Doomsday: Three Seconds to Midnight
Reports are coming in from both Nogrania and Toskesh's shattered spy networks. Mushroom clouds have peaked over neighboring countries, and bomber sightings sprout up with dubious authenticity. Despite this, both of the tiny nations on Serouda receive a telegram from their sponsor nations. Both the US and USSR warn Nogrania and Toskesh respectively that nuclear war has broken out, and to expect the possibility of bombing attempts. These telegrams are patchy at best, and requests for more information often goes unheeded. This has not improved the panic that has gripped the civilians in the streets. Crime skyrockets nearly immediately, and roads are rendered useless by traffic jams. Leadership has fled, either sailing away in what ships were available in the harbor or disappearing into their own private bunkers.
The power vacuum is filled immediately by the design teams, who quickly use what resources are left to finish their pet projects in an attempt to stave off devastation. In a surprising move, the engineers from both nations contact one another in a desperate bid to pool their resources for salvation - the prevailing plan seems to be a massive underground bunker: a network of tunnels designed to house the populace. This plan is a grim one, that assumes the surface will be lost. Other engineers combine their technical know-how and hastily cobble together similar half-finished designs to establish defensive measures to prevent the bombs from even dropping in the first place. Even more still see this crisis as an opportunity to end the decades-old conflict between the two nations - with one decisive victor.
As both navies report on bombers approaching from the East and West, these plans come to light...in one way or another.
Happerry [5,1]
It's been so frustrating being behind the curve! The rest of the world has advanced so far, yet your nation has been stuck in the proverbial Stone Ages. And now, as soon as technology had begun to advance, you're about to be nuked right back down! Not with your new Woodpecker Radar, at least - a project you'd been trying to get the High Council to fund, now ripe for use. As soon as you get the last of the details nailed down you immediately ship one out to everyone who could possibly need one. Unfortunately, you end up spending so long getting the radar squared away that you arrive to the vault system the others have set up just in time to watch the doors slide shut. Your plans to help build the vaults - as well as secure a place for yourself - crumble as you pound your fist desperately against the massive steel doors built into the foot of the mountains just outside of Nogrania's capitol. Continue to Midnight below!
10ebbor10 [3,6]
The Geneva Conventions had banned fixed-wing aircraft, which had given rise to Nogrania's Condor airships. It seems silly now to have abided by those rules for so long considering how little they did to prevent the nuclear devastation gripping the globe, but the technology is there and ripe for exploitation. Your new airship - the NAF-MAB-54 "Quetzalcoatlus" Airship, to be exact - has been stuck in production hell after the lack-luster effect the original Condor had on the battlefield. With the High Council gone, there's no one there to stop you from immediately finishing production with what workers you had left in the production yards. It's a huge beast, twice the size of the Condor and with a payload capacity that would make even a cargo ship weep, and guns bristle from the sides so heavily that it looks more akin to a porcupine than an airship. There's even a few helipads, housing a couple attack and transport helicopters. Combat is not your goal, however, as a massive radar instillation crowds up the last of the available payload - Woodpecker radar systems, curtsy of Happerry. You'll act as the fore-front of the islands defenses - alerting those on the ground as the planes inevitably break the horizon... Continue to Two Seconds to Midnight below!
Kashyyk [4,1]
Originally conceived as a way to defend against incoming helicopter strikes, your NAF-54-XSAM "Sentinel" eXperimental Surface to Air Missile is the ideal weapon when nuclear bombers are on the horizon. Remote, fire-and-forget weapons that can bring down even the highest-flying warcrime fixed-wing aircraft. You manage to build maybe two or three of these SAM sites (depending on whether the installation teams finished their jobs or fled), all hooked up to a control station just outside of the Nogranian capitol. You're not sure how well they'll work since they were kind of thrown together last-minute and you haven't tested them, but you've got them all plugged into Happerry's Woodpecker radar stations scattered around the island. All that's required is a launch command and some manual targeting decisions, all easily done from your seat in the command station. You'd just finished the last of the set-up and were jogging the last few blocks to the command station (all the roads are jammed) when a looter smacks you in the head with a brick and goes through your pockets. He leaves you laying face-down in the street; you're not dead, exactly, but you're not going to be much help to anyone unconscious and two blocks away from the SAM control center... Continue to One Second to Midnight below!
