Chương 216: Nova Wars - Chapter 171

Those who do not allow the public to break stress by lashing out at faceless monolithic agencies and apparatuses run the risk of being offered a last cigarette. - The Hamburger King, The Fires of Command and the Heat of Rulership, New Ozland Press, Age of Paranoia 2 Miles from Spaceport Wild Mutual Omaha City Hamburger Kingdom Year Zero of Terran Return More than a few Terrans turned to look behind them as she passed.

She had her index finger along her cheek and her thumb below her ear in the universal symbol for someone having a conversation with someone over their implant. Her hair was wild scintillating colors that changed in an almost random pattern, twisted and braided into a complex hairdo. Her makeup was overdone in the current style, with neon hyper-pink lipstick parted in the middle with mantak black so deep it drew in the pink from around it. She had one obvious cybereye and one eye that could be nothing but natural.

"... without even speaking to me about which of his failures were weighing so heavy on him. I understand him not wanting to force me into more unpaid emotional labor but he didn't even think about how it would matter to me that he just left like that..." she was saying.

"He didn't even validate your feelings and viewpoint?" the other caller asked.

"No! He didn't even care enough to realize that by doing that he was invalidating me as a person," the young woman said. She nimbly moved through the crowd.

"It's taking forever for the luggage. We'll probably still be in the luggage claim area when you get here, darling," the other caller said.

"Is everyone there?" the young woman asked.

"The whole family," the woman laughed.

"It was a little hard to convince your brother to leave the picket line in Mars, but we're here now."

"It's just so strange that the sky's full of stars again," the young woman said.

"I wish he had stayed, if nothing else than to support me through this terrible part. I can't believe he didn't even think about how the unbagging would make me feel."

"It's simply unbelievable that he was so self-centered," the older woman agreed. The young woman stopped at the curb as heavy traffic went by. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of overheated and untuned electric motors and tossed a "PROTECT OUR ENVIRONMENT!" tag at the vehicles as they went by. The vehicles checked her permit link and grumpily accepted they had to wear it. One truck VI scrawled a dick over the eco-graffiti with a feeling of satisfaction.

An ad got past her adblock and for a second her cybereye was dazzled with an advertisement for hair dye as the adaptive advertisement VI only had a split second and she didn't have any loaded cookies. She blinked a few times.

"I'm about two miles out," the young woman said.

"Once you get here, honey, we 'll all go to the hotel and we'll all..." The image of the older woman suddenly went bluish white. There was stuttering flashes inside the bluish white flash. The image cut off. There was a bluish white flash with stuttering flashes that seemed to strengthen the flash that made everything go flat as the shadows and depth vanished. The ad quit partway through. A fine layer of dust fell from the air.

The trucks and vehicles slammed down into the road, the upper levels of air vehicles starting an emergency descent.

"Mom? Mommy?" the young woman asked, still blinking. Her vision cleared in time for her to see the strangest thing. A bright blue flash held back by a dome of interlocking hexagons hovering in midair off in the distance. She could see runes starting to appear that were the size of trucks, appearing high in the sky. The hexagons shattered as she started to blink. Another set of hexagons appeared. They brightened. Runic script appeared. Her eyes closed as the hexagons shattered.

Her eyes opened as another hexagon shell appeared, held, then shattered. Windows exploded, starting from far away and rapidly advancing toward the young woman as she inhaled sharply. People were already starting to scream. In front of her, across the street, hexagons suddenly appeared. People on the sidewalk exploded into subatomic fog, the ferrocrete cracked but held. The blast wave hit the hexagons and they shuddered, becoming more visible as they tightened. The girl stared wide eyed.

The blast wave rebounded, caught the secondary wave and slammed against the shielding again. The last blast wave hit, bringing it up. The shield sparked, some of the fat sparks slamming into cars and making them explode. Windows and paint exploded from skyrakers as the sparks jumped to them. The girl was still as the arc of electricity whipped around her, lifting up her hair. Her hair disintegrated three inches from the scalp. Her clothing blackened and burned. You could be reading stolen content.

