Episode 1: The Silent Empire



Adam Inoch’s weary old Soviet motorcycle sputtered and popped as he slowed it to walking speed outside the Westralian border guards’ hut. Two guards wearing the uniform and insignia of the Westralian Colonial Empire were leaning against one wall of the flimsy wooden building, monopolizing what little shade there was in the desert. Both slowly rotated their Kalashnikov rifles, which were slung over the shoulder, to a half-ready position, still pointed into the dirt but with a hand on the rear grip. Cautiously, Adam rolled his bike into the shade near them, where it conked out before he got a chance to press the kill switch. With the engine now off, the only sound was the lazy flapping of the red flag of the empire against its flagpole. Adam lowered the kickstand with a creak and gently rested the tired motorcycle on it before unsaddling himself. Each of the guards was puffing on a cigarette as they observed Adam.



“Durry?” Asked one of the guards. His name patch read Bowen. The others’ read Mcallister.



“Yes, please.” Said Adam, extending a hand.



The guard frowned. “Give us a durry.”



Adam was taken aback. “But you’ve already got one.” He pointed out.



“Carn.” Insisted guard Bowen.



“I haven’t got any left.” Adam said, holding up empty hands, hoping the nearly full pack of cigarettes in his coat pocket wasn’t causing a noticeable bulge. He felt no compulsion to give his cigarettes to the border guards, whom he was sure had many months’ worth of even finer Australian cigarettes stashed from smugglers’ bribe payments anyway.



Instead, he reached into his breast pocket and produced a leather-bound identification wallet. He unfolded it and showed it to the guard. “Inoch, Adam. Division of Social Archaeology.”



“And?” Asked the guard.



Adam was not surprised by the guards’ deliberate unhelpfulness. As a division of the Department of War, border guards were always suspicious and loathsome. And as the most corrupt and pandered division in that department, they were even more averse to other government staff than the regular military. Adam had expected them to be a little difficult.



“And… as you will know, the Division of Social Archaeology has recently been incorporated into the Department of Memes and Propaganda.” Adam went on. The guards glanced at one another questioningly and shifted their footing. He could tell by their uncomfortable body language that they had not been aware of that fact, and the concept of it worried them. There was no department in the Empire that commanded more fear and respect than the DMP. In truth, this expedition to the border was Adam’s first assignment under the authority of the DMP since the merger, but the Departments’ brutal notoriety was a convenient hammer to wield when dealing with unhelpful attitudes.



“And I’ll still take that durry you offered.” he added.



Reluctantly, the guard produced a pack of fine, Australian-made Winfield Blue cigarettes, and Adam extracted one from the pack. It was evident these had been smuggled across the border from the east, but he didn’t care about that. For a moment, Adam wondered why the cigarettes were called ‘Blue’ when they were in fact white and orange, but he dismissed the thought quickly.



“Orrite?” The guard said cautiously.



Adam frowned, giving no answer to the guard that might reassure him. Instead, he began a line of questioning. “Last week, men from this border post carried out an extraction from the abandoned border town, is that right?” He asked, sparking up his cigarette.



“Yeah. Couple of teenagers. What of it?”



“University students from Canberra, as it happens.” Adam continued. “A fairly significant capture.”



Guard Bowen spat on the ground at the mention of the enemy capitol, Canberra.



“Do you still have the belongings you confiscated from them?” Adam asked.



Guard Bowen glanced at his partner, then back at Adam. For a few moments he said nothing. Then, in an argumentative tone, he replied “Them’s spoils!”



Adam took a slow breath and let the man simmer in his reply for a moment. “Spoils of war belong to the empire, not to Guards Bowen and McAllister.” He said finally, making a point to read each of their name tags once more. Then, just as Bowen seemed ready to protest again, he added “But when the empire has taken what they need, it is generous with the rest.”



Guard Bowen considered this for a moment, then grudgingly led Adam inside the guard hut and retrieved two identical grey rucksacks from behind a metal locker. Adam unzipped them both and carefully laid out their contents onto a wooden desk. Various clothing, two mobile phones, an expensive camera in its case, notebooks, maps, and a dogeared textbook. Among them, Adam had no difficulty locating the artefact he had come for. It was a large white envelope postmarked August 22, 1991, torn open, but still stuffed with a dozen sheets of typed paper. He slid the first sheet out, skimmed it, then slid it back in.



