“The Imperial Asanaian Navy launched multiple long-ranged ballistic missile attacks using Orlish sea-launched TSBM missiles on North Hebeian targets along the Ginzhu Province last night. The North Hebeian air defense network attempted to intercept the missiles, with reportedly sixty-eight shot down. Forty missiles however struck major North Hebeian bases, bridges, and frontline supply depots. These operations are being followed through with sporadic missile launches from Orlish surface and underwater vessels aimed at North Hebeian ground forces.”
- Geopol Press
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Kingdom of Rizalia
Saya City
December 8, 2025
It was Amelie’s birthday.
Unfortunately, the Queen had little chance to celebrate her twenty-first birthday well. Instead, she had to fly today in another arduous expedition to the Kingdom of Rizalia, an island nation lying on the southeast of Hebei. It was a colony of the old Asturian Empire a century ago, only freed by her great-grandmother so long as they remained under effective Orlish suzerainty.
Unfortunately, much like Asturia before the revolution, Rizalia had no head of state. The Kingdom had remained without a monarch for the last two decades already. It was only ruled back and forth by different regents from the bickering noble houses of the Kingdom. Thus, she was now with the fifty-year-old current Lady Regent, Angelica Lopez.
“Welcome to Rizalia,” the Rizalian regent, said with a wide smile as she received Amelie in her state room. Cameras flashed left and right. Then, Amelie shook the regent’s hand and sat with her in front of the couches. “I hope it’s been a good visit so far.”
“Saya is a pretty nice city,” Amelie confirmed with a smile, as the photographers and other officials turned to leave. With the picture-taking phase over, it was effectively time for the private dealings to begin. And in this case, she needed the small but relatively capable Rizalian Navy quickly. “I haven’t visited the Bato Naval Base yet, but I know it must be a good place as well.”
“Aha,” the regent chuckled. “Yes. Eighteen Orlish navy ships are already moored in Bato’s extensive facilities. Thousands of personnel as well. Though, quite frankly, being an Orlish base, I attribute its good nature to Orland’s diligent maintenance.”
“Lady Regent,” Amelie politely took her hand. “Look, I’ll be frank. I visited because I need a good deal for the upcoming Operation Eastern Jade. I expect that Rizalia will participate in it. Please.”
“The Rizalian Royal Navy isn’t exactly that massive, Your Majesty,” the regent shook her head. “It’s for my Kingdom’s self-defense purposes. Not for expeditionary campaigns. I only have fifteen guided missile frigates. Alongside nine guided missile destroyers. And the two helicopter carriers we possess cannot even be used for any significant offensive action.”
“I heard that the RRN Diego Silang is capable of carrying VTOL aircraft,” Amelie said. “I can send eighteen new LF-20Cs for it. For free. I just really need half of your navy to shore up our numbers. We won’t even send them into close combat either. I just need those few hundred extra VLS launchers that can send ballistic missiles on Ginzhu.”
“Is that so?” the regent raised her eyebrows. “Then why not just send a few more of Orland’s better warships?”
“Look…we’re stretched thin patrolling the world’s sea lanes. The CFN’s submarine force is still a pain…they’ve sunk sixty-seven merchant vessels last month alone. That’s millions of tonnes of shipping lost. If I pull off more destroyers, cruisers, and frigates from sea lane protection, they’ll shut down global shipping again.”
“I suppose that’s true,” the regent sighed. “Well, a squadron of LF-20s is certainly a nice deal. But I believe I need more.”
“Fine. What’s your price point?”
“I’d like a redrafting of the 1888 Treaty of Eutstadt,” the regent grinned. “Specifically, regarding the price that the Kingdom pays to station Orlish forces here. During this fiscal year, we paid eighty percent of your military’s expenses to be stationed here, as stipulated in Section V of the defense treaty.”
Amelie nodded. It was a pretty unequal treaty after all. Not only did Rizalia have to kowtow to the Orlish government, but they also had to pay Halia billions of Orlish Blancs yearly to keep their homeland protected from the previously antagonistic Hebeian Empire. But it wasn’t that bad from Amelie's perspective as well.
Rizalia, with its close ties to Orland, became her Kingdom’s main base of power projection. Hence, the Kingdom industrialized rapidly and grew economically to counteract Orland’s rivals in the area. Had it not been for the political instability that plagued Rizalia, they would have created a decent military industry to protect themselves, considering they already had the economy, technology, and workforce for it.
But they didn’t.
Thus, it was a bit audacious for her to request this. Unfortunately, Amelie was now pressed for time. She needed to stitch together a credible force quickly.
“So how much do you want to lower it?”
“I want my Kingdom to only pay twenty percent from now on,” the regent said, nodding. “Look, we gave you our land as your base already. Shouldn’t you be paying us for the lease? Now, of course, that would be stupid, so I’m not going to ask for that.”
“Indeed. You’re benefitting from it.”
“But, regardless, in exchange for us sending our navy to support you in a war that, quite frankly, we have no interest in,” the regent shook her head. “You make us pay less from now on. It may be small for Orland, but all those new Itak-Class Guided Missile Destroyers are worth two billion Orlish blancs each. And it’s not like we can replace them fast with our new shipyards, we only have like what, six in construction?”
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“Yeah, I can understand that.”
“Indeed. That’s why, we’d be essentially sending Rizalia’s prized defense force for this. Something we cannot acceptably lose. A massive risk. So free us from the spending…long-term. Until the far future. I believe it’s a good tradeoff.”