Head to the original site for the genuine story. Her skin was untouched, even though her tattoos lit up. Her animated tattoos showed all the frames at once and crashed. Her cybereye went dead, her implant shorted out, her cyberware all went down. The shield thickened, stopping even more radiation from crashing into the girl. The electricity lashed at the ground in front of her, to either side of her, ripped into the skyraker right above her head. Blood ran from her cybereye. Then it was past.

The light and rumbling stopped. The hexagons faded from sight as the energy was drained away. The field vanished. Across the street the ground was lifted up nearly a hundred meters, the edge of a four mile wide crater nearly two kilometers deep. The young woman stared, blood running down her cheek from her blown cybereye.

"Momma?" 0-0-0-0-0 The building was labeled on the maps and directories as the Ornislarp Noocracy Embassy. It had a heavy fence, a wide pavement yard, and a building with ferrocrete facing. There were Ornislarp still inside, all huddled down. The slave stock and food stock had made a run for it after the explosion. The single Ornislarp sec-being who went afterwards had been torn apart by an enraged crowd. Hamburger Kingdom laws stated that any appeals had to be made in person.

Any filibusters had to have someone speaking even if they were just reciting the phone book. Any applications had to be done in person. Feeling as if they were being humiliated, the Ornislarp had sent two low leven diplomats and their security to the audience chamber of the ruler of the Hamburger Kingdrom. They had appealed to the Hamburger King, who had just laughed.

"One point two million of my citizens, three point two million transient visitors dead at the starport, and you expect mercy from me?" the undying tyrant had laughed.

"You must protect us! You must garunatee our safety! We are diplomats! We must receive what is due to us!" the Ornislarp diplomat shouted. A figure in red and yellow stepped forward, delivering a kick to the side of the diplomat before anyone could react.

"YOU WILL NOT SPEAK TO THE KING IN SUCH A MANNER, ANIMAL!" The ladies of the court smiled, a cruel thing.

"You will receive nothing," the Hamburger King laughed.

"In abundance." His court laughed.

"Begone. Attempt to beg mercy from my subjects, if you will." The laughter of the Snow Princess, daughter of the assassinated Razor Wit Wendy (praise unto her name) and the Warlord of the Box, made the Ornislarp burn with rage. The vehicle had been hit by an unregistered mob. It was formed of many different species, all of them willing to kill everyone in sight. A Treana'ad, a veteran of the brutal hand to hand fighting of the early 2PW, shoulder checked and tore open one of the vehicles of the diplomatic convoy.

The diplomats had been ripped into small chunks. Rumor said that some were eaten. The building was surrounded. Twice the Ornislarp had tried to evacuate by air. The first time when the grav lifter was powered up it had exploded. The pilot, an Ornislarp who felt slighted that they had to actually drive for more than amusement, had only a second to recognize what appeared on the digital screen. A Terran penis with "GO FUCK YOURSELF" written in food slave runes.

The second grav lifter had gone straight up until automatic defense systems had blown it out of the sky at a kilometer up, give or take a few yards. The third time, the ambassadors and diplomats had scurried out onto the flight pad. They rushed out, tight to one another, some wearing body armor. None were armed, they had applied for and received a waiver due to species custom and no longer had to abide by the Hamburger Kingdom requirement for being armed at all times.

A young woman, her blood red hair cut brutally close, a blue lightning bolt drawn on her pale face across a damaged and inoperative cybereye, a wet crimson handprint over her other eye, which burned a bright red, stood up and pointed at the embassy.

"OPEN FIRE!" she howled out. The people around her stood up and began firing their weapons. Two Treana'ad warrior caste opened fire with their rifles, the big heavy Ma Deuce battle rifles chonking out APDSFSAM rounds, the 4 to 1 mix of tracers whipping bright red rocks at the battlescreen that had spun up. Someone hit the embassy's electrical transformer with a shoulder fired rocket. Snipers on rooftops and behind compromised windows pinpointed and shot at obvious cameras.

