“Yes, sir.”
Harr grinned as they were shuffled up to the very room that housed the Stewnathium Particles. He had been worried over how he was going to get into that room without drawing attention, but the general had unwittingly helped them do just that. As they moved into the room, Vool walked to the far wall and leaned against it. Unfortunately, since the wires had been refastened, her explosives were back in play.
“So, they’re on to us,” Ridly whispered, “but they put us in the room that we needed to be in to stop the test?”
“Struggins doesn’t know how anything actually works,” Harr replied, keeping his voice low. “He just thinks it’s a safe place to house us while the test goes on. We have a bigger problem than stopping these particles, though.”
“What?”
“Struggins got all of the wires reconnected on Vool’s charges.”
“What?”
“Apparently on this world,” Harr explained, “cutting the red wires sets off a countdown for bombs.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Agreed, but I’m sure a lot of things that we take for normal on Segnal would be stupid to these people.”
“Well, what the hell are we going to do?” Ridly asked. “If Vool enters the destruct code on that little box of hers, we’re done for.”
Harr tapped his wristband. “Geezer?”
“Here, cap’n.”
“Can you impair Vool’s vision with those contact lenses that you gave her?”
“What do you mean?”
“You have to do something to mess up her vision.”
“Yeah, I got that. What I’m asking is why?”
“The bombs are active again.”
“Shit,” Geezer said. “That’s going to be…wait, I got it. It’s like a camera lens, so I’ll just zoom in and out over and over. That’ll mess her up, big time. To make it even worse, I’ll do each eye separately.”
“Perfect.”
Moments later, Vool grabbed the wall and started wavering. She was clearly about ready to wretch when she closed her eyes and steadied herself.
“What the hell is going on?” she said.
“It’s working, Geezer,” Harr said into his wristband.
“Captain Harr,” Vool said icily, “are you trying to interfere with my mission?”
“I’m merely stopping you from interfering with mine, Vool.”
“And you think you can outdo an Overseer with a simple set of contact lenses?” She laughed and reached under her eyelids and pulled the lenses out. “Idiot.”
“Geezer,” Harr said, defeated, “she pulled them out.”
“Saw that, big cat.”
“You and that bucket of bolts you call an engineer can’t outwit me, Harr,” Vool said snidely. “Your brains are the size of an atom compared to mine.”
“Actually,” Ridly interjected, “that makes zero sense. The size of your cranium is roughly the same as Captain Harr’s, so, technically, your brain couldn’t be much larger than his. If anything, I would wager it would be smaller, based on the visual comparison of your two skulls.”
“I meant that my intellectual capacity is far superior to any stupid human’s.”
“You’re a human also,” noted Ridly.
“Humanoid,” Vool corrected her, “not human.”
“Ah.”
“That broad is a real piece of shit,” Geezer said into Harr’s earpiece.
“Agreed, Geezer. She is a real piece of…uh…work.”
Vool pushed off the wall and walked toward the window that overlooked the lab below. “Once I’m done blowing up this silly planet, I’m going to go up to that ship of yours, deactivate that stupid hunk of metal in your engineering department, and then I’ll take your precious Reluctant back to the Overseers and we’ll have a big parade where we’ll melt it down in the volcano of my choosing.”
How people like this ended up policing the universe seemed very…well, expected, actually. Harr didn’t like it. Not that the Overseers would give a crap about what he thought, but he didn’t like it.
“You never intended for us to succeed, did you?” Harr asked.
“Of course not. We wanted you to fail. We were just using you to show our people that we ‘tried.’” She laughed. “Bunch of silly liberals.”
“If you press that button,” Ridly said, pointing at the box that Vool was holding, “aren’t you going to blow up, too?
“I’m not as weak as you are, human,” Vool said with a scoff. “I’ll be off this rock and back on the Reluctant before the blast even reaches me. You see, we have transporter technology where I come from. Sadly, you won’t live long enough to reach that level of advancement.”
