Where is the "Estrella del Sur"?

[Condottiero]

It was two in the morning when the phone rang. There should be one very good reason for interrupting Don Rodrigo’s sleep. Two in the morning!

- Yes…. Rodrigo Alvarado de Queiruán speaking…

- Sire, I´m really sorry to bother you. But the PM is summoning the cabinet.

His brain received the information but was not able to make sense of it… The PM was summoning the cabinet. He, as minister of the army, knew that the rebels of the south were planning an offensive by the end of the Ramadan. They have never attacked during that festivity!

- Sire?

The voice on the other side of the line requested his attention.
- Yeah, sure. I’ll be in the Presidential Palace in…
- An armoured car will pick you in ten minutes.
- An armoured vehicle?

In that precise moment Don Rodrigo de Alvarado y Xauén, minister of defense of the Kingdom of Spanish Africa, realized something was going on really wrong.


(.................)

- So we are doing all this racket because of a missing merchant ship…

Don Rodrigo never understood why somebody so stupid as Don Manuel Pérez de Alcalá has become minister… Don Rodrigo was angered.

- Maybe the “Estrella del Sur� is just a merchant. A merchant like any other, but her cargo was not. She carried ten brand new “Spitfire� fighters, ammo and spare parts for our fighters.- It was useless to continue addressing to that PLAE stupid- When did we loose contact with the ship?

- The “Estrella� was being escorted by an Spanish destroyer. One of our own ships was waiting to relieve it, but suddenly all radio contact was lost with both the “Estrella del Sur� and the Spanish escort. We have been trying since then to contact with our Spanish and British allies. Unsuccessfully.

- Sunk?

In that moment, both the British and the Spanish ambassadors entered the Room.

- We have lost contact with our respective governments… do you know if we are at war with the German Empire?

[Grey Wolf]

Very nice !!!

I suppose it is called the presidential palace because in Spanish your Prime Ministers are something like president of the council or assembly ? I remember during the run-up to the Iraq War when everyone though Aznar had just promoted himself !

Estrella...there was a girl named that in 'Halfway Across The Galaxy and turn left' I think. What does it mean ? Something astronomical ?

Grey Wolf

[Condottiero]

Yes, it is confusing. Our PM real title is President of the Government.

"Estrella del Sur" is Southern Star

[Condottiero]

One hour before the sun appeared over the horizon Captain Ã�lvaro RamÃ*rez ordered the GR T-12 to descend over the south coast of the Iberian Union. There have been a lot of radio activity from the High Command of the Royal Air force. Apparently a couple of ships were missing, an Spanish (Iberic as they called themselves now) destroyer and a north African transport, the contact through telephonic and telegraphic lines had been cut and radio contact was, at best, confusing. The men suspected that the German Empire was on the move again, probably trying to swallow what was left of France and another piece from the rest of the allies.

Something was wrong on the coast, he had flown over these coasts thousands of times during the last ten years and the towns and villages were not on the right place. His men had also realized the changes and looked at him, his captain. A decision has to be taken. The radio operation required his attention to hear a transmission from a local radio station. They were military marches and some sort of public address of a general... unfortunately the transmission was interrupted there, but apparently the Iberic Union government had been deposed by a military junta, who called themselves fascists or something like that. Now he was sure, the German Empire was again on the move. He ordered the radio operator to communicate with Tangiers HQ, but he told him to wait, apparently they were receiving a morse transmission in which they were ordered to identify themselves or… There the communication was lost. Captain Ramirez ordered to go back to the African coast following the iberic coastline until Cape Tarifa.

They were about to leave iberic airspace when his attention was required elsewhere: three unknown planes were approaching from the east. Captain RamÃ*rez ordered to release the two biplane fighters and to ascend, he was confused, he could not understand why they were being attacked.

