Dawn of Mechanization

Chapter 3

January 1st, 1900
Jemcaster, United Provinces of Sartoma

Back the Fortress, the situation was still in absolute chaos. But it wasn't the sort of beyond the point of control chaos, but more of an organized chaos as the departments and staff had managed to organize things to streamline information being received throughout the country.

At present, no one was sure about what exactly was going on, as the mixed reports being received over the past hours made very little sense with what should actually be fact.

This caused many headaches, but everyone was doing their best to clear up the clutter and establish an official picture of what was happening.

The clocks now read 9:00 in the morning. At this point, a plate of glazed, powdered, and jelly donuts were provided next to the coffee items in the War Room for the Chancellor and his staff to devour and fill their stomachs while they worked on figuring things out.

Chancellor Sperl picked up one of said donuts filled with cherry jelly and proceeded to eat it on his way back to the large table in the center of the room.

"2nd Armored Division is now being reassigned along the border to up security in response to multiple attempted crossing from civilians with questionable origins." General Riemann declared as he picked up one of the markers on the table and moved it on the United Provinces and Principality border. "Hopefully with the presence of armor and additional troops it will discourage future attemptees while decreasing the chances of anyone getting through undetected."

"5th and 6th fighter squadrons have been assigned in running as aerial reconnaissance along the border." General Schwarzkopf added. "There are still reports coming in of sightings about giant winged lizards and dragons. If so, we'll want air coverage to intercept whatever is setting off these claims."

"We just got enough active ships put together into a temporary fleet to run security along our western coast." Admiral Rudel informed. "Another one is being assembled to fill in the gaps the first can't cover on their own."

"We're still waiting on those photos from our scout plane to come in." Chancellor Sperl said as he bit into his donut and swallowed. "How long until they'll arrive in our hands?"

"Sir, latest update shows they were just processed and loaded onto a plane. It could arrive at this hour or the next."

"Keep me posted. I wanna look into these photos the moment they arrive at our door. Hopefully they can shed more light on what exactly is going on. Any more updates we should be aware about right now?"

The three officers began looking through recent reports that just came in as they searched for anything of value related to their current situation. The admiral paused as his attention was focused on one of his documents and inspected it closely. "Got this one sir, from our eastern fleet on patrol." He then began reading through it.

06:45 — Multiple contacts detected on radar

06:48 — Scout plane launched to investigate

06:55 — Six unknown vessels sighted.

06:59 — Five ships attack the sixth

07:05 — Fighters arrive and destroy four ships

07:39 — Cruisers arrive and identify sixth ship

07:47 — Ship scuttled due to battle damage

"Apparently in the report, the occupants aboard this vessel are hailing themselves from the Kingdom of Arkport."

Something about that didn't make sense as General Riemann responded immediately. "The Kingdom of Arkport? That can't be right. Arkport is a city along our western coast. Where exactly did these occupants say they were from?"