(CNN Special Reports eyecatch) CNN Reporter(VO): Chancellor Prima Grey and Admiral Kano Nagisa of the Ctholon militia fought a giant robot fielded by the `Delga Insignia' in New Orleans this afternoon. (shot of the smouldering hulk of a giant robot, with the Huey Long bridge in the background, Iczer Robo standing tall, if slightly out of focus, in the foreground, and entire neighborhoods burning all around) Dark Kingdom Militia forces managed to stop most of the `Delga Insignia' troops before they could reach orbit, but a few Delga ships made it to Earth. (shot of shooting star) Three landed in Dark Kingdom territory, two in Africa, one in Mongolia, and were quickly dealt with. (shot of large, lumpy ship sitting in a heavy jungle, the dark Non-Specular Blue of Dark Kingdom fighters, two S-9 Julia, a flight of S-10 Sierpenski, and a solitary S-14 Mandelbrot, passing over head, and the IJN Green of Dark Kingdom helicopter gunships, several Nighthawks and a few Wombats, hovering) The other two landed in North America, one in Mexico, the other in Louisiana. (map, with two red dots, one on the Yucatan peninsula, one near the mouth of the Mississippi) The Mexican government quickly agreed to allow Dark Kindom forces from Brazil to deal with the incursion. The four wings of Mandelbrot fighters, with a squad of Sierpenski(sp?) fighters and sixty reservists as backup, managed to capture the ship with only a single casualty. (shot of Dark Kindom fighters passing over a beach) The casualty, one of the reservists, is expected to recover fully. (shot of young woman with a bandage wrapped around her chest, talking to someone we can't see) The U.S. refused Dark Kindom forces entry. Ctholon Militia forces, allowed access by treaty, were requested to assist. (shot of USN F-14 fighters flashing past another of the lumpy ships, in a different jungle from the first. One of them doesn't make it, and the missles explode harmlessly against the ship. The tanks and missle-carriers aren't doing much better. Every few minutes another cruise missle comes over the horizon and explodes against the ship, doing no damage to it. A set of tracks from a giant robot lead away from the ship) U.S. military forces had been suffering horrid losses when the Ctholon Militia F-16XLs* arrived. (Six cranked-arrow wing fighters appear in the shot, flashing overhead, and over the lumpy ship) After a quick exchange of pleasantries and threats, the Ctholon forces launched Dark Kindom provided GWSR ACMs**, destroying the Delga ship's engines and control systems. (shot of New Orleans, and a giant robot wading the Mississippi from Algiers towards the Canal Street ferry dock. Someone from off the side is firing at it, probably trying to draw it away from the French Quarter and Aquarium. One can tell from the green trail left by the rounds that the weapon is a 55mm GWSR GyroJet. Each round leaves a small crater in the giant robot's armor.) The person firing is Sgt. Ichijou Miyuki of the Dark Kingdom Militia, on vacation at the time. She managed to draw the robot away from the populated French Quarter, momentarily managing to get it stuck in the convention center. (giant robot trying to pull its foot free from a giant, rather ugly building) Once it worked its way free she managed to draw it all the way into Metarie before running out of ammunition for the GJ-55. At that point-- (Helicopter shot of woman running from giant robot, pausing, firing a long weapon she hadn't been holding the instant before, and then running again, the weapon no longer in sight. A few steps by the giant robot more, she spins again, and this time fires a BAR-.50***, which has no effect on giant robot) --the giant robot stopped chasing her, apparently considering her, like the U.S. military forces, no longer a threat, and continued towards Stennis. The giant robot continued up Veterans for a few more steps, then turned towards Lake Ponchartrain. (giant robot turning lakeward, leaving giant footprints through the interviening Veterans Mall, almost, but not quite, stepping on Morning Call****) Before it could reach the Lake-- (different angle, the sun glinting off the giant robot, and in front of it a sharp streak of static appears, and a similar looking giant robot steps out.) --Ctholon forces, in the form of Chancellor Grey and Admiral Kano, interviened. (Iczer Robo kicks the other robot in the