Lost Contact

[Union]

ooc: I feel uncomfortable leaving Loyan as it is, so this RP is to provide some disclosure. Basically, the islands are under attack by an unknown entity, and through suppression of telecommunications, all contact between the Islands and the outside world is lost. This will effectively cut off Loyan from it's place from RP interaction.

Segment One: Dead Birds

84 km east off the shore of East Island District, Noon

"Bailey One, this is Hawk Eye Patrol...all clear in this section, requesting rotation with Eagle Eye squadron..."
"Roger Hawk Eye Four, OK on your rotation, proceed to checkpoint BB1 for landing..."

   "Roger Bailey One, Hawk Eye Four and Five returning to BB1 - Hey Wingman, you hungry for some ginseng tong? My mom drop some off for me this morning. - "
   "That's a negative Hawk Eye Four, your mom won't want you to give up that sort of good pao, especially not with Canuck ginseng being 60 bucks a pound these days! I'll stick to with what my girl gives me. - "
   "You calling my mom cheap? Is that it?"
   "...That wasn't my intent, - now will you get back to my altitude? We got civies flying where you are. Lower your speed, we don't have much fuel for you to go dashing!"
   "Geez Boss, alrigh - Woh...Boss..."
   "What is it Wingman?"
   "My radar just blinked..."
   "Blinked?"
   "It went off for a few seconds, it's back...but..."
   "God, them boys at maintenance are slacking off...switch your uplink to sat-"
   "Ho...! My avionics just went crazy! Lost radar! All red across the board! I'm losing telemetry!"
   "Damn it Jo! Do in-air reboot! -  What the -?!? My radar just died! I'm losing picture, EM alarms are going crazy - Jo, you there? Answer me Wingman!"
   "-static-"
   "Jo? Jo! Damn it! Bailey One, this is Hawk Eye Five, do you read? Lost radio contact with my wingman, 505 emergency in progress! The hell is going on?!?"
   "Haw- Eye Fiv - Re - peat your - ...los - ...contact-..........static"
   "Bailey One, repeat....Bailey One?? Shit!"
   "SYSTEM ERROR - LVL 8 JAMMING - COUNTERMEASURES DOWN - ALL SYSTEMS DOWN....BACKUP N/A"
   "This is Hawk Eye Four, all avionics on red! My plane's shutting down! Controls aren't responding! Mayday Mayday! - "

.......................................................

Segment 2: The Bad News or the Worst News?

Commissioner Cen stormed into the situation room. All eyes turned to him as he enter and scanned around looking for faces. "Someone tell me what the hell is going on here," he demanded. "Why the hell are we on Code Red."

"Sir," saluted a general among the crowd of officers. "Forty-five minutes ago, we lost contact with two MiG-29s in the East District. They were returning from a routine patrol when radio contact went dead. They were over the ocean when we lost them."

"So you saying they got shot down?"

"We don't know sir," the general replied. "All we received from their satcom was that they suddenly lost their radar and broken phrases that seem to point to their onboard electronics failing. We think they were fried, by something or someone..."

"Someone? Please General, you must have better answers than that," the Commissioner voiced angrily. "What's the progress on the recovery team?"

"We didn't send one......" the general quietly replied. "Sir, our problems are bigger than just two lost pilots..."

"What do you mean?" the commissioner asked, slightly bothered by the statement.

"Sir, please look to the screen," the general pointed to the overhead LCD which displayed a map of the east coast. "Near where our planes disappeared, we been getting reports of high radio interference..."very" heavy electromagnetic activity...and it's frying everything near it. ACN has pinpointed the source to within 30km east of  shore, right within the flightpath of our missing MiG-29s. From what I'm getting, two ACN radar stations have been knocked offline, with a dozen more getting interference, and all our civil and military radio frequencies blacked out within 330 km of the apex. We're struggling to maintain contact with our eastern bases as it is. All that's coming out and going in are grounded telephone lines and LAN." 

