TheEvanCat

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

Yeah, the Middle East is kind of a nebulous area. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire it's just been kind of "yeah, there are Arab states... I guess." You can take a look at me (Armenia) and Chap (Turkey) for the base behind the history, which boils down to "Arab Revolt and then choose your own adventure after that."

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

Odessa, Ukraine

“Sorry to hear about it, officer. Yeah, they work for my company, I can take them back with us.”

In the back of a Ukrainian police van were four Armenian sailors with various black eyes and scratches, all looking down at their handcuffs as an Odessa policeman smoked a cigarette outside. Every once in a while, the Ukrainians would arrest a few people fighting at the bars, as sailors do, and keep them until after their ship sailed. The next crew would have to pick them up, take them back, and turn them over to the company management where they would almost inevitably be fired for missing their return leg of a shipment. It turned into a running joke with Armenian ship captains on the Black Sea, like getting tipped at a restaurant but only with drunk and disorderly prisoners to be tossed in the brig. So far, Captain Sarkisian’s return haul would include several hundred tons of steel and four future former employees of the Black Sea Maritime company. He directed his executive officer, Nazarbekian, to take them to the company security guards loitering around on the dock for this exchange.

The Captain thanked the police officer in his decently-pronounced Russian before asking for a cigarette. The Ukrainian policeman sighed and reluctantly offered one out of his pack, which Sarkisian lit with his company-branded lighter before thanking the policeman again. He ran a hand through his greying, thinning hair and cursed the summer heat. Nazarbekian delivered the prisoners to his security team and tipped his hat at them: they took the men inside to be seated in the brig. With an Iranian swagger, the executive officer came back to his captain and withdrew his own cigarettes, smirking while the policeman got in his van and drove off. “You asshole,” Sarkisian muttered. “I don’t like bumming off of strangers.”

“So bumming off of your subordinates is better with you?” quipped Nazarbekian, blowing a puff of smoke through his nostrils. “What a fine reflection of a selfless Merchant Marine leader of character.”

“Do you want to stop being a sarcastic fuck?” replied Sarkisian with a sigh. “It’s bad enough I’m getting tipped four today.”

Nazarbekian scoffed and took a few more drags on the cigarette. “What are the plans for tonight, boss?”

Sarkisian looked back at his ship: the longshoremen were now swarming around the dock with forklifts, cranes, and other pieces of logistical equipment. The Odessa harbormaster worked almost as hard as the Trabzon one, working an intricate timetable of both ingoing and outgoing shipments. Armenia’s gold would be taken off the Breadwinner, driven to a nearby railway, and shipped off to wherever the industrial base of Ukraine needed it. In exchange, as the contract went, a certain tonnage of steel produced in cities like Mariupol or Kryvi Rih was loaded onto sprawling railways and trucks and ships and sent right over the Black Sea. Once it left Trabzon, cities like Hrazdan would receive the steel. Naturally, some of the products were sent straight back to Europe. The captain recalled once transporting a steel shipment and, a week later, receiving machine tools that happened to come from the same factory at the end of their contract chain. Capitalism worked as it worked, and he had a feeling that this was better for the country: Armenia prized self-dependence above all else, but was in a tricky place in terms of natural resources.

Nazarbekian smoked the unfiltered cigarette down to the tips of his fingers, before tossing it away into an open gutter. “You lost or something?” he asked after not getting his reply.

The captain shook himself back to reality: “Yeah, sorry, I was thinking about the timetable.”

“You need to let yourself loose a bit,” Nazarbekian recommended. He wasn’t much younger than Captain Sarkisian, but his strong, muscular build and youthful features stood out in stark contrast to his superior’s receding hairline and facial stress lines. “Going to have some fun or something?”

“Well, I do have opera tickets. You know I’m not into the same scene that you and the junior officers are,” admitted Sarkisian. “I have a wife and a house now, I’m not as young as some of the Lieutenants. Can’t be going around spending all my money on Ukrainian prostitutes and drinks.”

Nazarbekian chuckled and put his hands into his pockets. “If you’re worried about them doing that, I’ll have to keep an eye on them.”

“Mhm, ‘keep an eye on them’, Mister Nazarbekian,” quipped the captain. “You mean take your face out from between a dancer’s breasts every five minutes?”

“Every ten, sir, I think they’re more trustworthy than that,” replied the executive officer just as sharply. He looked back at the port as a taxi zipped past them. Inside were a few of his sailors, already swigging from bottles at noon. “If we keep the lost to recovered prisoner exchange rate even, we can put these guys in the brig to work and have no problems. But we can deal with that tomorrow. If you need me, you know where my hotel is.”

“Absolutely. Go and have a good time, but not too good,” Sarkisian said with a pat on his back. “I’ll see you around.”

Captain Sarkisian set off as Nazarbekian sent his regards. His destination for the evening was a late lunch before an opera, which gave him some time to set out and explore the city he visited often. The port of Odessa quickly gave way to the Square de Richelieu, surrounded by ornate European buildings. Stark industry quickly became European-styled architecture with its tight alleys and painted facades with columns and stone balcony railings. The formal entrance to the city was the Primorsky Stairs, which led down to the city proper from the port and the square. Sarkisian passed through throngs of Odessa’s people enjoying their summer afternoon at cafes and shops as he walked towards the main streets. A statue of Duc de Richelieu, clad in a classical toga like the Greeks of old, towered over the steps. The Primorsky stairs were designed in such a way that, at the top, Sarkisian could only see the landings. He walked his way down the stairs lined with flourishing green trees and arrived at the bottom to look back and only see the stairs. A thin smile reached his lips: the stories about the stairs’ optical illusion were true.

In many ways, Odessa reminded him of Yerevan. The Primorsky stairs were reminiscent of the Yerevan cascade, with its flanking gardens and trees and its beautiful park. The memorials of Armenian heroes and flags hanging from lightposts were almost exactly the same as the ones in Odessa. Being a sailor enabled Sarkisian to see the world beyond Armenia, something that most of his countrymen lacked an idea of. With enemies surrounding them, it became easy to adopt a fortress mentality: seeing the beauty and peace of a European city on a summer’s day and taking in the culture of another people lessened the edge. While Persia was definitely accessible to the Armenians, owing to their strong ties, not many people he knew had been there. The captain was hoping to use some of his vacation time and saved money to visit the empire in the near future. Perhaps someday he could go further into the European world, or even see the United States. Politics, for now, stood firmly in the way on the ageing sea captain’s dreams.

Odessa’s opera house wasn’t too far from the steps. Down the road, the massive Italian baroque structure towered over low-rise apartments that hugged the streets. Odessa, as it seemed, was doing quite well for itself. A few cafes dotted the wide avenue, and Captain Sarkisian instinctually navigated to his favorite one. Ukrainian food to him seemed more or less the same as Russian or even most Armenian foods, but one in particular seemed to be well-done every time he went. The chefs knew his ship and its crew at this point, always welcoming them when they were scheduled to arrive in town. With a table to himself on the shaded patio, he ate reddish-soupy borsch with local fish while the sun began its slow descent to the horizon. He paid in loose Ukrainian hryvnia that he kept from his previous travels before wishing the staff a warm farewell and offering a promise to come in for breakfast in the morning. Adjusting his pants and belt and straightening out his hat, Captain Sarkisian pushed out through the glass door and into the streets again: he had a relaxing evening set out for him.

Yerevan, Armenia

As was the political tradition in Armenia, the handoff of power took place in Republican Square by the government buildings. As throngs of citizens gathered, the ceremony began with an invocation from the Catholicos of All Armenians. As the country, the government, the office, and the people were blessed, Hasmik Assanian stood quietly behind the tall man in ornate red, black, and gold robes with his head bowed. With words of thanks and appreciation, the new president stepped forward and began the process of inauguration. A copy of the Armenian Constitution was brought forth by the dark-skinned Premier Justice of Armenia, a solemn man of almost seventy years with a neatly-trimmed grey beard. He placed it down on the podium, inviting Assanian to place his hand upon it. The photographers in the crowd snapped pictures of the new president in front of flag-colored banners and the Parliament and Cabinet stoically standing behind him. A gust of wind rippled through the square before the Premier Justice adjusted a microphone closer to their faces. He turned to Assanian, serious as always: “Please place your hand on the podium and repeat after me.”

In segments, a phrase at a time, the oath of office was delivered in front of the crowd and broadcasted to Armenians across the country and in various diaspora communities: “, Hasmik Assanian, swear to faithfully and fully exercise the powers of the President of the Republic of Armenia. I am devoted to the defense and progression of the state and the Armenian people, and will diligently work to ensure their sovereignty, independence, security, and integrity. I am committed to the rights and freedoms of every Armenian and the Constitution of the Republic. In the name of God, I wholly and without reservation accept this elected position.”

A round of applause and cheers erupted from the crowd as Assanian’s supporters waved flags, banners, and shouted slogans. Journalists jostled for photos while police patrolled for demonstrators or the rowdier spectators. On the podium, the new president took a handshake from the old one. They looked each other in the eye and nodded, no one offering up any emotion after such a bitter race that often devolved into personal attacks. The old administration went back to their seats while the newly elected governors took their places behind Assanian. The transition of power, like every cycle was complete. The world, it seemed, was sparse with these moments. Monarchies, empires, and dictators flying the flag of their various ideologies were more common than not. The Fedayi and the Council fought long and bitterly for their Armenian republic: Vadratian and Assanian had an understanding that, if nothing else, this democracy was the only thing they had.

A speech closed out the inauguration. It was a speech like many that had been given during the campaign, promising freedom and prosperity and continued security. Assanian, at the podium under the sun with the flag behind him, felt almost tired as he seemed to say the same things over and over. Armenia, the Fatherland, shining brighter than before: a secure future for their people. Applause shook the square when he finished, people cheering in the crowd and chanting popular slogans. A new hope for the troubling times, and end to the turbulence of the past decade. As the ceremony drew to a close and Assanian waved one last time before walking off the stage, he wondered how long this euphoria would last. It seemed that he was stepping into a complicated, muddled situation. Security, politics, money, power, and the fate of a people were all intertwined in obtuse and difficult ways. Work already awaited him at the office.

Hrazdan, Armenia

The exams were over and the summer had started for the students of Hrazdan’s universities. For many of them, that meant going to work in the industries to apply their skills and gain experience before they graduated in the coming years. Others would travel around to conduct research or do projects, but nobody was left to their own devices. A student’s life in Armenia was funded by the government, so they were sure to be put to work to return that investment. The Hrazdan University of Industry in particular had a special contract with an ordnance factory in the west of the city. Far from the city center and the gentrification there, the Tsaghkadzor Heavy Industry Plant sat nestled in some hills on its complex. Jon Korkarian, in a taxi with his briefcase, drove through the grey cityscape and looked through the windows as they approached a concrete wall and a blue metal gate. A flag hung from the barbed-wire topping on the wall, alongside murals featuring tanks rolling off the assembly line. A police officer read a newspaper in a guard shack just outside, his partner dozing off in the police car parked nearby.

Jon paid the taxi driver and struggled to get out, his tall and lanky frame hitting the doorframe as he opened the door. He waved at the taxi as it pulled away and sped back towards the city, then turned to face the policeman who had been throwing his jacket on in the guard shack: the heat was sweltering in the small metal building. Jon exchanged pleasantries with the man before handing in his ID and factory papers that had been mailed to him the week before: he introduced himself as a new assistant there and that he would be working for the summer. The cop absentmindedly flipped through the stack of papers and forms that Jon had brought through, not particularly caring about a brand new university intern that had to get through. A bead of sweat ran down his wrinkled face and dripped onto Jon’s ID. The student subtly grimaced and muttered “Gross” under his breath, but the policeman didn’t seem to notice. Without any other questions, the cop handed the ID back to Jon and walked to the metal door blocking the road. He banged on it three times, and another bored policeman unlocked the latch and opened it. With a screech, the door came open for the new intern.

“Good morning, sir,” Jon said to the third police officer. “I’m one of the new employees here, do you know where I can go?”

The cop, cigarette dangling from his mouth, shrugged and stuck his hands into his pants pockets. “I just make sure nobody runs off with the fuckin’ scrap metal, kid. Maybe go over there and ask someone else.”

Jon rolled his eyes, thanked the officer for his help, and moved on. The road to the factory was at least two hundred meters from here, with a massive parking lot of tanks in between him and the gigantic industrial plant. Built with Persian loans almost five years ago, this plant was one of the newer government contracts for heavy military equipment. Jon’s father had been an officer in the armored corps before his retirement and had set him up with this job through his business connections. The work certainly showed: rows of vintage-looking tanks were parked in the hot sun in neat rows outside the massive assembly line ahead of him. Jon walked the road in awe, gazing at the large, brutish machines. Their metal hulls, painted an olive green, were riveted and plated with armor. Guns with massive bores poked out of turrets on the sides on top. Curiously, these models seemed older: they almost looked like machines from the Great War instead of new designs. Some of them bore unusual modifications, like dozer blades or mine flails.

After a few more minutes of wandering towards the factory, Jon found himself at the door of the assembly line. The building stretched for some distance to the rear and was many times taller than the tanks inside. Groups of technicians with welding torches, air hammers for riveting, and any other tools necessary for the job crowded around the machines. The hall echoed with the sounds of men and, surprisingly, women fixing and modifying the tanks. A crane on its rails near the ceiling of the factory brought a massive turret towards one of them, lowering it on chains as a crew helped guide it into place. Jon, awestruck at the operation, didn’t notice when a man in a dress shirt and slacks came up behind him. “Is this our new hire?” he nearly shouted, startling the young student. Jon spun around to see an older, middle-aged man in a blue shirt with a tie tucked in between its buttons. He extended his hand out, Jon took it and put his hand on his chest as he introduced himself.

“My apologies for shouting,” said the man, “but it gets noisy here. My hearing isn’t too great on its own either. But I’m happy to see you made it. My name is Andrei Bagruntsian, I’m the modernization program manager here. All of this you see is what we do.”

Mr. Bagruntsian swept his hand out to the rows of tanks parked outside. Then, looking back, his brow furrowed. With a quick hand motion, he waved Jon back to the side of the assembly line. A group of overall-clad workers pushing a cart full of metal plates came through, nodding their greetings at the boss. “We should go to the office,” he stated quickly, before leading Jon back to a metal staircase. They went up to a catwalk that ran parallel to the assembly line before ducking off into a side wing of the factory where the offices were. The offices were a labyrinth of grey concrete, and Mr. Bagruntsian walked Jon through some more staircases and winding turns before they reached a wood-paneled door. His name appeared on the window: the boss used a key from his pocket to unlock it and lead him in. It was a modest, spacious office with a desk on one side and a pair of couches next to a coffee table on the other. A flag hung from the wall above his bookshelf, along with several photographs of what appeared to be tank crews with their machines.

“Sorry it’s a little hot in here,” Mr. Bagruntsian apologized again as he turned on the ceiling fan. “I would open the windows but it lets the carbon and metal particulates in here and makes me quite ill. Plus it smells all day and my wife doesn’t like when I come home all coated in it.”

Jon sat down on the red fabric couch and set his papers down beside him. Mr. Bagruntsian went to a coffeemaker set aside next to his desk and began to prepare two cups as he spoke. “So, Mr. Korkarian, you’re here to work with my department?”

“Yes, sir,” Jon replied quickly, his hands folded politely in his lap. “Since I study industrial management and all, I’m here with your operations department.”

“I’m aware… You’re here to help with deliveries to the military. It’s a fun job, I assure you. Lots of travel,” he said with a chuckle. “Hope you like the desert. And trains.”

Jon nervously laughed as well, accepting a steaming cup of coffee. Mr. Bagruntsian reached into his shirt pocket and offered up a cigarette. The younger student accepted, even if he didn’t smoke all that often, and accepted the lighter as well. Mr. Bagruntsian, seeing this, grinned and reached down below the table. He withdrew a bottle of brandy from a drawer and placed it on the table before popping the top. “I hope you’re not afraid of a little day drinking, either,” the director joked. He poured a hefty portion into both coffees.

The boss sat back in his couch, slumping into the fabric with an exhale. “So do you know what we do here?” he asked. Jon replied back with a vague and general answer about military equipment production, to which Mr. Bagruntsian nodded. “Well it’s not just that, our factory specializes in refitting old equipment.”

“Are those the tanks I saw outside?” Jon asked, looking out the window to the rows of old armored vehicles on the pavement.

“Exactly. See, when the Great War ended we acquired a good deal of Ottoman military equipment. A lot of it is still good. We have been using these tanks for almost forty years now, but they’re starting to get old. New weapons development have outpaced what these are: the first, most primitive armored vehicles. However, the government has maintained a directive that essentially boils down to ‘we don’t throw anything away.’”

