Roll, Mr. T, and Para will port to the storage bay. If there are one or two bugs, they will port them off the ship and dispose of them. If there is a bug conference going on, or something like that, we can move on to the next ship and return later. We may not even encounter a bug, not in the storage areas.
The nukes are small but they are still heavy, at 120 pounds. The twins are strong, but it would be hard to lug that kind of dead weight around. We rounded up a small wagon. Simple as that. After Roll’s team clears the storage room, Rock and I will port in with the bomb on a wagon, move it to the storage room, and tuck the bomb away. Each ship is identical, so it should make the process relatively simple.
I don’t exactly like these bombs or what we are about to do. Any nuclear bomb is a frightening weapon. But they are perfect for taking out a bug ship from the inside out. And we have no choice as far as the mission goes. They invaded us after all. Crud, I’m not happy about the Friday beer-rage. But without it I don’t know how we could pull off the mission. We have a good plan. It needs to happen soon, before the bugs get any further retaliation ideas. Now we just need some bombs. There. I’m finally caught up with my journal entries.
September 6th. Mr. T is a getting impatient for an answer regarding our bombs. Our small window of opportunity is closing fast. He’s on his s-loop again trying to move the process along. Yes, the military brass was quite excited that we had handed over an intact bug nest ship. But they would need to think a bit before letting us have a bunch of nuclear bombs. Okay, we get it. You don’t pass around nukes without some due consideration. Still, all the thinking required in a decision to provide 55 nuclear bombs, that could take a while. Tick tock.
Mr. T decided to direct the bomb request up-channel along another pathway. It was time to call our general. Hopefully he would be receptive, even complicit in our next round of antics. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Grandad’s pal, the one who gave up the general’s direct line, insisted his name not be a part of that conversation or any future conversations. Alrighty then.
Mr. T made the call. The general didn’t hang up. He listened carefully to the plan. He asked some good clarification questions. Mr. T didn’t say much directly about our capabilities. The general didn’t ask much either. Not about that. How interesting. Listening in, it was hard to tell if the general had bought the mission plan or not.
The conversation moved on to the final point as Mr. T asked, “Would the military kindly pull back to a safe distance from each bug nest ship. Because, at 09:00 Pacific Standard Time September 7th, if we’re given the ordnance we need, the bug ships will be debris in a host of muted nuclear clouds.”
It really was hard to tell if the general was convinced. “09:00, just like that?”
Mr. T sounded very matter of fact. “Correct general, 09:00, and just like that.”
The general responded, “Glad to hear it. I will call back to confirm withdrawal or tactical nuclear sheltering at all locations worldwide, by 09:00 PST, September 7th. You will receive the call back by 01:00 PST.”
There was still that one nagging particular. “General, could you help move our requisition request through the proper channels? The folks we talked to said they would need to think about it, before handing over 55 artillery nukes to a SIGINT outfit. We need to take advantage of the bug beer-rage. The nest ships will be more vulnerable at that time.”
It was still difficult to read the general. “I’ll look into it.”
There was nothing more we could do. It was obvious the general had a good deal of information about us. We thought he might even have a notion of our team extreme force multiplying capabilities. To our surprise, we soon received a call from our superiors indicating they would deliver the nukes. But they didn’t want to transport the bombs anywhere near a population center. We were given coordinates for an old abandoned military base in Nevada. The nukes would be there, ready and waiting, within four hours. At least the location was an easy commute from home, as long as you can port.
That still didn’t leave us much time. At first, I was thinking the whole process would be complex, trying to put timers on raw artillery shells. Mr. T had made it clear to everyone he talked to that a timed device was critical to the operation. As it turned out, the army guys were kind enough to dial in the correct yield and provide a plug-in trigger timing device. So, these weren’t standard nuke artillery rounds then. There was even a fancy stamping on the casing, X-LOW RAD. Extremely low radiation levels?
We arranged the bombs in a neat row and attached the timers to a holder on the bombs. Then we plugged in the timer wiring harnesses and set the timer to 09:00, September 7th. The last step was a double check to be sure the timer connections were solid, and the displays showed green. All were functional.
Now it will be a wait-and-see whether or not we receive our go-call. Likely there is an eye-in-the-sky watching at this very moment. As we assembled the timers, Roll made a point of looking up to the sky with
