From: Richard D. Sanford Jr. (maigret@ix.netcom.com) Subject: The Cruise of the _Lydia_, Part III Newsgroups: alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die, alt.tv.the-jihad Date: 1997/10/28 The Cruise of the _Lydia_, Part III. Since most of the drop sequence is derived from Robert A. Heinlein's _Starship Troopers_ (The book, not the movie), thanks Grand Master Heinlein, wherever you are. ********************************************************************** "General Quarters! General Quarters! All hands man your Battle Stations! Marines to Drop Stations!" When the General Alarm sounded its insistent bonging throughout the ship, the _Lydia's_ crew exploded into a semi-organized chaos! Crewmembers raced through corridors to reach their action stations. Cloth flew through the air as the crew skinned out of their coveralls to get into their skintight pressure suits before depressurization. Down in the Marine's drop bays, Captain Sanford was running self- checks on his powered armor while his crew sealed the ablative drop capsule around him. He had a real shit-eating grin on his face as the self-tests told him his armor was ready to take him to hell. Though no stranger to space combat, Captain Sanford's ground combat experi- ence was limited to sneaking his way through Norfolk, VA when the Lizards had occupied it. He was looking forward to the coming raid. Mr. Holden and Major Strusser had tried to argue him out of it, but LT Forbes was positive that the planet had no serious defenses, so the ship's part would be limited to drop, pickup, and maybe some fire support. Captain Sanford was quite confident in trusting the ship to his First Officer, and after promising Major Strusser that he wouldn't get in his marines' way, he'd taken a spare armor suit. He wanted a good, first-hand look at this Spongie colony. "All capsules sealed. Closing drop-lock inner hatch," came over Captain Sanford's radio from the crew chief. There was a faint whine of motors and a few muffled clunks. "Inner hatch sealed. Evacuating drop-lock. Depressurizing ship." "All right, Marines, this is a straightforward raid," came Major Strusser over the radio. "Our job is to get in, grab whatever looks interesting, do as much damage as possible, and get the hell out of Dodge. Intel says there are no serious planetary defenses, so chances are the SM's are laying low and won't have big weaponry close by." A short pause for dramatic effect, "That doesn't mean this is a cake- walk. Don't take any chances you don't have to." "Remember," said Captain Sanford, "we have no idea how spongified this settlement is so try and keep the killing to a minimum. If they run away without shooting, let them go." "Drop-lock evacuated. Opening outer hatch." "All right, Marines," the Major shouted, "Let's hear it!" "WE MAY HATE WASHING SPONGIN BLOOD, BUT WE LOVE GETTIN COVERED IN IT!!" "Five seconds to realspace transition." The _Lydia_ was approach- ing the planet through hyperspace and would pop out at about three hundred kilometers above the atmosphere. "Four...three...two...one... Breakout!" A brief weightlessness as the artgrav units adjusted to realspace, then a shudder as the main sublights took over. "Two minutes to drop." "Intel to Marine one, we probably won't have a map for you until after we enter atmosphere." "Roger, Intel. Just get us something." "Entering atmosphere. Ninety-three seconds to drop." The old, familiar rush ran through Captain Sanford's blood as the _Lydia's_ hull began to sing. Though the shields were taking the brunt of the atmosphere, they had to transmit some of the turbulence to the ship. "Target acquired. Beginning fast analysis of photo data. Marines, stand by for data feed." In the nose of the ship, hi-res cameras were taking pictures of the target area. This would reveal detail that the ship had simply been too far away to see before now. Sixty seconds. "Thirty seconds to drop. Beginning data feed to Marines." All through the battalion, suit screens lit up with a new picture of the target area. Quick mathematical analysis showed size of buildings, relative hights, thermal images, and even an educated guess at what the buildings contained. Captain Sanford grinned. Major Strusser spoke up, "We'll decide exactly where to hit dirt on the way down. For now the target area is in the hills, thirty kilometers from the center of town, bearing 270 from center of town." The indicated point acquired a crossed circle. "Standard battalion drop pattern." On the screen, rectangles formed a triangle around the target point, showing where the companies would hit. These then sub- divided for platoons, squads, fire teams, and finally individual sol- diers. Captain Sanford was on the right, Major Strusser on the left, and Sergeant Major Palmieri would lead the rear-guard. "Data feed complete. Fifteen seconds. Enemy has aquired us. Begin countermeasures." Launchers on the top of the ship began spew- ing all sorts of junk, chaff, rockets, transponders...all designed to make the ship harder to target and to disguse the Marine's own launch. "Explosive ejectors armed. Five seconds. Four...three...two..." Captain Sanford braced himself against the saddle of his armor. "One...Drop!" A ripple of sound as explosive charges punched the Marines out from aft to forward. Captain Sanford, being near the bow was one of the last ones out. There were three taps as the explosive safety bolts detonated, then, WHAM! The ejector charge pushed him through the shield, into the onrushing air. A giant wrenched him to his side and sent him tumbling out of control. "I'm glad I took some dramamine," Captain