“Keep her talking, honcho,” Geezer said in Harr’s ear. “I’ve been working on a tweak to the transporter to get rid of the slowness. If it’s as slow as it was with you when you were in that chick’s bathroom, Vool will get out of it. Trying to make it instant.”
“Sure it’ll work?” Harr said, turning away so Vool couldn’t hear him.
“It’ll transport her for sure, but I don’t know if the upgrades will get her to where she’s going in one piece or not.”
“Let’s hope not.” He spun back toward Vool and thought to incite her. “So, what makes you think you’ve the right to determine the destiny of other civilizations?”
“We’re smarter than everyone?”
“Only because you stop everyone else from having a chance to usurp your power,” he countered.
“Duh,” she said with an ‘are-you-stupid?’ look on her face.
“My point, Vool, is that you’re probably not as smart as you think you are. You’re just smart enough to make it so nobody else ever gets to a point where they can eclipse your intellect.”
“Again,” she said, raising her eyebrows, “duh. I know what you’re trying to do, Harr, and it’s not going to work. You’re simply too dumb to outfox me, as you’ve adequately proved in your last two statements.”
“One day you’re going to meet your match, Vool.”
She held her hands out in front of her and shook them around. “Am I shaking? I feel like I should be shaking.” Then she dropped her hands and rolled her eyes at him.
“Smartass,” Harr said.
“Better than being a dumbass,” she noted.
“Almost there, prime,” Geezer said. “Thirty seconds, tops.”
Harr thought quickly. “You don’t think we could take you out, Vool? There are three of us here.”
“Oh, please,” she said with a laugh. “I’d snap all three of your necks faster than you could even move. Especially you, Harr. You’re slow as shit compared to these two.”
“We’re going to win, Vool, no matter what you do.”
She shook her head. “Yeah, right. I’m sure that you’ll just catch me off guard somehow. Like I’m stupid enough to fall for some trick by some inferior concoction of sub-par DNA.” Suddenly, the detonator disappeared from Vool’s hand. “What the hell?” she said and gawked at Harr with a face that spelled fear.
“Duh,” said Harr with a smile an instant before her body faded out of view.
“Where did she go?” asked Jezden.
“Forgot to tell you that Geezer’s transporter is working.” Harr activated the speaker on his wristband. “She’s gone, Geezer.”
“Right on.”
“Way to go, Geezer,” Ridly said with a laugh.
“Thanks, queen bee,” Geezer replied. “It was nothing.”
“Where did you send her?” Harr asked.
“She’s in the Multicombo Chamber.”
“Ew,” said Jezden.
“Didn’t Dr. DeKella tell you that everything in there was going to melt down?” said Ridly.
“Instantly,” Harr responded, feeling a twang of unexpected pleasure at knowing that Vool was no more. “I’m assuming the detonator is in there with her?”
“No, cap’n. I didn’t want to chance her being able to activate it, so I sent it somewhere
else.”
“Where?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure. I just know it’s not with her, prime.”
“How are you not sure?”
“Because it was more important that she end up in that pot. I’m sure it’s around there somewhere, but nobody knows how to use it but Vool, so I’m not worried.
“That’s a pretty nasty way to go,” Jezden said as he looked down toward the lab floor, “even if she did call me ‘tiny tail’ all the time.”
“Get over it, already,” Ridly said in a huff. “Your tail’s not even real. Just let it go.”
“Easy for you to say, Ridly. I’m used to getting laid all the time, but it’s been damn near two days since my last session. Do you know what that can do to a mind like mine? Tack on top of that fact that everyone on this infernal planet thinks I have zero sexual prowess, and that gives me just enough ammunition to want to join Vool in that vat. I’m so damned horny right now that even Harr, here, looks appealing.”
“Stand back, Jezden.”
“I wasn’t being serious,” Jezden said with a grunt.
“Wait a minute,” Harr said suddenly. “Did you just say that you haven’t had relations in two days?”
“Yeah.”