Taricus [5,1]
Thanks to the sudden last-minute cooperation with Nogrania's engineers, you're able to build your own SAM system hooked up to the RADAR systems now sprouted up all around the island. You've done it - the Lightbringer SAM, a big, fat missile with a RADAR guidance system (curtsy of Happerry). Really, you probably wouldn't have been able to build it if it hadn't been for the Radar being more-or-less handed to you, leaving you to twist together a few of Toskesh's handy-dandy transistors to form a rudimentary guidance package. Their launch platforms are giant wheeled trailers, stolen from an abandoned construction yard. They come with remarkably easy-to-fire controls in order to allow even untrained soldiers to use them - basically consisting of a few levers and cranks on the side of the trailer. You give orders to set them up along the coastline along the frozen swamps, and tell those few Toskeshe soldiers also to send a dozen trailers south to give to Nogrania in hopes of building a brighter, peaceful world with your neighbors to the south. At least, you hope they set them up and sent them south. In hindsight, maybe it would have been a good idea to ask someone other than the soldiers who'd been fighting Nogrania for the past few decades to help Nogrania. It's...possible they might not have been too happy with your plan... Continue to One Second to Midnight below!
stabbymcstabstab [3,2]
Inspired by the US's F-86 Sabre, you've developed your own jet, imaginatively named the NAF-JIA-54 Rapier. Not one for waiting around and letting others do the heavy lifting for you, you've hopped into the cockpit of this one-of-a-kind warcrime fixed-wing aircraft and lit up the engines. It comes with a copilots seat, though you've had trouble convincing others to come with you rather than hide safely under ground. Building this jet takes up the vast majority of your time, and though you manage to give some minor assistance to the crews building vaults, it more-or-less comes down to a single set of instructions: "Watch Out For Kot". Continue to Two Seconds to Midnight below!
Talion [5,6]
Why bother trying to fight in the air? What's the point of even trying to stop the bombs from falling? Clearly the US and USSR were not party to the very conventions they helped write, and while the rest of the world was building walkers and helicopters, the super powers were building nuclear bombs and high-altitude jets. No, the best way to go is to go underground. You've overhauled a hexapod tankwalker to form the NAF-AMW-55 "Beetle" Mining Hexapod, a re-imagined Hippo designed to wield mining tools for the rapid tunneling needed to build a massive underground bunker to keep the residents of Serouda safe below ground. It doesn't really have any armor or weapons, but it's big and has a mean set of drills. Plus, it runs on coal - how cool is that? In the meantime, you hastily erect a fake city in the badlands in order to fool any would-be bombers. Plywood buildings, automated flag-wavers, and inflatable car-shaped balloons give the appearance of a bustling city in the middle of the island. With any luck, the badlands will take the brunt of the bombing raid, leaving the two cities intact. You man one of these Beetles yourself and crawl through the steel blastdoors wedged into the mountainside. There's work to be done. Continue to One Second to Midnight below!
Blood_Librarian [1,4]
Fools! So short sighted - yes, the bombs will likely fall, and yes the world will likely be plunged into a firestorm of nuclear radiation, but really? The extent of their plans goes no further than a humble bunker to hide away from the world above? You'll join them, oh yes indeed, but you won't be content to live underground as one of the faceless thousands in a forced peace. You've gathered up up every loyal soldier you can and assembled them into what you're calling the Warb'Dong Military Division. The MD consists mostly of technicians, veterans, and as many upper-level commanders as you can find, as well as every bit of military hardware you can sneak into the bunkers. Sure, some civilians might get bumped out in order to make room for the tanks and soldiers, but who cares? Anyone who rejects your offer to join the MD is quietly executed, and before long you've assembled a tidy cohort of loyalists who will undoubtedly support your rule in the underground. You put some tentative plans into building a mobile suit of radiation-proof armor, but they never get beyond the blueprint phase. Oh well, you'll have plenty of time to build the PA-037X “Beijíxing Quántóu” Power Armor when you're ruling the vault...with an iron fist. Continue to One Second to Midnight below!