The director took a sip from his coffee and wiped his mustached face with a handkerchief. He continued: “So these tanks have been operating with reserve units and people like the Border Service who still function, but aren’t on the priority list for new equipment. But what’s cheaper than buying new tanks for them is refitting old ones. See, steel is steel. Engines are engines. Guns are guns. Something made in the Great War will still kill you, and it’s the summer of 1960. That’s why you see guerrillas running around Georgia with old Tsarist Mosins. So what we can do is apply our knowledge and change up these platforms as we need to. We can simply bolt new armor on and replace the engines with something more powerful. New armament can be added, it’s as easy as swapping out a turret. We can even use these workhorses for utility tasks. Do you know what an assault looks like nowadays?”

Jon shook his head. “Not really.”

“Well a lot of these old tanks, they’re sturdy. Especially with new engines, we can outfit them with mobile bridges. Drop them down on trenches and you can drive other vehicles across without getting them stuck. It’s how you storm a line. You can also fit them with mine flails, use those dangling metal chains to trip up landmines and clear a path. Dozer blades are cheap and cut through obstacles. There’s a lot that you can do, and the government tasked us to use our imaginations sometimes. We come up with good ideas, we sell them. The engineers in particular have been very pleased with these. Not having to clear minefields by hand has been a life saver.”

“So I deliver these?” Jon asked, recoiling at the taste after a sip of his spiked coffee. “And… market the other ones?”

“Exactly, yes. So we’re glad to have you with the project. Sounds like a good time, yes?”

“Absolutely, sir. I’m excited to get out and work.”

“Well first, we’re going to tour you around and get you settled with the operations department. You’ll learn up on operations at the factory before we send you out. Pretty easy job, and the pay isn’t awful,” Mr. Bagruntsian joked again. He stood up again, offering his hand. Jon shook it, thanked him for the coffee, and collected up his briefcase.

“Thank you for the job, sir,” he said with a hand over his heart again.

Mr. Bagruntsian laughed. “I’ll be around, so don’t worry if you can’t figure something out. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting to prepare for. I need to find my jacket, even if it is the damned summer."

Jon nodded and thanked him again, then left the room. He closed the door on his way out, reflecting on his new work for the next few months. He was excited to travel, and the factory was already looking like an interesting place to work. Mr. Bagruntsian seemed like a good enough boss, even if he appeared hurried all the time. That, however, was probably normal for Armenian ordnance factories. The student ran a hand through his hair and shrugged: it was a good job with some good experience involved. He waited outside the office to dwell on it. Within a few minutes, someone came to grab him and get him settled in the operations office. For the first time in his adult life, he was finally working on something real.

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

Patara Darbazi, Georgia

Yaglian’s section took point, two jeeps moving through the winding roads in the Georgian mountains. They were far from home, the lights of the border installations long having vanished as they continued their questionably-legal mission through the rough terrain of bandit country. Patara Darbazi was vanished in the hills of Georgia, forgotten to many and home only to a few dozen civilians. Only a single raider encampment put it on any sort of map: the Armenian military’s. It was part of a network of supply camps that enabled small teams of bandits to poke and prod at the Border Service and try to find routes for their next smuggling operation. Hitting this one, in concert with an organized attack on two other encampments, would be enough to bloody the nose of the Georgian Mountain Wolves militia, albeit only mildly. A platoon of Armenian troops pulled their vehicles into the trees beside the ancient, overgrown path they were traveling on: it was the end of the road for those machines. A team from third section was assigned to watch them, much to the chagrin of its leader who was now missing the fight.

The rest of the troops grabbed what they needed from their rucksacks and bounded off. Their light-olive green uniforms blended into the shadows of the woods as mud splashed onto their gaiters and brown leather boots. Most of them carried their carbines slung low at the ready, scanning the mountaintops as the sun rose. The machinegun teams, belts of ammunition wrapped around their torsos like the fedayi of old, took up positions in the march with their equipment ready to be emplaced. A kilometer on foot at this pace took twenty minutes to march, before they spread out into the hills to the south and west of the encampment. To their west, the town was stirring as farmers came out in the early morning light to check on their animals. In silence, like they had rehearsed on a small scale in the lot behind their barracks, they spread their sections into lines. Machine gun teams from the weapons section found good spots on their hilltop and dug in, aiming their bulky weapons at the silhouettes of the bandit tents.

Yaglian’s section found cover behind an abandoned barn, its wood rotted and its roof having caved in years ago. His own team hunkered down by a pair of rusty bicycles and a stack of chicken coops that had long since been tossed away. He went back and forth across his three men as he checked them off: had they forgotten anything? Were they ready to fight? After ensuring everyone took a look at their weapons for any sort of mechanical errors, he ordered them to fix their bayonets. As quietly as they could, the knives were unsheathed and clicked into place underneath the barrels of their carbines. Yaglian tugged his into place to ensure its secure placement and slapped his curved, banana-shaped magazine into the rifle’s frame. Taped to its side was another magazine upside-down so that he could reload easily while clearing through the camp. Sergeant Ozanian came to Yaglian as he finished his preparation: “Are we ready?”

“Yes, Sergeant. Everyone is good.”

The section leader eyed the morning dawn as it crept over the jagged rocks of Georgia. The other section leader on the southern flank was jogging from his position behind a hill to the barn, waving his hand. The two NCOs exchanged words, before Sergeant Ozanian patted the other man on the back and send him off. “Corporal Yaglian, we’re all ready. I’m going to blow this whistle, our Lieutenant will hear it, and he’s going to start the gunfire.”

“We count to sixty and then begin our movement,” Yaglian continued as Ozanian nodded.

“Once we pass the line of view of the Lieutenant, he’ll blow his whistle to stop the guns as we move into the camp. It’s an easy raid, straight out of a textbook.”

The border guards all nodded, overhearing the plan, and made final adjustments to their gear. Yaglian tilted his taraz soft cover straight onto his head, brushing one of the loose wool ends over his shoulder before he looked back towards Sergeant Ozanian. The mustachioed, middle-aged section leader had stood up from his position by the chicken coops and put a dull grey whistle to his mouth: he blew three dreadfully long bursts, followed by a hearty yell: “Onwards! Onwards!”

The machinegun teams from their section fired their guns, streams of bullets hosing through the bandit guardsmen. Puffs of dirt and grass were kicked up violently from every impact as the bandits dove for cover behind rocks and sandbags. One after the other in a synchronized “talk”, these guns fired their bursts to pin down the enemy forces. Those who were not stuck behind cover down emerged from their tents, bewildered, before grabbing their rifles to return fire. Within seconds, the snaps of bolt-action rifles answered the Armenian guns. Tracers, linked every five rounds in a machinegun’s belt, inched closer and closer to their targets as the gunners began to adjust their fire. In response, the bandits’ shots tracked the direction of these and began to close in on their positions. Return fire kept some of the firing line down with their heads behind cover, but fire superiority was regained as soon as the other rifles on the line doubled down on the enemy positions.

By the time Yaglian counted to sixty, the guns’ high-powered rounds had torn through much of the bandits’ cover. Several laid wounded on the ground, screaming as they clutched gushing wounds or, in some cases, the stumps of missing limbs. Others tried dragging them out of the way of danger, risking their lives for their partners. The troops on the southern flank heard the second set of whistle blasts, and Yaglian steeled himself before he rushed out into the open field beside the barn. As soon as the Armenians emerged from their position, the machineguns shifted their fire to the north, clearing the way for their comrades to advance. Yaglian threw himself towards the bandit camp just a hundred meters in front of him, but that distance felt like he was running a marathon. The Corporal looked back from the raid’s destination to his team, and extended his left arm straight out: “Get into a line!”

The other three men sprinted out to form a straight line perpendicular to the camp’s perimeter, alongside the other team in their section. Every couple of meters, the troops would instinctively get down to a knee or behind whatever cover was available and begin covering their other team’s bound: a few rounds would be quickly fired off before they got moving again. Yaglian slid into the mud in the middle of the field just a few meters away from where he started and aimed into the radium-painted iron sights on his rifle onto the silhouette of a man. He squinted his right eye, gripped hard on the wooden rifle stock, and squeezed a trio of shots off from his carbine. Each one kicked into his shoulder, pushing the muzzle of his piece into the sky as the rounds flew towards their destinations. The bandits were still were focused on the machinegun positions, and had been caught off-guard by the southern flank’s first round of fire. Almost as soon as their shooting began, Yaglian’s team was off on a sprint to the position.

This process could would be repeated a few more times until the southern flank reached the barriers of the camp. By now, the fighting had turned into a ferocious close-quarters match as the machineguns had called off their firing entirely. Yaglian’s team reached a sandbagged position where a guard was now laying, bleeding out against a rock. Another bandit was tending to his wounds as Yaglian’s youngest soldier, Lingorian, leapt up and over the barricade. Both of them stopped, only for a split second, and looked each other in the eye. Lingorian, without the betrayal of any emotion or thought, mechanically moved his rifle to his eye and took aim at the Georgians. He hesitated for a second as the rest of his team moved past him to clear through the encampment, before he saw the wounded bandit’s hand twitch. He didn’t look twice to find out if the men were armed or not as he shot both of them on the wet, dewy ground. Lowering the rifle, he moved up to join his team.

As Lingorian bounded to the next piece of cover with Yaglian, he slammed his shoulder into a wooden box of supplies. The young Private caught his breath and fumbled to regain his footing. Both of them crouched down as another round of gunfire cracked through the camp. After looking back to Lingorian and the rest of his team, Yaglian peeked his head around the corner of the box and fired a few rounds in the general direction of the enemy. Two shots answered him, so he replied with another round of shooting. Another Armenian had come running up to their stack of crates and took aim, popping shots off as he slowed to a walk. Yaglian stepped out to join him, firing his own carbine until the Georgian militant ahead of him was knocked down to the ground. Inside a row of tents to the east, the two heard the report of a submachinegun rip through a section. A chorus of shots silenced the bandit, and the southern flank continued to move through the encampment.

The largest structure was another wooden barn that housed the bandits’ supplies for its patrols. Sergeant Ozanian had consolidated his troops together around it as the rest of the camp was cleared. Enemy gunfire was lessened, and eventually silenced, and now Armenian troops had the barn surrounded. Inside, it was suspected that some Georgians were hiding in wait. Yaglian ordered his men to take up covered positions and watch the windows, and went to seek out his section leader. The Corporal turned back and jogged quickly to where he had killed the bandit just a minute earlier, finding Ozanian talking to the other team leader in his section. “Sergeant!” he called. “Hey, what are we doing about this barn?”

Sergeant Ozanian glanced towards a guard position to the north as a short exchange of gunfire resulted in the injury of a Georgian as his knee was blown out. The wounded bandit tried to crawl away before he was stabbed in the back by an Armenian trooper’s bayonet. The Georgians were dead and all the tents had been searched. The only place left for them to be was the barn. The section leader looked back to Yaglian: “Are your guys hurt?”

The team leader shook his head. “No, Sergeant, we didn’t have too much resistance on our corner. How’s everyone else?”

“A couple troops in 3rd Section were wounded from that submachinegun, none very seriously. Our medic is with them, but that’s about it. We got lucky. Let’s hope it stays with us, George, because your team will be clearing that barn.”

“Clearing it, Sergeant?” asked Yaglian, stunned. He looked back towards the structure, now surrounded by Armenian troops. “Can’t we just burn it down or something?”

Ozanian frowned: “If we burn it down, it might set off the munitions inside. We might hurt ourselves in the process.”

“And what happens if we get hurt while we clear it, Sergeant?” testily replied the team leader, before he stopped himself and calmed his tone down. “They’ve got the drop on us.”

Ozanian twirled his mustache, a habit of his, and looked back at the barn. “We’re wasting time the longer we stay here. We have to finish this up so we can withdraw. This is a raid, not a siege.”

Yaglian was about to argue further, but held his tongue. Frustrated at the prospect of leading his team into certain danger, he just nodded and acknowledged. “I’ll go in,” he said.

Back at his team, Yaglian briefed the situation to his troops. Private Lingorian offered to take point as they kicked in the rear door, while the rest of the team would stream in and destroy whatever they found. It was suspected that there were two or three Georgians hiding, possibly up in the rafters of the barn, since visual inspection of the ground floor through the windows yielded nothing. Without further word, Yaglian’s four troops jogged their way to the back entrance as the rest of their section covered them. Silently, they lined up behind the door, eyeing the rusty hinges keeping it in place. With two well-aimed rifle shots, the door’s hingeplates were blown off and a hearty kick was delivered by the Armenian soldier. The door collapsed inwards, breaking into two as it flew towards the inside of the barn while Lingorian stormed inside, sweeping the area with his rifle. The troops rushed in, underneath the cover of a covered rafter: Lingorian was the first to head beyond this, going into the clear open area in the center of the barn.

Yaglian’s eyes were scanning a corner when he heard the gunshots: he looked back to Lingorian only as the young trooper fell to the ground in a crumpling heap. His other rifleman rushed over the wounded comrade and let loose a series of wild shots that reverberated through the entire barn. He, too, was felled by submachinegun fire. Yaglian and the only remaining member of his team both looked up to the rafter and began shooting through the wood floor. Bullets whipped up through the rafters and threw splinters of wood and hay around: one enemy was hit, falling to the ground with a thump and a cry. Yaglian fired until he ran out of ammunition, before quickly reloading and emptying his magazine at the rafter in a rage. He looked to Gagarian, the last member of his team, and nodded his head towards Lingorian and their other fallen partner. Gagarian, a veteran of the fighting, knew exactly what they were going to do. Both of them raised their rifles to cover the rafters as they walked backwards to the casualties.

A Georgian militant popped out from behind a box and was swiftly eliminated by the two Armenians. They stopped at their comrades and kept scanning the rafters, looking for more movement. Yaglian thought he saw something and fired off four shots at a dark corner, but it turned out to be nothing. He turned to Gagarian and slapped his shoulder, signaling for him to get the casualties out of the barn. The strong, stocky trooper slung his rifle over his shoulder and picked up Lingorian, who groaned and grunted and clutched his stomach as he left a trail of blood out the door. Lingorian’s partner, Gaznian, wasn’t moving or making any sort of noise. Yaglian sidestepped closer to him, still keeping his rifle on the rafters, and lightly kicked him in the thigh. He didn’t stir. Gagarian arrived to drag Gaznian away, and Yaglian scanned the barn one last time before running out to find Sergeant Ozanian. The section leader had run to Private Lingorian along with the platoon medic as the other section withdrew to the north. “He’s hurt bad,” simply stated Gagarian as he dropped Gaznian beside Lingorian. “And Gaznian… I think he’s dead.”

The platoon medic dropped his medical rucksack next to Lingorian, seeing the man groan and writhe in pain. It was a good sign, it meant that he was alive. Meanwhile, Gaznian was still staring at the sky with blank eyes and his mouth agape. The medic wasted no time, first pressing up the fingernail on his finger to try and evoke a response. When that failed, he scrambled over to Gaznian’s face and flicked his eyeball: still nothing. His last and most drastic option was to stand up, maneuver to Gaznian’s lower body, and deliver a swift kick to the groin that still wouldn’t rouse the man. The medic looked at Gagarian, and shook his head. “That one’s dead, but I think I can help the other.”

Gagarian turned back to Yaglian, who had arrived to hear the medic’s report. He exchanged worried looks with Sergeant Ozanian, right before a yelp from Lingorian cut through the air as the medic stuffed dressing and gauze into his stomach wounds. Once the bleeding of the young trooper was stabilized, the medic gestured for Gagarian to come over and help him lift the body up and out of the way. The two took off running with Lingorian as Yaglian and Ozanian both dragged the body of Gaznian behind them. The section withdrew to the north to rejoin the other members of their flank, with the medic and Gagarian heading off to the trucks to rush Lingorian back to the border station where a medical team was being called up from the rear by radio. Within minutes, another whistle was blown and the west flank swept through just like the southern one just had. They encountered no resistance, blew their whistle, and the Armenians began running off to the trucks.

As the troops withdrew, the order was given by the platoon commander to destroy the camp in its entirety. A single rifleman stopped atop the berm where the machinegun positions had just been located, withdrew a rifle grenade from his web gear, and screwed it onto the barrel of his rifle. Taking aim at the barn, he fired: the rifle grenade sailed through the air and impacted straight in the middle of its broad side. The munitions crates inside were detonated with the explosive and a brilliant fireball engulfed what had used to be the battle area. Bits of flaming debris ignited the tents and those began to burn as well. The platoon commander watched as his objective was destroyed, patted the rifleman on the shoulder, and both of them took off to rejoin their platoon. Within minutes, the Armenians were back in the trucks and gunning it back to the border as the sun cleared the morning mist. Elsewhere in the Georgian mountains, the other raids went according to plan as well: the Mountain Wolves would be stirred indeed.

