DELETED32084

RHODESIA A NEW FUTURE

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Precipice Of War: The Reboot of a Reboot

THE REPUBLIC OF ARGENTINA

---

SAN PABLO, CHILE

Lieutenant Fernando Niembro was tired and bored. The fighting had lulled away to nothing over the past two weeks and no actual shots had been fired in nearly five days. He wasn't really sure why, but he also wasn't going to say anything in case he jinxed it. For the moment he was content to sit with his feet up on a crate that had once carried 40mm mortar shells, lean back in a plastic chair one of his men had scrounged, and read a letter from home.

It was the usual from his mother. She was worried about him, loved him very much, complained about the lack of gasoline, and how the price of things continued to climb as the war dragged on.

"Why are we here again?" The question brought instant silence to the dozen or so officers and NCO's who were sitting in the small dugout, crammed nearly shoulder to shoulder as the rain outside hammered down. All eyes were drawn to the broad shouldered man with short cropped hair and a large blond beard - Fernando privately thought he looked a lot like a Viking from a picture book -who sat nearest the door.

"How's that Kurt?" Asked nearby infantry officer Carlos Erding. Both men were Captains and led infantry companies that were due to spearhead an attack the following morning.

"I'm just curious, why the fuck are we here?" The big man had leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, as he gazed keenly at his fellow soldiers. "I just got a letter from home and it seems everyone is running short on everything. Meanwhile we're over here pissing about in Chile. Why?" He waved a letter, much like Fernandos own, at the silent assembly.

"I mean, yes, when this first started we had a beef with the Chileans, I haven't forgotten the bombings back home, but now what? I haven't met a single Chilean I don't like and frankly, I want to go the fuck home."

The outburst brought about a stunned silence brought and an uneasy shifting as everyone looked at their feet. To Fernando's surprise it was his Sergeant, Menem Santillán, who spoke up next. The man had gotten a letter from his sister about four days ago and had been seemed deeply troubled since. His voice was bitter and anger simmered beneath the surface.

"I got a letter from Maria, my sister, she said the is President tightening his grip on things, he suspects a plot, and he is using his secret police to intimidate the people."

"Hey, guys, we can't be talking like this..." Carlos cautioned, glancing up toward the leather flap that served as a dugout door. "The brass might hear us."

"Fucking let them. I've been talking to the men for the past week and they don't want to be here anymore than I do. Most of them want to go home. Their families are struggling as well." Kurt was well known for his sarcasm and dark sense of humour but no one thought he was joking right now.

"What are you getting at sir?" Menem asked. His own eyes were alight and Fernando could feel a madness seeping into the man around him. The crazy part was he could feel it too. He was tired of this war. He had no reason to be in Chile and he wanted to go home.

"I say we refuse to fight tomorrow." Kurt said matter a factly.

"But they'll order us too!" Exclaimed Captain Rodrigo Singer, an armoured officer.

"And what are they going to do if we don't?"

"Arrest us and have us shot." Fernando said quietly. Kurt nodded in agreement and the letter he held was crushed in one massive fist. Veins stood out on his massive bicep as he looked each man in the eye.

"To fear death is a choice. They can't hang us all." Fernando felt a chill run through him at the words. Fear of the unknown threatened to paralyze him but he knew, in his heart of hearts, that nothing would change if he stayed silent. The soldiers who he commanded had been grumbling about the war, and he missed his own family; his future hung in the balance and as the silence stretched he felt resolve fill him. He took a breath before nodded at Kurt.

"I'm with you. The guns won't fire tomorrow. My lads want to go home too."

Rodrigo looked between the two of them. His brother had been killed fighting in the mountain passes and he still didn't know why. Conquering Chile wouldn't take him home. Maybe there was a grand plan he didn't understand but enough men had died in a war few understood. Enough was enough.

"You have my support."

"Bloody hell. My old man is a Rancher, that's where I should be. I don't care about Chile." Lieutenant Jorge Lantana spoke up. "I'm with you."

"Spread the word." Kurt said as he stood, almost bending double in the small space. "I'll make my company ready to deal with command if need be."

