Once the Coalition collapsed and fractured due a rather unfortunate series of events, the Remnants of the UPC government slowly fell back to it's Capital City of Unity, fortifying their last stronghold and surrounding lands for over twenty years with a network of defensive fortifications and trenches stretching for miles upon miles, with thousands upon thousands of men and women manning these defenses. Unfortunately, despite their best efforts, they were only delaying the inevitable and grim outcome, for the next Grogar Assault was the beginning of the end of the United Plains Coalition.

Badlands
UPC Remnant-Dragonfang Border
Southern Trenches

A lone UPC sniper was peeking out of the trenches, he looked back, below him, as members of his squad and others were laying against the dirt and wooden walls resting as the day became cooler and more relaxed. He turned back his attention outward, using the scope of his rifle like a binocular and was scanning for any sign of enemy activity, and so far, to his surprise, there was none, and to the sniper, that fact was all the more chilling, especially as they lost contact with over a dozen outlining listing posts, something's was very wrong, and the Paleskins of the Dragonfangs were planning something.

"Anything yet?" the squad sergeant inquired.

"Nope." the sniper replied. "And that disturbs me."

"Hmm, true, should've start their daily suicide charges by now." The sergeant said nonchalantly. "Means all the more sleep."

"That's awfully daring of you sarge." another soldier spoke up.

"What Command doesn't know won't hurt 'em."

The sniper rolled his eyes, even at a relatively calm day like this, they should be ever more watchful. "If it's all the same for you." the sniper said as he turned back to the fields. "I'll do my job and-" he paused as his jaw dropped from what he saw in the distance, a large three headed mass quickly approaching their positions. As they drew closer, he could more clearly and was all the more terrified. Thee mutant Titans were uniformly stomping their way towards their direction below were Thousands of Grogar marching alongside with a wide assortment of hastily built warmachines made from looted scrap. To the sniper and all the men and women stationed there, such a large force was previously never seen before, it meant the Dragonfangs were all the more serious in blasting through the defense network and ending their conquest of the UPC, today was to be their worst day and the Beginning of the End.

They’d been in pursuit for hours now, slowly closing the distance between themselves and their heedless prey. Each moment of the hunt had been tense, with none knowing the capabilities of their target every precaution had been taken, but at long last they were upon it. Every man aboard could hear it above, the steady hum from their marks engine permeating the submarine's hull and calling to them, begging for leniency, mercy. Of that, there would be none. The crew of the attack submarine Black Shore were not here to pass judgment, for the gavel had come down the moment their prey passed into Cascadian waters. They were here as one thing and one thing alone, executioners.

In a manner befitting of their role the crew of the Black Shore were cold, composed, and ready. Among them and standing impassive in his heavy blue jacket Tyler Redd, the ship's Captain, waited enraptured by the slow ticking of a firmly gripped pocket watch. With little warning his eyes widened, and the shouted command his men had been waiting for finally came, “Open tubes two and five, send out one ping to verify target distance and begin attack run!”

In seconds the crew sprang into action as the running lights flickered off and were replaced by small lanterns casting their ruddy glow. Seeming as one organism the men worked in wordless union, deft movements speaking to a wealth of chilling experience. A cry from the sonar controller confirmed the speed and bearing of the Oceon freighter above, and Captain Redd wasted no time directing quick corrections to their course. He’d planned it to the second, and as the sub neared the release point of her torpedoes he reflected that they’d drawn almost recklessly close to confirm their kill. Not that it would matter for their quarry. Crossing the point of no return Redd gave his climactic command, “Fire fish two and five! Reverse course at full speed and enter evasive maneuvers.”

With a motion that rattled the whole of her complement the sub cut a jarringly tight turn and rocketed away, moving in erratic zig zags and racing under her full power. As for the deadly servants she’d released, the electric torpedoes rapidly closed on their mark. On the surface there would be no warning, devoid of any conspicuous trail and fired at close range the two ‘fish’ were monsters in the deep, the subject of terror for untold seamen.



Aboard the Olympus, no one knew they were being followed. A few crewmen were even joking and laughing over the harsh rules set against this kind of incursion. They were clearly doing just fine. She had no true sonar and only the most basic radar, meant for surface threats and mostly as a navigational aid. It was drawing late into the afternoon but the Olympus was making good time despite a damaged engine. However, the chief engineer just had to change out the offending disintegrating fuel filter and all would be well.

Of course, the big, fat tanker would be taking no evasive actions and she was especially slow due to the sputtering engine. Up in the bridge wings, a young seaman, a bobcat, was scanning the horizon and humming to himself as he peered through a spyglass. He only saw the torpedoes when they were seconds away, one of them running somewhat shallow and as such showed its slick and deadly body to any careful observers on the surface. All of the bridge crew turned and looked as a scream of raw terror echoed through the bridge. “TORPEDOES! DIRECT STARBOARD!” Then the crewman dove for cover as the two torpedoes crashed into her double-layered hull and detonated.

Two huge explosions blasted open her hull, one near amidships and one blasting into the engineering spaces. The entire ship shook violently with many crewmembers being thrown onto the deck or stumbling against equipment. The Chief Engineer screamed as his flesh sizzled on the hot engine block he was thrown against, and another person in the galley had a hot pan thrown onto his chest. One of the bridge crew managed to hit the contact makers a split second before impact, adding the mournful electric growl to the cacophony of a dying ship as two separate plumes of water rose above the vessel, just the markers of the beginning of the chaos. One torpedo struck a fuel tank and ignited the fuel in there, flooding the rudder room and a machine shop with water that carried hellfire atop it. In the engine room itself, the watertight bulkheads stopped the flooding, but a couple of fuel lines broke due to the violent disturbance and sprayed atomized diesel over hot equipment. The resulting fire killed the two men trapped in that room. All four of the engineering crew on duty either died instantly or wish they had as they drowned or burned to death. Amidships, as many as five died in their bunks within seconds of the initial carnage, wiped from existence by the torpedo blast or drowned.

Someone on the bridge also hit the contact maker for the fire alarm that added a whooping electronic whistle over top of the growl of the general alarm. The First Officer called over the PA to muster the fire crews but no one was replying. Power was lost and all of the lights died as the engine room was filled with fire and the diesel engines died with their engineers. The rudder room flooded completely, and water was slowly entering other areas despite the best efforts of damaged bulkheads. Some of the crewmen tried their best to save their ship and bravely grabbed their firefighting apparatus, but it was soon apparent that this was all in vain. On the bridge it was a young snow leopard Able Seaman who was hitting the contact makers while the human Helmsman spun his wheel this way and that in a completely fruitless effort. Her steering gear was completely destroyed and the First Officer, another hare, was trying desperately with tears in his eyes to make contact with the engine room. The same lookout who saw the torpedoes was watching in open-mouth shock at the state of the rear superstructure through the fractured bridge windows. Smoke rolled from the stacks in thick plumes and soon the glowing exhaust pipes were catching everything around them on fire, lighting up the entire rear house like a bonfire. The ship slowly rolled towards her stricken side with the water rushing in down below.

All told, fourteen people died in the sinking. Those not killed instantly were either drowned, burned, or crushed to death by cargo containers breaking free from their mountings and crashing down onto the decks only to roll into the sea as the Olympus began to capsize. An abandon ship was ordered just minutes after the initial hits as the cargo ship’s stern blazed away and water continued to fill her dying body, the steel she was made of groaning and creaking as the stern sank faster than the bow. A crewmember, the Captain himself, was yelling desperate distress calls into the radio on any frequency he could manage while the battery in the radio was still operational. After he got away one last mayday, he shut off the radios and turned to the bridge, which was awash in an eerie twilight from the fire on the aft deck and the afternoon sun. With a face of sadness and despair, he gave the order, “Abandon ship. All hands to their muster stations.”

The First Officer had given up on trying to contact the engine room. He had known the worst had happened, but only now did he fully accept it. He punched out a different code into the phone and ordered over the PA, “All hands, all hands, this is the First Officer. Abandon ship, abandon ship. Go to port muster stations immediately. Abandon ship!” The bridge crew easily escaped, since the lifeboat station was nearby and the forward area of the vessel was mostly undamaged. Everyone else came up from below decks after fighting through choking smoke, rising water, and even floating diesel fuel and oil that was burning. The thirteen survivors eventually congregated on the port side and clambered into a lifeboat, and then released it. There were others alive below decks, but Olympus was rolling slowly onto her side and secondary explosions were starting to reverberate from the stern. They clung to the little boat desperately as it skittered down the side of their ship before splashing into the water below. They were all dampened to different degrees, but alive, and now paddled furiously away from the burning ship, getting away from the burning oil, fuel, and falling containers. A couple of distress flares were fired, and that was the last communication ever from the Olympus. The crew aboard the raft huddled together in the cold air, and watched their ship quickly slip beneath the waves. The whole spectacle took hardly more than half an hour, and then the Olympus was gone, along with fourteen of her crew. A fifteenth man succumbed to his burns on the lifeboat, while the others nursed injuries from minor cuts to major trauma.

Bishop, the aging arctic hare, was an oiler. He was one of the lucky ones to be immolated within seconds with his remains left in the engine room across the space from the chief engineer. Finn died trying to escape the depths of the ship, trapped inside and unable to make an egress before the Olympus sank stern first. Already, some of the nearby vessels just outside of Cascadian waters were relaying news of the disaster back home, while other vessels called to the Cascadians to spare the surviving seamen and allow them to be taken back home by Oceon vessels. Some of the survivors were human, about four of them, but the remaining eight were anthropomorphic. The men and women aboard that little wooden boat were terrified, cold, and in various states of shock, totally at the mercy of the elements and anyone who found them.



