Circumference

Hello Up There

^{Doctor Myo Seung-Heon hated the rain. It held up his efforts horrifically, and the war certainly hadn’t helped him either. For months he’d been scouring the land between Samgye and Tanhae. He just needed to find a few parts. He could manufacture most of everything else required for his grand project. He just needed some engines with intact injectors and turbopumps alongside at least one AKSM Bieup computing unit.}

^{Couldn’t be that hard to find some sitting around in an abandoned shed somewhere.}

^{Except it was. Searching fields for complex wartime equipment under the assumption the Blue Entente hadn’t already found any related components and taken them back home to pick them apart was a fool’s exercise. Perhaps even more foolish was the fact that possessing the parts, much less constructing what he had in mind, was likely a harsh violation of the Dubyeol Treaty. Yet, passion still fuelled him onwards. He just needed a few parts, he could manage it. And so he wandered. Day after day melted from sunrise to sunset in his vain search, and day after day, he came up completely empty.}

^{His students finally intervened at the dawn of the second month of his doing this. Their professor was running themself ragged chasing a daydream, and they weren’t going to see him completely explode when his body's demand for rest finally caught up to him. A few parts for a vain fantasy weren’t worth his health. Still though, a sense of undeniable pity hung in the auditorium as they awaited his arrival. They couldn’t leave him to dry, but at the same time, they couldn’t keep letting him push himself to breaking. He’d end up with pneumonia at this rate.}

^{So, as two of their older classmates, both sturdy pol-eojineun players, held the professor down against the floor before he could escape to his evening wandering session, the rest of them gaggled around his desk. One grabbed their typewriter, gingerly opening its case atop the birch desk. Loading a sheet of paper, the students began throwing out ideas for how to open their solution to Dr. Seung-Hyeon’s problems: A letter and a fake agency to send it.}

TO THE ESTEEMED DIGNITARIES OF BRYTHENNICA,

ON BEHALF OF THE VENERTIAN INTERPLANETARY SOCIETY,

We, the members of the Venertian Interplanetary Society, kindly request upon the Brythennican Government the allocation of several Type RM.1 engines, with their respective systems, alongside one ASKM Bieup computing module, for uses in the development of our nation's future.

It is the interest of the VIS to see the establishment of life beyond the atmosphere of our planet. We cannot achieve this in the current austerity conditions facing the Venertian nation, not without the assistance of those powers greater than us. Our ability to manufacture the equipment and components therein aforementioned is null. However, it remains our strong belief that with proper access to just the two pieces requested, we can successfully begin working towards that lofty goal.

Additionally, the VIS has been given the discretion over the management of a strip of land between Samgye and Tanhae, a stretch which was used by the former Imperial forces to test the type L2 ISR. It is our belief that it features the optimal qualities for the construction of a launching site for scientific endeavors, and subsequently we wish to extend an offer in return for the stated equipment. Brythennica would retain rights to use any launchpad created by the VIS for development of their own systems, scientific or military, at any time. Oversight, maintenance, and funding for the site would be handled entirely by the VIS, with no strain on Brythennican interests.

The VIS can handle the manufacture of all other components void the Type RM.1 and the ASKM. With Brythennica’s assistance, life can begin its journey beyond our humble atmosphere. Subsequently, we extend our lofty requests with the highest hopes and best of intentions between our nations.

With All Respects Due,

The Workers of the Venertian Interplanetary Society

February 4th, 1950

^{As one of his students runs the letter to the campus post office, Seung-Hyeon finally finds some sense of relief, if only from his students' forcing. After all, it’s merely a waiting game now.}

_{Mentions - Brythennica}

_{It’s an Honorable Field}

^{Hyong Huinpangsa was many things. A former soldier of the Boreal War, engineer responsible for the creation of the Venertian Empire’s largest automotive manufacturing firm, and the deaths of untold thousands. He hadn’t set out to do the latter of those three, but, such was the inevitability that came with war. Armies needed trucks and Air Forces needed bearings and airframe components. Was hardly his fault he happened to have existing manufacturing plants that could easily be converted for military operation.}

