• Dzama

Home Free

By then most had already crossed the border so it was considered safe. Take a half canister of water, add CH85 and make a bomb. Drop this into a homemade cannon. Get into the cannon yourself. And you’re off.

As always, the trick was landing. You had to reposition yourself in the air and keep your eyes wide open for debris. I saw one guy get his arm impaled. And he became an easy target.

Looking back, there were a lot of dangers with these cannons- one of them being the possibility of getting lodged in there too tight and having the bomb go off. Or having it go off before you’re ready.

General Wacomb was smartly dressed, fully armed, ready to get blown out into the field to start fighting. But there was a malfunction and the thing blew up with him lodged in there. Really bad. No one had the guts to go check the cannon afterwards. We just stopped using that one.

After helping so many cadets get shot out into battle it was finally my turn. I armed myself fully- strapped as many scimitars to my body as I could, and dropped the plastic gallon milk jug bomb down the cannon tube. I then slid in, feet first until I could feel the plastic under my heels. With a swift kick back the thing detonated and shot me a good two hundred feet into the air. I was surprised at how many corpses I saw from that height- I thought a lot more of our guys had made it through.

Several slobbering four-headed strays anticipated my arrival, all running to where they knew I would hit the ground. When I tumbled on the bloody grass they set upon me immediately, biting off my straps and outer armor. But I was focused and carried out the sequence I’d rehearsed a thousand times back at camp. First I blew the silent whistle, then danced the whirling dervish jig, hopping on one foot and twirling my fingers through the air. It worked like magic. Then I had exactly 23 seconds to open one of the manhole covers and drop down into the warm slime-pit below. I took 22 seconds and after that I was home free.

 

 

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