Sach'aqan gunboats lined the shore. The Nahr was peaceful, like always. It never flooded unexpectedly, or tragically, or had bad weather. Climate change was starting to become a real threat, and the river's shoreline was rising higher and higher, but otherwise, it was calm.
But then the engines of the gunboats roared up. Dozens, if not hundreds, flared up to perform a final attack on the city of Bawwaba Median, highly unusual for starting to have been built over the river itself. This was due in part to the rising river, but also due to a need to defend the Nahr better, to keep the dastardly Sach'aqan out if an all-out assault occurred. Fortunate for the Sach'aqan, it was not built to completion yet, and their gunboats races down the Nahr.
Bawwaba Medina was unprepared. The combined fleet of the Fornirian and Alssahran gunboats and heavy ships were still mostly in their docks when the assault came battering down. A flurry of combined shelling from Sach'aqan heavy ships, and the rapid fire of the P.T. Cruisers battered the majority of the combined fleet. The city itself received a fair amount of destruction as well, although the more permanent defenses built on the shoreline and out into the river were mostly kept intact. The Sach'aqan Admiralty knew how to defend the river with them, and they'd take every chance they could.
A call from El-Ghazzawy to world leaders that have shown sympathy to Alssahra has gone out, in the hopes that at least Alghana Al'ard does not fall in the defense of it.