[center][h1][b][color=ff9933]The Greater Republic of India[/color][/b][/h1]

[i][h3]Unnamed Building, Outer City, Mogadishu, Somalia[/h3][/i][/center]

The man had been given a chance to speak, but in the end he'd finally spilled his guts to the unit after capture and 'persuasion' to speak. From there he'd been handed off to be processed further. It was progress. Finally, one of the holdout locations on the small northern coast of Somalia was in reach. But his friend has not been so fortunate.

[center][i]CRACK[/i][/center]

With a sickening split, the butt of the Indian marine's rifle rang out as it crashed into the pirate's skull. Man had balls of steel, but not the steel to reinforce his own skull. How quaint. They had only needed one man to speak out of the two they'd managed to capture from the latest pirate attack up in the Gulf of Aden, so it was only natural the other would be taken into custody with swiftness. No limits on how he had to subdue the pirate, so he'd taken the quick route to it...and now the limp but alive body of the pirate was on the floor once more.  

The soldier made a gesture to a nearby man near the door, armed with a rifle, who with a nod walked over and began to drag the pirate's unconscious body out of the cement-floored room. Medic would patch him up, then he'd be sent to the rudimentary 'jail' the Indian Forces had set up nearby. 

In truth, the whole area had been a blur of business after the operations had begun. Warring groups and warlords inland, with pirates smattered about the coastline. The latter had been rushed in a blitz by the Indian Navy, securing land and taking out most major centers over time beyond that. What did the west call this tactic? A 'blitzkrieg'? Sounded European, but that was of no concern to the soldiers and marines and vessels taking part in it all. They'd warned the Somalian government ahead of time, maintaining official documentation of their communications to build up their case before finally launching the operation. 

They'd set it up to be laughed off, but when the pirates had taken bullets and barrages and bombardments it had brought things into line more quickly than not. The scant remnants that did flee the pirate purge moved to the northern coast, torn apart and in tatters at best, and landing parties of tanks and troops had pushed further in from there. 

Admittedly some had been more entrenched among those fighting within the Somalian lands, but Anomalies and so forth had done enough to push most closer toward the coast by recent times. It also gave Somalia a semi-natural barrier of Anomalous Zones to the north and somewhat in the northwest. More importantly, though, it had given the Indian forces a way to take down most opposition in the short-to-mid term. Finally, the long-term operations were being started and cemented. 

Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia, was being brought relief and security even as its infrastructure had prior been cracking and buckling under the weight of three decades of chaos. One year after its independence came The Visitation, which had sent the nation into a spiral as everyone else had seemingly been forced to look after their own hides for a time. Or something of the sort. Yet now, the reorganized Somalian Government was working on ensuring its own stability for the future. They had even signed a treaty with India itself as a start to bring in Indian businesses and new commerce to the area, mostly stuff to help rebuild and reinforce the nation as natuiral resources and Anomalous Zones would be tapped into...all of these things starting with Mogadishu itself. 

The publicly announced 'Anti-Piracy Police Action' had been declared to the world prior to launching the Somalian and Burman operations, declaring the desire to create a safer Indian Ocean that would be intolerant of piracy and seek to forge stability within the boundaries of the Indian Ocean that would last for a long time to come. One that would be made for the benefit of international trade and the safety and prosperity of the peoples of other nations. 

The soldier sighed as he readjusted his gun, using a rag torn from the pirate's clothes to wipe off the blood before tossing it down onto the dusty floor. Yet as he began to walk toward the empty doorway, one of the other men rushed in and gave a hasty salute. The soldier saluted back.

"Sergeant Gupta, we have new orders from command. We are to return to the ship and prepare for new deployment."

Finally. 

"I take it they liked the intel?"

"Yes sir! Ships are heading to scout the location, and we are to be prepared to land as soon as the day after tomorrow if the situation proves favorable."

"Understood. Relay to command that we will be back at the ship soon...and how's Private Khatri doing?"

"Stabilized, sir. Medics say the bullet avoided critical parts, too low-caliber to go deep either, but they might not be able to remove it without sending him back home."

Pirate bullet to the head when they'd taken the boat those latest two prisoners had come from. Nasty, maybe even lethal for all he'd known. No hesitation in gunning down the feral [i]asabhy[/i] that had rushed the private during the squad's nighttime interception of the pirate vessel. By the gods, the man had a young wife back home and a child on the way! Yet as much a warrior as ever, the fool had tried to insist he could still fight even has he tried to stand and bled on the heavens-damned floor. 

