# Iron Maiden "Run Silent Run Deep" _No Prayer for the Dying_ Stryfe smiled a little self-satisfied smile as he peered through the attack scope of the _TJS Serp._ The sight of the _DTT Iowa_ listing to starboard and burning from the bow turrets would haunt his dreams for some time to come. A beautiful sight, to say the least. "Helm, take us out of here," he said in his whiny, high-pitched voice. As the sub turned for clear waters, the _Serp's_ XO approached Stryfe and said, "Begging your pardon, sir, but couldn't this attack have waited until we built up our forces some more?" "WHAT, ARE YOU JEALOUS OF WHAT I JUST DID?" Stryfe roared. "You are, aren't you? This is the perfect time to strike! They have few personnel. And as for the X'hirjq... feh. Those lizards couldn't even teach them to knit, let alone the meaning of fear! What I just did was light a fire so big, even Lord Barney has to take notice of the True Jihad again! I want all of us to be able to come up to me and honestly ask, 'ARE WE HAVING FUN OR WHAT?' And how can this be? Because I am STTTRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYFFFFFEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" The XO began to slink away, but froze when Stryfe continued, "And if you ever question my authority again, I'll relieve you of your failed and miserable life! Diving control! Increase speed to 20 knots!" # Metallica "Ain't My Bitch" _Load_ Rock and a Hard Place Productions in association with Psycho-ScrewHose Publishing presents A Tale of the Jihad to Destroy Barney the Dinosaur STRYFESEND by J-Rock and Malcalypse the Seeker "All right, all right, can we please come to order?!" J-Rock shouted this in order to make himself heard over the noise prevalent throughout the assembly hall of the Dobermenschen HQ. The same was soon being taken up by CyberPyro, Windigo, and Sheridan from the Triumvirate's table on the ampitheatre stage. At length, the gathered crowd quieted down, and CP rose to speak. "Well," he said, "this meeting was called to discuss how to handle the Lyran fleet parked in our LEO, but I'm afraid another threat has forced us to table this for the time being. About half an hour ago, Stryfe showed his ugly face again and severly damaged the _DTT Iowa._" The Jihaddi in the room whispered nervously amongst themselves. Sitting next to J-Rock, Bob leaned over and whispered, "How many times has that battlewagon been trashed?" "Dunno," J-Rock whispered back. "It seems to be Stryfe's favorite target." "I would just like to take the time to point out that the Doberman Empire will not stand for this cowardly attack," Fleet Commander Samhain declared, to the assents of the Dobermenschen in the hall. "And to make matters even more annoying," JFoxGlov said, "he's changed the BLF's name to the 'True Jihad'!" Stryfe always knew how to annoy us, J-Rock thought. Then again, he was genetically engineered to do just that... "All the better to leave him alone while we rebuild," JFox concluded. "I'd like to agree with you, but I can't," Sheridan said. "I know it's playing into his hands, but I'm not about to sit idly by and let our forces be nibbled to death by Stryfie's ducks!" "Shardik--" JFox began, but J-Rock cut him off with an "If I may, I think I can come up with a mutually agreeable solution. I propose a compromise: We stay with the focus of rebuilding and getting psyched for the Bad Boys From Lyra, and take a small force after Stryfe. He ain't worth getting worked up over, and he sure as Hell wasn't worth the entire TRES Corps focusing their firepower on him." A chorus of yeahs and nodded assents followed this, but Windi asked, "How will you do this? Who will go?" "Kappa Squad, of course, and anyone else who'd like to go. We all know Stryfe is a clone, right? I intend to find and destroy the clone banks, wherever they may be, and do the job right. After the cloning facilities go thud, then we can use a comparatively smaller force and hunt Stryfe down like the attention-seeking dog he is." "But the problem is that we don't know where the clone banks or the master DNA samples are," CP observed. "Until now," Malcalypse said as he entered the hall from the back of the room. "The rest is just for the high commanders, if you know what I mean." "Dismissed, you are," Windi said, and Jihaddi filed out until the only ones left in the room were those at the table, JFox, Lord Tilden Owsen, J-Rock, Bob, Samhain, WEDJEE head shed Cerberus, Legion Commander IronMan, Solar Ishtari High Mage Diana, and Malcalypse. "Now, what was so important that you had most of the Jihad leave the room?" Owsen asked. Malcalypse said, "I found out where the clone banks are being hidden. They're at the Utopia Barney Naval