“You two are going in first,” Jeffers said, jolting Harr from his memory.
Harr followed Grunt, which was the name Harr had decided on for the man that had been sitting with him on the bus, as they entered through the monstrous doors. If nothing else, the feel of the place was enough to scare the hell out of any man.
As soon as they entered the area, another guard arrived. He was tall, muscular, and had a face that made it clear he enjoyed grimacing.
“Name’s Kark,” he said in a gruff voice. “My job is to tell you a bit about this place. Get you ready for what’s to come.” He studied both Harr and the other guy for a moment. “Then you’re going through the washing ceremony before you’re sent off to your cells. Questions?”
They both shook their heads.
“Follow me,” Kark said and then stopped abruptly. “Oh, don’t try anything funny. Those guys up in the turrets, there,” he added while pointing out multiple snipers, “are always itching to pop one of you dirtbags. Questions?”
Their heads shook faster.
“Didn’t think so.”
They walked into a medium-sized room where a number of plaques were hung alongside the portrait of a man in uniform. Obviously, this man was the Joe Simon that the prison had been named after. He was a stoic-looking fellow with salt-and-pepper hair and matching goatee, but his face held a bit of something that Harr could only label as “irreverent.” It was in the eyes. The medals that lined his breast were impressive, though Harr had no idea what they represented. The one that was most odd was that of a strangely-shaped head on a blue background with a white star above it and red tails streaking behind. It had the word “Patrioteers” underneath of it. Harr assumed that this was some kind of military moniker.
“You’re in the room that we in uniform hold sacred. Saying a bad word in here can land you in the pit for a month, so don’t do it.”
Kark walked over to the plaques and held his hand up to them.
“Each of these tells a story about Staff Lieutenant Simon, but the one that etched his name in the books of immortality is rooted deep within the hearts and minds of all sports lovers on Fantasy Planet.”
“There are a lot of sports here?” asked Harr.
“You must be new to the planet,” Kark said without malice.
Harr was just thankful that the man hadn’t pulled forth a billy club.
“Yes, sir.”
“We have a set of games on the planet that happen every weekend for part of the year,” Kark explained. “It’s called fantasyball.”
“Fantasyball?” said Grunt with a scoff.
“You’re new too, eh?”
Grunt grunted.
“Right, well, fantasyball has a simple premise. A group of players on one side works together to run a ball through three gates that are laid out on a field. The other side tries to stop those guys from doing that. If the guys can’t get the job done within ten tries, then the other side gets the ball and they get their shot at it.”
“Interesting,” said Harr. “It sounds similar to a game that we play on my home world of Segnal, except we have one team trying to run down a field while the other tries to stop them. There are no gates, and—”
“Never heard of it,” Kark interrupted with a sneer, clearly not caring about Segnal’s brand of sporting events. Harr quieted. “Anyway, about fifty years back there was an incident with one of the teams where the commissioner of the fantasyball league claimed that one of the teams, the Patrioteers, had been cheating.” He stopped and grimaced. “Well, he didn’t actually make the claim, but he was the one who pushed it. Anyway, the accusation was that each of the Patrioteers had worn shoes that were stuffed with cloth to make them one-size too small and—”
“Sorry,” Harr said, raising his hand, “why would that be cheating?”
“Because that would make them run faster, obviously.”
“How?”
“Think about it, man,” Kark said as if Harr were an imbecile. “If you’re wearing shoes that are really tight, you’re going to want to take them off as soon as possible, right?”
“I guess so.”
“And that means you’re going to run like hell to get to the other side so you can do that.”
“I see,” said Harr, though as was usually the case with most things that people held as logical, he didn’t.
“Anyway,” Kark continued, “it turned out that when the trainers were cleaning the insides of the shoes prior to the game, some of the cloths were accidentally left inside.”
“And the players couldn’t just remove the cloths?” asked Grunt before Harr could get there.
“Not the job of the players to make sure their shoes fit right. They simply put them on and play the game, yeah?”