piratejoe [2,6]
Pffft. Living underground? Is the rest of Nogrania really so eager to live as moles, crawling beneath the surface? No, you've a much better solution in mind - the plentiful sea. The NAF-SUB-54 "Anglerfish" is like Nogrania's new Sneaker sub, but much larger and designed for longevity. Or at least...it was planned to be so. Turns out the sudden threat of nuclear annihilation doesn't leave many people willing to work on your pet project instead of spending time with their family or fleeing to the fallout shelters. The Anglerfish is basically a Sneaker with a nuclear engine, allowing it to run indefinitely. The sub is packed with seeds, food, a few stolen textbooks, and a few other pieces of equipment that would be needed for life-sustainment after a nuclear holocaust. Due to the small size you don't get as many crew as you'd like, though you take care to make sure it's an even mixture of men and women on board. Nogrania will survive, if nowhere else but this iron coffin beneath the waves. Continue to Epilogue.
Sensei [6,4]
It's glorious. A giant mech, perambulating about on two legs. Two giant legs, which are actually jet engines. Jet engines, which - when transformed - allow the mech to soar through the skies.
Beautiful.
You clamber in and boot it up, and the Nogranian Mechazoid X-Force Transforming "Teatime" Mk. I roars to life. It bristles with illegal machineguns and rocket pods, primed for lethal force against any who would nuke the island. Truly a force to be reckoned with, you're going to shoot down any son of a bitch unfortunate enough to cross into Serouda. Continue to T Seconds to Midnight below!
Man of Paper [5,6]
You've nodded along enthusiastically as plans for a temporary cease-fire between Nogrania and Toskesh were enacted, and again as the others make plans for a vault system to hide away from the world. You've been put in charge of designing a new Bipedal Tank, in order to ironically enforce this peace treaty by lethal force. You've designed the Mk II Charon, a rather impressive suit that maps its movements to the users body. It comes with Eagle 1" NAC's and Bartender 19 rockets, plus a 4" Duke on the shoulder equipped with an autoloader. The internals are wired to speakers and cameras, and the entire cabin can be sealed off to run on an internal air supply. It's truly a powerful machine.
To everyone else, you hand out the Mk. I Sentinel. It's...flawed, in may ways. The autoloader doesn't work, the cabin can't be sealed off, and the life support is dubious at best. No one suspects a thing, though, as you hand out the suit to both Nogranian and Toskesh engineers alike. While they establish security and build the tunnels, you're out in the field, talking with Nogranian and Toskeshe soldiers. Without leadership, they're susceptible to your reason - the other engineers are enforcing their "peace" through violence, placating those in the vaults with the threat of death. Even now rumors of the war resuming after they've fled underground are rampant, and a sizable force rallies beneath your banner. To those you've recruited you give a Mk. II Charon and promised a place in your new underground government. There will be peace after the bombs have fallen, oh yes...peace on your terms, with you at the lead. Continue to One Second to Midnight below!
Jilladilla [4,3]
While the rest of Serouda's engineers build silly mechs and missiles and planes, you're actually building the damn tunnels. Some help would be great, but you can't really expect too much from these people in a crisis, now can you? Specifically, you're building the Xi-54 Pickaxe Mk 4, a giant tracked bore drill designed to drill massive tunnels for long distances. It helps that you've already started working on this long before word of the nuclear holocaust reached Serouda - it was part of a plan to drill all the way to Nogrania to launch a surprise attack, but now its purpose is for peace and salvation. Attempts to make it a hovercraft too don't really pan out, but it's still a damn good drill. Plus it comes with air conditioning! You and your partner Nemonole have plans to dig out a great cavern for the city of Lowkey, a joint-city where Nogranians and Toskeshe's can live together in peace. Even now you're manning one of the drills, hewing out a big cavern where the first buildings will go. Nem, meanwhile, is running a drill south to meet up with the Nogranians. The surface may be cloaked in radiation, but Lowkey will survive! Continue to Midnight below!
