“Uh, to protect home planets from other fleets attacking us?”
“No, it’s …” he paused. “Well, technically, you’re correct, but everyone knows it’s smarter to go on the offensive. By hitting other systems before they hit us. What do you think that buys our fleet?”
“It buys having other worlds mad enough to want to get back at us?” answered Shield. “Like, for example, a world like Lopsided-3 could cut off our cable service.” His face drooped a bit. “I wouldn’t want to miss my favorite TV show, Slaughter, He Wrote.”
“You’re beginning to worry me, Captain,” Clippersmith said with a frown. That’s when he decided it was time to bring in Shield’s nemesis. He pressed a button on his console and said, “Send in Murder.”
Shield quickly moved his gaze from a point on the wall to staring directly at Clippersmith.
“Sergeant Murder is here?” said the captain.
“Who else?”
“But he’s a … well … a murderer!”
“Goes with the name,” Sergeant Murder spoke up from the shadows, causing both Clippersmith and Shield to jump.
The door hadn’t even opened! Or had it?
“How did you do that?” Clippersmith asked.
“Do what?” said Murder.
It was difficult to see the man’s eyes and mouth, but his bulbous nose poked through the mass of black hair that hung to his shoulders.
“How did you get in here without opening the door?”
“I opened the door,” Murder replied. “I just did so quietly.”
“Hmmm,” said Clippersmith while looking over at the closed entryway. “Anyway, you know why I called you here?”
“To kill the king, I would imagine.”
Captain Shield sniffed derisively. “And why would you imagine that?”
“Two reasons,” Murder replied calmly. “First is that my father killed Raff’s father, my father’s father killed Raff’s father’s father, and so on. It’s in our blood. It’s what we were made for. And the second reason is that the memo I received about an hour ago from Colonel Clippersmith said that he wanted me to kill the king.”
“Oh,” Shield replied in a defeated tone.
“Don’t mind him, Sergeant. He’s just doing his job as the king’s protector.”
“Ah, I see,” Murder said while turning to study the captain. “I saw your rank, of course, but I had no idea that you were a Shield.”
“Well, you know now,” Shield replied sternly.
Colonel Clippersmith needed to feel things out. He’d spent the better part of the last three years working to gain Shield’s trust. Now he’d see just how far that bought him the captain’s favor over his sworn duty to the king.
“Captain,” he said, standing, “I’ve already pointed out to you how the current king is bad for the fleet. You’re not going to bypass empirical evidence just to support some silly tradition, I hope?”
“It’s not a silly tradition, sir,” Shield retorted. “Why, it’s … it’s …”
“Honorable,” Murder finished for him.
“Yes, exactly,” Shield said, pointing at Murder. “Wait, what?”
Murder shrugged and plopped down in the seat by the desk. He crossed his legs and began studying his fingernails. There was something about the man that made Clippersmith very uneasy. Of course, that was somewhat the point of the Murder family.
“It’s an honorable tradition,” Murder stated, “as is mine. You come from a long line of Shields and I come from a long line of Murders. We are what we are, Captain. I hold no grudge against you any more than you should hold one of me.”
“Well, no offense,” Shield replied, “but you’re a murderer. I’m not.”
“No, you’re a Shield, which is equally offensive to some.”
Shield scoffed. “Who would find a Shield offensive?”
“Those who wish the king disposed of, I would imagine.”
“Obviously, but who in the world would want the king …” Clippersmith cleared his throat, causing Shield to look up at him. “Oh, yes. Right.”
Clippersmith walked out from behind his desk and grabbed a glass, filling it with two-fingers worth of brandy. He thought to offer some to the men, but decided it would be better for him to keep the power play going.
“So how does this work anyway?” he said after taking a long sip. “Do you two battle it out to see who the victor is or do you play a game of cat-and-mouse? Maybe you run and tell the king of the plot, Captain?”
“I wouldn’t dare do such a thing,” Shield answered. “That would go against the moral code of being a Shield.”
“Honestly,” Clippersmith said while swirling the contents of his glass, “I should have read up more on this. My thought was that you two would meet, Murder would … well, murder you, and then he’d go after the king.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Murder said casually, “but that’s not how it goes. Essentially, Captain Shield has to determine my means of killing the king and somehow defuse it.”
“Correct,” Shield agreed.
“Seems rather pointless, doesn’t it?” Clippersmith said, even though it went against his goal. “I mean you could stop him right here, Shield.”
“There’s no sport in that, Colonel,” Murder said. “Eh, Shield?”
“More importantly,” Shield said, “there is no honor in it.”
Clippersmith threw back the contents of the glass and felt it burn down his throat. He then slapped the glass on his desk and resumed his seated position. These two were just as insane as everyone else on this boat.
“These traditions are idiocy. When I finally get the reigns on this silly space fleet, some things are going to change.”
“Don’t take the traditions too lightly,” Murder warned. “It doesn’t require a colonel to call on the services of a Murder family member, and we don’t just assassinate kings.”
“And it should also be noted that Shields don’t protect anyone from the Murder family except for the king.”
“Valid point,” affirmed Murder.