Indeed…if they lower it…within a few decades, assuming we keep our presence here, they’d save billions more. At least, it’s not that bad of a deal for me. Mostly a financial problem. Fine…
After all, she was always going to burn a lot of taxpayer money for this conflict anyway. What would she lose from removing Rizalian funding for the Orlish forces stationed in this Kingdom, when she could have more ships for Operation Eastern Jade? Nothing, truthfully.
“Alright,” Amelie took and shook her hand. “I’ll get Prime Minister Heiss and Foreign Minister Wallenstein working on it. Just get us those ships, please. We’ll even give you the missiles to be fired as well.”
“Alright,” the regent grinned. “We’re in on this one then.”
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Bato Naval Base
“We’re here,” William said, as he pulled their car into a hard stop. The rest of her security convoy also stopped at the entrance of the base. Outside, right on the building of one of the gates, flew both the Orlish tricolor and the Rizalian flag. It was a simple horizontal red-blue bicolor with a yellow triangle on the left side of the flag. It contained the Kingdom’s main symbol, a jasmine flower with five petals.
Due to the Kingdom’s current wartime status, the flag was flown with the red part of the bicolor on the top, in contrast to its peacetime orientation, where the flag would be flown with the blue side on the top. It reminded Amelie of one of the things that her little project did. She truly did drag even smaller, uninvolved nations like Rizalia into this mess.
And she was about to drag them further into the war.
This country barely even had many problems with the revolution. They have had similar policies to Asanai for decades already…
But, well…here they were. About to send a good chunk of their fleet with the rest of the Orlish Navy to a potentially dangerous operation. All because of Amelie’s insistence. She felt their vehicle move again after William finished presenting their IDs. Then, they moved through the rest of the base.
Orlish marines. Orlish airmen. Clerks and personnel. All of them lingered and worked throughout the base. Outside, Amelie saw everything from barracks, supply depots, oil depots, vehicle maintenance areas, and even the nearby air base where a few Orlish air squadrons operated.
Multiple Regal air defense batteries also dotted the naval base. Amelie even saw a few of them outside of the base itself, camouflaged and pre-positioned by the dozens. This place was certainly well-established and well-protected.
They soon drove through the docks of the naval base. Amelie gawked briefly at the docked warships of the Orlish Navy. One of the moored vessels itself was the ONS Rebenslof. The main reason why she visited this place. Soon, they stopped at the headquarters of the naval base, and Amelie made her way toward her brother’s office.
And indeed, as she had expected when she knocked and entered—he was inside. He seemed to be talking to someone, who Amelie recognized as the captain in charge of the Rebenslof. Captain James Vogel himself.
“Wait, the Queen?” Albert’s friend was a bit surprised, and he stood up from his seat as Amelie entered. “Y-Your Majesty, I didn’t know that you were coming here.”
“That’s just my little sister’s antics nowadays,” Albert chuckled. “Coming in at people’s places unannounced.”
William also entered, and he closed the door as Amelie took her seat on one of the sofas, relaxing herself.
“Well, can you blame me?” Amelie asked as she smiled. “I need to keep checking in on everyone. Oh, and Captain Vogel, don’t worry too much. I’m just here for a quick talk with my brother.”
“I see then,” the officer said, as he returned to his seat. Albert on the other hand tossed a box of donuts at Amelie. She caught it rather quickly.
“Have some of it. It’s good,” Albert said, as he ate one of them. “Trust me. Happy birthday too. If you had notified me, I would have prepared a nice cake.”
“Thanks, this is fine already,” Amelie replied, smiling thankfully. She picked up one of the donuts before William promptly snatched two for himself from behind. He truly was without shame. Amelie could only snicker a bit to herself before she placed the box on a smaller table beside her sofa.
She took a bite out of it, and indeed, the chocolate donut was pretty nice. She immediately ate more of it.
“So I assume you came here to check in on my fleet,” Albert asked, as he leaned back to his chair. “Well, as you can see over there, the Rebenslof is still doing its final resupply run. We expended quite a bit of the onboard munitions over the previous month.”
“Is that so?” Amelie innocently asked. She looked out the window. The afternoon sun was already setting peacefully, while the ONS Rebenslof alongside two other Orlish destroyers silently sat on the port. “How long is it going to take?”
“Give or take four more days. We should be good for another sortie and rotate with the Cuirassier. They’ve been in some deep shit for the past few weeks.”
“I heard we’ve been sending missile strikes against the North Hebeians,” Amelie asked. “Shouldn’t we be stockpiling them for our big attack?”
“Look. Empress Xue’s forces need it. Gotta keep the North Hebeians at bay. And a TSBM here and there helps. Air sorties from the Rebenslof and the Cuirassier have to be maintained as well. Not that we’re sending much. We’re mostly just keeping the frontlines stable.”
“Have we lost anything?”
“Yeah, I suppose. We lost eight LF-12s. That’s…it, really. Well, we had one Tiger-Class frigate sunk by a random North Hebeian attack submarine last week, but the fatalities weren't high since we recovered the crew. Much of our losses are just in our sea-launched cruise and ballistic missiles. Somewhere in the low two to three hundred.”
Amelie nodded. That wasn’t exactly ideal, as she had so many deals in place. Her missile stockpiles were getting squeezed at this point. So much so that she was now begging Anne to do something nearly every night. But she understood the necessity.
“Well…it is what it is,” Amelie said. “What about the upcoming operation? Are you…and your men ready for it though?”
Both Captain Vogel and Albert turned fully neutral at that question. But, within three seconds, they both replied firmly and resolutely.
“Absolutely. We are.”