“It is, sir,” Harr said, uncomfortably.
“Where are you from, soldier?”
“Segnal Prime, sir.”
Curtis put his one arm across his chest to rest his opposite elbow on. With that hand, he tapped the side of his head as if thinking. “Must be a Mediterranean island?”
“I don’t think so, sir,” said Harr, considering that their star charts were certainly named differently than Segnal’s.
“They’re from outer space, Curtis.”
“Oh? That’s nice, then.”
“No, seriously, they are.”
Curtis paused and gave Perfey a funny look. After a moment, he walked up closer to Parfait and studied him. The Senior Diplomat seemed to rather enjoy the attention. Next, Curtis walked back to Captain Harr and gave him the twice-over.
Finally, he swung back to Perfey. “You’re telling me that these men are Martians?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. They’re aliens, but they’re not from Mars.”
“How come they’re not green?”
“Oh, come now, Curtis,” Perfey said with a chuckle, “you of all people know that’s just Hollywood making stuff up.”
Curtis harrumphed. “This is a bit of a letdown, I have to tell you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, look at them. They look…normal!” He looked again at Harr. “Mostly.”
“Exactly, isn’t that exciting?”
“I guess that depends on why you called me here.”
Perfey put his hands up and said, “To film them, of course.”
“Why? There’s nothing interesting about them.”
“They have a ship!”
“We can use models to fake ships. Nobody’s going to buy it.”
“But they’re really from another planet.”
Curtis smiled sadly. “Look, Belmont, you and I go far back, so I’m going to level with you. Nobody is going to care about a couple of human-looking aliens. There’s no drama in it. No pizazz. People want outrageous, crazy, over-the-top things these days. The paper won’t even print anything unless it’ll grab readers, and now that television is on the rise, people are expecting more, more, more.”
Perfey sat down and crossed his legs. Harr and Parfait sat, too, but Curtis stayed on his feet, pacing about. Harr didn’t know how this world ticked compared to Segnal. Their choice of garb was pretty similar, their meals tasted fine, and even their toilets were designed in a similar fashion. Looking at this world that, miraculously, was called Earth, was like stepping back in time on Segnal.
“I have an idea,” said Curtis with a snap of his fingers.
“What’ve you got?”
“Belmont, what say we take some pictures of these fellows and do some interviews on tape? Then I can have my special effects crew come in and do some models that are similar to them, but we’ll make them look more like aliens.”
“Excuse me,” said Harr, “but, for all intents and purposes, we are aliens.”
“Yes, I know, but you don’t look like aliens,” said Curtis, and then added, “well, you sort of do, actually. You look rather like a superhero.”
Harr slumped.
“He was my design,” announced Parfait.
“Oh?”
They fell into a long discussion about cell swapping and how it was done. It was clear to Harr that the technology was beyond those in the room, including himself, but they were getting the idea of it. Cosmetic changes to correct undesirable physical aspects of oneself. Curtis was taking notes, thinking that something like this would be “the next big thing,” whatever that meant.
Harr didn’t care, he just wanted to complete the mission and get back to Segnal Prime.
Another three hours had past, which included more interviews and more pictures. Finally, they were plopped back into a Jeep with Jesse and Perfey and driven back to The SSMC Reluctant. Curtis and his crew were in another truck, bringing along archaic-looking cameras which they used to film the outside of The Reluctant.
No matter how much Parfait pushed, and push he did, Captain Harr refused to let the film crews inside.
He did, however, extend an invitation to Jesse and Perfey. Perfey declined, but Jesse took Harr up on the offer.
“This is the main level of the ship,” said Harr. “Here’s where you’ll find bunks and our meeting room.”
“And the boom boom closet,” offered Jezden, as he walked by.
“Boom boom closet?” said Jesse. “Explosives?”
“Something like that,” answered Harr as he took the ladder down to the lower floor. “This is our Chief Engineer, Geezer.”
“Welcome back, honcho,” Geezer said.
“Oh my lord,” said Jesse, looking like he’d seen a ghost. “You’re not human!”
“Must be another Captain, eh? You guys are a most perceptive bunch.”
“Sorry, Jesse,” Harr said, pushing a hand against the man’s shoulder. “I should have readied you for a few things. You see, on my world, robots are the norm. We’ve been working with them for hundreds of years.”
“It’s amazing.”
“More amazing than you might think,” said Harr, looking at the androids who were busily tidying up the engine room. “Geezer here is in charge of keeping our ship in tiptop shape.”
“I do what I can, prime.”
“How’s our little device coming along?”
“All set and ready to go, and I think we may have finally escaped that little model I created.”
“Oh?”
“Hasn’t shown up the since the 500 year mark.”
Harr was about to mention how he’d thought certain he’d seen the little ship on the top of that creature’s head in the past, but decided to let it go.
“Good,” he said and then led Jesse back up two flights of ladders and onto the bridge. “This is the main bridge. From here we manage flight patterns, study atmospheric conditions, run battles, should the need arise, and handle basically everything else that comes with command.”
