“You of all people should know that, Vlak.”
“True.”
“I get that you’re cavemen and all—” Geezer started.
“EEHs, if you would,” Vlak said.
Grog shook his head. “Early Evolutionary Humanoids is far more political, Geezer. Get with the program, will ya?”
“Sorry, but I’m not into political correctness.”
Grog and Vlak glanced at each other. They appeared injured by this admission.
“But it’s offensive for you to call us cavemen,” Grog complained.
“And it’s offensive to me that I am forced to call you EEHs.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a couple of cavemen, that’s why.”
“But the accepted vernacular for that is Early Evolutionary Humanoid.”
“Accepted by whom?” Geezer challenged.
“Everyone on this ship,” Vlak answered.
“Apparently not everyone.”
“Wait a second here,” Grog said, putting his cards on the table. “Are you saying you’re an evolvist, Geezer?”
“Nice one, Grog.”
“Thanks, Vlak.”
Geezer searched through his databanks but couldn’t find anything on that term. He’d heard of “evolutionist,” which he could claim to be, but “evolvist” was not defined. It could be that these two were still learning proper language skills instead of the standard grunts and such they’d started with when joining the Reluctant. “What the hell is an evolvist?”
“Someone who harbors prejudice against those still evolving, I’m guessing,” Frexle said as he continued his scans of the planet below.
“You got it, Frex,” Grog said.
“That makes no damn sense. Everyone is still evolving.” Geezer threw up his hands. “If I’m an evolvist, that would mean I harbor prejudices against the entirety of…” He slowly lowered his hands as his eyes pulsed. “Actually, wait a second. I pretty much do think everyone is stupid.” His eyes went to full light. “Yeah, okay, I’m an evolvist. Now get out of my engineering room!”
§ § §
Harr was standing over at Moon’s station as the two cavemen crested the ladder.
He glanced back at them, noting they were clearly uncomfortable being in Veli’s presence. To be fair, Harr wasn’t exactly thrilled with having the dinosaur on the bridge either. So far, though, Veli had behaved himself just fine.
“Good to have you two back on the bridge,” Commander Sandoo said.
“Yeah, okay,” said Grog while moving to his station, which put him closest to Veli’s cage.
“Hello, fellas,” Veli said with a gentle smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t do anything to hurt you.”
“Swell,” said Vlak.
“You two know more about dinosaurs than the rest of us,” Harr said as they got settled. “What does castrating him actually do?”
“Removes his testicles,” Grog said in a pedantic tone.
“Honestly,” said Vlak, “I thought you were more educated than that, Cap’n.”
“I’m talking about his personality,” Harr stated. “Does it actually make him docile, or what?”
“Oh, that,” Vlak said. “Yeah, he’s no longer a threat.”
Grog tilted his head at Veli. “No more balls means no more angry Veli.”
“It’s so freeing,” Veli said, looking serene.
“You’re both sure about this?”
“Of course we are, dipshit,” Vlak replied, and then quickly held up his hands before Sandoo could reprimand him. “Sorry! Meant, Captain Dipshit. Anyway, we know a lot about these things.”
“All right, then,” Harr said, feeling relieved at this proclamation. “Well, now that everyone is at their proper station, I want you all working on ideas. There has to be something that’s caused all of…” He paused and snapped his fingers. “Geezer, could this be a result of you putting us in an alternate universe again?”
“Just verified we are in the same universe, Gold Medal,” Frexle said through the comm.
“You need to work on these names, Frexle,” Harr said.
“Sorry.”
“Something must be different. We just have to…” He slowly turned to Veli. “When you left Earth, what did you do?”
“Just now?” Veli asked in return.
“No, originally.”
“Ah, right,” Veli said, getting to his feet and grasping the bars of his cage. “Well, I was quite miffed at how they had treated me, so I found a band of asteroids nearby and dragged one towards the planet. Set it on a collision course and then went on my merry way.”
“Wow.”
“You should be ashamed,” Liverbing called through the PA.
Veli shrugged. “You have to understand that a testicle-wielding dinosaur is much different than a ball-less one.”
“You destroyed an entire planet because you were angry, Veli.”
“He’s wiped out many planets, Potato Chip.”
“Thank you, Frexle,” Harr said with a groan.
“I had testicles then, Captain Harr, and more anger than you can imagine.” Veli looked forlorn, which was an odd thing to see on a dinosaur. “Now that you’ve taken my furry friends away, I wouldn’t hurt a fly.” He began to pace in his cage. “Misunderstood things, flies. Merely little winged creatures that are trying to get by just like the rest of us.”
“So it was an asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs,” Harr said, ignoring Veli’s diatribe into the virtues of flies.
“Obviously,” Grog said without looking up.
“Duh,” agreed Vlak.
“And that means humans will never exist on that planet,” concluded Harr.
“That’s a fair bet,” Veli stated.
“Uh, Cap’n,” Jezden said from his station, “how does this explain Segnal being empty?”
Veli giggled. “I know the answer to that, but I wouldn’t feel right saying anything.”
“Why not?” asked Harr.
