The Nighthawk Groundlings

 

The planet Falconstarr has one of the most contentious in all the Acamas Republic. The sky cities that hover above the planet are the ones that gave it its name, and are the ones recognized by the Republic as the rulers of Falconstarr, but below the sky cities are the lands of the Groundlings, who generations ago fought a long and bitter war against the sky cities and their builders, the Winged. It was a war fought over land, as many primitive wars are. The Groundlings believed only those that physically touched a surface had rights to the resources of that surface, but the Winged believed that it was enough to hover over a land to claim that land.

 

The war resolved in the favor of the Winged, for they were far more advanced in the arts of science, and resulted in the collapse of Groundling civilization. The Winged, who lost many of their people to the fighting, feared that an independent Groundling culture would carry a grudge and restart hostilities within a generation, and so, believing that their only options were genocide or subjugation, chose subjugation, and absorbed the entire planetary civilization of the Groundlings into their own. The Groundlings became second-class citizens, unable to vote, unable to hold office. They were beneath the Winged, physically and socially.

 

This, of course, created a great deal of resentment from the Groundlings. Beaten though they were, they did not bear these indignities without anger. They were a powder keg, and when exiled Winged Arn Kanos provided the spark in the form of stolen Winged technology and secrets, violent rebellion swept over Falconstarr.

 

The Groundlings call the rebels the Iron Wolf Army, for the old Groundling General Iron Wolf leads, but the Winged call them the Nighthawk Groundlings, for they know that Arn Kanos is the true mastermind behind it, and that if the Battlehawks fail to stop him, neither Groundling nor Winged will win, but only Arn Kanos, Nighthawk.

 

Nighthawk

 

 

“They are animals–stupid animals–but even stupid animals can be trained. Will they win themselves their countries back? Of course not. They couldn’t defeat the Winged at the height of their power, they can do not but throw themselves into the fire as they are now! But they’ll take more than a few of the Battlehawks with them, which is all I want. The only victor if this conflict will be me!”

 

Arn Kanos, now known as the Nighthawk, is a narcissistic sociopath whose pride has been deeply wounded by the Battlehawks. He does not want to simply slay the Battlehawks, he wants all of Winged society to pay for insulting him–and pay in blood.

 

Arn Kanos was once the ruler of the largest sky city on Falconstarr, Aerie, until the Battlehawks, Falconstarr’s finest lawmen, discovered that he had sold Winged technology to the X-Terminator space pirates. Fleeing arrest, Arn Kanos took a starship full of stolen technology to the surface of Falconstarr where he made contact with rebellious Groundlings and fanned the fires of revolution, not for the sake of Groundling self-determination, but for the sake of bloody revenge.

 

Nighthawk does not have a Battlehawk suit, nor does he have the skill to assemble one from his stolen technology, but he has been able to assemble a “quasi-suit” by linking separate Battlehawk suit components through a mysterious harness rumored to come from a world called Ferror. How he came across such a harness is unknown, but rumor has it he purchased it from the Black Hole gang.

 

His quasi-suit grants him the brute abilities of a proper Battlehawk suit. He can fly, project force fields, and fire bolts of energy, but the more sophisticated functions–scanning, teleportation, and matter alteration–remain beyond his capabilities. However, Nighthawk’s suit is fitted with a weapon unique to itself–a powerful gravitational wave that can bring the Battlehawks crashing down to earth. The poetic irony of the weapon is not lost on Nighthawk, and he in fact relishes it.

 

Nighthawk’s suit has a major drawback–it’s power supply is unstable and drains far faster than a normal Battlehawk suit. Because of this, he uses the powers of his suit only when necessary. Unless he’s fighting a Battlehawk, he keeps all the functions at a low setting and fights using a standard, but high-quality, force projector.

 

Iron Wolf

 

 

“There is no such thing as peace between unequal powers. The Winged hold us in contempt. One day, they will destroy us, and finish what they started. We must even the scales any way we can, tear down their cities, bring them to our level. We have nothing to lose but our doom, and nothing to gain but the restoration of our pride as a people!”

