Operation: Home Front, ...Said the Spider to the Fly

      by Colonel Rick Sanford, LoD

      The door to the Bridge opened to an alert scene.
      "-teen seconds to engine cut-out, sir."
      "Very well."
      "Captain's on the Bridge!"
      Colonel Sanford smiled at that. Not that he didn't appreciate his new
 rank, but the ancient title of a ship's commanding officer would always be
 special to him.
      "Ensign Chazz, how're we doing?
      "Almost done, sir. Another five seconds or so."
      There was a short silence before the Quartermaster started his
 countdown. "Three, two, one, cutout!" The slightest of tremors as the
 artgrav units adjusted to zero thrust. QM3 Tolliver watched as the computer
 integrated the radar altimeter readout for a few seconds, then announced,
 "Orbit confirmed, within 0.05%, sir."
      Ensign Chazz turned to Colonel Sanford, saluted, and said, "We are in
 a one hour, polar orbit over the terminator, sir."
      "Excellent." He walked over to the sensor display. "It's up to you and
 yours, Lieutenant."
      "We'll do our best, sir." The sensor operators winced. Lt. Forbes was
 still smarting over having dismissed the latest sponge plot as, "random
 noise," and had been driving his operators mercilessly for the last
 thirty-six hours.

      * * *

      Two days later, Colonel Sanford walked into the _Lydia_'s briefing
 room to hear the results his *extremely* tired sensor operators had
 gathered.
      "Colonel, right now the count is at 3,268 elements that we know of,
 and we're still finding more. Though, the rate we've been finding them has
 dropped off considerably in the last three hours. I estimate there aren't
 more than fifty or so more to find. Still..."
      "Still, that's more than the whole Jihad could ever hope to find and
 destroy quickly. At least not if we're not willing to use nukes."
      "Yes, sir. According to some of the info that Warrior Persephone came
 up with, we don't have more than two, maybe three weeks before the array is
 activated." Lt Forbes looked disconsolate. "Sir, I don't see any way to
 beat this."
      "Don't you give up on me, Mister," Colonel Sanford snapped. "The
 Legion and the Jihad have beaten worse odds before. I know you weren't here
 when the Lizards invaded, but take my word for it, things were bleaker
 then, and we still survived." Lt Forbes snapped up in surprise at that, but
 regained some of his composure. "If we can't cut off the branches, we'll
 just have to attack the root. According to Pers, there is one central
 generator whose field will start this. We need to find that central
 generator."
      "Yes, sir. Also, from some of the reports coming in from the field, we
 need to come up with a better way for people on the ground to find
 elements. I can only locate them to within about a kilometer or so. May I
 suggest that we can help with both of those missions at once, sir?"
      "'Suggest?' Hell, it's an order."
      "Then in that case sir, look at this one." He pointed to a line on the
 display running due north-south at about 165 degrees West long- itude.
      "What about it? It's two elements connected by a link...wait a minute,
 the southern end is in the middle of the Pacific?"
      "It isn't two elements, sir. It's one element in a geosynchronous
 orbit."
      "What?! That's out of range of the rest of the field."
      "I know it doesn't make sense, sir, but as you've said, sometimes it
 pays not to overestimate spongies."
      Colonel Sanford had to chuckle at that. "All right, are you sug-
 gesting that we pick it up?"
      "It can't be heavily guarded, sir."
      "Call Lieutenant Chazz and Sergeant Palmieri and have them pick out a
 squad, and tell them I'll be coming with them."

