The D1 Effect Chapter 16
As told by the SS trainee Johnny M. Leeroy
I was insignifigent. Nothing. Nada. Zip. There was nothing I could do to change that. Not in a million years could I have defeated the force which I was on. Not that I would want to, you've got to remember that, but still, it was amazing.
All of them had morphed a theropod-like creature whose genetical structure I was told to be similar to that of the only Earthern massive reptilian creature I knew of; Tyrannosaurus Rex. However, unlike the massive Tyrannosaurus Rex, the creatures they had morphed were pack-hunter dromaesaurs, who were supposed to be the deadliest land creatures ever to walk the Earth. And I wouldn't be that surprised if it didn't rank among the top 5 deadliest biological life forms of all time.
"Jaguar," I began, startling him at the new use of the name. I ignored it, "in order for us to rightfully supplement the Animorph's assault, we've got to somehow fight those things. Any ideas?"
Jaguar thought for a moment, processing all the possible plans. Or at least, I thought he was. "Well, I frankly don't have a clue. The chaingun mounts might be good, but everyone knows that the installments for Cols are pitifully inaccurate. Which, in this case, isn't good. Umm..." He let it trail off as we thought some more about our little problem.
"Get the rest of the guys in the bunker and going all out is a possibility."
"Yea, right. And get half the people in the Col killed? Eon's random. (Phrase meaning 'don't count on it') Wait a second, was the fighter bay opened yet, or are they still constructing it?"
"It's made. Nothing's in it," Jaguar said grimly, somewhat bringing my hopes up, but at the same time squashing them. It really wasn't good. But then I thought of something.
"How do you know?"
"Well, Mr. Yonton told me, as well as Mr. Darthium and Ms. Halloway."
"Why did they tell you? And more importantly, why all 3 of them?"
"How the heck am I supposed to know?" He yelled at me.
"Okay, just asking. We could go there. All figher bays have really good rifles; we could take them if nothings in there."
"Not these SOA (State of the Art) chainguns, they don't. Believe me, they don't have anything more than our standard GSSA assault rifle. Maybe a .90 caliber armor-piercer, but that's out of our league. But, I'm okay with going there, just in case there is a fighter."
"Good, let's go!" I cried. From the ridgetop, we turned around ready for our descent to find ourselves looking at the beginning of a battle in which enemy-to-enemy ratio rivled that of the battle of Lingpopo. The battle of Lingpopo Fortress was fought with only 20,000 PRA (People's Rebublic of Aisa) elites that faced a total force of nearly 1,000,000 CUS (Confederation of United States) soldiers. The PRA fought for nearly 20 days with minimal casualties until finally surrendering to the CUS.
The scene below us was a lot like that scenario. The 7 reptilian monsters towered over the Tc3's, but the 950 some Tc3's had the numerical advantage. They obviously realized that early on, and soon the entire force of Tc3's stood ready in the Valley of Tears, seemingly specificly named for the battle. The dromaesaurs let out a loud, warbling-like sound, kind of like a battle cry, while the saurapod lifted her enourmous weight into the air. The mass crashed down to Earth and the dromeasaurs charged.
So did we.
We raced along the ridge, attempting to get back to the relative saftey of the bunkers in Fairwinds. Coming around the edge of the ridge, several sentry Tc3's stopped us in our tracks. I froze, while secretly cocking my chaingun as if by an assasin. The CaT- wait, I mean Jaguar did the same. We smiled at each other.
"Halt! You will not enter the premises unless clearence is provided or detainment cycle is completed. This is hereby proclaimed by executive order 523680291.2356a, and you will be compliant," the mechanized voice of the Tc3 guard sounded loudly.
EXECUTIVE ORDER?!?!?!?!?! The goverment was involved with this? I couldn't even begin to imagine, but it was true! The goverment of the sector was attempting to detain Fairwinds with use of Tc3's, and we were clueless as to why. Wait a second...
The goverment was usually tyrannical in nature for the Earth/Mars/Venus sector of system SOL-15. This doesn't neccesarily mean that they were cruel and harsh. Tyrannical means essentially "rulling by an iron fist," and this doesn't imply to evil. Most life was peaceful, but any hint of rebellion was quickly abolished.
The Animorphs were what you call a rebellion. A really, really guerrilla-like one, where neither side knew who they were, but one just the same. And, by some strange coincidence, Fairwinds was the only Uni to teach about them.
My only guess is that the goverment was sending the Tc3's in to abolish all existences of the Animorphs, so the hint of rebellion can't leak out. As an added plus, Tc3's are almost never used in armies by the official military, but smaller, weaker factions sometimes did so because the Tc3's were rather cheap. The goverment wanted to frame one of the factions by sending in the army.
