Operation Pacifica: Hit the Beach!
by Trooper Charcharadon (highland@iastate.edu)

        "OK, this is not fun!" yelled Charcharadon as he dove out of
  the way of several tons of falling masonry which moments ago had been the
  corner of a building.  The HellWyrm Bot responsible for this change of
  states paused to release a blast of plasma fire at the remains of
  Charcharadon's squad of mixed TRES and Doberman Empire troops.  Two of them
  were caught in the energy stream and incandesced briefly before vaporizing.
  Yelling and signaling with his arms, Charcharadon rounded up what he could
  of the scattering troops and ran into a building.

        Radio communications were completely useless here in the
  sponge metropolis.  All frequencies were jammed.  The enemy was playing the
  HellWyrm War Chant all the way up and down the EM spectrum at such power
  that all tactical messages were completely garbled, and nobody wanted to
  listen to the comm channels for too long anyway.  Charcharadon was beginning
  to suspect the buildings themselves were designed to act as transmitters.
  While there was nothing he could do about this other than make a note to
  maim the architect, it made keeping groups of people organized and alive
  very difficult.

        [settheme = "fatman" PWEI Dos Dedos Mi Amigos]

        "OK people, here's what we do," he explained.  A plan was
  quickly hashed out, while the HellWyrm Bot continued to lash out heedlessly
  at the scenery, doing more damage to concrete and steel than to the humans
  hidden in it.

        "Any questions?" Charcharadon concluded as another explosion
  brought cement dust raining down on them.

        "What happens if something else shows up?" inquired a TRES
  Corps marine.

        "We kill it before it kills us."

        "Sounds reasonable enough.  Let's do it!"  The troops split
  up into small groups and moved up and down the block, keeping under cover.

        Charcharadon had come ashore with the second wave of troops.
  The first assault force of Doberman Empire and TRES Corps troops had made
  landfall with minimal resistance, but once they had advanced off of the
  beaches and into the Sponge City, the trap which had obviously long been
  waiting had sprung.  Jihaddi troops were being cut off, surrounded, and
  destroyed in detail.  Word from the front was sketchy at best, so the first
  set of reinforcements had been rushed to the beach to try to link up with
  those troops that had been cut off.  Some had been successful.  Others, like
  Charcharadon and those with him, had broken through only to be surrounded
  themselves.

        The rescuers and the rescued had been putting up a good
  fight, and had driven off the hordes of sponge minions.  In fact, they
  probably would have succeeded in escaping from their trap if the Wyrm-Bots
  hadn't chosen that moment to show up.  Smoldering remains were all that was
  left of the B'hii J'haa Bot and two B'habii B'hop Bots, but the renewed
  assault had cost the embattled Jihaddi all of their heavy anti-armor
  weaponry.  With little more than their X-Rifles and bare hands, they had to
  take out this one remaining heavily armed antipersonnel device.

        At a prearranged time, small groups of Jihaddi popped out of
  the rubble and burnt-out buildings in many different locations, firing at
  the sensors and head assembly.  Keeping up a steady volume of fire, they
  changed location often in order to keep their target disoriented.  The giant
  Nagenta battle machine bellowed out its prerecorded war cry, unleashing much
  more potent fire in return, but without its previous devastating effect.
  The innumerable blasts were serving their purpose: while undamaged, the
  HellWyrm Bot was effectively blinded.

        Taking advantage of this fact, Charcharadon and a handful of
  brave or suicidal volunteers snuck underneath the tail of the beast to the
  crew access hatch.  Shouldering their X-Rifles, Charcharadon and a TRES
  marine attacked the hatch controls with an assortment of tools while the
  remainder of the group stood around nervously, keeping watch for the end.
  After thirty seconds of violent modification to its controlling circuits,
  the hatch popped open and the assault team charged up into the innards of
  the mechanical monstrosity.  After sharing a high-five, Charcharadon and the
  TRES marine followed them.

        The three-sponge crew of the HellWyrm Bot was quickly
  overcome.  As its weapons systems fell silent and the speaker system shut
  off, a cheer rose from the streets.

        "Don't celebrate yet, folks," Charcharadon's voice boomed
  out from the Bot's speaker system.  "Take ammunition from the casualties and
  regroup at that milk shop up the street."  Turning to his companions in the
  Bot cockpit, he said, "Let's see if we can find where all this jamming is
  coming from."

        A Doberman Empire trooper with a WALRUS shoulder patch went
  to work on the Bot's controls while the rest of them searched the remainder
  of the crew area for anything useful.  The search was brief and
  unsuccessful.

        "Sir, I have the coordinates of the source of the jamming,"
  reported the WALRUS trooper.

        "Where did you find them?"

        "A crayon map of the city stuffed in the pilot's pocket."

        "Excellent, now let's get out of here and go put them off
  the air."

        "Pardon me, but why don't we take this thing with us?  We
  could use the firepower," asked one of the TRES marines.

        "Yeah, I'm aware of that," stated Charcharadon, "But I don't
  think any of us want to be mistaken for the enemy and blown up by
  friendlies.  Besides, far be it from me to pull a cheap Return of the Jedi
  ripoff.  We leave it and go on foot."

        As they climbed out, a TRES marine pressed the large red
  "Don't Push This Button" button, and a large digital timer began counting
  down.

        Once all the survivors had gathered in the milk shop,
  Charcharadon explained what they were going to do.  Glancing across the
  three dozen or so faces, he noted that every one had a determined set.
  Satisfied, Charcharadon picked up a glass of milk that had somehow remained
  unspilled throughout the entire battle and took a big swig from it.

        "Nothing like moloko mixed with some of the good stuff to
  loosen you up and get you in the mood for a little of the old ultra-
  violence."

        The assembled soldiers all gave a feral grin.  The
  detonation of the Wyrm-Bot down the block made pretty good punctuation.

        "Let's move out!"

[To be continued in Operation Pacifica: Radio Free Pacifica!]