Radio Overwatch, report that six trucks carrying weapons are entering Ereatian land from Alleghany and that we need a an airship to HA [military terminology: High Altitude] tail them." the radio operator nodded and relayed the message, but as she scanned the sight further, her heart sank into her stomach as she saw one if the smugglers looking back at her from another pair of binoculars. The next thing the group knew was that they were underfire and the radio operator was screaming their coordinates into the radio and calling for back-up, however once the numbers left his mouth they were all dead but he got the message across, right before a bullet got him in the neck.

**OVERWATCH**

"Deploy two moon shadows to D-9, they're coming under fire!" yelled the radio operator on the other side, into another radio set next to him, the message was carried across the Elektrum cables that snaked the massive Zeppelin to the ship bay where two armed ships were deployed, one flying HA and the other low to the ground, to get more speed. It was the low altitude ship that found the bodies first but it was the HA that found the trucks and tracked them to a sugar cane farm 60 miles from the border. The radio operator relayed and a strike team was on it's way. 
The Tsar was in the war room when he was informed, he took the task of escorting the bodies back to Ventium, he would be back in time for the meeting.

**VERVEAUX, VENTAIN CAPITAL, AN ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE BY THE THE TSAR**

*"People of Ventium, today our blood has been spilt in the name of peace! The blood of OUR children has come forth from their wounds by the bullets of an enemy force, an evil force! They were culled by people who do not fear the punishment of all might god, but there will be retribution! Yes, there will be retribution, for with the grace of god we shall bring forth upon them the wrath of the people of the book. We shall fight them in the savannas, we shall fight them in the jungles and on the streets and on the roof tops. We will give then no quarter, no respite, so when they die by our punishment they will stand in front of the majesty that is the LORD and they will accept his punishment with nary an objection because they will know they have done evil after the fury we will bring unto them, they will know they have done wrong when the wronged return for justice!"