“Good thinking, Bottle Cap,” said Frexl. “Okay, let me turn it over to Inkblot to describe.”
“Please do,” said Harr. “I am curious why he’s in on the mission.”
“I’m a she, Captain Harr,” Inkblot replied.
“Right, sorry,” stumbled Harr. “The mustache always makes me … forget it. Sorry. Again, though, why are you involved in our mission?”
“You and your entire crew are actually inside of a fantasy, sir.”
“What?”
“It’s a very elaborate fantasy,” she answered. “Everything that’s going on is fake, except for you, your crew, and your ship.”
“I don’t understand,” said Harr, even though he did. A more honest response would have been, “I don’t want to understand.”
“This entire mission was a farce, Soda Pop,” Frexle explained. “Veli set it up to kill us all. He’s the owner of Fantasy Planet.”
“Well, that’s not good,” Harr replied flatly.
“No,” agreed Frexle. “He obviously didn’t want anyone to find out about this planet and since I knew about it ...”
“Wait a second here, Frisbee,” Harr said, “you knew about this and you didn’t tell us?”
“There are many things that I’ve not told you, Pretzle Stick.”
“You weren’t a member of my crew before, though, Frex … uh, Frappacino.”
“True.” Frexle gave Geezer a funny look and then nodded. “I kind of like that name, actually.”
Harr leaned back against the wall and looked at the other four members of his crew as they continued talking about nothing. They were loud enough to cover his discussion with the crew on The Reluctant, but he kept his voice to a whisper anyway.
“All right, Gaspain, what’s the full situation?”
“Gaspain?” said Geezer. “Is that supposed to be me?”
“You’ve called me worse,” Harr said smartly.
“Probably true,” conceded Geezer. “Basically, the fantasy is a no-win deal.”
“No-win deal?”
“Kind of like that Cola-and-Kielbasa-Maroon thing on Stellar Hike, Honcho,” Geezer said.
“Ah, you mean that impossible scenario that Captain Quirk had to cheat to get out of?”
“Yeah, Prime. That’s the one.” Geezer looked at the microphone for a second. “I’m impressed.”
“So, if we’re stuck in a Cola-and-Kielbasa Maroon like Quirk once was,” Harr whispered, “that begs the question how are we going to cheat?”
“Best answer,” Geezer replied, “is to say that is why Inkblot is here.”
YIAAGAITIA
At the prescribed time, both Captain Shield and Sergeant Murder arrived at their trainer’s office. The name on the door read John Debnam, but his pupils referred to him as “Yiaagaitia.”
“So the big day is finally here for you two, eh?” Yiaagaitia said from behind his desk.
“Yes, sir,” said Shield in his formal way.
“So it appears,” Murder replied darkly.
Yiaagaitia typed a few things and then looked up.
“You both have your plans at the ready?”
“Mostly,” Shield replied.
“I know what I’m going to do.”
Shield turned towards Murder. “Mind letting me in on it?”
“Now you know you can’t ask him that, Shield,” warned Yiaagaitia.
“Would make things easier.”
“Which is precisely why you can’t ask him that.”
Yiaagaitia raised up a finger to signal that he needed a moment. He’d spent the better part of the day dealing with programmers, being that his job was to handle database administration for The Lord’s Master, and more often than not, the other ships in the fleet, too.
“These damn fools in the engine room are at it again,” he said while typing. “They’re developing a new piece of software to allow the brass to know what the hell is going on throughout the day on the propulsion systems. This is fine, except for the fact that they seem to just be hacking it. This database schema is ridiculous.”
“Database schema?” asked Shield.
“Yeah,” Yiaagaitia replied while shaking his head and scanning the proposed fields. “Ridiculous.”
“Sorry,” said Murder, “but what are you talking about, Yiaagaitia?”
“Oh, right, I often forget that you two think that all I do is sit around training the Murder family on how to kill the king, and training the Sheild family on how to stop the Murder family from killing the king.”
Shield blinked. “You mean that’s not true?”
“I wish it were true,” he answered while crossing his arms, “but I only get paid to train you, Shield, and that’s not enough to make ends meet.”
“You don’t get paid to train me?” Murder said with a look of concern.
“Of course not,” Yiaagaitia replied as if Murder were stupid. “Why would the king want to pay me to train you to assassinate him? Frankly, if it weren’t for the meager donations from all the king-haters, the Murder family wouldn’t even receive their stipend and meager pension plan.”
“Actually, I’d never considered that,” said Murder apprehensively.
“Me either,” Shield agreed. “Why do you train him at all?”
“Seriously, you two need to use your heads,” Yiaagaitia replied. “I train him because without him, what’s the point of you? And without you, I’m not getting paid anything.”
“Oh,” said Shield. “I suppose that makes sense. So what is it that you do besides train us again?”
Yiaagaitia could spend the entire afternoon answering that question. Mostly, he spent his day stopping supposedly intelligent people from doing incredibly stupid things, but the two men in front of him would merely sustain brain cramps if he tried to explain it in too much detail.
“A whole bunch of shit,” he answered finally, “but the primary gig is I’m a DBA.”
Murder raised an eyebrow and said, “A what?”
