[hr]

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF UNITED WORKERS HEREBY APPROVES THE INITIATION OF OPERATION "TSAVT TANEM" AND DECLARES INITIATION OF EMERGENCY ARMED RESPONSE AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY, PURSUANT TO ARTICLES II AND III OF "TREATY OF GUARANTEE OF SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLES OF THE CAUCASUS;

 "THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF UNITED WORKERS HEREBY GUARANTEES THE INDEPENDENCE, SOVEREIGNTY, AND TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY OF THE TRANSCAUCASIAN SOVIET FEDERATIVR SOCIALIST REPUBLIC (HEREAFTER REFERRED TO AS "TSFSR" AND  "ANY VIOLATION OF THE AFOREMENTIONED GUARANTEES AGAINST THE VICTIMIZED PARTY WILL BE CONSIDERED AS A FORMAL DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF UNITED WORKERS"

DEPLOYMENT OF AND MOBILIZATION OF THE PEOPLES' ARMED FORCES IS AUTHORIZED IN FULL IN ADDITION TO BLOCKADING OPERATIONS

WAR WILL CEASE UPON: NEGOTIATED OR UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER OF THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY CONSIDERED ACCEPTABLE TO AFFECTED PARTIES

AND WHICH ADEQUATELY PROTECTS AGAINST THREAT OF LUDOBÓJSTWO (KILLING OF A PEOPLE OR NATION) PERTAINING TO PARTIES INCL. IN REPUBLIC OF TURKEY, TSFSR, PUL

THIS DOCUMENT IS DATED:
11/09/1955

TRANSLATE AND TRANSMIT TO:
TO BERLIN
TO TBILISI


[hr]



Arkadiusz groaned, lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the bright Odessa sun. The sky - the day was beautiful, despite smatterings of clouds and the chilly autumn air - but business at the airfield went about as usual regardless, pilots and aircrews rushing to and fro.

To his front, a line of four-engined beige-skinned bombers wheeled up to a concrete airstrip, and over his shoulder, drab hangars lined up by the dozens. For the briefest of moments, he paused to contemplate the fact that any of this was really happening, that he was being sent out on a real sortie for the first time in his life...

And then, sucking in a deep breath through his nose, he turned to walk perpendicular along the tails of the aircraft arrayed before him, hands stuffed deep into the warm of his jacket's pockets. 

One by one, the markings of the planes marched by - DL. DK. DĴ, plane by plane, until Arkadiusz finally arrived at the first - AA. [i]His[/i] bird. Turning to the left, he marched along the belly, past a crew of mechanics beneath it, and up to the painted image of a pretty, toned man in a cabaret outfit on the nose. Glancing up, he waved up at the pilot sitting in the glass cockpit high above, calling out her name.

"Hey, Anna! How's he holding up?"

"Fine!" The brown-haired woman said, dismissively waving away the question. "You know he's working fine, but how about the paint?"

"Perfect!" He replied, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm the artist, so of course it is."" 

Anna snorted, shaking her head as she went back to her work - looking over flight plans one last time, he assumed. Turning to climb up a small ladderinto the nose, he stared past the plush leather cushion in the bottom nose and at the bombsights, before quickly hauling himself up another handful of rungs, into a cushioned, harnessed seat behind a pair of Rheinmetall guns.

Rolling his shoulders, he let out a heavy sigh.

[i]Here we go.[i]

"Does that fancy new navigator they gave us work, by the way?" He called out.

"It better," came the reply, "or else we'll end up in Peru."

[hr]

[b]Four Hours Later[/b]

It was quiet.

Too quiet, Arkadiusz thought. Contact with Turkish fighters had been utterly nonexistent, leaving him to sit idle in his powered turret, safe, hoping that something continued to fail to happen, wind blowing past the hardened glass canopy. 

That didn't make it any less boring, though, anticipation slowly eating away at him.

"What's the word, Darijus? How far out are we?"

"Four minutes or so, give or take, eh... Thirty seconds?" The rough, gravelly voice of the crew's navigator echoed, no doubt too busy with his maps and that fancy new radio navigation system for much conversation.