Some of the armored ones held, the WP core of the round burning spitefully white. Armor piercing rounds followed and the cameras shattered. The Battlescreen went down in a shower of sparks as the power was cut and the embassy's generators were too weak to sustain it.

"KILL THEM! KILL THEM IN THE NAME OF THE MOO MOOS! KILL THEM IN THE NAME OF THE DUCKLINGS! KILL THEM IN THE NAME OF THE PODLINGS! THE HAMBURGER KINGDOM WAS BUILT ON BLOOD AND WE DEMAND MORE! KILL THEM ALL!" the woman screamed through an old fashioned BobCo Voice Loudener™. Her voice was fervent, full of rage, full of pain, full of righteous anger. It picked up other people's rage and gave it a voice.

Someone tagged the diplomatic vehicle with a rocket and it exploded even as the diplomats, which were scattering across the Flight Pad, were gunned down. For the remaining Ornislarp, a horrible realization settled. Something that shouldn't have happened was happening. The Ornislarp felt a chill as they realized. They couldn't get out. At least the battlescreen came back up. That didn't stop the rooftop teams from shooting at it for their own amusement and gratification. They planned for several hours.

A heavy security vehicle would attempt to reach the starport and gain passage for the rest of the diplomats. It was true that in the entire Solarian System there was no more Ornislarp vessels. It was true that the Ornislarp Noocracy was at war with the Solarian Iron Dominion, but they would, of course, allow the Ornislarp to leave. Even though the Ornislarp would have never even considered it if the situation had been reversed. The Noocracy would have sent tanks. The gates rolled back even as the defenses engaged.

Tear gas (level 2) poured out, rubber balls sleeted into the crowd, soundwaves and microwaves lashed at the crowd strong enough to deter even the strongest foodslave. The Treana'ad and Mantid staggered. The Rigellians staggered with their hands over their ears. The Telkan howled in pain. One group though... The red eyes part of the crowd roared in rage. The vehicle pulled out, obviously intending on crashing through the crowd. The crowd surged forward.

A human with decommissioned tattoos on his upper arms put his shoulder into the vehicle and the cyberware he was still packing let him and the ones like him on either side stop the vehicle dead. Enraged hand ripped at armor. The doors were pulled open. A girl with a blue lightning bolt and a red handprint on her face grabbed a sec-being by the leg. The sec-being shot her in the chest with his force packet pistol and she spit the blood back at him. She screamed in joy, snatching him out.

If he hadn't been wearing armor she would have ripped his leg off.

"KILL THIS ONE WHERE THE OTHERS CAN SEE IT!" she howled out as she lifted him over her head and threw him into the crowd. The crowd howled its bloodlust and surged against the embassy's walls. The Hamburger King watched with amusement from his iron throne.

"Meat's back on the menu." 0-0-0-0-0 NOW Mila held up the Loudenator™ to her mouth.

"THE CONFEDERATE SENATE VOTES TOMORROW TO DECIDE WHETHER OR NOT TO DECLARE WAR ON THE NOOCRACY!" she shouted. The crowd roared.

"THEY DECLARED WAR ON US! THEY ATTACKED US! MURDERED US! MURDERED VISITORS TO OUR PLANET!" she shouted. The crowd roared its anger.

"HEY HEY BEE KAY HOW MANY OF US DIED TODAY?" 0-0-0-0-0 In a basement a lone figure trotted up to a computer. The Lanaktallan was dressed all in black, but still flashed ID to the computer system. The Lanaktallan carefully input her name into the system. MILA VON LAGSTETTER Satisfied, the Lanaktallan trotted back out of the room, to weave around the filing cabinets in the basement to reach the door to the main filing room. Behind him, the door closed.

In the elevator the Lanaktallan chuckled to himself over his cleverness. In the dimness, the words on the door could barely be read. SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN REGISTRATION OFFICE