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  Therefore working to achieve output surpluses and achieve food ration bonuses was a reliable way to stockpile food. Without those captured stockpiles of food ready to consume, warriors battling in the mines would never be able to sustain themselves in combat for long.

  Hard choices would have to be made. It was both exciting and terrifying at the same time. Many would die, that simply HAD to be understood; so casualties were beyond consideration. Literally, there was little use considering it. The only thing that mattered was capturing those depots. Naturally, the Pumalars arose as the most fearsome and fearless warriors. They were larger than most of the other creatures, standing an average of six and a half feet tall; whereas human males still averaged about five feet ten inches. And Pumalars were highly skilled at close-order combat. They immediately became military commanders and trainers for the assault forces which trained during and after their work shifts several days a week. Earthers were the next best fighters, and quickly dispelled any myths that Pumalars might have had about their will to fight or their ferocity. Earthers could dish it out and they most certainly could take it, just as well. Pumalar drill sergeants and tactical training commanders were delighted with how fast they learned and how ruthless Earthers were in combat. They weren’t just brave… they were downright heartless and cruel.

  Earthers had more intelligence as SOLDIERS though—even more than Pumalars—and over time, the Slarts began choosing Earthers over Pumalars to do the actual tactical planning and battlefield management preparation. Once they did that, some very fresh and creative ideas came from the Earther captains and lieutenants within the new Naustie army. Pumalars were indeed very brave and fearless, but Earthers were crafty and deceptive. When preparing to attack a fortified military position, their planning tended to focus on “drawing fire” away from where the main attack was actually going to come; and to create diversions that would keep enemy defenders from being able to concentrate fire and successfully repel an attack. The Slarts were amazed at Earthers’ almost natural ability to complicate matters for a defender and create an isolated military advantage or “window of opportunity” that might only exist for a few minutes; yet yield a chance for overall victory.

  Archibald Hicks of the all-white Arian Knights gang was eventually promoted to General of the army, and at his first major strategy planning meeting with the Slarts, about six Earth months after preparations and training had begun, he explained his tactical plan for assaulting the typical average fortified guard station and food depot.

  Bald and razor-shaved from head to toe, Hicks had tattoos all up the side of his neck, arms, and legs. Most Nausties had abandoned clothing by now and merely wore loin cloths to cover their genitals. The Arian Knights were all gleaming white Caucasian humans from various parts of Earth; and one of the most violent gangs on New Australia. Hicks also had an eight-inch Celtic cross tattooed on the back of his shaved head, from the nape of his neck all the way up to his cranium. The Slarts were both shocked and amazed at his ruthless plan (as well as his terrifying appearance).

  Upon being introduced by Architeuthis to the committee, General Hicks leaned forward over the planning table and glared for a moment, nodding subtly to the other Slarts at the table. Then, he said in a growling yet emotionless voice, “First we draw out the commander of the enemy garrison and murder him. Food deliveries and changing of guard staffs occurs every seven or six earth days, so we catch them during a personnel change… kill as many as possible while they’re moving in and out of the station. The guards surviving this initial attack will flee inside the station if they can; and lock down the station thinking they can fend off the assault… meanwhile our Zorg friends will do a spectacular job of convincing them it really is just a suicidal frontal assault. That’s what they’ll expect. But it’s not.” General Hicks then cleared his throat ominously, as he stood up, still glaring at the little squid-like creatures watching him, enthralled.

  Hicks then pulled out a three foot long and two foot wide diagram of a food depot.

  The diagram, which showed arrows and directions of assault, had been drawn onto an actual old cutaway picture of a food depot and its accompanying guard station barracks. It had been part of a blue print at one time. How they’d acquired it, no one even remembered. Probably it had been lost somewhere by work crews constructing one of the depots. It had probably been left behind, and then later retrieved by prison miners years later. Hicks’s male life partner, Perry, had laminated the diagram onto a large metal plate the size of a car door; and it included an overhead cutaway view, as well as a profile view of one of the facilities. These depots had all been constructed exactly the same in factories back on Earth, then shipped in components to Rijel 12 years before to be assembled.

