S1C12: The Long Way Down
To my loyal subjects (who love and adore me),
I can see the hordes of rebels from outside my penthouse. They have taken the north and east of Atlas. The enemy is now at our gates. I have never felt a deeper pit in my stomach than the moment I realised I could see Atiley’s flag from my balcony. It waved there, unscorched, unsullied. It was mocking me. Even when I get an hour or two of sleep, it’s disturbed by the sounds of gunfire and bombs. When I heard them in the distance, it soothed me. I knew that I would never be in danger, that those bombs were meant for lowly rebels, the crazies, or the tin men. When the Reeds first burned down, I cackled with a drink in my hand as I heard the screams of the culties. The fact that Atiley is now doing the same with Atlas sickens me. I don’t feel like being funny, appealing to your fanaticism, or escaping. This is my home. The home that has now turned into a gigantic battlefield. I don’t want to mince words here; I want every single Underworld Collective and Cultivation Society soldier hung from Atlas’ base and cooked by its thrusters. I will go over what happened quickly, but then I’m going to go over the plans.
We got kicked out of Overwatch pretty quickly. Our troops were against a combination of Oasis Network and Cultivation Society troops.
The Cultivation Society were slowly but surely eating through the Oasis Network’s back lines in the Reeds.
Meanwhile, the Underworld Collective were pushing through the north and the east. We had them pinned down for a while with a couple of EMP strikes. They then retaliated with the first-ever fire bomb to hit Atlas. It shook the city and caused it to list to the right for a while. The city flew into a panic, and a riot broke out. If we want to survive, they will have to get used to this.
I’m now having officials from my court calling for my head. All of our outer-city troops are wiped out. We now have to use city troops to defend what we still hold. Everything is looking real dire here.
I have a weapon up my sleeve from the days before the Oasis Network took over the Smoke. We abandoned it and called it a failure. We are desperate though so now would be the best time to field test it.
This weapon has quite a long range but can be vulnerable to attacks. If we want to survive, we have two options:
Deploy them from Drop Ships behind enemy lines?
OR keep them in Atlas and try to defend them with Drop Shields?
They are Atlas’ last hope, but neither option is really considered playing it safe. If the Drop Ship goes down, that’s our last chance gone, but even with Drop Shields, they might not be able to take on all of the forces all at once.
Let’s drop the act: I need your actual advice here.
God Emperor Jerit