Work Text:
War was coming.
The captain of the Avien army looked out from her terrace, where she could see the planetrise. Porkus looked beautiful, the sliver of light crowning the globe. What a lie that vision was. Its size was intimidating, and as the captain gazed down on it, she pondered just for a moment, the state of the Porcines who inhabited it. Did they have homes, children? Or was stealing and brutalizing the only thing they knew? The captain sighed. It would be a just war, but it would not be an easy one.
Her young assistant cleared his throat behind her. “It is time,” he murmured.
The captain turned and nodded, then followed him down the hall to the side of the building where the army had gathered. She surveyed her troops, assembled and ready. They chittered and chirped, full of nervous energy. They were so young, and as yet untried. She would have to ready them.
“Negotiations have failed,” she began, “the Porcines have refused to make any concessions.”
Some of the soldiers cheered, but most of them continued to cheep anxiously. “The diplomats have done everything they can to restore the trade balance, but the Porcines refuse to meet even our most basic demands. We are nothing but slave labor to them, and they refuse to even consider compromise.” The chittering started to take a darker tone as the soldiers’ anger grew. “The ‘eggs’ that we mine are required for all forms of Porcine technology. They have a stockpile, but we stopped shipments some time ago, and they will run out within a week.” The captain’s face grew grim. “For the next week, there will be heavy casualties. I want you all to understand that. Some of you will not be coming back.”
The captain signaled to her assistant, who was standing at the back of the congregation. Towering over him rose a tarp-covered shape.
“What you see before you is our best attempt to balance the scales. I don’t have to tell you that the Porcines are a brutal and cruel people. We have all done our time in the egg mines. We have all done the labor that makes their carefree life on Porkus possible. They believe they can continue to demand the fruits of our labor for a pittance, because they are strong, and they are large, and we are so small and so far. This, my friends, should bring us closer.”
The captain nodded to her assistant again, and he swept away the tarp. The soldiers gasped and cheered. Rising majestically above their heads was a large wooden structure: a central post which forked halfway up.
“This,” the captain ominously announced, “Is the gravity catapult. This is what we will use to launch you toward the planet’s surface. This is how we will reach them. This is how we will destroy them.”
She turned now to the Yellow corps. “You are our precision instruments. Your pods will fly at the enemy fortresses with great speed, seeking out weak points and breaking them down.”
To the Blue corps: “You are our surprise troops. Each of your pods will split into three at the most opportune moment. Your strikes will be as a wave over their towers, forcing them down.
To the White corps: “Our bombers. If you target correctly, you can not only strike with your bombs, but with your pods as well. You have been practicing the trajectories. I put my faith in your training.”
To the Red corps: “You are the heart of our army, my red-feathered friends. You are the most numerous of our corps, and you will do all the hard work of beating down the Porcines’ forts. I am more grateful to your number than you can ever know.”
Finally, to the Black corps: “And you, the explosive beating heart of our assembled army. Volunteers for the most dangerous missions; the suicide corps. We all owe our thanks to you, our homes to you, our families to you. If we are to survive this war, it will be because of your power and your sacrifice.”
The captain looked out once more, at the gathered troops. They chirped now with more pride than nervousness, for all that they knew most of them would not make it back to the nest. They had begun as a disparate band of indentured laborers, but now, united in common cause, they would fight for their eggs and their lives.
“This is the moment you have all waited for. This is the moment you have all trained for. This is your chance, your claim, your one true goal. To forever rid our homeworld of these alien leeches, these privileged pigs, these fatted freeloaders. Once we are free, we can develop our own technology, harnessing the power of our own eggs. Once we are free, we too can reach the stars. Once we are free, no one will be able to stop our flight.”
She paused, gazing out over the silent army. They waited, intent on her every word.
“Let’s go get those Bad Piggies,” the captain grinned.
The cheer that went up was deafening.