No Para, you don’t really have to look one in the eye. What are you thinking girl? Oh, you are definitely going to go hand to claw with one of those monsters? I’m not sure what to even say to that.
***
THE SEAT OF POWER
August 29th. We divided into our three-team configuration. Para and Roll would be a team. Para could test her fighting skills. A small soft human female smashing bugs would be an excellent way to provoke them. We wanted to mess with their heads even as we tried to understand them better. Roll would get to use team porting in an operational setting and port-drop some ordnance.
Rock and Mr. T would be a team. Mr. T would try out the effectiveness of different types of ammunition for his .50 cal. Rock would get his shot at porting in an operational setting, try different types of 6.8 ammo, and port-drop explosives.
Muncle and I would be the spotters. We would also try out my cloaking ability. Great. There was no better way that I could think of, to make me responsible for everyone’s life.
“Grandad, if I mess up one of you could get killed. How could I live with myself?”
“This team configuration makes the most sense. An overwatch position will impact the success of the mission, especially if invisible. That’s a force multiplier we can’t neglect. Hopefully, it will work. We aren’t certain of their scanning capabilities. Viz-”
“I know, just do it.”
“No, I wasn’t going to say that. This is your call. We’ll figure it out if you can’t do it.”
“I can.”
“Thank you Sweetie, uhhh, I mean, thank you private.”
Private? Oh, my rank. Hey, don’t I get any choice in my rank? The configuration really did make sense. Invisibility combined with Muncle’s super-vision was a good fit for a lookout team. We had discovered if anyone was in physical contact with me, or at least close by, that person could benefit from the cloaking field. They too would be invisible. But it’s not easy. I should add, I can see just fine from within the cloak. Anyone within my cloaking field can see each other and everything else just fine.
I can’t explain the process very well, but basically, it is the electromagnetic radiation or waves, whatever you want to call them, that are impacted. Apparently, I am loaded with some specialized metamaterials that produce a field force which in turn counteracts EM waves. I don’t have to put on an external cloaking device or anything like that. I’m told there are existing external invisibility cloaking devices. The problem with those is, a cloaked person can’t see outside the cloak. That wouldn’t be good.
Mr. T asked some science friends a hypothetical question. Could a dipole filler invisibility effect be extended beyond the subject vessel using a cable or other electronic means? In this case, I was the dipole filler invisibility subject vessel. They thought such a cloaking field could be extended a certain distance if the power source was sufficient. The field would not move through a cable however. It’s easy for me to cloak. To extend the cloak requires constant attention, and it’s draining.
The Washington Monument is only about 500 yards from the bug nest ship, so being invisible is a good plan. That, and sending our communications through a landline to a remote radio transmitter. When an assault team was inactive, they would teleport directly to an electronic grid platform set up close to me in the Monument. Electronic grid platform?
The platform would be linked to me via cable so a resting team could also be cloaked. Ha! It’s not like I didn’t know the stupid cable and grid were meaningless. I saw the dipole filler cloaking analysis report. But the rig did seem to help me keep the cloaking field extended. Psychological trickery. With that, like I said, the resting team would be hidden from any snooping bug scans. Hopefully.
I had a final look at the cable and grid cloak augmentation system. It was obvious someone had used markers on a piece of cardboard for the grid platform and fancied up a bungee cord with some alligator clips for the cable. Yeah, that would do the trick, for my psychological cloaking benefit. For goodness sakes.
We decided all of those precautions were necessary since the bugs would surely be monitoring the area with scanners able to view the entire electromagnetic spectrum. We hoped those precautions would be enough. We would know very quickly if their scanning tech could see through my cloaking field. Hopefully we could port away before they blasted the Monument, and us.
Our little group now has high-tech comms, with earbuds and throat mikes. We are also using UpPro cameras with all sorts of features, like auto-activate, auto-focus and smart-zoom. That way, we can record all the action as an aid to future planning, and to help with updating the Journal (of course). That’s that, and there you have it. Oh, I have a little more time to journal? Mr. T needs to make some last-minute adjustments.
Muncle and I will have the primary responsibility of making sure the teams stay alive. No pressure. Yeah, can you hear the sarcasm dripping? We will look for a group of bugs merging to attack. There were numerous reports outlining that tendency if the threat was sufficient or if they were provoked. Bugs would group up and then attack in mass. If they were crazy angry, there was less chance they would use weapons. That was the hope. We decided we should provoke the bugs and get them really angry.
Para was happy to be the one to start the bug provocation program. Roll rigged up a suitable weapon just for Para. He found a small steel wrecking ball, a little thing, about 250 pounds. To that, he attached a heavy chain. To start the mission, Roll will teleport with Para to a group of bugs and watch her back as she bashes them with the wrecking