“I used to do things that would cause discomfort, Captain Harr,” Veli answered. “Now I would prefer to keep people happy, and if I say anything… Well, there are some who would not be happy.”
“Listen, Veli,” Harr said, taking two strong steps towards the cage, causing Veli to back away in fear while putting his hands up. Harr froze. “Sorry… I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Harr then shook his head. “Oh, wait a second here. Yes, I did! If you know something, you’d better spill it, mister, or I’ll have you stuck out in the vacuum of space before the Overseers can get their hands on you.”
“I can’t!”
“Why not?”
“Because they can do far worse to me than you ever could, Captain Harr.”
Harr wanted to argue this point, but he could see Veli was visibly shaking. Whether that was from Harr’s outburst or from the fact that Veli had just admitted that something or someone greater than him was out there somewhere, Harr couldn’t say, but he decided to back off.
“I don’t understand,” he said, giving a final stare into Veli’s eyes, “but for now we have to get things back to what they were on Earth.”
Veli rushed back to the front of the cage. “What are you saying?”
“Geezer,” said Harr, ignoring the question, “send us back to Earth and back in time.” He then turned back to Veli and added, “And find me an asteroid.”
ASTEROID
The asteroid belt in the system was just a hop, skip, and a jump for the Reluctant, though Harr remembered a time before Geezer’s miraculous inventions when it would have taken years to go such a small distance… relatively speaking.
Lieutenant Moon kept them back a ways since their shields could only do so much against massive physical objects.
“I’ve found one that will suffice, sir,” Ridly said through the comm. “Based on my calculations it should cause the same level of catastrophic event that Veli’s original rock did.”
Harr nodded. He couldn’t help but feel a pang
of guilt over what they were about to do, but it was the only way he could see to set the timeline back in order. Nobody ever said being a starship captain was easy.
“Fine,” he said. “Let’s tow it along and get moving.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Liverbing called out.
“No, but I don’t see any other options. We’ve screwed up the timeline and now we have to fix it.”
“But you may be off just a bit and that won’t do anything but make a different outcome altogether.”
“It’s a risk we have to take, Liverbing.”
“I can’t believe you’re going to destroy my people,” Veli said sadly.
“Technically, Veli, it’s you who’s caused all of this,” countered Harr. “And let’s not forget you had originally killed them all, not to mention the plethora of other worlds and civilizations you wiped out.”
“That’s when I had testicles,” Veli said meekly.
“I still have mine,” Harr noted with a strong stare.
“Oh.”
“Can’t we, like, beam all those dinos out or something?” Jezden piped up.
Grog looked over at him and said, “Where would you put them?”
“Yeah,” agreed Vlak, “it’s not like this little ship could hold even a handful of those beasties.”
“Was just an idea.”
“I think it wath a great idea, Jezden,” Moon said.
“Gay.”
“Yeth, I am… Oh, that’s not what you mean.”
“Nope.”
“Thometimes you can be thuch a dick,” Moon said after a couple of seconds.
Jezden slumped. “I know.”
It had taken a few minutes for Geezer, Frexle, and Ridly to extend the field around the asteroid so they could include it in their jump. They’d already had Veli’s ship hooked in from before, so it was just a case of recalculating the dispersion field, which would have happened more quickly if Frexle had let Ridly handle it. Fortunately, she did check his work before Geezer put everything in place.
The jump was a success, but they’d stayed far enough away from Earth to get solid momentum for the asteroid.
Harr pressed the button on the comm and set it to ship-wide.
“Listen, everyone,” he said solemnly, “I know what we’re about to do sucks. I give everyone one last chance to provide me with an alternative that works.” There was no response. “I know we only met Young Veli, but I’m sure there are many decent dinosaurs down there…”
“Not really,” Veli chimed in. Then he looked up. “Sorry.”
“Anyway, what we’re doing isn’t fair to any of them, but neither was interrupting the timeline.” He took a deep breath. “Let’s have a moment of silence for Young Veli and the dinos of Earth.”
This was the part of being a captain that Harr despised. Being in command was riddled with issues, and unless you were ever put in such a position to lead, you couldn’t possibly know how that felt. It was akin to people who had never had children giving advice to people who had. Harr had never had children himself, unless you considered his recent parent-like situation with the likes of Jezden as an acceptable comparison, but he also knew better than to stick his nose into things he didn’t understand. That said, he wasn’t exactly in known territory here either. Mass extinction was Veli’s thing, not Harr’s. Sadly, he could find no alternative.
“Right,” he said, trying to push down the emotion, “where are we?”
“In space, thir,” Moon replied.
“No, I mean where are we in getting this mission underway?”
“Oh, right. Thorry.” Moon tapped on her console. “Ridly just sent me all the numbers. We just have to push to full thpeed towards the planet, and then release the athteroid about a thousand clicks away.”
Harr put his hand forward and said, “Hit it.”
“That’th the plan, thir.”
“No, I mean… just do it, Hank.”
“Yes, thir!”
The familiar sound of engines whining reverberated through the ship. Ever since going to the instantaneous travel mode using the GONE Drive, they’d rarely had need for standard propulsion. Even when they did use the base engines, it was done at slow speeds.