“It means Doing Bad Assignments,” Shield said with a scoff.
“No, it doesn’t,” Yiaagaitia said and then looked up thoughtfully. “Huh … actually, that’s probably more accurate than what it really means. It stands for Database Admin.”
Another email chimed. He opened it and stared at the newest layout.
“Shit. I can’t believe these idiots. Look at this.” He turned his screen slightly. “These tools have set up a separate field for each hour in the day.”
“Is that bad?” asked Shield wearily.
“Seriously?” Yiaagaitia answered and threw a thumbdrive at Murder’s head. “Look at these column names, man!” They read Hour-1. Hour-2. Hour-3. Hour-4, and so on. “Where the hell did they get their degrees, GalactiMart?”
Murder glanced over at Shield.
“Ummm ... maybe this is a bad time?”
“Yeah,” agreed Shield. “We should probably go.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Yiaagaitia said, holding up his hands. “Sorry. I just get a little riled up about this kind of thing is all. My primary function is to help you two prepare for things. This stuff can wait.” He turned the monitor slightly away. “Murder, let me talk to Shield alone for a minute.”
Murder bowed, looked at Shield once more, and then walked out of the room.
“All right, so what’s your plan?” asked Yiaagaitia.
“To stop him from killing the king,” Shield answered pedantically.
“Don’t make me punch you in the neck, Shield. Obviously that’s your overall plan. What I’m asking is how are you going to accomplish it?”
“Oh, right,” Shield said and then cleared his throat. “Well, I looked back over the history of assassinations and found that all of the Murders have used the same basic technique. They like to hit the king from a distance.”
“That’s not true. King Raff’s grandfather was assassinated with a piece of string.”
“Yes,” Shield acknowledged, “but he was an aberration.
The king’s great-great grandfather was killed by the rock from a slingshot, his great grandfather was killed from a knife thrown across the room, and his father was killed from the bolt of a crossbow. Essentially, all of the Murders, except for Grandfather Murder, prefer to keep their distance. Nothing in Sergeant Murder’s demeanor suggests that he likes to be near people.”
Yiaagaitia had to admit that Shield had made some solid points. On top of that, he was probably correct. The current Murder didn’t seem to enjoy the company of anyone. Even during training Murder had a tendency to hide in the shadows as much as possible. He was good at that, too, which did spell an attack from a distance.
“You’ve thought this through well, Shield. I’m proud of you. You may go, and send in Murder after you please.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Shield while smiling a rare smile.
As soon as the door shut, Yiaagaitia asked Murder what his plan was.
“I’m planning to shoot the king using my Zingtak 1100 with laser-sighting.”
“Hardly any sport in that,” pointed out Yiaagaitia.
“What do you mean?”
“Just that anybody can hit a target from five-hundred yards using a Zingtak 1100, especially the one with the laser-sighting.”
“So?”
“You have to think about your legacy, man,” Yiaagaitia said. “And, frankly, mine too, since I’m your trainer.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Then I’ll spell it out for you,” Yiaagaitia said. “Seems I’m doing that a lot with people these days anyway.” He adjusted in his chair and put his elbows on the desk. “If you succeed—and let’s face it, Shields never seem to stop you guys—your name is going to go into the history books. Do you really want it to show that you employed a weapon that even a toddler could successfully tag a penny with in the middle of a windstorm?”
Murder’s shoulders slumped. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Legacy is important, Murder, especially in our line of work.”
“You mean as a BAD?”
“DBA, and, no, I’m speaking of our roles regarding the influence of Raffian royalty.”
“Oh, right.”
“You know what you need?” Yiaagaitia said while scratching at his beard. “You need some perspective.”
“Okay. What do you suggest?”
“Go fill a tub with 40-degree water and sit in it for thirty minutes.”
Murder frowned. “Why?”
“Because it will let you focus and think.”
“And freeze my testicles off, as well, I would imagine.”
“Well, sure, that’s part of it, but what better way is there to really focus than freezing your testicles off?”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just come up with another weapon?” suggested Murder. “Like, for example, I could use a Single-shot Dex with no scope.”
Yiaagaitia took a gulp from his Mountainous Drip soda and then burped loudly.
“That would be a challenge, certainly. You’d have to be pretty close in to get that shot, though.”
“I’d be across the ballroom, up in one of the turrets.”
“You’ll never make that shot,” Yiaagaitia said with a laugh.
“I can do it.”
“My point in arguing against the Zingtak 1100 wasn’t to make you choose to use something ridiculously complicated, Murder,” Yiaagaitia admonished. “It was to make you rethink your choice of using something idiotically simple.”
“I know I can do it,” insisted Murder.
Yiaagaitia studied the man. He wasn’t the most talented Murder that the family had to offer. Father Murder had been a grumbly type with a penchant for using the crossbow. Grandfather Murder’s skill was killing with string, but he was equally skilled with the knife. But the current Murder just didn’t have his ancestral zing. Still, at the end of the day Murder was the final arbiter of how his assassination attempt would play out.
“Well,” Yiaagaitia said thoughtfully, “if you were able to pull that off, I’d say you’d solidify a strong historical record and ...”
