"A fighting man needs all of his courage." -- Lt. Com. Roy Fokker Operation: Phoenix, How Can Hell Be Any Worse? by J-Rock, jjr5020@rigel.tamu.edu It's one thing to fight a battle, but cleaning up after it is an entirely different animal altogether. Even with the Army Corps of Engineers pitching in, the job of putting good all the collateral damage and policing the bits o' Wrecked Mecha was putting more strain on me than I would have liked. Since Tilden wasn't back when the repair crews started working, it fell to me to coordinate their efforts. After a few hours of this, I was ready to scream at the top of my lungs, trash my tent furnishings, and pile twenty metric tons of shit on top of Owsen for sticking me with this job, not necessarily in that order. Things looked up for a bit when Owsen got back, but the first thing he said to me was, "Rock, I'm heading to my tent. Don't disturb me." "And if it's a life- or Jihad-threatening emergency?" I asked. "Not even if it _is_ a life- or Jihad-threatening emergency." Well, funk you very much, Grand Admiral. Fortunately for me, the word of a Lizard strike on the TRES Corps HQ in Colorado brought a golden opportunity to unload the work onto an Army colonel. Which is where this little narrative of mine picks up, just as I'm sitting in the tent wondering what Mech to assign Mongoose. See, my JihadLinker started ringing, so I answered it. The message that was there was from the entirely wrong bunch of beings: From: x'ehmahr@g'l'zakk.x'hirjq.fleet.mil How they got the .mil suffix on there I'll never know, but this king- sized security breach had more to it. I knew that the title "My Trophy for the Invasion" bore the most unsavory connotations. Oh great, I thought. More chest-beating from the Products of Sticking the Cizerack, Phentari, and Python Lizards in a Blender. I probably shouldn't have hit the "PLAY" button, but I did anyway, like a passing motorist who slows to observe a nasty car wreck. After the initial chest-beating from this "X'ehmahr," she went on to claim that the WEDJEE HQ in Iowa had been trashed before showing her trophy off. As the full-motion video ended in a still, I muttered "Fuuuuuuuuccccccckkkkk mmmeee..." # Pink Floyd "In The Flesh" _The Wall_ While the Lizard was posing with the "trophy" a la Sub-Zero in MK1, the camera was focused on the trophy itself: FC Samhain's head, face frozen in an expression of intense agony. I just sat there for a few seconds, numbly trying to internalize the fact that the leader of the Dobermans was dead and gone. Normally, Windigo would step in to lead the Dobes with all her vast reserves of righteous anger, but she was in a state of extreme weariness, and probably wouldn't be waking up for a couple of days at the very least. I closed my eyes and pressed the palms of my hands into them. First, Sheridan gets disrupted by a Lyran sorceror/Slaanesh daemon, and now this. I didn't know Samhain that well, and now it looked like I never would. Once again, the 'Linker rang. It automatically displayed the new header, and from the looks of it, the situation was even worse than it first appeared... From: barney@plushworld.com [yadda yadda yadda] Subject: Super-dee-uper! (Was: My Trophy for the Invasion..) [AUTHOR'S NOTE: About this time, the song should be to the lyrics "That one looks Jewish, and that one's a coon!/Who let all of this riff-raff into the room?" -- J-R] Sure enough, what followed was lots of gloating from the Triad of Evil itself. B'Hee J's words especially stuck in my craw: "Now all we need is Lord Tilden Owsen's and J.FoxGlov's heads on a platter!" Not in this life, o Little Yellow Pubic Louse of the Airwaves, I told him mentally. Not while there's still breath left in my body! Just as the Satanic Purple Saurian from Hades led his buddies in a singing of the Dark Hymn, the auto-purge on the Linker kicked in. Good thing for it, really. I would have drawn my PlasmaTronix 2000 Handheld Particle Projection Cannon and reduced my Linker to a smouldering ruin otherwise. I slammed the Linker and stepped outside, nearly tripping over what appeared to be a small TV cart with all-terrain tires. # Pink Floyd "In The Flesh?" _The Wall_ "Hey! Who put this here--" I shouted before I saw the picture on the set. It was a head-and-shoulders view of an attractive woman, wearing a muffler on her neck over a TAMUBGD utility uniform. Her curly blond hair peeked out from under a sky-blue knit cap, and there was a bit of a twinkle in her big hazel eyes. A face I'd recognize anywhere, because I coded it. "Nina!" I said. "What are you doing here?" "Oh, just modelling this new CRAIT-Cart and fixing to talk to you about some new stuff that just came in from the _Cisneros_. You?" she answered. See, all of the Aggie Fleet's transports are named after former Ags who have since done great things. Henry C. may have fallen on hard times as of late, but he's an old Ag, so... you know. I allowed myself the first real smile since I left for Atlanta before continuing in a pseudo-official voice. "I was just about to conduct a random survey of the troops in the field," I said. "Tell me 'bout the new goodies on the way to the hospital." **************************************************************************** # The