Shipyards, which are in Scotland, of all places." "That's where the House of Eternal Night is!" JFox exclaimed. "How come we couldn't find this place before?" "Two reasons: One, it's situated on the northwestern coast of Scotland, in a place called Scapa Flow. Two, it's hidden inside a rather large mountain. The only building near it is an old beachfront house." "It's starting to make some sense," J-Rock said. "Scapa Flow was the prime anchorage for the British Fleet during World War II. I won't even hazard a guess about how Stryfe managed to move the facilities underground. What I want to know is how we get in there." "The old beachfront house is actually a hidden entrance," Mal said. "All we need to do is to infiltrate the house and work our way over to the clone banks. Simple." "Mal, what's up wit' this 'we' stuff?" Bob asked. "I'm going in with you," Mal declared. He paused before continuing: "Look, this bit of intel cost the lives of two good friends of mine. I'd like to see this thing through and know that they didn't die for nothing, thank you very much." "All right, I'm chill with that. But look at all of us here. If we all went, wouldn't this be a little large for an infiltration?" "I couldn't agree with you more," Owsen said. "Which is why I propose that the Maenads handle the infiltration. After all, they're in our own backyard... and I say it's high time we did some yardwork." ************************************************************************* A SHORT TIME LATER, ON THE DOCKS OF HOUSTON... "IronMan, you clear about what you're supposed to do for this op?" J-Rock asked over his JihadLinker. "Hmm... wait for the Maenads to give the all-clear signal, and then use the _Stratocaster's_ guns to level the facility," IronMan replied. "Don't worry, I got it down." "Just checking. By the way, thanks for loaning me Lt. Sanford." "Not a problem. You're loaning me a bunch of your men and materiel, so the least I can do is return the favor." Bob, Gypsy Joker, and those Kappas already versed in fighter piloting were flying off the _Stratocaster_ for this run. "IronMan out." IronMan's comm-window winked away, leaving only the Maenads' window open. Samhain asked from J-Rock's left, "You guys sure your infiltration scheme will work?" "Relax, Sam," JFox said. "We've got an angle." "Oh, and Hanover... goodbye," J-Rock said before JFox could even wince at letting himself walk into another of J-Rock's movie quotes. "Didn't think you'd catch that, Rock." "C'mon. You should expect that by now. Seriously, watch your ass out there." "I think I'd better cut the link. You're beginning to sound like my mother." "See you on the other side, Fox." J-Rock said as the 'Linker shut off. Turning to Sam, he said, "We'd better get aboard our own ship now." # Basil Poledouris "Hymn to Red October (Main Title)" _"The Hunt for Red October" soundtrack_ "What ship?" Sam asked, incredulous. "I don't see anything here, unless you mean to get in a copter and fly out to the _Missouri_..." His voice trailed off as the squat outline of an enormous submarine materialized at one of the many mooring points on the pier. Then his eyes widened and his jaw hung open slightly. "I give you the flagship of the Aggie Fleet Silent Service," J-Rock said with a theatrical sweep of his arm. "The _AMS Hotard._" Samhain replied, "I thought the Aggie Fleet was spaceborne." "It is," J-R said. "A few vessels can function as wet-navy, however. The _Hotard_ is one of them." Seeing Samhain's confused expression, he said, "Look, Stryfe's not going to waste much time with a surface fleet. We all know he's a dyed-in-the-wool sub nut. After all, he tried to join us with the _seaQuest_ before we spotted his plagarism of Confed's FAQ. The _Hotard's_ our best bet of finding his subs." "Yeah, but what about the 2032 story run of seaQuest DSV?" Sam asked. "Surely he's gonna find a way to get the Spectre-class fightersub into his arsenal." "I thought of that too. So I had the TAMUBGD techs come up with our own fightersubs. The fruit of their labors is known as the Sabutai. There's one of them now." Sam followed J-R's finger to a spot in the water, where he saw a flat delta-winged craft with two canards vaguely resembling bow planes just forward of the cockpit. "Has 2 ER PPCs for armament. Performance-wise, it has the same speed as a Spectre, and can change depth slightly quicker." "So what you're saying is that this baby can climb and dive faster than the Spectre?" Sam asked. J-R nodded. "It'd be almost like Hellcats and Zeroes again," Sam declared. "And we all know which plane won that battle," J-R observed. "But the ocean's a large place. Looking for BLF subs is gonna be like looking for needles in a very large