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From: alexbell@iastate.edu (Alex Hibbs)
Newsgroups: alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die
Subject: Operation Home Front: Arrival
Date: 3 Apr 1998 09:53:17 GMT
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA
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Operation Home Front: Arrival

        Author: Trooper Cecrops of the Doberman Empire

     Cecrops felt himself falling and then blacked out.

     When he woke up, he found himself lying on the ground
beside a road. He stood up groggily and swept the dust off himself.
It was a very dark night, making it so he could hardly see. There was
a road, though, and he figured that if he followed it he would reach
civilization. It would most likely be a short walk, and he would be
able to learn where he was and find himself a place to rest.
     He tried to piece together what had happened. The Brother of
Grimace had cast some sort of spell on him. The only thing he
remembered about it was an excruciatingly painful sensation of
slowly being torn apart. Now he found himself out in the middle of
nowhere in the dead of night. Cecrops checked his watch, thankful
for the recent improvement in technology which allows one to actually
view the time while pressing the 'light' button. It showed early
morning, just before four o'clock. He began walking along the road.


     Cecrops dropped his duffle bag and sat down by the side of the
road. He glanced at his watch and the time showed a quarter past nine.
This 'short walk' was turning out to be a bit longer than he had thought
it would be.
     He had been walking all morning and was tired in body and mind.
He could only guess at how many miles he had travelled, but he needed to
rest for the moment. He needed to eat, too. He sure could go for a
burger. However, there did not appear to be any restauants on the empty
road.
     After a short time, Cecrops passed a small dirt road that
branched off of the main road. He had thought nothing of it when he
passed it, but now he got a very strong feeling that he should go back
and get on it. While he knew that the well maintained paved road he
was currently on would eventually lead to civilization, and that the
dilipidated dirt road might lead him 50 miles into the middle of
nowhere, he could not shake the feeling that he should go down the
dirt road.
     Cecrops turned and walked back to where the other road forked off.
He knelt down and examined the road. Rain had washed away most of the
evidence of it, but Cecrops could see recent tire marks where cars had
driven up it. If people were using it, it meant that there was
something out there. The urge to explore this road was greater than
ever, and Cecrops decided to see where it led.


     Inside a nearby training base, several Dobermensch were
discussing their current situation.
     "For once, I'd just like to know what's going on here before I
get called out to duty."
     "You just said that twenty minutes ago."
     "Yeah, but I can't say it enough. Just once, tell us what the
deal is BEFORE we go on alert, before we go out into the field..."
     "Ahh, they're never gonna tell us what's up afore we get the call."
     "Hey, you three, stop talking and make your bid."
     "Well, -sorry-, Commander."
     "Hmph. What's your bid?"
     "What was yours?"
     "I bid three."
     "Hmmm... This is not good, two."
     "Nil."
     "Nil! With 8 bags on the table..."
     "Well, that was boring. Say, what are you four doing over here?
Spades, eh? Not enough balls to be gambling?"
     "No, not enough money."
     "You guys hear anything about our orders?"
     "Nope."
     "Not here."
     "I heard they're sending us out with the first Trooper to walk in
the door."
     "I hear they got us grunts together and forgot to notify the
officers."
     "Hah! I wouldn't doubt it."
     "Who knows, maybe we'll go out on a field op without any
officers ordering us around."
     "I heard... Hey, that'd be cool."
     "Yeah, but then you'd have -me- ordering you around."
     "Oh yeah."
     "I hear they're taking our two squads, and splitting us up into
three squads, and mixing the peoples together."
     "Ah, so that would probaly make you one squad leader, me
another, and who would lead the third?"
     "Probably the Commander."
     "Commander? That had better be a nickname and not your rank,
otherwise what the hell are you doing -here-?"
     "Heh heh heh... Yeah, that's my nickname. My real name is Will
Rooker. Close enough to Riker, the Trekkie fans started it up."
     "Hey, we're trekkERs, not TrekkIEs."
     "Who gives a shit anyway..."
     "Hey, Rooker, your lead."
     "Oh yeah. Here. Feed on this..."