Grateful Dead "Touch of Grey" _In The Dark_ I entered the hospital room where Tim was convalescing following his injury only to find him and Smoke engaged in conversation. "I would rather DIE than be helped by Sub-Zero!" Tim said in a firm voice. I asked, "Just what the hell is going on?" [Tim said something to me about being grateful for an assist by Sub-Zero,] Smoke said in that sideband voice of his. Note to myself: Work on a voice synth upgrade. [Now he says that he was delirious when he said it.] "I'll tell you what it is, J," said Tim, "it's my sanity kicking in!" More like his legendary hatred of Subby, I thought. I can't really fault him, though. He's got a bit of a rep to uphold. Either that, or he lost to Subby one time too many in MK1 or MK2. "Lemme guess," I said. "All this happened when I was unconscious, right?" [You got it, chief.] "All right, so that'll be enough on who said what about MK. Tim, how long do the doctors say you have to stay here?" "Until this afternoon. They're keeping me here for observation." "Good, because we have a new problem and I'm gonna have to brief everybody." "What is it now?" "Tim, let's just say that you might want to bring skis along for this sortie. Smoke, head back to the base camp. As for me, I'm off to track down Mongoose." **************************************************************************** I found Mongoose in his tent, muzzle buried in an issue of Furrlough. He put down the comic when he saw me and said, "What can I do you for?" I replied, "I remember Don saying something about you needing a tougher Mech." "Yes, I do. And from the tone of your question, it seems like you have just that." "You know me too well, 'Goose. I have a new Mech for you, just came in today. I'll show it to you." "What are we waiting for?" Just then, both our JihadLinkers' incoming message tones went off in a continuous, earsplitting din. Unlimbering and popping open my Linker, I pulled up the messages list to find that a vast majority of stuff was coming from mailbomber@x'hirjq.fleet.mil. Mongoose saw the same thing and said, "A mail-bombing. How quaint." He tried to sound nonchalant, but the widening of his eyes gave away his shock. There was only one thing to do, as more and more trash kept flooding in. I thought back to the first time, when a human did this to the Jihad. A help desk worker at A&M had taught me this trick, and it was high time to turn it upon the Lizards: [MAIL] Your bidding, sire? forward all /from="*@*x'hirjq*.mil" To:? shite@jihad.org [MAIL] Your bidding, sire? purge /author="mailbomber@x'hirjq.fleet.mil" 5718 messages deleted. "There," I said. "That nonexistent mail addy should cause a bit o' the bomb to bounce and take it down as well." Continuing to think out loud, I said, "You know, 'Goose, there's nothing more chicken-shit than fucking with a group's comm-net like this." A thought crossed my mind. Ooh, I thought, this would be too perfect: [MAIL] Your bidding, sire? send To: mailbomber@x'hirjq.fleet.mil CC: command@x'hirjq.fleet.mil Subject: Black Scaly Bitches and the HellWyrms Who Luv Them Enter your message below... HAND, shitbags. -- TRES Admiral J-Rock You're probably wondering why I signed my name to this. If I hadn't, they'd know who I was from the header. Better to leave no doubts in this case. That bit of defiance composed, I attached a little trojan program of my own devising that would overload the circuits in their net-node, causing it to explode in a most spectacular fashion. Then again, they may be simply ignoring all return posts. The gesture might well be insignificant, but it was one that needed to be made... *piggyback feedback.com *exit Reply was successfully sent. [MAIL] Your bidding, sire? At that point, the process simply hung. I hit the return key a few times. Nothing. At length, this came up: Connection terminated -- NO CARRIER Damn! The mailbomb served its purpose, and now the Link had been crashed. Closing the case, I turned to Mongoose and nodded towards the "door". Between two veterans, this was all that need be said as we marched out of the tent. **************************************************************************** After awhile, Mongoose started guessing at what his new 'Mech assignment may be. "Did you stick me in a Warhawk?" he asked. "Nope," I replied. "Executioner?" "Keep trying." "Now, now, don't tell me... it's one of those new Kodiaks, right?" "Wrong again, Goose. You only get one more guess." "Hmm.. Dire Wolf-Widowmaker." "Not even close." About this time, we had finally reached the Mech pasture in the Olympic stadium. "Ok, this is going to be a suprise, so you're gonna have to close your eyes," I said. He did so, and I led him toward the new Mech area. "Ok," I said, "you can open them now." # Black Sabbath "Iron Man" _Paranoid_ Mongoose opened his eyes slowly, then rubbed them as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Picture this: a 30-foot tall BattleMech painted gray and shaped like a pudgy European knight's armor. The weirdest thing about it was that it had no visible weapon ports of any kind. At long last, Mongoose managed to stammer out, "THAT'S GIGANTOR!" "Not exactly," I said. "You can actually get in and drive this thing." With a grandiose