Platoon F: Quadology: Missions 6, 7, 8, and 9 (Platoon F eBook Bundle 2)

by John P. Logsdon

  “Just humor me, will you?”

  “Actually, I probably should. I’ve read that we should always play nice with the criminally insane.”

  “I haven’t done anything criminal.”

  “Where are the real inspectors?” she challenged him with one eyebrow on the rise.

  Damn. He tapped on his wrist band. “Geezer?”

  “Still here, chief.”

  “Interesting,” DeKella said, clearly unable to hear the conversation going on with the robot. “Do all aliens talk to their wristbands, or is it just those from your planet?”

  He frowned at her. “Geezer, transport me up.”

  “You sure about that, cap’n?”

  “The better question is: are you sure it’s going to work?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’d guess it would, though. This Ridgway Converter is quite convincing.”

  He peered up at DeKella, who had her damned arms crossed again. “Activate it.”

  “Okay,” Geezer said with a voice that sounded like it carried a shrug along with it. “Just in case, chief, it’s been nice knowing ya. For a captain, you weren’t a complete pain in my ass.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “No, seriously. I’ve had a lot of captains over the years. Some were total jerks and the rest were even worse. You’re different. It’s like you have a level of patience with me that nobody else…”

  “Just press the damn button, will you?” Harr commanded as his nerve began to wane.

  “Fine,” Geezer replied angrily, “but I take back all that nice crap I just said.”

  The world suddenly started to look a bit fuzzy and his skin began to itch terribly. It didn’t hurt so much as tickle. This lasted about three seconds before Dr. DeKella slowly faded away. The look on her face was exactly what Harr was hoping for. If she didn’t believe him now, she never would.

  When everything faded back in, Harr found that he was standing in the engineering room of the Reluctant.

  “Unbelievable,” he said as he studied his hands and feet.

  “Wow,” Geezer said. “It actually worked. You feel all right?”

  “I think so.” Harr took a few moments to walk around, touch some panels and desks to make sure it was all real, and to take some calming breaths. “I’m a little jittery, but that’s probably just due to being the first Segnalian to ever have gone through something like that.”

  “Yes!” Geezer did a little fist-pump. “Another fine win for the G.3.3.Z.3.R. line.”

  “I have to hand it to you, Geezer,” Harr said while patting the robot on the shoulder, “you truly are amazing…ly lucky.”

  “Luck is the result of hard work, big cat. You should know that.”

  Harr nodded. “Hard work slapping random pieces together and hiding under the desk while flipping switches?”

  “In this body?” Geezer replied. “You know it, boyo.”

  “Right. Seeing that you transported me up safely enough, what say we bring up the lovely Dr. DeKella next?”

  “You sure she’s okay with that?” Geezer asked.

  “Let’s find out.”

  The robot shrugged and reached for his datapad. “You’re the boss.”

  A few moments later, a screaming Dr. DeKella was standing in the engineering room looking as though she’d seen a ghost. Harr reached out and rubbed her shoulders to try and calm her down. It seemed to be arousing her instead. He focused on his HUD and noted that it was yet another erogenous zone.

  “Rella,” Harr said gently while pulling his hands away, “listen to me.”

  “Wacky wacky wham! Wacky wacky wham!”

  “Dr. DeKella,” he said more sternly, grabbing her by the elbows, which was not on the list of Kallian play parts, “you’re going to have to get a hold of yourself.” She was on the brink of hyperventilation. “Listen to me,” Harr continued firmly, “I know that this is a lot to take in, but you can handle it.”

  “Sounds like something Jezden would say,” noted Geezer, just loud enough for only Harr to hear.

  “What the hell is happening?” Her voice was a ragged whisper. “Have I lost my mind?”

  “Not yet,” Harr answered. “You’re on my ship, Rella. We’re currently orbiting above your planet.”

  “That’s not possible.” Her eyes were darting about. “We would have seen you.”

  “Nah, ladybug,” Geezer said, causing her to jump and shriek again. “We’re cloaked.”

  She pointed at Geezer in horror. “Talking metal…” was all she could muster before her eyes rolled up into her head and she keeled over. Fortunately, Harr caught her just before she hit the floor.

  “That went well,” Geezer said.

  “I’m going to carry her up to the bridge.”

  “Use my lift,” Geezer suggested, pointing to the mini elevator by the far wall. “It’ll be easier.”

  “Good idea.”

  SPY CONCERN

  All Kallian buildings had built-in life sensors. It was not considered a means of spying, but rather a way to make sure that nobody was in distress. The Lifeform Reader, or LFR, as they were called, didn’t pay any attention to what the lifeform in question was actually up to, but rather just verified if they were registering still as a lifeform at all. In other words, if a person died, the LFR would know about it and would send out an urgent message to the local hospital. This wasn’t all that helpful in the grand scheme of things, considering that the LFR could only manage to judge between life and death. If the person died, the emergency response crews arriving on the scene couldn’t do much but take the body away. Eventually, the LFR systems were instead tied directly to the morgue network, being that it was a more efficient protocol. It was reported that the company who pioneered the LFR was working on a new model, called the LF Distress Reader, which could detect signs of extreme discomfort as well. Their initial tests showed too many dispatches to homes where people had recently eaten at Taco Gong or had tried out the various forms of kink mentioned in the best-selling Fifty-Three Shades of White, though. Anyone who has ever eaten at Taco Gong was bound to have a few restroom visits that would register on the LFDR, and anyone who was interested in Fifty-Three Shades of White were probably just plain bound.