^{It wasn’t his fault that when B-Nari flew over the cities of his homeland and struck his factories that men decided to stay at their posts. He couldn’t be blamed for those who burned next to unfinished engine blocks and drums of mill lubricant. After all, not like he could refuse the junta’s orders to assure every man knew it was their job to assure the survival of the empire. Including if it meant trying to fight napalm fires with broken spigots and dried up wells to save a factory. Assuredly, no blame could come his way. Another industrialist held at gunpoint to produce war materials, nothing more, nothing less.}

^{The years following the war were the only times he wondered if Gochujang was punishing him. For the sins he denied, the ones he hid beneath lies. The ones he tried so desperately to distance himself lest the VEA decide they missed him during the trials. Under no circumstances was he keen on swinging from his neck to receiving a bullet against a cold wall of one of his former factories. If the worst of it was his company doing poorly, perhaps there was such a thing as mercy even for a man as red-handed as he.}

^{Most of the trouble boiled down to the lack of aluminum within the country. A majority of the vehicles produced by Huinpangsa required it for their body work, as the engines produced by the company lacked the power output necessary for heavier steel construction. But, with an utter lack of aluminum void whatever was pulled off scrapped aircraft, they’d struggled to produce much of anything. However, those very same aircraft had begun giving him an idea. Over the course of the war, thousands of aviation motors had been constructed at his plants. Vital knowledge on large displacement engines had been gained by his engineers. He didn’t have to continue ordering production on tiny 600cc engines. Suddenly, the idea of inline-sixes and V8’s outputting ridiculous levels of power were on the table.}

^{He’d offhandedly mentioned the idea to his chief engineer over tea. A few weeks later, what had been disguised as a tangential daydream had a blueprint. It stared up at him from the surface of his desk, chalky white lines providing exactly what he needed. A 4L I-6 automobile with steel bodywork capable of reaching speeds in excess of 70 miles an hour. The only thing it lacked was a name, an honor he had the privilege of on every car he’d ever produced. It didn’t take much thought to come up with one. After all, at this point, there was only one major source of steel in the country, and it wasn’t factory fresh. It came in destroyed, warped chunks, pulled from the very undead warriors that he had helped produce. Battleships, destroyers, submarines, any ship that had been made in the years of the war. All were majority steel, and now they sat in scrapyards, melted down into their base materials.}

^{There was only one appropriate name for such an origin.}

^{The Huinpangsa Admiral.}

_{Google the 1950 Studebaker Commander for the IRL equivalent. V8 comes next year.}

Have Asperline, Will Travel

^{The line between Soranuo and Yamarano had always been a particularly quiet stretch of the Venertian National Railway. A forty-five minute long trip pulled along by an aging yet ever reliable Type C57, it wasn’t by any means the most popular line, yet, it still had enough demand that the relatively minute cost of operating the line could be excused. Not like the country was necessarily in a state that it could really pick or choose. Without the rail connection, the commute for anyone traveling to work at any of the numerous manufacturing plants in Yamarano’s outskirts would be more to the length of two or three hours, an unacceptable loss of productive time.}

^{Rail Lieutenant Kam Tae-Yeon had been the engineer for the line since 1945. When he’d turned eighteen, with the war still raging, his father had intentionally allowed himself to be injured by a failed regulator valve. The burns were sufficient to send him to hospital, but at the same time, it also permitted Tae-Yeon to move from engineer apprentice to a full-time locomotive engineer. Blistered skin and irritated red was the one thing that saved him from being shipped off. There was a substantial chance he would’ve ended up dead. He’d heard all about the Nogsaeg Atoll campaign. There’d been no mercy for those soldiers. So, he was perfectly content still operating C57126 along the relatively small strip of rail. His father had long since recovered, finding work in the railway’s personnel department. So, there was little guilt in his mind, much at his father’s endless insistence. Plus, of all the jobs one could have in the Empire, being a little warm and covered with coal grime wasn’t such a bad fate.}