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

Yerevan, Armenia

Elections were logistically-heavy operations. For months, electoral committees studied census data to determine the intricate distribution of ballots and voting stations amongst Armenian communities. From the biggest cities to the smallest mountain towns, all the way out to flying seaplanes to collect absentee ballots from merchant ships, voting officials were beginning their work. A strong democracy was called for in the original roots of the Armenian nation, the idea being that the Armenian state served the Armenian people instead of the goals of a single man. Everyone, from company men in Yerevan to farmers working vineyards in the valleys near Stepanakert, was afforded the opportunity to vote. And June was when all of this came together to determine the next Armenian president. In Yerevan, each neighborhood maintained a voting office in some sort of civic center: a community center, library, school, or something like that. These in turn were guarded by police, where signs of illegitimate voting were watched for. People began lining up in the morning underneath the watchful eyes of armed police officers, and voted until the polls closed at dusk.

Votes were collected from hamaynkner, or local towns and communities, in regional centers where they were counted. For local elections, this was usually enough to determine low-level politicians. Larger operations, such as for province-sized marz elections, used these voting centers’ data and counted up from them: this simple scaled up to the national level in the case of the June presidential election. Many of the Armenian revolutionary councilmen had been educated in Europe during Ottoman rule, and thus returned to their country seeking to establish similar institutions for their own democracy. Armenian executive elections were set up with a two-round system drawn from European political systems. The election of 1960 had four major candidates: Hasmik Assanian, who was still projected to be leading with a majority; the current conservative incumbent of Joseph Vadratian, and two others from the revolutionary and socialist parties who were trailing behind both. Assanian’s surge in popularity over the course of the election was projected to have him take the presidency that week: however, the system enabled a second election between him and another candidate if neither of them managed to break fifty percent of the vote.

At the campaign headquarters, however, the staff didn’t seem so humble. Champagne, specially delivered from France, was cooling in the cellar while laborers carried unimportant furniture and other objects to the curb. Radio Yerevan announced the closings of polling stations in various marzs as the sun dipped below the skyline of the city, bathing its pink buildings in an orange glow. Assanian waited in his office with his Vice President to-be. While Assanian was in his mid-forties with lighter skin and thinning black hair, the Vice President was thirty-two, the youngest a candidate could be, with longish curly brown hair and a much darker complexion and looked almost Turkish. His name was Hovik Idratian, and he came from Van. Idratian was picked specifically due to his experience in the region, being descended from a long line of well-respected Western Armenian who were popular for their incessant efforts to lobby for a region that was mostly ignored by the Easterners. A land of barren desert and sand had hardened the young man, despite his boyish face. He presented himself fairly lightly, however, and wore a suit of light grey in contrast to Assanian’s stern black.

As Idratian’s job was to manage the cabinet of Assanian’s administration, he was in the back by a desk coordinating their arrival to the office. All eleven of them were returning from their private residences in Yerevan in their cars, elated at the news of the election. Just the other day, the final selection had been made on the most difficult position to fill: Minister of Development. The National Reconstruction Agency was that ministry’s major project, and was responsible for bringing the parts of Armenia that were still developmentally stunted up to par with what was to be expected from a regional power: something that Armenia saw itself as an achievable goal within the next decade or so. Assanian and Idratian picked another Westerner for this position, due to his philanthropy work repairing villages that were destroyed by Ottoman occupiers during the revolution. He, too, was highly respected by many of the lower-class Armenians, even if he did sometimes say things that bordered on too communist for Assanian’s own liking. Despite this, he knew how to get money for these projects and he knew how to use it wisely.

It seemed, however, that the job of the presidency started before the election was even over. Already, an investigation in Gyumri was starting to turn up evidence of a volatile situation in its ghettoes. Communists were, in the opinion of his intelligence committee, starting to worsen the already volatile situation in Europe. Persia wanted to review terms of a new oil pipeline before the contract could be moved further. His laundry list of things to take care of grew every day, some of it appearing in the newspapers recently and some of it simply being inherited from an apathetic incumbent. Vadratian had spent the last few months sitting in office, most likely with his boxes already packed, blaming anyone and anything except himself for why the polls showed him being, at most, around twenty percent. There were rumors of him trying to delay the election by any means necessary, but the Constitution declared it legal to forcibly step a sitting president down if they tried to stay in power without a good reason. He had already tried to call fraud on multiple primary poll results over the election season, and each investigation yielded nothing.

In Armenia, the legislative system usually maintained enough checks and balances on the executive branch, thanks to the political agreements amongst the Armenian Separatist Federation Councilmen after the Revolution. The Armenian Parliament had the power necessary to arrest, in the worst case, an executive politician who was unwilling to leave once his term was over. In addition, several leaders of the ASF militias still survived and constituted the Council even in their old age. They had no organized power but, if they disapproved of someone and made it known, any and all of their social or political capital would vanish as others took advantage of this to attack them. They were already annoyed with Vadratian for his actions around the Russians, hinting that treating the Russians like he did was akin to the Ottoman occupation, so they were watching the election closely. One wrong move from Vadratian, and he could be labeled a traitor to the Armenian state by people who were unanimously respected in society. It seemed like President Vadratian knew that, too, and had slinked away from the spotlight in the last week or so of the election.

The votes were coming in as the sun set and night took over the city. The densest and most urban hamaynkner, such as Yerevan or other cities, would report their votes to their respective marzer first while the rural countryside naturally took longer. Therefore, more urban marzer reported in first: Yerevan traditionally was the start of the results, and an overwhelming victory for Assanian came through the telephone lines to a staffer. Assanian led at sixty-six percent of Yerevan’s vote, followed by Vadratian at fifteen. A resounding cheer came through the floor from below, as it was a wide belief that Yerevan charted the course of the rest of the country. For every major presidential election, Yerevan had correctly predicted the winner. While this didn’t stack up for Parliament’s elections all the time, it was still a strong enough tradition to celebrate heavily when Yerevan brought in a political win. Somewhere, a bottle of champagne’s muffled pop sounded through the thin walls of the West Yerevan building. Idratian silently smirked and pounded his fist on his chest, before reaching for his own bottle of dark liquor.

The rest of the night, until the morning hours when the mountainous Artsakh could finally get all of its votes transported and counted, was spent listening to the voting reports come through the official telephone lines. The scores from these provinces were averaged out as the sun began to rise, leading to the final result that would be broadcast for the country to hear: Hasmik Assanian had won the Armenian presidency with a vote of sixty-five percent of the Armenian populace. Joseph Vadratian took his place with twenty percent, mostly brought in from the southern areas with little to no Russian presence, while the fringe candidates managed fifteen between them. A roar came from the downstairs offices as the campaign clinched its victory. Someone lit fireworks off the roof and the street exploded in red, blue, and orange lights one after the other. Idratian came over to the armchair where Assanian watched the Hrazdan River from his window and handed him the bottle. Out a whiskey glass emblazoned with the logo of his old regiment, the next President of the Republic of Armenia sipped some of Idratian’s liquor. It tasted like aged cognac.

“Well sir, it looks like everyone is all here,” proclaimed Idratian as he peeked outside of the wooden door to the hallway. “Do you want to meet your new cabinet?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t say that it’s my new cabinet, but it’s official now,” answered back Assanian as he threw a suitcoat over his sturdy frame.

The pair strode through the hallway, its cream-colored walls lit by lightbulbs in elaborate sconces. The conference room was located at the end, next to the staircase of the building, guarded by an oak double door. The Vice President went forth to open the door for his new boss and waved him through. Inside, Assanian’s cabinet awaited: men from their early thirties to their sixties, dressed in anything from navy blue to dark grey suits but all with a purple tie and a flag pin upon their lapels, stood in a semicircle with glasses raised for the new leader of their country. A smile touched the stern lips of a stoic man, before Idratian poured him his own glass of traditional brandy: made from white grapes and spring water from a vineyard just outside of Yerevan. Without further word, they toasted, slamming their drinks down onto the conference table before downing them: “To the new President!”

More fireworks popped in the sky outside, as supporters of the new president moved to Independence Square to celebrate. Bullhorns and speakers announced the victory to the people of Armenia, from the desert of Erzurum to the black forests of the Artsakh. This night was for celebrating, but after a short break the next week was when business truly started. Things were moving quickly in the region: there really was no rest for anyone in this world.

Aygestan, Armenia

Logging was a deceptively simple operation: if enough people cut deep enough into a tree with their axes, it would fall to the ground and could be picked up and moved to carpenters to be made into an innumerable amount of useful objects. The Artsakh was known as a heavily forested region nestled in the rocky mountains of Eastern Armenia, bordering Azerbaijan and Persia. Much of Armenia’s wood came from here, and the craftsmanship of Artsakh woodworkers was known throughout the region. But before ornate furniture could be exported from the region, the raw wood had to come from the mountain valleys. As the morning fog cleared, a crew of men in a military-surplus halftrack painted bright blue drove through a winding dirt road. A rainstorm from the direction of Sevan had just passed through and left thick mud in its wake, but the halftrack motored through with efficiency before taking a turn towards the job site. It wound down the hill, taking care to go slowly by the sharp turns that threatened to flip the clumsy vehicle. Eventually, it came to a series of tents and firepits that marked the logging camp.

A crew of a dozen men jumped out of the back and into the mud, splashing it onto their coveralls and cotton pants. They held axes and hatchets in their hands and greeted their friends as a late breakfast was served. Most people around there ate a simple, small breakfast: in this case, coffee was made and poured for the new crew and loaves of bread were prepared with jars of sweet jam. Breakfast and conversation filled the forest as the fog and mist left, revealing a lush undergrowth of dark green foliage sneaking through the trees. With the size of this camp, it took about a day to fell around twenty trees, so they wasted no time getting to work. The loggers moved from their camp with their equipment bundled on the back of mules and other pack animals to help navigate the rough mountain slopes in their way, trekking through their footpaths past the stumps of trees that had been cut down before. Careful to select ones that they could easily bring back, the loggers selected their first hauls of the day and immediately set up their things.

Gor Kandarian worked a handsaw with his partner on one of the bigger trees on the mountainside. A set of steel cables had been wrapped around the tree and attached to a pulley somewhere else so that, once the tree had been cut, they could lower it down slowly. This was a necessity in mountain logging, catching the timbers before they swung down violently onto people. Gor and his partner worked the backbreaking labor of sawing the handsaw back and worth, sweating as the summer heat began to replace the cool morning fog. It was ten in the morning by the time they had gotten almost there: Gor checked his cheap mechanical wristwatch and nodded, approving of the timeliness of this particular job. The two went back to business before, several minutes later, a crackling and splitting sound was heard from a few meters away. Another tree had been felled, caught by its wires, and gently lowered to the ground to be cleared of branches and jutting sticks before rolled back to a collection point. Gor continued to saw, before he saw his tree begin to topple over once it was almost severed.

The gigantic tree, lush with a healthy dark brown bark, began to fall as its weight dragged it to the ground. The slack on its steel cables tightened, stretching them out. Gor stepped back, down from his portable ladder, but never heard the metallic popping sound as the left cable snapped out of an old, rusty clip on the pulley that someone had forgotten to replace. The cable, now unconstrained by its pulley, suddenly let loose: the tree began falling rapidly, swinging towards Gor’s direction. Unable to even register what was happening before tragedy struck, Gor was slammed in the torso by the massive log and sent flying down the mountain slope like a ragdoll. The tree crashed into another with a thunderous sound, while Gor himself found an end to his journey as he slammed into the trunk of another tree. Blood oozed from his head and nose where, underneath, he had cracked his skull against the tree. He went limp, his vision quickly phased to darkness, and he was dead as quickly as he became injured.

Naturally, the crew of logging workers stopped their work immediately and rushed over to help, but by then it was too late. The body of Gor was picked up by two of his comrades and dragged back to the camp, a process that took much longer than getting out to the job site. A runner came to camp and pounded on the fabric door of the supervisor’s tent, screaming for him to come out. The man was ordered to take the supervisor’s automobile and drive to the clinic in Aygestan, the local village, and find the doctor. This, too, proved difficult as the vehicle became stuck in the mud on the dirt road back to the village. Gor was laid out in the center of camp, but the members of the camp knew that it was already too late. He was dead long before he had gotten back to camp. It was only a matter of time before the doctor came by to declare the same thing. An hour later, he did.

Elsewhere in the village, Mary Kandarian watered her bed of carrots in the yard behind her family home. Nestled atop a hill that sloped down into the woods, the Kandarian home was like most Artsakh rural homestays, was built of stone with decorative wooden columns and a porch that wrapped around the base of the structure. In the back was the greenhouse, a small barn, and several plots of vegetables that Mary enjoyed cultivating for their meals. Within the house, Gor and Mary lived with both of their parents and four children, forming a large family unit typical of rural society there. Their days were generally the same, with Gor coming and going at regular hours unless he knew, and always ahead of time, if he was spending time in the camp as a permanent party. The kids would go to school and come back every day, and the grandparents would stay and read and knit and watch over the house with Mary. For Gor to come home late was highly unusual, since he didn’t do things like go out drinking with his coworkers after work.

Around nine at night, a knock came to Mary’s door. She was reading in the living room while waiting for Gor, the kids had been sent to bed and the parents were asleep already. She got up and went to the red-painted entrance where she thought that Gor should have already used his key. Opening the door, she saw two men were not her husband: the town doctor and the camp supervisor, palms folded respectfully and somber looks upon their faces. The supervisor, and older man with a greying beard and long hair that touched the collar of his grey cotton shirt, bowed his head as he took a step forward. “Mrs. Kandarian,” he began softly, “Gor was killed today.”

Mary’s heart froze, like she was having a heart attack. She stood in the doorway for a few seconds while the blood rushed to her head, reddening her face and leaving the tips of her fingers and toes numb. Her heart, it seemed, could be felt pounding through her chest and her head. “What do you mean?” she asked, trying to keep her wavering voice steady under the pressure.

“I mean… There was an accident. I’m so sorry.” This was all the supervisor could manage in front of Mary. It was obvious he was upset by this as well.

Mary’s mouth twitched and formed into a grotesque frown, tears flowing from her eyes despite her attempts to stop them. Her breathing became almost like hiccups as she tried to stop the sobbing. The supervisor put his hand on her shoulder, and she jerked away. The doctor now, came up to comfort her. “Gor will be returned to you for the funeral, and the priest will be coming by tomorrow,” he soothed, knowing that this was the only thing he could say. “If there is anything else you need, just remember that the village is with you.”

“But why?” asked Mary, looking back up at the doctor. “Why Gor? What am I going to do?”

The supervisor hesitated for a second before answering: “These things happen, it could have happened to anyone at any time. Even me… But the storm will pass eventually for you and your family.”

Mary shook her head and stepped back into her house, grabbing the door handle: “Return my husband’s body to us tomorrow,” she asked. “But for now, leave me be.”

The supervisor nodded quietly, and Mary slammed the door on them. Unable to control it anymore, she went to her sofa and dove into it. Her husband of ten years, dead in a random accident. Someone who she had raised her family with and built her life around, gone in an instant. It was frustrating, it was maddening, and it was tragic. How could it have happened to her? Even worse, now they had four children and three grandparents to support, none of whom worked, and Gor was the only steady source of money that they had. She was left in a dark place with nowhere to go, and she cried through the night long after the supervisor’s car pulled away from the road and headed off to the doctor’s office. The night was long for Mary, proved by her red eyes and running makeup as the sun rose and shone through her window. Before breakfast, she cleaned herself up to maintain the air of dignity as her family came down to eat. As they gathered around their upset mother, they noticed that something was wrong, and Mary stood in front of the crowd of increasingly-frightened family members to say it bluntly: “Your father… Well, your father is dead.”

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

Sevan, Armenia

The rain poured heavily onto the streets of Sevan as the sun dipped below the horizon. It was nearing the end of Sevan’s rain season, but it was still raining or cloudy almost every day that month. Neon lights, commonly used just for lettering in storefronts in Yerevan or other major cities, were ubiquitously artistic in Sevan. They lit the streets in brilliant colors, and signaled all sorts of services for sale. This particular town’s claim to fame was from the tourism industry. Lake Sevan had always been a popular vacation destination for Armenians: it hosted a well-tended marina with hotels, restaurants, and various recreational activities for people and their families. Further downtown, however, the seedier side of tourism emerged. Sevan used its money to start building entertainment venues that were not as kindly-looked-upon by society. Casinos, drug dens, brothels, and anything else that anyone could want were all there. Most of it was even legal, with the city being declared an exclusion zone for vice laws as the Armenian government sought to contain it inside one area.

Money came to the city in one of three ways: Armenians looking to have a good time, rich Persians spending holidays in town to party away from a more conservative Islamic society, and the gangs. The third was arguably the most important faction in town by the turn of the decade, and were responsible for the rapid construction of luxurious hotels, apartments, and casinos. After all, real estate and construction were the best ways to launder dirty money: money that often came from the methamphetamine trail across the border to Russia. Many of these apartments remained empty, but they still provided jobs in the form of maintenance workers, cleaners, and security guards. This kept the local government off of the Mafia’s back for the most part, having reached a mutual understanding with them: stay out of their business and they’ll make it worth it. These drugs mostly came in from Gyumri, and then headed down further south to Yerevan, Stepanakert, and Nakhchivan. About a third of the drugs in Armenia, however, were consumed in the many dens that lined the neon-lit streets.

