[b]Sevan, Armenia[/b]

"Where's your name, son?"

Still groggy and hungover, bound in handcuffs and tossed into a cell, Yaglian writhed around on the jail cot and groaned. He had banged his head on the roof of the police car as he got out: a black bruise on his forehead might cause some to turn and wonder if the police had beat him in custody. Generally, MPs were better about that sort of thing than civilian cops. Police abuse wasn't often reported in the town, but it was there. The Corporal shook his head and tried to bury it into the green mattress of the cot. The MP sighed, crossed his arms, and tried to rouse the Corporal from his sleep again. His partner arrived in the room with a bucket of water. Yaglian groaned again as the other MP dumped out the bucket. A wave of cold passed through his spine, an involuntary desire to leap up overcame him. With a yelp, all he managed to do was tumble out of the cot and onto the concrete floor: he was soaked and shivering.

"Are you awake now?" the cop with the bucket asked sarcastically, wiping his slightly wet hands on the bare undershirt he wore in lieu of jacket. His partner chuckled, watching Yaglian spit and sputter on the ground. The sound of water dripping on the concrete filled the silent intermissions.

"Fuck! Shit! Jesus, what a helluva shower!" Yaglian shouted in surprise. "For fuck's sake, you could have asked!"

"Sorry, boy, I guess you just weren't being very responsive."

"Gah, shit. Fine, fine. I'm George Yaglian."

The two MPs looked at each other, shrugged, and wrote his response down on a notepad.

"Where do you work?" one asked.

"I laterally transferred from the Border Guard to the Army a few months ago... I work as a security specialist," Yaglian admitted, coughing up some water and removing his drenched jacket.

"Huh. Airfield?"

"Yep."

"Who's your CO?"

Yaglian squinted his eyes and looked back up at the MPs before shaking his head. Their unit's commander had just been fired for sleeping with an underage prostitute in the town - he claimed he did it unknowingly but the base higher-ups wanted to make an example out of him. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence, but Yaglian's commander was gone nonetheless. An interim officer, a somewhat meek executive officer, had been assigned to command until a new Captain could be found. He explained the situation to the MPs, who wrote that down as well. They warned him that they would be sending a citation to the commander and that he needed to be more responsible on future town passes. Such minor incidents were generally under the responsibility of the unit commander instead of the Armenian Army's legal system. The most that could happen would be a reprimand and some restriction, maybe jail time if the commander was harsh enough. Yaglian, however, severely doubted anything major would come out of it.

The cops let Yaglian go shortly before noon, giving him a new set of fatigues and a bag to put his possessions in. It was Sunday, the base eerily quiet. Most people were sleeping off hangovers or working the weekend shift in their buildings. In the distance, helicopters were taxiing off the runway and heading east to the training section of the camp. The Corporal struggled to find his way back to the barracks, still hungover and tired. By one in the afternoon, he had almost fallen through the door to find his Greek roommate standing with half a dozen other shirtless Greeks, all watching intently as two more played a serious game of chess on the coffee table. Yaglian looked quizzically at his roommate, who shrugged and replied: "We're alright. Did you get jailed?"

Yaglian sighed, replied with an unenthusiastic yes, and then announced that he was going to bed to take a nap. "Whatever you're doing," he said as he shook his head, "just keep it quiet."

Monday came, and Yaglian began his trip to the headquarters for the morning briefing. Generally administered by the officer of the day, it went over general concerns like current events and dangers to be looked out for that day. As always, the threat of Ottoman saboteurs was marked as a moderate threat. It was not expected but that didn't mean that Yaglian was allowed to drop his vigilance. Arms were issued out by a bored-looking armorer, and Yaglian was sent out to the hangars were he stood in the shade and watched fighters and helicopters fly back and forth over the tarmac. His fellow guard, another foreigner, never spoke. Yaglian's main theory about security guards was that they took all the refugees who couldn't speak Armenian and tossed them here, out of the main public eye. The "true" Armenians were all thrown together in the main regiments and sent off to fight for glory. That would explain Yaglian's roommate's Greek parties.

