by Purple Hazel
This giant cargo ship was an Earth Cruiser, capable of defending itself in a fire fight, armed with thermonuclear missiles, and able to hold a payload of many tons of processed mineral ore. This Earth Cruiser, which was captured early in the firefight days before, was renamed THE ANARCHY when they captured it. And now it was going to be the central support object of their attack ramp. The crew of the Earth Cruiser had all been dispatched early in the rebellion… all butchered right where they sat on the ship when the rebels burst into this rather well equipped intergalactic ship. It was about the size of a five-story office building laying on its side, and carried a full crew of 600. Yet, to the amazement of the Warden and his staff, the Rebels were soon burying it… in dirt!
As the built-up ramp reached, then cleared the Earth Cruiser though, it would need further support. So while the dump trucks carried soil up the ramp on one side of the cruiser to bury it and create an incline, Porkonji welders rigged together a scaffolding out of massive dump haulers, mine train cars, guard post sheds, and cannibalized equipment from the rock crushing plant to provide stability to the dirt ramp on the other side, leading up to the cavern wall. Massive stalagmites would form most of the support as the ramp got closer to the canyon wall and they began filling in the crevasse and forming the ramp right up to the mess hall window.
But this created a new problem of structural support and measurement. The first problem was just how close trucks could actually get to dump dirt; and how much support was needed at the very top for the tractor drill. These objections came up constantly from the Slarts, but Perry always told Hicks to just brush them off. Perry just kept assuring the General that he had it all figured out. “Not to worry, Hickey,” Perry would say.
The dirt spillage on the other side of the Earth Cruiser was much wider, and covered the whole width of the tunnel leading out of the canyon, but with so many bodies and so many beings and such excellent gang organization, the massive undertaking started coming together in only a few weeks. And by then, Spleef raiders had explored even more of the air system duct network and opened up air shafts with explosive charges to feed cleaner air into the cavern where thousands of their fellow Nausties labored feverishly around the clock.
After three weeks, the ramp had reached a height that was unfortunately within firing range of the Security Forces inside the command bubble. The defenders tried blowing out the glass walls of it to fire their EIC’s at the laboring Nausties below, and in only one bloody hour they killed off a thousand helpless workers who had no choice but to try running down the ramp in terror.
But Perry’s genius continued to shine, as he’d prepared for just that very thing. His plan was dangerous, but it worked. Zorg Slingers were sent up behind rolling shields pushed by Pumalars. With Sulfuric Acid-filled clay pots they flung their incendiaries to smash through the open windows and horribly burn the flesh of the soldiers manning gun positions inside the command bubble. Still concealed behind the metal shields, Pumalars then hurled grappling hooks with ropes in giant salvos across the open cavern into now-vacated open windows of the command bubble. Brave Spleef raiders climbed up the ropes with directional explosive charges slung over their backs. These they attached to the lower part of the structure, while the defenders desperately tried braving expert javelin fire—from Earthers supporting the attack—to try and cut the ropes. Some succeeded at the cost of their own lives, but only a few lines were cut; and only a few Spleefs fell to their deaths or terrible injury below. It was too late anyway, the damage was done. Many charges were set all around the base of the now-doomed command bubble, and it finally had to be ordered evacuated by Terminal Command.
The charges were set for only five minutes, and with one massive Pumalar roar from the crew commander to signal evacuation, the entire ramp full of workers fled down the incline to the cavern floor to take cover, with Spleefs repelling from above onto their shoulders. Soon the blasts went off, and debris was flying in all directions, crashing down on the cheering Nausties below. Bodies fell from the command bubble too!