  “What do you mean there’s only one lifeform registering in the bathroom now? How’s that possible?”

  “Maybe they’re, uh, merging, sir,” Ewups answered.

  “It only reads one lifeform when people do that?” Struggins asked, greatly confused by the technician’s lack of knowledge on a subject that he should be an expert on. Not the subject of merging, of course, but rather the subject of how the LFR readings actually worked.

  “I guess so,” said Ewups. “I’ve never scanned people who were in the middle of relations before, and it’s not like they have the LFDR installed, sir.”

  Struggins grunted.

  “Wait,” Ewups said while typing something on his machine. “Now it’s showing that nobody is in that room.”

  “That’s not possible,” Struggins said with a huff. “Obviously your equipment is malfunctioning.”

  “No, sir,” Ewups answered with a firm shake of his head. “I just had it checked at the urologist last week because things haven’t been so great between me and the missus. He said I have the body of a thirty-five year old.”

  “But you’re only twenty-two,” said Deddles.

  “I’m talking about the surveillance equipment,” Struggins stated. “Your connection to the LFR is clearly screwed up. Idiots.”

  “Oh, right.” Ewups started typing faster than any person should be capable of. Rows and rows of gobbledygook flew down his screen as Struggins gazed in wonder. Ewups ran his finger back and forth over the incoming data as if he were reading a novel. “No, I don’t think that’s it.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because it’s still picking up readings on an ant and a colony of termites.”

  Struggins brought his hand to his chin. Something else
had to be going on here. LFRs may be mostly pointless, but they rarely failed.

  Maybe these “inspectors” were some type of undercover task force sent in to kidnap DeKella so that they could get all of the secrets on the warp technology for themselves. But who would even do that? There was only one military in all of Kallian. It could be terrorists, of course, were there any. The last terrorist group to exist was wiped out during the Raid of Gipany over twenty years ago. A few start-ups tried to follow, but they were easily squashed. Obviously, there could be a new group that was just up and coming and not yet on the radar. If so, they were certainly well-funded and very good at their jobs.

  “Where the hell could they be?” Struggins said softly, more to himself than to Ewups.

  “I don’t know, sir. It’s like they’ve vanished.”

  He hated not having eyes on a situation that needed eyes. Being in the dark was not something that a general in the Kallian Military was accustomed to. That meant he had no other options but to send in the cavalry.

  “Deddles,” he said calmly, “mobilize the stealth soldiers and get them into Dr. DeKella’s house, on the double.”

  “Now, sir?”

  “Yes, Private, now.”

  “I will need to get the forms, sir,” Deddles said as he sat down at one of the computers and looked at it dumbly. “Does anyone know how to get the forms from here?”

  “Deddles,” Struggins said, closing his eyes, “we don’t have time to fill out any forms. This is an emergency situation. You just need to mobilize the stealth soldiers as I have just requested you to do.”

  “But, sir…”

  “You can tell them that it is under the direct order of General Struggins. I will worry about cleaning up the mess later.” And he would do so by having Deddles clean up the mess later.

  “Are you sure, because…”

  Struggins felt his calm break. He yanked Deddles from the chair, grabbed the front of his uniform and began shaking him as he screamed, “Mobilize! Mobilize!”

  SEEING KALLIAN

  It had taken Dr. DeKella a little while to calm down after regaining consciousness. Harr had seated her in the Captain’s chair on the bridge of the SSMC Reluctant. He had introduced her to Sandoo, Moon, Middleton, and Curr, though he was careful to hold back the fact that they were all androids, as he wasn’t sure she could handle that at the moment. How she’d reacted to Geezer was bad enough.

  On the screen was the floating image of Kallian. Harr could only imagine how she felt seeing her world from this perspective. He had grown up in an era where viewing planets from outer space was old hat to even the common man. On Kallian, though, it was only the chosen few who had been given this privilege.

  “That’s your home planet, Rella.”

  “It’s amazing.” She was barely audible. “There just aren’t any words.”

  He knelt down beside her and took her hand in his, carefully avoiding the little webbing between her forefinger and thumb.

  “We have to talk, Rella,” he said gently.

  She turned and looked at him with shock in her eyes. “This isn’t one of those it’s-not-you-it’s-me conversations, is it?”

  “What?”

  “I mean, it’s not like we’ve really got anything going on yet. Granted, you were at my house and you somehow managed to convince me to have sex with you in the bathroom,”—the androids spun around and gave him a disturbed look— “and even though it turned out that you weren’t trying to have sex with me in the bathroom,” —the androids un-grimaced and turned back to their stations— “I was still willing to do that because I thought we had something special going on here.”

  “So do I,” Harr said, relieved that she felt the same way.