For what seemed an eternity the bloodied crew of the foundered Olympus languished on the rough and frigid sea, yet no sign of reprieve or salvation reared its head. As the sun began to set and it seemed their desperate pleas had fallen on deaf ears, as the huddled few verged on the edge of despair, only then did a glimmer of hope shine through. Cresting the fiery horizon a silhouette came into view, though made hazy by the day’s dying light, it was an image unmistakeable to the haggard survivors. At last there was a ship, and from its heading one that was undoubtedly set upon their rescue.

Yet for the certainty of its course the symbol of their hope drew nearer sluggishly, seemingly unconcerned with those it meant to rescue. The vessels leisurely pace seemed to speak of a dissonance between action and intent, a contradiction that was made all too clear when their ‘savior’ grew close enough to see the colours it flew. Flying against its inspiration the setting sun flag of Cascadia, its green and blue washed out against the crimson sky, signalled not the end of the survivor’s ordeal, but its beginning. Aboard the Lynx class light cruiser a uniformed man groused from the bridge, “If only the abominations had gone and drown on our way here, I loathe the thought of them dirtying the ship Sir.”

Shaking his head slowly a wrinkled man resting in the similarly aged captain’s chair only frowned, “Were we so lucky Marcus, but you know our duty. At the least we may yet disabuse the beast’s human servants of their delusions.”

With a grunt Marcus acknowledged the meaning behind the Captain’s words and begrudgingly voiced his understanding, “Aye Capitan Rosen.”

Rising from his seat Karl Rosen made his way over to the right bridge wing where his first officer Marcus Smith had spoken from and gestured for the man’s spyglass. Using it to get a close look at their new ’guests’ Rosen spoke, “That said, do tell the marines they only need to send the Humans for treatment, the animals can be locked in the brig as they are. After all, we’re hardly veterinarians.”

His features contorting into a savage smile Marcus threw up a salute with vigour and repeated enthusiastically, “Aye Capitan Rosen!”

Departing the bridge at a quickened pace Marcus set out to relay the command in person. Of course the intercom would have sufficed, but if the ship was to be dirtied then Marcus meant to return the favour in kind and in person. Making his way onto the deck by the time their vessel pulled up beside the perilously rocking wooden lifeboat the XO whispered into the ear of the Marine Lieutenant that’d been tasked with receiving the Oceons. The orders spread from there in hushed commands and anxious chatter, and soon the dozen or so armed men on deck all wore a feral grin that they bared gladly even as the boarding ladders were unfolded and ropes were thrown.



Needless to say, the Captain was glad to see the cruiser coming over the horizon. He didn’t think much of their slow speed. He couldn’t try all radio frequencies, after all, and he couldn’t even remember what language he had used on half of them. He was multilingual but when everything was on fire, flooded, or both, one tends to forget about the details like languages. The Captain was the first one on deck. He clambered up the ladder easily with his feline agility. He was shivering as he stepped on deck with his spotted fur utterly soaked, but he smiled and tipped his Captain’s hat to the marines anyways, keeping up a brave face as his first officer helped over the other crewmembers. The Captain had to think of every word as the Cascadian language was not something easily learned or remembered, but he managed, somehow, to speak, “Thank you… for… getting us. Where’s the Captain? Some of… my crew need… ah, uh, medicine. Help. Hurt bad.” The cook was carried up then, a somewhat chubby mountain lion with a fairly severe burn on his chest from where a hot pan had fallen on him. Captain Niklas nodded to him as if to emphasize his point. Then he chuckled, “Sorry. I’m Niklas, Captain of… Olympus. That is Scott, First… hm… Officer. Used to speak-king Oceon, sorry.” He chuckled again and shrugged.

Marcus’s face contorted with visible disgust at the sub-humans speech, it was impossible to hide when everything about the creature sent shivers down his back. What stood before him was a savage, no different than the abominations that had thrown the continent into chaos and killed untold innocents. It was unnatural, it was repulsive, and even after having been humbled so mightily it had the audacity to speak to him like an equal? Taking no efforts to hide his enmity Marcus stepped up to the so called ‘Captain’ and spoke coldly, “The Captain has no business with sub-human criminals. I am the First Officer of this vessel and it falls to me to inform you that you and your crew are to hereby be detained in accordance with Cascadian law and in compliance with the Bering Sea Agreement. Under that agreement no intentional harm will come to you or your crew until you are tried and judgment is passed. Your trial will be no later than a month from today, and its verdict will be upheld by all signatories to the Bering Sea Agreement. That is all you need to know, and that is all you will be told.”

With a wave of his hand the Marines rushed into action and quickly separated the humans from the abominations. To the former the soldiers were not gentle, but they took care not to aggravate any existing injuries the survivors had. The latter were not so lucky. Moving with reckless speed and brutal efficiency the sub-humans were rounded up and forced to stand before being ordered to march below deck with the prodding of rifle barrels acting as ‘incentive’. As for the Oceon Captain, Marcus handled that himself. Brandishing his sidearm the First Officer spoke almost enthusiastically, “Follow me Captain, we have a cell reserved just for you.”

The Captain of the Olympus’ smiling face quickly turned to alarm. He turned and watched as his crew were separated, both groups cursing and yelling at the Marines in their own native language. The Captain turned back to the First Officer wide eyed, “T-they need treatment! What oddness is this!? I was driving a cargo, not a fucking minelayer!” There was nothing the frail old man could do, however. One of the nonhuman crew stumbled and fell. Jolie was one of the younger crew on the ship and was normally a fairly attractive if sturdily built reindeer. She had been injured in the rush to evacuate with a cracked hoof and probably damaged ankle. She gave a bray of pain as she was savagely kicked, and the cook turned around and threw a punch right into one of the Marine’s faces. The Captain watched this with wide-eyed and open-mouthed shock. He turned to the First Officer again as more shouts rang out from his crew, “She needs to be treated! That cracked hoof… are you all mad!?” One of the human crew shouted something about Chronos and something else unflattering about all of their mothers. Yet for all their fury, the shouts and the pleas all but fell on deaf ears. The cook was quickly detained, and the Marines managed to get everyone going, even though Jolie had to be helped by one of her crew-mates. There were eight nonhumans… a snow leopard, a reindeer, a hare, a mountain lion, a bobcat, a lynx, a wolf, and a snow owl.

One of them, the lookout who had first spotted trouble, the young Able Seaman named Shelton, now had Jenni supported on his shoulders with her crying face resting on his shoulder. He tried to ignore the panic welling within him and kept his eyes steadfastly forward, walking into the interior of the predatory ship and staying quiet. He had felt relief at first. Now as he entered the tight corridors he felt like he was unlucky to have survived. He recognized the look on their faces. Pure disgust and hatred. He had traveled abroad, and any crew who watched sneered and sometimes even threw things at them with only token intervention from the Marines themselves. He patted Jolie’s shoulder and whispered to her, trying to keep her calm as her injured leg dripped blood behind them and also make sure she didn’t scrape her rack on anything.There was a trail of blood behind them. He was most concerned about the lynx who was badly burned and missing an ear. He was stumbling a lot, probably losing a lot of blood, and probably in immense pain. Jolie’s wound must have hurt like hell, but it would not be fatal, and would heal on its own to a degree. The lynx’s wounds, and many others on his friends, would need attention or could turn disastrous for those who bore them.

His eyes flicked about as he tried to understand what level the Cascadians were at, technologically. The inside of this vessel made it look like they were not far apart. It was not a precise guess, as he did not get to see any important areas, but from what he had seen they still relied mainly on gunpowder cannons, as did Oceon vessels, and they also had primitive radar, like Oceon vessels. He hoped he had done well in voting for Greenland’s Speaker. He was going to need her to make the right choice, and get them out of here. Shelton didn’t believe them for a second that they were going to be treated within reasonable expectations. That trial was definitely going to be a drumhead trial, and then they were all going to die or be put to work as slaves. That worried him especially for the two females they had amongst them, but he did not exactly yearn for that title either. The gears in Shelton’s head continued to tick around and around, scheming and plotting, his sharp feline senses gathering information and his claws flexing a little as he thought of sinking them into the asshole that kicked Jolie.

All across the nation, millions were sitting down with their families to watch the nightly news and their favorite television programs. An entire week had passed from when the attack from the Brazilian federation occurred and while still concerned, the population was patiently waiting for the words that were about to interrupt their very lives... And was to consign some of them to their end.

During every broadcast, the screw flickered to an image of the NAU flag. With the national anthem in the background, many children asked why their show wasn't on while military veterans knew this was it. A strong male voice sounded, "We apologize for the interruption of your regular broadcasting but this is an important announcement from king Theodore Washington." The image of a podium and a very heavily dressed Theodore Winters proudly manning it appears.

"My fellow Americans. Today we have discovered the culprit behind the heinous acts of war against our great nation."

---
NAU carrier intrepid,
Somewhere in the mid atlantic
08:00 local time

The Admiral of the fifth fleet looked on in satisfaction as jets from his carrier launched into the horizon. As the afterburners lit, their roar was drowned out by the speech of king Theodore.

"The atrocities committed by the nation known as the Brazilian Federation and its allies cannot be allowed reprieve from punishment. Justice must be done this day. Our might will be shown to the dictator Fernado, that his actions do have dire consequences."

---
NAU amphibious transport
Near the Brazilian federation coast.
08:50 local time

Donna Spears stood proudly in her power armor. She examined the hand motors and arm hydraulics while her squad mates watched helicopters take off from their transport.