Light forger [2,1]
You build a giant triangle. Or at least, that's what the engineers nearby think you did. No, you argue, it's more than a triangle. The Fengbào lóng Turbocopter makes use of air compression at high speeds to burn at unprecedented thrust levels, using a new type of engine you're calling a "scramjet". Plus it's a VTOL to boot! And it has a bunch of NMG's and rockets in the nose, so it can shoot down bombers with ease. It's the perfect weapon to defend Serouda, even if you have to ram it into the enemy bombers as a last resort.
But that probably won't happen. Continue to Two Seconds to Midnight below!
TheFantasticMrFox 4,2
Your pet project consisted of a jet turbine interceptor, which you've taken to calling the Xi-55 “Baohù zhe” Interceptor. You never really expected it to see daylight with the Geneva Conventions in place, but now is the perfect chance to put your work into the air. It comes with 25 mm cannons and rockets, plus an oxygen system to let you reach the high altitudes that the bombers will undoubtedly be flying at. Right now you're circling the Toskesh capitol, waiting for the first reports to come in telling you where the bombers are coming from. You'll kill the bombers, even if it means your life. Continue to Two Seconds to Midnight below!
NUKE9.13 [6,5]
As appetizing as earthworms and fungus sounds, you've decided the people of the vaults might like a more robust diet, perhaps even one that contains things like vegetables. To that end you've developed the Emergency Agriculture Technology and distributed it to Toskeshi and Nogranian designers alike. It should be a system capable of providing enough food for everyone in the vault and comes with computerized atmospheric controls (heating/cooling, (de)humidifiers) - just don't ask where the fertilizer comes from. Though the system is more complex than one might think, you still find the time to make a few surreptitious plans of your own. In addition to helping organize the evacuation of Nogranian citizens into the vault, you help select the patriots, soldiers, engineers, and other important figures you want in the vault with you...as well as a few crates of weapons, to be held in reserve. After a year, you'll calmly announce to Toskesh that Nogrania will be taking over the vault. The weapons, combined with the password-protected controls to the EAT system, should make it a..."relatively" bloodless transition. Nogrania Forever. Continue to Epilogue.
Rockeater [6,1]
Well, there's not going to be a lot of power underground, will there? Better make some windmill-turbines just in case. You've designed a few vertical turbines and scattered them around the mountains. Once the vault is a bit more robust and tunnels can be snaked out around the island, you'll help hook the windmills to the power grid. Free power from the surface, simple as that. You take care to map the locations out and write all the instructions in mandarin, which you then start handing out to Toskesh engineers. Unfortunately, as you make your way to the shelter with your map of all the turbine sites clenched tightly in hand, you're trampled as you make your way through the crowd to the front of the line. Your maps are lost underfoot, leaving the turbines free game for whoever may find them. Continue to Epilogue.
Thanik [1,3]
Similar to Rockeater, you've developed a series of geothermal powerplants to power the city of Lowkey. Considering the cavern is in the process of being dug out, you don't really have the time to build any of them, but you do oversee the shipment of the parts down into the vault along with the blueprints for construction. You've gone ahead and started the construction of one of these plants in the first open space Jilladilla has tunneled out, and the giant tubes of boiling water dominate most of the available space next to the not-yet-finished powerplant. You're also overseeing the development of a giant university/library/R&D center for the new city, one that should help preserve knowledge for future generations, but for now you're trying to get the geothermal plant up and running before the construction site gets flooded with refugees. Continue to Midnight below!