"My God," the commissioner exclaimed. "Someone is conducting massive electronic warfare on us! I want a strike force mobilized immediately! Get our foreign agents in AC and Eastia on the move and find out who's doing this! At this rate, we'll get overrun like sheep!"

"Sir," a woman rose up from her seat. "I'm with Defense Intelligence. I can tell you with certainty that whoever is doing this, they're not AC or Eastian...it's difficult to explain, but what we seen so far is completely new and more severe than anything we seen before."

"I want details..."

"Sir, at first we thought it was a Valideen or Delfian stealth sub that had broken through our UAD buoys, but this sort of broadcast...it's way too powerful to be a sub. We're talking about tens of megawatts here, way more than your average AWACS or ship based ECW suite. This sort of radiation you can only find in nuclear blasts. But it's continuous, which means something with alot of juice is powering it. The technology is probably years ahead of even what we have. Perhaps.....it came from behind the..."

"Miss, I hope you're not suggesting that something from the other side of the Storm Line came here to fuck with us," rebuffed the Commissioner. "We got enough problems with an AC armada heading towards Valhene, I don't need freaks from the other side of the world coming with intents of war to our doorstep."

"Sir, I am just offering up possibilities," said the woman. "We're dealing with a completely foreign anomaly here."

The ringing of a phone suddenly interrupted them. The general picked up the handset beside him on the table. He listen in, paused, and then swore out loud. He yelled a slurry of orders into the mouthpiece. After he hanged up, he looked with a grim expression towards the others.

"I just got word from the naval and air task force that got sent out," he said. "They reported that the EM radiation had burnt out all their electronics within 70 km of the Source, even laser comms and GPS. Whatever this things is, it's not just frying our air waves, but it's burning out circuits as well."

"The "Source", is that what we're calling it now?" the Commissioner darkly remarked. "That sort of EM dosage can't be too healthy. Notify the local authorities and get all civilians within 500km of the Source evacuated. And will somebody please figure out a way to get close to this thing? A photograph will be great."

"The Air Arms have few ECW Dragon Hawks available, those birds are built for this sort of thing," the general suggested, "Their onboard gear is completely shield and a laser satcomm system offers realtime relay. They're being transfer from Anyia, it'll be an hour before we can get them into the zone. In the meantime, we have a 54A frigate steaming towards the Source. The navy had shield and modified most of their major surface ships for high intensity EM radiation. There's a chance it can slip in deep enough for visual contact, but we won't be able to hear from them until they pull out again."

"I'm starting to regret sending out our fleet to Valhene," the Commissioner sighed. "I want all ground units be on full alert. Head General, I leave the isolation and interception of the Source to you. If it happens to land on shore, I expect you to blow it up without a seconds haste."

"Hey Lin," the DI woman voiced out. "Isn't there a joint task force that was formed last year for this sort of thing?"

"Yeah, Task Force Blindfold," the general replied. "Old man Hung had it formed. He's been warning us that our digital defense systems would spell disaster for the islands if the enemy hit us with EM altitude nukes. - Just a bunch of old "electric-free" Hornets and a few old-school army regiments. Last time I heard, a colonel was planning to use it offensively against the Delfians."

"Call it up, we're gonna need personnel not strap with digimaps or MP3s. Commissioner, my boys will continue to monitor the situation. We'll notify you of any changes."

"Good. Now if you excuse me, I need to visit my pharmacist." The man got up from his seat and made for the door. "Get it done people, find out what it is and destroy it with pure prejudice."
   

     

       

 
 

[Union]

Segment 3: Eastern Front (Part One)

 The east of Yai Island is a rural back log that had lagged behind in growth with the rest of Loyan. Most of the people that live here are agriculturists and mine workers, scatter long and far across the hills and valleys of this place. Aside from the district capital of Ni Yai and western limits, much of the island had kept it's pristine natural landscape, dotted with small towns and old villages that live traditional lives in their enclave within tropical woodlands, as they did for centuries. Highways and factories are few, with those that exist, built to facilitate the all-important tungsten and titanium ore mines sanctioned by the country's industrialists and generals.   