haystack." "Which is why we're gonna be meeting the _Missouri_ after we put to sea. We'll eliminate the guesswork and make Stryfe an offer he can't refuse." ************************************************************************* WHILE THAT WAS GOING ON... "Well, that was easy enough," Mal said as he and JFox stripped off the British TeleCom uniforms that they had used to get by the receptionists. The two now stood in a hallway about fifty meters from the cloning chambers. "I still can't believe that they bought the phone-repairmen bit," JFox said. Just then, two armed security guards started to run in their direction, hands on the grips of their pistols. "Hold it right there!" one of them shouted. "Me and my big mouth," J muttered, meekly raising his hands. "All right, you two, get against the wall now!" "Excuse me," Mal said, pointing a finger to the rear of the guards. "Shut up!" the guard shouted. Turning his head, he continued, "There's nobody else h..holy shit..." Behind the guards stood a seven-foot-tall alternate punchline to "What's red and black and brass all over?" It looked like a Terminator suit, but twisted somehow, with obscene runes and leering gargoyles adorning it. In its massive left fist it held a sword, and the right carried an assault cannon. Sheridan fixed the guards with a cold glare and asked, "Now. Are you two gonna pull your guns, or sing 'Sponge Killer'?" # 311 "Hive" _311_ The guard nearest Mal tried to pull his gun, but Sheridan ran him through on Cinlach before the pistol could clear its holster. The daemon hoisted the guard further into the air, watching with morbid satisfaction as blood began to flow freely from the wound and the guard's mouth. Pleased at his offering to Khorne, he let the body slide off his weapon. As for the other guard, he could only stare at what was unfolding. Which left him completely unaware of his captive flying apart into a thousand pieces and a white blur coming towards him. About the same time he recognized the white blur as a threat, she had already laid his throat open and was about to do the same for his bowels. Needless to say, the other guard didn't enjoy -- nor survive -- Windigo's lightning-fast attack. "Thanks guys," J breathed through his post-transformation vertigo. "Thought we were made for a second." "We seem to be now," Owsen said as he tried the door. "Fookin' silent alarm's locked us out!" "Lemme try," JFox said, placing his left hand on the door. Almost immediately afterward, the door began to lose some of its coherency, eventually disintegrating. "We're in," he said as Sheridan entered the door with his assault cannon blazing. The resulting bloodbath was quick, deadly, and decisive. As Windigo and Sheridan set up a series of fusion mines in the clone banks, Mal took a seat in the control room and saw to the last bit of insurance: replacing the DNA pattern on file with a sequence of his own devising. Unix system, Mal thought as he saw the prompt. Piece of cake... barneygate% mv spec1.dna stryfe.dna Overwrite current "stryfe.dna"? (y/n) "You bet your ass I wish to overwrite," Mal muttered while hitting the "Y" key. Over in the center of the room, Morgenna could be heard shouting, "We gotta leave now! The whole security force will be upon us in a few minutes!" "I gotta be sure," Mal shouted back as he keyed a command that would upload the altered DNA file to B'Harne's main computer net. "spec1.dna" was a file that would produce an amorphous mass that looks like an amoeba upon cloning. With this altered file in place, B'Harne could not create any new Stryfe clones. Lingering to rm -i the previous backups, Mal then logged out and ran over to where the Maenads were. "We got Stryfe by the huevos," he said. "Let's book." Owsen began his portal spell as Sheridan hosed down the terminals in the control room with hypervelocity explosive-tipped death. As J was loudly protesting the teleport, Sheridan pressed a button on a transmitter that detonated the mines. The dormant clones of Stryfe were consumed in the accompanying fusion reaction as the Maenads teleported away. Seconds later, the entire complex was levelled as the _Stratocaster_ began its bombardment. It would be weeks before B'Harne found out the full extent of the damage caused by what appeared to be a mere nuisance raid. By then, it was already too late. ************************************************************************* "Still no sign of any subs," Kymm Ford observed over the tacnet. Ever since Operation Phoenix, she had taken the name "Sabine" in keeping with the Jihaddic tradition of stage names. "Where could they be hiding?" "Let's not get too hasty, Lieutenant," J-R said. "Stryfe's game may be munchkinism, but he ain't stupid. He won't show unless he's sure he can beat you." Just then, J-R's sonar display came alive with targets. "Me and my big mouth," he muttered. There was a sub, all right. Trouble was, it was being escorted by at least five Spectres. "Sabine, head back to the _Hotard!