     Cecrops sat down to rest again. It was nearing eleven now, and
he wasn't sure that he should have followed the road. Well, it was
a road, and it had been travelled on recently, so it would have
to lead to something. Cecrops stood up and walked over the next hill
and saw a cluster of buildings in the distance, surrounded by a chain
link fence. Inspired, he sped up his pace.

     The guard at the gate to the DE base leaned back and placed a
bookmark in the novel he was reading before closing it. Guard duty was
always boring, except for the past week when Doberman soldiers had been
pouring into the base. The arrivals slowed down a couple days ago, and
no one had showed up yet today. Suddenly he heard footsteps approaching,
and he looked up. The person standing outside the guardpost looked as if
he had *walked* all the way to the base.
     "Hey there, this is the DE base, right? You going to let me in?"
     The guard stood up in his guard post, and called out to the man,
"Who goes there?"
     "Me." Cecrops waved to the guard. After a short pause, this was
followed up with, "Trooper Cecrops."
     "I've never heard of you, Trooper Cecrops." The guard began
flipping through some papers looking for the name. "Do you have any
identification?"
     "No. What do I look like, a Sponge Minion?" Cecrops smiled at
what he thought to be a witty remark.
     "Well, actually, if you smiled a bit wider... And you did WALK
here from town, didn't you? Gotta be pretty stupid to do that." The
guard laughed.
     "Yeah, very funny. I don't have a car. I need to get inside, get
some rest, maybe some food, no, definately some food, and then find the
superior officer in this place, I have to report some things to him."
     "Sir, the commanding officer has not arrived yet. If you're a
Trooper, you would be the only officer in this base. None of the other
officers have arrived yet."
     "No one arrived yet?" Cecrops wondered quizzically. "What, did
this place just open up last week or something?"
     "You haven't heard?" The guard asked.
     "Heard what? Apparently I haven't."
     "We were going to be shut down until after the holidays, but the
local DE troops have been called into active duty, seems that there is
something important going on, but no officers have showed up here yet.
You know anything about what is going on?"
     Cecrops sighed. "Sorry, but I am just as uninformed as the rest
of you. Can I get inside, and can you show me the way to the mess?"
        The guard looked up from the papers. "Is that Cecrops with a S?"
        "No, a C. C-E-C-R-O-P-S." Cecrops corrected. He chuckled,
thinking, 'Now I'm giving out spelling lessons. And English was never
my strong subject.'
     The guard continued looking. "Your name is not on this list."
     "Really?" Cecrops wondered. "How new is this list?"
     "Last month."
     "I wasn't in the DE last month." reasoned Cecrops. "Have
anything newer?"
     "No... Maybe on the computer." The guard picked up the
telephone. "Hello, Johnson?" He asked. "We have a guest by the gate,
calls himself Trooper Cecrops... Yes, he says he's a Trooper... But he's
not on the list.... I want you to download the latest list from HQ and
see if he's on it is what I want you to do about it..."
     Cecrops interrupted him. "Hey, how long is this going to take?"
     The guard waved him off and continued talking. "Look it up, and
get someone down here to escort him in while you're at it." The guard
hung up the phone and turned to Cecrops. "It'll be a couple minutes."
     Cecrops groaned, and put down his duffle and sat down on the
ground. After a few minutes, two men walked to the post from inside the
base. One of them quietly asked the guard, "-This- is the Trooper?"
     "Hey!" Cecrops stood up. "I heard that."
     "Sorry, sir."
     "Ah, no problem. Could you show me where the mess hall is on
this base? I could really some breakfast, err, lunch."
     The phone in the guard post rang, and the guard picked it up
and listened for a moment. He then gave a thumbs-up signal to the men.
     The man who Cecrops was talking to smiled. "Sure, right this
way."