Curiously enough, Yaglian's commander never spoke to him about the drunken brawl. Maybe the word was lost in the confusion of interim commanding or the issue was discarded completely. Nonetheless, Yaglian was never sure if he was supposed to be punished or not and decided it was safe to just keep on the down-low. Yet he suspected ulterior motives: a storm was brewing over Istanbul, and he feared that they were keeping NJPs to a minimum in order to have troops ready to go at a moment's notice.

One could only hope for some action around those parts.

[b]Independent Istanbul[/b]

A fireplace crackled as an NSS agent threw a box of shredded papers down into it. A man in a suit with a rifle peeked around a window curtain to see the view outside. The sun had set, and the Armenian embassy had begun final procedures to sanitize its covert involvements before something happened. Actionable intelligence had just come in that the Ottomans were massing troops at a previously-abandoned military base just outside of Istanbul. The staff could see reconnaissance planes circling daily, no doubt taking pictures of anything and everything. The NSS had contacted the Istanbul Police and determined that they were taking steps to fortify strategic points in anticipation of an invasion. Militias, generally organized neighborhood-by-neighborhood, were forming. Strangely enough, they were equipped with Armenian weapons: the NSS staff at the embassy claimed that they didn't know how and blamed it on surplus, but the station chief was a notoriously bad liar. On the other side of the city, Greeks were poised to enter under the pretense of securing the city's independence against expansionist Ottoman policies. Lines of trucks and tanks stretched for kilometers down the main road leading to Europe.

A helicopter was expected to arrive sometime in the night to evacuate the officials to a waiting Armenian vessel in the Black Sea. Then, they would be quickly and quietly ferried back to the Fatherland and a waiting debriefing in Yerevan. The building was to be abandoned, the staff dispersed back to other government jobs. When the Greeks, Ottomans, Istanbulites, and possibly Armenians came to blows over the ancient city, the embassy workers would be safe. Outside, there were echoes of gunshots across the city. Criminals? Skirmishes? Nobody really knew. The man with the rifle by the window tensed up every time a crack sounded off. He looked over at the NSS agents, as if trying to hurry them up. The embassy staff, ties undone and button-down shirts untucked and unbuttoned, paid no attention. They focused on the tasking at hand, without too much thought. It took six hours to do a clean sweep of the record room, combing through it again and again and again to ensure that nothing was left behind. God forbid the Ottomans find a folder in some corner with captured documents still inside. An NSS agent stood by with a manifest, checking accountability every time something was tossed in the fireplace.

A heavy cargo helicopter arrived at one in the morning, flying in low with no lights on. The building shook violently as the thunderous rotors tore shingles off of the roof. It couldn't land on the questionably-sound structure and instead hovered about a half meter above the surface. Commandos, holding rifles with gigantic nightvision scopes, hopped out of the cargo bay and crouched down low on the embassy roof. They wore masks, black uniforms, and lean kit. The embassy workers arrived on the rooftop just as shots came over. They dropped to the ground as the sonic cracks snapped and lashed at them. The commandos urged the embassy workers to hurry up, one of them grabbing a clerk by the collar and tossing him violently up the cargo ramp. The enormous helicopter could take forty people. There were sixty-three on the embassy.

Luckily, a sister helicopter arrived to take the remaining staff. Someone, most likely eager militiamen, were ready this time. Antiaircraft gun fire, tracers, arced across the night sky. Rifle shots hit the concrete barriers on the roof and threw up clouds of dust and shrapnel. The special operators inside ducked down and shouted at the horrified embassy workers to hurry up. They needed no encouragement and jumped aboard. The helicopter throttled up, turned sideways, and rocketed to altitude - it was never apparent that the rotor narrowly missed a power line that could have crashed the whole thing back down. The flight to the mothership lasted thirty minutes: they touched down on the helicopter carrier immediately. The civilian ship - the flat top cleared and replaced with fabricated metal landing pads for eight helicopters and assorted support functions like fuel - turned its rudder and steamed away as fast as it could.