  Therefore, the Nausties could use the same attack plan on practically every food depot on the planet.

  “Zorgs… they’re quick and small,” continued General Hicks. “Use them as light infantry to draw fire from the guards while our heavy infantry moves up… protected by boulders and transport vehicles. These boulders will be discreetly placed; and vehicles will be parked in a random fashion so to create very thin narrow kill zones for the guards and their EIC’s. Our heavy infantry must jump from protective cover to protective cover while taking fire, slowly working their way toward the guard station. Casualties will be high, but this is necessary for the Zorgs to do while we get our infantry close enough to fire salvos of spears and eliminate guard positions.”

  The Slarts were not terribly impressed so far, but they nodded politely as Hicks stopped, gave a big long humorous glance over at his life partner Perry, then looked back at his audience of very intellectual and peaceful Slartigifijians with an icy cold heartless look on his face. Then he spoke again, “But it’s all just one big goddamn diversion, gentlemen….” All the emotion drained from his face. At that, he turned back to the diagram. It was sitting on a large stone side table and leaning against the cave wall. Hicks pointed and gestured with his hands as he described the rest, “Drawing fire from the guards in the kill slots, we’ll be able to tunnel our way through the floor of the station and come right up between their legs… right up their asses.” He grinned while he gestured in an underhanded motion like he was reaching up under something to plug it with his thumb.

  Then he reached his hand over the top of the diagram and pointed downward, saying “Our Porko friends will tunnel through the ceiling as well. By the time the guards realize they’re being crushed like a vice; our infantry will be able to drill through the gate of the depot and break in to eliminate the garrison.”

  The plan, as Hicks proposed it, would require over 2000 soldiers for each attack, with additional teams of Porkos drilling and tunneling carefully through the planet onto the roof of each structure; and through the ground below it simultaneously without being detected. This would go on for days before the actual assault and then, each attack would be signaled to occur once the guard shift change was developing. Guard shift changes were coordinated to occur at various times throughout the planet; so Perry picked three that had similar schedules.

  Casualties in the diversionary assault would be appalling, but the Porkos also would face a mauling when they came up through the floor and through the ceiling. Hicks was very blunt about that! However, the Slarts still liked the overall strategy and accepted General Hicks’s plan, nodding toward each other and toward their leader Architeuthis. “General Hicks, we appreciate your honesty and boldness,” said Architeuthis. “Your ingenuity and cunning have served you well in this endeavor; and we are grateful for your efforts. We also thank you, Perry, for assisting in the presentation.”

  But Perry wasn’t just the “loyal friend” behind the scenes. Perry was actually the brains of that power couple! Perry politely asked if he could add something to the meeting, and the heretofore very masculine and rough-edged general, suddenly became quite apologetic when he realized he’d skipped over something very important: smoke bombs. “Oh yes, I almost forgot,”
snickered the grizzled general, “My partner Perry has something more to add which will make things a little easier on our Porko friends.” Perry chuckled a moment and winked subtly at his lover, then said soberly, “Smoke bombs can be made for the Porkos to use as a screen to disguise their movements within the guard station as they try to climb through the holes they’ve created. To break inside the roof and floor of the guard station, they’ll use acetylene cutting torches during the attack. The noise of the attack outside should be sufficient to keep the guards distracted on one side of the station, while our Porko comrades cut through the steel. Once through the hole, they can hurl smoke bombs inside and confuse the occupants long enough to climb in.”