     Cecrops walked into the mess hall flanked by the two
Dobermensch. The troops inside all stopped whatever they were doing,
and looked up at the first officer to appear in their midst. Cecrops
was wearing his black raincoat, which was slightly dusty from the trip.
His jeans were so dirty they appeared as if they would need two washings
to get them clean again. His hair was a mess, which he was currently
fixing with a comb. He was of average size and slightly thin build.
Cecrops removed his coat and placed it on the back of an unoccupied
chair, and then sat down, getting some rest. The soldiers could see
that he had little muscle in his arms, and his build suggested someone
who was not in any shape for battle. One of the soldiers spoke softly,
but loud enough to be heard in the still mess hall, "-He- is our
officer?"
     Cecrops looked towards the man who slighted him, grinned
slightly, and asked, "You got a problem with that?"
     The soldier's face turned red as several in the room began to
chuckle, and he stammered, "N.. No sir. It's just... You don't look
like the officer type. Sir."
     "Oh, really? What do I look like?" Cecrops asked, amused.
     "Well... umm..."
     "You look like hell!" called out a voice from behind Cecrops.
The whole mess hall erupted in laughter as Cecrops whirled around.
     "Who said that!" Cecrops demanded. He saw that the people at one
table were laughing louder than at the other tables, and one these
people shrugged his shoulders and smiled when Cecrops looked at him.
"Well, don't any of you expect to be looking so pretty once we go out
and start fighting some Sponge Minions."
     A cheer erupted from some sections of the room. One soldier
asked hopefully, "Are we going out into the field soon?"
     Cecrops turned to him and sighed. "I don't know that yet."
     "Is there anything you do know?" The caller had the same voice
as the heckler beforehand. Cecrops stood up and walked over to the
person he assumed to be the person. "Do you have a problem with me,
soldier?"
     "Um, >cough<... No, sir. I didn't mean it like that."
     Cecrops was about to let the matter be, when a thought crossed
his mind. If he was to lead these men, he would have to know what they
thought of him. He looked at the soldier again. "Are you sure about
that? Why don't you tell me what you think of me, so I know where we
stand."
     "Uhh..." the soldier stammered, not knowing quite what to say.
"Well... You're not wearing your uniform, for one.."
     Cecrops smiled. "That's understandable. I don't have one, at
the moment."
     One of the other men at the table asked, "Are you one of those
newbie Troopers?"
     "Beg pardon?" Cecrops asked.
     The man continued. "I heard that after the X'hirjq invasion
and then the losses on Pacifica, we were so hard up for officers that
Samhain just took the first 50 Trooper applications to pass his desk
and stamped 'approved' on them without reading them."
     "Now seriously..." one of the men started.
     "I doubt Samhain would do anything like that," ended another.
     "Well, then, how do you explain him?" laughed the troublemaker,
pointing at Cecrops.
     "You think that's funny?" Cecrops challenged.
     "No, I think you look like a wimp, uh.. I mean.. that is.." The
men around him erupted into laughter, as he tried to regain his poise.
"I mean, you don't look like the type who would perform well on the
battlefield. Sir."
     "Well," Cecrops said, "I guess we will have to wait until we get
on the battlefield before you see how well I perform. Soldier."
     "Hey, I'll challenge you to a duel." One of the men at the table
spoke, and the others turned to him.
     "A duel?" Cecrops asked. "In what? Swordfighting?"
     "Of course," came the slightly nervous reply. "Let's use
training swords, I wouldn't want to hurt you much." The soldier managed
a grin.
     Cecrops smiled. "Okay. best of three matches?"
     The soldier gulped nervously. "Umm, sure. Whatever."
     "Fine. When?"
     "How about now?" asked another of the men. "Yeah, let's go!"
said the others as they got up and began walking towards the training
room. Cecrops shrugged and followed them. He did not hear one of the
men ask the challenger, "How could you do that, Fredrickson? You know
you're the worst swordsfighter in our squad..."


To be continued in The Duel...

---------
Copyright, 1997-8 Cecrops