It was a clean escape from a coming storm.

[b]Sevan Island, Armenia[/b]

The rumbling of a dozen helicopters let the enemy know long before the Officer Candidates arrived on the beaches of Sevan Island. Hidden in the dense forests overlooking the drop zone, the cadre were ready. Armed with rifles and rubber bullets, they readied for the attacking force. Heavy machineguns in the woods had enough power to knock a Candidate down and, possibly, break bones with the "non-lethal" weaponry. It was enough incentive as any to take it carefully during the opening stages of the assault. Abbasian and Sulayev, squad leaders in D Company, knew the simple objective was not so simple. The cadre would be laying out traps and ambushes as they darted up the flank to hit the rear. Despite their tactical officer's assumption that there would be no "wild goose chases", Abbasian had been privately warned that the instructors were in possession of the battle plans after breaking into the barracks and picking the lock on the CO's file cabinet. The fight was designed to be as unfair as possible.

They hit the beach seconds later. The helicopters, in keeping with their violence of action strategy, landed harshly. A loadmaster practically threw the first few troops through the door as the dismounts began firing wildly at the treeline. They hit the floor, flattening themselves against the warm sands of the beach while their comrades took turns suppressing the cadre. Twenty seconds into the rehearsed action, there was still no returning fire. Abbasian kept his face firmly in the sands until he heard murmuring along the lines: "Where are they?"

The Officer Candidates cautiously looked up. Some went up onto their knees, scanning the trees for anything like movement or activity. Sulayev inched up and gazed through the telescopic sight attached to his K19 before Abbasian grabbed his sleeve and dragged him back down. "They know, this is a trick."

Behind Abbasian, the platoon leader's radio beeped. The bespectacled Candidate reached for his backpack handset and listened as another platoon leader voiced his confusion. The officer simple replied the same thing that everyone else was thinking: "I don't know either!" and hung up. He put his hands back on the rifle grip just as B Company began to cautiously execute its attack procedure. The cadre, however, were waiting. B Company, heading across the sands slowly and hunched down low, had no cover as a barrage of rifle rifle peppered them with rubber bullets. The referee attached to the company walked calmly behind with a stick, whacking those who were "out" and telling them to play dead. Those he determined were wounded were told to scream out in mock pain. C Company's leader came over the tactical radio net and shouted to get out of the ambush. The instructors had begun sweeping fire to the other sides of the arrowhead formation that B Company had spearheaded. B Company was completely wiped out, with maybe a squad or so combat effective. "We need to go, right fucking now!" ordered Abbasian's platoon leader.

"What are we gonna fuckin' do, roll out of the way?" Abbassian shot back while a burst of rubber bullets plunked into the sand just centimeters away. The platoon leader shrugged, stood up, and ran like an Olympic sprinter to safety.

"Follow him! Follow him!" Sulayev commanded before getting up to do the same. The four squads all took off, running in full gear as if their lives depended on it. The company took heavy fire during its advance before the platoon leader ducked down behind a rocky portion of the beach. It was there where he could hide his men and allow them to regroup and catch their breath. F Company was on its way but Abbasian's platoon leader hadn't heard of them. The cadre were playing dirty tricks to disorganize the students' approach, and that just made him frustrated. If anything, his resolve to finish the exercise and graduate became stronger than ever. The platoon leader was busy trying to communicate on the radio when Abbasian approached him.

"Hey man, listen... The instructors are going to be one step ahead of us," Abbasian warned the sheepish mock-Lieutenant. "They have our plans."

"Yeah, I know," the platoon commander shot back, cupping his hand over the radio's mouthpiece.

"So we need to improvise, we can't keep heading up the flank. If F Company isn't answering their radios then they might be out. That means the cadre have positioned units to interdict our flanking operations further down the beach..."