^{September 18th, 1947 was proving to be a similarly routine day. He rose at 5:00 AM, about twenty minutes earlier than usual. Though he only lived a short way away from the stockyard in Soranuo, he was intent on not skipping out on his morning breakfast ration. It wasn’t brilliant, just some black bread and rice, but it was better than trying to hope a local would give him something (though it wasn’t uncommon, he always felt bad. These people had little, what did he deserve of their property?). He sat quietly at the table. His family would not wake for another few hours still, so he ate as silently as possible. They deserved every modicum of rest they could get.}

^{Leaving his home by 6:15, fully dressed and ready for the day, he arrived at the Soranuo stockyard fifteen minutes before the start of his shift, long enough to steal some tea and begin warming the locomotive. His firemen arrived not much later. Sun Ujin was a wide, bulking man, who’d nearly been forced by his local recruiter to the front, but avoided it via his aforementioned imposing figure. He’d spooked the recruiter from his doorstep before he even had a chance to mention Imperial service to him. So, he remained a faithful employee of the VNR, stoking fires and shoveling coal, happy as could ever be.}

^{The two had quietly sat inside the cab of locomotive C57126 as her fire gently began to grow. It was another half-an-hour until she was steaming, but, by 6:45, she’d been moved from the engine sheds and retrieved her coaches from the yard at the end of the line. At no more than 15 miles an hour, she gently shuffled her way into Soranuo’s central station, pistons gently coating the concrete platform like a low-hanging fog. Tae-Yeon left Ujin behind temporarily, exiting the cab to make his way to the station’s guard room. His usual guard, Im Ki-Nam, was running behind. He’d catch the train en route at the midway station of Hengsan. With this knowledge, Tae-Yeon said nothing. It wasn’t the first time they’d run without a guard, but he trusted the conductor was well enough trained in case of any emergency arising. So, he silently exited the room, returning to the cab of his locomotive as passengers began flooding onto her caramel brown carriages. It was only a few moments later that the conductor, Song Ji-Hu, leaned his head out the window of the rear carriage, whistle hanging loosely in his mouth as its shrill sound ripped across the length of the station’s platform and up to Tae-Yeon’s ears. He needed no further instruction, and thus opened up the regulator. With a great huff of steam, and a groaning of her driving wheels, the old locomotive gently began pulling away from the station’s enclosure.}

^{Around fifteen minutes later, at 7:00, he gently closed the regulator again, ever so slightly applying the brakes to the main drivers as the locomotive gently glided along the rails. Though it was always part of the branchline, Hengsan was perhaps the most disused of the three stations the spider web of silvery rail supported. The only reason Tae-Yeon even bothered stopping was that he was mandated (to the endless displeasure of those in the carriage just behind his locomotive’s tender), and because Ki-Nam was a drunk who insisted the whiskey tasted better in the tiny village. It wasn’t the first time he’d been picked up at the decrepit station, and it most certainly would not be the last.}

^{He watched silently as Ki-Nam approached the cab, staring gently at his fellow coworkers.}

^{“So, was it soju or more of that swill you call a drink this time?” Tae-yeon gently teased.}

^{“The finest Four Society blend of whiskey, and don’t you call it anything else.” The scruffy conductor grumbled. “Now, do you have an asperline or not?”}

^{Not wishing to miss the fun, Ujin leaned on his shovel, a sh*t-eating grin stretching across his face. “No dice. Hopefully some old lady has some you can have. Again.”}

^{Ki-Nam says nothing intelligible, likely a string of obscenities meant for the man’s being a smart*ss. He quickly turns away from the cab, walking down the length of the train to assure everything is ship-shape before relieving the conductor of any additional duties his absence had burned the poor old man with. Tae-Yeon has half a mind to tell Ujin to not stir the sh*t pot, but he was equally if not more guilty. Admittedly, it was far too fun messing with the older man. With no additional delay, he checked that no one had only now attempted to exit his train. Seeing none, he threw the regulator to three-quarters open, the engine grunting and wheezing before smoothly beginning to roll along the tracks that snaked along in front of it.}