Chiefwaffles [5,4]
You've been building this thing since the Geneva Conventions were put into effect. The Helicarrier. They laughed at you, mocked the giant airship languishing in the dockyards for the past three years, and said it would never fly. But you knew better! Your math was sound - in fact, it would probably already be in the air if it you hadn't spent the last year or so buried in legal work and wind tunnels, desperately trying to find some way to overturn the UN ruling on fins. You've crewed the carrier, rushed the last few pieces of construction, and coordinated the lift-off with as many of the other engineers as you can. And you know what?
The damn thing works. It lifts off without a single issue and dominates the skies above, burning fuel at an obscene rate. You'll be there as Serouda's heroes work to save the island from the nuclear bombers, and there in case the unthinkable does happen. You stand at the command center of the Helicarrier, sweat beading on your brow. If the world really does end...then there will be no UN left to overturn their decision. They'll never know you were right. Continue to Two Seconds to Midnight below!
BBBence1111 [6,1]
Ooooh yeah, you've been waiting for this. The Wyvern Jet Fighter, a delta wing reverse-sweep jet, replete with ailerons, flaperons, and any other -erons you could possibly want. It's completely illegal by the Geneva Conventions, if anyone still cares about that, but you don't care. This bad boy runs Mach 2, thrust-vectoring, and a bunch of other stuff that is mindboggling for the humble year of 1954. It'll shoot down anything that wants to nuke the island - and when launched from Chiefwaffle's helicarrier it'll already be at an appreciable height. Nothing can go wrong when you're flying this thing - after all, you designed it, so that basically means you know how to fly it. Continue to Two Seconds to Midnight below!
Doomblade187 [4,3]
Air and water is important. That's why you're setting up the water recycling and air scrubbing factories to supply the new city of Lowkey! Thankfully NUKE9.13 has volunteered to handle the EAT farms already, so your job is fairly simple in managing the rest of the life support. Lights, air, water, and waste systems may seem boring, but they are vastly important for the vault. Like most of the others, your goal is peaceful coexistence with Nogrania, so your plans forgo MOST backstabbing in favor of careful selection of civilians and military personnel you'll be bringing into the vault with you. Still, you're not COMPLETELY trusting the others - you take care to make sure the Warb'Dong MD isn't instructed in how to maintain life-critical systems, and that you've managed to get most of the engineers and maintenance crews loyal to you. A new government is in order, and your goal is peace...but you're not about to be careless juuust yet.... Continue to One Second to Midnight below!
Kot [4,4]
Cowards! Cowards, all of them! It's not hard for you to find other Nogranian's who aren't happy with what is obviously a Toskesh plot to enslave everyone. You manage to rally a small group of soldiers and engineers and build a small temporary shelter somewhere deep in the mountains. Once the bombs fall and everyone is hiding underground, you and your team will emerge with guns, radiation suits, guns, gas masks, guns, and everything else you'd need to rule a wasteland. With everyone else below ground, you'll be able to claim a Nogranian victory and bravely face whatever dangers the new post-apocalyptic world may throw at you. You're hidden away in that bunker now, along with a sizable cadre of like-minded individuals. Continue to Epilogue.
Two Seconds to Midnight
It's been barely more than a day since the reports of mushroom clouds had come across the wire. That period of time has been a flurry of panic and activity on Serouda as the engineers of both Nogrania and Toskesh scramble to forestall or survive the oncoming devastation. For some this has been air defenses, hastily slapping together SAM sites or half-finished aircraft barely beyond the prototype stage. For others it's been burrowing into the ground and abandoning the surface, and for a few their course of action has been to abandon the island all together. For those patrolling the skies above, they're on the frontline. It's actually 10ebbor10 who spots the first speck on the horizon, to the northeast off of Toskesh's coast. Thanks to Happerry's advanced-warning Woodpecker RADAR system mounted on the mammoth-sized airship, detection range extends far beyond what's visible by eye. He quickly radios in the report and alarm ripples through every defensive station on Serouda.
They're here.