_ I'll hold them off you for as long as I can!" "But sir--" Sabine began. "No buts! Your recon data is much more important! Just get out of here! NOW!" # Rancid "Listed M.I.A." _...And Out Come the Wolves_ As Sabine turned and headed for home, J-R opened up a datalink to her Sabutai, sending her all of his recorder data in case he didn't make it back. Time to make them pay a high price for winning, he thought as he sent PPC bolts at a Spectre. The fightersub's armor and internal structure melted at the beams' hellish caress, venting the engine compartment to the open sea. This, in turn, made the Spectre's reactor go supercritical, consuming the ship in an uncontrolled reaction. One down, thought J-Rock. The dogfight continued for a few minutes, and two more Spectres fell to his Sabutai. Then four beams gouged chunks out of the Sabutai's rear armor. "Kono yaro!" J-R shouted, trying to get away. The Spectre pilots kept the hammer down, and the auto-eject kicked in, sending J-R's CVR-3W clad self into the open sea as the Sabutai disintegrated behind him. ************************************************************************* MEANWHILE, IN THE GULF OF MEXICO... The captain of the _TJS Serp_ looked over the attack scanners at the profile of the _DTT Missouri_ sailing along, unaware of its impending doom. "So, this is the ship that's supposed to avenge the _Iowa,_" he mused. "We'll just have to see about that. Do we have a solution, Number One?" "Yes, sir." "Fire Vortex missiles on tubes one through four when ready." # Basil Poledouris "Kaboom!!!" _"The Hunt for Red October" soundtrack_ "Sir, we have detected a SSM launch!" shouted one of the _Missouri's_ Bridge Bunnies from her radar station. "Launch the point-defense missiles now!" Samhain barked. Almost immediately, a boiling swarm of missiles rose from the _Missouri_ and every other ship in her task force and flew towards the Vortex missiles. Clouds of shrapnel blossomed as the PDMs exploded, looking to take the incoming missiles down with them. One Vortex got raked by the shrapnel and fell harmlessly into the water. But the rest kept coming... "Captain!" shouted the sonar officer. "New contact, 7000 meters dead ahead!" The captain strode over to the sonar display and blanched as he saw the large blip on the screen. "Torpedo room!" the captain barked. "How long before normal torpedoes are loaded?" "Fifteen minutes, sir." "Alert the Spectre squadrons! Tell them we need help now!" "Squadron commander reports under attack by False Jihad fightersubs. ETA ten minutes." "WHAT?!" The captain of the _Hotard_ smiled grimly as he regarded the _Serp_ on his scanner. It was time to turn the tables. "Can the dorsal gun be fired underwater?" he asked. "Yes, sir," replied his weapons officer. "Let's make this one quick. Fire!" As the weapons officer punched the "MODE SELECT" button, the micro-helix cannon mounted like a diesel sub's deck gun sent a coruscating yellow beam through the water, running the _Serp_ through like a roasting pig on a spit. For the one or two seconds that the _Serp_ had left to live, the only thing that could be heard was the voice of its captain, screaming like a trapped animal. Then the sub imploded, sending debris and air bubbles to the surface. "_AMS Hotard_ reports target destroyed," the Bridge Bunny at the comm station said. Samhain replied, "Very well, secure from red alert. You've all earned it." The remaining Vortexes were wiped out by a second round of PDMs and the task force's CIWS turrets. Everywhere aboard the _Missouri,_ people breathed one gigantic sigh of relief. After all, it was one thing to play Missile Command, but living it was a whole other matter. Samhain continued, "Trooper, send a message to J-Rock, care of the _Hotard._ 'We got a sub, but I hope you'll understand when I say that I'd rather not do this again.'" ************************************************************************* "Admiral J-Rock!" Stryfe said by way of greeting as the object of same was being hauled out of the escape trunk by two burly guards. "So nice of you to drop in." "Spare me the fake hospitality," J-R said. "What do you want from me?" "Oh, a little song, a little dance, your head on a lance, the Jihad utterly destroyed--" "So why didn't you kill me when I was floating around out there?" Stryfe's face went red, and he thrust his face into J-Rock's. "DON'T! EVER! INTERRUPT! ME! AGAIN!" Regaining some of his composure, he said, "Make no mistake, I considered doing that. But then I thought that some professional courtesy was in order. Before I kill you, I want to show you this boat." "Oh shoot," J-R said sarcastically. "I was hoping that you'd make me sign a written statement of my own incompetence using my ordinary-looking fountain pen." # Morrissey "Get Off The Stage" Stryfe took J-R on a tour of the sub, saying "Behold, my finest work! The _Liberator!