The silence in the cabin was complete when the biplanes left the airship. Everybody aboard tried to follow the dog-fight. Soon it was clear that the FIAT biplanes were no match for the hostile planes, the experience of the pilots barely equalized the combat. The GR T-12 gunners managed to hit one of the attackers, but the two FIATs had been wiped from the sky. Everybody prepared for the imminent attack, the cannons on the T-12 making the cabin to shake as if the world was ending. Maybe the world was ending...

****

- In their last transmission the T-12 reported that they managed to destroy the enemy units, unfortunately ten men were dead and the airship suffered severe damages, Sire.

Defense Minister Alvarado looked back at Colonel Ben-Maimoun. He could not believe what was happening. How could this have happened without warning of our secret services or allies'? To depose the several governments in one night, he could not believe it was possible. Probably the navies of the eastern empires were already on their way to Spanish Africa. "Another Great War", he thought, "and this time we cannot be neutral".

- The session in the Parliament will start in half an hour, Sire.

He checked what the situation was: apparently there was no contact with the British Empire or the French Soviet Union, the governments of the Iberic Union and the Republic of Italy have been deposed, but there have been no communication with the embassies in Lisbon and Milan. At least the situation in the southern frontiers was normal, if you could say it is normal another attack over oil field number 5 and a huge sandstorm. At least there had been communication from the iberic authorities in the Canary Islands.

Don Rodrigo entered the parliament, the deputies were extremely altered, and rumours were probably spreading among them. He smiled at the thought of how enraged they would be when the PM declared martial law. As he seated he heard one of them crying:

- How are these events going to affect the reclamations of the touareg minorities?

Some things never change.

[Grey Wolf]

Very nicely done again, I get a real feel for your civilisation.

I didn't quite understand this, though -
"the deputies were extremely altered"
Do you mean agitated ?

The mind of man always seeks to rationalise the incomprehensible

Grey Wolf

[Condottiero]

Yep. I'm afraid my english is sometimes a bit odd. :rolleyes:

I am going to post a map of the ISOTed area and it will include a portion of the Emirate of Cirenaica (Ottoman Empire) and a portion of the Sultanate of Mali (with military advisors from the German Empire). I’m afraid Spanish Africa is going to lose the most promising oil fields. They'll have to work on natural gas propelled vehicles.
Fortunately they are going to have plenty of hellium, for the airships, as it is obtained from the natural gas processing.

[Condottiero]

Prime Minister Alvarado had listened the last report of his cousin and minister of defense Rodrigo. They have started at the same time their political careers, as members of the powerful Party of the Unity and both were the heirs of the Alvarado clan that had provided the Kingdom with generals, ministers and ambassadors for one hundred years. His uncle, Rodrigo's father, was the one that took the decision of being neutral during the Great War. And it proved to be the wisest decision. Don Carlos looked at his uncle`s portrait as if looking for help, then to his cousin who told him "I think the Germans and the austrians are behind all this, I am not sure and I do not even know how they have done it, but it is the only possibility that makes sense. The only thing I may add is that every men in our army is ready and willing to accomplish with honour what the people expect from them".

Don Carlos knew it. He stood up, looked the rest of the men in the War Council, smiled and left the room. It was surely the weirdest situation a northafrican prime ministers had ever faced, and it was him the one that had to report the King about it. He had been all the afternoon hearing reports, and deliberating in the War Council but he was not sure of what the real situation was.

He entered the room where the king was waiting. King Juan looked seriously to Don Carlos, smiled and told him: "Carlos, my friend, I trust you. What is exactly going on?"

"My lord we are not sure of what we are facing. There is a set of political, military and even geographical and phisical events that defy our understanding. Everything seems to have started last night, the event that triggered all the alarms was the disappearing of the "Estrella del Sur", a ship carrying valuable airships. It was lost without any previous warning or radio request of help with his escort. However the first evidences of the 'event' were noticed on the astronomic observatories of el-Borma and mount Aberdouz, on the former a scientist named Eugenio... it does not matter now. This astronomer observed weird lights in the sky, as if it were an Aurora borealis, which it is almost impossible. The phenomenon was not observed on the coastal cities because of the unusual sandstorm that clouded the skies, and that according some meteorologists may be linked to it. But that has not been confirmed. These scientists were using some sort of detection device, that uses radiofrequency, to study the stars. It seems that the 'event' was followed by abnormal levels of radiation, he told us something about alpha particles and gamma radiation...

