830...

The high powered rocket-sled raced across the white expanse of the polar ice cap. Thrust from its propulsion threw up a huge rooster tail of snow and ice behind it, which was quickly caught by the raging arctic winds and scattered in all directions as a huge white fog. Inside the pressurized control module, the crew of the rocket-sled was working in near silence, with only quiet transmissions coming in or out from the radio operator - from his position in the back.

Captain Benjamin Homberbun sat in his command chair in the middle of the control module in a raised swivel chair, and he watched the rocket-sled's progress from a variety of screens tied to radars, GPS, and tactical relays from the unified battlefield system, through which the location of every unit of the Polar Defense Force could be plotted and moved for overwhelming battlefield advantage. At this moment however, Captain Homberbun stopped watching the unified battlefield system as two more icons representing other rocket-sleds vanished.

"This could only mean one thing," he knew, "That those rocket sleds had been utterly destroyed."

It should be noted that "rocket-sled" is a slight misnomer since it was really a titanic arctic fighting vehicle. It had twin hulls, like a catamaran, which were 400 feet long, and armored. Stretching between them was a huge platform 200 feet wide, where cannon turrets, racks of rockets, anti-missile and close in defense Gatling guns, missile launchers, (ground-to-air, ground-to-ground, and anti-ship) chemical lasers, microwave and sonic anti-personnel weapons were mounted, along with their targeting systems, radar, and communications arrays. Beneath that hung the armored and pressurized control module. Behind that was a larger module that held the rocket-sled's 500 Marine contingent, and their three attack hovercraft.

Captain Homberbun switched his gaze to the armored glass windscreen which revealed at the rocket-sled's speed, only white which they raced over, that encompassed everything towards the horizon, until it took on a noticeable curve. He placed his hands in front of him in a pyramid, and tapped them against his lips as he stared. The Radioman Brice interrupted with a quiet voice but laden with passion.

"Sir, The Glorious and Excelsior have been destroyed! The airstrike reports no negligible damage."

"What about the subs?" Homberbun asked.
"The Neptune has been out of contact for 42 minutes, and the Tompkins reports their targeting systems can't get a lock."

Homberbun looked again at the unified battlefield display, he saw a small blue dot with an icon of 132 next to it, move closer to the target (a large red dot).

"Ops." He said in a calm voice, "Identify 132."

His man at Operations Control, Jenkin's, sat to his right manning a number of screens and information systems, replied,
"132, attack hovercraft 3 of the Glorious."

"Switch to Ops screen of 132." Homberbun commanded. And it was done. Any eyes that could be spared from the control module watched the live video stream being broadcast from the Attack Hovercraft 132 onto two of the vid screens above them.

"I don't like it any more than you do..." Homberbun spoke, "but if it's taken out the Glorious and Excelsior, and the Neptune, I don't like the idea of what it's going to do to an attack hovercraft." Heads on the bridge echoed their agreement with his logical statement. And watched what unfolded before them on the screen. Which was something like this.

Attack Hovercraft 132 sped across the ice with some bouncing, and every time it hit a large chunk of ice or a massive dip, the screen shifted for an instant to static, but it came back every time. Then , over the horizon, a huge shape emerged. It was difficult to make out, since it was white, and the ice in front of the hovercraft was white as well. However, it became apparent after a few moments, that the head, which resembled a white fanged gorilla, was attached to a likewise white torso of a gigantic body. From their vantage point, watching the attack hovercraft 132's live feed, the crew of the rocket-sled saw the contrails of the hovercraft's missiles race away from the craft and streak across the sky towards the huge towering beast. At that moment, the twenty mounted 40mm rapid fire cannon on the hovercraft opened up. Tracers flew across the sky, marking every third round, and the tracers looked like lasers.

Then the missiles struck! Explosions blew flames and smoke from the torso of their target. It replied by raising it's left arm, a huge hand pointed at the camera, then it's white clawed fingers retracted as if on hinges, and from each, a missile fired. They raced straight towards the camera!

"Employ countermeasures!" Shouted Smith, the rocket-sled's pilot, at the screen.
"Bail out!" Yelled the radio operator from the back.
"Shit." Said Homberbun, quietly.

