Assault on Naya
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| Naya Raid | |||||||
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| Part of Anti-NSC resistance activities | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Ḥezb-e Tūde-ye Eura
|  National Salvation Council
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Unknown | |||||||
| Units involved | |||||||
| Small raider bands | Naya Garrison
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| Strength | |||||||
| Estimated 5-8 attackers at mayoral palace 3 attackers at trolley station Additional unknown elements | Local garrison forces Multiple gendarmerie patrols SWAT team Home Guard contingent |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Unknown | Multiple gendarmerie officers killed 2 patrol cars destroyed |
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| Mayor and family killed Unknown civilian casualties |
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The Naya Raid was a coordinated attack by Babkhan raiders against multiple targets in the federal city of Naya on 9.XIII.1744 AN. The assault, which lasted from dawn to dusk, represented one of the most significant security breaches in Oportia following the 1744 Oportian coup d'état and marked a dramatic escalation in resistance activities against the National Salvation Council regime.
Background
Naya, a federal city of Oportia situated in the mountainous region of Central Eura, was subjected to a vicious assault by numerous small bands of desperate, fast-moving, and hard-hitting Babkhan raiders, whose coordinated attacks on a series of commercial and political targets throughout the city threw the entire population and the martial law authorities into uproar during fighting which lasted from dawn to dusk during 9.XIII.1744 AN.
Naya, a mining and ore refining colony of some three hundred thousand souls, granted recognition as a federal city in 1730 AN, had been quietly restive in the months following the coup earlier in 1744 AN, nonetheless it had not been identified as a major resistance hotspot, and as such the city's garrison, comprised of gendarmerie and home guard reservists, had been primarily charged with maintaining civil order and providing security for the copper mining and Alexandrium prospecting concerns active in the surrounding highlands. In the previous year, a small band of politically irrelevant bandits, perhaps comprising no more than 120 fugitives, had evaded the joint border patrols and slipped into northern Oportia from Zeed. Since then these criminals had made a barely noticeable nuisance of themselves, stealing explosives from quarries, and extorting prospectors in outlying concessions. Nonetheless, to placate local business leaders, and to gain a measure of good will for the National Salvation Council, the new government had directly the Oportian Security Forces to provide garrisons for the more vulnerable outlying economic concerns.
After two or three months of derisory skirmishing, the highlight of which had been a botched raid on a supply convoy bound for a copper mine on the border with the Ecclesiastical Mountain Republic, followed by a brisk pursuit, the bandit problem had seemingly faded away to the point that the Commissariat of the Gendarmerie was minded to scale back the security presence in the region in favour of more critical provinces at risk from the democratic insurgency. Then the day of 9.XIII.1744 dawned and the calculus was about to change again - markedly.
The attack
Assault on the mayoral palace
The first reports of gunfire began to be received between 4:15 AM and 4:30 AM, with the gendarmerie responding to a serious incident in the compound of the mayoral palace, in the heart of the ostensibly secure administrative district. Between five and eight unknown assailants had gained entrance to the servants quarter of the palace, a mansion building in the Alexandrian townhouse style, and were attempting to storm their way up to the second floor, where the master bedroom and the private quarters of the mayor and his family were situated. The mayor in turn was defended by a four-man close-protection detail, comprised of private security contractors, as well as the sporadic and disorganised resistance offered by armed members of his staff on an improvised and ad hoc basis. Loud explosions were heard to emanate from within the building as the assailants used plastic explosives to bypass chokepoints within the structure by blasting their way through internal partition walls.
The attackers, relying on the shock and disorientation inflicted upon the defenders, combined with their extreme ruthlessness in conducting room to room clearances, meant that all resistance was overcome within the first half-hour of the assault. The mayor, his wife, and their daughter, cornered in the master bedroom, were gratuitously slaughtered, just as the first elements of the gendarmerie arrived in the scene. The commissariat patrol cars, heading the initial response, were caught in a brutal crossfire from the very moment that they pulled into the courtyard. Two patrol cars, coming under fire from windows on the second floor, were immediately immobilised, their occupants killed or incapacitated, whilst a third hurriedly reversed out of the killzone, crashing into the gatehouse, whereupon the occupants quickly abandoned the vehicle and withdrew from the scene on foot. Further patrol cars arrived at the scene, disgorging officers who blocked the entrance to the courtyard with their vehicles, whilst commencing an indiscriminate fusillade towards the building under the guise of establishing a perimeter and suppressing the assailants within. These actions by the first responders, would be the subject of vehement remonstrations on the part of the tactical officers from the regional SWAT team as they arrived at the scene.