“Hmmm,” said Harr.
“Well, the Patrioteers ended up winning the Supercup and that’s when the commissioner went on to try and get the main star of the team suspended.”
“What’s this got to do with Staff Lieutenant Simon?” Grunt asked, for the first time looking more interested than irritated.
“Oh, he was pissed at the commissioner for being such a douche canoe, so he took it upon himself to dig up some dirt on the man.” Kark smiled proudly. “Didn’t take long, either. Turns out that Badsmell—that’s the commissioner—had been betting on the games on the side, and the real reason he was pursuing the Patrioteers was because he’d bet against them in the Supercup.”
“Ah,” Harr said with a nod.
“That got the commissioner fired and then he was formally charged with breaking the law—it’s illegal to bet on sports on Fantasy Planet, you know?”
“We do now,” Harr affirmed.
“Yeah, so he got life in prison for it.”
“Life in prison for betting on a game of sports?” said Grunt.
“Second only to murder here, pal. Rotten Badsmell got what he deserved.”
“Wait, the commissioner’s name is Rotten Badsmell?” Harr asked.
“It was officially changed to that as part of his sentencing.”
“That’s brutal.”
“Yep,” Kark said with a sinister grin. “Anyway, because of all of that, this new prison was constructed, named after the immortal Staff Lieutenant Simon, and here we are today.”
Their next stop was the cleansing area. It wasn’t anything like the Cleaner on the Reluctant. This layout had three concrete walls that the prisoner walked into, after undressing. Once inside, a handful of guards unleashed a set of fire hoses that “scrubbed” the person clean. The water blasted Harr with such force that he almost felt bad for what Grog and Vlak must have gone through during their foray into the Cleaner.
Finally, he staggered out of the cleansing area and made his way over to the next station. He was given an orange prisoner’s outfit and was told to put it on. He noted that there was a number embroidered on the left-breast pocket. For the duration of his stay, Harr would be prisoner number 977236.
“Greps,” said Kark, “take 977236 here down to cell 29.”
“You got it,” Greps said as he took Harr by the elbow. “Come on, 977236.”
“The name is Harr,” Harr stated.
“No, asshole,” Greps said tightly, “your name is 977236. You broke the law on Fantasy Planet. You no longer have a name.”
“Right.”
Behind them, Harr heard Kark say, “Take 977237 to cell 29.”
“Great,” said Harr, glancing back to see the man that had been sitting next to him on the bus. “I’ve got Grunt in my cell.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Greps pushed Harr into cage 29 and told him to pick a bunk. On most shows the tougher guy picked the top bunk, but Harr never understood that. From his point of view, the bottom bunk made more sense. Easy to stab, choke, or do all sorts of deadly things to a guy on the top bunk because he couldn’t see you coming. At least on the bottom—assuming you weren’t too-deep of a sleeper—you had a chance to respond
before it was too late.
Grunt was thrown into the cell with such force that he slammed into Harr’s chest. The little man shoved Harr as hard as he could. Harr didn’t budge. That seemed to aggravate the dinky dude even more.
Greps and the other guard shook their heads and walked back towards the processing station.
“Better keep one eye open when you sleep,” Grunt said as he climbed up to the top bunk.
BACK TO BASE
Geezer wasn’t sure what to do with Grog and Vlak. He’d considered sticking them in the Feeder again, but thought it might be wise to give their brains a little while longer to recover. He had no statistics on whether or not the Feeder could do any damage. It wouldn’t hurt him or the androids, he guessed, assuming it worked on them at all, but humans were frail in comparison.
“We know you don’t want us up here, pal,” Grog said miserably, “but there’s got to be something we can do to make your life easier.”
“Yeah,” agreed Vlak. “No point in us sitting around doing nothing.”
Geezer looked them both over. He couldn’t help but feel bad for them. While it was probably pretty awesome from their perspective to have just left a planet where fire was the latest rage to suddenly zipping through space on a ship, they no doubt felt way out of place.