However, they made one, rather stupid mistake. They programmed the robots to read out an executive order, which obviously, only the goverment can make. they might have thought that we were dumb enough to let it go, but not us. Or at least me.
"We will comply," Jaguar said, monotone.
"Put you hands up," the lead one spoke.
"We will not comply," Jaguar said, yet again monotone.
"We won't?" I whispered.
"Yes..."
Oh! I got it now. Yea....
"NOW!!!!" It screamed.
The instant he screamed it, we pulled out our chainguns from the strap behind our legs. We fired.
Tsewsewsewsewsewsewsewsewsewsew! Tsewsewsewsewsewsewsew! We fired several rounds, and instantly, the Tc3's were down cold. If they had their shields up, however, it might have been a totaly different story.
"Whoa, these things can pump shaft! (equivilent to 'lead')" Jaguar said, probably more astonished than me.
"Yea, whoa. Let's get back to the bunker," I agreed.
"Sure, and we might as well tell Mr. Yonton while we are at it," Jaguar suggested.
We darted back to the main enterance of the bunker, evading the wrecked Tc3's that lay motionless in front of us. We banged as hard as we could against the door, screaming for them to let us in. Surprisingly, they did, as we walked in slowly, chainguns cocked in front of us and leveled.
"John! Fred! Why are you back? You know you will be taken off the trainee list!" Mr. Yonton demanded.
"And you'll be taken off the 'live' list, Mr. Yonton. There are currently a total of 900 GOVERMENT issued Tc3's battleing against several of our SS's. However, we also have the Animorphs on our side..." I began, causing quite a stir. Jaguar looked at me with that looked that said, why the heck are you going as far to put down a military commander?
Mr. Yonton laughed. "The, um, what did you say? ANIMORPHS? Hah!"
"Okay, well then please tell me why there are 7 reptilian beasts from the Earthen Mesazoic era battling the Tc3's? Could you please explain that one for me, Mr. Yonton?"
"What? You have no proof. Here, let me check," he said, punching some keys on the bunker's sensor pad. "See? Nothing to-, wait, somethings coming up here, no-"
"Mr. Yonton, there are currently 6 dromaesaurs and 1 saurapod that are supposed to be extinct fighting sentiently against 900 Tc3's. If those arn't the Animorphs, then I don't know who are."
He stood there open-mouthed in bewilderment in front of the students in the bunker. "Well, what should we do?"
"Stay here. We've met them, and they are expecting us. Something tells me that they don't want their orders to be disbeyed, Mr. Yonton."
"Very well. But I don't see what you can do, we don't have-"
"Don't lie to me, Mr. Yonton," I said, putting my chaingun to his throat. This, of course, was rather difficult because of my short size. I glanced over at Jaguar and he shook his head in disgust.
"Okay, um, you could use the X-65a test reconnaissance bomber in the fighter bay, if you don't damage it," he said, nearly petrified with fear. Now THAT was scary.
"Thank you, Mr. Yonton, we'll be on our way. Just get out the GTT's and the LRS's and put them outside to train. The battle won't be getting anywhere near here for a while, so train!" I ordered. Whoa. Me ordering a military commander. Weird.
We started walking back outside and around the premises to the fighter bay as the sounds of battle started getting louded. I was wrong. It WAS going to get close, and soon. No matter. If it actually did get there, then we would already be dead.
Fourtunatly for us, the fighter bay hadn't gotten it's hanger door installed yet, so we were free to just waltz in and waltz out with the X-65a. The X-65a wasn't much of a fighter, nor much of a bomber, but it was cloaked with a revolutionary cloaking device that made it invisable to the eye, infared, ultravilot, radar and much more types of bizzare sensory perceptions. This made it an ideal reconnassaince plane, as well as a decent bomber when the cloak had failed or a homing device was installed on it.
A very unusally set drawback remained on the X-65a, however. It was the last atmospheric only plane ever to be built, so we couldn't bomb from above, or at least, WAY above. It didn't matter.
After gazing in awe at the sleek, high angled isosceles triangle-shaped craft for a while, we decided to jump in it and attack the main force of Tc3's with it's limited supply of bombs and chaingun ammunition. Well, duh. I volunteered to be gunnman while Jaguar took his position behind the main control panel as pilot. Climbing the rungs of the ladder, I slid in behind Jaguar below the cockpit and into the tiny gunning bay. I could barely sit straight, but the seat was comfortable enough so that I could sit there easier.
"Weapons check," Fred said through his slightly outdated Uvadio.
"Roger, we have 10 JDAM nova-guided bombs here, about 5 free-fall explosives and 9 yards of chaingun laser needles. Standby," I replied.
