GOIN’ HOME

Hera: Mossberg Salvage Yard

Nuthin’ like the threat of imminent death to focus the mind, as they say. But that focus can go straight to hell when some idjit just cain’t help but jack his jaw at the wrong moment.

“How’s it comin’ in there Jake?”. My boss, Jeb Mossberg is a nice enough fella, but having him leaning over my shoulder via the vidcam on my tool harness was seriously damaging my calm. Not exactly the thing you want to have goin’ on when your hands are stuck inside an unexploded cluster bomb.

“Jeb”, I said, gently removing my digits from the bomb’s guts and rocking back on my heels, “ if you don’t wanna join me in bein’ scattered over half of this yard you’ll do me one real big favor and stay off the com. I ain’t done this but once before and the current circumstance is far from ideal, if you take my meaning.”

“Um, OK Jake. Sorry.”

The current circumstance was me beneath the severely crumpled wing of an Alliance fighter, or what was left of it, that Marcus had brought back to the yard on his last salvage run over in the Valley. The bomb is still on its rack, which is now folded almost flush to the underside of the wing and I just have enough room to do the job. If we didn’t need the parts off this thing so bad I’d say just dump it in the pit and good riddance. But with all the jostling this thing’s had I don’t dare try moving it again without securing the bomb first.

Now Marcus is a good kid, don’t get me wrong. He’s real conscientious about checking these wrecks for ordnance, fuel leaks, breached cores, and such-like before bringing them back here for scrapping or parting out. But ever since he took a shine to that gal over at the ag station his head has been stuck firmly up his pigoo. If’n I live through this he’d best make room in there for my size 10 combat boot. I think it’s gonna be a tight fit.

Back to business. Sliiiiide the fingers inside the casing. Not much room in there for all of ‘em, but it can be done if you’re careful. Now find the damn power-up relay contacts with the right hand. Got that. Now pass up and in the strip of plastic from the other hand. Okaaaay. Gently slide the plastic in between the contacts, all six of ‘em. Gorram Alliance anal-retentives can’t just put in one big contact set, nooooo, gotta put six little ones in here. Now hold that plastic in place like yer life depends on it, cuz it truly does. Take the left hand and fish around in the bottom of the casing for the can of spray sealant I dropped when Jeb chirped in my ear. Right. Pass the tube end up and around the relay, wedge it in place pointed at the contacts. Got it. A quiet hiss as the foam comes out all over the contacts and my fingers. Give it a good ten count to be sure it’s gonna hold, slide both hands out of the case, and run like hell!

“Jeb?”, I wheezed after sprinting a hundred yards and dropping behind a tool shed, “I’m clear. We’ll give it an hour for the foam to set, then take the cherry picker and haul that thing over to the pit.”

“Good job Jake, sure glad I took you on. Marcus can go to the pit with the bomb, serve him right for not checking out that wreck better.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Jake?”

“Yessir?”

“That does NOT mean you get to strap him to the casing before it goes in, dong ma?”

“Right.”

Cain’t even administer a little educational terror to a young peckerhead that really needs it these days. Why in the hell did I ever come back here?

Battle of Du Kang

Back on Earth That Was I’d have been called a Commando, or a Ranger, or Special Ops. Different planet, different war, and a different name, Scout, but the same damn dirty job. Find the enemy and make life very tough for him, while keeping your own ass from being ventilated or blown up around your ears.

The Lieutenant says we got rollers coming in from the east, and can me and my boys do something about it?

“With what, sir?,” I said, scratching under the rim of my helmet. “ No grenades, no plastic, no gorram recoilless. We got nothing left that’ll even make a dent in ‘em. Sir.”

Long about then I spotted Dinwiddie, one of the sappers, getting a hole in his arm patched up. I knew his goodie bag was empty since we’d used up the last of his plastic earlier in the day, but a really bad idea was beginning to percolate.

“But there just might be a way.....”

I hustled over to where the medic was just finishing up.

“‘Lo Charlie, how’s the arm?”, I asked while he popped a couple of pain pills.

“Still attached, but hurts like a sumbitch at the moment. What’s up?”

“The LT says we got rollers on the way, and we got nothing with a big enough bang to do ‘em up proper. But, I just got a truly horrible idea on where to get some, if you’re game. You remember that cluster bomb laying a couple streets over?”

“Ooooooh no. Nononononono. You are completely off your nut. I only got one arm that works, so there’s no way in hell I can safe that,” he said.

“Yeah, but I can. Your mouth is workin’ just fine, so talk me through it. We safe it, take all the sub-munitions out, and scatter ‘em around for the rollers to run over, buy us enough time to bug out afore we get hammered.”

To say that Charlie was less than thrilled at the prospect would be putting it mildly. He cussed me up one side and down the t’other, but he knew as well as I did just how screwed we were at the moment. We couldn’t run, and we couldn’t fight, not against rollers and all the troops sure to be following behind, not with just the small arms we had. We needed an edge, and this’d give us one.

Cluster bombs are fascinating bits of warmongery, if you’re into that sort of thing. Dropped from an aircraft a bursting charge goes off at a pre-set altitude, distributing all the bomblets inside over the ground like a rain of fire from a pissed off god. The one we were looking at with such trepidation was a multi-purpose unit having a mix of anti-personnel and anti-armor sub-munitions. Perfect for our needs if we could get the goodies without making a large, smoking hole. Dudders had a nasty habit of spontaneously arming themselves, popping the bursting charge, then all of the bomblets going off at once. How truly good.

So there we were, crouched next to a big grey cigar in the middle of a shot-up street, daylight fading fast, wondering if we were gonna live through the next few minutes. Oh well, I didn’t wanna live forever anyways.

With a quick prayer to the god of the dumb we set to it. I was feeling pretty confident we’d pull it off right up to the point where it all went wahoonie-shaped. Musta bumped something inside as I was fishing around for the contacts cuz there was a little “click”, then a rising whine as a charging circuit kicked in. Uh oh.

“Charlie, don’t even think about runnin’ cuz you cain’t get far enough fast enough. What do I do?”

“Wedge that strip of plastic in between the contacts and hold it there. Make sure you get all six because if any of ‘em make contact we won’t be around to know it.”

Yup, the knowledge of imminent death do focus the mind. I’d no sooner got the plastic in position when the contacts closed with rippling clicks. Charlie looked at me over the top of the bomb, gave a little sigh, then fell over backwards, passed out cold. Me, I took my hands out of the casing, crawled a few feet away, and proceed to puke until there was nothing left to bring up.

Once I got myself sorted out, and Charlie functioning again we finished the job. It was a beauty thing watching the Alliance troopies running over their own goodies and catching the express to hell. Charlie and I each got a commendation out of that bit of idiocy. I’d have rather had a hot bath, real food, and a piece of trim, but hey, you cain’t have everything.