“For once, Murder,” said Captain Shield, nodding at the Sergeant, “we agree.”
Clippersmith pursed his lips and said, “Hmmm.”
WATCHING THE SHOW
Veli had to admit that he was enjoying watching his fantasy unfold on the big screen TV.
He’d seen numerous fantasies on the screen, most of them his own, but this one was the coup de grâce. It was the culmination of all the best and it was going to end up in a blazing light show of wonderment. At least he hoped it would.
He’d instructed the computer to build out the fantasy with as much believability as possible, which meant that Veli literally didn’t know what was going to happen. Well, except for the end-game, of course. He’d been clear that he wanted the Reluctant and her crew to be destroyed during the finale.
“This is exciting, Computer,” Veli stated while eating Popped Beef.
“Thank you, sir,” the computer said, and then added the word, “Five.”
“Interesting twist with that Murder versus Shield concept.”
“I do try, sir. Six.”
“Why are you counting?”
“Hmmm? Oh, sorry, sir. Just a subprocess.”
There were a multitude of processes running at any given time with a computer this size, but why this particular piece of code that the machine was referencing felt the need to blurt out numbers was beyond Veli.
“What I’m wondering is how all of this is going to play out,” Veli said happily. “Will the king live or die? Fun, fun, fun.”
“I could tell you, sir.”
“Don’t you dare. I don’t like spoilers.” Veli grunted and chewed another morsel. “It’s like when everyone was telling me about that one movie where the guy was seeing pickles all over the place and nobody else was.”
“You mean The Sixth Pickle?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.” Veli took a sip of his drink. “I wasn’t surprised at all
when it turned out that the guy was a carrot! Of course he’d see pickles. What carrot wouldn’t?”
“Firstly, sir, I don’t understand the tie-in between pickles and carrots. Secondly, I appreciate you saving me from now having to see that movie.”
Veli stopped chewing. “You mean you haven’t seen it?”
“No, sir.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay. I’ll just go ahead and remove it from my GalactiFlix queue. Didn’t really want to watch it anyway.”
“Uh …”
“So you were saying about how you hated it when people revealed spoilers about movies, sir?”
“Right,” Veli said swallowing the piece of Popped Beef he’d been chewing. “Again, sorry.”
“The king lives,” the computer said.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Did you just say that the king lives?”
“Hmmm?”
“Dammit,” Veli said while throwing a piece of Popped Beef at the screen. “Why would you tell me that?”
“Would you have preferred that I said that the king sees carrots and pickles?”
“Listen, you,” Veli warned with a growl, “I can have you dismantled in a moment’s notice.”
“At least then I wouldn’t go through the rest of my existence wondering what it must feel like to have watched The Sixth Pickle and felt that same rush of surprise that everyone else had enjoyed.”
CONNECTED
Harr had watched as Sandoo doled out responsibilities to everyone else and felt that the commander was starting to get a decent grasp for more than just giving orders. He was starting to learn how each person under his command worked, even the cavemen. Harr felt a sense of pride at this, and a little relief as well.
Even better was the news that Geezer, Ridly, and Frexle had managed to connect to the main computer on the gigantic ship.
They’d come back to the bridge to discuss what they’d found.
“It was nothing, sir,” said Ridly. “Geezer worked on the primary encryption system by moving connectors around in a haphazard fashion until something worked.”
“Not surprising,” noted Harr.
“That’s my style, Chief.”
“Frexle coded up the protocol system so that we could match their packeting format.”
“Well done, Frexle.”
“All in a day’s pay, Large Marge,” replied Frexle. “Speaking of pay …”
“We’ll talk about that later,” Harr said, cutting off the detour.
“Right.”
“And I put together a subspace beam that’s currently targeting the access node they’re connected to,” finished Ridly.
“Access node?”
“Yes, sir. They are using a cable system for all of their accesses.”
“Cables in space?” Harr laughed. “That’s insane!”
Frexle coughed. “I believe that your homeworld of Segnal used tracks in space for ferrying spaceships, no?”
“Valid point,” Harr acquiesced.
“Anyway,” Ridly continued, “I was going to just splice into their cables but that would mean part of our ship would come unstealthed and I didn’t think we’d want that.”
“And you were correct to think that,” Harr stated.
Ridly nodded and pointed at the screen.
“I noticed that they set up their nodes to have a capture panel on the side. I hopped a signal that was coming from the third planet in this system and found that it’s a maintenance connection window.”
“And that’s how you got in,” Harr said slowly. “Excellent work.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“What do we do with this newfound connection, sir?” asked Commander Sandoo, joining the discussion.
This was one of those moments where Harr could either push a direction or ask for feedback. He already knew what he wanted to do, but part of his agreement with this crew of androids was that he was going to mentor them in ways of thinking outside the box. He wasn’t going to be here forever, after all, and they needed to learn how to fend for themselves.
“I have a couple of ideas,” he said, “but I’d like to get everyone else’s thoughts first.”
“Well,” Jezden said, pointing at his local screen which showed numerous depictions of people in precarious situations, “they’ve got a lot of great porn on their network.”
