Dawn of a new age

[Vygar]

As the five Challenger 2 tanks of the 3rd Vygar armoured battalion adavanced toward the outer edges of the border town, followed closely by ten 12-man infantry squads & six Warrior IFVs, the 155mm shells of three AS 90 artillery batteries came crashing down upon the small settlement, their explosive power blasting several buildings apart. Already, they had pushed the enemy this far back from their main encampment some ten-to-fifteen miles behind them. While they continued their approach, two F-35 Lightning II jet fighters screamed past overhead, unleashing a small slavo of missiles upon the town.

As a second barrage of artillery fire came screeching down upon the town, the armaments of the Challenger 2 tanks & the Warrior IFVs open up on enemy soldiers as they either fled the chaos & destruction being rained upon them, or attempted to crew some of their own fighting vehicles. Once in range, the infantry squads joined in, unleashing their weaponry upon their beleaguered foes. At first, the enemy tried to fight back, but it took little less than an hour for this one-side battle to turn into an all-out massacre, which in turn ended a mere three & a half hour later.

As the last of the armed militants were picked off, the fighting men & vehicles of the 3rd Vygar armoured battalion spread out to secure the town, to ensure that they had finally accomplished their misson. All the while, the winter rain lashing all around as high winds swept the area, blanketing everything in a thin veil of a coming storm.

If the in the battles south-east continued to unfold this way, then the war could possible end anytime soon - and there would be nothing better than that.....

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The conflicts around south-eastern Vygar had been dying down recently. By the look of things, the enemy appeared to have lost most of the strong will to fight that they had shown in the early stages of the uprising. This was probably attributed to the recent victory the military forces had achieved by annihilating the Rizon's stronghold some months back, killing their leaders & shattering their war effort. After that, the military forces began racking up the victories, one after another.

For the past year & a half, most of the eastern half of Vygar had become a warzone. This was due to a military uprising by an armed militant group, calling themselves "The Rizon Crusaders", a group aiming to take control of over half the nation & make it their own. This obviously never went down well with the Government, who promptly sent the military into action. At first, it seemed as though this uprising would be quashed within a couple of months; however, that outlook soon changed as the battles became more & more frequent, & drew on for longer & longer bouts of time. Indeed, after the first three months of constant fighting, all of Vygar had shifted into full war alert.

However, now that most of Vygar was back under the control of it's rightful inhabitants, & the majority of the enemies forces either dead or being mopped up, the main focus had shifted from the war effort to the rebuilding of the affected half of the nation. Considering the damage this small war with the Rizon Crusaders had caused, the rebuilding of what had been damaged & destroyed could take the better part a year - as well as a huge amount of physical resources & manpower. Luckily for the Vygars, most of their important resource plants & mines were located in the norther & north-western regions, meaning they were - for the most part - unaffected by the fighting.

((O.O.C: Well - I dunno I've I made the right decision to start out this way - at the end of a rebellion & all - but I'll see where this goes for now.))

[Vygar]

With the rebuilding effort now well underway, most of Vygar's resources & manpower had been put to use aiding with restoring the country to its former self. This included a large portion of manpower diverted from the military forces, meaning that the military now had two highly important tasks. First of all, they were to aid in the rebuilding of the eastern half of Vygar - but more importantly, they were tasked with the job of keeping their homeland safe from any external threats whilst the rebuilding was underway.

Now, considering the current strength of the Vygar military, either of these task could be completed quite easily if that was the only job they had to do - but being tasked with both at the same time meant a lot of strain was being put on them. When it came to the rebuilding effort, most military personnel, along with the civilian population & civil services, were working away day & night in order to complete the restoration of their cities, homes & lands. When it came to protecting their nation & it's borders, numerous military units were out on active patrol almost twenty-four hours a day, each & every single day.

It had already been at least 5 months since the end of the war against the Rizon Crusaders, meaning that at least 60% of the area affected by the war had been fully rebuilt. However, whilst the physical restoration of Vygar was going well, it was going to take a lot longer for the mental & psychological restoration of it's people to be complete, since almost every single citizen in Vygar had lost at least one person to the fighting.

Government advisors reckoned that it would take at least another 4 months to finally finish the physichal rebuilding process. After that, the priority would be burying the war dead, which - mentally & emotionally - would probably be the hardest task yet. The final death toll at the end of the war stood at roughly 30,000 Vygar citizens - both military & civilian; all men, woman & children.