head. It falls over, sliding across dozens of expensive, ugly houses before stopping, and crushes a few more as it stands up. Iczer Robo hits it with a massive energy blast, the wash of which forces the robot back, and it falls over again, a swath half a kilometer wide and six kilometers long burning from the blast. The robot staggers to its feet, and gets kicked in the gut again. It slides back for a couple kilometers before it falls onto its back. As it tries to get to its feet again it turns over, and squashes the Wal-Mart. It falls over again, and sticks its hand through the CompUSA, somehow missing the pet store between the two. Before it can try again, Iczer Robo is kneeling on its back, one arm pressed between its shoulder blades, the other held over its head.) Pro Dark Kingdom groups are already calling this another reason for the ratification of the EDT, while Fundamentalist Christian organizations are calling it `More proof that the Dark Kingdom is the tool of Satan.' Admiral Kano had this to say, (Admiral Kano Nagisa, standing at Iczer Robo's feet, looking over the devestation, dressed in a Dark Kindom Marine's duty uniform. `I would have prefered for Dark Kingdom Special Services to have dealt with this. We, while we can cope with this kind of thing, are not as well trained to deal with the variety of situations they are, and are not as well equiped deal with this sort of thing in a clean manner,' she gestures at the burning hulk of the downed robot, still laying in the ruins of several houses behind the Wal-Mart. `I'm a Dark Kindom Marine. I've trained in boarding proceedures, hand to hand, wildlife rescue, orbital and free-space interception, and several other things that I'm not allowed to talk about, but, and this is a big, nasty, ugly but, we, Prima and I, have not fought another giant robot since 1986. We didn't make as big a mess this time, for which I'm grateful, and the evacuation vehicles managed to get most of the people out. `However, we still caused millions of dollars in damage. And we could have killed thousands of people. (low mumbling, apparently asking about why the Delga Insignia were here) `Big Gold pissed the Delga off a long time ago, decided that they were too big of a bite for her to chew, and fled. At the time they didn't have FTL technology, but that has, apparently, changed. `King Serenity has, as of five minutes ago, extracted a surrender from the Delga Insignia, and they have agreed to present our case to the Delga Conclatch. `Of the twelve alien invasions since the Dark Kingdom emerged in 1994, the Dark Kingdom has stopped seven of them before they got into the papers. This is the worst mess that has happened since then. It pales in comparison to the destruction that occurred on a regular basis before that. `If the U.S. does not want it to happen again, they need to ratify the EDT, and allow skilled warriors to defend them, instead of washed up old beaurocrats like the two of us,' she points up towards the head cockpit of Iczer Robo with her chin. The camera pans over the ruins of Metarie, then cuts back to the reporter) CNN: Congress has been debating on the issue all day, as the National Guard helps clean up the mess. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [almost forgot the foot-notes --S] *: The F-16 XL is a modified version of the normal F-16, with a composite cranked-arrow wing. The first one was made in 1991 (I've also seen references saying designed in 1980, and built in 1982), and they were adopted by the Ctholon Militia after the design was rejected by the USAF. [in real life, the prototype was sold/loaned to NASA, and lives at Dryden, along with the second XL, a two-seater. www.dfrc.nasa.gov for picutes --S] **: ACM -- antimatter cruise missle. A device about the size of a trade paperback book, with an admitted range sixteen thousand kilometers in atmosphere, and a yield equivalent to about ten gigagrams of TNT. ***: BAR-.50 -- fifty caliber Browning Automatic Rifle, designed by Genom Weapons System Research, and the first several thousand were made by them. Currently produced by Thompson Arms, Thompson, Tempest. ****: Morning Call -- a coffee shop in Metarie. [last time I was there they took neither checks nor plastic. That was 1996, so things might have changed since then --S] --- log: plotted 3167 written 3167/Chaos/34 Ed 3167/Chaos/35 Ed 3169/Discord/15