"Standby for launch. T minus 5...4...3...2...1, ignition sequence lock, and, LAUNCH!" Fred yelled. The voice recognition computed to his order and the engines rumbled alive. Within seconds, the craft was catapulted from the hanger outside and soon we were airborne.
"Cloack initiated," Jaguar monotonely stated. I hated when he did that. The cloaking shield flooded over the plane, making most of the controls partially transparent.
"Whoa, a little surprise there, no? Target aquired. Desegnating Tc3 squads Alpha through Omega. Done. Bring me over there, Jaguar, so the games can begin!" I said.
"Roger." Our quad-mach speed quickly slowed as we banked to meet the onslaught of the Tc3's. Of course, they were no immidite threat to OUR lives, but they soon would be. It was going to get bad, and fast.
I reached for my controls, inserting my data contacts onto the surface of my eye. They instantly gave me data on all the hell that was going on down below us. Down to the body heat of each one of the lifeforms. I targeted the desgnated Tc3 squad Gamma with my JDAM and waited for it to lock.
"Target locked," the mechanized voice of teh craft said after a few moments.
"Fire!" I cried. Twin, torpedo-shaped missiles cruised down from the sides of the gunner's caopy. I impatiently waited for them to hit their intended target.
BOOOMMM!! Yes! Direct hit! About 50 Tc3's mechanical parts were sent flying all over the Valley of Tears. I breather slower. The Animorphs would now have it easier, if only slightly. The only thing to make it better was to destroy some more of them.
As I engaged the free-falling explosives, several more Tc3's blew up into pieces, strewing the shattered metal again across the valley. Another 25 bite the dust. This was really, really easy, what's the catch?
"Johnny, we've got 6 craft of unknown type with the markings of this sector's goverment. Doesn't look good." So THAT was the catch.
The situation all of a sudden turned from good to bad. You see, what "unknown type" really means is a plane type which is a top secret project and they are testing it out.
Even with the cloak, most pilots are smart enough to figure out the vertex of all of the projectiles that a super-cloaker has expelled. Even if there were only a total of 7 fired from our plane, it was enough for them to figure it out.
And that was bad.
A/N: Bad cliffhanger, yet again. Just bare with me here, so you can survive to read the ending which is in about 2 or 3 more chapters.
C'ya.
As told by the SS trainee Johnny M. Leeroy
I was insignifigent. Nothing. Nada. Zip. There was nothing I could do to change that. Not in a million years could I have defeated the force which I was on. Not that I would want to, you've got to remember that, but still, it was amazing.
All of them had morphed a theropod-like creature whose genetical structure I was told to be similar to that of the only Earthern massive reptilian creature I knew of; Tyrannosaurus Rex. However, unlike the massive Tyrannosaurus Rex, the creatures they had morphed were pack-hunter dromaesaurs, who were supposed to be the deadliest land creatures ever to walk the Earth. And I wouldn't be that surprised if it didn't rank among the top 5 deadliest biological life forms of all time.
"Jaguar," I began, startling him at the new use of the name. I ignored it, "in order for us to rightfully supplement the Animorph's assault, we've got to somehow fight those things. Any ideas?"
Jaguar thought for a moment, processing all the possible plans. Or at least, I thought he was. "Well, I frankly don't have a clue. The chaingun mounts might be good, but everyone knows that the installments for Cols are pitifully inaccurate. Which, in this case, isn't good. Umm..." He let it trail off as we thought some more about our little problem.
"Get the rest of the guys in the bunker and going all out is a possibility."
"Yea, right. And get half the people in the Col killed? Eon's random. (Phrase meaning 'don't count on it') Wait a second, was the fighter bay opened yet, or are they still constructing it?"
"It's made. Nothing's in it," Jaguar said grimly, somewhat bringing my hopes up, but at the same time squashing them. It really wasn't good. But then I thought of something.
"How do you know?"
"Well, Mr. Yonton told me, as well as Mr. Darthium and Ms. Halloway."
"Why did they tell you? And more importantly, why all 3 of them?"
"How the heck am I supposed to know?" He yelled at me.
"Okay, just asking. We could go there. All figher bays have really good rifles; we could take them if nothings in there."
"Not these SOA (State of the Art) chainguns, they don't. Believe me, they don't have anything more than our standard GSSA assault rifle. Maybe a .90 caliber armor-piercer, but that's out of our league. But, I'm okay with going there, just in case there is a fighter."
