The Technological Kingdom

Central Calendar 17th Day of the 1st month of the Year 1635

Muri village, Southern Kalinga

The small coastal village of Muri was celebrating a wedding ceremony. Hindu culture dictates that the wedding of smallfolk should be celebrated after sunset and the entire village was lit up that night.

Unknown to them, about a hundred soldiers had just landed on the coast 2 kilometers away. These men were lightly armored and carried swords and shields much like medieval soldiers. The men followed the bright lights of the celebrations and landmarks designated by scouts to get to the border of the village. They split up into several smaller groups with each moving on to kill any unfortunate civilian sleeping in their homes. On reaching the village hall the groups reassembled, blocked all exit routes and charged at the unsuspecting unarmed villagers.

The villagers tried retaliating however they could with improvised weapons but they were mere farmers facing cruel soldiers. Despite their resistance, every villager in the hall was cut down. The leader of the troop stepped towards a wounded man. "Was there a wedding going on? My my, didn't we pick the worst possible moment to attack?"

"You spineless bastards! How have we ever wronged you?" A downed villager snarled.

"Eh beats me. I have been tasked to take some lives, and that's what I am gonna do. But first, some entertainment! Men, bring me the bride."

The atrocities continued till late midnight. After making sure that no Kalingan drew breath anymore in that village, Commander Aden ordered his men to torch it all down. The soldiers retreated back to the ships that had brought them here, celebrating a job well done.

A week after the incident, the Block Development Officer who usually toured the village to keep in touch with the locals and their issues was overcome by the rotting stench of bodies. The horrifying sight made him and most of his retinue lose their lunches. The incident was reported immediately to the Secretariat and Birju called for an emergency meeting.

***

The Secretariat, a week after the Muri Massacre

"We have confirmation that this was indeed a Lourian attack on our shores. The sailors in our prisons recognized the weapons and equipment left behind by the raiders."

"This must have been revenge for all those ships sunk by our navy." Krishnan growled. "If only someone managed to exercise restraint" He glowered at Vivek.

"I am not going to hold my men responsible for the incident. The Lourians attacked first, killing several of our shipmates. The punishment was just."

"And what about this, Vivek? Is the Massacre of Muri justified? After all, they only took revenge for the sailors that YOUR men killed?"

Birju tried to break up the argument before it could devolve any further. "That's enough, both of you. No matter how much you bicker, it does not change the fact that the damage is done. People would be looking at us for an appropriate response."

"We cannot afford an escalation, Mr Chief Minister!" Krishnan said. "We don't have nearly as many men as we need to mount an assault."

"Who's talking about a frontal attack, Krishnan?" Birju chided "How are our chemical industries coping with the transference? Have there been any problems?" He asked as he started writing furiously on a notepad.

"They have stopped production citing the non-demand of chemical reagents as most of our major industries have been operating at the bare minimum capacity as well as unavailability of raw materials." Nitesh replied.

"Very well then" Birju ripped the page off the notepad and handed it to Krishnan. "Ask them if they can synthesize these chemicals in considerable amounts."

Krishnan read the list and paled "You can't seriously be considering this…"

"I am."

"Thi-this is inhumane! This goes against all forms of morality!"

"DO I LOOK LIKE I GIVE A DAMN?" Birju roared. "Our people have been hurt! How is your blood not boiling right now, Krishnan?"

Ravi took the list off Krishnan's trembling hand and smirked upon reading it. "If Krishnan does not have the stomach then allow me to take charge of this mission."

"I want a report on my table within a week." Birju dismissed the meeting.

***

Onboard a ship bound to the Mu Empire

While horrors were unfolding back home, Saurav was on his way to Mu to sell his Curta Calculators and secure trade and diplomatic relations with the superpower. He and his crew were lucky to get a transport ship from the port city of Esthirant to Cartalpus in the Holy Mirishial Empire. The crew took a 2 day break to look around and explore the city and their jaws dropped to the ground when they saw magic literally unfolding in front of them. They bought a book on simple magic runes and a significant amount of magic stones for research purposes.

The second leg of the journey, from Cartalpus to Ainak was nowhere nearly as fun. The sea was choppy and made Saurav sick. While he was fine sailing in the sea once I a while on his boat, a forty day long journey was not his idea of fun. But he persevered and reached Ainak.

***

Central Calendar 20th Day of the 2nd month of the Year 1635,

Ainak Military Base

"Technical Officer Myrus Leclerc, reporting!"