All the while they heard their king speaking overhead,

"Today we choose to not sit back and allow these acts to go unpunished. The NAU will remove this vile man and his lackies, to remove the stain of his oppression and free his people.

We know that this act may not be seen favorably but to the other nations of this world I say seek not to bar our way for we, the NAU, Shall win the day... No matter the cost."

And in Brazil, Fernando dropped the cigarette from his lips.

"Shit."

“Captain…”

Shawn could hear a voice from beyond the darkness, beckoning him. His mind, sluggish as it was, sought to comprehend what it was supposed to do even as it came to the realization that the body it controlled couldn’t move. No. That wasn’t quite right. It COULD move the body a small amount. Even as he felt his finger twitch Shawn’s mind registered that his body was cold. And it was no normal feeling of cold. The cold extended all the way to his bones, felt as if they came from his bones.

“Captain Taylor?” There it was again. That voice. Shawn struggled to open his eyes. Fought against the cold with all his might and, after what felt like an eternity finally managed to open them. “Captain! Thank god. I thought we had lost you!” Shawn opened his mouth to speak, but found he could form no words. “Don’t worry captain,” The owner of the voice, a young petty officer, sensed Shawn’s apprehension. “You’ll be able to talk shortly. Just need to thaw out.”

“What…” Shawn’s throat felt impossibly dry. “Happened?”

“Something.... Went wrong with the automated system, Captain.” The petty officer answered as he helped Shawn rise into a sitting position. For the first time it occurred to Shawn that he and Captain Taylor were one and the same. “The system never woke us up” The petty officer continued. “And I only woke up after my pod had an error.”

“How long?” Shawn asked. With every second he could feel himself regaining his strength.

“At least a few centuries” The petty officer answered after a moment of hesitation.

“Well shit.”

After a minute of awkward silence the petty officer asked “Shall I wake up the other officers?”

“No.” Shawn answered, as he swung his legs over the side of the pod and stood. He felt a little uneasy on his feet, but seemed to regain full control after a few seconds. Something had gone horribly wrong, that much was obvious. Shawn could feel a sense of unease began to creep in and he found that he couldn’t squash his unease. Not yet. Even so it wouldn’t do for his subordinates to sense his unease. “I will handle the officers” He spoke as if it was just another normal day. “I need you to get the chief petty officers up. Have them meet me in the conference room in an hour.”

“Aye skipper!” The petty officer rendered a salute before turning and taking his leave.

Shawn watched the petty officer leave before turning to the pod next to his. The pods hadn’t been designed to keep someone under for centuries, only decades. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread as he walked over to the oval pod and peered through its clear top to gaze at its occupant. He let out a sigh as he noted that Commander Lyssa McCarthy looked identical to when he had last seen her. He had once heard another officer say she was as “hot as a plasma field” and had found the analogy to fit her perfectly. What few seemed to realize was that she had an intelligence that seemed to somehow surpass her physical appearance. It was why he had made her his XO. He pressed a button on the pod’s side, causing the pod’s top to swing upon as it began to bring its occupant out of her deep sleep.

“Commander McCarthy. Wake up.” Her eyes fluttered open after only a moment, a feat that had taken Shawn much longer. Her piercing blue eyes seemed to drift over the ceiling before locking onto Shawn.

“How… long?” She managed to ask.

“Centuries.”

“Shit.” She closed her eyes for a moment before accepting Shawn’s aid in rising to a sitting position. Shawn felt almost ashamed at how much more quickly she was recovering from their long sleep than he had. Almost. It certainly helped that she had received a fair bit more genetic treatments than he had. Surely one of the perks of being a senator’s daughter.

“Help me wake up the other officers. We have a lot to discuss.”



“We’ve been asleep for fifteen hundred years?” Commander McCarthy asked.

“Fifteen hundred and twenty years, give or take a few years” One of the chief petty officers responded. The original plan had been for the crew to be put into a cryogenic slumber at the outbreak of war. Ten years later a portion of the crew would be awakened to ascertain the conditions on the surface. Obviously that second part hadn’t occurred.

“I should also inform you” The chief petty officer continued, “that we lost one-hundred and fifteen men due to various errors.”

“The America we knew, and anything that might have survived the war, is long gone by now” Lieutenant Colonel Meier said.

“At least Victoria is still seaworthy” Commander Azor offered after a moment of silence. If Shawn could gauge how his men were feeling, which he most certainly could after thirty years of command experience, he would certainly be able to tell that his men were uneasy. Understandable given their situation, though not helpful in the least. Losing their homeland was bad enough as it was, but they had at least been partially prepared for that when they boarded the Victoria. Losing their mission on top of that would be too much. They needed an objective.

“This is a very different world than the one we grew up in” Shawn said, drawing the attention of all the officers and chief petty officers present. “We need to figure out how different before we can determine what to do next. We’ll travel south into the Atlantic and see what has happened to the East Coast and British Isles.



Ian performed a very thorough check of his craft. A VERY thorough check. He knew that the mechanics had also checked over the Firefly jet numerous times, but it was always the responsibility of the pilot to ensure that his own craft was service worthy. He had to admit that the automated systems had done a good job preserving the sub’s equipment. At least that automated system had worked, unlike the one that was supposed to wake the crew up after a decade.

“Yours looking good?” His wingmate Jessica, a fiery young woman, asked from across the hanger.

“Uh…” He gave the engines one more look over before answering. “Yea. I’m set to go. You?”

“Yup. Let’s get these birds into the sky!” The two of them had been tasked with performing a reconnaissance mission over the American East Coast. Another pair of fighters would be heading towards the British Isles. To make the trip the fighters’ hardpoints were occupied by spare gas tanks, save one which was reserved for the special reconnaissance pod: a fancy way of saying “expensive camera”.

Ian hopped into his jet’s cockpit and began the startup procedures as the hanger’s crew toyed his and Jessica’s jets to the elevator. From their they were raised onto the top deck and loaded onto the catapult.

“”Prefly this is Longsword One. We are ready for takeoff.” Ian said.

“Longsword One. Prefly here. You are go for launch. Activating catapult and handing you off to CIC.” Ian immediately felt himself pressed against his seat and the catapult launched his firefly into the sky. He angled his firefly’s nose up and towards the West, aware that Jessica was back and to his left slightly.

“Longsword One. CIC here. Assume course towards the United States East Coast and perform flyover. You are not to contact any unidentified craft without permission. I repeat you are NOT to contact any unidentified craft without permission.”

“Copy that CIC. We’ll make sure to bring some nice pictures back for you.”

“You do that. Take a nice long look at the new world. Victoria CIC out.”

An hour later Longsword One and Two caught sight of what had once been the East Coast of the United States of America.

Badlands
UPC Territory
A little over an hour has passed since the arrival of the Dragonfang armies, the UPC's outlying defenses threw all they could muster towards the advancing horde, sniper, assault rifle and carbine rounds, bunkered machine guns, artillery strikes, mortars and anything else they could think of, and still wasn't enough. They had dented the horde, no doubt about it, thousands of Grogar were torn to shreds, even a Mutant Titan fell before the impressive firepower, but there too many for them to handle, and had eventually had broken through....

-----------

Grogar Imps led by the much taller Superiors streamed towards the trenches in endless numbers as hundreds of the vile, disgusting vermin came hoping their way into the firing range, several bunkers litting up as machine guns sparked with life, spewing bullets against the imps. But the disfigured monstrosities pressed on, ever more driven, less they be put to death by the Chieftain.

From within one of the bunkers, a formerly confident machine gunner was beginning to panic as the enemy's numbers swelled before his eyes, as more and more Grogar emerged from the smokes and craters. "Why won't these fuckers run and die!?!" he screamed in a panic just before several Imps had bypassed his sight, crawling into the Bunker and grappling the man, dragging him out of the building and out the trenches as he screamed in terror.

His brief glimpse of the outside was less then pleasant, few of his brothers and sisters in arms remained in the trenches and engaged in an all-out melee against Grogar that had penetrated their defense, but many more had begun to flee en-mass, sensing their inevitable defeat.

At out nowhere the Imps ceased, loosing their grip of the soldier as he quickly stood up, scanning his surroundings, thousands of grogar continuing their advance, paying no mind to the UPC soldier in the center of the Horde. It was surreal and was all the more disturbing to him. "What's happening.." he whispered to himself, the answer however, would be the end of him. In the instant the man felt a searing pain in his chest, looking down to see a rusty blade protruding from out his chest.

He clasped his body, falling into a fetal position from the sheer pain. The soldier looked to see his assailant, Nog the Scarred looking over him with a look of disgust, all the while he was aiming a rifle to his face. "Pathetic." Nog said. " 'No more games, no more stalling' is what papa said. And I'm gonna enjoy burning you lot!" Nog proceeded to pull the trigger for one clean shot through the unfortunate soldier's forehead. "Alright boys! We got burning to do!"