"Good, let's go!" I cried. From the ridgetop, we turned around ready for our descent to find ourselves looking at the beginning of a battle in which enemy-to-enemy ratio rivled that of the battle of Lingpopo. The battle of Lingpopo Fortress was fought with only 20,000 PRA (People's Rebublic of Aisa) elites that faced a total force of nearly 1,000,000 CUS (Confederation of United States) soldiers. The PRA fought for nearly 20 days with minimal casualties until finally surrendering to the CUS.
The scene below us was a lot like that scenario. The 7 reptilian monsters towered over the Tc3's, but the 950 some Tc3's had the numerical advantage. They obviously realized that early on, and soon the entire force of Tc3's stood ready in the Valley of Tears, seemingly specificly named for the battle. The dromaesaurs let out a loud, warbling-like sound, kind of like a battle cry, while the saurapod lifted her enourmous weight into the air. The mass crashed down to Earth and the dromeasaurs charged.
So did we.
We raced along the ridge, attempting to get back to the relative saftey of the bunkers in Fairwinds. Coming around the edge of the ridge, several sentry Tc3's stopped us in our tracks. I froze, while secretly cocking my chaingun as if by an assasin. The CaT- wait, I mean Jaguar did the same. We smiled at each other.
"Halt! You will not enter the premises unless clearence is provided or detainment cycle is completed. This is hereby proclaimed by executive order 523680291.2356a, and you will be compliant," the mechanized voice of the Tc3 guard sounded loudly.
EXECUTIVE ORDER?!?!?!?!?! The goverment was involved with this? I couldn't even begin to imagine, but it was true! The goverment of the sector was attempting to detain Fairwinds with use of Tc3's, and we were clueless as to why. Wait a second...
The goverment was usually tyrannical in nature for the Earth/Mars/Venus sector of system SOL-15. This doesn't neccesarily mean that they were cruel and harsh. Tyrannical means essentially "rulling by an iron fist," and this doesn't imply to evil. Most life was peaceful, but any hint of rebellion was quickly abolished.
The Animorphs were what you call a rebellion. A really, really guerrilla-like one, where neither side knew who they were, but one just the same. And, by some strange coincidence, Fairwinds was the only Uni to teach about them.
My only guess is that the goverment was sending the Tc3's in to abolish all existences of the Animorphs, so the hint of rebellion can't leak out. As an added plus, Tc3's are almost never used in armies by the official military, but smaller, weaker factions sometimes did so because the Tc3's were rather cheap. The goverment wanted to frame one of the factions by sending in the army.
However, they made one, rather stupid mistake. They programmed the robots to read out an executive order, which obviously, only the goverment can make. they might have thought that we were dumb enough to let it go, but not us. Or at least me.
"We will comply," Jaguar said, monotone.
"Put you hands up," the lead one spoke.
"We will not comply," Jaguar said, yet again monotone.
"We won't?" I whispered.
"Yes..."
Oh! I got it now. Yea....
"NOW!!!!" It screamed.
The instant he screamed it, we pulled out our chainguns from the strap behind our legs. We fired.
Tsewsewsewsewsewsewsewsewsewsew! Tsewsewsewsewsewsewsew! We fired several rounds, and instantly, the Tc3's were down cold. If they had their shields up, however, it might have been a totaly different story.
"Whoa, these things can pump shaft! (equivilent to 'lead')" Jaguar said, probably more astonished than me.
"Yea, whoa. Let's get back to the bunker," I agreed.
"Sure, and we might as well tell Mr. Yonton while we are at it," Jaguar suggested.
We darted back to the main enterance of the bunker, evading the wrecked Tc3's that lay motionless in front of us. We banged as hard as we could against the door, screaming for them to let us in. Surprisingly, they did, as we walked in slowly, chainguns cocked in front of us and leveled.
"John! Fred! Why are you back? You know you will be taken off the trainee list!" Mr. Yonton demanded.
"And you'll be taken off the 'live' list, Mr. Yonton. There are currently a total of 900 GOVERMENT issued Tc3's battleing against several of our SS's. However, we also have the Animorphs on our side..." I began, causing quite a stir. Jaguar looked at me with that looked that said, why the heck are you going as far to put down a military commander?
Mr. Yonton laughed. "The, um, what did you say? ANIMORPHS? Hah!"
"Okay, well then please tell me why there are 7 reptilian beasts from the Earthen Mesazoic era battling the Tc3's? Could you please explain that one for me, Mr. Yonton?"
"What? You have no proof. Here, let me check," he said, punching some keys on the bunker's sensor pad. "See? Nothing to-, wait, somethings coming up here, no-"
"Mr. Yonton, there are currently 6 dromaesaurs and 1 saurapod that are supposed to be extinct fighting sentiently against 900 Tc3's. If those arn't the Animorphs, then I don't know who are."
