Platoon F: Pentalogy Read online

  “I have good news, though,” he said above the din, quieting everyone down. “Geezer is working on a way to make this happen using something other than fossils.”

  “You mean like using water?” said one crewman.

  “Possibly.”

  “I worked on a theoretical paper for that at the university and…”

  “Well, then get your ass down to engineering and lend some expertise!”

  “Yes, sir!” she said and then ran to the ladder.

  “If any of the rest of you are decent with this type of thing, you should be down in engineering too. When need strong minds right now, people!” A couple more of the crew looked back and forth at each other and then bolted for the ladder. Harr felt a sense of growth at that moment, but now he had the rest of the crew to worry about. “The rest of us need to prepare for battle.” He looked over at Yek and grunted. “Like it or not, we still have to knock out that space station and somehow make it look like an accident.”

  One of the crewman stood up and said, “If we flew by the place fast enough and launched all of our lifeboats at it, that would do some damage—depending on the level of shielding they’re using, anyway.”

  “Lifeboats?”

  “Sure, they’re like little missiles after all.”

  “Without a payload,” Yek pointed out.

  “Right, but if we send out an S.O.S. first, saying we jumped the tracks, and then we spend the next few hours filling in some of the lifeboats with explosives, maybe we could fool them.”

  “It’s a thought,” Harr said, scratching his superhero’s chin. “An awful one, but one nonetheless.”

  “Hmmm,” Laasel said, lifting her finger. “What if we flew under the thpace thtation so that they couldn’t thee uth?”

  Harr squinted at her. “Hank, is that you?”

  “Yeth,” Laasel said with her shoulders lifted slightly.

  “Their scanners would pick us up in a heartbeat. It’s only Segnal that does things on a two-dimensional plane, remember?”

  “Oh thyit, that’th right.”

  “Return Laasel please.”

  A blink and a momentary look of confusion later, Laasel put her finger back down.

  “Yek,” said Harr, “the orders specify that our primary accomplishment is to blow up this space station without the Kortnor expecting it was done on purpose, right?”

  “That and killing everyone on board The Reluctant and destroying the ship itself, of course.”

  “Of course, but what if we could accomplish the destruction of the space station while keeping everyone else alive, and not letting the ship blow up either?”

  “Then we wouldn’t be carrying out our orders.”

  “Orders can be altered, can they not?”

  “Not by you,” Yek said, without so much as a flinch.

  “Then I shall contact Parfait again.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Yek stated.

  “Fine, you do that. The rest of you start thinking about weaponry. Lots of weaponry.”

  UPDATING THE ORDERS

  The conference room felt much smaller when it was just Harr and Yek sitting in there. Dense air was the only way to describe it, since Harr was having a struggle breathing.

  This was his command, though, not Yek’s, and unless that changed, Harr was damn sure going to continue treating it as such.

  “What I don’t understand is why you don’t just follow the orders as they’re set.”

  “Yek, you may have noticed that you were the only one who raised your hand when I asked if everyone wanted to die. I don’t know why you have a death wish, but it’s pretty apparent we don’t all share in it.”

  “It’s not like it’s going to hurt,” Yek said.

  “Really isn’t the point,” Harr replied with a scoff. “Either way, I have every intention of destroying that space station, and everyone on board this vessel recognizes the importance of that. But if I can accomplish that mission without the need of losing our own lives, I’d much rather take that route.”

  Yek just shook his head as he thumbed the blade of a knife that seemed to appear out of nowhere. It looked to be a different one than Harr had seen him with earlier.

  Harr put a call into Parfait, hoping that this time the man would have his clothes on.

  “Rear Admiral Parfait’s office,” answered a young man that Harr had never seen before. He had platinum blond hair, blue eyes, and a strong chin. He looked oddly familiar.

  “This is Commodore Harr. Is the Rear Admiral in?”

  “One moment.” The man called out in a muffled voice, “Sir, it’s Commodore Harr. I don’t know, sir, but he’s asking for you. What’s that, sir? Okay, one second.” The voice cleared up again. “Sir, what ship are you on?”

  “Just tell him that I have Lieutenant Murphy with me,” Harr said with a shake of his head.

  Parfait hopped on the vid a moment later and said, “Murphy! Is that you?”

  “Sure, sir,” Harr answered.

  “I have to get better helpers. He said you were someone named Harr … oh, wait, that’s right! You are Harr now, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Right, right,” Parfait said. “It’s rough keeping tracking of all these names, I’ll tell you. When I was young we just went by our actual names. None of this undercover jibjab. In my day going undercover meant something entirely different, let me tell you …”

  “Sir, there is an issue regarding our orders that we need to discuss.”

  “We?”

  “Yek is here with me, sir.”

  “Oh.”

  Rear Admiral Parfait sat up at attention and glanced back over both of his shoulders in a way that an animal did when being hunted.

  “Sir,” Harr pressed on, “I believe I have a way to take out the Kortnor space station without our having to jump the tracks, lose lives, and all that.”

  “Part of the point, soldier, is to make sure that the Kortnor’s on that station do lose their lives.”