The State's rapid progress into modernity had done little in changing this place, and the people here had grew accustom to the military bases and state mines built by the government through the decades. This part of the country had been viewed by Loyanese military planners, for years, as a last-hope redoubt in case of dreaded invasion. It's rough terrain and dense jungle cover made it the perfect location for retreat. Because of it's distance from Loyan's industrial and population centres, the area would had also passed under the enemy's attention long enough for regrouping Loyanese forces to make a counterattack. With this in mind, the Loyanese Army built a formidable chain of bunkers and supply depots within the jungles and steep valleys, stockpiling massive amounts of weapons and munitions nearby.

Careful attention was taken to conceal the positions of the facilities using the natural terrain, and the military had the forest areas declared an Exclusive Military Environment zone to prevent loggers or developers from ripping down the trees and foliage that fortified the Army's assets. Unintentionally, the area became a wildlife sanctuary that protected the last of the islands' once lush and expansive tropical ecosystems.

When the evacuation notice came, this once quiet and serene locality stirred into a bustle of car horns and shouts. While this part of Loyan was among the least populated, the sudden surge of 200,000 fleeing residents was enough to congest the roads running out from the district. Traffic came to a standstill, with CVs and pickup trucks lining up for miles. The hot sun of the dry season made matters worst for stressed and dehydrated drivers and their passengers as they waited out the jam. To add to the list of woes, radio stations and cellphones had been blacked out by strange interference. With the weather getting hotter and no way of knowing what was going on, frustration had replaced fear.   

Over the cars and scooters, a squadron of Mi-24T transport helicopters passed over, heading in the opposite direction of the now' one way traffic. The helicopters flew parallel to the two lane highway running west from Fort Gewan, only 8 km from the border where all radio comms blacked out. Third Class Private Fong Hung Kai of 1st Airborne Artillery looked down onto the commotion below, his head and legs hanging out from the starboard side door of the chopper. The downwind of the rotor blades ruffled the fabric of his combat fatigue and caused his dog tag to flutter violently around his neck.

"Kai, keep your darn head in!" yelled his sergeant behind. "One inch more, and you'll end up a roof ornament on one of them cars!"

A fellow private and friend, Second Class Private Hong Shang Yao, pulled Kai shoulder back into the cabin of the Mi-24. "Sarge's right, strap yourself down at least. I'll be fuck if you die before you pay off that poker bill!"

Kai smirked. In truth, he paid off the poker bill long time ago, but Shangyao always found a good reason to bring it up. It all started with a poker game with a stupid bet. There was no money involved, but the loss of the bet pulled him into a nightmare date with a certain bi-polar and psychotic local girl and cousin of Yao by the name of Ling Fai. It was the worst life experience Kai had ever endured, and Yao found it fit to remind him as much as possible nowadays.

"ETA, three minutes doughboys," said the voice of the co-pilot through the cabin intercomm. "You boys watch your back, heard some rough shit is going on. Been getting reports of both civie and LA planes falling out from the sky and other weird crapaloni."

"Will do Co-p," replied the sergeant," You and P-man just get us and our guns as close as possible to the EM Shitter so we can shut it off."

"That's not gotta be much, DI techies say we can get you 50 km of Sech Port before our circuits fry," the pilot voiced. "And that's with us flying blind and half of our avionics off. Good thing this chopper is made tough and rough, or we had crashed by now - ~~schhhraa~~shh~~ shit...did you hear that? It's screwing up the intercomm already! ~shh~"

"Let's hope that isn't nuclear radiation..." the sergeant muttered. "Alright, everybody lock and load! You know what you need to do and why; The air force and navy can't hit this motherfuck'er with their guid'ed missiles, so it's up to us to do some old-fashion demolition. I want those 155s up and firing the minute we hit the ground! Let's blow this Shitter out of the water!"