“That implies that you’re having relations with someone on the ship. There are only two women on the Reluctant, Ensign, and I’m certain that Lieutenant Moon isn’t your type, which means…”
“It’s obviously me, Captain,” Ridly said nonchalantly.
“But you can’t stand him!”
“True,” she agreed with a shrug, “but the man’s got talent.”
“Okay, okay,” Harr said, holding up his hands. “I’m sorry I asked. Still, I don’t understand why there’s a problem. You’ve both been together the entire time. If you’ve been getting it on with each other on the ship, why not get it on here, too?”
Ridly shook her head in surprise. “Dr. Baloo can’t have sex with a tiny tail, Captain. That would be out of character!”
KEEPING AN EYE
Struggins couldn’t help but wonder how Ewups thought he was doing what was demanded of him. All he had to do was keep an eye on the supposed inspectors, but the boy was standing at the window looking across at the room that housed the imposters. This would have made sense had that room not had the same one-way glass that the command room had.
“I thought I told you to keep an eye on those people, Ewups?” he said.
“Trying, sir.”
“Why are you standing by the window, then?”
“So I can see them, sir.”
“And, how, pray tell, are you able to see them, Ewups?” Struggins said, his voice beginning to rise. “Do you have some sort of special vision that allows you to see through the wrong side of one-way glass?”
“Uh…no, sir.”
“Yet there you are, looking like a befuddled animal that’s staring into the lights of an oncoming truck.” Ewups glanced at the general with the look of an animal staring into the lights of an oncoming truck. Struggins sighed and shook his head. “Honestly, I have no idea why I bother. I also have no idea who the hell thought it would be a wise idea to put one-ways on that damn room in the first place. It’s not a command room.”
“It was a bundle deal, sir,” Private Deddles offered. “The price to do two rooms was cheaper than one.”
“Unbelievable, not to mention nonsensical. It would cost the manufacturer more…never mind. Mr. Ewups, my point in all of this is that you should just be sitting at your desk watching the video feed from that room.”
“There are no cameras in that room, sir,” Ewups replied like a man who knew what was coming.
“You’re telling me that my lead technician,” Struggins began, “the soldier who I put in charge of the surveillance for the most important project in the history of Kallian, decided that it was not in the best interest of this military to keep eyes on a room that has no other means of viewing?”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I have no answer for that, sir.”
“Well, then, Ewups, let me answer it for you. You didn’t put cameras in there because you’re a complete imbecile. Think that about nails it on the head?”
“Sorry, sir.”
“I have a feeling that there might be a bit more delay on those papers sitting on my desk, Ewups.”
Ewups’ shoulders slumped as he sulked back to his desk.
In the event that this warp test was successful, Struggins was going to insist on building up a space fleet full of mentally fit, intelligent, qualified soldiers. No more getting in because your mother or father was a member of Parliament crap. Kallian’s emissary fleet—meaning the fleet that was going to explore strange new worlds, seek out new civilizations, and blow the shit out of them—was going to be stocked with the best of the best. People like Struggins himself would have to be the baseline, though he had to admit that that was a tall order.
“Deddles,” he said with hope, “please tell me that you cleared that room like I asked you to?”
“I did, sir,” Deddles replied. “The only thing I found was this 12-inch pole.”
“Finally, something was done correctly,” Struggins said, feeling a bit of relief. “I don’t know what the hell it’s for,” he said, looking it over, “but better to be safe than sorry.”
THE TEST
Harr was looking out the window as Dr. DeKella continued her speech. She sounded tinny through the little speakers that were in the Stewnathium Particles room, and there was the slightest crackling sound. She kept looking up at the glass, and was clearly stalling for time.
“And now we approach the time for history to be made,” she said insistently. “At the press of this button, the countdown to release the Stewnathium Particles will begin. Once released, they will mix in the Multicombo Chamber and a set of controlled explosions will occur. From that will come a magnetic field that shall expand and be focused around the metal box in Room C.” She pointed. Heads and cameras jockeyed for position to catch a glimpse of the box. “If all goes as planned, the box will lift and move into a warp field.”