Then an airship looking for the "Estrella del Sur" was attacked by hostile airplanes on the spanish si... excuse me, iberic side of the Gibraltar strait. Apparently there have been a coup d'etat there, our intelligence networks have not warned us about that possibility and in fact the Iberian ambassador has not been able to contact with his government in Lisbon... that leads us to the following trigger we had lost all contact with our allies: the British Empire, Italy, the Iberian peninsula and the Americas. We thought that we were under attack and so, as we talked this morning, we sent several exploratory airships over Ottoman, spanish and Tumbuktuan territories.

It seems that some... iberic cities are not were they should be, there is a 'new' huge river on the cirenaic coast 160 leagues to the west of the Nile, with swamps, lakes and unknown cities. We have lost one Oilfield by the ottoman border, we thought that it had been destroyed so the Defense Minister ordered a preventive limited offensive over ottoman territory, as regulated on the article 317.b of the Constitution. There was minimal resistance, and the prisoners were confuse as they had, apparently lost contact with their Headquarters in Tripoli and Istambul. A similar offensive was performed over some remote Tumbuktuan outposts, and they had lost contact with their high command as well. Later on we were told by the paratroopers that retook the oilfield that it was as if the Oilfield has never been there.

The situation on the southern border is normal, there was some mobilization on the Sultan's side, but it seems that they have also lost contact with Tumbuktu. The offensives have been stopped but we are still in full alert and there are patrols in all our borders.

The last news are that we have communication with the Naval Iberic command on Las Palmas, and with the Colonial British Command in Niger. We have sent some airplanes with inteligence agents to meet the iberic and british authorities in order to gather information and reassure our allies.

We are also planning to contact again the new authorities in the Iberian Peninsula, maybe by radio will be safe, Italy and the Ottoman territories, but we are very cautious... One more thing apparently we are receiving radio messages from countries and nations that... do not exist, have never existed or do not exist any more. It`s a bit confusing, and it is probably a psicological war technique. We are trying to determine from were they come from.

I do not know if we are at war or not, but obviously it is the more probable scenario. My Lord, I'm afraid we must think the worst. Maybe some sort of secret weapon developed by the germans... "

"I trust fully in you, my old friend. Let's wait and see... I'll address our people in one our".

[Condottiero]

The crisis cabinet members were exhausted. The last reports had been quite unexpected: an unknow civilization found in Cirenaica speaking a long forgotten language (the last theories, one hour ago, suggested a nilosaharian language of the family of Komuz), while there were no news from the Ottomans; there were some scientist working on the edge of the "normal" area and the "new" one, they were reporting unusual high levels of radiation whose half-life situated the origin in the moment of the "event" (as it was called now); there were radio transmissions of countries that did not exist, and according to what some of them said the disorder was world wide. At least something was clear they were not under attack, unless the rebels in the Iberic Union (if they were rebels, which was not clear) or the tumbuktuans (who were performing odd movements of troops in the border) decided to change that.

King John stood up, "Please continue without me, you're doing a great work. Chancelor Martinez Campos come with me, we have a meeting with the diplomatic representatives".

[Condottiero]

It was rather unusual that the Prime Minister acted as secretary, but Don Carlos wanted to be sure that they had not forgotten anything important.

