Now here he was, mere moments away from the capitol with nothing but bad intentions, and no radar detection warnings, no missle locks, nothing. He was just out for an afternoon stroll at a brisk 500-plus mile per hour pace, his walking stick in his right hand and an armed missle tucked under his left arm, ready to smile a great big toothy smile at anyone he crossed paths with as if nothing were out of the ordinary, but no one came.
He was jerked out of his wandering thoughts as quickly as they had come to him once his target sprouted from the horizon, a budding spring flower reaching for the sun's rays in time-elapsed photography. Before his very eyes, one of the symbols of everything he hated was growing from infancy to adulthood over the span of a few brief moments. He couldn't fire yet, he couldn't even lock onto it. He had to wait until the disgusting figure grew to full size before his release. Years of putrid angst and morning-to-night training all for a split second, a moment he knew would soon leave him hollow. But there would be time enough to concern himself with what purpose his life would have after delivering the package he'd been carrying for so long.
Once again he regained focus, half-closed his eyes, muttered praises to his god and family, and prepared his targetting system for an air-to-surface missle. Like Achilles easing his helmet on in quiet contemplation before battle, he fixed his oxygen mask into place stone-faced. He was free of all thought aside from his task, he himself now part of the targeting system, a living cog in the firing mechanism. The heads-up display glowed faintly against the blindingly clear sky, and he cursed the Sun for rising in the east when his mission was a morning approach from the west. FOCUS! He squinted at the display and fixed the reticule on the outer walls of the enormous geometric structure. He could fire now and hit it, but he wanted to be long gone when it struck, his only hopes for surviving what was intended to be a suicide mission if all else failed. The amber glow of the HUD gave way to orange indicating urgency to fire before it was too late. He felt as if he aged twenty years over the next two seconds before he flipped the safety cover off of the launch button. All the while, the targetting system screamed bloody murder, ringing louder and louder in his head in it's own language that only contained one syllable with two meanings, "beep, beep, beep, fire, Fire, FIre, FIRe, FIRE!!!"
A second vapor trail split from his own, the fetus he'd carried all the way here had sprung from his womb and sprouted wings of its own, it had it's own agenda now that it was free from his embrace and he was no longer needed. He pulled back and right on the stick with both hands, the gravity fighting to push both he and his seat right through the floor of his aircraft, punishing him for what he'd just done. He brought-up the new coordinates he was to follow, a course that would take him out to sea where he was to eject and meet with a submarine a few hundred miles off-shore ... if by some miracle he were to make it that far. Once he found this new trail to follow, he glanced down at the targetting system monitor which now displayed a nose-cam view of his hungry child hurtling itself at the belly of the beast. Impact. No more baby. No more false sense of safety for the masses. No more impenetrable walls of Troy. This would leave them all reeling, clamoring to cover it up, clamoring to explain a less disturbing scenario that didn't exist but everyone would buy into. He'd just changed the world forever.
He was jerked out of his wandering thoughts as quickly as they had come to him once his target sprouted from the horizon, a budding spring flower reaching for the sun's rays in time-elapsed photography. Before his very eyes, one of the symbols of everything he hated was growing from infancy to adulthood over the span of a few brief moments. He couldn't fire yet, he couldn't even lock onto it. He had to wait until the disgusting figure grew to full size before his release. Years of putrid angst and morning-to-night training all for a split second, a moment he knew would soon leave him hollow. But there would be time enough to concern himself with what purpose his life would have after delivering the package he'd been carrying for so long.
Once again he regained focus, half-closed his eyes, muttered praises to his god and family, and prepared his targetting system for an air-to-surface missle. Like Achilles easing his helmet on in quiet contemplation before battle, he fixed his oxygen mask into place stone-faced. He was free of all thought aside from his task, he himself now part of the targeting system, a living cog in the firing mechanism. The heads-up display glowed faintly against the blindingly clear sky, and he cursed the Sun for rising in the east when his mission was a morning approach from the west. FOCUS! He squinted at the display and fixed the reticule on the outer walls of the enormous geometric structure. He could fire now and hit it, but he wanted to be long gone when it struck, his only hopes for surviving what was intended to be a suicide mission if all else failed. The amber glow of the HUD gave way to orange indicating urgency to fire before it was too late. He felt as if he aged twenty years over the next two seconds before he flipped the safety cover off of the launch button. All the while, the targetting system screamed bloody murder, ringing louder and louder in his head in it's own language that only contained one syllable with two meanings, "beep, beep, beep, fire, Fire, FIre, FIRe, FIRE!!!"
A second vapor trail split from his own, the fetus he'd carried all the way here had sprung from his womb and sprouted wings of its own, it had it's own agenda now that it was free from his embrace and he was no longer needed. He pulled back and right on the stick with both hands, the gravity fighting to push both he and his seat right through the floor of his aircraft, punishing him for what he'd just done. He brought-up the new coordinates he was to follow, a course that would take him out to sea where he was to eject and meet with a submarine a few hundred miles off-shore ... if by some miracle he were to make it that far. Once he found this new trail to follow, he glanced down at the targetting system monitor which now displayed a nose-cam view of his hungry child hurtling itself at the belly of the beast. Impact. No more baby. No more false sense of safety for the masses. No more impenetrable walls of Troy. This would leave them all reeling, clamoring to cover it up, clamoring to explain a less disturbing scenario that didn't exist but everyone would buy into. He'd just changed the world forever.
marloski:
have a good week!!! 