(("Mayday mayday, this is Dark Purple Accord, 137562,
2.5 miles due east of Point Dry Cleaners,
enemy Trolley fast approaching at 7:00, over."))

(( "Repeat: Can anyone hear me, this does not look good, over..." ))

(( "I repeat, can anyone h-- {audio interrupt/missing audio}" ))


(( "MAYDAY MAYDAY! Attacked! This is
Dark Purple Accord,
1-3-7-5-6-2,
taking on water rapidly, cannot stay afloat
more than a few minutes, one person on board,
Maintaining watch on Channel 16. Accord, 137562, over!" ))



Trying desperately to see a way back, heart throbbing,
choking me, confusion, the pounding in my ears, my eyes,
running out of options, running out of time,
my soul grew heavy and cold,
and I felt myself slipping away.
So I crossed myself, kissed a picture of my mother,
and crushed it in my fist without realizing
until I felt my palm burning,
my nails breaking through skin.
I let go, I looked out, that one final time.
It's funny how an instant in time can slow just enough
to make you aware of your surroundings,
make you feel like you have some control over your final destiny,
but then in that same instant,
your everything spirals out of control,
explodes,
that one last time. So.
I looked out into the distance one last time, forever.
And just when it looked like it was over,
I came upon this one sitting duck, lazily drifting.
This pink-o Soviet ally, his comrade, my sworn enemy.

"Holy Sweet Mary of Third Street," I breathed.

Seizing the moment in a white-hot burn of adrenaline
shooting up my neck and down my arms,
with a brilliant display of firepower, I blasted him
into an unholy smokecloud of splinters, smithereens,
with my front-mounted, semi-automatic, jet-powered cannons.

Quarters, dimes, nickels, shrapnel,
whizzed by me, and into me, and all around,
for what seemed an eternity.
Then, nothing, but quiet, and stillness.
My shaking hands instinctively searched my face.
Wiping the blood from my eyes,
not even knowing if I had eyes anymore,
I saw what was left.
Nothing.
Just the smoke, just the smell.
The rest of his gutless, yellow, bastard fleet
just turned on him and ran, just like that,
like a bunch
of soiled

French

schoolgirls.

And that's how I got this scar, and that's how we won
the Battle of Madison Avenue and Second Street.


Don't feel sorry for them,
they knew what they were up against,
they understood when the signed up for the job.
If you want to make an omelet of war,
you have to break some eggs.