So We Meet Again [Vietnam]

So far the invasion of Palawan has gone off without a hitch, but Vietnam isn't counting it as a victory yet. She's been capturing a large number of islands in the area, actually, though this one is much larger than the others. And impossible to go unnoticed - capturing uninhabited islands is really quite easy because by definition there's nobody resisting the capture and it's not something that's immediately discovered. Of course uninhabited islands are usually uninhabited for a reason, but many of them can be overcome in the name of good wartime strategy.

This island, on the other hand, can't go unnoticed, so it's her first strong step toward seeing if she can't do something about the Philippines. They're no match for her militarily, but in this war it's not how strong an individual nation is, but how strong their allies are and whether or not said allies are available to help them. In this case she knows that Japan's attention is on other things, but Australia may be able to come up with a response and of course America has the annoying habit of being everywhere at once. In fact, this is a bit of an experiment - can she hold Palawan? If so, she can likely proceed to invade the rest of the Philippines if she deems that necessary, and if not that's a sign that she needs to be more inventive in her strategy if she's going to further secure the interests of the Pact in the area.

And it's an important enough of an experiment that she's attending to it personally. While many nations enjoy a more direct approach to war, she prefers to delegate much of what she could be doing militarily into the hands of subordinates that she trusts and instead focus her attention on the home front to ensure that her military remains properly supported. However, she's very skilled at combat as well, so she can't resist being more involved in the most important battles, and this one certainly warrants her full attention.

Actually capturing Palawan wasn't actually that difficult. Though the Philippine military had been on the alert for this very thing, she knew that the island wasn't nearly as modernized as some of the larger ones, but that's so much to her advantage - fighting through unspoiled wilderness is a specialty of hers and the lack of a dense population in most of the island meant that it was harder for the people there to resist, especially since she'd attacked suddenly and in force, concentrating much of her efforts in securing all lines of communication first to prevent them from getting help too quickly.

No, the difficulty with this island would be hanging onto it, so she came armed to the teeth - and as she'd hoped, the small rockets have been very effective at keeping the Philippine military from quickly retaking it. Now she's been waiting to see what happens next - she knows that they must be scrambling to pull together a major response, and she's waiting to see just how powerful that response will be. Of course, they've not been idle while they've been waiting - every minute that passes her people are more strongly fortifying their position on the island, and if a response doesn't appear before they finish she'll take that as a sign that they don't have one.

But she expects more of the Philippines than that, so she's not surprised when one of her aides in their base outside of Puerto Princesa suddenly draws her attention. Earlier the communication channels had been flooded with attempts by the rest of the islands to restore contact with Palawan, but those had gone silent as the reality of what was going on was discovered. So of course her people don't fail to notice a message purposely sent to them, and when she hears it she immediately scowls - she recognizes that voice. Not just Americans, but the boy himself is here? That's unfortunate... but that alone isn't enough to daunt her. She remembers well the last time they were in a war together, and while he may be powerful she's stronger than she used to be and their difference in strength doesn't change the fact that he's still the boy and she's Vietnam.

"Don't answer - we don't listen to their demands," she orders. If he wants anything from her then he's going to have force her into giving it to him - that's always been her style - and even by sending back a quick retort that would give him at least a little information. That's not how she operates anyway - she's a master of stealth. In fact, that was a part of the psychological warfare of their last conflict - don't let the enemy see who's killing them and you become more frightening even if you're unable to kill more than a small fraction of them. She didn't even let the boy see her very many times or for very long during the entire course of the war when she could help it.

In fact, she knows that by not responding it might give him a slight clue that it's her - China and most of her other allies are much more likely seize upon such an opportunity to arrogantly announce their presence and make their own demands than she is, but most of them might also keep their silence as she is. Besides, a slight clue is much better than confirming it by letting him hear the sound of her voice - or the voice of anyone else with a Vietnamese accent, for that matter.

After answering the demand with silence, Vietnam watches the ship very carefully on their radar, as she knows that he has many options in spite of the silence on her end. Some of them include turning his ship around and leaving, though if he did she wouldn't believe for a moment that it was the last that she'd see of him. Instead she sees the ship heading closer to the island - which almost makes her roll her eyes. So predictable! He never does change, does he?

"Signal the Khánh Hoà on the secure channel. Tell them to silently shadow the ship and that they have permission to open fire at the first sign of any hostile action, including approaching a port," she says without taking her eyes away from the radar. Though she has some concern in the back of her mind that the submarine will be detected, since the American has this annoying habit of creating really advanced technology of all kinds, as the submarine is one of several that she bought from Ivan she can be hopeful that it will remain undiscovered - the man knows more than a little bit about submarines.

"Also, keep the Lý Thái Tổ informed of their position and tell them to stay off the other ship's radar - we don't want them to know it's in the area if that can be avoided," she adds, not wanting the frigate to be involved at all if it doesn't have to be. While she knows that the American has got to know that many ships were involved in the invasion of the island, she not surprisingly doesn't want to tip her hand about what has or hasn't remained to protect it.

"Signal, also, the Hải Phòng - tell them to end their patrol early and return to the island," she says, because the only thing better than one submarine is two, "And inform all island personnel to follow the visual inspection protocol immediately." Which is, in short, to make sure that they're concealed from sight from both the beaches and overhead. "If he just wants to look, let him," she comments with a slight smirk, knowing that there won't be much for him to see - her men are good at their work.