He stood there open-mouthed in bewilderment in front of the students in the bunker. "Well, what should we do?"
"Stay here. We've met them, and they are expecting us. Something tells me that they don't want their orders to be disbeyed, Mr. Yonton."
"Very well. But I don't see what you can do, we don't have-"
"Don't lie to me, Mr. Yonton," I said, putting my chaingun to his throat. This, of course, was rather difficult because of my short size. I glanced over at Jaguar and he shook his head in disgust.
"Okay, um, you could use the X-65a test reconnaissance bomber in the fighter bay, if you don't damage it," he said, nearly petrified with fear. Now THAT was scary.
"Thank you, Mr. Yonton, we'll be on our way. Just get out the GTT's and the LRS's and put them outside to train. The battle won't be getting anywhere near here for a while, so train!" I ordered. Whoa. Me ordering a military commander. Weird.
We started walking back outside and around the premises to the fighter bay as the sounds of battle started getting louded. I was wrong. It WAS going to get close, and soon. No matter. If it actually did get there, then we would already be dead.
Fourtunatly for us, the fighter bay hadn't gotten it's hanger door installed yet, so we were free to just waltz in and waltz out with the X-65a. The X-65a wasn't much of a fighter, nor much of a bomber, but it was cloaked with a revolutionary cloaking device that made it invisable to the eye, infared, ultravilot, radar and much more types of bizzare sensory perceptions. This made it an ideal reconnassaince plane, as well as a decent bomber when the cloak had failed or a homing device was installed on it.
A very unusally set drawback remained on the X-65a, however. It was the last atmospheric only plane ever to be built, so we couldn't bomb from above, or at least, WAY above. It didn't matter.
After gazing in awe at the sleek, high angled isosceles triangle-shaped craft for a while, we decided to jump in it and attack the main force of Tc3's with it's limited supply of bombs and chaingun ammunition. Well, duh. I volunteered to be gunnman while Jaguar took his position behind the main control panel as pilot. Climbing the rungs of the ladder, I slid in behind Jaguar below the cockpit and into the tiny gunning bay. I could barely sit straight, but the seat was comfortable enough so that I could sit there easier.
"Weapons check," Fred said through his slightly outdated Uvadio.
"Roger, we have 10 JDAM nova-guided bombs here, about 5 free-fall explosives and 9 yards of chaingun laser needles. Standby," I replied.
"Standby for launch. T minus 5...4...3...2...1, ignition sequence lock, and, LAUNCH!" Fred yelled. The voice recognition computed to his order and the engines rumbled alive. Within seconds, the craft was catapulted from the hanger outside and soon we were airborne.
"Cloack initiated," Jaguar monotonely stated. I hated when he did that. The cloaking shield flooded over the plane, making most of the controls partially transparent.
"Whoa, a little surprise there, no? Target aquired. Desegnating Tc3 squads Alpha through Omega. Done. Bring me over there, Jaguar, so the games can begin!" I said.
"Roger." Our quad-mach speed quickly slowed as we banked to meet the onslaught of the Tc3's. Of course, they were no immidite threat to OUR lives, but they soon would be. It was going to get bad, and fast.
I reached for my controls, inserting my data contacts onto the surface of my eye. They instantly gave me data on all the hell that was going on down below us. Down to the body heat of each one of the lifeforms. I targeted the desgnated Tc3 squad Gamma with my JDAM and waited for it to lock.
"Target locked," the mechanized voice of teh craft said after a few moments.
"Fire!" I cried. Twin, torpedo-shaped missiles cruised down from the sides of the gunner's caopy. I impatiently waited for them to hit their intended target.
BOOOMMM!! Yes! Direct hit! About 50 Tc3's mechanical parts were sent flying all over the Valley of Tears. I breather slower. The Animorphs would now have it easier, if only slightly. The only thing to make it better was to destroy some more of them.
As I engaged the free-falling explosives, several more Tc3's blew up into pieces, strewing the shattered metal again across the valley. Another 25 bite the dust. This was really, really easy, what's the catch?
"Johnny, we've got 6 craft of unknown type with the markings of this sector's goverment. Doesn't look good." So THAT was the catch.
The situation all of a sudden turned from good to bad. You see, what "unknown type" really means is a plane type which is a top secret project and they are testing it out.
Even with the cloak, most pilots are smart enough to figure out the vertex of all of the projectiles that a super-cloaker has expelled. Even if there were only a total of 7 fired from our plane, it was enough for them to figure it out.
And that was bad.
A/N: Bad cliffhanger, yet again. Just bare with me here, so you can survive to read the ending which is in about 2 or 3 more chapters.
C'ya.