Wall
"So the skinny is this." Chips began, sitting now in the open cockpit of his Highwayman when the pilots assembled, the tone of the communications system in each mech clear as day by their proximity even if the sound of thrashing death and screaming men cut a slight undertone.
"Its a lot of bugs, I know. But..." He paused, unsure of how to continue for a moment as he rhythmically tapped a couple of fingers on the open cockpit.
"It just ain't enough- Know I know that there's a good number out there but we been hired to solve this problem in one fell swoop and right and propper! I think, in 'mah tactical advisory role that we should be waitin a bit longer; Maybe a day, three at the most for the maximum buildup o' bugs to get the propper response prepared and deal wit' em in a precise and professional manner."
Chips clear stalling was highlighted by looking constantly at the nuclear rocket slightly taller than he was bolted to a launched on his mech longingly much to the consternation of his fairy who immedietly made her thoughts known.
"You just wanna fire that nuke!" Snacks, Chips fairy accused, pointing a tiny comical finger at the device.
"Ah' mean, well, kinda." The old avian mutant admitted. looking down to a big, hastily installed
big red button in his cockpit he wired just to launch the offending .5kt dirty-nuke he had been able to weasel into requisitioning from the small spacer-bought stockpile the corporation had.
"How many folks in this day an' age can say they been able to nuke somethin! It's all Aether this and Antimatter that; No appreciation for the classics that made fightin stuff fun when you and ye mates could just pull some fissile material from a starship wreck with the lads and make dirty bombs to set off outside the city on a summers nights!"
"Ah just think we should wait for the optimal amount of enemies to fire it instead of just a few thousand of them that the locals is already managin'."
"Chips." The disembodies childlike voice of
Clotho the fairy commander chimed in over their radios, clearly eavesdropping through one of her sisters they all had.
"Ya, Boss?"
"Am I correct in my assumption you want to wait until there are a hundred thousand, or more, enemies on this wall to fire a nuclear device?"
"I mean, ya, that about sums it up."
"And you would fire this nuke... At the bugs?"
"The bugs, aye."
"The bugs on the wall?"
"Well, yeah?"
"Chips..."
"Ya, Clo?"
"You want to fire the nuke. At the bug. The bugs that are at the wall. The bugs that are on the wall two hundred meters away."
"Oh."
"Yes, oh."
There was a long silence as chips several times opened his beak and closed it, flabbergasted.
"Then I can't use it?" He finished, defeated.
"You can fire the rocket at the enemies that are still miles away and have yet to arrive. They are still in a massive horde much larger than this from my outriding drones observing them. I can provide a firin-"
There was a backwash of fire and smoke at the massive rocket soared out as soon as Chips slammed his fist on the button with barely any thought after turning the dial to increase the range as it launched away at an arcing angle as it soared what appeared rather slowly as nothing more than a distant light.
"Heck yeah!" Chips shouted, pumping a fist that he recoiled after hitting the cockpit rather hard and wincing.
"Chips!" The voice of an exasperated young girl shouted as Clothos voice cracked despite being an AI who operated on nanosecond time to process, understand, and come to terms with what he had done before the missile ever left its tube.
"How far did you dial that missile to fire, chips?"
"Two kilometers. Nice and in the fat of the mass of em just like ye said"
There was little time for a follow up as the missile, arcing at first then started to tilt down and then violently at a steep angle until its path was blocked by the wall. Several seconds passed in tense silence as nothing happened until his fairy piped up
"Maybe its a du-"
In a near instant, a bright orange-yellow flash erupted as a dome of fire expanded and rose on a stem into a mushroom and just kept going higher as the Devils Deathbell grew brighter and hotter than any nucler device five times its yield as half the payload, replaced by the corporations Star Paint was thrown in all dirrections despite the low quantity it increased the reaction of the bloom to near-blinding proportions as on the force of the blast a wall of orange-yellow-red substance flew like a wall of water as thick as a sheet of paper and like a heavy painters brush expanded to cover everything from the blast, to the wall, and into the city as rooftops, not affected beyond the force of the pressure wave damaging them were instantly coated in a layer of the extremely radioactive material that was superheated to over a thousand degrees as it covered streets and houses, alleys and people and began to
melt houses where it hit as the spunk-material they were made from hit its low forming point and houses began to sag in places like wax even as men, women, elderly, children, and all others ran screaming from intense beyond third degree burns as star-paint so hot it melted through skin glowed inside wounds to cast the shadows of bones from the intense glow as a third of the city was thrown into chaos and pandemonium.
"Now that what am' talkin about!" Chips shouted, covering his eyes from the intense light, not seeing any of this as he, and most of the other strays looking up failed to notice what was behind them or more importantly
infront of them as those on the wall not instantly killed or were flung off blindly fell off in blind unseeing agony.
Their mechs as well shuddered and screens flickered and joysticks stiffened as every fairy winced or curled inwards before disappearing at the discomfort of the weak EMP as their nanites went inactive. Most of them reformed moments later, irritated, annoyed, or in clear but fading discomfort that while not actually present on Rogers World IV and inhabiting the Fae they were all connected to still experienced second-hand discomfort from the small disruption in their connections to the mechs and devices ther were connected to.
Finally looking away from the nuke to blink away the sunspots still present from the tower of fire that still wasnt disipating, however, the strays would note most of the army camp unnafected as the walls acts as a wave-break causing the blast and star paint to blow
over the camp and not harm or kill the still present thousand of soldiers looking skywards in absolute horror and frozen in shock, and most importantly not having killed any of the pilots from a
danger-close nuclear detonation.
Looking in that direction one might also note how the cities protective walls that had sheltered them from the blast immediately began to sag in places as the star-paint superheated coating on them began to soften and melt the spunkile material they were made of like a wall of birthday-candle wax they began to slump forward and dip even as men began trying to flee from the interior or jump off of it as it slowly sank on them.
"Oh." Chips choked as they stared at the wall for a long moment.
"Maybe it killed em all and it wont be a-"
The first slugs, glowing yellow-green from star paint climbed onto and then sank into the now soft wall only for scored of others to climb over them and into the mustering field as the
eventually lethal star paint had yet to kill them from super-cancer or intense burns and those closest to the wall had more than likely just been blown against it with force that would kill a mortal man but not the resistant and single-minded drive of an insectoid.
A couple hundred meters ahead of them as they towered over the mustering camp, droves of slugs on their rather fast multiple legs managed to scale the fatally hot wall on the corpses of their brethren as they ran down the survivors of the nuke who had escaped from inside the wall as dozens, and then
hundreds of septupersuperpedal alien xenos killing machines laid into them as the cap errupted into screams as the shocked soldiery, hardly ready for the sudden attack were caught off guard and out of formation.
"Oh..." Chips intoned again in the tone of a child who realized he had just done something incredibly stupid and was about to be caught.
The
Slug War had begun.