As the group split up, hurrying away into the rain, Fernando thought a few might get cold feet away from the rest but the word swept like wildfire through the entrenched soldiers. He was surprised to see something like relief in the faces of his artillery crews and more than a few soldiers came to him to ask if they would attack the next morning. When Fernando confirmed they would not, the men shook his hand, thanked him, and hurried away. It was as if the whole army had been waiting for this moment.

He didn't sleep a wink that night. He huddled in his half-track, the tarp above him serving to keep out most of the rain, and stared at the letter in his hand. Menem had joined him and told him what his sister had actually written and explained her "meeting" with the president. That made him angry too. This was the modern age. Argentina was a great nation, there was no room for a dictator.

The rain finally stopped around five in the morning, a few minutes before he was due to open fire and support the scheduled attack. He pulled out his watch and stared at the second-hand as it slowly began to tick around the face, inching closer to the five. He had ordered his men not to fire and suggested the same to the officers in charge of nearby artillery companies.

Five o'clock. Nothing happened. There was no roar of artillery. No rumble of tank engines. Not even the crack of small arms. The whole front was eerily quiet. The radio beside him crackled and he turned it down before the voice on it became clear.

Movement beyond the carrier caught his attention and he glanced up to see the General, along with several Colonels, standing on a small hillock staring about them in amazement. Nothing moved. No soldiers appeared above the lip of their trenches, it was if they had disappeared altogether.

"Officers to me!" The General roared the order and at first no one moved. Then a group of soldiers appeared from a nearby trench and Fernando recognized Kurt from the mans considerable size. The son of Germans immigrants, his father had fought in the Great War, and none doubted his courage. If any man would have the steel to see this through, it was him.

Kurt was accompanied by a dozen soldiers with fixed bayonets. The General must have sensed what was about to happen and he went for his sidearm but Kurts voice boomed out loudly enough to carry to Fernando.

"Halt or be shot!"

The Generals face had turned white and the Colonels who were with him quickly raised their hands. Fernando tumbled from his carrier, remembering to take his rifle with him, and he hurried toward the group. Other officers, spurred on by his movement, quickly did the same until some twenty or so surrounded the General and his command staff. Kurt waited while they assembled.

"This is madness!" The General was sputtering. "Mutiny! You'll all be hanged."

Kurt shrugged his massive shoulders. "Not a mutiny sir. We're simply not going to attack. We want to go home. I thought you should know." The General stared at him in amazement. "I invite you to return to the command post, sir. We're not going to harm anyone."

"You'll be arrested..." The Generals words died away to nothing at the Captain in charge of the Military Police unit appeared and stepped up to stand next to Kurt. He offered the General a salute of bone cracking precision.

"Military Police respectfully declining to take further orders, sir. We want to go home as well."

"We will hold our positions sir, and return fire if fired upon, but we're done with this war." Kurt spoke again, stepping forward so that the General had to look up at him. "You tell the President we're coming home, either as heroes of Argentina, or as her liberators, his choice."

An aide had appeared from the nearby command post and Kurt glanced at him. The young man fairly stuttered with excitement as he spoke.

"Naval and Air elements in Puerto Montt have confirmed they will not fire unless fired upon, Captain. The Admiral has taken ill and is confined to quarters."

Fernando glanced at Kurt in surprise. The man had certainly not spent the night idly. Kurt offered a small smile and then glanced at the General. "It seems everyone is tired of the fighting, sir. Might I suggest you contact the President. These men will ensure no one harms you." He gestured to the dozen infantrymen with fixed bayonets.

"But, you can't..." The General sputtered incoherently. The Colonels, who had been standing close to him, were looking around and could see that hundreds of soldiers had left their positions and now stood watching the exchange. They slowly began to edge away from the General as if to distance themselves from his actions.

"Ah, General, but we can, and we have. No Argentinian lives need be lost today."

The got through to the General who nodded jerkily, still in shock. He looked about him again, like a drowning man looking for a life raft, and found himself alone in a sea of hostile faces. He nodded again.