It had maybe been half an hour since he had been rescued. Shelton stared off into the distance at the conduit-laced roof of the brig, examining the pipes and trying to make sense of some of the labels. His language and the Cascadian language just did not mesh well. To his one side sat Jolie, wringing her wrists and humming a soft song to herself. To his right sat the overweight cook, who hissed and grunted under his breath as each movement of the ship no doubt made his serious chest wound sting. Jolie was trying to keep her split hoof off of the ground. Shelton could hear the ship's engines, could hear the liquids in the pipes above him, could feel her rolling and pitching... normally he felt comforted by such movements. He was like many Oceon seamen who felt a soul in their ship. He still missed Olympus. She might have been an old barge of a freighter but he had always seen her as indestructible... a few hundred kilograms of HE had ended that feeling.
Now he felt like he had been consumed by some great monster, this unnamed predator of a ship, and now he was awaiting his inevitable doom within her stomach. Every noise she made felt menacing to him, felt malicious, far from the comforting noises of the aging cargo ship he had known. Even this machine of war wanted his death and his destruction. He knew she would not be his doom, however. No... sometime in the near future she would regurgitate them all and let her handlers take care of the killing. Shelton did his best to relax with his hands and legs bound as they were. The bench was far from comfortable and it was rather cold in the room. That didn't bother him so much considering his species and his thick fur but he did worry about the less thick furred creatures among them. He also wondered what had become of his human crewmates, or his Captain, that blasted old fool who had led them into this situation. Now Shelton knew what it really felt like to be hated, as he had seen such hatred in the eyes of the Cascadian crewmen. He felt Jolie shift a little. His sharp feline eyes turned toward her.
Jolie was a reindeer with a snowy white belly, dark brown spotted fur everywhere else, and a pair of eyes that changed colors according to the seasons as is normal for her species. Hers were a startling color of blue right now. Even in the blue light Shelton's gaze was drawn to them as he looked into her soul of steel... she looked more pissed off than anything right now. It was admirable, because the array of fates laid out in front of her was nothing good. The bobcat smiled and she smiled back. She was around twenty nine years of age and he twenty five. The reindeer was built stoutly and was actually thicker than the bobcat, who was both shorter and more slightly built. It was a good look for her, though, finished off by her moderately sized antlers that had thankfully survived intact. Shelton looked down at her hooves and told her softly, "You need to keep as much pressure as you can off of those." She just nodded slowly, "I'm doing my best, Shelly. Not easy." He smiled just at her accent, which made her words sway and bounce in pitch in a sing-song way. She came from the Kings' Islands, where that odd accent had persisted even through a total language change and apocalypse. He simply laid his head on her shoulder and tried his best to scoot up to her side. Both of them felt a little warmer then, and a little less hopeless. They both closed their eyes as Jolie nuzzled her crewmate. Their affection for each other was bending the rules of their shipping company but they were cargo boat crew, not naval seamen, so it was mostly looked over or frowned upon at the most.
They just enjoyed the warmth of each other and dreams of what they could do with a shared life if they managed to survive. Both of them were thinking of leaving the Double Staff Shipping Company and moving back to the Kings' Islands to live near the shore. Maybe one of them would join the Coast Guard there, or they would own a small fishing boat. That was, of course, if they survived. Both of them knew execution was a real possibility. Both knew being sold as slaves was just as likely. Jolie held a faint hope that the trial would at least secure a better fate for them but Shelton knew it would be a ruse. He knew he might be killed and his fur taken for a coat, or his head mounted as a trophy, or forced to work to death in a mine somewhere. The reindeer worried about those just as much as she worried about some rich businessman with twisted fantasies and a will to spend a pretty penny on any young anthropomorphic female he could overpower. Perhaps these ghastly nightmares were false but neither of them had any way of telling. No Oceon had ever been in Cascadia willingly, and the Oceon government was not willing to risk a diplomatic nightmare with espionage. Whatever fate had in store for them, the two young crew just tried to comfort each other as best as they could, and avoid thinking of whatever might come next. He gave a soft purr, and she chuffed softly in reply. They didn't want to anger the guards.

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Many, many kilometers away, three airplanes lanced the skies about four-thousand, five hundred meters up from the seas between Greenland and Iceland. Two of the planes were the familiar looking NF-05 Apollos, the supercarrier variants, save for their slightly elongated bodies and shoehorned second cockpit. These two aircraft were camera planes and observer craft. In the backseat of the second Apollo, Gantry Two, who was off of the middle plane's right wing, was a human named Carl with long blond hair and sky blue eyes. He wore a smile as he held his camera to his face and snapped picture after picture of the Oceon Navy's latest toy, the NB-14 Aphrodite. See, the Oceon Navy had faced a big problem ever since the Song of Storms had been built. The Apollo was terrible at ground attack. Sure, they could carry a couple of two hundred and thirty kilogram firecrackers with only slight problems, but beyond that, the Apollo's controls turned to mush and the stall speed skyrocketed. Carrying the full bombload turned the Apollo from a rather twitchy and unstable but insanely maneuverable hellbeast into a brick with a broken desk fan as an engine. It needed to change. The NB-14 was promising to do that, with great speed for a bomber and amazing low-speed handling characteristics. She even had advanced radar and a cutting edge armament. The Aphrodite was the testing aircraft for the MBRF-12, which is a three-barrel twenty millimeter minigun capable of fire rates up to nine hundred rounds per minute. This deadly weapon was mounted in her nose and protruded slightly from underneath it, giving her a sort of unicorn like appearance.
On top of that, she had four hardpoints on her wing, one centerline, and two missile rails on either wingtip. She was the only aircraft so far equipped with the brand new and mostly untested RGAG-07 anti-ground and anti-ship missile and the RCAA-11 Siren which was a beam-riding anti-air missile. These weapons were limited in effectiveness but could, in theory, become much deadlier if the electronics could be shrunk and the guidance mechanisms did not require a second crew in the back of the cockpit to control them. The Aphrodite had two crew, one to fly and one to operate the offensive weapons and radar. They were very expensive monsters but tests had proven them to be very, very effective. The two crew were protected by steel armor against small arms fire and some shrapnel, and the aircraft had very good redundancy in its systems. Carl smiled as he took her picture from her pointed nose, her streamlined nacelles and swept wings, all the way back to her butterfly tail. She was carrying nothing right now with clean wings and a clean bomb bay. The flight was just as boring as was expected for all but the two photographers, and the only radar contacts were a couple of airliners buzzing around.
That is, until Showtime 1, the Aphrodite, broke the radio silence and called out, "Attention flight, bogeys on radar, sixty five kilometers out at six thousand five hundred meters and fourteen degrees!" The Aphrodite's radar was damn good too. In the seat in front of him, Carl watched the pilot of the Apollo scan his radar, before shaking his head. The Apollo couldn't even detect that far. The pilot in front of Carl, Joacim, finally said to the bomber, "Call it in to ATC, Showtime. They might wanna know about this." Through his headset Carl could hear the chatter. "This is Showtime One to Reykjavik control, we have an unidentified pair of bogeys at fourteen degrees, sixty five kilometers out, merging fast at six zero zero. No IFF signature, and they are not in any lane I know of. How copy?"

ATC came back a few moments later, "Good copy, showtime. Standby." A few seconds of silence passed. Carl tapped his foot on the floor of the jet fighter and listened to the drone of the jet engine behind and below him. Finally, ATC came back on the line and told them, "Gantry Two, break off formation and investigate. No flights in that direction. Do not engage and avoid antagonizing if at all possible." The pilot acknowledged the call before putting the plane on her wingtip in a somewhat severe turn. Carl put his camera in his lap and held on to the handles that were stuck to the cockpit supports. He was getting shaken about quite a bit, as the Apollo strained to meet her pilot's demands and climb to the razor's edge of her service ceiling. An Apollo was guaranteed to fly up to six thousand two hundred meters. This bogey was three hundred above that. Carl gave the handle he was gripping a little rub, and encouraged the twin boom jet in his mind. We need you, sweetie. We need you to do your best. Carl was aware that would probably do nothing but it made him feel better anyways. There was no denying that, beyond the danger of an engine failure or aerodynamic stall, they would be really up a creek without a paddle if these bogeys were hostile. They had no missiles and only a full load of cannon ammo.

It took just a few minutes to get to intercept range. The Apollo was straining all the way. She was up to around six thousand five hundred and four meters now, but she was wailing like they were putting a hot iron into her heart and the way she was shaking and wobbling around was not reassuring. They couldn't even hope to get to top speed as the air was far too thin for the engine to make optimal thrust. Indeed, even with the balls to the wall, the pilot was only getting ninety percent power. They came within range of the two bogeys, however, and both pilot and passenger looked at the two through their naked eyes and a telescopic sight, respectively. What they saw astonished them. In front of them, roughly at two o clock, was a pair of diamond-shaped fighters with a strange marking upon their wings. The pilot opened the line again, "ATC, this is Gantry Two, we have made contact with the bogeys."

"Roger that. Do you know type or model?" The pilot looked over his shoulder, waiting for Carl to answer. He could see there were planes, but with his naked eyes, he could not see details at the long range they were at. Carl opened the channel and told ATC,"Negative, ATC. Not able to make positive identification."

"Can you describe any markings, Gantry Two?"

"Roger, ATC. A white circle with a cutout for a five point star in the center, with red wings. There is also an English word, Navy, I think, and some kind of squadron marking on the tailfin."

There was an odd pause. It drug on for a while as Carl raised his camera and snapped several pictures. He wanted to get more angles, but he was not eager to approach. Finally, ATC came back with, "...rr-oger, Gantry Two. Confirm a white circle, five-point star silhouette, and the word NAVY on the side."

Carl replied an affirmative. Another long pause, and then, "Gantry Two, reroute to Moreau. Maximum speed. There will be refueling aircraft available if need be. Do not re-enter formation." The pilot acknowledged the order this time. The plane banked sharply again. The Apollo raced off towards the Capital, with her engine whining and her nose down as she broke the sound barrier with a loud thunderclap. Carl held on for his life once more with a dozen pictures of these strange aircraft clinging to the film of his camera. He had no idea what the big deal was. They were odd planes but maybe it was just some hobbyist's design... or an unauthorized test. They could have come from the Faroe Islands with that kind of course. Whatever Carl thought, the pilot did not care, and they continued their race West to the capital of Oceos.