sweep of my hand, I added, "I give you the second in our line of super BattleMechs: the Tetsujin." "Enough about the Mech's name," Mongoose said. "What weapons does it have?" "It comes with two beam sabers standard, although it can also use Veritech gun pods and the Gundam's beam rifle. It's also fully flight capable, and its armor is strong enough to make it nigh-indestructible." "Just how indestructible are we talking about here?" "During simulations, I sent three waves of three Dire Wolf-Widowmakers each at it. There were only one or two scratches on it, and it had survived two alpha-strikes at point blank." Mongoose stared back at the Tetsujin with reverent awe. "I have to hand it to ya, J," he said, "you know what I like." "Mostly because you hint like a maniac," I replied, smiling. **************************************************************************** TWO HOURS LATER... I entered the field tent where the Kappas and my detachment from Aggieland were waiting on me to brief them. Immediately, I had to say, "As you were" to keep them from jumping up and saluting me. Time-honored military convention has its place, just not in my briefings. A better way of putting it would be to use the words of the Late, Great Natasha Kerensky: "Slavish adherence to formal ritual is a sign that one has nothing better to think about." As the assembled troops found their places, I cleared my throat and prepared to exposit. "Well, ladies and gentlemen," I said, "I hope you enjoyed these days off, because it looks like we're actually going back to work again." The yeoman at the overhead pulled up a picture of a Lizard as I continued, "Many of you have seen these creatures before, and fewer of you know their names. These beasties are known as the X'hirjq, although I'll use the term 'Lizards'. We knew absolutely nothing about them, and we still don't know as much as we'd like. What we do know is rather limited, so pay attention. First up, their alliance with B'Harne is not to share in his goal of world domination." "Good," P-Chan said. "At least they don't come straight out of most every 'Earth vs. the Aliens' story out there." "Actually, P," I said, "their reason for being here is to hunt Jihaddi down and kill them. In fact, their field behavior is nearly identical to that of predatory beasts that hunt in packs: Isolate, contain, and wear down." "P, you're right," Don interjected. "They're from 'Predator.'" "If we're _finished_," I replied, "we can move on to my second point. Their technology is far superior to even our cutting-edge stuff. Their plasma rifles alone better ours in both range and damage yield. In fact, they nearly double the range and damage." Tim asked, "So what you're saying is that they're the Clans to our Inner Sphere?" "A weird way to put it, but yeah," I answered. Tim laughed while saying, "We're all gonna die." "Now, now, Tim, no fatalism allowed," Noriko said. "Can't we just use their weapons?" "'Fraid not, Riko," I said. "The Lizard hand is structured differently than our own." This was rapidly devolving into anarchy. "Hold the rest of your questions until I'm done, please. If you have any more Lizard questions, there's a report on them from Xenobiology on the DropShip's mainframe. I suggest you study it." I took a deep breath before bringing up the satscan map of Colorado. "This orbital shot was taken about three hours ago. As you can see, the Spongins have seized Denver and are preparing to move on the TRES HQ. We're going in to reinforce the garrison there, along with some armor elements of the 187th." Major K'ghan had given me one of his best gravtank companies, under a Captain T'larn. If I remebered correctly, she had served with distinction against the now-defunct BLF. "By now, the TRES forces are setting up positions near the ski resort town southeast of the HQ. We'll probably be deploying there, although I'm not yet ruling out a combat drop. Any questions?" # Any given martial music from any given anime about space navies (I kinda like wot I call "Yamamoto's Theme" from _Irresponsible Captain Tyler,_ myself. That or the theme to _Space Cruiser Yamato._ -- J-R) Silence. "I have one last thing to show you, just to convince you of the gravity of our situation." Punching up a still of the X'ehmahr Sub-Zero Impression, I said, "I know most of you that have Linkers have seen this already, but it bears reshowing. The Dobermenschen, once the largest JAO, have been decimated. The Corps is the second-largest. We represent the last, best hope for every man, woman, and child on Earth against Sponge-Minionism. Our backs are to the wall, people. We must make the Lizards pay dearly for every square inch of land they claim, but we cannot afford to get ourselves chewed up in the process. The key here is _survival._ If we survive, and hold back this wave of the invasion, then we can teach the Lizards what every human knows: Paybacks are a bitch." "That is all, people." I looked around the room as Kappa Squad and attached units stood as one. They were ready to follow me to the gates of Hell, if the need arose. I could see that in everyone's eyes. "Good luck, and good hunting," I said, closing the briefing. To be continued... All material copyrighted by the original author.