"Take a seat, Myrus. I trust you received the letter from our ambassador at Parpaldia?"

"Yes sir, I received a copy. The device that he describes is the most astonishing one. I am not sure about the pricing though."

"I was thinking that rangefinding would become much simpler with a small portable computer. Imagine killing the target in one shot!"

"Let's hold our horses till we see the final product." Myrus replied. "May I know how I can help with this situation?"

Myrus was given the task of dealing with the diplomat and make sure to impress upon him Mu's superiority in every aspect. Since this country does not have magic, other nations won't be interested in them. Still it won't hurt to take precautions.

Myrus welcomed the diplomat from the Republic of Kalinga at the port and drove him to Ainak airbase. They chatted about their countries and culture and Saurav was fascinated with the 'Vintage' car that Myrus drove. Although why the barbarian would call a state-of-the-art vehicle 'vintage' was anybody's guess. The diplomat's knowledge about cars was quite exemplary, leading Myrus to believe that vehicles in Kalinga might be as good as if not better than Mu's. He re-evaluated his opinion about this nation's technological prowess.

On reaching the airbase, he saw Saurav demonstrating the use of the Curta Calculator and its applications. The army personnel present at the demonstrations were especially impressed with its application for calculating artillery trajectories. They had their artillerymen 'field test' it under the pressure of an imaginary bombing raid and after a few initial fumbles they were fluently calculating trajectories and angles and achieving a kill with the first shot more often. Saurav explained to the personnel that instead of eyeballing their targets they can now precisely snipe them. This would save ammunition and lives. It could even change the way artillery warfare is conducted.

Each calculator was covered in a transparent packet. It felt odd to touch, and Myrus could not recognize the material it was made up of. When he asked Saurav about it he casually replied that it was plastic, an artificial material. Myrus asked him if this 'plastic' was for sale but a despondent Saurav replied that the chemical industry was suffering massive setbacks due to lack of base chemicals and it would take years to reach their previous output, unless Mu was feeling charitable.

After the successful test and sale of ten Curta Calculators and finalizing procurement of 30 more devices, Myrus took Saurav on a tour of the air base. Saurav was looking around at Mu's planes wide-eyed, like a kid in a candy store. When the duo reached the hangar that housed the first production model of the Marin fighter plane, Saurav could not stop his jaw from hitting the floor.

"IS THAT A BIPLANE!?" Saurav exclaimed when he saw the brand new aircraft. Myrus mistook his nostalgic excitement for surprise and asked, "You seem familiar with the concept. Does your country have airplanes as well?"

"Well yeah but none as cool as this one! How powerful is the engine you use on this plane."

"That is a government secret, I am afraid." Myrus smiled. "However our older engines that are now relegated for civilian use can output about two hundred horsepower."

"We have combustion engines that produce that much power but they are very heavy. We mostly use them in trucks and boats. Our experimental airplane engines produce about a hundred horsepower." Saurav replied.

'Is he an idiot? Why is he spouting out state secrets so carelessly?' Myrus thought. 'Anyhow, if their experimental engines are that weak, then they would barely be able to fight wyverns, let alone the Marin.'

The next day he took Sourav to tour the La Kasami battleship. He only showed him the outside of the ship. But even that was enough to awe the poor barbarian.

"I swear I have never seen guns this big before. You could ravage any fleet of the Third civilization area with this!"

"Yes indeed, this is the epitome of Mu's marine engineering and shipbuilding expertise." Myrus said proudly. "

"Hmm, can you imagine a huge ship that can sink into the ocean? The enemy would only see a small exposed part and they would think it to be harmless and then BAM! A La Kasami class battleship's cannon barrels are staring at their souls!"

Myrus let out a hearty laugh at the naïve optimism of this kid. "As brilliant as that idea sounds, in practice it is not possible to submerge and then resurface a ship even a fiftieth the size of La Kasami, let alone the entire battlecruiser!"

'Look at that, they have no concept of submarine warfare.' Saurav smirked inwardly. "That reminds me, our country is in dire need of docks and shipyards. While we are able to build wooden boats and smaller ships for patrolling the coastal region, we desperately need bigger ships to counter the Lourian threat building up near our borders. Not to mention the possibility of Parpaldian aggression."

"We could always cooperate to build a shipyard in your country. But what would you give us in return?"

"My country could build and maintain ships for you for free, for a period of five years."

"Make that fifteen years."

"Ten years is the best I can do, I am afraid."

