Begining of the end

[Kane]

The two gunboats, Feuer and Wasser, pulled up to the shuttle. The Feuer opened a small link to them.
"Follow us please. We will be escorting you to the Ableben where you can wait for your captians' return." The two took up escort positions as more ships from the Rhinland Navy and Military closed in on the rouge gunship.

***

The flitter finaly slowed to a halt near the middle of the Chancellor's Citadel. Again, the old Sleeper Ship had been converted into the capital building. Strike craft flew past in formation, doing escort duty and also patrol. Dab and his body guards were taken inside, away from the howling, bitingly cold winds of New Berlin's upper atmosphere. Inside, black banners were hung from the mid-level entrance hall. Gleaming marble echoed their footsteps in the near-empty grand hall, an exact image of the one on the ground floor. The one down there would quite obviously be more busy, but the one up here was hardly used. Here, a few guards decked in the same gleaming combat gear of the honnor platoon scattered about the place. A few normal security guards stood at attention with them. The guards outnumbered the soldiers, but there was no doubt that the soldiers were far more dangerous.

The Commisar lead Dab and escort up to the very top level, accessable only by elevator. This was the Chancellor's office. The elevator slid up to a glass top, and through the layers a squad of Black Legionairs stood guard. Anyone trying to get up here without clearence, well... pulling out your own gun and shooting yourself in the head would achieve the same result in a much faster time-span.

As they entered the foyer Dab felt a sudden fuzzyness over his psychic abilities, as if a heavy layer of felt had been drawn across it. Telepathy was all but useless now, and there was no doubt that the same Feed-back Generators that he had encountered once before were also here again. The doors were finaly opened, and Dab was ushered into the Chancellor's office.

Krieg was seated at a small, spartanistic utility desk in front of the main one. Normaly a place where the Chancellor would make important decisions, aided by direct feed from the Senate and a slew of other advisors, it was now quite different. There was no doubt this was the sybolic head of Rhinland, but the effect was somewhat muted. White anti-dust sheets had been draped over everything save the carpet, the windows, and Krieg's desk. In front of it stood a chair, which Krieg motioned Dab to sit in.

"Now, Lord Captain, to what do I owe this visit?" Krieg put both his arms on the table and rested his chin on his clasped hands.

***

This is an emergancy broadcast of GNN! I'm Kane, your host and major reporter for the GNN!

Today, Liberty has once again been brought to the brink of destruction. With the war on Rhinland going full tilt, Liberty has been hard pressed to cover all it's bases, so when the unexpected happened it was with disasterous results. A temporary hyper gate was opened up in front of Manhatten today, and from it spewed countless Nomads! Although beleived to be a new invasion, the Nomads simply destroyed what they could. The entire council of Liberty has been killed by what once was the Chancellor of Rhinland. However, press conferences with the new Chancellor-pro-tempore have revealed that the Chancellor dissapeared after a Phantom attack. It is beleived by some that she was alive after the hit, and that Rhinland tried to save her by fusing Nomad regenerative DNA to her to heal her grevious wounds. These people say that they obviously failed to do so, and as such Rhinland is to blame for this current state of affairs. The majority of these people, if not all, are from Liberty.

The rest of the people polled about this say it is the work of the notorious terrorist group, The Phantoms. Known for thier vicious attacks and beleifes, this cult has taken humanity to court of all it's atrocities durring it's history, and the verdict was Guilty. And the punishment is Death by Fireing Squad.

While the Nomad attack did the bulk of the damage, the Phantom's have also claimed resoncibility for several bombing strikes with nuclear weapons, and the death of hundreds of thousands of people with an unknown nerve gas agent. LSF forces are trying to annalise this gas, but have met with failure. They say the gas dissolves into a harmless and untraceable from within a few hours.

In total, the estimated death toll of this attack alone is estimated to be in the millions. Actual numbers are rumored to be around eight hundred thousand, and still climing.

We will have more to report as the story developes.

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This is the real true story of rock and roll; it was not about anything more then, how to live your life, as a gangster, in sartorial splendor, and turning the world into a place where normality would never return again...- Malcolm McLaren