The explosions were not enough to destroy the whole structure, but the entire base of it did collapse and fall 250 feet to the floor, letting freshly manufactured oxygen into the canyon, and right where it was needed: near the top of the ramp. Casualties in that battle had been horrendous, but the thrill of seeing so many Security Force guards being eliminated really lifted the spirits of the tired Nausties. Bodies of at least 65 guards littered the ramp from the explosion, with mangled body parts and looks of terror frozen on their faces. Now, Warden Ggggaaah’s forces would have no other options. No relief force was coming. No ship would dare land on that planet now that it was under attack. They had no means for defense but to just wait on the Nausties to break into the Mess Hall and fight them to the death right there.
It was only at that very moment that Architeuthis and the rest of the Nausties that day began to realize, they might just win this war!
Chapter 7:
For the Honor
But STILL, there was so much to have to consider. So many Nausties had already died! So much had been sacrificed. And yet even more was going to be asked of them. Much, much more perhaps. Oh, they’d bear up to it, of course. These Nausties possessed hearty souls. Still, just how far would they really be willing to go to win their independence? Could they sacrifice all they had? It might just very well come to that, General Hicks feared….
On the twenty-fifth night of the rebellion, General Hicks finally called it a day, and staggered over to his bed pallet inside one of the captured food warehouses. The air was better in there anyway, so he’d finally be able to breathe better and perhaps finally get over his pounding headache. That’s what the thin air was doing to workers outside in the canyon all the time. Thin oxygen was giving many workers splitting headaches every day. But yet they just kept on working.
The General would be trying to get a few hours of sleep while crews worked frantically around the clock hauling, spreading, packing, and filling in dirt to form the last part of the ramp. But so much was still on his mind. Had he considered everything? Every potential challenge?
Lying next to him as always when he sat down on the bed was his companion, Perry. They’d been together for a decade now; and Perry had always been his right hand man, his confidant, and his partner. Perry was not just Hicks’s bedmate either, Perry was in actuality a really smart Earth man who could devise amazing solutions to both technological and physical challenges. Hicks was the warrior-leader type who had that rare ability to be able to see inside men's hearts and motivate them. Perry, by way of comparison, was the type who could help such a strong man with those abilities come up with a viable plan to succeed. Always the man behind the man. Always the man behind the scenes, Perry was. But now Perry's brilliance was under the spotlight, and Hicks was thrilled to let his lover's star continually shine bright.
"What am I not thinking of 'P'?" asked Hicks with a snarling sigh. His throat had been badly damaged in a fight many years earlier, by a Pumalar's dagger, and never healed all the way back to normal. His neck still bore the terrible scar. Hicks said, "This ramp... it's insane. The Romans built one at Masada, just like we’re doing. Lucius had about 10,000 men working on it, just like we do—give or take a thousand. And like us, those tough bastards built a ramp out of soil and bedrock—in the middle of the god dammed desert!” Hicks reclined onto the mattress next to Perry, and continued, “Theirs was 375 feet high too I think I read once…. Did you know that?” Perry nodded with a grin. He had heard Hicks tell the story before several times.
Perry rolled up on one side of his body so that Hicks could lie down next to him comfortably. Hicks gave out a long sigh and continued in a low mumble, “… they did all that just to assault 900 rebels in a damned fort. Crazy. But they did it—somehow—those stubborn Romans.” Hicks pulled in a really long breath of air, then sighed it back out, “And I guess so can we... but I just don't know, 'P'. So many things could go wrong… at the top, I mean… you
know?"
Perry snuggled up to his companion and caressed his chest to calm him a bit. Perry knew very well that if they tried a frontal attack they only had a thousand captured EIC's to use in the assault; and half of them were nearly out of ammunition. Otherwise, they’d be using spears and javelins against space age weaponry. He knew they’d be going up against a very likely well-fortified barricade inside that mess hall, once they broke through, and that they’d be facing a hellish barrage of weapons fire once they tried assaulting the breach. But yet Perry wasn’t worried in the least. Not even a bit, really.