Hagop Malkhasyan and Mikael Kataev were both almost blackout drunk. Both of them wore white linen shirts tucked into fitted cotton pants bloused into high boots. Mikael’s sleeves were rolled up to reveal a crisscross mural of tattoos of eagles, crowns, and stars all ornately crawling up his sleeve. Revolvers in decorated leather holsters slung low across both of their pants, open-carried without care for the law. Hagop wore a dagger on his other hip, engraved with the name of his dead sister: Anahit. The pair stumbled down a set of creaky wooden steps into a red-lit basement, graffiti and art painted across the brick walls. Thick clouds of opium smoke wafted around them as Mikael led Hagop to a counter in the corner. A woman in traditional garb, seemingly bored, wordlessly placed a metal tin on the wooden counter and held out her hand. Several Dram were dropped into it, and she smiled emotionlessly before hiding back behind her translucent view. The men thanked her to no reply, and made their way to a back room. Three couches surrounded a broken table atop an Armenian rug, a phonograph playing the relaxing flute tunes of folk music.

“Are you ready?” slurred Mikael, as he quickly downed a pill from the container. Hagop nodded, and wiped sweat from his brow. He checked the silver watch that adorned his forearm: they had ten minutes. The man slumped back into his sofa and unconsciously tore at a hole in the cushion as Mikael dropped a pill in the limp palm of his other hand. This was the methamphetamine that Hagop had spent his adult life trafficking as part of the Sevan Mafiya, and he was no stranger to its effects. Usually drunk or high from something else, the Mafiya gave themselves a hit of meth when it was time to get the job done. In this case, someone had given up the location of a Mafiya money stash to the police: it was raided the next day, and Hagop’s boss was now out of several thousand Dram. It was business as usual in Sevan, and what was about to happen next was by no means unprecedented. Hagop took the pill.

It was only a minute or so before Hagop sprang back to life from his drunken stupor. Immediately, his eyes went wide and he fixated his gaze on the lightbulbs in the chandelier above him. His hands balled into fists, he felt the blood rushing through his body. Hagop swore loudly, and stood up. Mikael grabbed him, throwing him back down to the sofa. “Wait, wait, wait, wait. Get it all through you,” Mikael warned. His hand was shaking and his breathing was rapid and shallow. The Russian man’s own eyes were dilated and scanning about the room rabidly. “We’re gonna wait until Krikor gets us, we’re gonna wait.”

The drug coursed through Hagop’s system as he, too, began hyperventilating. “I want to go, brother,” he growled through his breaths as he ground his teeth together. He hated the sound of it, and he hated the feeling, but he couldn’t control himself. Again, he wiped sweat from his brow and went back to tearing up the hole in his sofa’s cushion. It was getting bigger now: finger-size to palm-sized, and he continued to tear chunks of padding out from the dingy red couch. It was painful to wait for ten minutes. Hagop’s foot tapped incessantly against the ground, Mikael’s hand keeping a firm grip on his shoulder to keep him from moving. “Alright, alright, alright,” he muttered underneath his breath, his other hand resting on the wooden grip of his revolver. His skin itched, and he found himself rapidly scanning the room to focus on everything. Pain, troubles, and everything else washed away in a rush of euphoria over him. He was ready to go and happy to do it.

Krikor, an older man who had been something of a manager for Hagop and Mikael, stumbled in through the door with a submachinegun. Hagop’s eyes darted to the gangster and took in every last detail: his grey, curly hair; blue, dilated eyes; and tattoos ringing his neck just above the raincoat he wore unbuttoned. “Let’s go!” he shouted, before waving back at the stairs. Hagop sprang into action, unholstering his revolver and rushing out the door behind Krikor. He barreled through a crowd of youths, still not fully in control of his motor functions, and sprinted up the stairs. Mikael followed more slowly, using the barrel of his handgun to push away one of the kids who now wanted to fight. Krikor took up the rear, eyeing the denizens of the drug hideout before closing the door on his way out. He winked at the apathetic woman at the counter before he left. The trio stumbled through the rain in an alleyway, talking about the plan. “We’re gonna go to this guy’s house and fuck him up,” Krikor repeated over and over. “We got a special fuckin’ way, too.”

At the curb, a sedan awaited. It was painted a beige color, with a dark brown stripe running down the center of the hood that widened out to paint the cab and trunk. Typical of car designs in that era, the body was made of a shined metal of a sleek and curved design. Its short hood led to a hatchback design: another Mafiya hitman sat in the back with a machinegun poking its barrel through a rolled-down window. Hagop stumbled through into the backseat, scrambling against the cold, fake leather before sitting as upright as he could on the far side of the bench. Krikor got into the driver’s seat, quickly starting the engine with his keys. The engine sputtered to life with a cough of smoke out the rear, its yellow lights flickering in the downpour. Mikael was in the street, revolver aimed to his eyelevel and his arm extended. His shirt was wet with rain, water dripped off of his long hair. He swept the street, eyeing the distance for movement. Satisfied, he lowered himself into the vehicle and closed the door. “Let’s go.”

The drive to the villa where the informant lived was short, but the Sevan roads were no friends to the vehicle and its occupants. As the road quality lessened outside of the city, the bumpier it got: Hagop was thrown around the back and bashed his head on the handhold above the window. Dazed for a second, he wiped his forehead to reveal blood. He shook his head and smiled at the blurry, hazy image in front of him. He didn’t feel the pain, nor was he too concerned. They took a turn off the paved road and down a muddy dirt path, splashing a puddle in the process. Some of the mud came through the open window, splattering across the Mafiya gunner and his piece. The gun was of Army issue: a belt-fed, air-cooled, medium-caliber piece with its serial numbers scratched off. A loose belt of brass hung lazily from the receiver, clacking against the metal as the hatchback bumped over potholes and other irregularities. The gunner was silent, steely, and unfazed by the rain and mud: he simply wiped it off of his weapon and out of his eyes.

They arrived at a gated compound, typical of these villas. An ornate metal fence surrounded a squat, tan stone house. A single light was still on in the kitchen, hidden behind translucent blue curtain. Maybe he was asleep. In front of the house, a colorful garden was well-tended to: tulips, roses, sunflowers, and anything else sat nice and neatly in front of green bushes. The gunner in the back of the hatchback slowly charged the bolt on his armament, while Krikor turned around. “Go after it, Hagop,” he commanded softly.

Hagop nodded, opened the door, and stumbled out into the street. The bright lights of the car’s headlights blinded him for a second: he shielded his eyes, drew his revolver, and advanced towards the gate of the fence. His focus now turned onto the front door of the house: a brown, carved wooden door with a bronze handle. He felt his blood pumping and his breathing intensify. His heart was thumping through his chest, either from the drugs or the adrenaline. Keeping his lips pursed, he exhaled through his nose like a bull as he pushed the gate open. It creaked loudly in the night, and Hagop began running to the door. He got there a second later, knocked loudly, and sprinted back into the darkness. As he dove into the bushes, he turned around to see a lone figure open the door.

A bright flash of light and a long tongue of flame erupted from the window of the hatchback as the gunner squeezed his trigger. The rapid cracks of the machine gun snapped at the silence and over twenty rounds went downrange in a matter of seconds. The informant barely had enough time to flinch before the force of several mid-caliber rounds tore him in half. Blood sprayed across the steps of his house as he collapsed into his garden, guts now splattered down his hallway. His hand reached out as he fell, as if to stop the onslaught of death. The rest of the rounds impacted on the wall of his house in a horizontal spray pattern, shattering his windows and blowing out his lights. Someone, probably his wife, started screaming from inside the house. She ran to the door, dropping to her knees when she saw the body of her husband: she began wailing against the night. The gunner let loose another burst instantly, blowing her head off her shoulders and scattering fragments of brain and skull across their entrance’s rug. Hagop stood by and watched the whole ordeal, feeling relieved now that the man was dead. Unconcerned with the mess, he stumbled his way back to the car and slid inside.

“That was good work,” Krikor said, patting Hagop on the shoulder. “We might not get the money back, but at least we sent the message across.”

Hagop nodded and smiled. He looked back towards the bodies lying in the light of their hallway, fallen atop each other in a bloody pile. It served them right for wronging the Mafiya. Maybe others would take the hint and go home before they would up in the same place. The car’s engine revved up and the wheels kicked up mud as it sped off, back towards the city. After all, it was time to celebrate.

Armenia-Georgia Border

“Corporal Yaglian, do you have a minute?”

“Sure, Sergeant,” answered Corporal Yaglian as he finished hanging a freshly-washed uniform on a clothesline. Usually they would hire a local woman to come in from the nearby town to do laundry, but the operations tempo had increased since the last patrol was attacked and there was simply no time anymore. The two stood outside of the brick barracks at their border outpost, just outside of the canvas covering that shaded a recreation area. Yaglian was stripped down to just his boots and trousers. He smoked a cigarette in the hot sun, while his section leader appeared in his full uniform. He wore his rank on a fedayi cap and carried his NCO dagger slung low on his web belt with his handgun and other equipment. His sleeves had been rolled up, and Yaglian could see sweat stains under his armpits and down his chest. Sergeant Ozanian had been a soldier for the better part of this decade, but had been busted back down to Sergeant following a disastrous operation in the Artsakh during the last war. His element had failed to defend its position in Khojaly and were routed.

Ozanian’s face betrayed a man who felt guilt for what happened during the war. He was, in the grand scheme of things, only about as old as Yaglian’s father, but looked much older. Worried eyes sat in a stress-lined face, touches of grey tinging his hair and neatly-trimmed mustache. Yet he proudly maintained his posture and his uniform despite being told to step down as a Platoon Sergeant and move to the Border Service. Yaglian knew what happened in Khojaly only after a drunken confession, where Ozanian broke down and cried about the loss of his unit in the barracks: it was the only time he had ever said anything. Everything he did now was to the standard, perhaps in an attempt to atone for the last war. Now, he held a stack of papers in his hand, stamped with Border Service letterhead. He handed them to Yaglian and cleared his throat.

“Our Lieutenants have gotten together with Captain Havanian, and we have received orders to push into Georgia.”

He noticed Yaglian’s raised eyebrow and continued: “The people who did this to 3rd Platoon’s troops were part of the Mountain Wolf faction, an Islamic group with ties to the Azerbaijani resistance. Evidently this was found out by people far above us, and certain other people want these Mountain Wolves to know what we’re capable of.”

“Certain other people?” asked Yaglian, tossing his cigarette into the pale-green grass.

“If I had to speculate, Corporal, it’s the Persians. They’re occupying Azerbaijan and these people are making it difficult,” Sergeant Ozanian suggested. He shook his head, remembering the Azerbaijanis he fought years ago. Perhaps these were the same people who bombarded his garrison for days with incendiary shells. The old man still bore burns on his right leg from one of those attacks, but he had only ever shown Yaglian.

“So we’re going hunting for Islamic militants who might be connected to the Azerbaijani rebels,” Yaglian summarized. “So we’re going east.”

“Correct. Because our company is close to where we think these people are, we’re going in to strike back. Nothing big, but we want to make sure that they know who they’re dealing with. Nine dead soldiers can’t be ignored. The Mountain Wolf presence in this area is led primarily by a Shia warlord named Simon Batirashvili: he’s a big supporter of Shia movements in the area and the Mountain Wolves are popular in our area. Those guys who have been popping off shots at our positions are his men.”

“And we have a plan for this?”

“Each one of the platoons is going to hit a different encampment. Our platoon has orders to head to the town of Patara Darbazi and conduct a raid on the Mountain Wolves there. It’s mostly a supply depot for their raider parties, hidden up in the mountains.”

Yaglian went through the copies of the battle plan that were handed to him. The town of Patara Darbazi was circled on a map and a handwritten indicator of the Mountain Wolf encampment just a few hundred meters to the east. It was a small town with just over a two dozen buildings nestled in the Georgian mountains. The team leader looked up into the distance, across the border road and chain-link fence to the mountains. The green, forested sloped ridges were occasionally interrupted by tall peaks before calming back down. Patara Darbazi was only ten kilometers from their post: it didn’t take long for foot-mounted raiders to hit border positions before slinking back behind the innumerable valleys and into the forests. A return hit on Patara Darbazi was an unusually aggressive mission for the Border Service. While it would take away a supply point for Mountain Wolf operations, it was unlikely to cause any major damage: it was really just a message. The two other platoons in Yaglian’s company would hit similarly minor targets at the same time. Captain Havanian was apparently hopeful that this would make Batirashvili’s forces back off.

The battle plan was relatively simple: the platoon would mount up and move with their vehicles to the outskirts of town before dismounting and attacking from the west and south. The forces on the west would light up the encampment with overwhelming firepower before the southern-positioned troops would sweep through. Once the camp was cleared, the western troops would move east to clear again. Upon the destruction of the camp, they would disengage back the way they came and drive home. They would strike at dawn, moving into their positions under the cover of darkness before they had enough light to actually conduct combat operations: it also held the advantage of attacking during a change in the guard where the night shift was too tired and the morning shift was too groggy to react properly. Resistance was expected, but it was a smaller base of operations on the fringe of Batirashvili’s men’s control. More of his power was concentrated in the city of Rustavi, meaning that there were only supposed to be just shy of fifteen militiamen occupying the post at a given time.

Most of this intelligence was released to the Border Service and subsequently passed down through the chain of command by the National Security Service: a shadowy government intelligence organization that frequently operated outside of the country. Yaglian had heard rumors of operatives and spies in Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey, but they were just stories he heard in bars. Evidently there was at least someone in Batirashvili’s sphere of influence, because information on the Mountain Wolves had been stapled to the map of Patara Darbazi. A photograph of the town had been copied and included in the order, with another photograph of the camp illustrating a series of former military tents set up in a neat row with a canvas covering a sizeable stash of wooden boxes. Four guard positions, one at each corner of the camp’s perimeter, were marked.

Yaglian gave the papers back to Ozanian and nodded. “We’re going in from the south?” he asked, seeing his own section on the plan. The section leader just nodded, taking the papers and putting them back in a leather document case.

“We go tomorrow, so get your people together and make sure the plan is distributed. Have your equipment ready to go and pack for a light raid,” ordered the Sergeant.

“You’re not worried about this?” Yaglian asked as his section leader turned around. “We’re not the Army…”

“The Army isn’t here, so we’re going to do it,” duly answered Ozanian. “And besides, these were our men.”

The section leader shrugged and walked away, leaving Yaglian to himself. Still shirtless, he felt the sun wash up against him, warming him. This helped only slightly with an icy sense of dread that began to creep through him. He felt something off about Sergeant Ozanian: he was never usually this talkative with briefings. Something felt different, like he was excited to go out. He never speculated about the political leanings of groups or who wanted them in or out of a region: he just handed over the plans and told Yaglian to prepare his team. Perhaps the Mountain Wolves’ relation to the Azerbaijanis had something to do with it, and it suddenly became more personal for Sergeant Ozanian. Whatever the case was, Yaglain also felt that the reciprocal attack was not going to be the end of it. Border clashes were relatively frequent, but he had never heard of an intrusion this far into the country. Ten kilometers through the mountains was enough to raise some alarms about expanded Armenian intervention, and who knew where it would go from there. The Poti garrison was expanded under continual re-justifications: would the Border Service be on the same track?

Corporal Yaglian dropped the news to his team, and instructed them to begin gathering their gear. The men scurried off to their own destinations while Yaglian opened the door to his steel wall locker. Hung up on a rack by its sling was his wooden carbine, which he took and tossed onto his bed alongside several curved magazines and cardboard boxes of stripper-clipped bullets. As he closed his locker door, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and paused: he examined the stubble on his face, his hooked nose, the curly hair that went in every direction, and his own green eyes that stared back at him like he was questioning himself. Yaglian squinted, frowned, and closed the door completely. He sighed: it was time to get back to work. The battle wouldn’t wait for him.

Gyumri, Armenia

A Military Policeman arrived at the office early that day with a stack of case folders. After being waved past the secretary, he arrived at the office in the back and dropped them right onto Tigran Korkarian’s desk. The patrol chief looked up at the runner, a Corporal wearing a crisp olive uniform in his shined brown leather boots, and thanked him. Sergeant Kavalian had done a quick job at putting together everything related to this weapons case, including armory numbers of all the equipment that had gone missing and what unit they were last assigned to. All in all, forty firearms had gone off the grid: ten semi-automatic carbines, ten bolt-action marksman rifles, and twenty pistol-caliber submachineguns. Each one was turned into the Gyumri Regiment’s armorer after a reservist training exercise the month prior and loaded onto transport alongside miscellaneous equipment and several hundred rounds of ammunition. The two truck drivers assigned that day were two Privates by the names of Karlovian and Marovian. Personnel records of both of these men were attached, as well as the results of the investigations into them.