  “No, sir, I meant not lose our lives.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s different. I would have to defer to Special Agent Yek about that part.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s the one that wrote the orders, Lieutenant.”

  “I knew it,” Harr said, pointing at Yek.

  “Knew what?” asked Parfait.

  “He’s got a deep-seated desire to extinguish his own existence, sir.”

  “As do you all,” the Rear Admiral said. “That’s why everyone was put on that ship.”

  “I personally have no desire to die, sir.”

  “Then why did you take this mission?”

  “You forced me to, sir,” Harr said.

  “I did no such thing, Lieutenant! You volunteered for this mission.”

  “Only because it was either this or be executed, and I didn’t know that this was a suicide mission when I volunteered, either.”

  “See? You did volunteer.”

  “Again, sir, that was before I found out it was a suicide mission, sir. But regardless of me, what about the rest of the crew? They don’t seem all that thrilled with dying so soon either.”

  “No? Hmmm.”

  “It seems to me,” Harr said, looking over at a grumbling Yek, “that the only person who wants to die so young is Yek, and I’d be more than happy to help him accomplish that without the rest of us joining him.”

  “You and what army?” Yek said.

  Harr grimaced. “What are you, five years old?”

  They stared each other down again.

  “Hello? Lieutenant? What are you doing? You seem to be staring off into the distance, but you look angry. Maybe you’re mad at me again? That’s okay, if you are. Very okay, in fact. I could just dim the lights a little …”

  This time Harr gave in first by turning his attention back to Parfait before the Rear Admiral did anything untoward.

  “Sorry, sir, must have been a malfunction.”

  “Oh, dam
n.”

  “Anyway, I can get the job done without destroying the crew or The Reluctant.”

  “And without the Kortnor’s knowing about it?”

  “Indeed. And, if Yek is keen enough to volunteer, we can even grant his wish, and, frankly, mine, of this being his final mission.”

  ENGINEERING

  Geezer and the crew had apparently been working ever since Harr had left the robot to the job.

  The forward assembly was completely ripped apart, except for a shielding mechanism that kept the vacuum of space from sucking the life out of the ship. Panels littered the floor along with nuts, bolts, and screws of all shapes and sizes. Crewmen were crawling under console units as Geezer was barking out orders.

  Jezden was also in the room, sitting in the corner with a big grin on his face. Harr followed the man’s gaze and found a young woman who was on her knees with her head and shoulders stuck into one the consoles, while her derriere stuck firmly up into the air.

  “Jezden?”

  “Hmmm?” Then he looked up. “Oh, yes, sir?”

  “Aren’t you needed somewhere else?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “So you have nothing better to do than sit around and gawk at the females who are trying to improve our chances of survival?”

  Jezden seemed to think about this for a second. Then he slowly shook his head. “No, sir, I really don’t.”

  Harr pointed at the door. “Go find something more important, or I’ll have you written up so fast that your head will spin. Move it!”

  As Jezden took the ladder two rungs at a time, Harr spun back and gave a quick peek at the crewman who had her tail in the air. All things considered, he couldn’t much blame the Ensign for being enthralled by such a sight.

  “Sir?”

  “Hmmm?” Harr said, looking over at Geezer.

  “Don’t you have anything better to do than stand around looking at my crew’s butts?”

  “What? Oh, no, no, no … you misunderstand. Jezden was just in here and he was looking at her and, well, I threw him out, you see? And, well, then I was just …” He trailed off, realizing that his argument was pointless. Then he cleared his throat. “The reason I’m here is because there has been a bit of a change in plans.”

  “Such as?”

  “The only person on this ship that’s truly signed up for the suicide mission is Yek.”

  “Not surprising,” Geezer said. “That guy’s a complete shittin’ whack job.”

  Harr groaned, as he didn’t approve of his officers swearing—especially not robotic ones. He fully approved of himself swearing, but that was different. He made the rules in this little fiefdom. But with tensions running high, the last thing he wanted to do was interrupt the flow of synapses and/or relays, as the case may be.

  “He’s also the one that wrote the orders for our little mission, Geezer.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Yep, and so he’s going to get his wish … mostly.”

  “How so?”

  “How hard would it be to put non-directional propulsion onto a lifeboat, and fill it with both Yek and enough explosives to knock the hell out of that space station?”

  “You still want the propulsion on the ship?”

  “I do.”

  “Easier to just put it on the lifeboat, as you say.”

  “Agreed,” Harr said and then stepped a bit closer to Geezer. “Between you and me, though, I have a feeling that we’re going to need to keep this ship able to move. It’s unlikely that the SSMC is going to let us out of this mess, no matter what we do.”

  PREPARING TO LAUNCH

  Yek seemed to be in good spirits. He’d even smiled once, which, truth be told, looked very creepy indeed.

  Geezer had done quite a number on the lifeboat situation too.

  Normally, the little vessels were just large enough to hold one large human plus enough rations to last for a week. That was about how much time the oxygen lasted, so the design didn’t warrant room for more rations.