  Perry smirked humbly at his audience a bit, realizing how vastly more intelligent they were. So he said, “Now I’m no chemist, but any high school chemistry student knows Potassium Nitrate and brown sugar is about all you need… three quarts of Potassium Nitrate and two quarts of raw sugar, to be exact.” The Slarts just nodded patiently. They understood already what he was implying, but not exactly how he intended to use this compound. What Perry proposed was to boil the mixture in a cast iron vessel until all was liquefied, then poor it into metal boxes lined with aluminum foil wrappers that came out of large food ration packages. Before the mixture had set and solidified again, a fuse could be attached to it. Before tossing the bomb inside, it could be lit by acetylene torches to ignite the smoke. And what’s more, Barium salt could also be added to the mixture so that the smoke would have a green color and be more terrifying to the trapped guards defending the station.

  Perry clearly enjoyed his moment in the spotlight telling all about his clever idea, concluding, “Our big Porko friends, supported by lightning quick Zorgs, can then climb through ceilings and floors to get safely inside before attacking and eliminating the last of the guards.”

  The Slarts were impressed. Casualties would be appalling yes, but this attack plan seemed like it would work. And… if it was conducted in several parts of the mining network, against several different guard stations simultaneously, there’d be no time to send a relief force to quell the uprising before the Nausties would have captured enough food to supply the rebellion for a full month. They’d also have a very large cache of automatic weapons captured for their next assaults on the remaining depots.

  However… next would come the really hard part: getting up those long elevator shafts to assault the main terminal….

  “Very impressive,” said Architeuthis. “And how do you propose we get all the way up to the command center to attack and overwhelm the security force protecting it?” he asked gently. General Hicks again cleared his throat. “Well sir, that’s where it gets really interesting,” he growled. He gestured toward the table that the Slarts were sitting around and pulled out a grease pencil that would usually be utilized in drawing a target for a power drill or cutting torch. “With your permission, gentlemen?” he snarled. The Slarts moved back from the table while the nearly naked tattooed general leaned over to begin drawing a rough sketch of the planet’s inner network of shafts and tunnels. As he wheezed and snarled, murmuring to himself, the violent man meticulously created a rather detailed picture.

  It took several minutes for him to draw it all; while the Slarts murmured and fluttered their facial tentacles, apparently quite fascinated.

  What Hicks had remarkably memorized over the years, was a blueprint diagram of the elevator network and maintenance shafts used by repairmen in the case of a breakdown in the enormous elevator mechanisms used to carry payloads up to the surface. This was because the same diagram was posted on the inside wall of the guard commander substation near the Arian Knights’ section of the mine! Over the years of going inside guard stations to negotiate conditions for his men, Hicks had learned how ore and crystals were being shipped from the planet core back to the surface. Now, from wrote memory, he was showing the Slarts just how they could get back to the surface.

  Hicks said in a low voice, while he drew a rough cutaway view of this diabolical system, “Long ago, these freight elevators were constructed in deep shafts drilled into the planet core. They all connect to one main tunnel system that spider webs around the planet like a giant planet-wide city grid. Up there massive dump trucks ferry the materials back to the loading bay here… where the main terminal is located. We can ascend several of these shafts simultaneously using the prison’s own metal emergency ladders attached to the walls of the shaft. General Mwanga of the Schpleeftkorkii gang is running this operation for us. He’ll use tens of thousands to do it too… Zorgs first, of course, then Spleefs… climbing for miles up to this tunnel which runs across the planet about a quarter mile below the surface—give or take a few hundred feet. From this tunnel we’ll form a bridgehead to supply the final assault on the main terminal.”

  Architeuthis was intrigued. He remembered vaguely, from years before when he was brought to the planet, how the transport ship had descended below the surface several hundred feet to a distribution center where he was off-loaded with the other prisoners. This must be what Hicks was referring to. He asked politely, “And then… how do we fight the security forces defending the terminal and the transport tunnel?”

  Hicks looked right at him and grinned viciously, “Bloody carnage, sir. And we’ll use weapons we’ve captured off of their dead guards to fight ‘em.”