However… General Hicks was quite worried! “So let’s go over this again, ‘P’,” growled the General. “What REALLY happens when we get near the top?” Perry gave a big sigh and continued caressing his lover’s shaved and tattooed chest. Perry said soothingly, “Hickey, just get some sleep. Tomorrow I’ll show you exactly what I have in mind. I promise…. But for now you need to sleep.” And Hicks knew Perry was right. He just needed to put everything on ice for a little while, and breathe in the better oxygen inside the converted warehouse. His head needed to stop pounding too; and his body needed rest.
Gradually Hicks drifted off to sleep, despite the cacophony of noise going on outside on the ramp construction. Four hours of sleep. That’s what he kept telling himself. That’s all he needed. Just sleep four hours and try not to think…. Come out swinging the next day. Tomorrow was going to be a really big day once again, Hicks knew, and people would be counting on him. Let Perry handle the details. He probably had it all worked out anyway. He always did in the past after all.
Once again, Hicks was quite correct, because Perry had it all figured out in his mind. In the final phase of the ramp construction, dump trucks built on top of tractors would back slowly up to the edge of the ramp and dump out their contents, then drive down the ramp as quickly as possible. Each tractor dumper would be followed by another tractor dumper, backing up the long ramp to the top. They’d only go one at a time though, just in case the Security Troops tried detonating the mess hall window and opening fire on them. No need to lose another hundred Nausties in a surprise attack, Perry figured.
Each tractor following the previous one, would dump its payload as well—continuing this process hour after hour until the ramp was nearly complete, slowly but surely rising those last few feet to the window of the Mess Hall.
However: when the ramp was finally within about five to ten feet of the windows—and hopefully before the enemy soldiers inside started to open fire—Perry had a very, very, very nasty surprise waiting in store for them. Something they’d never suspect or could have prepared for….
Back at that first war council meeting when the idea of blowing up the entire terminal first came up; Perry was already considering the nuclear devices inside the newly captured Earth Cruiser. But he had no intention of detonating the entire canyon in a nuclear holocaust either! Far from it, actually.
This is what Perry actually had in mind for the battle at the very top of the ramp: Slart engineers would go inside the now-buried Earth Cruiser to retrieve the detonators from those thermonuclear warheads. Just the detonators off the top of the warheads—nothing more. These detonators Perry wished to have mounted onto a rack in the back of a dump truck… and then actually BACK that vehicle all the way up the ramp to the top. The way Perry imagined it, the detonators could be welded into a rack and placed in the large open bin of the dump tractor. Then the whole payload could be covered up in dirt, disguising its deadly contents. Because of this, it would look just like any other load of dirt, and the Security Troops inside the Mess Hall would never suspect what was really inside that hauler.
Meanwhile, Perry needed General Hicks to have the entire army assembled in formations for the final assault… in full view of the Warden’s forces above. The large tractor with the drill mounted to it would be positioned at the base of the ramp, while the “last fifty” of the dump trucks took turns ascending the ramp, one after another. The defenders would wait patiently for those final dump trucks to spill their loads and complete the ramp; thinking the real battle was yet to come.
As Perry imagined it, the Security Troops would have been assuming all along that when the tractor drill was mounting the ramp for the final assault and troops were queuing up behind it for the attack: that’s when they finally needed to prepare themselves. So they’d pay little attention to the last few dump trucks hauling up dirt for the ramp. They’d be waiting for the drill! And they’d be waiting for the massed attack forming up behind it too. That’s how Perry would catch them off guard.
One more dump truck offloading soil? And then another, and then another? They could just ignore those and wait for the tractor drill and the assault troops rushing up behind it! That would be the real attack, they’d believe. That’s what they would have been told by their superiors, Perry assumed.
They’d brace themselves for the final attack and arm themselves to mercilessly mow down thousands of half-naked, oxygen-depleted, riot-crazed prisoners until this bloody rebel uprising was finally exhausted. After all why should they even be worried? They actually had every reason to be overconfident. After all, they had all the technology. The rebels had nothing but some captured EIC’s to complement their spears and javelins; and of course the false bravado that so often comes from achieving a few minor victories in the early part of a rebellion.
