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gates and made it into the
station to exterminate the last of the guards.
    Eventually the defenders were demoralized
and fighting desperately for their very lives. In the case of one
guard station, they were reduced to huddling terrified in the
center of their posts, tending to their wounded, only to find their
floor was being cut away, and the ceiling was being sliced open by
Porko diggers. Smoke bombs, like Perry the General’s life partner
had designed, were hurled through the openings and in the
confusion, rodent-like Schpleeftii light infantry hopped through
the openings and butchered several guards with daggers fashioned
from hand tools made by Earther blacksmiths. When Pumalar warriors
finally burst in through the sliced-open security gates, it was all
over. In close-order combat, Pumalars could easily overwhelm the
most formidable warriors quite easily; and most of these mere
prison guards didn’t stand a chance.
    Zorg Runners circulated the news of the
victories throughout the planet core using the communication tunnel
network created for them months earlier. And when the word got out
that “objective Alpha” had been achieved, the three main bodies of
troops assigned to the second phase of the attack, massed at all
three locations for the long climb to the surface.
    The easy part had now been accomplished! Now
came the hard part….
    Architeuthis, upon hearing the good news,
heaved a deep resonating—almost burbling sound—like Slarts commonly
did when acknowledging, beholding, or realizing something joyful.
He then sat down with a relieved sigh on the ground, collapsing and
curling his legs into a sort of bed, like Slartigifijians commonly
do when they’re at rest. It had all happened so fast, and when
reports got back to Architeuthis of the successes, he so completely
wanted to share in the jubilation of the other Slarts and Zorg
messengers at his headquarters. Unfortunately he could not. All
that ran through his three hearts now was a cold sense of
dread.
    Reports came in from all sectors of the mine
throughout the next 24 earth hours. Warden Ggggaaah had sounded a
general alarm and actually shut off all the elevators, cutting off
all his guard stations to fight it out to the death! “Great Goddess
of the s-sssea!” exclaimed a Zorg messenger reporting to
Architeuthis (that was a common expression among Zorgolongians, who
believed all life had been created at the bottom of the ocean by
divine beings who separated the fishes from the amphibians from
whence all Zorgs had evolved). The Zorg was breathless, and hissed
with excitement, fluttering his reptilian tongue. “Yes-sss, all
three depots-sss, in a matter (gasp) of a few hours-sss. But the
guards-sss are now trapped below with us-sss… Ggggaaah has-sss cut
off power to the elevators-sss!”
    Architeuthis had prepared
for that yes, but these early reports were not completely accurate.
Later messengers arrived and clarified… one elevator that had been captured was
able to send up a unit of Pumalar shock troops, armed with captured
EIC’s taken off the dead bodies of the guards. This unit had made
it to the service tunnel several miles above… right before
Ggggaaah’s headquarters had received the distress calls and gone
into security lockdown. It turned out, the evil Warden’s only plan
for defense was to hole up in his fortified headquarters and let
his guards below fight it out until the whole planet below him
starved to death.
    To be fair, Ggggaaah had every reason to
assume such a tactic would succeed. After all, the food depots
below the planet surface had only enough food to supply the
rebelling prisoners for one month. Moreover, they’d have to capture
all of these depots and defeat the garrisons in each one, just to
get to the food. Even if they could accomplish this, the rebels
were doomed to failure, and once they began to starve, thought
Ggggaaah, they’d fear complete disaster. Then, they’d surely
surrender.
    Hell, even if they