The Ц-04 Frontline Supply Base Incident was an incident on the 19th of August, 2001, when BETA forces, mainly from the Evensk Hive, as well as other nearby Hives to the Kamchatka Peninsula, overran the ц-04 Frontline Supply Base.
Kamchatka Military Exercises[]
Prior to the incident, the forces of Project PROMINENCE, including Argos, Idol, and Bao-Feng Test Flights, as well as local Soviet forces, including the 211 Batal'on Zhar, sortied on several live combat exercises against BETA herds attempting to cross the Sea of Okhotsk onto the Kamchatka Peninsula. These exercises were completed without much incident, including the successful test-firing of the EML-99X Electromagnetic Induction Launcher.
ц-04 Frontline Supply Base Incident[]
The incident started when a combat exercise on the 19th of August, 2001, was abruptly put on hold, as monitoring stations detected a BETA incursion 13 kilometers north-west of ц-04, from underground. Overall command of the situation was taken up by the Soviet military, as UN forces experienced poor reception in all of their communications.
In short order, the Soviets arranged an emergency evacuation of ц-04, with instructions to leave all heavy and large-scale equipment and materials behind. They planned to lure the BETA further inland so as to be able to safely deploy their bomber units, allowing them to carpet-bomb the BETA with impunity, before sending in TSF forces to clean up any survivors. The base was rapidly emptied, with priority given to UN personnel.
While the reasons for the evacuation were given as retreating from a BETA assault, the truth of the matter was that the local Soviet military leadership, including Lieutenant-Colonel Budomir Rogofsky, had plans, with Lieutenant Jerzy Sandek as the instigator, to use the BETA assault as an excuse to clear the base of UN personnel, allowing Soviet forces to later reclaim the base, and with it, the EML-99X, for the Soviets to use as they saw fit.
Several people, however, had caught on; Lieutenant Ibrahim Doğulu suspected as much, and Lieutenant Takamura Yui, who had managed to evade her Soviet escorts at the last moment to remain on the base. Another soldier, Corporal Yamamoto, a technician for the EML-99X, had also stayed behind by hiding from the Soviet security forces who were sent to escort the technician teams away.
While the test flights were ordered to hold their position, Argos Test Flight, which had managed to listen in onto Lieutenant Nastassja Ivanova's communications with her commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Fikatsia Latrova, had managed to piece the situation together; this included knowledge that the tunnels used by the BETA in this current attack were actually from a previous incursion, which the Soviets had not sealed up, as this reduced the chances of an early detection, allowing the Soviets to set up the the entire situation. Sergeant Vincent Lowell, now amongst the UN forces being evacuated from the base, managed to contact Argos Test Flight of the current situation, notifying Lieutenant Yuuya Bridges that Yui had remained at the base.
Both Yui and Yamamoto immediately set about to prepariing to destroy the EML-99X; however, a lack of proper explosives and expertise put their efforts at a severe disadvantage. Both of them survived a Tank-class BETA that had intruded into the hangar; Yamamoto managed to distract it long enough for Yui to set up an anti-material rifle to kill it. However, the BETA had already overran the rest of the base, and even as the two redoubled their efforts to destroy the gun, Yamamoto, who went into an underground service tunnel to investigate sounds he heard from somewhere in the base, was cornered and eaten alive by a wave of Soldier-class that emerged from below the base; Yui, remebering a similar experience, delivered a mercy killing to spare the young soldier from his final, painful moments.
The hangar housing the EML-99X itself was overran in short order by the BETA, including Tank-class, Grappler-class, and even a Fort-class BETA. Yui's attempts to destroy the gun failed, resulting in her getting injuired, and she was only spared Yamamoto's fate by the timely arrival of Yuuya in the Shiranui Second Phase 1, who quickly secured the location and the EML-99X's core module, with Lieutenant Stella Bremer in the F-15E Strike Eagle remaining on overwatch around the hangar. Both TSFs, which had remained as chasers for this particular exercise, had enough fuel to effect a rescue.
The core module, however, had attracted all of the BETA in the region, which began to move towards the EML-99X's hangar. This situation was made known to both Lieutenant-Colonel Budomir Rogofsky and Lieutenant Jerzy Sandek, 50 kilometers behind ц-04 in a mobile command center, and while Sandek was in favor of sending in Idol Test Flight to rescue Yui, Yuuya, and Stella, as well as to retrieve the EML-99X, he was overuled by Rogofsky, who ordered the base levelled; that included the pilots still within its grounds.
Back at ц-04, and surrounded by BETA, Yuuya lost the core module in combat; forced to retreat by the fact that he could not risk injury to Yui, whom he was carrying in the Shiranui Second's cockpit, and was not wearing any protective pilot gear, the Shiranui was further damaged by the lone Fort-class approaching their position. Stella managed to down the Fort-class with cannon shots to its left leg segment's joint and head, and on Yuuya's advice due to concerns about the Shiranui Second's own structural integrity, received Yui into her TSF's cockpit.
On Stella's suggestion, both the Shiranui Second and the Strike Eagle maneuvered onto the base runway in order to build up momentum for a longer boosted jump, and to prevent Yui from suffering damage due to sudden acceleration. However, the Shiranui Second was too damaged to continue on, with Yuuya willingly staying behind to clear incoming BETA from Stella's path, and Yui watching helplessly. However, Yuuya and the Shiranui Second, now without ammunition, were unable to hold out against the sheer numbers of the BETA, and the Shiranui Second was almost surrounded and destroyed before Latrova and the Zhar Batal'on, having previously been deployed 5 kilometers from the base, in the direction of the BETA advance, to defend the empty ц-04 Frontline Supply Base, arrived on-scene to secure the base, destroying the base's communication tower, and restoring radio communications as a result.
It was also at this moment that bombers arrived in the region, and began their operation. Due to Rogofsky's orders, the Zhar Batal'on was not notified, and suffered casualties as a result. Matters were further complicated when the bombers were shot down by Laser-class from further out; Latrova ordered two of her pilots, Kir and Tonya, to escort Yuuya out of the region, while she had Ivanova lead the battalion on a flanking laserjagd operation; Latrova herself stayed back to make contact with a lone, approaching Soviet unit, which later turned out to be a hostile, as it engaged her immediately.
Aftermath[]
Nothwithstanding the fact that with ц-04 leveled to the ground, a hole was now present in the Kamchatka defence lines, the battle was an acute display of the machinations of the Soviet leadership. The signal jamming present throughout most of the battle was mostly (and rightly) attributed to the Soviets, and to further ensure the success of their actions, they had used both local Soviet forces and bomber forces in order to ensure that their UN allies were kept out of the way.
The BETA had a significant contribution to the chaos of the battle as well, as their attraction towards advanced technology resulted in their targeting the core module, and later, the outnumbered Shiranui Second Phase 1. The presence of Laser-class, previously unheard of in the region, further complicated matters, resulting in the loss of several squadrons of bombers, and the cancellation of all further events planned for the schedule of the Kamchatka Exercises.
While the official statement that was released would announce the annihilation of the Zhar Batal'on and the re-establishment of the Far East Defence Line, later events would reveal this to be partially untrue, especially prior to the Battle of Evensk, which occured during Operation Ouka.