[b]Hrazdan, Armenia[/b]

	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.

[b]Yerevan, Armenia[/b]

	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.

[b]Trabzon, Armenia[/b]

	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 [i]AS Breadwinner of Trabzon[/i]. 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 [i]Breadwinner[/i] 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 [i]Breadwinner[/i]. 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 [i]Breadwinner[/i] 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 [i]Breadwinner of Trabzon[/i]’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 [i]Breadwinner[/i], 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 [i]Breadwinner[/i] was alone in the sea: once again, it headed to Odessa. Business as usual.