Jesse’s face had a look of fascination. Harr kind of felt bad for the man, knowing that, after seeing all of this, he was going to be relegated to going back to a world where basic aviation was at the cutting edge.
“What are those screens for?”
“Lieutenant Moon, please put up the visuals outside of the ship.”
Three screens came one and showed the people outside.
“Amazing. It’s even in color!”
“These are all ideas that you and your people can build upon, Jesse.” Then Harr moved over to the main console. “Hank, did you get those documents together that I’d asked for?”
“Yes, thir, but it wasn’t easy. The Universal Translator doesn’t work all that thwimmingly for printing, apparently.”
“Well, it’s mostly math and drawings anyway and those are pretty universal all on their own.”
Harr handed a large notebook over to Jesse, showing him some key components on things such as propulsion, communications, computers, and even robotics. One more stop on the main floor so that Harr could snag a handful of rations for his new pal to try, and they were back out the door and on land.
“This is simply incredible, Don,” said Jesse. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Use these creations wisely, as a people, I would say. If you focus on peaceful purposes with this technology, that will be thanks enough for me.”
“Hmmm,” said Jess with a doubtful smile.
Harr understood completely.
The two peoples shook hands, or in the case of Perfey, Parfait, and Curtis, hugged for a while, and then the doors to The SSMC Reluctant closed up.
HEROES
Before hitting the GONE Drive, Harr decided that it would prove interesting to see how Earth put the technological information that he’d provided to use.
“How far in the future do you want to go, Cap’n?”
“Let’s say 500 years,” Harr said. “We’ve already been 750 year
s into their past, so why not try the future?”
Geezer shrugged noncommittally, but stuck in the data and prepared to hit the button when Harr stopped him.
“Any chance you can put us outside of the atmosphere? I really don’t want to have another diplomatic debacle come up if things aren’t as good as we may hope.”
“I can do all sorts of things with GONE Drive 3.0, chief.”
Geezer made another adjustment and then pressed the button.
“Thir?” Lieutenant Moon said almost immediately.
“Yes, Hank.”
“We have trouble.”
Harr sighed. Wasn’t that always the case?
“Geezer, be ready to get us back to Segnal Prime on my command.”
“All charged and set.”
Harr took the ladder as quickly as possible, getting up to the bridge in less than a minute.
The screens were full of images of very large spaceships, many times the size that even the SSMC had as part of their fleet. There were large tubular once, enormous triangular ones, and smaller rectangular ones. All in all they just looked like a massive fleet of ships.
“What’s the problem, Hank?”
“They’re all turning toward us, thir.”
“Oh, yes, I guess they are. Why do you think—”
The ship’s alarms suddenly went off.
“Incoming warheads, sir,” said Sandoo.
“Shields up!”
“Holy shit…there must be 1,000 missiles headed our way,” said Jezden.
“Geezer.”
“Not even thinking about counting it down, sir.”
And the spacescape changed again. Where there had been the impending doom of Earth’s space fleet, there was now the welcoming look of Segnal’s. Except…
“Are those Segnal ships, Commander?”
Sandoo was working over his main panel, doing scans and checks for a few moments.
“All my readings say that they are, sir, but they look different.”
“Larger,” said Harr.
“Much,” agreed Jezden.
Parfait climbed over the lip of the ladder and stepped up to stand by Harr’s chair. “Those aren’t our ships, Captain.”
“Why do you say that, sir?”
“Because they’re not on rails.”
“Oh my,” Harr said, sitting forward in his chair. “You’re right.”
“We’re being hailed, thir.”
Harr sat back and said, “On screen.”
A very familiar face engulfed the screen. She was lithe with dark hair and a flawless complexion. Her outfit was similar to Harr’s but with tight lines and quite a few more medals. She was a dead ringer for Ensign Ridly.
“I am Admiral Brekka of The SSMC Orion Murphy,” she said, sternly. “What is your designation?”
“Did she say the Orion Murphy?” asked Harr.
“I believe she did, said Parfait.”
“I ask again, what is your designation?”
“Sorry,” Harr said. “I’m Captain Don Harr of The SSMC Reluctant.”
The woman looked shocked. “Come again?”
“I said I’m Captain Don Harr of The SSMC Reluctant.”
She silenced her microphone and was yelling at one of her crewmen. Harr took the time to silence his as well and called down to Geezer.
“What have you done this time, Geezer?”
“I just plugged in the coordinates to Segnal, big cat. I didn’t have time to change the, well, time that we’d arrive because those missiles were closing in fast. So we’re definitely in the Segnal System, but we’re still 500 years in the future.”
“Can you get us back to our own time…like, now?”
“No, but I’m working on it.”
“Captain?” said Admiral Brekka with a large smile. “We’ve verified that your ship really is what you claimed.”
“I could have told you that,” Harr said.
“And you did, but we still had to verify it. You’re in for quite a surprise, Captain Harr.”
“Oh?”
“You’re a legend, sir.”
“I am?”
“Well, to put into perspective, even you know that my ship is named after you…the real you.”
“What in the blazes is going on?” asked Harr, feeling completely befuddled.