“I don’t see the damn pole, Captain,” Ridly said frantically.
“She said it would be behind one of the pillars,” Harr replied.
“I’ve checked them all.”
“I re-checked them,” Jezden added. “It ain’t there.”
Harr glanced up at the command room where Struggins was likely smiling smugly down upon him.
“Damn,” Harr said. “Struggins must have gotten a hold of it.”
“Well,” DeKella said exasperatedly, “without further ado, I guess I’ll go ahead and start the sequence.”
Harr cringed as she reached out and pressed the button.
The sound of a computer voice filled the lab.
Chamber centrifuge activated. One hundred and eighty seconds until the Stewnathium Particles are released. Please verify final procedural connections and secure Room C.
“We have to block that damn feed,” Harr said, pushing away from the window. “If we don’t, we’re all dead.” Ridly and Jezden just stared at him. “Ideas?”
“We could transport back to the ship and hide from the Overseers,” Ridly suggested.
“Doubt we’d be able to hide for long. You were there when they snapped us up in the first place, and Geezer hasn’t been able to find that damn device that Frexle installed.” He turned toward the ensign. “Jezden, do you have any ideas?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” he answered in frustration. “My head is a complete mess. Damn my programming!”
“Geezer?”
“I’ve been trying to get a lock on the Stewnathium Particles to see if I can just beam them out of that chamber, prime, but my transporter doesn’t even recognize them and there’s not enough time to alter that Ridgway Converter to guilt the tech into it.”
“I’m on the call as well, sir,” Sandoo announced. “I’ve been working w
ith Moon, Curr, and Middleton, and the only thing we can think of is taking a targeted shot to knock out that building. It’s not ideal, but it would guarantee a failure. We’d just have to transport you three back to the ship first.”
“Except that those chemicals in those charges would likely mix during that explosion,” Geezer pointed out. “That means a very large boom instead.”
“Yes,” Harr replied, “but you can beam those out.”
“Good point, honcho. Hadn’t thought of that.”
“Actually, you should do that anyway, just in case.”
“Consider it done. I’ll put them somewhere deep in space.”
Ninety seconds to Stewnathium Particle release.
Harr gazed out at Dr. DeKella. He hated the thought of it, but he felt that Sandoo and the rest of the team were correct. It was the only way out. There was ample justification for their position, too. Billions of lives were at stake. Losing thousands was awful, but to protect the masses, he would sacrifice the few. It was the only logical way.
Sixty seconds to Stewnathium Particle release.
“Come on, Ridly,” Jezden was saying, which Harr was catching on the periphery of his thoughts, “what do you say? One last fling before time’s up? You know it doesn’t take me long to get this thing up and running, especially after two days of nothing.”
Forty-five seconds to Stewnathium Particle release.
“That’s it,” Harr said as he spun and pointed at Jezden.
“What’s it? Why are you pointing at me?”
GETTING TOGETHER
Harr sat on Dr. DeKella’s couch as the two cuddled and watched the news. They had finally consummated their relationship. First they did it the Kallian way, which was oddly fun for Harr. Then he showed her how Segnalians got busy. She had enthusiastically approved.
“To call the warp test a failure,” said Newscaster Melia Mekub, “would be a drastic understatement. The chamber that housed all of the necessary components completely melted down; the Stewnathium Particles turned out to be a complete flop; and the combination of items in that chamber somehow managed to produce strands of hair and bone fragments.” Harr gagged at the knowledge of where those really came from. “Unfortunately, it’s been reported that the components needed for that mix had taken years to cultivate, and that means that warp technology has been set back at least a full generation, assuming they can even gather together the funding to give it another shot. Contrary to what was first reported, though, it turns out that this was not the fault of any scientists on the project.” Harr and DeKella both sat up at this statement. “It seems that the military commander in charge, a General Laffable Struggins, had sabotaged the entire thing.”
Platoon F: Quadology: Missions 6, 7, 8, and 9 (Platoon F eBook Bundle 2) Page 19