“Did you read any of this?” Adam asked.



The guard shook his head. Adam suppressed the urge to follow up with ‘Can you read?’. He was yet unsure just how much a shield the DMP was to him. He slipped the envelope back into one of the rucksacks, along with the two mobile phones, the wallets, and the camera.



“Oi.” Said Guard Bowen. Adam looked at him, one eyebrow raised, daring the guard to protest further. The guard huffed and relented, sucking on the stub of his cigarette, then throwing it in the dirt. Adam zipped the ruck closed and slung it over his shoulder as he left the guard hut.



Sitting astride his department-issued motorcycle, he cast a look across the heavily fortified demilitarized zone that separated Westralia from Australia. In the distance, a large silver and white building glinted sunlight back at him. The Australian peace house on the opposite side of the border had been built shortly after secession, a neutral place where the two governments could meet and develop relations, but it had yet gone unused. He had no doubt that he was being observed at that very moment through telescopic security cameras.



Adam took a last long drag on his cigarette and flicked it on the ground. “It’s been a pleasure, comrades.” He said to guards Bowen and McAllister, then kicked the starter lever on the motorcycle before either could muster a response. The engine sputtered and reluctantly started on the first attempt, and he waited a moment until the clatter from the old machine stabilized. He gave the sour-faced soldiers a lazy salute, which was not returned, then coaxed the motorcycle into motion, accelerating back down the gravel track in the direction he had come, raising a billow of red desert dust behind him.



He rode at high speed along the hard-packed gravel road for several minutes before reaching the bitumen highway and turning right. The wind on his face and through his dusty, sweat dampened jacket was a nice relief from the oppressive summer heat. When he was an appreciable distance from the guard hut, he slowed to a halt in the shade of a stand of gum trees beside the highway and switched off the motorcycle. Again, he extracted the envelope from the rucksack and looked it over. At the beginning of his assignment, he had been given strict instructions not to read the contents of the envelope at any cost. The contents, he was told, were a matter of national security and must only be inspected by official DMP analysts. Lighting another cigarette and opening a bottle of vodka that he’d carefully stashed in his leather saddle bag, he unsheathed the papers and began to read.



To the Prime Criminal of the Commonwealth of Australia,

To the dishonorable Governor-General of Australia,

To her travesty the Queen of England,

We, the people of the former state of Western Australia, under the leadership of her excellency the interim premier Lara Ironheart do on this day, the 18th of August, 1991 CE, declare sovereign independence from the Commonwealth of Australia in perpetuity and forever.



The impetus of our secession, in brief and at prima facie, are listed herein:



For the disproportionate levying of taxes For the refusal to assent to the majority will of the citizens For the shackling of our economic and industrial progress For the unfair dispersal of federal funding For the repeated and continuous misrepresentation of the initials of our state as meaning “Wait Awhile” …

The indictment went on at length, and Adam skipped ahead a few pages, gulping from his bottle of warm vodka.



And how come music festivals hardly ever come here? It’s really not that far by plane, only 5 and a bit hours, just read a book and it goes by in no time. It’s more than just Perth here too, there’s Bunno and Dunno, with the fishing, and Gero has even a new pub with a beer garden if you’d just come see, Our Kangaroos are way bigger, But mostly it’s the taxes thing.

We, the undersigned representatives of Westralian government, do therefore declare our independence from the Commonwealth of Australia, and appealing to the rectitude of the nations of the world do declare that the territory and people of the former Western Australia be sovereign and free, absolved from allegiance to the commonwealth and to the crown.



Signed:



A cluster of signatures followed. Adam flipped to the next page. The letterhead was of the now ubiquitous emblem of the Westralian Colonial empire, a red, five-pointed star emblazoned with the hammer and sickle, above a shield emblazoned with the image of a black swan, supported by a pair of kangaroos, and shrouded by a laurel of gum leaves.



The memorandum began:

To the Government and People of the Commonwealth of Australia



On this most glorious day, the 19th of August 1991, and as the first official act of the interim government of the Republic of Westralia under the leadership of premier Lara Ironheart, we hereby declared our allegiance and friendship with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, proclaim our identification with, acceptance of and respect for their international ideological struggle and have formally sought membership within their ranks.