The tracers from the 40mm guns on the hovercraft changed targets, to try and knock down the missiles. Homberbun was the only on to notice at this time that where was just smoke and flame where the hovercraft missiles struck revealed metal and short-circuiting electronics. Then he watched what they all watched on the bridge of the rocket-sled. The 40mm guns firing like mad at the incoming fire. They nailed three before the remaining missile came in and blew the video feed into static.

"Place the unified battlefield system back on the monitors." Homberbun commanded, then asked, "How long until we reach the target?"

Jenkins hesitated for a moment, then replied,
"Four minutes sir."

He thought for a few split seconds, then made a command.
"Deploy Marines."
Smitty the weapons officer knew what Homberbun was asking and had enough balls to question the order.
"At this speed, they won't make the combat area for another 20 minutes! We'll need their swarming attack to at least distract this thing!"
"I know, said Homberbun, "But this thing destroyed two rocket-sleds with no negligible damage. I'm not leaving an armored contingent of 500 men to be destroyed in the hold of my ship! At least we saw that 132 did some damage, did we not! Deploy."

There were a number of beepings, and warning klaxons, and messages from the radio operator speaking quiet directions. Finally Jenkins finished the deal by speaking,
"Marines away."

Homberbun felt better. He knew the Marines would do what they could, and it went against all the handbook's rules by deploying them well before they could engage in the combat that was about to ocurr, but the idea of them being on his ship useless and being slaughtered before they could do anything they were capable of doing, made him sick.

Smitty, the Weapons Officer called him away from his feelings,
"Laser batteries one, two, three and four, ready Sir."
He snapped back,
"Missiles!"
"Batteries two and four ready, One and three report electrical malfunctions!" Smitty replied.
"Fire missiles!"

Unseen by the crew of the rocket-sled, four massive polaris-sized missiles shot straight up, into the sky into a parabolic curve that outraced their speed by many times the speed of sound.

"Missiles away." Said Smitty professionally.

Captain Homberbun put his hands back in a pyramid and tapped his fingers against his lips. He watched his missiles shoot across the unified battlefield system, and saw his rocket-sled leave the Marine hovercraft behind him, and wondered when he would have the beast's head over the horizon in order to fire the powerful chem-lasers that could lance through anything within the horizon. Then, for no reason, he had a strange memory.

It was back when he was in the surface Navy, running a guided missile cruiser, and he thought he'd enjoy some time meandering in Hong Kong. And meander he did. In fact, he didn't remember the place, but there was a moment when he leaned up against a bar somewhere, and ordered a drink. He had no more than two sips before a huge hunchback moved into the space next to him. This didn't bother him too much, but it was when the hunchback turned to him and asked something like,

"You look like a guy who's in need of a good time!"

In truth, he was. But that didn't change the fact that he knew the kind of good time he wanted was not going to be provided by a 8 foot hunchback. In fact, an 8 foot hunchback was the kind of being that was pushing away the kind of good time he was looking for. But pinned into the situation by intoxication and the fact that the only person who spoke English in the whole joint was this stupid hunchback, and no girl had rubbed herself against his Captain's uniform since he walked into the joint for the eight minutes he'd been there, he had to come back with an answer.

"Nothing personal, friend" Homberbun replied "But, I'm sceptical that you might provide the answer towards my good time."

"Hah!" The hunchback said, "This place ain't going to provide it, I assure you of that. However, I know of a place I'm sure you'll be swept away by."
"I doubt it." He replied.
"What's your name Captain?" The hunchback asked knowingly. The Captain couldn't stop it from slipping out of his mouth.
"Homberbun."
"Finish that, Captain, and we'll go straight away!"

Captain Homberbun indeed finished his drink, and went with the hunchback, following him down strange alleys and unsavory corridors, all the while wondering why he was doing such a thing, and trying to reassure himself that he was trained in personal combat and had very little to steal. However, he found himself completely disoriented looking for danger from every shadowy door that he didn't notice where he was.

He found himself stopped at an elevator bank which opened with a uniformed elevator operator, who asked,
"What floor sir?"
And the hunchback replied,
"47."

The operator made the motions to move the elevator, and the hunchback looked at him.