“Well,” Geezer said, “how much did you learn from the Feeder regarding engine technology?”
“Are you talking thrust-based, magnetic, or Faster-Than-Light?” asked Vlak.
Geezer shrugged. “Let’s go with FTL.”
“What’s FTL?” said Grog.
“Faster-Than-Light,” Geezer said.
“Oh,” Vlak said, rubbing his hairless chin, “it’s called that, too?”
“FTL is an acronym.”
“A what?”
“Obviously I need to update the Feeder. Okay, an acronym is an abbreviation of something. So, instead of saying Faster-Than-Light over and over, we take the initials from each word and we get FTL. It’s easier that way.”
“Ah, that makes sense,” said Vlak.
Geezer turned towards his desk and pulled up the schematics for the GONE Drive. Grog and Vlak stood on either side of the robot as he zoomed in on one of the wiring matrix sections.
“What the hell is that?” Grog said.
“It’s part of the board for the GONE Drive,” Geezer answered. “That’s the drive that I created to allow us to travel to any point in space in an instant. It also allows us to do time travel.”
“Why did you name it the GONE Drive?” asked Vlak.
“Another acronym,” answered Geezer. “It stands for the G.3.3.Z.3.R. Optimal Neutrino Escape Drive.”
“What’s the G.3.3.Z.3.R. bit?”
“That’s my design type, Grog.”
“Oh. Does it mean anything?”
“Probably,” Geezer answered and then pointed back to the screen. “Anyway, this is the …” He paused as the upper-left of the screen blinked to let him know that the location of the Reluctant had changed. “That’s odd.”
“You’re telling me, pal,” said Grog. “Looks like a bunch of tiny wires running all over the place.”
“No,” Geezer said, checking over a few items, “we just transported.”
“Did you press a button or something?” asked Vlak.
Geezer didn’t reply. He shut down the GONE Drive schematic and brought up the external monitor and then verified their coordinates. They were back with the Overseers.
“Whoa,” said Grog. “What the hell is that joint?”
“Overseers’ main base,” Geezer replied. “I guess they need us for something.”
“You’re talking about those uber-smart dudes?” Vlak said.
“So they say.”
That’s when the sound of a familiar voice could be heard echoing down the hallway. Geezer spun to see a middle-aged man with curly brown hair. He was about the same build and height as Captain Harr, but this guy’s face was lean, his eyes were overly large, and his legs, though covered with tight pants, were so thin that it was amazing he could hold himself upright, let alone walk.
It was their boss, Frexle.
He was the guy who had been assigned by Lord Overseer Veli to be in charge of The SSMC Reluctant and all of her missions. Actually, Frexle had discovered the ship and the crew of Platoon F after they had left Segnal. Were it not for Frexle, and the Overseers, the Reluctant would probably be running smuggling missions for some seedy planet near the galactic edge, which in hindsight would probably have made for a more stable existence.
“Frexle?”
“Ah, there you are, Geezer,” Frexle said in his dramatic way. “Where’s the rest of the crew?”
“Helping out our old CO at Fantasy Planet, remember?”
“But I transported you back just now,” Frexle said with one eyebrow raised.
“No, you transported the Reluctant back, and it’s only the three of us on it, so everyone else is now stranded on Fantasy Planet.”
“Hadn’t thought of that,” Frexle said as he looked over Grog and Vlak. “Who are these two?”
“Uh … well—” Geezer started, but Grog spoke up before he could come up with something.
“Name’s Grog, and this is Vlak.”
“We’re EEH’s.”
“What’s an EEH?” said Frexle.
“It’s an acronym,” Grog stated. “You know, when you take the initials …”
“I know what an acronym is, thank you very much. What I’m asking is what this particular acronym stands for.”
“Early Evolutionary Humanoids,” Vlak answered and then turned to Grog. “I gotta say, Grog, that does sound good. I wasn’t so sure at first, but when you actually speak it … well, it kind of flows.”