What it came down to was that both of them were unassuming conscripts, the only point of interest being that Private Marovian’s home of record was located in East Gyumri near the Russian neighborhoods. He was slotted as the primary driver for that transport, and Sergeant Kavalian’s men were working under the theory that Marovian had stolen the truck for himself. Karlovian had been a longtime friend of Marovian, according to their comrades in the barracks, and was most likely an accomplice. Where the truck went after that was never found. A clear link between Tigran’s murder case and Kavalian’s theft case could also not be found until the weapon was identified. So far, they just had ammunition shells, but that would require additional investigation based on the headstamp information. One of the Gyumri Police detectives was tracking down the cartridge’s manufacturer. This information could then be used to see if it was local or not: if it was, then they most certainly sold to Gyumri’s garrison and the ammunition store could be narrowed down based on the date. That would be cross-referenced with withdrawal logs to see if that particular shell was in a box on the stolen truck.

This took the day while Tigran began to formulate who he would be going to. By the time the report came back in the evening stating that the ammunition was made in Hrazdan in a factory that sources the Gyumri garrison, Tigran was ready to investigate further. Alex joined him by the patrol car that had pulled by out front, loading shells into a shotgun to be kept in a trunk. They were going to Private Marovian’s mother’s apartment to see what could be found. Tigran lowered himself into the passenger seat and shut the door before reaching out the window to turn on the lightbar’s external switch while Alex started up the engine and the tired rolled over the black asphalt road. They drove through Gyumri, onto Abovyan Street. Freshly redone, Abovyan Street was lined with flourishing green trees and delicately-planted gardens. The police vehicle rushed past street food stalls, groups of children coming home from school in their uniforms, and couples walking their pets and infants. Once the turn onto Vartanants Square was made, they proceeded to turn past the city hall and its gardens and statues.

East Gyumri was less nice than West Gyumri. Well-maintained avenue greenery gave way to bare streets. Buildings became simpler and less adorned, and bars over the windows started appearing as the police moved further into the rougher neighborhood. The paint on nationalist murals was peeling, and litter blew across the streets in the gentle evening breeze. The Marovian family lived on the second floor of an apartment off the main street, a grey concrete building with a faded flag hanging from the rooftop. The police parked in front of an out-of-service bus stop adorned with Cyrillic graffiti. In the distance, a dog barked at them from behind a chain-link fence while people stopped to look at them on the street. A gaggle of children crossed the street to the other side as soon as Tigran and Alex pulled themselves out of the patrol car and straightened their uniforms. Alex looked back at the barking dog and the children and unconsciously patted down his duty belt to feel the grip of his revolver.

A tall, lanky, baby-faced man in his early twenties cracked open the door of the apartment when Alex knocked. He looked like he jumped slightly, and a brief look of surprise crossed his face before he quickly subdued it. He had hair that looked grown out and a few patches of stubble on his chin, and he wore black-rimmed glasses. “What do you guys want?” he asked in a slight Gyumri accent, sounding slightly shaky.

“Is this the Marovian family?” asked Alex calmly, sizing up the man. While taller than the police officer, he seemed to shrink away from him.

“Yeah, yes… What happened?”

“Who are you?” bluntly asked Tigran, cocking his head to the side.

“David,” answered the man at the door after a slight pause. Tigran and Alex looked at each other: Private Marovian’s given name was Aram. “D-Did something happen to my brother? I heard that he went missing or something?”

Alex shook his head: “That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Who else lives here? Is your mother and father around?”

David frowned and looked at the floor: “My mother is in the back listening to the radio… My father died in a train crash years ago.”

Alex and Tigran were unmoved by the sob story, but offered condolences anyways. “I’m sorry to hear about that,” Alex said. “My own father was hit by a car when I was seventeen. Can you go get your mother? We have some questions about Aram.”

David nodded, and shut the door as he went to the back. Something was off about him: he was too nervous for this. It took a few minutes, longer than both of the officers thought was comfortable, to open the door. This time, a fifty-year old woman in a plain dress stood alongside David. She told the officers to enter and take a seat on the couch. Tigran accepted, and removed his cap as he sat down on a faded, pale blue couch next to a coffee table that had one of its legs replaced. Alex declined, and stood with his arms crossed next to the sooty fireplace. David scurried off to a back room and closed the door a little too loudly. Tigran glanced over, past the dingy walls with peeling paint, and looked back at the elder Marovian. “Ma’am, I am Chief Korkarian of the Gyumri Police. The Army has asked me to look into your son’s disappearance: I’m talking to you because they don’t have the jurisdiction in off-base matters.”

“What does a police investigation have to do with it?” the mother asked cautiously. “I was told that there was a vehicle accident.”

Alex and Tigran briefly exchanged looks. Alex subtly indicated to Tigran that he should keep up the military’s story with a head nod, then turned back to scan the back room where David had disappeared to. Tigran continued: “Well we figure there must have been a reason why he didn’t turn up. Do you know of anything that had troubled him? Sometimes if someone’s mind wanders, they make mistakes.”

Private Marovian’s mother looked taken aback. “There’s nothing wrong with my boy,” she insisted. “I didn’t invite you into my house to insult him or what he did for this country.”

“I think Officer Korkarian would be the last person to insult service to this country,” Alex shot back, his hands balling into fists before relaxing: it was an old woman, after all. He calmed down: “What he meant was that if there was something going on at home. Maybe he had a girl who left him? Maybe he had money problems.”

Marovian’s mother eyed Alex, keeping her hands neatly folded in her lap.

“Financial troubles?” Tigran asked delicately. “I noticed that this isn’t… the best neighborhood.”

“I make a livable wage,” tersely answered the woman.

“For a family of three?”

“Wh-“ began Private Marovian’s mother. She stopped, eyes wide, surprised at what she had said. Quickly, she tried to cover it up. “My family is fine.”

Tigran stood up from the couch and smoothed out the wrinkles on his uniform. He understood fully well that family was integral to Armenian life, and they were often unwilling to admit their own flaws. People kept their families tight, sometimes too tight for their own good. This was one of these cases: Tigran had a bad feeling about the Marovians, and his instinct led him to believe that somehow they knew where Private Marovian was. He figured that David might offer some more insight, seeing as he appeared to be the same age as the missing soldier. But he also had some suspicions about the boy. “Can I go see David?” asked the chief.

The mother hesitated, but knew that the question was less of a request and more of an order. She smartly bowed her head and stood up, leading Tigran to the back room. Alex followed behind at a distance, hand inching closer to his belt and revolver. They walked past rotting wooden doors and a stained spot on the wood floor from a ceiling leak, before coming to the back room. Tigran gently shooed the mother away from the door before knocking twice. There was no answer at first. For a few more seconds, he waited, then knocked again. David came to the door, looking frazzled: “Sir, I don’t know what’s going on.”

Tigran sized up the boy: “Do you have a copy of your conscription papers anywhere, David?”

“Conscription papers? No… I, uh, I was National Servi-“

“National Service issues papers, too. Can I see those?” Tigran asked again, a hint of frustration in his voice.

“I… lost them.”

“It’s a crime to not produce your papers when asked by a police officer,” Tigran reminded him. “If you lost them, you should have reported to the Gyumri office to get replacements.”

David’s blank face turned to a frown, and his stance became aggressive. Without further word, he looked back over his shoulder at the window behind him. It was open, to let the summer air circulate through the hot and humid room. The boy bolted towards it, and Tigran reached out futilely. David swung through the window to the outside balcony, hanging onto the edge of the window as he checked where he could land: a fabric awning over the entryway provided a damper for his fall, so he took it. Tigran ran to the window and shouted for Alex to get the car. The other police officer ran out through the door, elbowing the Marovian mother out of the way as he scrambled towards the staircase. Tigran watched as David rolled across the awning and dropped onto the sidewalk with a yelp. Evidently that wasn’t too bad of a fall, because the scrawny boy got up and took off running up the street. He was barely twenty meters away before Alex busted through the main door to the apartment building and raised his revolver from his holster.

“Stop!” he commanded, but David kept running. Alex was having none of it: he clicked back the hammer on his revolver and leveled it above the boy’s head in an attempt to fire warning shots. The handgun barked two times, both bullets whizzing past the kid’s shoulder. David turned around in horror to watch, before stumbling over himself and falling to the ground. He tried to pick himself up, but Alex was a fast runner and was closing in. Just as David got off the ground and gained speed, Alex was already over him. A rugby tackle threw the teen down to the sidewalk, bashing his head against the concrete and splitting open a gash next to his left ear. David raised his hands to his face to defend himself as Alex pistol-whipped him into a daze. “I fucking said stop!” he repeated.

“Alright, alright!” cried out David. “I’m stopped, I’m stopped!”

Tigran was now out on the street with the mother in handcuffs, who was now facedown on the hood of the police cruiser and wailing. “Aram! Aram!” she shouted, before Tigran told her to be quiet. Alex was meanwhile dragging David, whose real name was found to be Private Aram Marovian, to the vehicle while interrogating him about the weapons. Still injured, he left specks of blood on the pavement as he was thrown to the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back. Onlookers gathered as Alex waved his piece around to keep them at bay, fearing a possible ambush by Marovian’s allies. Both of the officers stuffed their captures into the back of the car before switching on the siren and driving off the same way that Aram had tried to escape. The holding cell that night would be occupied by them and a few frequent drunks who were picked up on what seemed like a rotational business, except this time the new prisoners were taken away by the military at dawn.

Inside the apartment, four rifles and a shotgun were found in the closet in Aram Marovian’s back room. A large sum of dram was hidden underneath the floorboards, along with an address that appeared to be located in the industrial district by the rail station. This information was forwarded to Tigran, who sent it to Sergeant Kavalian: there would be a combined force assembled to raid the address in the coming days. The arrest of Private Marovian would start a fire that sent the rest of his contacts scurrying, but there were still problems: the rest of the weapons were not found and the location of Private Karlovian was not known. Private Marovian would be interrogated by the military police in an attempt to figure out how deep the connections went. In the meantime, the police were gearing up for a major operation: reinforcements were being called in from neighboring towns and provincial National Police units, alongside military policemen with heavier weapons. Things were calm, at least for now, but Tigran Korkarian knew that it wouldn’t last. It never did.

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

Hrazdan, Armenia

Yerevan often took the image of a bustling, cosmopolitan center of business and trade. Hrazdan, on the other hand, was the manufacturing heartland of the resurgent nation. While efforts had been made to soften the city’s aesthetics with art and other new development projects, much of Hrazdan was composed of concrete, square architecture. Much of the city was brutally efficient, from the roundabouts organizing traffic in the fastest way possible to the clean districting of factories to the west of the river in order to minimize the impact of polluted air on the residential areas. Hrazdan, as opposed to Yerevan, had been planned extensively by Armenian authorities instead of developed over thousands of years. Growing from what amounted to a village, Hrazdan housed major factories that in turn fueled the growth of the nation. Everything from cement to automobiles to battle rifles was made in Hrazdan, then loaded onto trains in the largest rail depot in the country and sent to their destinations.

A hundred years ago, Hrazdan didn’t exist: it sprang from a remote village in the Kotayk province in part due to its proximity to transportation hubs and natural resources. The village was bulldozed and a clean slate was built upon. Everything about Hrazdan seemed stern, from the strict grid layout of the streets in an unchangingly standard fashion to the scientific layout of city districts. Civil engineers, urbanists, and other educated Armenian workers used Hrazdan as a testbed for the “modern city.” It was only recently that a resurgence of culture began to change the hardened atmosphere of the town: painted buildings and unique architecture replaced harsh concrete structures. Many of these newer buildings were owned by the Hrazdan University of Industry, a school renowned around the country for its high standards and skilled graduates. Revolutionary ideas prized education and resourcefulness, with the government heavily subsidizing new schools early on that might produce citizens to turn the country around. This idea, it was said, stemmed from the Armenian martial tradition of wily Fedayeen using their wits to drive off foreign invaders. Now the invaders were gone, and it was time for the Armenian people to use their hardworking ethic to prepare their country for the next storm.

Jon Korkarian, aged twenty and a student of this prestigious university, did not feel like an enlightened bearer of Armenia’s future as he rolled out of his bed on a Monday morning with a massive hangover. It was seven in the morning, class began at eight, and he was still in his clothes from the night prior. His roommate, sleeping on the carpet as he was unable to make it fully to his bed, had developed a massive black eye after being punched by a fireman at the bar for making fun of his haircut. Final examinations for the term were just around the corner, and Jon realized that he ought to be showing up to class instead of drinking on Sundays. Carefully taking a drink of water from his dormitory sink faucet, Jon shielded his eyes against the rays of the morning sun coming through his window. Muttering about how much he hated himself as he swept an empty bottle of vodka into the trash, he quickly walked outside to the hallway to find the bathroom and shower before coming back. His roommate was still asleep.

School uniforms mandated every student wear a suit to class, and Jon was no different. He slipped into his cheap trousers and threw on his black jacket just as he looked at his wall clock: seven thirty, and it was time to go. Breakfast for him was a piece of bread and some peanut butter hastily spread onto it. As he ate it, he mused about how his industrial logistics instructor told the class about its supply chain: produced in India and then traded to the Persians, before it was sent to Armenia. Expensive, sure, but there was enough of a demand for the novel food to justify it. Closing the door quietly, he headed to class. Hurrying through the newly-renovated campus while shielding his eyes from the sun, he tripped over a curb as he crossed a street to enter his place of study: the Center for Industrial Management. His classes for the day were always the same: topics on management, supply, and production. Every aspect of the industrial process was taught, and students were frequently brought to Hrazdan’s factories to observe modern practices in effect.

Small classes and personal discussion was beneficial to someone like Jon, but he found the subjects frequently dry. Tests were frequent and exacting, designed to establish a high proficiency before graduation. He never believed himself to be a top student, and frequently landed somewhere in the middle of his class for academic performance. This Monday was especially rough as he nursed a hangover in the back of class and tried to make himself as small as possible to avoid being asked any questions. Many of his other peers were the same way, but that was normal for twenty-year-old students. Jon struggled through his lectures and assignments for the day, yearning for the afternoon nap. Lunch was followed by his final class of the day, his Farsi Persian studies. For two hours, the longest block of instruction, Jon memorized vocabulary and wrote paragraphs in cursive-like Arabic script.

Contrasting to Jon’s mellow, unassuming appearance was Professor Mahmoodi. A serious man with a serious demeanor and what seemed like zero tolerance for imperfection, it felt like he would have mercilessly beat the students for using the wrong verb tense if he had been allowed to. Balding, with greying hair, his eyes peered out from underneath thick glasses to inspect the writings of Jon and his classmates. The old man walked purposefully behind the rows of desks, his hard-soled dress shoes clacking against the tile floor. Jon felt Professor Mahmoodi’s presence get closer and closer and he hurriedly checked his work. Unfortunately for Jon, it was too late: Professor Mahmoodi pointed at a sentence at the end of his work and said harshly in rapid fire Persian: “What is this? What does this say?”

“Sir, it says: ‘For the first time, the summer’s agricultural products were sent abroad’” Jon stuttered, reading hurriedly through his text to ensure that there were no errors.

“Mr. Korkarian, what is your field of study again?” Professor Mahmoodi asked, as if he were a police interrogator.

“Industrial management, sir.”

“Do you have any idea how often you work with Persians as a manager? We have so many connections to this economy that this is a skill like breathing,” Professor Mahmoodi fired back. “They’re going to think you’re an idiot. I know I do. Tell me what’s wrong here.”

Jon bowed his head slightly as he surveyed the sentence for the most recent time. Upon finding the culprit, a missing grammatical identifier on his specific direct object, Professor Mahmoodi ordered him to fix it in the margin. It was something he always had problems with himself, and a constant source of grilling from his instructor. But Professor Mahmoodi was ultimately right: Jon’s job would require constant interactions with foreign partners, especially if he got a job in the oil sector like he wanted. News of a cross-border pipeline extension to Erzurum, Armenia’s sole source of petroleum, occasionally made the radio. Jon knew from his father, a blue-collar oilman, that the petroleum industry was a money-maker. Persia especially was involved here, providing assistance and opportunity to help the Armenian energy sector as its cities got wider and taller and grew to need more power. Jon scribbled down a note in the margin of his paper and began writing the second paragraph in his assignment. He would do this until the bell rang to signal the end of the class, prompting one last comment from Professor Mahmoodi.

“It’s good that most of you didn’t forget everything over the weekend. I will see you tomorrow. Come back with a finished assignment.”

The students rushed out of the room, grabbing their briefcases and books and heading to whatever they had next. On Mondays, Jon was done after lunch. He was the first of his roommates back in the room, throwing his suitcoat to the floor of his wardrobe before collapsing onto his bed. Almost unconsciously, he kicked off his shoes to the wooden floor. Within an instant, he was asleep. Homework and assignments and the lingering fear of exams could wait: for now, he was simply exhausted. His nap was the best thing to happen to him all day.