 

Iron Wolf was an influential leader among the Groundlings. During the war, he served as one of their generals, and after the war, he continued to fight for them, even though he surrendered. He organized protests against the Winged occupation and campaigned for the restoration of Groundling representation and self-determination. Was it not enough to be defeated? Did they have to conquered and subjugated?

 

Though he presented himself as a reformer both to the Winged and his own people, in truth, Iron Wolf believed very little of what he said. He spoke of restoring Groundling representation as if he believed that was actually a possibility. But deep down, he believed that another war was the only chance his people had, not only for their pride, but for their survival. He believed it was only a matter of time before the Winged finished what they started. If they believed they were too dangerous to govern themselves, it would not be long before they believed they were too dangerous to exist at all. But Iron Wolf knew that if he gave the slightest hint he supported armed resistance that the Winged would come down hard on his people, and so he tempered his speech, and spoke of coexistence, and understanding, and other things he didn’t believe in. He thought if he could give his people hope, even a false hope, that he could keep their spirits up until the opportunity to fight back presented itself.

 

Nighthawk was that opportunity.

 

The exiled Winged provided stolen Winged technology and knowledge of their weapons and defenses. Nighthawk was a Winged, true, but he was a Winged obsessed with the destruction of his own people, and that made him Iron Wolf’s ally.

 

Though Nighthawk was only interested in destroying as many Winged as possible, and especially the Battlehawks, Iron Wolf has a goal–the expulsion of Winged not only from the surface, but from their flying cities. He wants to drive them away from Falconstarr so that his people can once again control the surface without fear of retaliation.

 

Iron Wolf views Nighthawk as an insane, evil being, but he is desperate enough to work with him, though when all is said and done, he plans on killing him.

 

Armed with Nighthawk’s stolen weapons, Iron Wolf dropped is mild reformer persona and called upon his people to rise up and fight back. They did so, and now the Battlehawks are stretched to the their breaking point as violence sweeps over not only the surface of Falconstarr, but the flying cities, which have never known conflict since they were first built. Nighthawk provided Iron Wolf with access codes.

 

Will this two-front war break the Battlehawks? Iron Wolf certainly hopes so, and he’s doing everything he can both as a leader and a fighter to take them past their breaking point. Iron Wolf fights alongside his me with plasma generating gauntlets. These gauntlets allow him to produce heat in excess of that of a supernova and vaporize even Battlehawk armor. They are particularly effective in melee range, as Iron Wolf can produce plasma in the form of claws and swords. Iron Wolf also makes use of several force projectors–several because he links the to his plasma gauntlets to fire powerful energy blasts, so powerful that the force projector is destroyed.

 

Star Prowler

 

 

 

“Forgive me, Star Light. I must tarry on this godforsaken planet a little longer before I join you. I must hurt them for what they have done to us.”

 

Groundlings are a long-lived species with memories to match their life spans. The Winged that fought in the Great Groundling War are old, many have passed on, and to their children the war may have happened at the dawn of the universe. But the war is very, very fresh in the minds of Groundlings, and they procreate at a much slower rate than Winged, meaning there are fewer young Groundlings born with no memory of the conflict.

 

For the Groundling known as Star Prowler, the war isn’t just as fresh as yesterday. The war never ended. He lost his wife, Star Light, during a Wing bombardment of their cities. He has never stopped fighting sense, not when the Groundlings surrendered, not when the Winged replaced their governments, not when they took away the rights of Groundlings to vote, and not when they started calling him a terrorist. He now fights as Iron Wolf’s best agent, sporting kybernetics purchased from the Black Hole gang that allow him to cloak himself from all detection, optical or otherwise. His weapon of choice is a photite projector which covers a target in an invisible layer of unstable photite that can either instantly detonate, scattering the atoms of a target, or explode after a timed chain-reaction, a feature which makes his photite projector perfect for sabotage operations.

 

Iron Wolf would like Star Prowler to retire. He is a legend among their people, and his death would be demoralizing, but he knows he has no right to ask him to stop his fight.

 

Star Prowler understands that in the war, as in all wars, atrocities were committed by both sides. He is under no illusion that the Winged fought without a cause.

 

But they killed Star Light, and so he’s going to fight them until he falls.