"I'll call the President at once." He turned and stumbled toward the command post, his escort in tow. The Colonels made as to follow him and then thought better of it.

"Gentlemen, I hate to be cliche, but you are either with us, or against us." Kurt hadn't moved but his gaze now turned to the senior officers. They were decent men and he knew it. Two of them grinned and shrugged.

"I always knew you'd cause me a headache, Kurt." Said one as he glanced back at retreating back of the General. "I have your word no one will be harmed?"

"We just want to go home, Colonel."

There was a pause and then the man nodded. "Let's make that happen. God knows my kids annoy me, but I miss them too. I'll make sure the General gets the message right." He hurried after his former commander.

Kurt turned to the assembled officers and men, his voice carrying to them all. "We are done fighting! We have fought, we have killed, and we have lost friends and brothers. No more. We are going home!"

On and on until we win... (Page and Saix)

Bocri Sauburc

---

Bocri touched Hirani's shoulder so that she looked at him and offered a weak smile. It wasn't much, but it was something given the situation.

"Just trust me, as you always do, and hang on."

He turned back to the monitors and for a brief second his reflection stared back at him. His skin, as black as ebony, made his shape look like a shadow, a shadow with a single red eye. His prosthetics would be hard to hide, but that was a problem for future Bocri.

"Start jettisoning the escape pods, only one every minute or so, make sure one remains." He instructed Hirani as his finger danced over the console. The recon fighters that had been sent out would be returning soon and it was important that they have no reason to think either Jedi was still alive.

The ship responded quickly to his touch as Hirani launched the first escape pod. He hammered the ships "may-day" beacon that would be begin broadcasting all over the sector. There were no other major Republic starships nearby, that much he was sure. The returning fighters would quickly run into the debris field of everything he had vented, including their comrades. That would be an unpleasant surprise but he was making this whole thing up rather spur of the moment.

Red light began to throb throughout the ship at once and the scream of damage control sirens sounded beyond the bridge doors. Operating the ship was remarkably easy, all he had to do was set its course for the planet surface, override the emergency alarm, and then step back. With the magnetic shields locked open, no living soul save for a Jedi would be able to make their way onto the ship.

Hirani was still launching escape pods as the ship began its turn, the dagger shaped hull rolling over until it was pointed directly down at the planet. He couldn't operate the self-destruct as they needed three codes, one from him, one from Hirani, and the third from the Captain, who had been vented into space. An oversight on his part. There were other ways to wreck a ship however.

"Get into the escape pod." He directed Hirani as he walked unhurriedly over to vacuum tube that served to carry physical objects all over the ship as quickly as possible. He pulled four thermal detonators from the small bridge weapons locker. They weren't much, but they would be enough to start a chain reaction of bigger problems with the ship spinning out of control. He set them each for one minute and then launched them to various different parts of the ship; engineering, operations, the magazine, and the galley.

His steps were considerably quicker this time as he hurried to the escape pod and climbed inside with Hirani. She pushed the launch button and a "whoosh" followed by a light thud told them they were on the way. They fell away quickly into space, arcing toward the planets surface. The time ticked by his head until the detonators exploded. The vacuum of space would serve to extinguish any real fires but it did nothing to prevent the chain reaction of other shipboard explosions that quickly rippled throughout the craft.

Bocri wrapped his arm around Hiranis waist and held her close, his head resting on her shoulder, as they looked back out through the viewport. He could feel exhaustion coming and his shoulder still burned something awful. The closeness, and her own inate skills, serve to sooth some of his pain.

Above them, two small pinpricks of light shot toward the wounded destroyer, the scouts had returned. He could hear their cries of confusion and concern over the comlink that he now pulled from his ear and crushed in his prosthetic hand.

The Ghosts of Napoleon

New York City, Rebel American Colonies - 1836

---

"That is time gentlemen, you may fire when ready." Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, clicked his watch shut and nodded to the slew of officers who had been waiting patiently for this moment.

"The signal to fire, if you please, Mr Wills." Captain John Ledsham had turned and snapped the order to a junior Lieutenant who saluted, slipped the knot holding the signal halliard in place, and quickly began to haul it hand over hand into the sky. The flags caught the wind and snapped out in a flash of colour.