"Shit."

"Let's think about it, how many instructors and staff do you think we have? Equal force?"

Sulayev, unbeknownst to Abbasian, had crouch-walked up to the meeting. His dark skin was shining with sweat and large, dark pools had formed under his armpits. "Equal force is what the briefing told us," he answered cautiously. "If the instructors are being dicks about it then they probably scraped up some more troops to answer us."

"So what can we gather about the landing? They wiped out B Company with that barrage... How many guns do we estimate?" Abbasian started the train of thought in his fellow Candidates, walking them through a thorough evaluation of the battle. They determined that it was a whole platoon in the front shooting their weapons at B Company based on how much fire was directed as the advance group versus the time it took to "kill" them all. The lighter resistance to moving up the beach that D Company experienced was most probably due to the lack of men available at the frontlines of the cadre's positions to deal with a scattering. F Company's quick destruction was the result of the same: possibly a greater-sized defensive force knocking it out on the west side of the island. Down on the east where D Company huddled in a rocky bluff, it was only natural to assume that there was an equal-sized force waiting downrange on the beach. That was three or four units accounted for. There was going to be at least one at the home base pulling security, possibly two. There were a lot of assumptions, but it was the best they could do.

"We should dart into the woods behind the initial welcoming party but in front of the suspected location where they're waiting for us," Sulayev offered as he drew a rough map in the sand with a stick he found nearby. "They're expecting us to continue up the east into their trap... If we go through here we could flank the frontlines and relieve pressure on the main assault force."

The Yazidi held his head up and nodded to the landing zone where the sounds of a fierce battle were still showing no signs of letting up.

"What about the entrapment force?" Abbasian asked with a stoic voice, pointing to the circled position. "I can take a squad up and make it look like we're still trying to flank... That would stop them from investigating your incursion and make it appear that everything was still going to plan. It's suicide, and it only buys time for you to break their lines, but it might be necessary."

The platoon leader shook his head: "We're outnumbered as it is, we might need you."

"It's not gonna matter if the entrapment force collapses on us when we attack the suppressive positions. This beach is rocky, we can dig in behind cover and our much smaller force can defend against the reinforcements if they decide to collapse. We turn it from an offensive to a defensive and we have somewhat of an even playing field."

In the distance, the faint sounds of artillery simulators - blasting caps stuck into the earth that went off on random fuzes to give the sounds and smells of an artillery barrage - could be heard. The intensity of the instructors' counter-attacking artillery would shake and disorient the trainees. The platoon leader looked at Abbasian, who maintained that his plan was the only option. His steely eyes looked down at the hasty sand table below them, hands gripping his rifle. Sulayev solemnly nodded. There was no time for debate: the longer they stalled, the higher the chance that they would be collapsed on anyways.

Abbasian's squad readied themselves, trading in some of their rifles for more light machine guns to give the impression of a bigger force. Much of their ammo was distributed out to the rest of the company alongside rations and other gear. They weren't expecting to survive the encounter. Sulayev and the platoon leader watched wordlessly as Abbasian walked over to the radioman, tapped him on the shoulder, and grabbed the handset off of his manpack. The Candidate offered it to his platoon leader: "You need to tell them we're launching our attack up the flank. I think they're monitoring communications. They must be."

Sulayev cracked his knuckles and looked back at the men gearing up. "What will the others think?"

"It doesn't matter," the platoon leader agreed. "We'll link up and explain anyways."

As the sounds of artillery got closer, the platoon leader took the phone from Abbasian. Squatting down in the rocks by the bay, he turned the channel to the leaders' joint combat net: "All units, C Company. We are beginning our stage of the attack as scheduled, over."

The radio was hung back up and the platoon leader turned to Abbasian: the dark-skinned ethnic Syrian was already halfway out of cover and sprinting up the beach. Sulayev watched him go in a mix of amusement and mild surprise. "How did we even find motherfuckers like him?"