This, however, required the Reluctant’s engines to put in the work she wasn’t used to. She needed to hit a fast enough speed to powerfully wing the asteroid down on Earth. Unfortunately, she was a bit out of shape.
“Closing in, thir.”
“Put it on-screen and keep it there for the duration, Hank.”
“Yes, thir.”
“Focus on the planet, Hank,” Harr said with a sigh, “not the asteroid.”
“Oh, right.”
The Earth looked rather peaceful as it gently spun against the backdrop of nothingness. The neighboring sun cast its light against the blue world, bringing forth an image of beauty that turned Harr’s stomach. That gem had no idea what was about to hit it.
“Releathing the athteroid in ten thecondth, thir.”
Moon’s lisp always increased when he was facing a bout of anxiety.
Harr understood. It wasn’t easy doing what they were doing.
“You’re actually going to go through with this, aren’t you?” Grog said, keeping his eyes on the screen.
“Of course I am,” Harr said. “We have to fix things.”
“Gotta say, Captain,” said Vlak, “I’m impressed.”
Which had to have been true considering Vlak had used Harr’s appropriate title.
“Releathing!”
The Reluctant swung out of the way and slowed down as the asteroid zoomed past.
It filled the main screen for a few seconds before Earth started to come back into view.
“All stop,” Harr commanded.
The ship slowly quieted again as everyone on the bridge stared in silence at the asteroid.
Harr fought to keep his calm, but it wasn’t easy. Yes, it had to be done, but he hated the fact that it was him doing it.
“The asteroid will enter Earth’s atmosphere in five seconds, sir,” Ridly called through the comm, sounding as deadpan as ever.
There was no need for a response.
It was all Harr could do to keep his eyes on the scene. He wanted to look away, but this was his doing and he’d be damned if he allowed himself to get queasy now.
“Goodness,” Commander Sandoo said as the flash of light emanated from the planet.
“Readings?” Harr said with some difficulty. There was no reply. “Ridly?”
“Oh, sorry, sir,” she replied. “The mission is a, uh, success, sir.”
PRESENT AGAIN
Sixty-five million years into the future, Earth was a barren wasteland. There were no buildings, no cities, no towns, and no humans. The place was crawling with animals, big and small, though no dinosaurs, in the proper sense of the term.
They skipped over to Segnal to find the same was true there as well.
“How is it possible there are still no humans on these planets?” Harr said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Something has to be missing,” said Liverbing.
“Ya think, little dude?” Jezden said sarcastically.
“Geezer,” Harr called through the comm, “do you have any suggestions on how to fix this?”
“Not even one, Honcho.”
“Frexle?”
“Honestly haven’t a clue, Sunspot. “
“Ridly?”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Hank?”
“Nothing cometh to mind, sir.”
“Commander?”
“I have nothing to offer, Captain,” Sandoo said, looking downtrodden.
“Grog?”
“I’m just a simple caveman, remember?”
Harr shot him a look and rolled his eyes. “Vlak?”
“What Grog said.”
“Liverbing?”
“I just got word back from my entire crew that we’re at a complete loss, Captain Harr.”
“Okay… Jezden?”
“Nope, but thanks for pickin’ me last.”
Technically, he hadn’t been picked last. There was one more being on this ship, and even if he wasn’t crew, he may have an idea to set everything straight.
“What about you, Veli?” Harr asked. “Do you have any thoughts on this matter? It may prove beneficial during your trial in Overseer Land.”
“It won’t, but I do have a thought.” He stood up and wrapped his talons around the bars of the cage. “Maybe there’s another planet you could pick people from and plant them here?”
§ § §
“I can’t believe you’re going to take people from our world to seed your world,” Grog said as the Reluctant hovered over the world known as Mugoog.
“Dastardly,” agreed Vlak.
“Listen, you two,” Harr said, “I’m not in the mood to have a debate about this. We’re doing it and that’s that.” They both glared at him, but he pressed on. “Furthermore, you two are going to pick out the people who are going to seed both Segnal and Earth.”
“What?”
“No arguments or you’ll be left here.” The air grew thick between them. “If you think I’m in any way less than serious about that, I suggest you make a snide remark in order to find out.”
They said nothing.
Harr wasn’t one to exact corporal punishment under normal circumstances, but now and then he had to put his foot down. If that foot landed on the neck of one of these two ungrateful cavemen, so be it.
He motioned them down to the bay area and, for once, they moved without comment. Commander Sandoo gave Harr a surprised look before taking the ladder himself. Then Harr followed quickly behind.
“Now,” he said as they reached the lowest level, “are there any particular people you can think of who may fit our needs?”
Grog rubbed his chin for a moment while Vlak retained his stony visage.
“For Segnal, I’d suggest Greta and Herb.”
“I’d agree with that, Grog.”
“Their names are Greta and Herb?” Harr asked with a look of shock.
“Well, not to them. Their names are Oog and Ug, but I’m assuming you wanted the translated versions of their names.” Grog pointed at Harr’s neck. “Your translator isn’t on, you know.”
Platoon F: Quadology: Missions 6, 7, 8, and 9 (Platoon F eBook Bundle 2) Page 67