The joining of our proud nation with the USSR represents the pinnacle of our national will and desire. This alliance assures a unified and powerful declaration of mutual defense against foreign interference and aggression.



While his excellency Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Soviet Union is at this time resting and unavailable to formally declare a joining of our two great nations, I am assured that binding agreements and ceremony are forthcoming.



Be forewarned that the military might of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is neither lax nor lenient when its allies are threatened, or its territory besmirched. Any transgressions committed by the Commonwealth of Australia in response to the liberation of Westralia will be met with fire and fury the likes of which can barely be imagined.



Signed:



Her excellency Lara Ironheart,

Premier of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Westralia.



Adam sighed heavily. August 21, 1991. Though he had only been seven at the time, he still remembered the scenes of chaos and confusion that saturated all three television stations. Hammer and sickle emblems being defaced. Army trucks driving down public roads in the center of Moscow. Soldiers marching this way and that, unsure of who was their enemy and who was their leader. A kindly bald man giving speeches, and he must not have had very good friends because none of them told him about the chocolate stain on his head. Tanks parked in columns in front of a gingerbread castle.



Shuffling the age-weathered documents back into their envelope, he next turned to the notebooks in which were diarized the timeline of discoveries of the Australian National University students. He flipped through each of them briefly, before locating a relevant passage written in pencil:



Kelly Arnold

Date: Thursday August 12, 2021

Expedition Elapsed Time: 78hr 45min

Weather: Hot as balls.

Coordinates: 31°38′17.2″S 129°0′12.7″E



Jordan, Ashley and I have finally reached the border village in the demilitarized zone. There are no soldiers to be seen, but we are still trying to keep a low profile, lest either side spots us. At best, it’s three weeks of community service if our guys catch us, and at worst, decades of torture and mock executions behind the iron ore curtain if the Westies get us.



We have been walking for the better part of nine hours, and now it’s far too late in the day to begin any real surveying work. The remainder of the evening will be spent taking stock of our remaining supplies, locating a source of water, and setting camp for the night. Dinner will be cold rations, as it is too risky to light a fire.



Ashley was chased by a particularly fierce blue tongue lizard which she was warned not to taunt but did anyway. Jordan continues to lament the lack of 4G coverage in the lawless wasteland of the DMZ. My taint is drowning in sweat and it’s very unpleasant. I must find some way to keep it dry.

Adam turned the page to read the next diary entry.



Kelly Arnold

Date: Friday August 13, 2021

Expedition Elapsed Time:85hr 15min

Taint status: Drenched

Coordinates: 31°38′17.2″S 129°0′12.7″E



We began our day early, before sunrise. The border village consists of seven buildings, and our first task was to identify each and note its potential significance before carrying out a survey from most important to least. We are on a constant look out for landmines and booby traps.



We determined which of the buildings was the border control quarantine office and began our survey there. Most of the documents recovered were of little historical value, except for the long-form manifest book, which will require extensive analysis covering the days leading up to the 1991 secession.



Next, we identified the roadhouse, which was a petrol station, shop, pub and motel all rolled into one. Jordan and I surveyed the bar and its remaining refreshments extensively for a few hours. There really is nothing comparable to drinking a hot beer that’s been festering in a storeroom in the desert for 30 years, except maybe drinking someone else’s vomit out of an old army boot. Ashley came to us after a little while with a discovery, the guest sign-in database that she had managed to recover from an old hard drive in the reception computer. Notably, on 21/08/1991 there was a check-in record for a man named Barry Parker, Courier Post employee, but no check-out record. We promptly went to the motel room which was listed on his sign-in, and with a little coaxing from a crowbar, we gained entry.