Yerevan, Armenia

Assanian was well acquainted with the Armenian government’s ministries. We had personally met with and discussed his hypothetical policy plans with several officials during the election, but now it appeared that he was on the verge of winning. It was a commonly accepted fact that Assanian’s victory was all but assured, so preparations were being conducted for the change of government. As a part of this, it was day three of an intensive review process for potential minister candidates in the changeover to Assanian’s cabinet. Armenia had established several Ministries since its independence: Foreign Affairs, Internal Affairs, Finance, Justice, Agriculture, Health, Education, War, Development, Infrastructure, and Energy. Each of them was chaired by a Minister who sat on the President’s cabinet. For each candidate, usually around four or five per ministry, a dossier had been compiled by the campaign staffers. For months prior to the review, Assanian’s campaign had sought out talented, stand-out leaders in their respective sections. Meanwhile, liaisons began to talk with current leadership to help smooth over a transition and help them prepare internally for policy changes.

One of the more worrying development in politics was the current President’s attempts to inhibit as many of Assanian’s party’s policies as possible. Vadratian, knowing that his campaign had crumbled and he was losing the support of all but his most loyal backers, was attempting to pass legislation to make it difficult or impossible for Assanian to liberalize certain areas of Armenian politics: most importantly, immigration reform and development of Russian-dominated areas. Luckily, Parliament was keeping most of these off of the voting table by way of veto. Even members of Vadratian’s own party were trying to distance themselves from him as his warnings of the destruction of Armenia became more and more bellicose. The political strategy of President Vadratian seemed to be that if he couldn’t win, neither should Assanian. This was something to be used to Assanian’s advantage: a statement had been drafted that would run on Radio Armenia the next day that condemned Vadratian for betraying the ideals of the revolution with his juvenile, corrupt behavior. It was almost too easy for Assanian at this point.

Assanian had just finished up an interview with the final candidate for the position of Agricultural Minister. He sat in a padded chair outside the meeting room, sipping on a glass of brandy while reviewing the file again. This man seemed to be his favorite: he had proven results as a private landowner using his money to invest in an enhanced irrigation system for his home village and had not been afraid to champion the rights of his province’s farmers as a provincial governor’s aide. Exports from his province’s farms and ranches had doubled by the time his term was up, and he had proven his plans were thought out in terms of scalability to the national level. Assanian himself was no farmer, but he had conducted the interview with his campaign’s experts in the industry who asked questions that the man himself had no understanding of. Despite this, they assured him that this was one of the better candidates and that Assanian should take a deep look at him. He had already cut two of the candidates, and was going to bring them back for a second round of interviews the next day. Despite what the party said or wanted out of a candidate, Assanian was pragmatic: he wanted quality, not necessarily blind loyalty.

Loyalty was necessary, but Assanian felt that it should be to the Armenian state instead of a person like himself. This was, in itself, a revolutionary idea: the ASF that met many decades ago had laid out the principles of Armenian separatism. It was remarkably selfless, with the idea that the Armenian people needed to embrace self-sacrifice and devotion to something bigger than themselves being the most prevalent message. Assanian himself was inclined to agree: maybe from his time in the service, maybe from his ex-Fedayeen father talking with him on the long walks to school. There were times of crises when it appeared some people wanted to diverge from the revolution’s framework, such as Vadratian’s current state, but there was still a contingent of aging guardians who vocally opposed it. Part of Assanian feared the time when these old men would go away, leaving the country with an entirely new generation of governors. He liked to think he was well-read, and he had seen this many times before in history.

So Assanian’s ministers must too be loyal to the state. If the ministers lost their footing in their sections and began to use their power for themselves, it quickly became a road to failure. Part of the reason that Assanian liked the latest candidate for Agricultural Minister was his history of disagreement. He had made his views abundantly clear when actions arose that threatened his farmers. It seemed that he felt a sense of personal responsibility for their well-being, fighting things like taxes he felt were overly unfair. Sometimes he was shot down and put back in his place, but many times he managed to persuade the provincial governor to change his mind. While this was abrasive at first, to be sure, his input as an expert and a professional were quickly respected. When he spoke on his subject, people listened. He gave reasons for the things he suggested, and those reasons were grounded in reality. When he believed a potential policy to be against the interest of the state, he gave his reasons and offered a solution. Toxicity came from political maneuvering and complaints without solutions: this man was the farthest thing from that.

While agriculture was not the most pressing of issues facing Armenia, this Minister would still be an important part of Assanian’s cabinet. Good weather and many other factors had resulted in abundant harvests. A good leader could manage this growth but also handle failure. In this case, a drought had struck the Javakhk province and Assanian’s candidate had dealt with it by enacting several harsh measures. Water rationing and outright orders to change the types of planted crops were criticized, but in the opinion of Assanian’s experts had enabled a quicker recovery of the region. A thought briefly crossed Assanian’s mind on what would have happened if the ploy had failed: would he be currently throwing out the paperwork of an overbearing tyrant instead of approving the second interview of a genius? It was interesting to think about, but irrelevant if this man continued to prove his worth as a skilled leader in his section. After all, Assanian knew that a head of state couldn’t do the job alone. In the same way that he needed his staff as a military officer, he needed his cabinet to keep order and handle their sections.

The man sat back in his chair again, sighing deeply before shuffling the Minister’s papers back into the beige folder. A nearby aide approached and offered to take it, then scurried off to wherever the approved paperwork was to be processed. Even before governmental office, Assanian was already having to get used to bureaucracy. Many of the ASF revolutionary council were not political scientists, and were simply cobbling together local governments into a larger country. It took decades to get the kinks out of this, most infamously in the Army’s “Fedayeen” mentality. Only once graduates of bureaucratic academies began taking hold of power and attaining senior positions did the bureaucracy smooth, but it still had rough patches that needed reform. Competing departments, most notably the Ministries themselves, were constantly in a state of flux. Just three years ago, the Ministries of Commerce and Trade folded into the Ministry of Finance. Ultimately, however, this proved to be a success: clearly-defined missions eliminated much of the squabbling and infighting. Granted, there was some amount of frustration from the bureaucratic elites, but if President Vadratian did anything well it was put people in their place.

A quick glance at the wall clock revealed the time to be startlingly late for an office: almost five thirty. The presidential candidate had a dinner reservation at six at a nearby restaurant, and he planned to take the rest of the evening off to read a book or enjoy some music on his record player. Another lesson he took from the military: leave some time for himself, and his performance would be that much better. All too often he saw government workers burn out as they tried to climb to the top of a meritocracy, always saying yes and sacrificing their personal lives in the process. Assanian had more divorced friends than he had fingers, all because of the workload. He understood that there was a cultural distaste towards laziness, but there was a line that had to be drawn somewhere. So he dropped whatever information remained in his second folder off at his office, changed out of his business suit and into something more casual, told his secretary he was leaving, and headed off to his car. As he left, he tipped his hat to the security guard. The lean, tall, man ran a hand through the tight curls of his short black hair and started walking down the road.

Trabzon, Armenia

Gold was a hot commodity in Europe. Governments, always on the precipice of war with one another, sought the metal as a way to beautify their palaces and parliaments and showcase their economic power. It was a competition to see who could flex the biggest muscles with the biggest economies and armies, and Armenia was more than happy to supply the gold to help them show it off. Western Armenia contained several large deposits of the resource: the desert flatlands used to be the source of gold for ornate Ottoman structures. Now, there was so much to go around that the government was selling it to foreign countries. The city of Trabzon hosted Armenia’s largest port, and the place where most of its European trade entered and exited. The gold arrived here from the mines of Erzurum, Van, and other cities by train: these shipments routinely pulled into a dusty train station just south of the port and were offloaded onto heavily-burdened trucks. Normally painted bright orange, colors of the port authority, these trucks drove through onto the ports for the longshoremen to handle. It was rumored that each driver carried a shotgun underneath the dash in case a would-be robber tried to carjack them.

The company office for Black Sea Maritime was a concrete building with two floors and a meager garden in front of it. A row of trucks, forklifts, and other utility vehicles sat in front of it while to the left, warehouses holding mountains of wooden boxes were being emptied by hordes of longshoremen. A dark green-hulled vessel, modestly-sized and topped with a squat superstructure, sat in the waters nearby. This was Captain Joseph Sarkisian’s ship, the AS Breadwinner of Trabzon. It was part of the Independence class of merchant vessels, commissioned by the Armenian Merchant Marine to produce easy steel vessels for export into the Black Sea. These ships were also constructed in Trabzon, in a shipyard to the east of the expanded port. So far, just over forty had been produced and routinely crossed back and forth across the Black Sea. Black Sea owned seven of these vessels and held a contract with the largest gold mining company in Armenia: it ran the Trabzon-Odessa route. Because the gold shipments ran close to the troubled former territories of Russia, Captain Sarkisian’s ship was armed.

A single 102mm gun sat on the bow of the ship, and three machinegun stations lined each side of the hull to defend against the small boats often used by pirates. Usually this was enough to deter any attempt at robbery, but there had been a few instances of boardings before: this was dealt with by a team of sailors armed with automatic weapons that worked on every Armenian vessel. Most of these men were members of the National Service, a compulsory program that had most Armenians working in a public job for three years as opposed to two years of military conscription. While they were not conscientious objectors by any means, National Service personnel were usually not the most eager to fight. It took several close calls with Russian pirates before the sailors began to take their weapons training seriously. Luckily, the only casualty that Captain Sarkisian had to deal with was a sailor who took a rifle round to the knee two months prior. He turned out fine, and was now working at Black Sea Maritime’s office as an accountant, but it was enough of a message that things were getting serious.

The crew of the Breadwinner spent the afternoons on their off-days lifting weights in an open-air gymnasium in the back of the company office. Physical fitness was championed by the government for multiple reasons, ranging from public health to defiance against foreign oppression: it all depended on the poster that was advocating it. Most young men had access to a gym of some sort, and it was even more convenient for the sailors. Fights, wrestling matches, and other physical competitions usually broke out between the sailors and longshoremen, so the gym was a place to train for the next one. Even Captain Sarkisian took part in the exercise, bench-pressing a well-worn bar as his executive officer looked on with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth.

“Your form is shit, do you want to get hurt?” the XO asked as he smoked the cigarette down to just its stub. It burned his calloused fingertips, and he flicked it away to the dried bushes without apparent concern. Luckily, nothing ignited.

The Captain racked his weight and sat up, adjusting his cotton shorts and sweat-stained undershirt. He reached for a cigarette of his own and lit it with a steel lighter: “I think I’ve been doing just fine, I’m not sure about you. Is your lazy ass just happy to sit around?”

“I’m waiting on a call,” the XO replied nonchalantly. His name was Nazarbekian, and he hailed from Iran. His family, once sailors on the Persian Gulf, were now proud residents of Sevan. He took after his father: a strong, swarthy man with thick, curly, black hair and a mustache to match. Nazarbekian rested against the wall of the office with both of his hands in his pockets: a pack of cigarettes bulged against his shirt pocket.

“Of course you are,” shot back the Captain, wiping his face down with a towel. The telephone rang just as he finished throwing it into a laundry hamper near the weight rack. With a look back at Sarkisian, Nazarbekian pushed off the wall and went inside. He emerged five minutes later with a clipboard, marking down the date and time of the conversation.

“Today’s shipment just arrived,” he said, gesturing at the orange trucks now crowding by the loading stations just next to the Breadwinner. He went back to the clipboard and made a few more marks. “Just over five thousand tonnes of refined gold going into the hold. We’re delivering it to Odessa, like usual. Pier no. 12. We also have to make sure that the gold gets onboard the train at the station, since the Crimeans are apparently having difficulties making that happen reliably lately. Some big scandal busted their transportation guys for fraud and figured out that they were pocketing stuff.”

“How is that my problem?” Captain Sarkisian asked, cocking his head to the side in frustration.

“I’m not sure, but apparently it was just put into the contract we operate under. We’re getting more money out of it as compensation for it being such a pain in the ass, but the Ukrainian government really wants that gold.”

“Maybe they’ll start paying damages for the fucking pirate attacks, too,” the Captain remarked as he looked over to his ship. Although it was too far for them to see, bullet-holes pockmarked the hull of the veteran vessel. “See if they can write that into their goddamn contract. Can’t trust their own fucking company, my ass. I bet it’s the state-run Crimean agency, too.”

“Absolutely,” Nazarbekian answered nonchalantly. “But it’s nowhere near as bad as Poti.”

“We had to get a goddamn Army company to help us offload food crates in Poti, and that was all stolen by the warlords as soon as it left the city.”

Poti had been an instrumental part of Armenian actions in Georgia for almost five years now. It had started as an agreement with the Georgian government to bring food in as the Russian refugees quickly filled up camps and criminal elements began to raid farms. A port security element from the Army was dispatched to protect Armenian ships from hungry civilians in the winter of 1955. Fighting in the spring led to more troops being deployed, and soon enough a garrison was established under the pretenses of enduring protection for Armenian shipping companies. A local militia helped maintain order with Armenian troops who patrolled further and further from the port, and Poti was spared most of the instability that plagued Georgia. Poti and Tbilisi were the two “green areas” of security in a country lost to bandits and warlords in the countryside. Captain Sarkisian used to run the route to that city, before signing on with the far more profitably Odessa route: gold certainly paid more than aid shipments.

“Do we get the Army this time?” Nazarbekian joked.

“If we did, the Ukrainians would throw a hissy fit. I don’t want to deal with that.”

It took the rest of the day to load the gold onto the ship. Armenian longshoremen worked quickly and efficiently, knowing that Black Sea shipping lanes were crowded and deadlines were tight. A late ship could put the whole operation off schedule, and this resulted in lost money for their companies. Cheap labor was everywhere, especially with the Russians in town, and the Armenian dockworkers were afraid of being fired for mistakes. Sometimes that turned dangerous, and sometimes accidents happened: the week before, a longshoreman was hit by a truck while another was knocked into the sea by a crane. He drowned to death before anyone could get to him. This was seen as a normal occurrence: the sea was a deadly place for men, even the careful ones. Captain Sarkisian was edging fifty himself, and was still surprised at the length of his career. He had lost a number of good friends over his time at sea, either to preventable accidents or to sheer bad luck. Lieutenant Nazarbekian himself was forty, with almost as many dead friends.

That day was accident-free, however, and the Breadwinner was ready to depart at sundown. The gold was tied down in the holds and securely compartmentalized in case of attack. Recoilless rifles were known to punch through the skins of some ships if the pirates could get a good shot off, and so the gold was placed along the centerline so as to not be close to the outside hull. Security teams were armed and briefed of the route before being deployed on watch rotations. Theft and piracy were the main concerns on the Odessa route. Captain Sarkisian would tour these stations before departure, ensuring everything was locked down for the trip. Satisfied, he returned to the bridge to sit in his well-worn chair at the helm. A young sailor stood on watch, leaning over the controls as he waited for the call to get underway. Sarkisian, cup of coffee in hand, entered through the bulkhead hatch to the rear of the bridge and wordlessly moved to his station. A quick glance at his watch revealed the time: six o’clock. Time to go.

He gave the order, and the Breadwinner of Trabzon’s horn sounded. The dull, blaring blow of the ship’s horn echoed across the waters being lit now by the setting sun. Lines were slipped off the pier by dockworkers, and a tug gently helped the cargo ship away and into the open sea. Captain Sarkisian sipped on his coffee as he watched the tug finally pull away and give a blast of its own horn. His ship’s boilers began pushing power to the engine, and the screws of the vessel started to turn. A wake gently sloshed behind the Breadwinner, now picking up speed into the sea. The ship carried onwards as the birds first vanished, then the coast. Soon enough, it was the night, and the Breadwinner was alone in the sea: once again, it headed to Odessa. Business as usual.

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

ai boiz i did the pust. chk eet uut ;) ;) ;)

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

Gyumri, Armenia

“So what happened to this guy? He looks pretty fucked up.”

Four policemen crowded over the body of a dead teenager. His white shirt was riddled with three bullet holes and stained with blood. A pained, shocked expression and wide open eyes had frozen on his face. The rest of his body was splayed out, spread-eagled, on the sidewalk. A pool of blood, now dry, had formed beneath the corpse. It was obvious that he had been shot just an hour or two ago. Behind him, the brick wall bore several more bullet holes. In the streets, a junior policeman had picked up a dozen shells and dropped them on top of a hood of his car. One of the other officers had just finished calling an ambulance to pick the body up, and was now smoking a cigarette while leaning against the vehicle. One hand rested on the service revolver in his leather holster attached to his duty belt as he eyed a curious passersby on the other side of the street. The rest of the police were busy checking the dead body.

“He looks Russian, that’s for sure,” an older officer said as he gently tilted the head and gestured to the back of it. “See? Russians have that flat part on the back of their heads.”