  In order to include a payload large enough to drop the space station, Geezer had strapped five lifeboats together. There was one in the middle and one at each quarter post. At the front of each unit, except for the middle one, was the payload, and on the back was a rocket that turned the lifeboat into a missile, of sorts.

  “Well, Yek, what do you think of this?”

  “I have to say that I’m quite impressed, Lieutenant Murphy.”

  “Who’s Lieutenant Murphy?” asked Geezer.

  “Your mom,” said Yek as he pushed by and crawled into the missile.

  “Did he just say that my mom was somebody named Lieutenant Murphy?”

  “Just ignore him, Geezer. As you noted before, he’s a bit insane.”

  Geezer shrugged, and went back to checking bolts and running tests. Yek was tapping away at the control panel inside of his pod. Harr couldn’t see what he was typing, but it probably had something to do with his final words which, no doubt, expressed his high level of patriotism.

  Stepping away, Harr did an internal search of Yek’s records. Classified. Not even his Commodore rank gained him access, so it had to be something heavy.

  “Thir?”

  Harr lowered his pad. “Yeth, Hank?” He coughed. “Sorry. Yes, Hank?”

  “I wath wondering if maybe thomone thouldn’t go with Thpecial Agent Yek.”

  Harr squinted. “You do realize that he’s not coming back, right?”

  “I know.”

  “And you want to go with him?”

  “Thur, why not?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Hank. Maybe because you’ll die, if you do?”

  “We’re all going to die anyway on thith mithion. You thaid tho yourthelf.”

  “Not anymore, Hank. That’s the entire point of our having Yek go instead.”

  “Theriouthly? I thought he wath the one that wath going to be thaved and that we were all going to die. I thought we were going to thip him off back to home while we thtayed on a collithion courth with that thtathion.”

  “Just the opposite, Hank.”

  “Oh, thcrew him, then.”

  “Can I talk to Laasel for a second, Hank?”

  “Thur.”

  “Hi, Lieutenant.”

  She snapped to attention. “Commodore Harr, sir.”

  “At ease. Let me ask you something, Laasel.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Are you aware that you carry with you more than one personality?”

  “Don’t we all, sir?”

  Harr started to respond, and then thought about it. Indeed, everyone did seem to have different personalities for different purposes. Hell, when he got riled up he could be quite the asshole. It wasn’t so much a personality as it was an attitude, though. Usually he was more of a team kind-o-guy, but getting pushed in the wrong direction would light off the asshole inside, and that would be that until he could reel himself back in. But even through that, he was still himself. He knew what was going on the entire time.

  “I hear you,” Harr said, “but I mean distinctly different personalities.”

  “How do you mean, sir?”

  “You have to have been told that you have a disorder, right?”

  Laasel looked at him rather funnily and said, “Are you okay, sir? Maybe I can get you a coffee or something?”

  “I can’t believe they never told you. What sense does that make?”

  “Honestly, sir, I have no …”

  “Plahdoo?”

  Blink, blink, blink.

  “Hey there, handsome,” Gravity Plahdoo said and then motioned behind Harr at where Yek lay. “Ooh, look at that! A man trapped from the waist up. I could do all sorts of naughty things to that.”

  “Calm yourself, Plahdoo.”

  “Please call me ‘Gravity’.”

  “No,” Harr stated. “Are you aware that you have multiple personalities?”

  “What, you mean Lee and Hank? Sure. We all share the brain here.
”

  “Yet Laasel doesn’t know that.”

  “That’s right, sugar. We have to keep it from her. If we didn’t she’d start taking those damnable pills again that keep us at bay.”

  “What pills?”

  “The ones she keeps in her … oh, wait a second, honey pullins, are you trying to get rid of us?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “I think maybe you would,” Gravity pouted. “And to think that all I wanted to do was have a little fun at Yek’s expense.”

  She stormed off as Harr sighed and looked back at Yek.

  “Sir?” Geezer said.

  “Hmmm?”

  “Don’t you have anything better to do than gawk at Yek’s crotch?”

  SOMETHING’S NOT ADDING UP

  The SSMC Reluctant drew closer and closer to the derailment point.

  It was only a matter of hours before she reached the optimal speed to jump the tracks and head for the Kortnor station; but now that Yek was offering himself up as a sacrifice, it looked like things were going to swing out a fair bit differently than originally planned.

  But something was bugging Harr and he couldn’t quite put a finger on it.

  He could understand Yek’s files being classified. He got the initial concept of a suicide mission and all that. What he couldn’t grasp was why? What purpose, aside from the base need for a reason to kill himself, did Yek have at knocking out that space station via the ultimate personal act?

  Harr knew the pat reason for this: use The SSMC Reluctant’s 50th anniversary to their advantage, and jump the tracks to make it look like it was an accident.

  It was smart. In fact, it was genius. There wouldn’t be much that the Kortnor government could say. Being that the Kortnor was a race of robots would help a lot, too, because … wait.

  “Commander Sandoo?” Harr said into his comm.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Meet me in my quarters, please.”

  “Uhhh …”

  “Nothing funny, Sandoo,” Harr said with a sigh. “Just get in here, pronto!”