Sanford muttered. Even so, he felt a bit green before the stabilizing fins on the capsule caught and stabilized him, flat on his back, with three g's pushing down. It wasn't the smoothest ride, and the roughest part coincided with peak g-forces when he passed the speed of sound, but pretty soon the accelerometer read 1.2 g's which meant he was at terminal velocity. "Major, do you have any updates?" The Major had been staring at the map all through the drop. "The original drop point is a bit wooded...there's a clearer area of rolling foothills about 20 km South-southwest of that. We'll make for there." The target point on the map shifted and the drop grid reformed around it. "Marines, come out of your shells as soon as the temperature says you can. It's a long glide." Captain Sanford checked his shell temperature gauge on his "Drop Program" window and realized he could blow his shell now. A glance at the screen button and a double blink activated the explosive charges that blew his drop capsule into eight pieces. The suits arms, auto- matically extended over his head for stability and so he could put his arms into them. Captain Sanford slipped his arms into the arms of his suit, twisted the joysticks to activate the suit arms, gave them a quick test flex, then flipped over onto his stomach. "Man, what a view!" someone called. "Cut the chatter and find your landing spot." Captain Sanford glanced from his viewscreens to his map screen and found a landmark in his drop zone. A few contortions later ("I'm out of practice. I need to do some more skydiving.") he was gliding for his appointed spot. "All right, Marines, when you hit dirt, SCAN before you do any- thing else. I don't want you getting killed by booby-traps. Captain Sanford glanced at the laser rangefinder, now functioning as an altimeter. The ground was getting rapidly closer, but he was tight over his target. A beeping announced that he was almost at the minimum altitude for his parachute, so he double blinked again and a large paraglider popped out the pack on the back of his armor. Let- ting go of the joysticks in his suit arms triggered the claws to retract so he could use his hands to steer. The moment his feet touched dirt, explosive bolts blew the para-pack off and Captain San- ford was left standing on a hostile planet. He put the claws back out for full battle readiness. He took Major Strusser's advice and did a scan, in both visual and IR, but there was nothing immediately apparent. A few quick strides took him to the top of a small boulder, where he could see some land- marks. After checking his suit's navigation computer, he called out to his company to check in. "Major, we're ready on the right." "Rear-guard ready." "All right Marines, standard leapfrog, and keep your eyes open!" Captain Sanford, in nominal command of the 2nd company (Although 1st Lt Chazz might object) took the lead, jumping 50 meters at a time until he was 500 meters ahead. Then he waited and covered as the other half of his company pushed out 500 meters ahead of him. It took about 90 minutes, but the battalion got to the outskirts of town. Major Strusser shouted, "Hit 'em!" and the leading companies jumped straight into the air. "Yahoooo!" Captain Sanford couldn't contain himself. Glancing at the two screens that showed where his arms were pointing he used his arm joysticks to pick targets for the mini-missiles strapped to his arms. He fired off six then bent over and used his suit rockets to push himself into the center of the town. Several sponges tried to pop him with auto-rifle fire, but his armor easily stopped it and a few arm-laser blasts made short work of them. "Major, we've got aircraft coming from the north, straight for the town. Get undercover and we'll take care of them," Sergeant Palmieri called out. Captain Sanford took the advice, extended the vibroblades from his suit arms, and quickly cut himself an enterance to the near- est building. It turned out to be a good choice. The building seemed to be some sort of research lab and was crawling with strange creatures. Captain Sanford grabbed one of them as gently as he could with his suit claws (There was still some blood) and activated his loudspeaker. "Do you speak any human language?" he demanded. <> It was fed directly into Captain Sanford's brain with the clarity and certainty of a ray of sunlight breaking through storm clouds. <> He couldn't help himself. The claws opened. <> The creature gestured to something that looked suspiciously like a very large cuisinart. Captain sanford felt as though he were moving through cotton. He pulled his arms out of the suit arms and was reaching up to open the suit hatch when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror he had affixed to the handwheel. "There been times when I look in the mirror..." Captian Sanford shook his head and punched his keyboard to bring up the CD selection. <> An almost overpowering sense of fear at the prospect came withing a hair of stopping him, but he held firm and punched the selection button. Cue "Dream On", Areosmith, _Areosmith's Greatest Hits_ When the lovely orchestral music flooded his suit speakers, Capt- ain Sanford became himself again. He slipped his arms back into the suit arms and laughed, "You'll have to do better than that to catch a member of the Despongification Division." <> "Benjy?" The question was answered a split second later by some- thing slamming hard into his back. Captain Sanford whirled to face a Legion Marine swinging his arms at him. "You leave my freind alone!" came over his radio. "Private ben Jakob?" Belatedly he