“Yeah? Thanks, Vlak.”
“Geezer?” Frexle said, giving the robot a dubious glance.
Geezer’s eyes dimmed. “These were the two smart guys from that Mugoog planet you sent us to take care of.”
Frexle took a deep breath. Geezer still couldn’t read the various physical attributes of humanoids perfectly, but he’d guessed that Frexle wasn’t too keen on the idea of having Grog and Vlak on board the Reluctant.
“You brought them onto the ship?”
“That seems like an obvious conclusion,” said Vlak. “I mean, here we are, yeah?” He then spoke out of the corner of his mouth to Grog. “And they call us cavemen.”
“I thought you said that these Overseers were smarter than you guys?” Grog said to Geezer.
“Never said that,” Geezer replied. “I said that they said they were smarter than us.”
Frexle harrumphed. “You were supposed to stop their planet from advancing, not take them on to be crew.”
“Sorry, top dog,” said Geezer, “but you guys never prescribed how we’re supposed to do our jobs. You just said we have to do them.”
“But the planet—”
“Is no longer a threat of advancing too quickly.” Geezer motioned towards Grog and Vlak. “As you can see, Captain Harr took away that threat.”
“And has instead placed it elsewhere.”
“With us,” noted Geezer, “and that means with you. So unless you guys have a fear of competing with yourselves, which would be a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, I don’t see how it’s an issue.”
Frexle looked up to the left in thought for a few moments. Slowly, he began to nod, and his face relaxed.
“Hard to argue that, I suppose.”
“Well done, Geezer,” said Grog as he slapped the robot on the back.
“Yeah,” Vlak added, “good logic there.”
“Thanks, fellas,” Geezer replied, thinking that these two cavemen weren’t so bad to have around, after all. “Anyway, Frexle, what’s up?”
“Veli wants the entire crew off of Fantasy Planet pronto,” the Overseer answered, “if not faster.”
“Why?”
“Honestly, Geezer, I can’t say.”
“We won’t tell anyone,
” Geezer said. “Right, guys?”
“Who would we tell?” answered Grog.
“I mean that I don’t know the reason,” Frexle corrected. “The Lord Overseer wouldn’t share the details with me. We just need to get everyone off of that planet.”
“I thought you just wanted the crew off the planet?” Geezer said. “We can do that, but getting everyone off of that rock is beyond even this ship’s capabilities, big cat.”
“I just meant the Platoon F crew,” Frexle said irritably. “Quit being so literal.”
“Ah, right.”
“Look, Veli made it very clear that he wants the crew off that planet immediately, if not yesterday.”
“As far as I recall,” Vlak said thoughtfully, “the Feeder explained that this ship has the ability to go back in time. So we could technically go back to yesterday before all of this happened, but then me and Grog would be back on Mugoog again. That would put you guys into a loop of sorts.”
“I think he was using a saying, Vlak,” Geezer stated and then he turned back to Frexle. “Well, honcho, if you want me to pick them up, I’ll have to go back to Fantasy Planet to do it.”
“Fine, fine,” Frexle said, nodding quickly. “Actually, I think I’ll go with you.”
“Really?”
Frexle ran his fingers through his hair. “Yes. I’m curious what it is about this Fantasy Planet that the Lord Overseer is so worried about.”
“The tech would be my guess,” said Geezer. “It must be pretty advanced.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Frexle agreed, pointing at Geezer, “which makes one wonder why he hasn’t yet destroyed it.”
THE CONTACT
Grunt hopped down from his bunk and leaned back against the wall for a moment, cracking his knuckles. It was kind of an odd picture seeing such a little man trying to be so tough. Not that Harr hadn’t met smaller guys who were tough—the thought of Drill Sergeant Razzin from the Sadian military came to mind—but this guy didn’t quite fit the bill.
“Are we going to wait until dark or do you want to do this now so nobody sees?”
Platoon F: Quadology: Missions 6, 7, 8, and 9 (Platoon F eBook Bundle 2) Page 27