Mere seconds passed before the first of the bomb ships fired, the heavy mortar sitting in the belly of the boat roaring as it hurled a shell in a high ark before it plunged toward the city beyond. The sound had barely faded when another mortar fired, then another, until all twenty of the squat looking vessels were shuddering with the heavy concussion.

"By god it makes a man proud to be British don't it?" An officer growled nearby and the Admiral had to agree as the first of the massive battleships began to tack and turn so that its guns could sweep the half finished fortifications that might have prevented the British attack.

He could see blue coated soldiers running to the few guns that had been mounted when word of the approaching British fleet had first reached them. "Fools..." They would barely make a dent in the warships that crawled toward them on the flood tide, a steady breeze filling the huge sails.

The first of the ships opened fire, the rolling thunder of the massive broadsides completely drowning out the heavy thud of the mortars. The rebel defences vanished in a cloud of dust, falling masonry, and a combination of canister and round shot. The rebel flag, mounted on a freshly limbed tree trunk, toppled almost instantly and vanished into the maelstrom below. Cochrane fancied he saw a cannon hit plumb on the barrel go flipping through the air like an Indian tomahawk.

It didn't take long, by the time the third man-of-war had emptied its broadside into the fort a single man stumbled into view and began to frantically wave a white flag. The fourth ship fired one shot before its guns fell silent and a minute later a launch filled with red-coated marines pulled away toward the island.

The first of the outer works had fallen but the city governor had refused to surrender and so now New York must suffer; the mortars fired on.

The Ghosts of Napoleon

Name:

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Leader:

William IV

History:

After the abdication of Napoleon in April 1814, British public opinion demanded major gains in the war against the United States. The senior American representative in London, Reuben Beasley, told US Secretary of State James Monroe:

There are so many who delight in War that I have less hope than ever of our being able to make peace. You will perceive by the newspapers that a very great force is to be sent from Bordeaux to the United States, and the order of the day is division of the States and conquest. The more moderate think that when our Seaboard is laid waste and we are made to agree to a line which shall exclude us from the lake; to give up a part of our claim on Louisiana and the privilege of fishing on the banks, etc. peace may be made with us.

Led by General Isaac Brock, the British, along with their Canadian and First Nation allies, hammered the Americans at Queenston Heights and Detroit. Landings in New Orleans, a bombardment of Boston, and General Brocks unerring support of the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, led to the Americans eventually suing for peace as the Frontier burned. The Iroquois and Huron Confederacies were recognized as British protectorates, and the region known as the Louisiana Territory was turned over to the British.

Protected by her Navy, at least in theory, the British rolled up the territories and colonies of its land bound enemies. The French fleet, a shadow of its former self, was penned into a half dozen harbours and left to rot. On land, however, the British did not fare so well. The French proved, with a few exceptions, to be better led, and friction among the Allies to several reveres, including a brutal defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. The British were forced from mainland Europe and only a few ports remained open to their goods.

To suggest that the British people were badly shaken by the landing of French troops at Dover in 1822 would be to make a massive understatement. What followed was a soul searching that the British had not had to undergo since the Spanish Armada. A special committee was launched by the King to investigate where things had gone so badly wrong and he nominated the Duke of Wellington to lead the review. Wellington had avenged his defeat at Waterloo by soaking British beaches with French blood, but now he was being asked to make sure such an event never occurred again.

First came reforms to the Navy and Army. The practice of buying commissions was scrapped and he adopted the French style of promoting skilled men from the ranks. A proper military college was established in York for the training of officers who could not read or write. The use of the rifle became widespread and the iconic red jacket of the British army began to give way to the dark green and black associated with the rifle regiments. Britain had learned some hard lessons.

The Navy, long Britains favourite son, found its reputation badly tarnished after their failure to prevent the French landing; they had been pissing about in the wrong place when the invasion began. The Captains list, previously based solely on seniority, was abolished and, like the army, new commanders were promoted based on competency and leadership.