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Rasp just could not get a break. Over the past while, the world seemed to have exploded. There was a crisis developing rapidly in the NAU, a cargo ship had gotten sunk in Cascadian waters, and now planes from the future, or more the past, were buzzing over his territory while he had just a handful of interceptors to deal with them. It was going to be a hell of a season. He sighed and rubbed a hand through his headfur while he looked over the transcripts from the Kazoo, an LNG tanker, which was one of the ships that had heard the Olympus' maydays. He looked up at his Foreign Relations Adviser and asked softly, "What the hell do we do...?" The Naval Secretary, a female lynx with more scars than atoms, stared at him with her one good eye and told him, "We have an aircraft carrier now, sir. We can threaten..." He held up his hand and waved away her suggestion, "One carrier, Agnes. One. She doesn't even have proper strike planes. Who the hell knows what they have stashed up their sleeves? We can't just go barging in. I need a direct line to whoever their leader is. Get me in touch with someone. I want to reason with them." Agnes turned away, sighing, but she soon perked up again as Rasp said to her, "That being said... how are our assault carriers?" She recited it off the top of her head.

"Sonnet is still undergoing maintenance, but Serenade is nearly done." Rasp closed his eyes and let his shoulders sag, "Put her on emergency alert. Tell her to set sail as soon as possible with a commando team from the 12th Regiment aboard, with the fastest assault choppers we can fit on her. Send her and a couple of destroyers to the edge of their EEZ, in Arctic Federation territory. Tell her not to engage, unless we tell her too." Agnes tilted her head, "Sir? May I ask your plan?" He smiled at her and just told her, "You are my Naval Secretary, Agnes. Song of Storms is going to go help the NAU, if they choose to accept our assistance. Serenade will launch a raid to get those crew out by force if we can't negotiate. I plan too. I am hoping I can negotiate with the Cascadians in exchange for something. If not..." He scratches at one of his ears, "...well, I hope the Kamchats or the Arctics are in for some good old fashioned fisticuffs." Agnes looked down and bit her lip. The one-eyed lynx eventually shrugged, "I can't thin' of another way todo it, sir. Jus' no way. Can't take 'em one on one, can't take 'em espionage. One hell of a problem here, and I approve your plan, sir." He looked over to the FRA. He just shrugged dejectedly, "I can help you where I can, sir, but these Cascadians want our asses off the planet. They just... hate us. I can't find a single act of goodwill between our people or our countries. Not a single one. All I can tell ya is good luck, sir. They are extremely, extremely biased. If they could they'd probably nuke us."

Rasp rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair, looking across the round table at Oliver and replying sarcastically, "Ever the optimist, ain't ya?" Oliver just shook his head, "I love this country, mister President, but we are weird. Have you ever compared us to the rest of the world? We live out on some broken islands in shacks and sheds and do what we want. We turn into animals, have sex like its a game of kickball, party all week, and then we go home and do what we want. Yeah, there's incentive to work, but the country ticks along just fine even if some folks just go wander out in the woods and dick around all day. We are weird, and these Cascadians... really do not like it. You have a couple of weeks at best, Rasp. Then those guys will all be sold as slaves for who knows what purpose, or executed. Talk to them gently and softly, or else you could make them mad. They think you're a dumb cat, mister President, and nothing more. Think of them like that. The Cascadians look at you as if you are some stupid beast that licks his balls and pisses on things all day. Nothing more. They don't get us, and we don't get them, so this whole chess game starts off with a ticking bomb underneath the board which somehow is set up in a minefield. And you gotta defuse the bomb with your tail and can't even move one tick the wrong way or everything, and I mean everything, goes to Hades." After that monologue, the old human sat back with his arms across his chest and sighed. He looked like a pouting child, and finally finished it off by simply reciting, "I don't like it."

Rasp quirked a brow and glanced at Agnes, then back to Oliver. "I knew there was a reason you got elected to help me, Oliver. You have the grace of a boulder but you do know how to get a point across." He chuckles, "An explosive chess game in a minefield... sounds like a good sport to me." Agnes was just sort of staring, which was her only face nowadays. Oliver watched as Rasp typed a few things into a console, then clacked the enter key. The Oceon capital building had a centralized computer system, with the actual mainframe taking up most of a basement level. Even the consoles themselves were huge and clunky, and mostly remained bolted to the desks. He then looked up before standing up, scooting his chair back and smiling at his two colleagues. "Well, thank you for your time. I have other matters to attend too, I am afraid... I just hope the Speakers sign off on this plan. I know Britt has, don't know about the other two... this is for the best, though, okay?"

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It had been an hour and forty five minute flight at maximum speed with the fuel light flickering the entire time. The engine was toasted and it died from fuel starvation just as the plane kissed the apron, and the ground techs didn't even have time to hook up a tug before Carl's camera was taken. From there, under armed guards, it was carried and its film developed in an armored truck over to a bunker on the outskirts of Moreau. This was one of the original buildings from the Mother Colony. The wolfess clutched the pictures to herself tightly as she rode the elevator downwards, deeper into the thawed Earth, and eventually into a huge concrete complex. This wolfess was the right-hand woman to Britt, the Speaker of Greenland, and was entrusted personally with carrying this precious cargo. This nondescript bunker was where Destiny lay. She was one of the most advanced computers in the world when the Day of the Last Signal came. Here she was, a hundred years later, still ticking away. Before the wolf and her precious cargo could enter her inner sanctum, however, she had to be scanned and fully searched. The full body cavity search was far from pleasant, but she passed, and was allowed to enter a stinging sterilization shower in the nude and then put on a clean suit. Only then was she allowed through a blast door and into a small concrete room lit by bare bulbs with nothing but a chair and a desk at one end, and another blast door at the other. This was not Destiny. No, her body was in the other labyrinthine chambers of this complex, stretching kilometers. A technician, really more a monk of this AI, stood nearby the desk. He gestured to the chair in front of the desk.

With her heart in her throat, this wolfess, Asa, slowly approached the desk. The desk held a monitor and a camera on a swivel arm. As she approached it, the camera's light suddenly flickered on. The camera swiveled and pivoted, moving to stare right through the visor of the clean suit with its glaring synthetic gaze. The technician held his hand up. After a few moments, Destiny flashed a green light underneath the camera, allowing the wolfess to continue. Asa swallowed the lump in her throat and approached the desk again. She sat in it, and looked to the monk for help. He told her, "Ask, and she shall answer." With shaky hands, Asa selected the best picture of the strange fighter, and held it up to the computer's camera eye. In a soft, stuttering voice, Asa asked, "D-Destiny.. what aircraft is this?" The computer stared at it a little bit longer. Finally, that green light came up again. The monitor, a strange transparent projection device, flickered to life. Asa eyed it and grew wider eyed by the second as she read. Eventually, after reading the summary, she sat back and whimpered, and then said to herself, "Holy fuck..." The monk looked at her strangely. Then she asked him, "C-can I get a copy of this readout?" Destiny just flashed her green light. After a few seconds of this flashing a cassette tape slid out from a slit beneath the monitor. Asa took it with a shaking hand and stood up, thanking the technician before leaving in a huff and a hurry.

Particle beams and speeds of over Mach Six. No Oceon fighter even stood a chance.

Just as the copilot of the Apollo fighter had taken pictures of the two Fireflies, the Fireflies had snapped off their own pictures of the Apollo.The Firefly pilots had taken note of and recorded the course the Apollo fighter had taken once it had peeled off, but otherwise paid no further notice to the Oceaon fighters.

The two Fireflies maintained their course set for where London had once stood. They took pictures of anything that looked even remotely like a settlement on their way there. As they neared their objective they noticed increasing air activity in the area, possibly in response to their incursion, but still the two Firefly fighters maintained their course.

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The landscape of the area had changed a lot. The King’s Islands had flooded severely when the seas rose, and now the villages that did dot the various isles and islands were small huddles of buildings save for a rare settlement that looked like more than a village. Oceos was sparsely populated and would be a strange sight indeed to any recon cameras… horses and oxen worked fields alongside strange steam and electric powered vehicles. Solar panels and wind turbines glittered in the sunlight, producing most of the electricity for the island nation. The roads they saw mostly were gravel or dirt and an extreme few were ever paved. In between the major isles, boats plied the inland waters for fish and other resources, and some were there maintaining submarine cables and other utilities.

The two strange airplanes were certainly causing issues, but there was nothing military yet. It was mostly airliners. It was a purely innocent mistake, of course, as there was no way for the Victoria to know where the airline lanes were. Still, several airliners had to jink and dive and jump out of the way as two strange objects zipped past them as black shapes. Wales control had a devil of a time with all of the complaints coming in. It was also a problem because the ATC radar could not pick up any fast moving objects in the air lanes, and as such these reports were impossible to act upon. Even the advanced early warning system defending Oceos could not pick up these two jets, as their stealth made it impossible to do so.

As such, it was not the radar that picked up the jets. The Aphrodite spotted them on radar likely because of its airborne position, and maybe because of a meteorological event. They were slightly South of New Sparta when a flight of four B-101Cs, on a ferry flight up to Mythos from Gaia, spotted the jets. The pilot of the lead ship, callsign Variable 1, was actually pretty bored at that point. He was watching the autopilot fly the big four-engine bomber at six thousand two hundred meters and he could actually hear his gunner snoring behind him. He wasn’t supposed to do that, but Hansen let it slide because they were over the mainland and within the reach of the Eos Early Warning System. There was no way anything could sneak in. This male was a coyote, with mottled tan fur and two glittering blue eyes, while his snoring partner was a weasel. An actual weasel, of course, not an insult.