^{Not long after, they’d arrived in Yamarano. It was no later than 7:30 AM. For as much as the Carnolians used to brag, it was always the Venertians who knew how to make a train run on time. The station was built not long after the Hyomin Restoration, its design more western and modern then most other stations than could be found in the country’s major cities. A glass ceiling allowed sunlight to gently beam down onto the enclosed platforms, and long milky gray platforms stretched out to hug the rails. It was more akin to a grand exhibition hall than a rail station, but that made it all the more beautiful to anyone making the journey.}

^{It was this exact cycle that the three railmen followed for the remainder of the day. Pick up passengers in Soranou, make a pit stop at Hengsan, then steam with the regulator at full open to Yamarano. It didn’t make for a terribly exciting 12 hour day, but it was certainly better than getting chewed up in the Norudo war-machine. Or being shot by the junta militias.}

^{By 3:45, they’d already made six runs to the bustling city, and had freshly arrived in Soranou to pick up yet another bustle of shoppers, beggars, and workers for the defense plants 47 miles to their south. It was only then that a lone B-nari flew overhead. It was strange. Soranou had never been a likely target, at least in the minds of the Imperial Army. It’s why the air defenses were operated only by the local Civil Defense Union, and even still, they were old leftovers from the Boreal War. They couldn’t reach the altitudes at which B-nari glided across the sky. Even beyond that, no interceptors ever were designated to the airspace. It effectively left the city defenseless. But then again, it wasn’t a major city, it lacked any actual substantial industry. Unless the Norudo were so cocky as to firebomb with a city with a single bomber, Tae-Yeon doubted it was anything more than a stray. To his great frustration though, the stationmaster still ordered a three minute delay. There was no certainty in warfare, and he made it clear that irregardless of it being one bomber versus 100, there would be no approval until it left the airspace.}

^{Even when the train was finally cleared, Tae-Yeon knew there’d be no making up for the lost time. Regardless of how fast he pushed the locomotive down the rails, they’d be three minutes late. While it seemed a small amount of time, that was time he’d inevitably have to explain the loss of to the stationmaster at Yamarano. When he pointed at the Soranou stationmaster, he’d inevitably deny it and the whole nightmare would continue. The only small relief was that Yamarano was still 45 minutes away. For the time being, he didn’t have to explain jacksh*t.}

_{Part one of two. It is 44 minutes to midnight.}

03 DECEMBER 1950

제삼성
V E N E R T I A

ACHIM ALLIM | THE MORNING ROOSTER




VENERTIAN OIL TANKER ATTACKED BY UNKNOWN VESSEL

The VR Cheos-jinghu was raided by unknown forces late last night.

_{WRITTEN BY POK SEONG-JIN
LOCAL CORRESPONDENT | WONJU}
_{At 11:40 PM last night, the merchant oiler VR Cheos-jinghu was halted by an unknown surface vessel and was forced to supply its assailant with a portion of the heavy fuel oil she was carrying to nearby Kusong. The oiler received light damage from an unknown weapon affixed to the attacking ship, but the shrapnel pattern has yet to be identified as belonging to any foreign navy. A total of 770 tons of oil was requisitioned by the vessel before it swiftly departed into the night.}

_{“It was like it just disappeared,” said seaman Sa Seong, “it came out of nowhere, shot at us, ordered we supply it or be sunk, and then just disappeared again like nothing.”}

_{An investigation into the incident has been opened by order of Admiral Mikasa, but findings remain scarce. The most vital revelation thus far has been that the vessel was able to accept the standardized Type 6 valve connector, likely meaning the ship was of Venertian origin. Additionally, testimony from the crew of the Cheos-jinghu has made clear that the crew of the vessel was also fluent in Venertian, with no signs of an accent or other trip-ups in the language. Whether or not the vessel was under control of Imperial remnants remains unclear, however the investigative committee has not ruled out the possibility.}

_{“Hundreds of miscellaneous vessels remain unaccounted for, with most presumed sunk,” said Vice Admiral Kyo Jong-Yul, “it is not impossible for this to be a stray ship that we had previously considered lost. Irregardless, it remains our highest priority to locate and neutralize this vessel. Our nation cannot continue suffering economic losses because some rogues cannot accept defeat.”}

_{More as it comes from Achim Allim, Wonju’s #1 Newspaper}

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