  “Then why do we need to talk? Nothing good ever comes from the ‘we need to talk’ talk. I know because I’ve had many of those talks.”

  “I’m sorry,” Harr said. She was obviously still in a heap of mental confusion, so he had to choose his words carefully. “We were sent to your planet for a very specific reason.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “It’s not great,” he admitted with a frown. “You see, we were sent by a highly intelligent race—according to them—that believes your society is progressing to a point where you could be a threat to them some day.”

  “Some day? Like in a week, or a year, or what?”

  “Honestly, Rella, I haven’t a clue how they calculate these things. I just know that if that warp test of yours succeeds tomorrow, they’re going to destroy your planet.”

  She sat up straight. “You can’t be serious.”

  “We’re in a spaceship, Rella. I’m not sure what more I can do to show you how serious I am.”

  “Shit,” she said while pushing herself out of the chair as if looking for a way to escape. It was obvious to Harr that she was about to pass out again, so he jumped over and grabbed her before she could fall.

  “What happened?” Sandoo said. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s just dizzy,” Harr replied. “You know how it is with people being on a ship for the first time.”

  “Not really,” Sandoo said.

  “My guess is something inner-ear.”

  “We have a bathroom she could use, if that will help?”

  Harr tilted his head at Sandoo. Then he rolled his eyes and said it very slowly this time. “Inner ear, Commander.”

  “Oh!” Sandoo nodded. “You mean her cochlear fluids are imbalanced. I see now. I thought you meant…”

  “I know, I know. Easy to misunderstand. Let it go.”

  Finally, Dr. DeKella closed her eyes and steadied herself. “What do we do?”

  Harr hated to have to answer that question, but there really was no other way around it. They couldn’t be allowed to succeed. Not only for the sake of Kallian, but also for the sake of his crew and ship.

  “The test has to fail, Rella.”

  “But…”

  “I know how you feel,” Harr stated before she could start, “and believe me when I say that I have absolutely no personal desire to see your life’s work go down the toilet, but these people mean business. If we don’t flub up that test, Kallian is going to be a lot less spherical come tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Wow.”

  “This has to be a lot to process, and I’m sorry that you’re involved in all of this.”

  “Like you said,” she said quietly, “I’m in charge of the project. Matter of circumstance.” Harr gave her a few minutes to process everything. Eventually, she said, “Well, how do we proceed?”

  “You have to tell me that,” Harr answered. “I need a way to stop that test from succeeding. Hopefully without anyone getting hurt.”

  “Okay,” she said, nodding. “We just have to block the Stewnathium Particles from getting to the Multicombo Chamber.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will that be catastrophic enough?” Harr asked. “This has to be one of the epic failures that can’t be recovered from, Rella. In other words, your reputation, career, and everything have to be completely tarnished from this. You have to be made to look the fool so that nobody can easily pick up where you left off. They have to drop this project completely.”

  “Right,” she said stoically. “Okay, so I’ll introduce in Layzo Atoms. They’ll interact with the mixture in the chamber and cause a full meltdown, assuming that the Stewnathium Particles don’t make it through. It just has to look like they did, and that those particles are what caused the meltdown.”

  “Got it,” Harr affirmed. “How do we stop them?”

  “Someone from your team will have to be in the room above the lab. There’s an access portal on the side of the housing for the particles. They’ll need to insert a Claythom Pole into the main port and that will block the flow.”

  “And this pole is in that room?”

  “It will be,” she said. “I’ll hide it behind one of the pillars. You’ll just have to be sure that those parti
cles don’t get through.”

  “Understood,” Harr said. “If they get through, then your test will succeed, and that…”

  “No,” she interrupted, “not with Layzo Atoms in the mix. If the particles get through, it’ll cause the building to explode.”

  “What?”

  “I need the Layzos in there to melt down the chamber, but if you mix Layzos with Stewnathium Particles, you’re going to have a very bad day.”

  “I see,” said Harr as he rubbed his superhero chin. “Well, let’s get back down to your bathroom and get things rolling. We don’t have a lot of time.”

  She ogled the main screen and said, “May I have one last look at my Kallian before we go?”

  “Of course,” Harr said, motioning her back to his chair. “Actually, Lieutenant Moon, would you do our guest the kindness of flying her completely around the planet, please?”

  “Certainly, thir.”

  'COME TO VELI' MEETING

  The job as a whole wasn’t bad, considered Frexle. In fact, it was pretty decent when you considered the perks that came along with it. But reporting to Veli was a dicey proposition, and the Lord Overseer had demanded another meeting. It wasn’t Veli’s style to request anything.

  Fortunately, Veli wasn’t eating this time.

  “There’s a rumor going around that you are the head of this HadItWithTheKillings group, Frexle,” Veli said gratingly. “Is this true?”

  Frexle fought to keep himself calm. Being accused of such a thing could be a death sentence. There was no ‘innocent until proven guilty’ rule in the land of the Overseers, after all. Of course, he was essentially facing his demise anyway since Veli had all but decided that Platoon F was going to fail, hence the real reason he’d sent Vool. There was still hope that the crew would succeed, and that had given Frexle enough to hang onto…until now.