“Yep, it’s from when they got dropped on their heads of children. Probably explains why most of them are fucking retards,” chimed in the policeman smoking next to the patrol car. The man took a deep drag from the cigarette, exhaled through his nose, and flicked the butt into a nearby gutter. Adjusting his belt, he came back over to the body.

“Actually, I want a cigarette as well,” admitted the third cop. He bent down and patted the body with the back of his hand, careful not to get his palm bloodied. “Does this guy have any on him?”

“Go ahead, and I might want to get one off of you as well,” his friend replied.

The third officer rolled the body over and found his prize: a slightly crushed pack of cheap cigarettes in the teenager’s back pocket. He extracted them and began distributing them out to the patrolmen. “Hey kid!” he said to the junior officer, duly counting the shells on the hood on the patrol car. “Want a cigarette?”

With a chuckle, he added: “Are you even old enough to smoke?”

The junior officer froze, unsure of what the right answer is. After hesitating a moment, he stuttered: “Should we be taking those? I mean, it’s evidence, right? What happens if they figure out we’re tampering with the investigation?”

The older officer, who had previously remained silent during the exchange, laughed without looking up from his notepad. “Nobody is going to care about a pack of smokes. Don’t worry about it, I know that training teaches you this stuff. Half of that doesn’t fly in the real world.”

The junior officer, cowed into submission by his superiors, reluctantly accepted a cigarette. He fumbled with an offered lighter, taking several tries to get the cigarette burning. Obviously suppressing a cough, he went back to work sorting the spent shells into a cardboard box marked for evidence. “There are an awful lot of rounds that were fired,” he remarked, looking at them. “Someone didn’t like him.”

“Well this is a Russian kid, probably no older than twenty,” the older officer said, finishing up his notes. “Remember that robbery last week? A group of kids speaking Russian broke into a drugstore and stole a bunch of junk. They didn’t hurt the owner but they for sure vandalized his livelihood. Davit, you responded to that one, right?”

Davit, the chainsmoker, nodded and adjusted his rather loose duty belt again. “Bunch of kids threw some rocks at the windows and knocked everything down. Stole a couple hundred dram and some painkillers or something. The damages report wasn’t pretty, but we arrested at least one of the kids.”

“I’ve seen some shit like this before. If I were a betting man, I’d say it’s a retaliation for the attack,” the oldest officer sagely concluded. “It’s also most definitely racially motivated. Russian kids knocking down an Armenian store? What with this atmosphere, I guarantee you it was someone from that community. I can call up some people once we get back to the station, including our dear shopkeeper friend.”

Davit threw his cigarette into the same gutter, just as his friend cracked a joke: “Maybe it was Davit, since he’s a big fan of Russians.”

Although Davit appeared mildly frustrated by the comment, his posture never shifted. Eventually, the older officer called for them to settle down and finish collecting the evidence. A camera was brought out to take pictures for later, since most day-to-day crime was handled by the patrolmen instead of rarer specialized detectives. One picture of the body, one of the street, and one of the wall were snapped. Davit and the junior officer soon left to get the photos developed and drop the evidence off at the station, while the oldest patrolman stayed behind with his partner to wait for the ambulance. A corpse didn’t warrant too much expediency on the part of the medical services in Gyumri. It took another hour for the ambulance to arrive, driving up to the curb lazily with no lights or sirens. Both of the officers helped the ambulance driver with the body, finally closing the doors on the back of the van and watching it drive off to the morgue. The night had gotten darker, and the crime scene was now lit by the orange flow of a streetlamp. It would be another hour before the city services arrived to hose down the blood.

The pair returned to the station, wordlessly driving through the emptied streets with only sighs to break the silence. The patrol car turned the corner onto the station’s street, before the older officer suggested a stop: “Alex, do you want coffee? We can stop by and get a cup at the coffeehouse before we file the report.”

His partner nodded, and the car drove past the station. Nearby was an all-day coffeehouse popular with the Gyumri police. Alex and the older officer, whose name was Tigran, pulled up by the curb and walked in to a small table in the corner. Two simple, black coffees were ordered alongside pastries. They chatted for a little bit about their families and what they were going to do once they got home. Tigran lived only with his wife in a modest apartment, his four children had since gone to university. Alex wanted to marry his girlfriend, and had plans to propose the next month. Unfortunately, he was worried how the long work hours would affect them and was hesitating until he could transfer to a department with a more regular schedule. He was thinking about taking a stint doing clerical work for the force, instead of patrolling. Armenian police forces operated on a points-system for personnel: he had racked up enough points for performance and time-in-service to transfer, but not yet enough to promote. Tigran advised that he talk to his girlfriend, and figure out what they were both good with.

“A lot of this stress in your personal life isn’t really worth it,” Tigran added as he finished the coffee. He slid a few dram under the cup for the waiter. “Me and my wife have gotten along fine.”

Tigran and Alex returned to the station a few minutes later. Tigran, as the senior patrolman on shift that evening, opened the door to his office and hung his hat and jacket on the coatrack. Armenian police uniforms were dark blue, with light blue shirts bearing token insignia for department and rank. An orange band encircled his service cap, matching the identically-colored stripe down his pants. With his jacket put away, he signed and untucked his shirt before sitting down on a well-worn wooden chair. At his desk, a typewriter sat and several copied forms were prepared for him. Under his desk, in a drawer marked “forms”, was a bottle of vodka and a shot glass. The rest of the office was bare, with only a window behind him and no other decoration. Not even a rug adorned the floor, and it was lit by a sole lightbulb. Like most of the Gyumri police office, it was strictly utilitarian. Tigran often thought about buying a carpet or some paintings, something just to liven up the place. His sister wove carpets in Hrazdan, maybe he could ask about one next time they met. It would be an excellent gift, after all.

The problem about the murder was not the crime itself, but the implications. Tigran had seen plenty of murders, but racial ones had been rare. He was born just after the Great War, and had only heard stories of the time where Armenians killed Turks just for being Turkish and vice versa. The last few years had been troubling to him: thousands of migrants, fleeing the collapsing Russian Empire, had swarmed across the then-loosely-guarded border. Many settled in Gyumri, establishing huge ghettoes. Most worked blue-collar jobs in the factories or as part of the Armenian construction boom, and these jobs were notorious for low pay and highly dangerous conditions. Tigran felt bad for the Russians, who were forced to become more and more insular as Armenians denied them services. A then-popular law was passed in the late 1950s that made it legal for landlords to offer different prices based on different people. The public explanation was that this was supposed to enable more leeway in terms of poorer people haggling for a better price. In practice, most landlords raised rent prices on Russians. Curiously enough, Tigran had noticed less ethnic Armenian homeless in Gyumri as well: perhaps the law was working, but just only for the natives.

The implications on this murder were clear. Tit for tat attacks were going to continue unless the Gyumri police made it clear that the killer was going to be arrested. There was a simmering attitude in the department to “let it go” and sweep such a comparatively minor crime under the rug, but Tigran knew better. Even though he personally didn’t care for the Russian teen, a burglar who had destroyed a fellow Armenian citizen’s drugstore, he knew that things could get worse. The last thing he wanted in Gyumri was a race riot. Another thing that concerned the senior patrolman was the apparent usage of automatic weapons. There were simply too many shells for it to have been a hunting rifle or civilian weapon. Davit, a member of the military reserves in addition to the police force, had left a note on Tigran’s desk with an analysis of the shells: they were 9mm military casings used in a standard-issue handgun or submachinegun. Someone was running around with a submachinegun, shooting down Russians. The potential for this to become disastrous was obvious: most police were armed with chunky six-shooter, break-action revolvers. Shotguns and semi-automatic rifles were kept in the armory, but only for extreme situations.

He figured that there must be something else going on. Tigran finished the incident report, stowed his bottle of vodka after a final swig, and reached for his telephone. A folder with a list of numbers laid next to it, and he fingered through the sheets until he found one of the more-frequently-used ones: the Military Police at the Gyumri base. Usually, they would call when they found a drunk soldier belligerent in the streets, and Tigran knew most of the duty personnel well by now. He rang the number, and waited for someone to pick up. A familiar voice came over the speaker: “Army Military Police, Gyumri. This is Sergeant Kavalian, how may I help you?”

“Ivan, how are you?” Tigran asked cordially. Sergeant Ivan Kavalian was a frequent duty NCO, after his last divorce left him with not much else to do. He was a good man, willing to take one for the team so his other friends could go home to their much more faithful wives.

“I’m pretty alright,” Sergeant Kavalian answered. “I just bought a new book, actually. Pretty interesting. I’ve been reading it tonight.”

“Excellent, excellent. Maybe you can tell me about it later. Right now, I have a question for you. Are you aware of any missing weapons?”

“Missing weapons?” exclaimed Sergeant Kavalian.

“Well, we’ve got a murder and my reservist told me he thinks it was committed with a submachinegun.”

“Well, truth be told, last month a truck went missing transporting some equipment to a field training exercise,” Sergeant Kavalian said after a slight pause. “It was reported up to us and we went looking, but couldn’t find anything. The two truck drivers went AWOL as well, probably drove off with the truck. We have warrants out for them but we have been scouring the nearby area for a while now.”

“Why didn’t we hear about this, Ivan?” Tigran said, a hint of frustration in his usually-calm voice. “These weapons are starting to turn up in Gyumri. This was a revenge killing near a Russian ghetto, this is not good for our security situation.”

“This was being handled as an internal issue. AWOL soldiers are our area of responsibility,” Sergeant Kavalian replied matter-of-factly.

“This is no longer an internal issue. I want everything you have on this case, since I know more is going to come out of it.”

“Can I send a runner to your office tomorrow with the files? The night shift is bare-bones, like usual.”

“That’s fine, but we’re going to start looking for this guy. I’ll expect your runner tomorrow. Goodnight, Sergeant.”

Tigran hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair. A quick thought about another shot of vodka was silenced by the rational need to drive home and not crash his car. The senior patrolman sighed deeply, then ran a hand through his greying hair. Without another word, he stood up from his creaking chair and tucked his shirt into his pants. The light was clicked off with a yank on its chain, right as Tigran thought again about putting a painting up. As he left the office, he said goodnight to another officer working on some last-minute paperwork. Tigran’s week was not close to being finished.

Armenian-Georgian Border

Military funerals at remote outposts were not the festivities of heroes. Caskets had been fabricated from wood in a storeroom, crosses and names painted atop them in simple white paint. They were buried in a line in an area atop a small hill near the border station. A chest-high chickenwire fence surrounded the makeshift cemetery, already populated with two other soldiers who died in a vehicle crash six months ago. Until real gravestones could be carved and sent in with the next supply shipment, a soldier’s grave would have to do: their rifle, stuck into the ground with a bayonet, with two boots at the base of it. A helmet sat on the buttstock, while each soldier’s dog tags hung from the triggerwell. In white paint on the front of the helmet was their last name. In front of the graves stood the base platoon commander, flanked by his senior NCO. Those who were available came out for the funeral. It was the largest one to be conducted at the small post. A bugler stood at attention nearby.

Upon receipt of the order, the personnel stood still as the bugler played the national anthem. The sole musician, a regular soldier who happened to be able to bugle, reminded Corporal Yaglian of himself. Yaglian was a pianist, playing regularly in his barracks with a piano he had bought from a widow in the nearby town. He carted it back on the back of his jeep alongside cigarettes and alcohol, earning a talking-to from his platoon commander. Ultimately, a case of beer kept Yaglian in good standing with his superior. He hadn’t been called out for any funerals or ceremonies, but his music was usually well appreciated in the desolate outpost. The bugler played his lonely, mournful tone until it finished, and he dropped his instrument to his side. The platoon commander looked to his left, nodded at the sergeant who commanded the twenty-one-gun salute, and pulled a list from his pocket. He read the first name:

“Sergeant George Hazerian.”

The seven riflemen fired their shots, three apiece. Yaglian flinched each time, while the senior personnel stood stoically still. The platoon commander read the next names: Corporal David Petrosian. Private First Class Ivan Sarkisian. Private Igor Rahmonov. Private Leon Abadjian. Each time, the riflemen fired their three shots. They were aimed over the border, perhaps intentionally by the platoon commander.

The next team, a team just like Yaglian’s, was read out. Corporal Abraham Hovanesian. Private Petyr Jamgochian. Private Ilya Kargarian. Private Ilholm Bagruntian. The final shots were fired and the riflemen stood back at attention. The platoon commander wrapped up his final remarks, short and simply, before dismissing the attendees. The soldiers bowed their heads again before turning back to the patrol base. It was getting late, and the next shift was due to return soon. Once the vehicles were gassed up and given a quick check, it was time to go out again. Yaglian’s section was staying at this patrol base for another few days until they could make the long trip back to their home installation. They had been offered food, beds, and time to rest while their own vehicles were repaired. One sustained damage from the sniper attack and needed to be patched up. The other had nearly ruined its suspension driving quickly over the barely-defined mountain paths. Yaglian’s platoon commander had already been notified on the event, and was expecting them back in the next few days.

There was talk of retaliation amongst the troops. Since the attack, the platoon commander had spent a lot of time in his office on the phone: the troops were beginning to speculate that he was discussing plans with the company commander located a few kilometers to the rear. Perhaps he was requesting assets for use: an airbase nearby staffed with attack planes was well-known by Georgian militias by now. Whatever the situation was, the soldiers were on edge. Every patrol was nervously watched by the others, as they drove their patrol shifts across the border. Only two more attacks had happened in the days since, both of them minor sniper incidents that ended with superior firepower driving the militias back into the mountains. Nothing compared to the death of an entire patrol, at least not yet.

For now, the soldiers didn’t know much more than that. Yaglian ate in the mess tent and heard only snippets of new developments. He talked little to the other platoon besides this, and often just read a borrowed book while he slept on the floor under a field blanket, using his rucksack as a pillow. The days were long and filled with nothing besides waiting. Most of the section just napped the time away, eager to get some sort of rest if they weren’t patrolling for hours every day. After three days, Yaglian’s vehicle was repaired and his section was to return to their home station with the next outgoing patrol. They met with the vehicle, inspecting the green-painted scrap metal used to patch the bullet holes. After they deemed the job good enough, they grabbed their rifles and gear and piled into the sturdy jeeps. Saying goodbye to their comrades, they left the next morning at six, departing across the bumpy roads. The sun peaked up from behind the notoriously tough Caucasian mountains as the four-car convoy drove through dirt roads. The rough terrain continued to be an enemy: one of the vehicles popped a tire and required a change.

Yaglian’s section was reunited with a patrol from their home station: Second Section, led by Corporal Melkonian, was there to take them home. Corporal Melkonian was a conscript that filled in for his wounded section leader after a jeep crash left him with a broken neck. The stereotypical uncaring draftee, Melkonian refused to cut his hair or shave and often wore a large chain outside of a uniform that was buttoned too low for regulation. This was not the man Yaglian necessarily trusted to take him back to the home patrol base, but it was the man he had. And evidently, Corporal Melkonian was a fierce fighter. It’s probably the only reason he was allowed to do what he did. His section, also mostly comprised of conscripts, was just as motley. They did the job, however, and that was what counted those days. There was simply too much to do to care about disciplining men who didn’t shave. Yaglian’s section leader had a few words with Corporal Melkonian at the rendezvous point, shared a cigarette with him, and ordered a mount-up. Another patrol completed uneventfully for both sides. The section of stragglers joined Melkonian and his men on the road back home, and back to the mission at hand.

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

<Snipped quote by Pepperm1nts>

...Yeah. That's what it is.....That. And nothing more.

@Byrd Man

He's gonna be AWOL for a while. He's taking a trip to Charlottesville for "business reasons"...

Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

Yerevan, Armenia

A road, lined with lush, green maple trees entering their early summer livelihood, followed the calm Hrazdan River. The two-lane residential road was quiet, unlike downtown Yerevan’s infamous traffic, with only a single car or two rolling past. Alongside the road were a multitude of new buildings, mostly modest apartments with street-level cafes and corner stores. This was the 4th Block neighborhood, one of the pricier regions of the city and a nice place to get away from the increasingly-dense urban center. The buildings of 4th Block sat below a series of gently rolling hills to the northwest, hills with construction sites set up for more apartments. The effects of a post-independence rise in birth rates could be seen in the sprawl of Yerevan: a new generation of youths who knew nothing of the Great War were reaching adulthood, graduating from universities, and buying their own homes in new neighborhoods. Many of these adults could never fathom what life under a crumbling Ottoman Empire was like. The country to their west seemed a far cry from the once-mighty Sultanate that stretched to Arabia and Egypt.