Chiefwaffles, aboard his Helicarrier Mk. I, gives the order. The giant airborne carrier is floating above Toskesh - something that might have once been considered the end to the war, but now is a measure of mutual survival. One by one aircraft rip down the floating tarmac and take to the air; some of them having been bolted together that very morning. With the sun to their backs they climb as high as they can before meeting the incoming nuclear taskforce. Both Nogranians and Toskesh shuffle into a rough formation, though the sheer difference in aircraft type means some pull ahead while others lag behind. Stabbymcstabstab cruises along in his JIA-54 Rapier - which, unfortunately, looks remarkably similar to the profiles in the distance. BBBence1111 is lagging behind in his Wyvern Jet Fighter, though not due to any fault of the craft. This is simply his first time in the air. Sensei takes up the rear in his Nogranian Mechazoid X-Force Transforming "Teatime" Mk. I mech/jetfighter, which surprises everyone by actually flying despite the 4" cannons and heavy armor bolted to nearly everyone. TheFantasticMrFox is second in the formation in his Xi-55 “Baohù zhe” Interceptor, a delta-wing jet turbine aircraft, with the emergency rocket boosters still intact. Light forger has the lead in his Fengbào lóng Turbocopter, a remarkable flying triangle that was somehow able to both take off vertically and fly faster than anyone else - he's so far ahead that none of the others in the back can even see him.
The ragged formation closes in and the escort aircraft move forward to intercept the interceptors. Light forger screams "FOR TOSKESH!" and lays down on the trigger. Tun NMG's and rocketpods open up and send a disorganized spray of ballistic death into the cloud of aircraft ahead of him, but it's impossible to see if he hit anything. The Fengbào lóng Turbocopter blasts through the bomber formation unharmed and continues on. Swearing bitterly to himself, he pulls the stick to the side and begins his turn, but the craft rolls sluggishly and the horizon creeps by at a few degrees per second. It seems like the Turbocopter isn't the most agile craft, and turning around will take some time.
The rest of the squadron reach the bomber formation soon after. The aircraft are American, and they're fast - except, of course, the Turbocopter now blasting off in the complete wrong direction. BBBence1111 dips and swerves evasively as a lance of hot lead zips past his aircraft. Whether it was intentional or not is up for debate, but his craft rolls over half a dozen times and suddenly takes a sharp plunge towards the ground before pulling back up. TheFantasticMrFox actually scores the first kill in the dogfight - a spray from his Tun's and rocketpods catch an American jet on the wing and the aircraft spouts a cloud of smoke and shrapnel. It goes into a spin before a white parachute pops out. Stabbymcstabstab gets the second as he closes in on a bomber, spraying enough NMG ammo into the craft to make a thick trail of black smoke fill the air behind it. The victory is short-lived, however. BBBence1111 comes up through a bank of clouds and opens fire on the silhouette of an American jet from below. He proudly announces his hit as he goes sailing up into the sky, but it becomes readily apparent that he'd actually shot down Stabbymcstabstab in his JIA-54 Rapier - not an American F-86 Sabre, as he'd thought. Stabbymcstabstab bails out as the Rapier goes spinning back down to earth, but this far out over the ocean means there's very little chance of survival if the rest of the team fails.
Worse, a second report rolls in from 10ebbor10's Quetzalcoatlus. More bombers, this time coming from the northwest. Light forger, having finally managed to turn around, zips back through the bomber formation at supersonic speeds. Upon missing everything a second time he announces that he'll go to intercept the new bomber formation, since he's already headed that direction. Sensei, meanwhile, shoots down his second escort fighter and first bomber. For whatever reason he's chosen to deploy into "mech" mode, using the two arms as sort of mobile turrets to fire independently at escorts and bombers alike. The 4" Duke cannon integrated into the right arm gives a thunderous boom and the round tears through yet another bomber. The heavy armor that makes up the Teatime's fuselage is impervious to the puny 20 mm rounds the Americans throw at him, but it becomes clear his usefulness has reached an end as the fight moves away. He's simply not fast enough to catch up - not even in jet mode!
