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Nísos Aigón

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Nísos Aigón (Goat Island) also known as Jazireh-ye Abadan (Island of the Coast Guard Station) is an island in the Gulf of Aqaba located a day's sailing distance to the south-west from the port city of Aqaba.

History

Administratively it falls under the governorate of Aqabah and is the site of a significant ICAF garrison having been explored and settled following the Survey of the Nisian Theme conducted in 1664[1]. The island had originally been occupied by Constancia to forestall the arrival of Çerid colonists on an island which would otherwise control access to the port of Aqaba, at that time a sleepy backwater harbour quietly annexed by Constancia during the War of Lost Brothers. The strategic importance of Aqaba and Nísos Aigón with it was transformed by the evacuation and destruction of Vey and the Euranikón Theme during the Second Euran War. The Gulf of Aqaba, a concentration point for a vast reinforcing allied fleet, became the national redoubt of the displaced Constancian nation and the rallying point from whence it subsequently went on to destroy the last vestiges of Iteru. The establishment of a Constancian garrison, joined by an influx of Iteran captives, and a steady stream of displaced Raspurids searching for work, transformed the economic prospects of the island.

The interior of the island is dominated by a ruined Babkhan MilZig constructed during the Euran Cold War, the subterranean portions of which remained largely intact following the Babkhan Holocaust of 1598. It is believed that the site may have also housed one of the Towers of Silence used by the late era Babkhan regime to attempt to jam broadcast signals emanating from Mahoz HaSephardim directed at the population centres of Raspur and Vey.

Geography

The island has a deep natural harbour on the south-western side of the island and a shallower, but more sheltered, bay on the north-west coast. The south-western harbour, known imaginatively as South Harbour, is vulnerable to cyclonic systems originating in the Raynor Sea during the monsoon seasons, whilst North Bay is exposed to the dreaded Shamal winds from the mainland during high summer. On the beaches of these two harbour sites the large scale landing of Iteran captives began in the first month of the year 1670 AN with Base Camps Alpha and Beta being established at the north and south sites respectively. Approximately forty-thousand Iterans, divided evenly between the two sites and each watched over by an assigned regiment of Home Guard, were set to work with spades, pick-axes, and pointy-sticks (there being a metals shortage in the wake of the government policy of hoarding scrap metals for export, in spite of tearing up vast lengths of ex-Bassarid railway tracks) to quarry into the cliff faces overlooking the landing sites. The excavated rocks - shiny greenish schist, pale phyllite, grey-white limestone, was used to build up breakwaters projecting out into the anchorages. Meanwhile ESB and ICAF survey teams, dressed in Natopian hazmat suits gingerly explored the site of the lopsided and partially glassed-MilZig, probing for an undiscovered entrance into the subterranean complexes known to lie beneath.

Iteran fatalities, through over-work, malnutrition, and as a mortal consequence of various infractions, ran at about 874 a month during the first year of operations on the island. A number of Constancian settlers were also disciplined for attempting to feed or offer shelter to the workers. These attempts at assistance ended with the first reported outbreak of cholera amongst the labourers.

By the second month the two encampments were shifted away from the beaches to new sites enclosed by walls of rammed earth smeared with adobe and dressed with a dry-stone formwork to hold the structure in place. Within these enclosures the workers were instructed to scrape out dug-outs as living quarters for which tarpaulins were distributed as coverings. A strict quarantine was enforced, whereby those manifesting signs of sickness would be promptly dispatched to a sweat-box formed of corrugated iron within its own enclosure as a kill or cure remedy to the spread of the disease. Bodies emptied from the box were typically either cremated by the shore or thrown off the cliffs for the benefit of the ravenous and sharp-toothed aquatic horrors which infested the waters of the gulf.

The KP Ormazd, a SATCo merchant vessel operating under the Constancian flag and naval commission, remained off-shore during the first three months of 1670, acting as a provisioning and command ship. The distribution of food to the workers, especially after contact between the Iteran labourers and Constancian settlers were forcibly discontinued, became a pressing concern. Stockpiles of corned beef and tinned vegetables were available, however these were held back by the Home Guard, who feared leaving the Iterans in possession of any form of metal once returned to their enclosures. For the first month, potatoes and turnips, thrown into the enclosure by their guards, who enjoyed the spectacle of watching prisoners fighting over raw vegetables, were available. However these were consumed far faster than was anticipated - in addition to over-reliance and poor estimating by suppliers, some pilfering by guards was also suspected. In any event, as malnourished workers were unproductive workers, it was decided that morning and evening soup parades would be implemented. A battered old Ashkenatzim soup kettle was sourced from a scrap metal dealer whose passing barge was returning to Aqaba from Susa. There could be no question of entrusting Iterans with metal utensils so a request for plastic cutlery was sent to the ICAF commissariat in Cario. Only steel mess-tins and tin plates could be found in depot but after a certain amount of horsetrading that falls outside the purview of this article, a consignment of thirty thousand plastic bowls conveniently fell off the back of a container ship heading for the Çeridgul island and somehow found its way ashore on Nísos Aigón.

Declaration as Military Reservation

An Autokratorial Decree of the Autokrator of Constancia bearing date at Aqaba, 18.IX.1687, declared the entire island as a military reservation and not subject to alienation unless otherwise provided by law; declared all civilian residents not otherwise employed or engaged in support services to the military reservation be evacuated to Aqaba or Shahrzadpolis, and further declared that the Imperial Government immediately purchase the privately-owned lands of all residents at fair market value, to be paid from the unappropriated funds of the Ministry of Defense, with an additional compensation of one million Natopos for every evacuated household, to be personally paid by the Prince of Molivadia from personal funds on deposit with the Imperial & Emirati Bank of Alalehzamin and Constancia in Aqaba. Transportation costs of the evacuation from Nisos Aigon to Aqaba or Shahrzadpolis were ordered to be borne by the Ministry of Defense.