"How about free maintenance for ten years, and restriction on the displacement of military ships that your country builds to say, two thousand tons and we would provide you with the chemicals you need to kickstart your plastic production?"

"Hmm, sounds good to me." Saurav patted himself in the back at the job well done.

Further discussions involved possible trade of iron and aluminum between the two countries and establishment of a refueling depot for Muan cargo ships. Myrus was confident that with the ship size restriction imposed, Kalinga could not pose a significant threat to their fleets and a friendly port in the relatively unknown seas in the Third civilization area would go a long way in expanding their power base and encircling the Holy Mirishal Empire.

While it may seem like Kalinga got the shorter end of the stick, Saurav had plans to bend the rules in Kalinga's favor. Warships of the 21st century did not need to be large and heavy to inflict major damage on any ship of the World War 1 era. The use of guided missiles instead of naval cannons would give Kalinga a major edge over Mu or any other navy that might threaten them. The Mu Navy also had no concept of submarine warfare and thus would be completely vulnerable to even German U Boats, if they existed in this world.

***

In his office Myrus and Saurav penned down the details of the 'Ainak Treaty' which would then get ratified by the Heads of their respective States. While relaxing after hours of brainscrambling work, Saurav saw a familiar globe on a bookshelf.

"Is that.. Myrus, what is up with that globe?"

"Oh that? That's the map of our old world. Just like you, we are a transferred nation as well. Why else did you think Ambassador Mugei so readily believed you when you told him that your country was from a different world?" Myrus walked up to the globe and pointed to the position where the Mu continent used to be on Earth. "This is where we were, according to ancient legends. We were great allies of the Yamatu people, but it has been twelve thousand years since we last saw each other."

Saurav did not say out aloud the fact that both Mu and Kalinga are actually from the same world. The horrifying implications of countries transferring from one world to the other hit him soon enough.

'What do we do when a country technologically superior to us gets transported to this planet? We would be sitting ducks!'

With this grave realization, Saurav completed his three day tour of Mu, establishing diplomatic relations and securing trade deals for Kalinga with a superpower.

Details of the Ainak Treaty:

1. Diplomatic relations between Kalinga and Mu were established.

2. Currency exchange rate was determined.

3. Items for trade between the two countries, especially Iron ore and bauxite from Kalinga were listed.

4. Mu would establish a shipyard in Kalinga in return of free maintenance of its ships for the next ten years

5. Kalinga would not be allowed to build warships with displacement greater than two thousand tons. New warship designs must be approved by the Diplomatic office at Esthirant.

6. The two nations would join forces to develop chemical industries and mechanical computers.

***

Central Calendar 22nd Day of the 2nd month of the Year 1635,

The town of Barast, Louria-Quilla border

While Saurav was on his way back home after a successful mission to Mu, preparations were on a warfooting back home to get back at the Lourians for their wrongdoings. The Chief Minister had announced the attack on their home soil and the general populace was howling for blood. The targets were decided and weapons were manufactured. Because of the lack of raw materials, only small quantities of the requested chemicals could be manufactured in laboratories. But that was enough for now.

Barast, the town selected as the target, bordered Quilla and had about eighty thousand people living in it. It also had a military garrison which was manned by two thousand of its soldiers and two Wyvern squadrons.

Eighteen men from the Central Reserve Police Force infiltrated the border through treacherous mountain valleys. Each carried two cylindrical objects the size of a 20 lb propane tank, along with their primary weapons. On infiltrating the town, they positioned the cylinders at locations decided the day before by watching drone footage. These locations were decided to maximize the lethality of this operation. After setting the cylinders and setting them to activate in two hours, the team retreated back to a safe distance, about 8 kilometers away.

As the timer on those cylinders hit zero, two flasks within each cylinder broke and mixed the chemicals they contained in a container. A battery operated motor rotated the mixture until it was homogeneous. Then, the top of the cylinder detached itself using a spring loaded mechanism and the volatile mixture evaporated quickly and spread into the surrounding area. Being heavier than air, the gas stuck close to the ground.

Within a few minutes anguish cries could be heard all over the town as people started having chest pains, runny noses and loss of bodily functions. Thousands of people were vomiting their guts out on the streets and their lungs began to spasm ultimately resulting in their deaths. After eight hours, a thermite charge would detonate under each cylinder and melt it to slag.

The drones flying overhead captured the scenes of mayhem with their cameras and transmitted it to the troops. With their mission accomplished they recovered the drones and retreated back to Quilla.