And so - as the sun rose up from behind the Sergoma mountains, a new day began as the citizens of Vygar continued to toil away, slowly but surely bringing their nation back to it's formely self.

[Vygar]

It was the dead of night, & rainstorms were sweeping the area in full force. So terrible were the weather conditions that it was almost impossible to see anything clearly, were it more than 5 metres away - & actually impossible to see anything at all if it were more than 10 metres away. Yet, it was this exact area that The Vygar military had deployed several patrols to, in order to secure the area whilst the national rebuilding effort continued. Also, the top generals of the military had designated the area a 'high priority zone', for some classified reason or another.

Led by Mst. Sergeant Brent Tanner, a small detachment of the 1st Vygar armoured battalion, designated "Bravo team", had been tasked with patrolling a 15 mile stretch of land that made up part of Vygar's eastern border. The patrol unit - consisting of a single Challenger 2 MBT, two Warrior IFVs, & two 10-man infantry squads - was one of 5 other units deployed in that area, each unit monitoring separate 15 mile sections of the border, with small military outposts at designated intervals.

"Lovely night, eh Carlos?" Tanner joked as he lit up yet another cigarette. Taking a quick drag, he placed his smoke behind one ear & slung his assault rifle - an SA80 - over his right shoulder.

"Yeah - perfect weather for another patrol." came the sarcastic reply of the man Tanner had just address. He was Lieutenant Carlos Barielli, Bravo team's 2nd in command - & one of Tanner's most trusted associates.

The two men sat atop the chassis of the Challenger 2, looking out over the snowy terrain that streched out before them. However, the view from atop the Challenger 2 wasn't the greatest, with the heavy rainfall drastically impeding their viewing range. As the patrol neared the halfway point of their route, Tanner began to wonder just why this area was of such importance to the brass anyway. Bar being part of Vygar's second largest border, the area was - to the best of his knowledge - nothing more than grasslands, mountains, & the occasional scattering of trees.

"Bah, just doesn't make any sense." He grumbled as he discarded his now finished cigarette pack. He just knew that the military were keeping details hidden from him - & that was what really riled him up.

"Something wrong, man?" Carlos inquired as to why his friend was in such a sour mood. Obviously, something serious was troubling the unit leader - after all, Carlos knew Tanner to be a man who only became concerned when things just didn't feel right.

"I just get the feeling there's more to us being stationed here than simply 'guarding the border'. I mean, don't you think it's odd that the brass has deployed such a force to this region if it's simply for 'guard duty'?"

"Well, I've heard a rumour that the R&D boys got a research lab hidden somewhere in these mountains, where they're workin' on all kinds o' super high-tech new weapons & shit like that. Personally, though, I think the brass are just being over-cautious - only been 6 months since we finally offed those Rizon bastards, know what I mean?"

Yeah - I guess your right. Probably just the higher ups being paranoid about us getting attacked again." Tanner sighed as he scanned the horizon as best he could, in the off chance that they spot something that shouldn't be there. Still, he got the nagging feeling in the back of his mind that there was something else going on here - something much bigger than simply border patrol duties.

With that, Bravo team set about the remained of it's patrol, the rainfall overhead continuing to lash down upon them, as if the heavens themselves had been torn asunder - perhaps a possible sign of things to come.

[Vygar]

In the recent months, the Government of Vygar had been looking to secure itself from any further hostilities, meaning that there had been an increased drive to bring new recruits into the military forces. Each division of the Military - the VGF, The VAF, & the VNF had formed their own methods for bringing in new recruits. Interestingly enough, while each had been quite successful in their own right, it was Vygar's naval forces that had managed to bring in the highest number of new recruits within the set timescale of five months. This left the VGF with the seconds mid-level number of new recruits, while the VAF had brought in the lowest numbers.

This meant that the government & military were able to push on with plans that had been formulates together over 3 years in advance - a plan to use Vygar's military forces to spearhead two separate colonisation efforts - one that would result in Vygar extending it's own borders, whilst the other would focus on setting up a small colony farther a field.

However, such a plan - whilst growning closer to fruition - would still take some serious time to actually accomplish. Therefore, it was decided that until Vygar had enough of a military force that it could both execute the expansion plans & maintain a sizeable defence force, these plans would be put on a semi-hold state - meaning that while the plans themselves would not be executed, the planning & preparations for them would still be carried out as effectively as possible.