_ Almost completely automated, so I don't need as many crewmen as you might think. Besides, this thing can also move fast enough to peel the paint off in emergencies. The Vortex missiles it carries can destroy any adversary! Look upon my works, o Jihaddi, and despair!" When they had reached the torpedo room, J-Rock asked, "Why are you showing me all this?" "I feel that you are the only one who can truly appreciate my work, seeing how you are my killer and all... but I digress. After all, revenge is a dish best served cold. And it is very cold at this depth!" Stryfe let out a mocking laugh. That laugh was cut short by the floor abruptly tilting 50 degrees to starboard, tossing guards, vat-grown loony, and TRES Admiral about the compartment to the tune of dimming lights... # Basil Poledouris "Chopper" _"The Hunt for Red October" soundtrack_ J-R peeled himself off the deck to find one of the guards' sidearms within easy reach. Grabbing the pistol, he sprung into action, shooting one of the guards in both shoulders and the left knee. He wheeled to face the other guard, but he was laid out on the deck, his head at an odd angle to the rest of his body. That left Stryfe, and he was just starting to get up. J-R immediately brought the butt of the pistol down across the back of Stryfe's head, sending him back to the deck in a heap. Before he could finish him off, another lurch of the compartment told J-R that the best policy was to get off this tub immediately! Pausing at the hatch, he looked back at Stryfe's unconscious form and said, "This ain't over, Stryfe. Not by a damn sight." Outside the sub, a swarm of Sabutais were dancing around the ship, parbroilng the pressure hull with their ER PPCs. Then the sub pulled away, leaving the scene like a ship going to lightspeed in X-Wing. "Did you see how fast that boat went?" Ensign Boco O'Connell asked. "All I know is that I wouldn't want to face it in a drag race," Aruba replied. "Hold it, guys," Sabine said. "I'm getting a distress beacon." She pointed her Sabutai at the signal and followed it until she saw a man floating in the residual wake of the _Liberator._ "Sabine," J-Rock dryly noted as she brought her Sabutai next to him, "do you always have this tendency to do what I need you to do and not what I tell you to do?" "Admiral! Thank God you're alive!" she exclaimed. "They'll have to kill me before I die," J-R said. "Now let's get out of here." "Aye aye, sir." Sabine waited until he got a firm grip on the underbelly before opening up the Sabutai's throttle. ************************************************************************* LATER, BACK ON THE _HOTARD_... "You alright, J?" Tim asked J-Rock as he switched out his CVR-3W's airtanks. "No, there's one more BLF sub left, why would I be alright?" J-R responded. "Did you bring my package with you?" Don answered that with, "I'm not touching that line." He had come in on the shuttle along with Tim. P-Chan and the rest were finishing up their leave, which had been interrupted by the X'hirjq. "Don, I'm not packed for that trip. Don't take me there." "We brought what you wanted, J," Tim replied. "But what about their aircraft carrier?" "That's a Post Toastie," Bob said as his face appeared on a comm screen. "After we shredded their CAP, I took a high-speed run over the flight deck and gave the reserve planes a healthy breakfast of cluster bomb. Then the Jagatai torpedo bombers came in. End result: Scratch one flattop." "Nice going, Bob," J-R said. "You didn't bring me along for my charming personality." "I hate to interrupt this good-natured back-patting session," Samhain said as he walked in, but we still got one sub out there. How do you propose we deal with it?" "Simple. I'm going after him. I'll be damned if I'm gonna miss my chance twice." "We're in the middle of rearming and refueling! It'll take at least fifteen minutes before we can get you a new Sabutai!" "Who said anything about getting another Sabutai?" J-R asked. He then walked over to the minisub bay, easing himself upon a hugemongous silver and black jetski-like conveyance. "What is it?" asked Sam. "It's the Garland Mariner," replied J-R. "Basically, it's the aquatic version of my Bahamode Garland." "I see. And how are you supposed to find the sub when it can do Warp Factor 4?" "The