With Napoleon gone, and the world more or less at peace, the king began new political reforms. The poor law was updated, child labour restricted, slavery abolished in nearly all of the British Empire, and the British electoral system refashioned by the Reform Act of 1832. His control over the Kingdom of Hannover had long be surrendered as Prussia sought to make its own way.

Now the King lies on his death bed, the Empire is strong, and money flows into British coffers. Whispers of war on the mainland have begun again, the Americas are aflame, and the cavalry of Saint George will ride again.

The Ghost of Napoleon

@Dinh AaronMk, if you want to focus more on mainland Europe I can rejig to a different nation since our numbers are limited.

If we see an explosion of interest, I would ask to be permitted to return to the UK.

The Ghost of Napoleon

Anyone have some good reading for this era? Trying to drill down on the revolutionary side of things and I’ll admit I don’t know much about this particular time period.

The Ghost of Napoleon

@Lady Lascivious No

The Ghost of Napoleon

@Letter Bee, sure? Up to Aaron more than me. I don’t think I’m that invested in Greece at the moment. I’d have to read up on it.

The Ghost of Napoleon

I am 100% open to ideas and suggestions to make this more... fleshy?

Name:

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Leader:

William IV

History:

After the abdication of Napoleon in April 1814, British public opinion demanded major gains in the war against the United States. The senior American representative in London, Reuben Beasley, told US Secretary of State James Monroe:

There are so many who delight in War that I have less hope than ever of our being able to make peace. You will perceive by the newspapers that a very great force is to be sent from Bordeaux to the United States, and the order of the day is division of the States and conquest. The more moderate think that when our Seaboard is laid waste and we are made to agree to a line which shall exclude us from the lake; to give up a part of our claim on Louisiana and the privilege of fishing on the banks, etc. peace may be made with us.

Led by General Isaac Brock, the British, along with their Canadian and First Nation allies, hammered the Americans at Queenston Heights and Detroit. Landings in New Orleans, a bombardment of Boston, and General Brocks unerring support of the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, led to the Americans eventually suing for peace as the Frontier burned. The Iroquois and Huron Confederacies were recognized as British protectorates, and the region known as the Louisiana Territory was turned over to the British.

Protected by her Navy, at least in theory, the British rolled up the territories and colonies of its land bound enemies. The French fleet, a shadow of its former self, was penned into a half dozen harbours and left to rot. On land, however, the British did not fare so well. The French proved, with a few exceptions, to be better led, and friction among the Allies to several reveres, including a brutal defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. The British were forced from mainland Europe and only a few ports remained open to their goods.

To suggest that the British people were badly shaken by the landing of French troops at Dover in 1822 would be to make a massive understatement. What followed was a soul searching that the British had not had to undergo since the Spanish Armada. A special committee was launched by the King to investigate where things had gone so badly wrong and he nominated the Duke of Wellington to lead the review. Wellington had avenged his defeat at Waterloo by soaking British beaches with French blood, but now he was being asked to make sure such an event never occurred again.

First came reforms to the Navy and Army. The practice of buying commissions was scrapped and he adopted the French style of promoting skilled men from the ranks. A proper military college was established in York for the training of officers who could not read or write. The use of the rifle became widespread and the iconic red jacket of the British army began to give way to the dark green and black associated with the rifle regiments. Britain had learned some hard lessons.

The Navy, long Britains favourite son, found its reputation badly tarnished after their failure to prevent the French landing; they had been pissing about in the wrong place when the invasion began. The Captains list, previously based solely on seniority, was abolished and, like the army, new commanders were promoted based on competency and leadership.

With Napoleon gone, and the world more or less at peace, the king began new political reforms. The poor law was updated, child labour restricted, slavery abolished in nearly all of the British Empire, and the British electoral system refashioned by the Reform Act of 1832. His control over the Kingdom of Hannover had long be surrendered as Prussia sought to make its own way.

Now the King lies on his death bed, the Empire is strong, and money flows into British coffers. Whispers of war on the mainland have begun again and it is only a matter of time before the Golden Cavalry of St George ride again.