That was the worst part of the sortie, so far. Not the marginally comfortable chair he'd been wasting his legs away in for four hours, or the dull, noisy rumble of the PZL. 53 Kondoro's four engines, but the anticipatory worry of what might happen next in the confines of a relatively quiet cockpit, every last person inside focused on the task of a bombing sortie hundreds upon hundreds of kilometers away from their homes.

He knew that most of his friends were doing the same, at least, and there was some comfort to be found in that. Hundreds of planes were doing the same thing as his squadron, some the same size, most smaller - nearly all laden with explosives, prepared and stockpiled months and weeks ago in anticipation of Turkish failure to back down. He saw planes lining up at airfields, the Podhale rifles and their mountain guns rolling down toward Bucharest with more divisions following behind, the new carriers and their escorts floating out of port in Gdansk...

And now he was here, over Turkey, staring down the barrel of a gun mount. At war, in a real war, not just the skirmishes of Belarus against the tattered remnants of the Imperial Army, staring down the barrels of two massive machine guns at the open sky and the mountains interspersed by valleys and villages below.

What did the villages they passed overhead think of the bombers flying overhead, he wondered? They they even recognize the roundels? Did the villagers and townsfolk think they were Turkish planes, or did they recognize them as the enemy.

"Two minutes, comrades! You should awe it start coming up soon!"

Thinking quickly, Arkadiusz dismounted from his chair, dropping down into the cockpit, them onto his stomach, pulling himself down onto the chest cushion as he dragged himself further forward, toward the black, tube-shaped contraption in front of him, studded with eyepieces and dials. 

"Ready to go!" He hollered back, cracking open a spreadsheet set into a case beside it, listing dozens upon dozens of altitude numbers and times.

Whistling, his finger trailed down the list until he found the correct setting - and back down to the sight he went, working away at the dials and knobs on the sight until the still distant shape of a cluster of buildings and bunkers in a valley came into view. 

The sound of a sharp click announced the beginning of a stopwatch, tick-tocking away as the squadron drew closer to its target, anticipation building.

One minute. The target was drawing closer, crosshairs sliding into place.

It wouldn't be much longer, he thought, reaching for the bomb bay control panel. He knew the switches by memory, but he still risked the time for a look, arming the bomb bay doors with the flick of a toggle switch. Next, his fingers crawled to the rack selectors.

He sucked in a breath through his nose - another dull thud and a curse from the pilot announced another miss, this one closer than before. Still no fighters. Another thud.

Thirty seconds.

Another thud. A louder curse. This time he saw the puff of black smoke, but the fire was still coming in intermittently - did the Turks not even know they were coming? How much damage could the aircrews do?

Fifteen. "Fifteen!" He hollered. The shapes making up the depot were clearly visible now.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

[i]Click.[/i]

The stopwatch ended, and the crosshairs aligned. A sharp clack followed, the shifting of the plane as the bombs left it... And then, nothing, aside from the explosions of anti-aircraft fire struggling to zero in on unexpected visitors below.

Then, all of a sudden, one detonation, two, three, four...

And a fireball that Arkadi was thankful he couldn't hear; one which could've lit up the sky for miles around if not for the light of the sun.

"Confirmed hit! I don't think we need to drop target flares!" He swore, shaking his head. If he could see all that black, acrid smoke billowing up from below - and the fireball that briefly dispersed it - then so could the rest of the squadron. 

The second array of explosions confirmed his theory as the [i]Fancy Dancer[/i] slowly banked to the left, turning to move back out to sea.

[hr]

[Turkish]
To the Care of the Office of the Turkish Prime Minister by Telegram,

I hope my Turkish translator has translated the following message adequately.

You have, I am certain, been made aware of the multiple retaliatory strikes made against your country. 

I do not know if you anticipated this to happen, but when you invaded the Transcaucasus, you triggered a declaration of war against your country, as we publically guarantee its sovereignty against foreign powers such as yours.

Your country, therefore, is at war both with us and our ally, the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and I strongly recommended you declare and enforce ceasefire with the TSFSR and approach the negotiating table with the TSFSR in good faith with haste, lest the PUL is forced to continue with and intensify our offensive operations. 

We will not permit you to commit slaughter. Not against the Turkish people, not the Armenians,a the Kurds, or anyone else.


You can put a stop to this. 

I strongly recommend you do so.

Signed and Written on Behalf of the General Assembly,
Representative Katarzyna Starosta