first part's easy. I stashed my backup distress beeper in a vent. As for his vaunted hyperdrive, let's just say I did some... preventive maintenance to it during Sabine's strike run. He'll have to crawl back to port just to get it back online." "Which gives us more than enough time to get there," Sam observed. "Yeah, if that sub turns out to be more than I can handle." J-R sealed his helmet with an intense expression on his face. Ok, Stryfe, he thought, time to reap the whirlwind. ************************************************************************* TEN MINUTES LATER, OFF THE CAYMAN ISLANDS... "Conn, sonar! New contact, bearing zero-four-three degrees, range five thousand meters, speed forty knots!" "WHAT?!" Stryfe shouted. It was bad enough losing the super-drive earlier than anticipated due to overheating, but having a high-speed contact close as his crew tried to repair the damage from the Sabutai strike was too much! Heads would roll for this! When this was resolved, some Jihaddi base would feel the sting of his SUBROCs. Already, the thought of revenge was calming Stryfe's nerves. "Sir," the chief engineer began as he came onto the bridge, but Stryfe interrupted him with "Not now! Can't you see we're busy here?!" Used to this sort of thing, the engineer said, "I found out why the super-drive quit. The buffer circuit was ripped out!" "How can this be? Unless we have another TRAITOR on our hands..." "May I remind the Captain that all the records of this crew were thoroughly checked out before we put to sea," the XO said. "Then the next culprit in line would be J-Rock!" Stryfe said, finally getting a clue. "DAMN HIM TO HELL! I'LL KILL HIM FOR SURE WHEN NEXT WE MEET!" "Captain, we've got a transmission from the contact," the radioman said, already putting it on the speaker. "Hey-o, daffy B'Harnate kaniggits and m'sieu' Stryfer-king, who has the brain of a duck, you know!" came J-Rock's voice over the intercom in a fake French accent. "So, we Jihad fellows outwit you a second time!" "Target that False Jihaddi infidel and fire tubes one through four!" Stryfe bellowed. Opening his own channel to the Garland Mariner, Stryfe said in an obviously phony Cuban accent, "You wanna play games, huh? Say hello to my little friends!" "Good memory," J-Rock replied in his regular voice. # The Mighty Mighty Bosstones "Holy Smoke" _Don't Know How To Party_ As the torpedoes closed in, J-R moved a thumb lever on the handlebars up, causing the submersible jet-ski to shift its geometry around him. Once the mecha closed around him, pumps began to drain the water from the now-enclosed cockpit. Within seconds, he sat at the controls of a twelve-foot-tall robot. The Garland Mariner then began to head straight for the torpedoes at full speed. "I figured you'd try that, J-Schlock!" Stryfe said through the radio. "These are Friend or Foe Torpedoes! All the benefits of no safeties, without the danger of them heading back at me!" J-R touched a button on his console, watching as the torpedoes came even closer. A small package flew out of the Garland's back, rapidly inflating until it assumed the Garland's shape. J-R then hit the manuevering jets, turning the mecha to one side while heading backwards and ascending. The torpedoes couldn't match this sudden aspect change, and two of them locked onto the balloon. The resulting explosion took out the other torps as they turned toward the Garland. "Ole!" J-Rock shouted, posing the Garland like a matador who had just evaded the horns of an angry bull. "Son of a BITCH!" Stryfe bellowed. "Even if you get me this time, my clones will finish you!" "We got the clone banks, Stryfe. It's over." "NOTHING IS OVER UNTIL I SAY IT IS! FOR I AM..... STTRRRRRYYYFFFFEE!!" By this time, J-R had pulled the Mariner to within shouting distance of the _Liberator_ and was now engaged in the task of rending the forward pressure hull with force packets from the Garland's grazer rifle. So, when he saw the outer torpedo doors close, he whipped his 'Mech through a wide turn so that he faced the bow. "I don't think so," he said. "AKAGIYAMA MICRO-TORPS!" At J-R's voice command, a rapid-fire micro-torpedo launcher in the left arm opened up, sending ten fish the sub's way. The micro-torps detonated all over the bow, blowing out the outer doors and (most importantly) the bow planes. Good, J-R thought. He can't shoot, and his manueverability is shot to hell. J-R then took the Mariner above the sub, shooting out the forward hatch with the grazer rifle before landing on the aft escape trunk hatch. He then put a left spearhand through the hatch, breaching it like an old-fashioned can opener opening a tall cold one. "And if you're gonna make fun of my name," J-R added, "at least be more original. 