BBBence1111 has managed to corkscrew and get a bearing on one of the American bombers, but it becomes clear that he's not going to pull up in time. Every gun and rocket and missile on his plane is firing, but not a single one hits - until he crashes into the bomber. The plane explodes into a cloud of shrapnel and smoke, leaving just TheFantasticMrFox to clean up, but by now the tides of battle have turned against him. Very much alone and very much without support, he makes one last valiant effort to shoot down a bomber before a nasty hit blows off part of his wing. He engages his rocket boosters to help push the crippled craft as close as possible to the shoreline, then bails out at the last second. He drifts down over the coastline, hoping desperately that whatever the people on the ground built will be enough to hold out against the last two bombers even now creeping into range of Toskesh.
Light forger, with his killcount still at an embarrassing 0, has managed to make his way across the island in record time. More planes fill up the horizon - Russain bombers this time, with more escorts than he could count. Desperate now to shoot one down, he lines up the Turbocopter, holds down the trigger, and at the last possible second bails out. The machinegun fire tears into the bomber, followed shortly by the supersonic scramjet wedge. It crumples magnificently and Light forger - now traveling at the speed of sound through the air - slams through the cloud of debris in a into a spray of red mist. With most of Serouda's air forces now knocked out of commission it's down to the SAM sites to shoot down the last few bombers now creeping over the islands coastlines - if they even can.
One Second to Midnight
Taricus leans over the radio and wipes the sweat from his brow before asking, "what do you mean you don't know where they are?"
The radio squawks back in Mandarin, but Taricus is barely listening. The missile project he'd been working on for years - the last-ditch line against total nuclear annihilation - had gone missing. The soldiers he'd given the orders to had all disappeared and he had no idea where the missiles had gone. With bombers rapidly approaching in the skies above this situation was far from acceptable. In a sudden fit of rage he flips the table, grabs his coat, and exits the now-vacant research lab. If the fighters had failed to stop the bombers and his SAM sites weren't set up, then that meant there was very, very little left to stop them. He had to get to the vaults before they closed - now.
About twenty miles away and a few hundred feet underground, Blood_Librarian was pinching the bridge of his nose. "When I told you to gather up all the military hardware you could find, I didn't mean the fucking SAM sites, you imbeciles!" They were standing in a private cavern hollowed out off the main pathway where Blood_Librarian had been secretly building his armory. The few Toskeshe soldiers standing in front of the dozen or so missile trailers shuffled their feet awkwardly. "I don't care how you do it, get these things back up to the surface and deploy them immediately. I don't care if you have to set them up in the streets across a dozen handicap parking spaces - get these things out of here!" Okay, so maybe the Warb'Dong Military Division wasn't made up of the best and brightest, but God damn if these soldiers weren't loyal. Even with the threat of bombs falling any second, they hopped to action and set about towing the first missile trailer back to the surface. Progress slowed as soon as they left the secret cavern, though - civilians were pouring in past the checkpoints, and there was no room along the main pathway to drive.
Doomblade187 notices the trailer out of the corner of his eye, but pays it no mind. He has more important things to worry about. "The air systems are set up, correct? The water purification systems too, yes?" The scientist standing next to him nods, but Doomblade187 just clicks his tongue and checks his clipboard. "And you've gone down the faculty list, yes? None of the Warb'Dong MD are authorized for maintenance or operations?" The scientist assures him that yes, they are the only ones who have control over the air and water. The Warb'Dong may have the military in control, but so long as Doomblade187 has a stranglehold on the air and water there will be no coups - at least, none that survives past the week. Checkmate, Blood_Librarian.
Meanwhile, on Nogrania's side of the island, Talion and his fleet of Beetle miners are desperately hollowing out as much rock as they can to make room for the civilians flooding into the newly-hewn tunnels. Guards in Mk. I Sentinel mech suits patrol checkpoints and keep the peace as panic constantly threatens to take hold. Man of Paper, in his Mk. II Charon, stomps his way to where Talion and Nemonole are drilling. "WHAT'S TAKING SO LONG," his voice booms out of the roof-mounted speakers. Talion leans out of the hexapod to glare up at Man of Paper, then grabs his radio and angrily dials it to the mech's frequency.