But these Security Troops? Oh, they had tear gas and concussion grenades to eliminate whole platoons of attackers as they approached. That Mess Hall up there probably had a whole arsenal of weapons and ammunition stockpiled for its defense! Those Security Troops defending that position would assume it would be nothing but bloody murder, once that drill rolled up that ramp and started boring through their thick glass wall. However… they were all sadly mistaken! Perry had no intention of sending 10,000 Nausties into a turkey shoot.
Instead, those unwitting Security Troops barricaded in there would be blown to bits by what they thought was just another load of dirt from a dump truck… a dump truck which actually contained three thermonuclear warhead detonators concealed under a mound of innocent looking dirt!
Detonators from a nuclear warhead would create a directional charge big enough to blow up several floors of the mess hall and even the barracks above it. If they all three went off at the same time, the explosion would be large enough that General Hicks’ entire force could have plenty of time to rush right up the ramp unopposed. The hole would be so large… the Nausties could easily hop right across; and into the building. Thousands and thousands of them too. They’d just need to carry up long steel planks to lay down over the gap created by the explosion. Then they could rampage through the terminal and overwhelm the defenders inside quite easily.
Perry knew all about nuclear warheads and detonators because of his background. He’d once been recruited by a large military contractor right out of college, where he’d been a top-flight Physics major. Eventually the young Perry found himself on the fast-track to a stellar corporate career in the defense industry, developing advanced weapons technology, and soon he knew of all the tactical uses for them. But that’s when he got into a romantic relationship with one of his older mentors at the company.
The man Perry fell in love with was a colleague from work who was clearly going places in the corporation, and Perry believed he could just ride the man’s coat-tails all the way to the top. However the relationship soured over time. The older man was already married and after a year or so, his wife had become suspicious of the clandestine affair (so the man claimed). He suddenly wanted to end it with Perry, and though it broke the young man’s heart, Perry accepted his decision.
However… within less than a year, the older man was right back in the saddle; and quite openly dating another younger man in another department who was fresh out of college. Young Perry was devastated.
Then one day that older colleague from work was found dead in a hotel room. Brutally murdered actually. The perpetrator could ha
ve been most anyone really, with all the jilted lovers the older man must have had, but suspicion fell upon Perry as the likely killer. He denied it, of course, even if he didn’t have a real air-tight alibi, but whether he did it or not, Perry was eventually convicted of the crime and sentenced to “twenty years—hard labor”.
One day a high-flying young up-and-comer employed with an intergalactic military contractor… the next day hauled off in a bright orange jump suit with shackles on both his ankles and wrists. Six weeks later, he found himself exiting a large space cruiser along with 60 other new prisoners to work in the mines of Rijel 12… knowing he’d never see Earth again.
That had been ten years ago now and somehow the bright young man had survived into a hardened, tattooed and rather muscular, head-shaven member of the Arian Knights prison gang. He’d been ritualistically partnered, according to Arian Knights tradition, with the slightly older gang leader Hicks right after joining the gang, and Perry had been his partner and companion all those years ever since.
But because of his Physics background, Perry knew the detonators would create a massive breach in the building, and eliminate all the defenders poised to slaughter the Naustie assault force. The concussion from the blast and the flying debris would wipe out reinforcements positioned behind the initial defense line too; and in the mass confusion, the defenders would be helplessly uncoordinated in mounting a defense for several minutes.
Perry knew something else, too. These were proximity detonators on those warheads, so the vehicle transporting the load would merely need to get near enough to the building windows and the three warhead detonators would explode. One driver and one spotter would be all that was needed. The spotter might have to activate the detonators right before they got to the top of the ramp, and then the detonators would be triggered by the proximity to the glass walls. Within a few seconds… BOOM! Chaos, confusion, and carnage would follow.
