Part 4: The Last Update's Title Had Nothing to Do With This Update, and the Defense of Drassen
Part 4: The Last Update's Title Had Nothing to Do With This Update, and the Defense of Drassen
Jakarta. 1998. The HMS Earl Grey captures a small fishing vessel off the coast of Indonesia. Once on the deck, soldiers discover a small amount of Soviet-era nuclear material being smuggled inside the drum of a mechanical fish processor. Bill Richardson is deployed to the area to tell Indonesian officials to tighten their security. Meanwhile, in Iran, a plutonium enrichment device goes wanting.
HMS Earl Grey. If you think it looks awfully similar to the USS Nimitz, you can go to hell
Honolulu. 2001. Coast Guard officials detain a man wandering the beach naked, rambling about "planes," "terrorists," and "towers." The man shows clear signs of radiation poisoning. Simultaneously, the World Trade Centres in New York are struck by hijacked aircraft. The man dies overnight.
Drassen. Present. At roughly 2:13 local time, Tim "Gumpy" Hillman, shaken from dreams of his Pan-Asian vacation, experiences a vision. (Or were they memories?) His body convulses, his eyes bug out, and his toes and fingers curl inward tightly. He gurgles loudly, waking his teammates.
Though it might seem like Deidranna is angry at Elliot, she's actually just pulling a reference from Arulco's favourite primetime sit-com "Fresh Prince of Balime." The young ethnic Elliot (no relation) is forced to move from poor Chitzena to upscale Balime, where his wild ways and wacky catchphrases irritate the upper-crust, much to the chagrin of his Uncle Phil, who is often heard to lament "Elliot, you idiot!" Also notable for a catchy theme song
Listening to his strangled voice, the team learns that Deidranna is aware of their conquest of Drassen and has organized a counter-attack. Dagny, horrified by visions of a shapeless grey mass of socialist nanorobots flattening her squad and absorbing the townspeople, immediately orders her squad to arm themselves and to prepare for combat. While the others depart, she takes hold of Ira and Flo.
"Listen: you two are the most boorish and useless of my soldiers. This natural lowness makes you fit to recruit willing bodies from the people. Consequently, you are to go out and train the people in the rudiments of combat. We need a human shield to absorb the initial attack of the Communist machine..." Her voice suddenly lowers to a conspiratorial whisper, and both Ira and Flo lean in.
"You see, the machine feeds on the souls of the dead. If we can, even temporarily, sate its bloodlust, then we might have a shot at taking it down." She hastily drew up a diagram of her gameplan. To Flo, it looked sort of like a crude image of a tank with arms holding a big-breasted woman in one of its mechanical claws. A little speech bubble floated above the tank, saying "Raaaar!" Before the tank lay dozens of dead stickmen. She was understandably frightened, and nodded her assent to Dagny. Ira, on the other hand, was excited at the prospect of meeting someone else who shared her passion for all things dead and deceased. She too agreed with Dagny.
With her men off to their tasks, Dagny lit a cigarette and flicked open her laptop. Now that they had access to an airfield, supplies could be brought in. She placed an order with Bobby Ray's Guns and Things, hoping that the items would get to Drassen before Deidranna's troops arrived.
Disappointingly, Dagny was unable to order an illuminated licence plate cover for her '97 Honda Civic. Take that Big Brother!
Fortunately, the order arrived before Deidranna did. The equipment was distributed amongst her troops, and they took up defensive positions in Drassen's mine sector, waiting for the prophesied attack. Gumpy hummed that theme from Star Wars: A New Hope from the part right before the TIE Fighters attack the Millenium Falcon. Gasket was content to sing "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" to himself. Dagny, meanwhile, decided to stage all four parts of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, incorporating Flo and Ira as the noble Rhinemaidens. Naturally, she played Wotan. It received mixed reviews.
While Ira and Flo had managed to recruit ten men from the town, for some reason they elected not to show up. Dagny added their names to the sympathizers.txt file on her laptop.
The enemy struck from the east, as expected.
The plan was to hide in a windowless building and shoot the enemy as they rushed in. Dagny lifted it from a Tom Clancy novel
They waited silently. Their bodies heated up rapidly in the stifling heat, and moisture began to build up on the walls. Gumpy's mouth-breathing began to irritate everyone, but they kept silent for fear of dying. A solitary spider lazily spun a web along the ceiling, waiting for its prey. Ira thought it an excellent metaphor for their present situation and consumed the spider whole.
TENSE
The battle was brief but bloody. Soldier after soldier attempted to breach the perimeter, but each was met with an impenetrable wall of bullets. There was a tense moment when Fred, the mining director, ran outside, his nerve shattered by the constant onslaught, but he somehow managed to survive. Dagny had idly contemplated killing him and using his blood to grease the approach to the building, but thought the better of it when she realized that Ira might just lap it up. One of Deidranna's commandoes also tried the advanced tactic of not rushing in point blank, and attempted to engage Dagny's troops from a distance. However, Ira's Barracuda got the better of that particular soldier.
After about fifteen minutes of intense combat, the dust settled, and Dagny and her troops emerged from their makeshift bunker unscathed.
There are actually 15 corpses here. Locals now refer to the six yard appoach as the 'Trail of Tears,' and to this day the grass still grows red. The multicoloured vests of the otherwise identical troopers provide a sort of vertical Andy Warhol effect
Dagny surveyed the loot. Thanks to Deidranna's weapon delivery service, she was now able to outfit all of her troops with either rifles or submachineguns, thus increasing their combat effectiveness. Flash suppressors would aid their nighttime sorties, while sun goggles would help them see better during the day.
Thanks to the M4A1 'Commando,' Gumpy's Counter-Strike re-enactments were about to get a little more realistic. Pwnd n00b
Now she had to decide where to take her troops next. The neutral town of San Mona beckoned to her: she had heard that, at night, man would challenge man to a game of fisticuffs for the amusement of the local Mafioso. Dagny herself was no slouch when it came to fighting; the CIA had taught her the six pressure points of a socialist, and she could cripple with a single blow. The team stood to make good money going to San Mona, money which could be used to buy awesome weapons.
But, there was also Alma, the location of the military academy. If they struck by night, they could almost certainly carry away boatloads of advanced military equipment. But Alma was heavily guarded, and would be a significant challenge to a team as inept as hers.
Our men are indicated by the six orange dots at Drassen. Do we go south, to Alma, or west, to San Mona? YOU DECIDE
So what will it be, goons? Will Dagny take her men to San Mona, or to Alma? Choose wisely!
Next up: goons make horrible decisions