"We're trying! We need to meet up with the Toskesh tunnel being drilled south, so that means we need to maintain the right elevation and bearing! If we can meet up then we'll be able to take advantage of the room they've already drilled."
"FUCK THAT - " Man of Paper stops as his speakers screech from the radio's feedback. He slams the receiver down, pops the hatch, and leans out to yell directly at Talion. "Fuck that! Just make room, we'll never hook up with them in time! They've got to drill the entire length of the island!"
"They HAVE been!" Talion replies. "They were gonna sneak attack from below before the warning came in, so they've already got a tunnel dug most of the way! We just gotta meet up is all."
Up above in the mostly-deserted streets of Nogrania, Kashyyk twitches. Slowly the world comes into focus and he sits up, though the sudden movement makes his headache that much worse. Whatever looters had been in the capitol had long since fled, either into the hastily dug tunnels or into the jungle wilderness. Wind blows a few pamphlets down the street, and in the distance an airraid siren rings its last warning.
What was he doing here again? Oh...that's right. The SAM control center! Kashyyk gets up slowly and makes good use of a nearby wall to steady himself. He had to get to the SAM center before it's too late. The bombs could be dropping any minute now! He rubs at the dried blood clinging to his face and carefully picks his way down the street to where the control center was set up. It was a relatively nondescript building save for the antennas and wires sticking out of the roof. His keys - he checks his pockets, only to have the blood drain from his face as he realizes whoever mugged him must have taken them. Nogrania's salvation was a few feet away behind these steel doors, but without his keys it might as well have been on the moon. He takes a step back and assesses his options. There - a window on the second floor! He hops once, twice, but it's too far. Desperately he looks around for something to climb on and spots a dumpster in the alleyway. He jogs over and pushes, but the world fades in and out as he exerts himself. Whoever hit him in the head really did a number on his noggin...
With the dumpster now in place, Kashyyk climbs up and hauls himself through the window. He lands in a heap on the floor, then slowly gets to his feet. The command chair is on the top floor...only three flights of stairs away.
Back in Toskesh, the Warb'Dong MD soldiers finally get the Lightbringer SAM site into the street. Without a second to spare they deploy the braces and the hydraulic pistons raise the missile upright. There's some squabbling as they argue over the controls, but thankfully there's a handy-dandy instruction manual printed to the side in Mandarin. Immediately the screen turns on with a small beep and paints two red dots on the radar display. A few switches, a button or two, and then one lever, and the Lightbringer roars to life and blasts off the trailer. The plume of white smoke disappears into the sky to meet one of the two black specks above, and a dull "boom" echoes across the city as it strikes home.
"We did it!" one of the soldiers shouts, pumping his fist in the air.
"And look - the other one's gotten scared and turned back! Oh! Look at the parachute - one of them must have bailed out! Haha!"
The soldiers cheer in celebration as the bomber overhead turns around and hurries out of the blast radius.
Back in Nogrania, Kashyyk has collapsed in the cushioned command chair and booted up the displays. Fuzzy green screens buzz and hum as RADAR data comes online and paints targets across the screen. He squints and examines the information through blurry eyes. There's three larger blips - the bombers, most likely. He checks his Sentinel SAM's to find that yes, the construction teams he'd sent out into the mountains had done their jobs. Three SAMs - one for each blip. With a smile he flips off the safeties and fires off the first Sentinel, and within a few seconds the first blip disappears off the screen. He fires the second, and sure enough the second blip vanishes without a trace. "One more to go..." he mutters, his hand poised over the last trigger...only for static to blast across the screen for a split-second before every electronic in the building shuts off. He stares at the screen in disbelief for a long moment, then he's out of his chair. A power outlet, maybe? A backup generator failing? But no - everywhere he looks the electronics are burnt out. Something...terrible had happened.
And Nogrania was next.
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Topic: Arms Race: Iron Behemoths - Toskesh - GAME OVER (Read 47822 times)