      * * *

      Five hours later, the retrieval boat coxswain called out, "We've
 matched orbits, sir. Holding at 200 meters."
      "Thanks, Boats. Mr. Chazz, is everyone ready?"
      "Standing by, Colonel."
      "Let's do it."
      The ten armored figures, Colonel Sanford, 1st Lt. Chazz, Sergeant-
 Major Palmieri, and seven Marines, floated out of the boat hatch, fired
 their suit rockets, and began drifting towards the small pyramid floating
 in the distance.
      It didn't look like much, but everyone had read Warrior Perse- phone's
 report and had no desire to have it go off next to them. Their armor would
 probably stop the explosion, still...
      They formed a globe around the element and then closed in. Using their
 suit claws as delicately as they could (nobody was willing to retract their
 claws and use even gloved hands, yet), they all got a firm grip and began
 slowly moving the element back to the boat. Mean- while, Colonel Sanford
 and Lt Chazz opened it up to look for booby traps.
      "Doesn't look like any explosives, sir."
      "That's odd. I wonder if it was the power pack that exploded on the
 one Pers captured."
      "Huh...that's funny."
      "What?"
      "Sir, is your radiation detector telling you the same thing mine is?"
      "Hmm...a small gamma source inside. Let's dig some more."
      After a minute they managed to move aside enough wires to see it: a
 six centimeter sphere covered in flat panels with wires attached to them.
      There was dead silence for about three seconds.
      "Colonel," Lt Chazz's voice was a *wee bit* strained, "did you ever
 see 'The Peacemaker'?"
      "Hell, yes! Sergeant! get the men back to the boat and get out of here
 right now! This thing's got a nuke!"
      At the mention of the word "nuke" the Marines dropped the element as
 though burned and blazed back to the boat. Sergeant Palmieri stay- ed
 behind for a minute to ask, "Colonel, what about you and Mr. Chazz?"
      "We're staying here to disarm this thing."
      Lt Chazz muttered, "We are, sir?" but didn't let go. "How are we going
 to do that, Colonel?"
      "Actually, it's easy enough to disable a nuke. You just cut the wire
 to one of the explosive panels surrounding the fissionable sphere and poof,
 no nuclear explosion. Of course, the rest of the panels will still make a
 messy conventional explosion, but..."
      "Ok, sir, how about this one?"
      "We're not doing that, Lieutenant. Getting this thing back to Legion
 R&D is too important. As of now, we are expendable. If we just cut one
 wire, the others could go as a booby trap. We need to cut them all at
 once."
      "Then that means finding the timer, sir. It's the one place they all
 have to come together."
      "Right, so start tracing wires."
      There followed a few tense seconds as they traced wires back from the
 bomb. Finally, Lt Chazz said, "Right here, sir."
      "I see it. Hold those wires. I'll cut it with my vibroblades."
      "Be careful, Colonel. I like having five fingers on each hand."
      Colonel Sanford backed off a bit and extended the vibroblade from his
 right arm. It really wasn't built for this kind of work, having been
 designed more for making filet-o-sponge than for precision cut- ting work,
 but it was the only thing they had that could cut fast enough. Colonel
 Sanford took careful aim and swiped downward. There was a brief spark from
 the wires, then nothing.
      Whew, "Call Sergeant Palmieri and your troops back. Let's get this
 thing home."
      "Aye aye, sir."

      * * *

      Two days later, Lt Forbes was giving a new report and was consid-
 erably more optimistic.
      "Anyway, sir, this thing's power source emits a characteristic radio
 wave signature that makes it easy to detect at close distances. R&D is
 sending the specs for a portable detector to TRES and the DE now."
      "Good, but that still doesn't solve the problem of how to find the
 central generator."
      "No sir, but R&D and I think we have the solution to that too, sir.
 Look at these specs." A chart showed. "Sir, the radius of the field that an
 individual array element can put out is an exponential function of the
 number of elements in the field. If there's only one other, an element can
 put out a 20km field, but put 100 elements in and the field radius
 doubles."
      Colonel Sanford grinned. "I think I get it. Close to the central
 generator the array elements have to be denser to spread the field."
      "Exactly, sir, and from our analysis of the web pattern, the densest
 spot is here." He pointed at a spot in Northern Kansas.
      "How tight a position are we talking about here?"
      Lt Forbes's face fell. "That's the problem, sir. We've got it down to
 about a 500km radius area, but that's the best we can do."
      Brigadier General Most Holy, who had been sitting in the back un-
 obtrusively (if that's possible for a flag officer) piped up, "Still, it's
 a start. Good job Lieutenant, and Colonel, citations for you and the men
 who went with you on that retrieval mission." As the meeting broke up,
 General Most Holy motioned Colonel Sanford over, "Rick, I promised you that
 if you got me some info, I'd let you go to take care of your hometown. This
 is better than I hoped for, so go kick some spongin butt."
      A mischevious grin spread across Colonel Sanford's face. "Aye aye,
 sir. Thank you, sir."

      To be continued...