The door opened and Elsolel stepped inside. She looked at Yiaagaitia, then at the clock, then put her hand on her hip and began tapping her foot. She was wearing a dark blue soldier’s outfit that did not resemble the standard Raffian style in the slightest, except for the Baret.
“Oh, shit,” Yiaagaitia, glancing at the clock, “look at the time.”
“Hello, ma’am,” Murder said.
“Murder,” Elsolel replied with a nod.
“Sorry, Murder, but I gotta run,” Yiaagaitia said as he frantically worked to shut down his machine. “The Reverence Riftjumper Science Fiction Conference starts in thirty minutes and I’m supposed to be leading a panel regarding how her tactics have influenced the Raffian Fleet.”
“Isn’t Reverence Riftjumper that character who was concocted by Doovian Webenclave?”
“You’re a fan?” asked Elsolel.
“I’m more into horror and thrillers than science fiction, ma’am, but I’ve read a couple Riftjumper books.”
“You should come and check it out,” Yiaagaitia said as he began taking his shirt off. “I’ve got to get on my uniform and such, though, so I’ll need to bid you adieu.”
“Oh, right,” Murder said as he stepped past Elsolel. “Well, thanks for the advice.”
“It’s my job … sort of. Not sure I agree with your ultimate choice of weapon, though it’s much better than your original choice. If you hit the king with the Dex you’ll go down in history as the best sharpshooter ever, but I have a feeling that you’re going to go down in history as the first Murder to fail to kill the king. Honestly, you’d be better off going with your grandfather’s string method.”
“Thanks for the boost of confidence,” Murder said as he began to close the door.
“Hey,” Yiaagaitia hollered after him, “it’s why I’m here, right?”
WE'RE BOTH MILITARY
In order for the plan to work, Harr had to get back to the ship.
The only way that was going to happen was by tricking Clippersmith into letting his crew get back into that uniforms room. The detention cells were too well shielded to allow transport. Plus, they were likely under video surveillance as well.
He looked around the room and didn’t see any devices though.
That’s when he remembered that he had a wristband that was built to check for these things. He scrolled through the list of options and finally settled on “Check for Surveillance Bugs.” There was one that just said, “Check for Bugs,” but that only scanned for actual insects.
A few moments went by and the wristband said that there were no audio or video devices in the room. That was insane. Were this his ship, Harr would have made sure he could hear every word. That was one of the things about people like Veli, though. They believed they were too smart to worry about details such as this.
“I’m going to go and talk to Clippersmith again,” he said to Sandoo.
“Who?”
“The commander of this vessel.”
“I thought it was a king,” Ridly said.
“Well, yeah, but I mean the military guy.”
“Oh.”
Harr knocked on the door and told the soldier that he had more information to give to the colonel. The soldier led him down the short corridor and into the interrogation room.
He had his wristband scan the area. This one had cameras and audio. That’s how it should be.
A few minutes later, Colonel Clippersmith walked into the room and crossed his arms.
“I’m a busy man, Captain Harr. I have a king to kill and then I have to become the king and everything.”
Harr glanced again at his wristband. Clearly the colonel had to know that he, too, was on video. Of course, the colonel probably was the first to weed through anything before the king saw even a moment of the feed.
“We will tell you everything you want to know,” Harr announced strongly. “It’s obv
ious that we have no choice, and we wouldn’t want you to become the king with unanswered questions.”
Clippersmith tilted his head slightly. “I’m listening.”
“The only thing that we request is to put our regular uniforms back on, first.”
“Why?”
“You’ve said that we’re going to be executed, right?”
“Sorry, but it is standard procedure.”
“No, I understand,” Harr replied stoically. “But if we’re to be executed, we would just like the honor of being in our military uniforms when our fate is sealed. We are a proud people, Colonel.”
“Patriotism is a fine thing, and something that I wish more of my soldiers held in higher regard.” He looked down at his arm, which Harr assumed contained a timepiece of some sort. “I will grant this wish to you, Captain. Where are your clothes?”
“In your uniforms room.”
“Ah, yes,” Clippersmith said. “Follow me, and no sudden moves.”
“You have my word.”
They picked up the rest of the Platoon F crew along with a number of armed guards before making their way down to the uniform closet.
“How long have you been a captain, Captain?”
“A few years now, Colonel.”
“I miss being a captain sometimes,” Clippersmith said with a sigh. “Don’t get me wrong, being a colonel has its perks, but I’m always tied to the station, you know? Meetings and reports and regulations. It can get rather mundane at times.”
“I understand completely,” Harr replied. “I was a commodore at one point.”
“Demoted?”
“By request, yes.”
“Why would you request that?” Clippersmith said as if Harr were an idiot.
“Couldn’t stand the thought of meetings and reports and regulations.”
“Hmmm. Smart man.”
They arrived at the room and all of the members of Platoon F filed in. This was the point where Harr had expected that they were going to need to resort to an attack of some sort, but the colonel gave him a firm nod while keeping himself and his guards outside of the room.
Platoon F: Quadology: Missions 6, 7, 8, and 9 (Platoon F eBook Bundle 2) Page 51