The room looked abandoned, but there was a folded sheet of paper on the unmade bed and several duffels marked with the courier post logo by the door. There was also an alarming number of empty beer cans strewn about the room. I read the piece of paper that was on the bed. The handwriting was terrible. Verbatim, it read:



Bed fairey, plz give this to aus post in melbs, I’m too cut to find a stamp



Derek,



I quit mate. This job is a fuckin nitemare. I can’t do it anymore. I met this bird hey, shes into yoga and pelagics and all that, great girl, sexy, smart, intellegent, and hot too. I think I’m gonna marry her. She told me her name last night but i cant remember it. Anyway shes driving to Perth to stay with her boyfriend because her ex husband kicked her out, and she needed petrol money and I was like “I have petrol money” and so she said she’d give me a lift and hook me up with a new job in the fish factory in Freo cutting fillets, and you know I’ve always wanted to work with animals, so fuck it, I’m taking the dice and rolling a chance. The load is in the hotel room, and the keys to the van are in the top drawer. You can send Robbo or Damo to come get them. I think there’s some important stuff in there, some feller in Perth gave me a real hard time about it getting to Canberra as fast as I can, the fuckin’ walnut. Who does he think I am, Marty McFuckin’ fly?



See you round mate,



Bazza



Jordan, Ashley and I were all astonished at this. We believe that this letter, and the contents of the duffel, may be the most important historical discovery since the war began. One of the duffels contained what appears to be the declaration of independence and the memorandum of allegiance to the former USSR, original copies typed in 1991. It is late now, but we will conduct extensive field analysis tomorrow morning to determine the veracity of the documents. I think tonight we will have another round of stanky antique beer to celebrate.



There was no next entry in the diary. ‘It is difficult to write in one’s journal with a pillowcase over your head and your hands tied behind your back.’ Adam chuckled to himself. He took another long drink from the bottle. So many things were beginning to make sense to him now. After the capture and subsequent debriefing of the university students, it came to light after some gentle tickling that they had located, and had been in possession of, the original documents outlining the secession from Australia and allegiance with the USSR. If this journal entry were to be believed, these documents had been sent from Lara Ironheart’s office to be delivered by courier to the Prime Minister in Canberra. Evidently, the courier in question had stopped at the border village, had gotten too drunk to carry on, and returned to Perth with his new ladyfriend, leaving these critically important documents in his motel room. Whether by happenstance, or by the interruption from army tanks rolling east, the housekeeper, the ‘bed fairey’, had not discovered the note, nor had anybody else until the expedition of students came to find them.



With her message undelivered, Canberra never learned of the coup in Perth and the overthrow of the democratically elected state government. Consequently, Ironheart received no response from Canberra, and she presumably took it personally, either as a sleight against her legitimacy, or as a stalling tactic while the commonwealth rallied their military forces to retake the West. Whatever the reason, she set the 112th tank battalion rolling across the South Australian border, with the 67th mechanized infantry close behind to secure the borderhead, initiating the first Westralian revolutionary war. While the last remaining loyal television station, channel 7, reported an overwhelming victory by the Westralian army, the truth of it, which now made more sense to Adam, was that Canberra was wholly unaware of the political implosion in the West, and in fact had no idea that they were even at war. The 112th battalion and 67th mechanized encountered little more than some confused truck drivers, tourists, some feral goats and a whole lot of empty desert. With no enemy in sight, no desire to stretch their supply lines thin, and with fuel running low, they turned around and came home. The empire was born, not in violent warfare and bloodshed, but in silence.



The first independent reports of secession in the West were rejected by Canberra as confused misinformation, because the federal government were busily watching another, much more important political crisis unfold, the Russian coup attempt and the subsequent dissolution of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics into a chaotic mess of independent sovereign states. Nobody in Canberra could have believed that the quiet, sleepy state of Western Australia would have such comically bad judgement and poor timing as to secede from the commonwealth and join the USSR just days before the Soviet empire collapsed entirely. But they had.



Adam drained the last few drops of vodka from his bottle and tossed it on the ground. He looked wistfully back the way he had come, towards the border. ‘Perhaps I should cross later tonight.’ He thought. ‘If I bring these documents and defect, there may be some reward for me. Perhaps even employment. Maybe a wife.’



In his mind he saw an image of Westralian soldiers with rifles shooting holes in his back as he tried to escape. Of trained assassins crossing the border after him and gunning him down in an alleyway, or slipping thallium into his morning weetbix. Of the bars and barbed wire of Australian internment camps. Of being issued a wife, but a really mean and ugly one.



He sighed. ‘Best not to risk it. At least here, I know where I stand.’ He thought. He stuffed the documents back into their envelope and the envelope into his saddle bag. Again, he coaxed the motorcycle into starting, and chugged off down the highway, heading West towards the capitol.