remembered the Private's first name was Benjamin, "What are you doing? Stop this at once." Captain Sanford grabbed his opponent's arms in his suit claws and began to wrestle. "No! I see it all so clear now! Barney is better than any dumb old Jihad or Legion, and you're trying to hurt him, but I'll hurt you first!" Captain Sanford thought furiously. He had to get Private ben Jakob to let up if he was to put a despongification plan into action. Recalling that Private be Jakob was Isreali, he called out, "Is Bar- ney better than God, Banjamin? What does the Torah say about your attacking me?" "Uhhh..." Private ben Jakob stopped struggling for a bit. The Captain quickly locked his suit arms, pulled his arms into the torso of his suit, and just as the Private was about to say, "You're just confusing me!" he punched the keyboard to pipe his internal music to his suit radio. Cue "Sweet Emotion", same disc. "Yaahhhh!!!!!" Private ben Jakob screamed and tried to cover his ears. Seeing as Captain Sanford's suit arms were locked to his, the Private ended up yanking both of them off their feet. It took some doing, but Captain Sanford distangled himself and got to his feet. "Major Strusser! Come in!" "Right here Mr. Captain, Sir! What can me and my new friends do for you? Sing a song? How about, I luv you, you luv me..." This startled Captain Sanford as the Good Music(tm) was being piped to Major Strusser as well. He switched to the general channel and called out, "Is there anyone who still isn't spongified?" "Sir! Sir!" it was 1st Lt Chazz, "Half my company just turned on me! Their attacking us!" "Captain," Sergeant Major Palmieri called out, "I can see what's going on in the town, but my men seem to be unaffected by it for the moment. What do you want us to do?" "Hang on Mr. Chazz. Sergeant, get your men ready for some serious butt kicking." Captain Sanford grabbed the creature that was cowering in a corner with both claws and said, "You're coming with me." He got out of the building and jumped to get clear of the town. Quickly joining Sergeant Palmieri's company. "You," he said, pointing at a nearby Marine, "Hold onto this prisonner and don't let him go. Everyone, start playing whatever Good Music(tm) you've got. These things are telepathic and strong enough to take over individual minds. We're going in, and we're going to kill all of these things except this one. We want him for questioning." "Captain, this is Mr. Holden. We've got a ship launching from about 200 km from your position. Also, we've got a large army of mechanized sponges approaching you from the south, ETA two hours." "Leave the escape ship. Blast that army. Sergeant, let's go!" It took about an hour, and was very messy work, but they killed all the sponges in the town. All those who had fallen under their spell during the battle recovered quickly, but the butcher's bill from the infighting was close to a quarter of the battalion and included Major Strusser. Captain Sanford and Sergeant Palmieri went back to grill the prisoner. The pale blue spongie was cowering in the arms of the Marine who had been assigned to guard it, crying hysterically. The Marine, who was a big hearted guy, was trying to calm it, but all it said was, <> Captain Sanford really wasn't in the mood to pity the thing, and he was wary of it trying to influence him, but he couldn't help feeling sorry for this thing. It must have been able to telepathic- aly hear the screams of the dying. "It's over now. There's nobody screaming anymore," he said, and the spongie calmed a bit and looked fearfully and Captain Sanford. <> "Not here, and he's gone and abandoned you." <> "The Great One? Who's that?" The spongie looked very confused and said, <> He choked off the rest as Sergeant Palmieri extended one of his vibro- blades. "The Sergeant here gets really mad when people don't tell him what he wants to know," said Captain Sanford. "I might not be able to stop him if he gets mad." <> "Why do you call him the Great One?" <> "Dance? Like you did with 'Benjy'?" <> "Why do you call him you cousin?" <> Captain Sanford grimaced. It was obvious that they had stumbled onto some sort of eugenics program. "This Great One, where is he?" <> Captain Sanford went cold. "Rocketship? Where?" The spongie pointed. Captain Sanford looked in that direction and marked it on his map. "Mr. Holden, what happened to that escaping ship?" "It jumped about twenty minutes ago. I tracked it, so we can ex- trapolate its course." "Where did it launch from? Put it on my map." "Hang on, sir" A minute later Captain Sanford's map acquired a bright spot, 300km away and almost exactly on the line the spongie pointed. "Sweet Mother of God," Captain Sanford whispered. Then in a loud- er voice, "Lt Chazz! Sergeant Palmieri! prepare the battalion for re- treival! Mr. Holden! get the retreival boats down here and prepare to break orbit! Have LT Forbes start plotting probable destinations for that ship." "Aye aye, sir!" "Aye aye, sir!" "Aye aye, sir!" As Lt Chazz started forming his remaining troops in a perimeter for the retrieval boats and tending to the wounded, Lt Commander Holden called down, "Sir, just what was in that ship that got away?" "Not much, Number One. Just the possible destruction of the Jihad." ********************************************************************** To be continued... -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Captain Rick Sanford, Legion of Doom, Despongification Division "Hit hard. Hit fast. Hit often." Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz ----------------------------------------------------------------------