'J-Schlock' got old with Jason Koresh. Sheesh.." Stryfe turned to his XO and barked, "Send an SOS to the Spectre squadrons immediately! And prepare to blow all tanks!" "Sir, I don't know if you want to hear this--" the XO said. "OUT WITH IT!" "All our Spectre squadrons have been destroyed!" "THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING TO ME!" Stryfe shouted. He would've ranted further, but more shaking from the sub cut him off as the aft pressure hull felt the wrath of J-R's micro-torps. "I could have killed you all over again in the torpedo room," J-Rock intimated over the comm channel. "But after a brief thinking job, I decided that blowing your head off in your sleep is far too merciful for someone like you. So, consider yourself grounded!" J-Rock punctuated this comment by moshing against the stern planes with all of his mecha's augmented strength, forcing the forward edges up towards the conning tower. Combined with the rest of the damage the _Liberator_ had sustained, the sub nosed down into a steep dive from which recovery seemed impossible. Somehow, the XO had the presence of mind to pull the lever launching the ship's disaster beacon. But before the buoy could travel more than fifty meters from the ship, J-Rock had already reduced it to debris with a frugally short burst of force packets. "Don't think you can get out of this shit that easily," he said. "Yours shall be a death... by isolation." J-R shifted into the harsh, sibilant tones of his Prince Thrakhath impression as he continued. "'The coward's end, alone, ignored, cut off until you die from thirst, starvation, or madness.' But in your case," he added, shifting back to his regular voice, "asphyxiation is more likely." The sound of Stryfe's nervous laughter filled the channel for the next few seconds. It was, well, most like the laughter of a man still trying to prove his invincibility when it has been demonstrated that he is very much vulnerable. "You're a fool, J-Rock!" Stryfe finally said at length. "I can hold my breath for a long, long time!" "Yeah," J-R remarked under his breath. "And your brain is very compact too..." Reopening the transmission for the last time, he said, "Oh, by the way... HAND, shitbag!" As the _Liberator_ plunged onward in its final dive towards the trench, Stryfe was transmitting to J-Rock, but his threats were falling on deaf ears: "Oh, sure, laugh now! But this is only a setback! For I will rise again and give you the ass-whuppin' you so richly deserve!" J-Rock, on the other hand, was wondering just what would claim Stryfe's last ship first: the impact with the ocean floor, or the intense pressure at those great stygian depths. Needless to say, J-R was reluctant to risk the Mariner, even though it carried the kind of pressure protection that was on Noriko and Kazumi's old GunBuster. He would not pursue the sub for one simple reason: to show Stryfe that he really was to die ignored by everyone. "For I am... SSSTTTTRRRRRYYYYYY--" The last word was lost to static as a mild shockwave shook the Mariner, heralding the passage of the huge air bubbles particular to imploding submarines. J-R finally decided that this was one case where the cause wasn't too important, just the effect. "Poseidon-One, this is Barracuda Squadron," Samhain's voice said over the tacnet, snapping J-R out of his reverie. "What's TrypeCryin's status?" "Fishfood," J-Rock responded, to the cheers of the Doberman Sabutai drivers. Turning the Garland Mariner back into a submersible, he said, "Let's head home. Poseidon-One has the lead." As the Sabutais formed on him, J-R stole a peek at the air bubbles (by now a speck in the distance). Almost instantly, his mental quote file pulled a line from Shakespeare that was perfect for Stryfe: 'Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.' ************************************************************************* EPILOGUE Stryfe woke with a start, sitting bolt upright. All that he could see was a blindingly white room, with no windows or doors to be found. Shaking some water out of his ears, he said, "What kinda place is this? Am I on the set of 'THX-1138' or something? What's going on?" It was only after these words escaped his lips that he noticed that the burning pain in his chest was gone. And then a door on the far wall opened to admit a curiously pale woman dressed in black, wearing a silver ankh around her neck. Waitaminit, Stryfe thought, didn't I see her on the cover of some DC books? Unless--no, this can't be! In a much more subdued tone of voice, he muttered, "Tell me I'm not already in Hell..." Death just cracked a smile and replied, "Not yet." # Megadeth "Go to Hell" _Hidden Treasures_ THE END