Some of the people around her look at her quizzically, wondering why she's even giving orders, let alone referring to their enemy in the singular. But when their questioning gaze turns to the general who is supposed to be in charge, at least as far as they know, he simply nods to indicate that they should follow her orders. As the American ship approaches, all signs of people being there disappear, even in the coastal towns where the normally well-populated beaches and docks are now strangely lifeless. And the only immediately visible sign of a military presence is on the beaches - on every sandy beach on the island, the sand that has not yet been disturbed by the waves are completely covered in shoeprints, as if the ground had been trampled. Which can only be intentional. Well, unless the entire Vietnamese army was landed on the island, D-Day style - that could do it too.

Deeply buried inside Vietnam is an unquenchable fire, one ready to rage to the surface at any moment. But the fact that it tends to stay there is a testament to the lessons she was taught by her brother China - she's just as capable as the others in her family of remaining calm in the most extreme situations. Even more capable than some of them.

So when that irritating, arrogant, idiotic, and annoying nation has the gall to so obnoxiously remind her of just how big of a lỗ đít he is, she doesn't have to respond. She can simply take a deep breath, imagine the sound of one hand clapping, and let it pass. But she doesn't want to. Yes, she knows that he's trying to provoke her, and she doesn't want to give him the satisfaction of succeeding, but he's being extremely rude! Fine, she's provoked!

She takes a deep breath, and rather than imagining something that would clear her mind, she decides on a suitable reply. Just because she's reacting in anger doesn't mean that she can't carefully consider her actions first. Let's see... "Send him five Harpoon, launched from several locations," she orders coldly, though there's a hint of pleasure on her face as she gives that order.

Harpoon missiles are designed to sink ships, and they're successful enough that they've been manufactured for over sixty years now - the manufacturers simply keep updating the design to keep up with the current state of the art instead of coming up with a totally new one whenever it gets outdated. But the manufacturer of all Harpoon is the United States. Who has sold them to other nations, but only to friends and allies - nobody in the Pact should have them, or at least nobody around these parts. He did sell them to a couple nations in the Middle East who have ended up on the other side of the war, but theirs would all be really old. The ones that Vietnam has, on the other hand, are fairly new.

And the fact that she asked for five at once means something. Shooting only one missile at a moving ship is a literally hit-or-miss affair. Two better ensures that you'll actually hit them. Three if you want to be really sure. If all three miss then you probably need to refine your aim a bit, by seeing where your missiles land and trying again - especially if it's the first volley. So five at once could mean a few things. It could be a sign that someone is overconfident in their aim, but that's not likely - after all, a ship can be sunk by only one if it lands in a good spot, so five is overkill. But overkill could be the point - a sign of just how angry the one giving the orders is - and that's much more likely. Also extremely likely is that it's an indication that there's not currently any need to conserve ammunition - that there's many more missiles where those came from.

Waiting for her orders to be executed and to see if the missiles find their target, while Vietnam of course hopes that they sink the ship, she's actually even more eager for America to see what's being fired at him. She's pretty sure that the Alliance's intelligence wouldn't have found out that North Korea recently gave her much of South Korea's captured military assets. But even if they did, she takes a certain extra delight in being able to launch American-made missiles at the one who made them, and she hopes that he gets the chance to see what kind they are, either way.

Vietnam just doesn't understand the logic of the American sometimes. Obviously he suspected it was she who took the island, obviously he decided to provoke her. But why? Did he actually think it was a good idea to pick a fight with her right now? If so, she's trying to decide whether that's a sign that he either has a very poor memory or if she should be insulted. Does he not remember who he's dealing with? And does he not realize that the great gulf that used to exist between their level of technology has greatly narrowed and that her army can certainly be considered world class now?

If he did remember, she would have thought that he'd realize that she wouldn't have even tried to take Palawan without a very, very good idea of how to hang on to it. Or that she wouldn't have responded to his provocation if she didn't feel that she had the upper hand. Or that he was most likely heading into a trap of some sort - Vietnam does like setting up traps, after all. At this point he should have cut his losses by eating the missiles she sent. Instead the report comes back that not only is his ship still in one piece it has fired back.

Sighing at that, she dispassionately says, "Tell the launch sites that they have incoming." That's not something for her to be too worried about personally - it's silly to launch missiles from anywhere near your headquarters when your enemy doesn't know where your headquarters is. Why encourage your enemy to aim for the brains of the operation when you can instead make a toe seem like the best target? "And if the Khánh Hoà has not already opened fire, tell them to fire at will," she adds, though she trusts that they did. She did, after all, tell them to shoot at the first sign of aggression. And launching missiles is plenty aggressive.

Of course, in a war it's always possible to miscalculate, so she doesn't take the sinking of the American's ship as a foregone conclusion, even though it probably can be - when a submarine faces off against a surface level ship the tactical advantage is just that lopsided. Though even as she waits for the report of the ship's sinking to come in, she comments, "We need to redouble our preparations - the American wants a fight. There will be more ships. Aircraft too. We will be ready." And she, on the other hand, has something else to do. Because, unbeknown to everyone else around her, there will be at least one survivor on that ship. And she's the only one on the entire island who is able to properly handle that situation.