(OOC: The Pirate Lords spend as much time fighting each other as they do helping each other out, so you may not receive an incredibly warm welcome. Of course, war makes for strange bedfellows, but I'm about to make it a moot point anyway, as the second part of this post takes place in the same village that Barakarin just docked in.)
Kuandu had been riding along the ill kept road in the squads Plasan Sand Cat for hours. Drella lay just a few more hours away. They were told to expect a fierce fight as, intelligence reported, more than half of the Pirate Lords running the southern island were currently living in Drella. From all around the captured coasts of the southern island were coming thousands upon thousands of soldiers, some involved in the initial attacks, most not. The towns were left with token garrisons, as the pirates were expected to place all their efforts into protecting the Pirate Lords, none of whom lived in the backwater port towns of the southern island.
The first wave of attackers would hit in around an hour, followed by wave after wave of fully equipped, trained soldiers, up against some desperate pirates. Cantr would have advantage of numbers, superior equipment, more experience, better training and, because of all this, better morale. The pirates would no doubt be ill-disciplined and many of them would likely be scared out of their wits. The Cantrians couldn't lose.
Meanwhile, in a small port town on the northern end of the island, five corvettes appeared in the harbor as C-2 planes loaded with paratroopers prepared to drop their cargo in the jungle just outside the town. With the fall of this town, Seth's noose around Drella would be complete. The pirates would have no way of escape. According to the Art of War, this would create Deadly Ground in Drella, forcing the pirates to fight tooth and nail with everything they had to save their own lives, nullifying the advantages in morale and veterancy the Cantrian army had over the pirates. But Seth had a trump card, that would double those advantages instead of removing them.
Seth looked at the run down collection of huts and shacks on the shore. The docks weren't fit to unload anything heavier than drugs, as usual, which meant the village would be unable to support a major military operations. It didn't matter. Although Seth intended to seize the island via overwhelming force, there was no need to be overkill.
The C-2s began dropping their paratroopers. That was the signal. The corvettes opened fire on the village. The battle had begun. No, Seth thought, This isn't a battle. The pirates stand no chance. This is just a police raid.
From now on, the southern Pirate Isle is being blockaded. Every other port town has a corvette floating in its harbor, and those which do not can get the nearest two in their harbor in about ten minutes. They all have garrisons ranging from one platoon (forty men) to a battalion (two hundred men). Each soldier is equipped with an AK-47, 5 M67 frag grenades, an M42 biological/chemical mask, Interceptor body armor, and, in the case of the paratroopers, a T-10 parachute. Each squad of eight men has one sniper with an SVD, one gunner with an M2HB machine gun, and one demolitionist with a pair of C4 explosives and an RPG-27. The Sergeant and Corporal are each equipped with a Beretta sidearm. Each squad also has a Plasan Sand Cat.
And if anyone is wondering, I had to strain my nations military budget to the breaking point for the past week or so (real time) to get all this equipment together, and half my legions still aren't fully equipped (though obviously all the ones involved in the Pirate Wars are).