Hansen idly inspected the new control yoke that came with this upgrade, along with four new engines that really howled and could push the bomber at a good clip. He liked the upgrade, overall. She was even more of a monster than before. His eyes made a quick pass over the new radar scope which showed nothing, as per usual. He then glanced up at the sky to watch as the big bomber wended its way through a cloud like some kind of flying whale only to almost soil himself as he saw two strange fighters screaming right for his face. He keyed his mic and screamed, “ALL AIRCRAFT, DUMP NOSE! DUMP NOSE!” Immediately all four bombers jerked towards the ground as their pilots all grabbed the yokes and wrenched them back into their chests. All eight of them felt tremendous G-forces and several cursed as their helmets smacked and crashed into various objects as the unprepared crew had mostly reacted to the call on a twitch reaction, and hadn’t really braced for it. Hansen himself felt his backseater’s head smack his seat and his shouted curse as the pilot yanked the big bomber out of its sudden dive. The second plane almost had its tailfin taken off and the first plane nearly lost a wing. While they were recovering and trying to reform the formation, Hanses made a very angry call to Wales Control.

In Wales Control, the supervisor was called over to a radar console as a young human operator frowned and scribbled information down information, intently listening to her microphone and waving away her supervisor as he leaned his avian body over and glanced at the notepad the human had in front of her. Once she was done, she turned to him and with wide eyes and told him, “Sir, Variable One reports two strange aircraft, flying at dangerous altitudes and speeds just south of New Sparta, heading 151 degrees, roughly.” The goose tilted his head and asked, “Did they get a good look at them?” She simply shrugged and told him, “Two black planes shaped like arrowheads with white stars…” She was interrupted by her supervisor taking off at a sprint to his office to grab the red phone and call Trojan Air Base. The word had just arrived of the fighters from the past that were out and about, and they matched that description perfectly. As soon as the base commander of Trojan Air Base got the word, klaxons and horns went off.

Rosalie was a slight wolfess with fur like coal and two eyes that were like the sun and moon. Her right eye was silver, and her left gold. Both of those eyes were wide awake and open at the first call of the horn, a mournful, angry growling that permeated the air of her bunk room. A man began to scream over the PA, “SECTION TWO SCRAMBLE! SECTION TWO SCRAMBLE!” Then that damned horn began to go off again. Rosalie leaped out of bed and helped her wingman off from her bunk as well, who was a wolverine with the name of Annabel. They were both dressed in nothing but boy shorts and a bra at that point but that rapidly changed as they helped each other into their flight suits in barely a minute, as they had drilled endless times. Maybe a strange ritual but no one liked sleeping in their flight suits, even on alert, and it added only a negligible delay to takeoff. After they were both in their suits they went for a dash out of the room, into the hallway behind the Third and Fourth pilots of their section, and out onto the apron, where four NF-09 Dragonesses were awaiting them, already fueled, armed, and started by the ground crew.

Rosalie leaped into the cockpit of her own Dragoness and sat back against the seat as her vulpine crew chief strapped her into the ejector seat, gave her her helmet, and then gave her the thumbs up and swung the cockpit closed. The four jets taxied out and blasted to takeoff speed in formation, tearing through the skies with their afterburners blazing. Their briefing was given to them over the radio. It was still to be seen whether or not these jets could catch the intruders, however, as they could only breach nine hundred and twenty miles per hour in level flight in ideal weather. The four planes formed up in a finger four formation and strained against their own limits to catch these strange aircraft and either escort them out or down them. Rosalie secretly wondered if the Artemis missiles hung under the wings could even lock on to these bizarre jets, and if she would survive getting into cannon range.

The two unidentified jets had been traveling at speeds over twelve hundred miles since they had been first spotted, a feat that should have been impossible given modern technology. And yet as the four NF-09 Dragonesses came within radar range of the unidentified fighters in the skies over what had once been London they gave no sign of slowing down. The two jets flew over London, taking detailed photos of the area before turning around and taking another set of photos. This maneuver had allowed the Dragoness fighters to close the distance significantly, although the unidentified fighters still remained a fair distance outside of missiles range.

Suddenly the unidentified jets put on a burst of acceleration, jumping up to fifteen hundred miles per hour. The two jets performed a couple of hard banks and high-G rolls, maneuvers that any craft should have been hard pressed to perform, before slowing back down to twelve hundred miles per hour.

“Inbound aircraft, this is Saber Eight, we are on our way out. Request that you do not engage. Repeat. We request you do not engage.” An english voice said over all radio frequencies.

The Dragonesses had no hope to match those speeds. They just could not with their engine technology and with their aerodynamics. The Dragoness was a fighter, not an interceptor, and was built as a compromise between speed and maneuverability. If they had delta wings and pencil fuselages, then they might have matched the speeds of those other jets. That was not the situation, however. Rosalie growled into her oxygen masked and pressed the throttle lever all the way to the firewall, gripping her stick tightly and narrowing her eyes as she listened to the single-engine jet howl in agony as its pilot pushed it to the very limits. Rosalie could see the unidentified jets now, but she was way out of IR missile range and not anywhere near cannon range. By sheer luck the radio frequencies matched, but there was a problem in that none of the four Oceon pilots spoke English.

Rosalie had to pause at the sound of the voice, however. She could hear that it was a passive voice, and perhaps even a peaceful one. She leveled off and circled around the other fighters as best as she could with her three other jets in close formation, waggling her wings at the unidentified jets and speaking into her own radio, “Unidentified aircraft, be advised, we did not understand.” She was taking a shot in the dark at that point, as it was equally unlikely they spoke the mismash of languages that was Oceon. The closest thing any of them spoke to ancient languages was Greek in Rosalie’s case, and Number Four could speak Icelandic, but that was it. The four butterfly tailed jet fighters awaited a response with their weapons unarmed as of yet, clearly trying to maintain following distance while not antagonizing the bogies.

There was a long moment of silence as if the pilots of the unidentified aircraft didn’t know how to respond. They maintained their course, only slightly raising their elevation and reducing their speed to around one thousand miles per hour. Finally the unidentified pilot from before responded over the same frequency that Rosalie had used.

“Pacem. Tenere ignis.” It said with quite a degree of uncertainty obvious. The pilot repeated the words before saying “Eiríni. Anamoní fotiá.” With an equal amount of uncertainty. Finally the pilot said “Peace. Hold fire.” In what was obviously his native language of English.

Rosalie strained her canine ears to catch the words. Her ears perked and twisted against her helmet in the effort but she managed to understand them, even as she was dolphin-diving with her fighter to match the speed of the intruders. The Dragoness could reach a thousand only in a dive. She replied much more fluently in Greek, “Be advised, our weapons are not armed, and we are not in range anyways. However, you are passing through several air corridors and have nearly caused several mid-air collisions.” She stopped her transmission and then spoke in Oceon to the rest of her flight, “Three and Four, break off and try to keep up with the second jet. Me and Two will keep up with this first one. Try to close to within range of Artemis missiles but do NOT engage unless fired on or on my explicit order.” Four mic clicks, two from each of the tail end birds, and then Three and Four broke off and rolled over the top of Two and One.

The two unidentified fighters continued to climb in altitude gradually. The two veered south, away from an Oceon airliner that they might have otherwise come close to. It was hard to miss that they left no contrails in their wake as they turned and banked, almost as if the aircraft themselves were mere illusions.

“Weapons… safe.” The unidentified pilot responded in Greek. “Re...recus...requesting…” He was quite clearly struggling with the Greek words and the more he spoke the more it sounded like he was trying to repeat something that he was reading or that someone else was saying to him. Requesting…. Heading… airspace…”

Rosalie was half listening and halfway worrying about her jet. She was eying her instrument panel and watching all kinds of bad readouts come in from the strain of maintaining maximum throttle for so long. She replies to the other fighter pilot, “Unidentified aircraft, request you slow your speed and allow us to escort you out. Our ground radar can not track you.” If the other jet pilots could see the Oceon fighters, it would be obvious how big of a gap there was in technology. The Oceon fighters had slim waistlines that betrayed the turbojet technology within, and they all trailed thin streams of black smoke from the combustion within their tails. Rosalie was very concerned about the health of her Dragoness, as an engine running at this level for so long would be under a lot of stress.

“Roger…. Speed…. Six hundred.” The pair of unidentified fighters cut back on their thrust, coming down to six hundred miles per hour as said.

That was a lot easier for the Oceon fighters to match. Rosalie let out a little sigh of relief as she backed down on her throttle and slowly overtook the other jets, flying out in front and slightly above them. The finger four formation reformed and the first jet again waggled its wings as they led the far more advanced fighters North. ATC cleared the air in front of them, and with the radar tracks from the Dragonesses, they could better guess where the unidentified jets are.
Rosalie wasn’t too worried about giving the bogeys her flight’s six o clock. It would put them in a very vulnerable position, but she was an experienced jet pilot and had learned to put trust in some things. Besides, if they did destroy the Oceon jets, every Polestar, Dragoness, and Apollo within range would scramble and come in with weapons hot. So, Rosalie just led the other jets along at a leisurely pace, at a slightly different heading and right over Wales. Once they were off the Northern point of the Kings Islands and were approaching Faroe Island, the four jets broke off one by one, each one waggling its wings before departing and flying South back towards their home roost.

“State affiliation” The unidentified pilot requested as the two jets began to fly away. “Status… Britain? Know… speak… English?” The jets cut back on their speed just a bit, seeming to want to linger in the area for just a bit longer before returning from whence they came.