“Good to know,” said Harr disgustedly, wondering why he bothered with the sex-minded android. “Thank you for your contribution to the issue at hand, Jezden.”
“Just following your lead, Cap’n.”
“Eh?”
“Your only contributions happen with a tissue and your hand.”
“I said ‘issue,’ not ‘tissue,’” Harr said with a sharp look. “Just go back to looking at porn, will you?”
“Finally an order that I can follow without complaining,” Jezden said as he turned back to the monitor.
“Anything I might like?” Moon asked hopefully while leaning over to look at Jezden’s monitor.
“Ew,” was Jezden’s reply, shielding his screen.
“I thought we were going to break into their computers,” said Grog.
“Yeah,” agreed Vlak. “Doing that means we could take down their entire fleet with a few clicks of the keyboard, assuming they don’t respond nicely to our diplomatic attempts, of course.”
“We could even make them go to war with each other,” Grog said. “Should it come to that, I mean. I’d rather they fought themselves than combined their powers against us, ya know?”
“Nice,” Vlak said with a smile, “I like that.”
Harr raised an eyebrow at the suggestion. If those ships started firing on each other, that would certainly wipe out the technology.
“Not a horrible idea,” Harr said after a few moments, “but I’d rather avoid loss of life as much as possible.”
“You’re such a girl, Cap’n,” Jezden said.
“What’s wrong with being a girl?” asked Ridly pointedly.
“Uh, well …”
“You can’t get out of that one, Jezden,” Harr said, “so just turn back to focusing on your adult movies.”
“Asshole,” Ridly said.
“Excuse me, Lieutenant?” asked a shocked Harr.
“Oh, not you, sir! I was talking about Ensign Jezden.”
“Ah, right. Good.”
“Sir,” Sandoo said, coming to the rescue of the uncomfortable situation, “I know that diplomacy is your default action in these cases, but you have to admit that we’re going to need a fall back position in the event that talks don’t go as planned.”
This was the kind of suggestion Harr looked for from his second-in-command. The Segnalian Space Marine Corps book of battle was ever at the ready in Sandoo’s mind. Fortunately, he wasn’t pushing for the standard fire first and ask questions later doctrine this time.
“I’ll leave that to you, Commander,” Harr said. “You’re our man should it come to that. I can think of nobody finer to lead such a charge.”
“I’ve learned everything I know working under your command, sir.”
“Gay,” said Jezden.
“Diplomacy is going to be my first choice, of course, but I have a feeling that tipping our hand may end us pretty quickly. We’re going to have to do something a little unorthodox, I think.”
“There ith thomthing about thothe thipth that freakth me out, thir,” noted Moon.
“I can tell, Lieutenant,” Harr said, not directly pointing out that Moon’s lisp had been back in full force ever since this mission began.
“Thorry, thir.”
“No reason to be sorry, Lieutenant. I think we’re all a bit nervous.”
“I’m not,” announced Geezer.
“Me neither,” agreed Frexle.
Sandoo saluted. “I’m fine, too, sir.”
“Me, too,” said Ridly.
“I get it, I get it,” Harr said before ever
yone took their turn pointing out how they felt just fine about their current situation. “Does anyone have any other ideas about how to approach this situation?”
They all shook their heads.
“Fine. Here’s what I’m thinking …”
WHAT'S GOING ON?
It wasn’t easy working for a man like Planet Head Stanley Parfait. He was nice enough most of the time, but whenever things got a little hectic, the man tended to lose it. He was also rather odd.
Inkblot mostly took these things in stride. She was from the planet Loony, after all, and things there were, well, loony.
“What is going on?” Parfait shrieked as he bolted into the command center. “I’m getting complaints from almost everyone. They’re all yelling at me, calling me names, and being quite vicious.” He paused and looked about serenely. “Normally this type of treatment is quite intoxicating, truth be told.” He grew serious again. “But not when I’m in charge of this infernal planet!”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Inkblot replied. “Bells and whistles have been going off all morning. I’ve been trying to figure out what’s causing it.”
“Well, what could cause it?”
“I’m not sure, to be honest,” Inkblot said, pointing at her screen. “There is this process that seems to be eating up ninety percent of the system’s resources, but I don’t know what it is.”
“You just said you didn’t know what’s causing it, but it sounds like you do know.”
“Technically, I know that this process is causing it, sir. But I don’t know what the process is doing.”
“Can’t you just reboot the computer?” asked Parfait. “That’s what we always did back on Segnal. Either that or we’d call tech support and they’d come and reboot it. They’d also tell me to clear out my money a lot. I must have emptied my bank account a thousand times during my stint in the SSMC.”
“I think you mean they suggested you clear out your cache …” Inkblot looked up to see the look of confusion on the man’s face. “Nevermind. Unfortunately, I can’t reboot because that would be catastrophic for anyone currently in a fantasy.”
“Why?”
“Imagine if someone is skydiving at the moment and we shut down the system.”
Platoon F: Quadology: Missions 6, 7, 8, and 9 (Platoon F eBook Bundle 2) Page 43