Gupta nodded his head, face restrained in a stoic manner. His own father was a General...his grandfather even a soldier back in the day. He had to be strong, on or off the field, but he could not ignore his duty to his men either. 

"Good. The faster they send him back, the better."

[hr]

[center][i][h3]Office, 7 Lok Kalyan Marg, New Delhi[/h3][/i][/center]

Prime Minister Ishann sat at his desk, the air conditioning turned down as far as he could afford to get it. Even them, however, he could feel the hot sting of the Finance Commission's eyes on him from the last session. 

Ever since Daksh's orbital strikes and the launch of operations in Somalia and Burma, the amount of things he'd had to keep up with was getting only worse and worse. Well, larger and larger at least. Both fronts were beginning to pay off with the anti-piracy operations, though in Somalia things had gone a bit faster thus far than with the Burmese. By now forces were rooting farther inland after the discovery of 'dangerous and corrupt bodies' in Burma that threatened the coasts and people of the land. Ties to smugglers, human trafficker's, and the coastal pirates had been drawn well enough to take action, but the insistence on evidence had taken up time that the Burmese Government had used to shore up a bit more than expected using those criminal assets they had and whatever of the Burmese Army they had been able to muster in that short window. 

He knew what would come next regardless though. 

The current Burmese Government was already being outed in the news for its rampant corruption, accused crimes, and other human rights violations in the wake of securing the Burmese coast from piracy. Likewise the Pakistani falsified documents and false reports about the Kashimirian Orbital Strike had already begun to make them less trustworthy as they seemed to scramble for ground to stand on within the UN, but growing troop concentrations around Hyderabad had been of some concern. It was going well 'enough' so far at least, despite some surprise resistance from the criminals running Burma or other criminals tied to its current government in the area around the capital, and the amount of press and propaganda in both rural and urban areas was generating the needed soldiers here at home for the efforts. 

Yet the pressure that came from it was almost too much at times. He was trying to advise the president as best he could about how to deal with the worldwide media looking at them now, and with Pakistan getting itself moving the potential for a drive into India itself felt more and more real. Not to mention the Finance Commission was meeting more often than before as finances for the operations went out and they waited on the promised influx of revenue and resources to come in. Daksh had promised a lot to get his and the Army Minister's plans fulfilled, and so far Somalia was beginning to pan out as expected. Burma, though, was only slightly behind schedule but was making progress. 

For a first push as a part of the 'Anti-Piracy Police Action', it was an effective one learning from tactics both new and old. Yet beyond this, any other announcements and warnings and such would only be taken more seriously by others. The road from there, most likely, would get harder and also likely require greater intervention and firepower to complete, relying on the dividends paying in from the new relations and economic support going to Burma and Somalia to continue to fuel in the longer-term. 

Daksh even had pushed through plans to approach Japan for expanded economic relations! Not to mention sending someone to Moscow to speak with the Soviets about 'further economic and political ties', not that they'd ever been on bad grounds to his knowledge, though he would have to talk still to the Department of Atomic Energy about what Daksh wanted to propose to them. On top of this an ambassador was on their way to Brazil, of all places, to try to begin new talks with them about economic ties.  

Not yet were they amidst a flurry of astra aimed to annihilate them all, but even so he felt it was a potential that could arise later down the line. The man had aspirations above and beyond the heavens, and yet at the same time it felt like it could all come crashing down someday. If naught else, he would have to fight back with Daksh to try to level the man's grandiose ideas out...or at least get him to fund a few non-military projects in New Delhi to keep him distracted for a time without anything massive going on. Maybe. 

The man was supposed to be more subject to him technically speaking, but in the end the latter had a more forceful and charismatic personality to get things done and what he wanted it seemed. Ishann hadn't been much of a fan becoming Prime Minister, usually among the more quiet members of the parliament, but had entered the position as a means to fulfill his duty when it came to his own conscience. Some thought him to be a 'push-over', as the western saying went, but all the same he wasn't a man of the public but a man who knew his office well at least. A man who could get people to ease down, work things out, and try to keep the peace. 

Ugh. He could hear the complaints already, or at least they would be that way before Daksh got to them eventually. Left a bad taste in his mouth, all of it.  

But it was about time to stop work for the day at least. He could really use some of his wife's homemade mater-paneer about now...