Rosalie noticed in the mirror above the forward cockpit brace that the jets were lingering. She also heard the questions. In Oceon, she told Three and Four to RTB, and then turned around and entered a holding pattern near the two intruders. The Dragoness was doing a lot better now that the throttle was not at the firewall. Number Two, Annabel, did not speak anything but Oceon, so Rosalie had to do all the talking. She replied patiently, “I am a wolfess of Oceon. Britain is now the region of Kings’ Islands within Oceos. English is not spoken or taught.” She clicked her mic twice to signal the end of her transmission, and was starting to speak slower and clearer as it became obvious he was not very well versed in Greek.

“Desire….. Meeting.” The unidentified pilot said. “Three” Catching himself say the number in English, he repeated it in Greek. “Days. Request…. Location.” As he spoke the two jets banked towards the north, traveled for a few minutes, and then banked back towards the south.

This was one part that was over Rosalie’s head. She told the other jets to stand by, and then spoke in Oceon to the ATC for a little while. After a lot of words went flying back and forth, she finally replied in Greek, telling them the location of Moreau and its airstrip. She also advised them that they were not going to encounter many English speakers in Greenland and should bring some Greek or Greenlandic speakers along, just in case. The two Dragonesses kept distance the entire time as this conversation happened, just winding and weaving their way about in the air almost lazily.

“Copy…. Thanks… Escort” The unidentified pilot said before the odd pair of fighters turned towards the West and took off at a neck breaking speed of twelve hundred miles per hour.

The two Air Force jets went their own way and headed South, back to Trojan, with Rosalie trying to calm the butterflies in her stomach. She realized just then how that was probably the most important thing she had ever done in her career.



Three days had passed since that first encounter between the Victorian and Oceoan fighters, during which the officers of the USS Vicotoria had scrambled to find anyone who could speak Greek fluently. Surprisingly they had actually had a number of crewmembers on board who knew Greek as a second language, one of which was even a pilot.

In retrospect the Victorian leadership knew that they had made a few blunders, namely not setting up a specific time for the meeting with these ‘Oceans’ and not establishing a specific call sign or identifying phrase. Even so they were confident that the Oceans would recognize who they were once they made contact.

The Victoria deployed four Firefly fighters and three AH-5 Tiger ‘helicopters’ to Greenland. The Fireflies stayed well outside of what one would consider Greenlandic airspace, although it would take them minutes at best to reach land if they wanted to, while the three AH-5 Tigers flew towards Moreau at speeds averaging five hundred miles per hour.

“Moreau control, this is Blue Star” one of the Tigers’ pilots said in fluent Greek, “requesting permission to come in for landing.” The officers of the Victoria had hoped that the Oceans would link the reference of a blue star back to them, although they realized it was something of a longshot.

Three days later, in Moreau, three helipads were suddenly closed off to outside traffic. Police rode in on horses and a couple on ATVs and cordoned off the area before simply resting and waiting. There were no humans in that group, and the ambassador chosen was not human either. Rather, he was a reindeer. He was put on standby and a meeting room cleared out and reserved for the Victorian ambassadors whenever they arrived. The President or someone else would have met them, but those important folks were busy with the whole Cascadia situation, so Panos was picked. He was a very good ambassador, but this was going to be his most important situation yet.

When the Tigers arrived over Moreau, they were met by a pair of Dragonesses, but the Dragonesses had clean wings and waggled their wings in a friendly hello. Moreau ATC cleared them to land, and then radioed the police to set up flares on the snow-dusted pad. An arctic fox awoke from his nap in the saddle of his draft mare to the sound of the portable radio, rolled off of the saddle, and roused the rest of the half dozen cops to go to work. Soon enough four or five flares burned brightly on the concrete pad and another flare was fired into the air as ATC gave the choppers exact coordinates and landmarks for the helipad. Panos was dispatched in a steam limousine escorted by three cops on ATVs and arrived in minutes, clad in a thick winter coat that was a dark grey color. It was rather chilly in Moreau that day, and there was a thin layer of snow on the ground. Panos stepped out of the blocky black limousine and stood off to one side of the helipad and awaited the arrival of the choppers patiently, with the cops fanning out and watching from a distance atop their horses. It would be a bizarre sight to the newcomers, seeing all of these different anthropomorphized animals atop horses and ATVs wearing winter clothes and awaiting their arrival.

The Tiger helicopters slowly approached the helipads. It was apparent to any observer that they were not outfitted for a fight, the hardpoints on their wings noticeably empty, although each one still packed a railgun under its nose. As one of the Tiger’s descended towards the center helipad the other two slowly circled around the area, seeming to be on watch for anything suspicious. Then, after the first had touched down, the other two came in for a landing as well. Off in the distance the four Firefly fighters turned towards the south to return back to the Victoria

After all three of the helicopters had touched down the first’s hatch opened and an individual outfitted in power armor stepped out. If mention of power armor caused one to immediately think of the NAU’s power armor, then catching sight of this particular set would immediately convince an individual that this came from a very different source. It was smaller than its NAU counterpart, but this difference in size didn’t make it appear weak. It was sleeker and something about it seemed to radiate more power than what was found in the NAU. And where this power armor was sleek and almost elegant, the NAU’s armor seemed blocky in comparison.

The individual in power armor held his arms to the side, with no apparent weapons on his person, as he slowly approached the Oceans. He gave the group of assorted anthropomorphized animals a good look before singling Panos out as the leader of the group. Turning towards Panos the armored man said “I am Lieutenant Williams of the USS Victoria. I thank you for meeting with me.”

All of the Oceons watched solemnly as the chopper landed. A couple of the cops eyed the helicopters in the air, but all eyes turned back to the chopper on the ground as a man in power armor stepped out. Even the well-disciplined and genetically enhanced mares of the Moreauean Police Corps nickered and shied away with their tails swishing. The policemen atop them soon got them under control. All of those cops wore the standard dark grey uniform with an armored vest and a pistol at their hips, but the pistols remained holstered and the cops looked on with idle interest. Panos held up his hands too to show he was unarmed, and then approached the man, “Greetings, Lieutenant. I am Panos Megalos of the great Oceos. It is my honor and my pleasure to meet you.” He gave a small bow to the armored man, then stood up again and awaited a response.

“The pleasure is mine” Williams responded. He paused for a moment before adding “I ask that you forgive me for this” He indicated his armored form, “but this is for your protection as much as mine.” His head shifted slightly away from Panos and towards one of the cops before returning back to Panos. “I presume you have someplace else arranged for us to speak? Is there any procedure that we must go through before we can talk in earnest?”
Panos nodded slowly and turned his head to look at the armor. He looked back up after a moment, “It is an impressive suit. Unless you want to bludgeon me to death, I doubt we’ll have issues with it. Though, it will stop you from fitting in the limousine, so to speak in earnest we’ll have to walk up the road a ways.” Panos paused for a second, “I have a meeting room reserved… does that armor bolster your speed in any way, Lieutenant Williams?”

“A little” Williams answered. “But it was not designed to keep up with a car. Well I suppose a little exercise won’t hurt.” He seemed to eye the cops for a moment before shrugging. “I suppose I’ll meet you there.” He started off down the road, making fairly good time despite what appeared to be a leisurely pace. When the two met again Williams asked “What exactly is your position in the government?”

Panos shook his head, “You won’t need too! Davis, may I borrow Dipper for a moment?” An arctic hare on the back of a sandy-colored clydesdale mare just nodded and hopped off. The mare approached Panos. The reindeer patted her flank before hopping up and scrabbling before seating himself in the saddle atop her broad back, asking her, “Are you okay with the power armor?” She glanced back and answered in her strange accent, “Yes. Just naturally skittish, and that thing was a lil’ startling.” He nodded, patting her back, before setting off at a trot and keeping pace with him. The mare did most of the navigating although Panos did help her a bit. After some time, they were at a large lodge on the edge of town. The reindeer hopped down from her back and motioned for the Victorian to follow him, where they went around back and found a rather large garage. Panos opened the garage door and stepped inside, answering, “I am First Aide to the Foreign Relations Advisor. Not too high ranking but about midway up the ladder. Sorry if it’s a little plain, but you won’t fit into the cabin in that suit.” A couple of cops followed them and now filed in behind them. The floor of the steel structure was concrete and the lighting was provided by bare light bulbs, with natural light coming in through windows. It was a little chilly, but there was an electric heater taking the edge off.

Williams followed Panos into the garage with a nod of his head, his gaze shifting around the entirety of the room before refocusing on Panos. “Well then mister First Aide. Is that the proper way to address you?” He didn’t wait for Panos to respond. “I’m sure your government has a few questions it would like answered. Shall we get those out of the way first?”

Panos nodded as he shed his coat and was soon in just a fancy suit and tie. He straightened his tie as he asked, “What is your affiliation? I have no knowledge of a ship named Victoria and those fighters you sent our way… we took some photographs and had an old AI of ours identify them. She said they were F-41 Fireflys, but those served under the US Navy, hundreds of years ago. Where’d you find those, and how did you get them flying again?”

“Well” Williams said “I can answer all of those questions with one statement, though I’m sure that will only lead to more questions. Would you believe me if I told you that I am a member of the United States Navy? The same navy that used the F-41 Firefly some fifteen hundred years ago.” Williams watched Panos intently, waiting to see how he responded to that bombshell.

Panos blinked a few times and tilted his head a little, although that was greatly exaggerated by his antlers. He frowned a little and said, “We have talking horses and steam powered ornithopters here, Lieutenant Williams, but that is a little hard for me to swallow. How.. how does that work, exactly?” The reindeer looked a tad skeptical at the moment.

“How does what work?”

Panos said, “Well, you look awfully young for being a thousand and odd years old, Lieutenant Williams. And the United States was incinerated in the atomic fire along with all of her military assets.”