Security force response
The security forces were distracted whilst attempting to establish a command and control hierarchy for the forces converging at the mayoral palace, which included a further contingent of Home Guard volunteers and a continual stream of arriving commissariat officers. The main priority was to cease the wasteful shooting up of the facade of the main building, which had gone on for over a quarter of an hour. Once a ceasefire order had been given and obeyed, it became generally noticed that there was a discernable absence of return fire. Cursing their patrol colleagues, the tactical officers now advanced across the courtyard to the main entrance. Finding it locked, they were obliged to call for a sledgehammer with which to batter it down, whilst an enterprising colleague smashed an adjacent window with a baton, before clambering in and opening the door from the inside.
Conducting a roon to room sweep, discovering scenes of carnage and slaughter throughout, the SWAT team was shamefacedly obliged to report that the assailants had somehow managed to escape from the building in the midst of the confusion. The bodies of the mayor and his family were duly recovered and removed to a van dispatched by the municipal morgue. A forensic team was also called for, but by about 05:45 AM the security officials with overall responsibility for the city had assembled in the gendarmerie cantonments for a conflab on the subject of placing the entire city into lockdown.
Trolley station incident
It was at that moment that the news broke of an attempted robbery in progress at the trolley station in the commercial district. Three armed assailants, ethnically Babkhan, displaying extreme aggression against staff members and customers, had reportedly taken hostages, and demanding access to the cash handling areas - seemingly not to be dissuaded by assertions from the staff concerning the prevalence of digital transactions.
Lockdown
Bank heist
Escape and manhunt
Initial reactions and aftermath
The audacious nature of the Naya Raid sent immediate shockwaves throughout the National Salvation Council hierarchy, with the attack representing the most significant breach of security in any major Oportian city since the establishment of military rule. Within hours of the first reports reaching Vanie, emergency sessions were convened at the highest levels of the regime, with President Joseph Fouche himself reportedly demanding a comprehensive review of security protocols in all federal cities.
The immediate response from Oportian Security Forces was characteristically heavy-handed, with the 2nd Mountain Infantry Battalion dispatched from the capital garrison to establish martial law in Naya within twelve hours of the initial assault. The entire city was placed under a strict curfew, with armored patrols conducting house-to-house searches throughout the commercial and residential districts. All mining operations in the surrounding highlands were suspended indefinitely, with their security details reinforced by regular military units.
The psychological impact of the raid extended far beyond Naya itself, with reports of increased security measures being implemented across numerous federal cities, particularly those with significant Babkhan populations or proximity to contested border regions. The Department of Public Information moved swiftly to control the narrative, describing the attackers as "foreign terrorists" and emphasizing the regime's commitment to tracking down the perpetrators and their accomplices.
Local business leaders, who had previously maintained a cautious accommodation with the military authorities, now found themselves subjected to intensive security screening and surveillance. The copper mining consortium operating in the region saw its operations placed under direct military supervision, with civilian management replaced by officers from the Oportian Security Forces. The Alexandrium prospecting concerns similarly found their activities curtailed, with access to explosives and heavy machinery now requiring explicit authorization from military commanders.
The raid's success in eliminating the mayor and his family created a significant administrative vacuum that the National Salvation Council was obliged to fill through direct military appointment. Colonel Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, a veteran of the Corsair Resurgence, was installed as military governor of Naya, with sweeping powers to reorganize the city's administration and security apparatus.
Domestic reactions
The news of the Naya Raid, despite heavy censorship by the Department of Public Information, spread rapidly through underground networks and clandestine communications. In Vanie, the Democratic Restoration Committee issued a carefully worded statement through intermediaries, neither endorsing nor condemning the violence, but characterizing it as an inevitable consequence of the regime's authoritarian policies and the suspension of democratic institutions.
The raid appeared to galvanize resistance activities in other federal cities, with intelligence reports suggesting increased recruitment for anti-regime groups and a notable uptick in sabotage activities targeting infrastructure and government facilities.
Professional associations and business groups, many of which had initially welcomed the stability promised by military rule, began expressing private concerns about the security situation and its impact on economic activities. The Oportian Chamber of Commerce reportedly submitted a confidential memorandum to the National Salvation Council requesting enhanced protection for commercial facilities and personnel, whilst simultaneously advocating for a review of policies that might be provoking resistance activities.
The raid's impact on civilian morale varied significantly across different demographic groups. Military families and veterans generally supported the regime's hardline response, with several veterans' organizations issuing statements backing expanded security measures. Professional classes and intellectuals, many of whom had already expressed private skepticism about military rule, found their concerns deepened by the apparent inability of the security apparatus to prevent such a dramatic attack.