- So, as Don Rodrigo has reminded us, martial law has been proclaimed and all our armed forces are in state of war alert. Apparently there are no moves of troops in the neighborhood of our borders, the only noticeable events had been the combat in Gibraltar strait and the occupation of the Ottoman Cirenaica province and colonies not affected by the event. Don ramón is going to communicate our decision to the ottoman ambassador that this status will be kept until the sovereignty of this region is properly established. Although this affects other areas Don Rodrigo has told us that all the sensible industries, such us military, automobile, electronic, chemical, oil derivatives, natural gas, etc should militarized in order to reinforce our armed forces with the mobilization of one hundred thousand reservists.

Don Rodrigo agreed and added:

- Maybe it sounds a bit exaggerated but as long as we have a consistent scientific explanation of the nature of the event, we must think that we are under attack.

- Concerning the nature of the event, our colleague the Minister of Science and Technological Advance has read us the report from Professor Rufino Yubero who cooperated with professor Erwin Schröedinger, about the possible existence of Multiverses or Multiple Universes... maybe we should require Professor's Yubero presence in the next meeting. And that a massive oscilation in the space-time continuum could have altered the nature of our universes mixing it with other alternative universes aroused from Scröedinger's Uncertainty principle. That leads us to the real possibility that this event has "sent" us to an alternative Earth in which other regions coming from other alternative histories or timelines have mixed... - Prime Minister Don Carlos looked at his ministers- I know, I know gentlemen, it also sounds as chinese to me, but if our eminent scientists think that such event might be possible though highly improbable, then we should at least consider that possibility.

Don Carlos addressed to his Economy and Budget minister:

- It also seems that we have lost one third of our freighters fleet, that, if we attend to the secret weapon theory, surely have been destroyed, or that, if we attend to the space-time alteration theory, have been left in our universe. However it has been compensated with the foreign ships that have been confiscated in our territorial waters. It has been suggested that we should explain the crews what the situation is and that we could offer them to join our commercial fleet, once we have studied case by case. It has also been noticed that the cargo of these freighters is been evaluated in case it should be destined to support our was effort - there was a murmur of approval - Then we have to consider the meeting that Don Ramón is going to have with the foreign ambassadors in the Foreign Office. The main point will be offering our Iberic Union allies in Macaronesia some sort of Confederation until the situation in the Peninsula is clarified, verify the new situation the British Central Africa and the verify the policy of our southern neighbors of the tumbuktuan sultanate. This is one of the hot points of the agenda as massive troop mobilization has been detected in direction to the south and the British Central Africa border. Don Ramón has also reported about the mission in the Cirenaican coast and his intentions of sending diplomatic missions to the main countries in the Mediterranean basin, Africa and probably the Americas. Maybe it's too much Ramón...

- No Carlos, don't worry, sooner or later we'll have to cope with that.

- Then we have the problem with the council of Faiths...

[Grey Wolf]

Excellent Condottiero, a pleasure to read and fun to see Schrodinger referenced - if Heisenberg in General Paul's Germany gets word that you refer to it as the Schrodinger Uncertainty Principle he'll go nuts !

Also nice to see another government employing scientists to look into cause, and economists to look into effect

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

[Condottiero]

I could not resist to make such a change ;) .

But I was not sure anyone was going to notice it.

[Condottiero]

Don Rodrigo read once more time the report. The situation was not so bad. With the iberic designs they could build some of their more advanced IS fighters, they were not spitfires but they could stand the ground against the faster spanish ones. The problem was the lack of minerals: they needed desperately wolfram and aluminium, he wished the americans could provide them with some of them, and rubber! That would be great.

At least they were in conditions of finishing the new armoured division and subtitute the old Centurions of 28 mm with their new Atlas with 52 mm, they should also build three hundred fighters, what would at least be three months time, and duplicate their airship and autogyro fleet.

Too many things to think about, and probably no time to do it, as he had more urgent matters to deal with. If the operations in support of the british were successful he was going to order the ocupation of the Cabo Verde Islands. A squadron of fast ships there could cut any help from the Germanic colonies to the south.

- Sire, the attack on the tumbuktuan positions has started...