Operation: Pacifica, Those Who Join With Evil
by Lieutenant Commander "ST" Geier

Music - "Summer" _The Four Seasons_ Adagio Vivaldi

 "OUTTA MY WAY!" ST yelled as he sprinted down the corridors of the
  DFS _Tsunami_, eliciting surprised looks and stares from the Doberman
  troopers.  He rounded a corner at high velocity, but upon hearing the sounds
  of the first encounter between the troops and the spongin, he did a 180 and
  charged the other way.  His first targets were three spongin who had been
  careening down the same hall.  Upon spotting ST, they skidded to a halt,
  drew their weapons, and started belting out a particulary hideous rendition
  of the Hell Wyrm War Chant.  ST used the momentary distraction to seek cover
  in an alcove.

 "Which way did he go?" ST heard from a sponge as the bewildered
  tools of B'harnie sought him out.  He used that moment to spring out and
  open fire with the .357, cutting all the spongin down.

 "Next?" he sardonically remarked as he kicked the bodies out of his
  way, seeking new victims.  He reached a 90-degree turn in the hall and
  encountered a group of four spongin.  They had been utterly surprised by his
  appearance, and ST used that to his advantage by drawing and swinging his
  Lochaber and sending a spongin head flying against the bulkhead.  The
  headless body fell backward and starting spurting blood over the remaining
  spongin. Terrified, they started to run, but ST snarled and drew his
  daggers.  He let them fly at the slower spongies, hitting one between the
  shoulder blades and the other in the base of the neck.  He quickly retrieved
  the daggers, and went in search of the remaining spongie.  He found him
  cowering in a corner, whimpering.

 "Mindless and invertebrate plaything of B'harnie!  Thou hast made
  thy last mistake," intoned ST in a voice of death as he loaded and cocked
  his .357.

 "Waiitttt!" pleaded the sponge minion.  "I don't wanna die!
  pleasepleasepleaseplease don't kill me!"

 ST said nothing as he advanced on the minion.

 "You're letting me live?  Gee, maybe you Jihaddi aren't so.."

 The minion was cut off as ST easily lifted him by his collar and
  slammed him against the wall.  The spongie started to scream.  ST shoved his
  .357 into the spongie's mouth with his free hand.

 "Those who join with evil shall have no mercy."

 ST fired, blasting the spongin's head into a shower of blood and
  spongin brains.  The body fell to the floor, twitching.  ST kicked it away
  in disgust and left to find more to kill.

 He eventually came to the deck and discovered that the fighting had
  spilled out onto it.  All around him, Doberman troops and spongin were
  locked in intense hand-to-hand struggles.  As he joined the melee, a spongin
  with no one to fight spotted him and charged, brandishing an axe above his
  head.  ST merely stood his ground, drawing a dagger.  The spongin swung
  wildly, missing ST completely.  ST countered with a neat incision over the
  spongin's stomach.  ST then uppercutted the sponge with his free hand and
  kicked him over, disemboweling him.  As the hapless minion tried desperately
  to stuff his innards back in himself, ST swung the Lochaber, burying it deep
  within the sponge's chest.  It sighed and fell over.  After wrenching the
  axe free, ST looked and saw that the spongin were being routed right back
  into the ocean from whence they came.  As the last of the spongies was
  knocked overboard by a Doberman's well-placed bullet, a great cheer went up
  from the troops.  As ST was cleaning and reseathing his weapons, Captain
  Roswell came up to him.

 "Ah...ST...I see you've been busy," pointing to ST's blood-stained
  Lochaber.  "How many did you get?"

 "Eight," replied ST, "Including the one right next to you."

 The Captain looked to his left and recoiled in horror.

 "Oh...my......that must have hurt..." he muttered slowly.

 "That's the idea," explained ST.  "I believe object lessons can do
  wonders in reducing the enemy's moral.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be
  returning to my quarters to get some sleep."

 "Of course.  Good work here tonight, Lieutenant.  Carry on,"
  saluted Roswell.

 "Captain," ST returned the salute, turned and left.

Music - "Brandenburg Concerto No. 1" J.S. Bach

[Day Eight of Operation Pacifica.  Time:2213]

 ST had had one of his better days thus far in the Operation.  The
  battle the previous night had rejuvenated him, made him feel useful again.
  And since that the Good Gaming[tm] network was back up in lieu of the Lyran
  fleet's departure, he could resume wasting large amounts of time
  deathmatching.

 One thing hung in the back of his mind during the entire day.  He
  had had another strange dream, this one in a land of what seemed eternal
  snow and cold.  Clad only in a flimsy white robe, he was freezing his ass
  off until he heard the same voice he had heard in the dream he had had in
  San Francisco, saying the same thing.  "You can't even come up with anything
  new, can you?" he had taunted, "I'm going to ask you one more time, and I
  want a clear, rational answer, none of this 'seek the sword' bullshit.  Who
  the frack are you?!!"  "Seek the sword," the voice replied.  "ARE YOU
  LISTENING TO ME, PRICKHEAD?!" "Seek the sword."  And that had repeated
  endlessly until ST tore himself from the dream.  "Not again," he had
  muttered.  "I wonder if I'm the only one who's been having nightmares like
  this," he mused as he threw his uniform on.

 He shook his head as the memory returned, currently engaged in a
  Duke Nukem 3D deathmatch.  He was not all that experienced in this
  particular Good Game[tm], and just as he was starting to get it down, he was
  nailed by an RPG.  "Son of a BITCH!" he yelled.  "Who the sneck fired that?"
  His question was answered as he heard a deranged lunatic's voice issue out
  from his terminal's speakers, saying, "I am Godzilla!  You are Japan!" "That
  could only be J-Rock," he surmised.  "Only he uses that taunt." Sighing and
  muttering, he punched out of DN3D, choosing to resume deathmatching in
  Heretic.

 And the fleet moved on.

To be continued in "Landfall"

--ST