  The other Slarts from the planning committee gasped and murmured to each other in their native Slartigifij, mixed with some Galactic. It didn’t matter, Hicks could understand them just fine. “I know gentlemen,” he said in a raised voice which hushed the fidgeting squid-like Slarts. Then he said in an icy determined voice, “It’s a tall order, but we’ve got explosive charges we’ve used for many years to blast open mine cavities and cut away rock to free giant crystals. We’ll get in eventually. They can’t stop us for long.” He sneered menacingly while he replaced the cap on the grease pencil. Perry, standing nearby, crossed his arms and glared at the Slarts right along with his partner.

  The gravity of the situation was finally hitting Architeuthis and sunk deep into his soul. Was he really willing to sacrifice so much? Could he order such an attack and endure the sorrowful loss of life that was bound to occur as a result? Clearly, General Hicks was fully prepared to go forward with this attack. Clearly, General Hicks was willing to risk the lives of his gang members, his lover Perry, and for that matter, even his own life. These Humans… these Earthers… did they really have no fear at all? Or was Hicks really just insanely violent, like Earthmen were often said to be. Architeuthis only knew one thing, and that was this: he knew he’d chosen the right man for this task.

  Architeuthis looked around the room and saw the sad emotion-filled giant squid-like eyes of his fellow Slarts. He looked back at the determined glare of General Hicks, and the proud dedication of his life partner Perry. The Porkos would fight. The Zorgs and Spleefs would fight. The Pumalars? Oh they’d rush into battle headlong with the ferocity of jungle cats. All the Nausties on the planet would sacrifice everything they had to support their brethren in this epic battle. But oh, the cost! Architeuthis thought for a moment. He needed to decide right now. Only one being could make this decision to send thousands of other fellow Nausties to their deaths, and only one intelligent life form should take the responsibility for this, come what may.

  With a deep sigh, Architeuthis calmly said in a gentle voice to the Earthman, “General Hicks… you may proceed. Inform the planning committee of all your supply, equipment, weapon, and manpower needs as well as your timetables. Communicate with no one outside of this room about what we discussed tonight, of course. We will convene again… in thirty Earth days.”

  Chapter 5:

  The Naustie Revolt

  Maintaining the upmost in secrecy, General Hicks of the new “Naustie Planetary Command” maneuvered several battle groups throughout the planet to coordinate their attacks on several key guard posts. He had chosen three. Porkos did the tunneling; and work g
angs gradually moved large boulders or vehicles into place in a tactical grid pattern in front of the three main military objectives. Then a replica of this grid design was constructed at each training camp so that troops could practice moving and hopping from cover to cover until they reached a mock-up of a guard station. Soldiers training on these courses were even pelted with rocks while they moved—to replicate live fire!

  As the time for the assault rapidly approached, unit commanders were all told of the plan: on the “day” of attack, a crack unit of Zorg Slingers was to assassinate the unit commander of each outpost as they went through a shift change and new guards were arriving from the surface. The goal was to kill as many of these guards as possible while only a few were still inside the post.

  The Zorgs were to use deadly slingshots, which they’d gradually demonstrated a proficiency at using during training. Their weapons were a simple device that stretched thick rubber tubes from a metal brace which locked over the wrist of the warrior and fired a stone projectile the size of a golf ball. The short but quite virile Zorgs could then pull back the rubber tube to their throats, relying on their great eyesight to mark their target. At thirty yards they were relatively accurate in causing mortal injury if fired at the forehead of a victim; and if even closer, these Slingers hardly ever missed. Earthers were better at using Javelins, so they were to move up and occupy forward positions near the guard station and attempt to impale as many guards as possible after the Zorgs knocked off the unit commander.

  These first three objectives Hick’s chose were guard posts located nearest to elevator shafts leading up to the main terminal. General Hicks calculated that by securing these three posts simultaneously, they could assemble assault troops for the ascent and the final confrontation with security forces protecting the headquarters of Warden Ggggaaah. His assumption, though ambitious, was that all remaining guard posts would be abandoned planet-wide, when Warden Ggggaaah believed his stronghold was threatened. The entire offensive could then be directed on the main terminal.