“Ah yes. Our leadership had, for centuries, feared a nuclear war.” Williams answered. “And so each branch of the military took measures to ensure we had some capacity to operate should the worst come to be. The USS Victoria was the Navy’s contribution. We were…. Put to sleep when the first nuclear missiles were launched, supposedly to wake up a decade later. Unfortunately something went wrong and we awoke recently instead.”

Panos listened and nodded a little. He waited for a few seconds to think, and then he responded with, “We have a couple of supercomputers from before the Day of the Last Signal… they say that the USS Victoria was missing according to the last status update they received, and presumed destroyed by the Chinese. I guess… she’s not quite that bad off then? That is pretty incredible that she lasted that long.” He drew in a deep breath, then sighed, “Its rather hard for me to believe but… I have no evidence to contradict your statement, and a lot of evidence to support it.”

“Indeed. Our operating orders were to submerge immediately should we detect any nuclear launches and wait under the arctic ice caps. Apparently we did an adequate job playing dead.” He walked over to a nearby wall and leaned against it. “Well if your computers have info about Victoria then it should have some info about the top secret program by the name of ‘Project Pandora’. And it should also know that Victoria’s captain is Shawn Taylor and that its XO is Commander Lyssa McCarthy. If THAT isn’t enough evidence that I am what I claim to be I don’t know what is.” He shrugged before adding “Anything else you want to ask?”

Panos again nodded in response to all of this information. He told them, “We do have information on that project, but our computers think that all ships in it were either never finished or destroyed. Are there any other ghosts from the past hanging around out there? Since we are so close to the Arctic I think it would be good for us to know so we don’t all panic the next time a jet goes overhead at Mach Three.

Williams seemed to be moving his head as if speaking despite no sounds being emitted from his helmet. After a moment he tilted his head to the side as if listening to someone. “The Victoria was not the only ship being built under Project Pandora.” He said after a moment. But whether any of those other ships survived the war is… unknown. We find it highly unlikely that any others would make themselves known after all of this time anyways. In all likelihood they were either destroyed, began operations a decade after the war as planned, or their entire crews died while sleeping.” He shrugged again. “Personally I’d put money on them being destroyed during the first few minutes of the war. We ourselves had just left port a few days prior to the war. Not sure if I can say we were lucky or unlucky” He muttered. “As for what the other branches of the military had planned. Well we simply don’t know. All of the projects were top secret and highly compartmentalized. For all we know Project Pandora was the only one that got past the concept phase.”

Panos scuffled his feet then. He slowly began to say, “Did you ever hear about Project Moreau? US Army thing, if I remember rightly. Pandora is something us Oceons read about during our studies of the Atomic Fire, but this is going to put one heck of a new twist on it.”

Williams remained silent for a moment before answering “No. We are not aware of Project Moreau. Army project? What was it? Some sort of bunker system or something?”

Panos shook his head, “No, it wasn’t. It was an experiment to produce better Arctic soldiers. They were expecting trouble with Russia, I guess… Oceos, this town of Moreau, it was the site of the original Moreau Colony. Bunch of grungy ‘volunteers’ with nowhere else to go were genetically modified to turn them… well, mostly animal, but with human traits like speech and thumbs. When the war happened, we call it the Day of the Last Signal, we decided to try and unify Greenland. A few years later, and we ruled over Greenland, Iceland, Britain, and a few smaller islands… turns out those modifications could be passed down through generations, so that's why everyone here has fur and looks like an animal. I guess we share some common roots.” He grins a little, chuckling.

“I see.” Williams tone almost seemed devoid of emotion. “I suppose that would make us your ancestors.” He let out a snort, finally finding some amusement out of the idea. “If you know any Williams let them know that you might have met their great great grand uncle.” He let out a short chuckle before changing gears. “Now that I’ve answered your questions perhaps you could help me understand the political landscape of North America.”

Panos huffed and sniggered slightly before rubbing over the top of his head and telling the armored man, “I will, Lieutenant Williams. The landscape of that continent? A total mess. To the East, you have the NAU. They kind of tried to keep the old America alive… they are fairly friendly. To the West, you have… Cascadia.” He spat the word like it left a bad taste in his mouth. He visibly had to collect himself before he continued, “Hateful people, and narrow minded. Our president would have been here to meet you but he is trying to save the crew of a cargo ship from their ‘justice system’ for ‘inhumans’.” He sighed and squeezed his eyes shut for a brief moment. Then he continues, “In the middle is the United Plains Coalition. We call it the badlands because the government fell apart, and now it is just a mess of skirmishing and stalemate fighting between a handful of factions. I… don’t recommend getting involved. There are horrible things there. It is like World War One, but with superhuman mutants and modern weaponry. Nothing good.” Panos paused to drift over and look out the window, and then pull a chair out from under a table and sit himself down in it. He smiles, “I hope you do not mind.”

“Of course. Make yourself comfortable.” Williams said with a nod. “You have been kind enough to allow me to wear this armor after all. Now you said the NAU are friendly. Are they a democracy? What about Cascadia? Is it a dictatorship?” He cursed under his breath in English before quickly adding “Or perhaps they are also some sort of democracy as well?” He shifted his weight onto his left leg and, after a short pause, added “For that matter you mentioned you had a president. Is he your head of the government or does he answer to someone else?”

Panos shook his head quickly and told him, “Both Cascadia and the NAU are constitutional monarchies, sort of like old Britain and sort of like old America. Democratic but not with a President, instead with a ruling Monarch. The NAU is definitely the more free of the two, but we don’t know much about Cascadia beyond that we do not get along well. Our country is a sort of Confederacy system. President Rasp is the leader when it comes to foreign affairs but he doesn’t have much control over the inner regions. Oceos is more a collective of semi-autonomous regions with a common people and culture. Rasp answers to the Council of Speakers, and his own advisors.”

“Well at least democratic values aren’t entirely dead” Williams added after a long pause. He shifted his weight back to his right foot as he let his gaze shift towards a window. “Oh. And before I forget. When you have the opportunity, would you mind asking that computer of yours whether it feels there is a danger of us transmitting any diseases or anything? I’d hate to pick up any new bugs that might have developed since the bombs dropped.”

Panos solemnly nodded, “Democracy is an on and off thing in this new world, Lieutenant Williams. I’ll have to get someone to run and talk to Destiny or Beowulf. We have to be in their chambers to speak to them… we don’t want to risk having them connected to the outside world.” The reindeer beckoned over one of the cops, an otter, and spoke to him a moment. Afterwards, the cop ran outside and was seen talking on his mobile radio. Panos settled back in his chair, “I don’t know if you’d be in any danger from us, Lieutenant, considering our genetic diversity, but I am just a politician, not a scientist.”

“Yes, well it wouldn’t be funny if we caught some sort of super small pox from you. Or if our common cold turned out to be the latest version of polio.” Williams commented dryly. “And seeing as how it's been over a thousand years we feel that we do have good cause to be cautious. Hence this.” He indicated his armored form. “Now then. If there is nothing else you feel we need to discuss…”

“Well, I want to know what your Captain is planning to do now that his ship is awake and wielding weapons vastly better than almost anything on this planet at the moment. You scared a lot of people when those jets of yours showed up. Also, please know that we are willing to provide what aid we can, but our technology is far behind yours, and we don’t want to get involved in too many far away conflicts. Oceons are simple and like uncomplicated lives, Lieutenant.” He rose from his chair and smiled tiredly, “Thank you for making this first contact peaceful, Lieutenant Williams.” The cop came back, “Sir. Beowulf and Destiny disciples report that there are diseases that can be bad to humans from that long ago but we have vaccines and treatments for them. Their viruses shouldn’t be able to hurt anthromorphs, and our humans should be alright because we still have treatments for that kind of stuff.” Panos thanked him, and then turned to William, “Did you hear that? If we do have problems with diseases our medical sector ought to be able to handle it.”

“I shall let my superiors know then. As for our intentions. Well for now we are simply trying to get an understanding of what has become of the world. We’ll figure out what we want to do specifically later. And I am sure that the captain will be grateful for your offers of future aid. Perhaps we could have a mutually beneficial relationship. And with that in mind…” Williams remained silent for a moment before adding “We have prepared a long distance radio that should be able to reach us should we remain in the Atlantic. It's already been set to a frequency that we will be watching and has military grade encryption. I’ll provide it to you before I leave. Just… don’t try to disassemble it.”

Panos laughed a little and held up a hand, “We will not! Even if did I don’t think we could recreate it. I hope we will. Anything you need, we will see if we can give it. You probably saw on your photographs that our nation is not the most advanced or well developed, but we are friendly and generous. Is there anything you wish to see around town? This is our Capital, after all.”

“Unfortunately I’ll have to pass on visiting the town.” Williams said. “The pilots have informed me that if we don’t head back soon Victoria will sail out of our flight range.” He shrugged as he started towards the exit. “Now if you and your posse of guards would care to escort me back I would be more than happy to hand you that radio I mentioned.”

Panos gave the traditional Oceos goodbye and showed the man out. Then he and his guards mounted up again and showed the armored man back to the helipad and a hasty but not too intense pace, so as not to tire him. The radio was given to two cops on an ATV and taken to the Capitol building of Oceos, and Panos stood by to see the helicopters off. They were again escorted out, this time by a pair of AF-70 Polestars. Panos did begin to ponder the implications of this meeting after the choppers left. This may well have been the beginning of a paradigm shift unlike anything he had seen… what would the people from the past look like? What kind of ideas and ambitions did they foster? He was chewing that over in the limousine on the way back to the Capitol Building.