The campaign office of Hasmik Assanian occupied a four-story brick building sitting by a park that overlooked a bend in the Hrazdan. The squat, nondescript building featured only a banner to denote the presence of the top Armenian presidential candidate: Assanian 1960: Security! Peace! Prosperity! A single policeman, wearing a blue uniform with his cap sitting crookedly on his head, read a newspaper in the guard shack next to the gate. Outside, some staffers were smoking cigarettes and talking about a car accident that had happened on the National Highway the other night: a drunk driver had hit a truck, crushing his car underneath it and stopping traffic for almost three hours as it was towed away. One of them flicked his cigarette butt onto the sidewalk, but caught the ire of the policeman. “Put that in the damn ashtray,” he commanded. “We pay too much money to keep these streets clean without you flicking your trash everywhere. I could fine you for littering, you know.”

The staffer apologized, picked up his cigarette, and tossed it away in the ashtray just steps away from him. As the policeman nodded and went back to his paper, the staffers agreed to get back to work before their boss noticed their absence. These particular staffers worked in the outreach section of the campaign and, with a month to go before the election, were due that afternoon to head out and prepare an event in Freedom Square. Hasmik Assanian was busy preparing for that very same event in what amounted to his second apartment on the top floor of the campaign office. Inside a modest dressing room, he adjusted his characteristic purple tie underneath a navy blue suit jacket. His jacket featured an Armenian flag lapel pin, his cufflinks bore the regimental insignia of his former Armenian Army cavalry unit. He had played his relationship with former president and personal mentor Mikael Serovian greatly during the election, including his veteran status.

Once the suit was adjusted to Assanian’s liking, the slim man combed his hair to his liking: enough to cover up the steady recession of his hairline, but not too much to make it look like he was combing over while worrying about balding. He checked the silver watch on his wrist, a present from an old friend, and picked up his briefcase to head to the waiting car. His transportation chief had prepared a small convoy for him consisting of one vehicle for him and one for a small cadre of supporting staff. A white police car, marked in blue livery, was parked beside the guard shack. The two policemen conversed, making small talk as they waited. Assanian walked out the door, flanked by an aid, towards his vehicle. Catching the attention of the police escort, Assanian called out: “How are you doing today, my friend?”

The policeman immediately stood a little straighter out of respect, one hand moving to level off his slouching pistol belt. He was a slightly overweight beat cop, the beginning of a beer belly filling out his light blue uniform shirt. On his face, a thick and greying mustache betrayed his true age. “Good morning!” he greeted. “I’m doing alright, I can’t complain too much.”

“Is carting me around a good detail or a bad one?” Assanian joked, smiling at both of the policemen. With election day soon, he was working up the personal charm.

“Well it’s a pretty calm way to spend a Friday, if I do say so myself,” the driver proclaimed. He relaxed his stance a bit, put at ease by the humor. Assanian laughed, told him to drive safely, and clambered into the door of the grey sedan parked next to the black-and-white painted curb.

The door shut, and Assanian found his aid had already withdrawn papers from his briefcase about the Freedom Square rally. Freedom Square was located in central Yerevan, with the Presidential Palace at the north end. Holding a rally there was a political kick in the guts to the incumbent running for reelection. At this point, President Vadratian was becoming wildly unpopular: his brand of hardliner nationalism was failing to produce results and the recent uptick in internal tensions pointed to deeper underlying problems. The solutions from Vadratian seemed to be more of the same, propaganda and thinly veiled attempts to marginalize the Russian minorities. His rhetoric had gotten fiery to the point of aggression, and had made mistakes in the reelection campaign that ultimately lead to his falling-out with the Armenian people. The polling graphs showed a slight downward trend before dropping off dramatically in the last few months, while Assanian had come out of relative obscurity to become his party’s representative.

The Armenian Liberal Democratic Party was one of the heavy-hitter leftist organizations in the Parliament. They focused on combating Vadratian’s Independence Party and what they believed to be short-sighted policies. While many of the extreme ones did not go through, laws such as the infamous selective-rent policy did. The selective-rent policy enabled landlords to choose who received a better rate on property based on factors other than bank information: this amounted to a kindly-worded enablement of racial bias. A Russian could be charged more for rent than an Armenian with the same history of debt. It was blatantly unfair but, at the time, Armenians wanted Russians out of their neighborhoods. The refugees from the fracturing of Czarist Russia were thought to bring crime and drugs around. To be fair, huge problems existed with the Russian population and crime: the Russian Mafia had been popping up here and there with murders and robberies, not to mention the myriad of other mostly-monetary crimes like counterfeiting and laundering.

Among the Russians who could jump through the absurdly convoluted hoops to become Armenian citizens, Assanian was hugely popular. He promised to review and address legislature enacted by Vadratian and the Independence Party. To the average Armenian, his promise did not sound like he was trying to take away their jobs and homes and give them to immigrants like Vadratian countered. It was simply a “review”, and it might just help settle tensions. A little bit of guilt never hurt either: all Assanian had to do was remind the Armenian people that not long ago, they were suffering under a majority that wanted nothing to do with them. The subtle comparison of Vadratian to the Sultan made the president furious, but was effective. Talk about how the Russians might have been wronged was spreadi/ng, particularly amongst the older Armenians. Younger voters still had sizeable hardliner holdouts, mostly as a result of the Artsakh War.

Veterans of the Artsakh War and many people in the Artsakh itself were opponents of liberal attempts to ease the burden on the Russians. They were still frustrated by the stalemate result of the conflict and what they saw as unnecessary damage to Stepanakert. They argued that the government was giving in and became too soft, leading to a Turkish-encouraged Azerbaijani invasion. Forces fought the Azerbaijanis to a standstill and pushed them back to the borders of the Artsakh just as the Persians swooped in from the south. The Azeris, left decimated by the Persian armies, reluctantly agreed to become vassals for the Shah’s empire. The residents of the Artsakh, still reeling from the war, did not think that the surprise Persian attack was an absolution of Yerevan’s responsibility. They called for tougher measures against foreign threats, and they got President Vadratian to deliver. The next foreign threat happened to be migrants, not a standing army. While militia camps to the north of Armenia were swiftly eliminated, the refugees swamping northern cities could not be so easily taken care of.

Yerevan quickly became denser as Assanian crossed the Hrazdan and drove downtown. Buildings rose higher and higher, advertisements colorfully lit up the street. Government-sponsored propaganda featured Armenians working or enjoying life with positive, confident slogans. Some of the buildings that the cars passed bore murals of the revolution. On one, a Fedayeen with a small Armenian flag wrapped around the handguard of his bolt-action rifle charged defiantly from a trench as bullets tore up the ground beside him. Behind the brave militiaman were his comrades clambering over the trench walls to join him. Another one featured a burning Ottoman light tank with the writing: David: Killer of Goliath!. Assanian pulled through to a traffic circle, took a right, and headed to Freedom Square. The beige stone walls of the Presidential Palace came into view as the square appeared behind the surrounding buildings. Freedom Square, from the sky, was a stone square that was patterned like an Armenian rug. To the south was the government residence and its surrounding gardens and, to the north, a statue of a Fedayeen victoriously raising his rifle to the sky faced it.

Already, a podium had been set up directly in front of the Presidential Palace. A crowd of people had already gathered in place, awaiting their candidate’s speech. The lead police car turned on its light, alerting people to move out of the road. The driver cleared the way to the podium, stopping just shy of the bollards that kept cars off of Freedom Square’s pedestrian terrace. He stepped out of the police car and blew his whistle, motioning for the crowd to clear a path. Assanian quickly followed, going where the policeman motioned. Assanian clutched a leather briefcase in his hand: inside, his speech was tucked neatly into a divider. He wordlessly climbed the steps up to the podium, flanked by two Armenian flags, and spoke briefly with a staffer who had just set up the speaker equipment. Assanian’s podium consisted of four microphones for the four main Armenian radio media groups, alongside a speaker to reach out to Freedom Square. Directly in front of the podium was the press pool, while the general public waited behind it.

Assanian straightened his suit, unfazed by the crowd in front of him. After all, he had done this plenty of times before. This speech was just another one about his campaign promises, and how he was going to make life better for the Armenian people, and how he was going to secure the future of the Armenian state. He extolled the virtue of the country and its people, how they worked hard and never quit and how every other country looked at the Armenians as symbols of resilience and dedication. He brought the history of his people into the speech, imagining what the ancient Hayk would say if he looked upon the modern Armenian state. He ended with a condemnation of the present politics of hate perpetuated by Vadratian, and how he would work to change that so Armenia could continue its role as a role model for others. The country was small, but the Armenians knew what they could do. All and all, it was quick and sweet, nothing new in the playbook. The crowd loved it, cheering at all the right moments and clapping as it ended. Camera flash bulbs lit the podium and the candidate, surely to be printed in the next day’s paper.

Assanian left as easily as he entered, climbing back into his car. His aide offered to take his jacket once the candidate had settled into the leather back seat. “That was a good speech, I think they liked it,” he complimented almost robotically, making small talk like he was on a date.

“We’ll see what happens next month, shall we?” Assanian sighed, leaning back into the seat. “Let’s go, we still have some work at the office to do.”

Armenian-Georgian Border

Two small jeeps kicked up dust as they drove through the winding border roads separating Armenia from its neighbor. Painted olive-green and bearing the logo of the Armenian Border Service on their side doors, the lead vehicle maintained a swiveling machine gun while the one in the rear sat four in its bed. Their mission was the same as every day’s mission: drive along the border and look for Georgians crossing into Armenia. Refugees used the rugged terrain to move through cracks in the Border Service’s monitoring. Mounted patrols such as these augmented static watchtowers, hoping to try and keep the influx of northerners out of the country. Sometimes they were successful in turning back the ones brave enough to attempt a crossing during daylight. Other times, they found themselves skirmishing with bandits trying to exploit the situation. These bandits, funded by the meth trade into Armenia, had been getting bolder in recent years.

The patrol had been driving for four hours, long enough for them to reach the designated turnaround point. In theory, two patrols from opposite bases would drive towards each other for four hours, interface, and head back to their home stations. The rationale for this was to build confidence in each patrol’s area of responsibility and to check in on the others to see if there were any problems. This patrol in particular seemed to be a little early, since their partners were evidently still moving through the mountains. A radio call using the lead vehicle’s manpack yielded no reply: typical in the rugged terrain. The patrol decided to wait. The contingency plan was to call again if the other patrol had still not come by in another hour, and then head out to look for them. The order was given to dismount and keep watch: the troops aboard the vehicles got out and went to find cover. In this case, since this was the usual meeting spot, some areas had been reinforced with dug foxholes and sandbags. Like most days of waiting, the soldiers occupied their positions.

Corporal Joseph Yaglian had been a team leader in the Border Service for just under six months. The tall, lanky twenty-one-year-old wore his gear loose on his body and had lazily rolled up his battledress sleeves in the heat. His young face was unshaven, and hair far longer than regulations allowed brushed up against the collar on his faded jacket. After stopping to wick the sweat out of his soaked patrol cover, he went to his comrades to check on them. Yaglian’s fireteam consisted of himself, two riflemen, and a machinegunner operating a clumsily large weapon. They were all younger than him and local to the area, mostly conscripts posted to the Border Service for their language skills. Yaglian himself was from Yerevan, a volunteer who had naturally received a promotion before the conscripts. The Border Service had historically been smaller and less-well-managed than the Army, dedicated solely to guarding the Georgian and Azeri borders. However, with the recent uptick in border-security-related issues, the service was expanding. This led to quicker promotions for younger and less experienced guardsmen as they tried to fill more slots.

“Hey man, we’re all good,” the machinegunner mumbled through his cigarette as Yaglian crouched next to him. He was a stout, strong man from north Armenia named Gagarian, who spoke Russian and Georgian alongside Armenian. Just a Private, Gagarian had proved himself in combat actions three times over his seven months in service.

Beside Gagarian was the seventeen-year-old Lingorian, who held his binoculars steady against a sandbag to scan for movement in the Georgian mountains. Lingorian himself looked no older than fourteen, dressed in a flowy uniform that looked like he was wearing his father’s clothes to work. He had just gotten to the unit to replace another conscript who was injured in a car crash during a similar patrol. As the youngest, he was often burdened with the most equipment by those who didn’t want to carry it. In his pack was an assortment of binoculars, rifle grenades, flares, and other extra pieces of equipment. Although young, he worked hard to earn the respect of the others: something that Yaglian admired, even if he did make fun of the kid. The other rifleman, Gaznian, was almost as old as Yaglian but nowhere near as experienced. He was the only non-conscript, joining the Border Service after his parents died of hypothermia during the particularly difficult winter of 1958. He sent a portion of his paycheck to his little sister, now living in Hrazdan.

“Good to hear,” Yaglian answered simply. He withdrew his own cigarette from a breast pocket and lit it up. Doctrine said not to smoke on patrol, for fear of the red glow being spotted from afar, but nobody listened to doctrine anyways. “We’re just gonna wait for these late fucks and then go home. Easy day, right? Not seeing anything?”

“Not yet. Lingorian would’ve squealed by now,” he said, elbowing the Private next to him sharply in the ribs. A grimace came across Lingorian’s face, but aside from a small grunt he didn’t say much more.

“Okay, that’s good news. I’ll come by in a few minutes,” Yaglian replied as he puffed on his cigarette again. Quickly flicking what would come off into a nearby pile of rocks, he went back to his section leader to report. Yaglian’s section leader nodded, and went wordlessly back to the map spread across the hood on the jeep. He mumbled calculations under his breath, taking measurements of kilometers and speed and trying to figure out where the other patrol could be. This continued on for the next hour, until it was time to go looking.

“Hey, lead truck!” the section leader called out as he put his carbine beside the passenger’s seat in the rear open truck. “Hey, go call the other patrol on your radio and let me know if you get a reply. These idiots are fucking late again.”

A radio call was sent out. Again, no response came back through the airwaves. As per their orders, the section leader gave the call to mount up and move out to go find the others. Yaglian recalled his team and put them in the back of the truck. He talked to his section leader about where they were going, and hopped over the side as the engine rumbled to life. The lead vehicle spun its wheels for a second, kicking up gravel before speeding off. Yaglian’s jeep followed. They drove for two hours, getting more worried as they continued. Wordlessly, they followed the trail until the sun began to set. Every fifteen minutes, the lead vehicle would send out a radio transmission to no avail. The search was hopeless until the jeeps rounded a bend in the road and the headlights picked up something in front of them. The two trucks drove into range before the first slammed on the brakes. The team leader in the passenger seat leapt out and waved his hands at the section leader: “Hey, it’s them!”

A chorus of cursing and orders to take positions followed from the section leader: one of the trucks had been hit with explosive or something of the sort while the other was empty in the back. Blood covered the windshield of the lead vehicle, and two bodies were slumped over the dashboard. A third body was laying, arms spread wide, across the spare tire in the back. The truck’s machinegun was angled downwards, a short belt hanging from its receiver. Around them, bodies from the other truck were laying around. These men had been killed in combat, with the exception of one who, based on the blood trail, seemed to have crawled behind the second truck only to die there. Yaglian emplaced his men and ran to his section leader, who was surveying the damage. “What’s going on?” he asked, an intonation of fear in his voice.

“Looks like a rocket attack stopped the first truck. Look at the rest of them, bullet holes everywhere. Fuckin’ bandits did this. We were probably too far away to hear the damn fight, too,” the section leader lamented as he checked the dog tags on the dead patrol’s other NCO. He was just about to order a mount-up when a rifle shot cracked them and sent the patrol bounding to cover. “Sniper! Sniper! Sniper!” the section leader called out.

Immediately, fire from the Armenians leapt out into the dusk. Yaglian’s machinegunner had seen the muzzle flash of the bandit and was showering rounds at the area while the two other rifleman tried to do the same. The other machinegunner, far more experienced than Gagarian, rattled off bursts while Gagarian went quiet. This so called “talking guns” method enabled a suppression of the enemy position. The sniper was apparently frightened, and only got off a few more inaccurate shots. Each one was answered by more gunfire from the border guardsmen. Yaglian fired off his carbine from behind the hood of his vehicle, rhythmically and precisely. In between bursts of gunfire, he sounded off to check on his team. So far, no casualties. It had been a trap, but the troops were left wondering why there had only been one sniper. Yaglian’s section leader wasn’t going to stick around to find out, and ordered the dead tossed in the back of the other jeep. Nobody was leaving bodies or weapons there, lest the bandits get a propaganda victory out of the deal.

Only three more attempts came from the bandit sniper, each time answered by overwhelming fire on the Armenian side. It was nighttime by the time the bodies were loaded up and trucks were on the move, and the shots were getting wilder and wilder. As fast as they could, the trucks moved back to the other patrol’s home base. Someone needed to know what happened, and the bandits were going to pay soon. As the patrol left from the ambush site, Gaznian shot a rifle grenade at the disabled Armenian jeep to deny its recovery. This time, the fuel tank exploded, and the whole vehicle was consumed by fire. The fire lit the mountainside, flickering against the escaping border guardsmen. They still had a while left to drive before they got to the next base, but they were determined to do it quickly. Something had to happen soon.