“And now the SSMC has multiple special operations platoons all set up to run similar to infamous Platoon F, though that particular name has been retired.”
Harr didn’t say anything in response. He simply sat back and scrunched up his face, unable to stop his mouth from hanging open.
“Please set course and follow my ship back to Station Command. We would like to meet with you and your esteemed crew in person.”
“Uh…yeah, okay, sure. Lieutenant?”
“On it, thir.”
The screen went blank.
“Prime?” said Geezer through the comm.
“Yes, Geezer.”
“Bad news. Looks like we’re going to be stuck in this time for another few hours.”
“A few hours?”
“Could be a few days.”
“Wonderful.”
“Really?”
“No, not really.”
“What’s going on up there?”
“We’re heroes,” said Harr, casually.
“Heroes?”
“Yeah, Geezer. Heroes.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
Mission 5 from the files of
Platoon F
LANDING
The SSMC Orion Murphy led The SSMC Reluctant down to Station Command.
Captain Donn Harr and his crew were supposedly considered heroes. How this was the case, Harr wasn’t sure, but he had a feeling he was about to find out. The question was whether it would be a good thing or not. If his personal history was any indicator, he had a feeling it would not.
Considering the fact that the ship they were following was named after him—well, the name he was born with and had to give up in order to go through an identity change, anyway—worried him more than just a little bit.
Due to another mix up with the ship’s chief engineer, a G.3.3.Z.3.R. series robot named, fittingly, Geezer, the use of their GONE Drive had put them 500 years in the future. The drive itself was a marvel of technology, giving Platoon F the ability to transport to most any place in the universe, arriving at any time in the past or the future. Unfortunately, Geezer wasn’t 100% certain how it worked, even though he was the creator of the thing, so there were constant issues.
This left the crew of The SSMC Reluctant sitting in the distant future of their home world, Segnal Prime. There were no longer tracks for the ships to glide on. They had all taken to using propulsion again. That was a smart step forward, obviously, but what Harr didn’t know was what other facets of society had changed.
“Thir,” said Lieutenant Hank Moon, “we’re being hailed by Station Command.”
“Open a channel, please.” He waited a moment and then said, “This is Captain Don Harr of The SSMC Reluctant.”
“This is Station Command,” came the reply. “Please set vector to 1.9762 and lock your speed to The SSMC Orion Murphy. You’ll be landing in bay 71.”
“Roger that,” said Harr.
“Roger what?” said Station Command.
“Uh…I mean…okay, we’ll do what you said.”
“Station Command out.”
“Connection has been severed, sir.”
“That’s odd,” said Senior Diplomat Stanley Parfait, who was really Rear Admiral Stanley Parfait, but he had undergone a title change in order to join The Reluctant on the mission that they had just returned from. “The use of the term ‘roger’ has been around longer than I can recall.” He sat back and crossed his legs, musing. “It reminds of a time when I was just a cadet. We had a classmate whose name was Roger. So we had a fun time saying, ‘Roger, Roger’ at him whenever he’d make a point. He hated that, but we had a laugh.”
/> Finally, thought Harr, a normal story from Parfait. Usually his stories were very racy and inappropriate. This was a nice change.
“Well,” continued Parfait, “this one day we go out on maneuvers when Roger and I got caught in a tight battle. We found a manhole that led to an underground tunnel.”
Harr squinted, but said nothing.
“Both of us were struggling to not get caught, obviously, so we pushed through this narrow passageway, grunting and sweating the entire time, of course.”
Harr cringed a bit.
“It was hot and wet.”
Harr began to blink.
“One thing led to another…”
Here it comes, thought Harr, grimacing.
“…and we stayed hidden long enough to pass the test. We were the last team to be found, actually. Got high marks for that.”
Captain Harr sat up, suddenly feeling bad about what he had been thinking.
“Oh,” he said. “That’s a nice story, sir. But what’s that have to do with Roger’s name?”
“Ah, yes, right. Well, they couldn’t find us because the radio channel wasn’t working, so they checked the computers and tracked our last position. And they were able to track us because I was saying, ‘Roger, Roger, Ro—” He stopped and turned a bit red.
Harr lost his feeling of personal angst over questioning himself for thinking the wrong thing about Parfait.
“Uh…,” stammered Parfait, “I mean…I was on my radio saying that while walking through the tunnels.”
“But you said your radios didn’t work, sir,” said Commander Kip Sandoo, who had been listening to the story intently.
“They, uh, worked between Roger and me because we…mmm…ah, yes, because were both underground. They just couldn’t get through concrete and steel above us.”
“I see.”
“Thir? We’re entering bay 71 now.”
“On screen, Lieutenant.”
The lines of the station were sleek and tight. Everything looked perfectly polished and tidy. Crates and ships were lined up along the sides of the station and the lighting was so crisp that it almost hurt Harr’s head.
Lieutenant Moon slipped The Reluctant in flawlessly, bring her to a stop in the center of the hangar.
“Station Command just sent a message, thir. They say that they are locking down and pressurizing the area for you.”
Platoon F: Pentalogy Page 29