"I understand your trepidations, but I assure you, this will be exactly what you're looking for."

They rode up the next six seconds in total silence, then the doors opened to blasting house music, and a full-on raging party with all manner of debauchery happening. The huge hunchback put his huge arm around the Captain, and led him out of the elevator into the fray.

"There's one guy you've got to meet, then I've got some stuff to do!" He yelled into his ear, and even then it was barely understandable. The Hunchback led, or basically pushed him through the crowd, towards a staircase, up it, and into a reasonably quiet room.

Inside, there were a number of huge black leather chairs scattered pretty far from a large black lacquered table, and in one of those chairs was a man, not exactly surrounded by four women of various nationalities, and in various alluring costumes, but they were what might be called, "close." The man looked up as Homberbun and the hunchback entered. The hunchback spoke a few quick words.
"This is Captain Homberbun, I thought you'd might like to talk for a minute."
"Thanks Wednesday!" The man said in a strangely familiar baritone. Then the hunchback disappeared.

"So look." The man in the chair began. "I know you want to enjoy yourself at my party, and I would never delay you that endeavor."
"Thanks!" Said Homberbun, not really sure how to approach this social interaction so he feigned excitement.
"I have only one piece of advice for you, and you can clearly take it, or leave it."
Homberbun really didn't know how to respond to this. So he stood their in his Captain's uniform uncomfortably as a woman in an insanely tight fitting peacock dress got up from her chair, spread feathers out into a humongous fan behind her and proceeded to nibble on this man's ear.

"If you're ever in the spot, where you have to fight a giant Yetti Deathbot," The man said, beginning to get distracted by the peacock clad woman's tongue. "Make sure you remember that they put the control servers in the left knee."

"Thanks, I umm, I, really don't know..." Said Homberbun uncomfortably, and by the time that had escaped his lips, the man had given into the woman's actions, and instead of finishing his question, he turned, walked out, and had such a wonderful time it would haunt his memory of Hong Kong until his death.

His memory was interrupted by Smitty who shouted out,
"Missiles impact 5 seconds!"

He looked up, and realized the video feeds on his screens were in real time. A white head had appeared over the horizon, and contrails from the missiles had converged upon it. Then they exploded! Huge clouds of fire and smoke blasted from it, revealing a gargantuan skull of humongous proportions. It shot lasers from it's eyes!

"Hard left!" Homberbun commanded. The beams missed by a fraction of a meter, and dug though the ice cap, boiling the water beneath in a massive jet 500 feet high, that instantly froze behind the racing rocket sled.

"Smitty!" Captain Homberbun shouted, "Time till the left knee will be within range of direct weapons?!"

"48 Seconds! But what's that got to do with..."

"Target left knee with all batteries! Status of missile batteries one and three?!" Smitty answered,
"Ready to fire!"
"Change targeting of one and three to the left knee! Helm, adopt any evasive maneuvers you might think of. Radio, transmit to Marines, attack nothing but left knee! Weapons! Fire when ready!"

Homberbun leaned back in his chair with a sense of satisfaction. He knew he was doomed, but he had done everything he could. The rocket-sled moved in a series of jerks, missiles and lasers sped past them, or were destroyed by close-in and anti-rocket defenses. Then the full size of the giant robo-yetti deathbot came over the white icy horizon, and it was huge! Four times the size of the Empire State building, and eight times as wide...then Smitty shouted
"Missiles away!" Then the beast got larger and closer.

Another blast of it's laser eyes shot towards them, along with rockets and sonic weapons. His helmsman had performed a series of maneuvers that evaded all but four of the attacks, but the close in defenses destroyed the missiles that had remained. Finally, the icy white revealed the robo-yetti-deathbot's left knee. The rocket-sled unleashed it's full power, just as the overarching missiles slammed into the knee. The robo-yetti-deathbot stumbled, shot out another beam of death from it's eyes, then fell to the ice, and lay immobile, dead.

"Captain! Shouted Smitty, over the cheers of the bridge of the rocket-sled, "Thank you Sir! That was brilliant!"

"Don't thank me," Homberbun replied, "Thank Friday. He really came through this time."

Happy Friday.