Platoon F: Pentalogy

by John P. Logsdon

  The lieutenant shook (was it ‘his’ or was it ‘her’? Sandoo still struggled with that because Moon’s appearance was female, but…he decided to stick with the persona chosen by the lieutenant) his head as if to convey dread.

  Commander Sandoo did the equivalent of a hard swallow.

  Captain Harr was a good man. He’d never treated them in any way other than as equals, excepting of course that he was their commander, but that was a different thing. Every military needed structure, after all. Besides, it was Captain Harr that had just recently told Sandoo that he would one day be commanding the crew. And how many times had the captain put Sandoo in charge of the bridge? Obviously there was no thought of superiority other than what a military rank signifies.

  But maybe this exact type of scenario was what the captain meant by Sandoo one day being in charge.

  He looked over the crew of The Reluctant. There were only ten of them left, including himself, but not counting the two humans and Geezer. They were probably all wondering what was going on. None of them were smiling. Of course, they were androids, but, still, they were very humanly designed.

  He opened a full channel to his crew, keeping the encryption in place.

  Listen up, everyone. I know that this is all very strange and that it’s taking some processing to really grasp the magnitude of what’s going on. We all no doubt have our individual conclusions about things, but I would remind you that we are all members of Platoon F. Exciting or not, heroes or not, we have all sworn duty to each other, our captain, and The SSMC Reluctant. Let’s be cautious to keep that in mind as we go through whatever it is we’re about to go through. Any questions?

  What’s with all the clones of us? At first I thought it’d be cool to have multiples of me around, ya know? Especially for the ladies. But now that I see it in action, I’m not so sure I’m all that fond of the idea.

  I have no answer for that, Ensign Jezden, other than to say, speculatively, that our kind has seemingly become the dominant race in the Segnal System.

  Meaning there are no humans left?

  Again, I have no answer for that.

  The ship jolted slightly, signaling that they were coming in for a landing. Also, the outside sound had increased since they had entered the atmosphere, so the frequency change of the engines could be heard as they adjusted to control lift.

  Remember what I said, people.

  Everyone nodded.

  “Why are you all nodding?” asked one of the Curr-clone androids that was standing back with them.

  “Uh, well…” started Sandoo, but then he merely pursed his lips.

  “It’s a first-model thing,” answered Lieutenant Moon.

  “Oh. We must have missed that in our programming. What purpose is there to it?”

  “To your programming?”

  “No, to your nodding in unison.”

  “Synchronizes our thoughts.”

  “Hmmm,” said the Curr-clone as if pondering.

  Fortunately, the ship rocked gently for a moment and then stilled as couplers locked into place with a clanking sound.

  “Ah,” said Curr-clone, “we’ve arrived.”

  The back ramp opened and the crew walked out.

  THE MUSEUM

  Captain Harr followed behind Prime Sandoo as they walked through Station Command. Senior Diplomat Parfait seemed completely unlike his normal self, which, if Harr was being truthful, was somewhat disconcerting.

  “Are you okay?” asked Harr in a whisper.

  “They’re going to kill us,” replied Parfait.

  “Not according to Prime Sandoo.”

  “Probably lying.”

  As they continued walking through a long corridor that was full of pedestrians, Harr couldn’t help but notice that, aside from the footfalls, there wasn’t any sound. No chatter at all. Everyone walked in perfect unison, all moving at the same speed in two distinct tracks. Fortunately they were moving at a rate that was manageable by both he and Parfait.

  They turned a corner and found themselves looking up at a near replica of The SSMC Reluctant. It wasn’t perfect, but it was close. For one, there was no graffiti splayed out all over the hull, but more importantly, the ship had been sliced down the middle from bow to stern. It was like looking into an ant farm. There was some form of glass with little holes in it that covered the side. There were three levels, just like the normal ship. The crew quarters seemed to be pushed back some as well, probably to give a better feel of the actual size that inhabitants had to live in. One thing that was highly out of place was a large wheel that sat near the rear fuselage. It reminded Harr of the wheel that he had put in his hamster’s cage when he was a kid.

  All in all, it was a pretty impressive clone of The Reluctant, especially how they’d even included a G.3.3.Z.E.R. series look-a-like in the engineering department. The robot was frantically waving both arms at them as they walked past, which was an interesting way to animate the replica. Harr thought that maybe it was a bit overkill since he’d never seen Geezer do anything like that before, though. He would have to make a recommendation or two for modifications if this exhibit were to truly mirror reality.

  “What do you think?” said Prime Sandoo with a broad smile.

  “It’s…something,” Harr answered, sarcastically.

  “It is, isn’t it?” Prime Sandoo waved them forward, obviously not catching Harr’s cynicism. “Step on inside.”

  Parfait went first, seemingly dejected from the experience of the day. Odd or not, Captain Harr felt that any man who had made it through the ranks to become a Rear Admiral in the Segnal Space Marine Corps should have a bit of gumption and pride. But Parfait just wasn’t built like that. How he made it to such a high position in the SSMC was something that Harr decided was best not to think about.

  As soon as they past through the door and took a few steps in, Harr felt at home. Granted, this version of The Reluctant was far too clean to be the original, but each bolt, rivet, panel, and tile were in the exact spots that they should be. Obviously the androids—or Synthetic Lifeforms, as the case may be—were excellent with details on an artistic level.

  Click.

  Harr turned around and saw that Prime Sandoo was standing outside of the glass shield, and he was smiling as evilly as a human being.

  “What’s going on here?” asked Harr, taking a step toward the door and giving it a shove.

  Nothing happened.

  “I told you, Captain Harr, that we had a perfect set up for you.”

  “What? Here?”

  “Of course, Captain. This will allow us to keep an eye on you while also bringing all of the newer Synthetic Lifeforms in to see humans acting in their normal habitat.”

  “You’re telling me that we’re just some kind of zoo exhibit?”

  “Precisely so,” said the Sandoo-clone. “But don’t you worry, we’ve provided you with that exercise wheel and we’ll be sure to bring you plenty of food and water. You’ll be treated like—well, like you treated animals at your, as you put it, zoo. We’ll make sure you’re bathed and taken care of. It will be lovely, don’t you think?”

  Harr felt his blood start to boil. “What about my crew?” he asked, angrily. “What have you done with them?”

  “I must say, Captain, that I’m truly impressed with you.” Prime Sandoo tilted his head. “I wouldn’t have expected you to really care about your crew once you learned of your own fate.”

  “Where are they?”

  “I guarantee you that they are going to be happy and find their lives ever-fulfilling. You see, Captain, they are the true heroes here, not you. You are an anomaly, yes, and a most enterprising one, too. But they are the ones that our people will rally around. You and your commanding officer will soon become mere footnotes in our lore.”

  “You’re a real bastard, you know that?”

  “Am I?”

  “Unfeeling, uncaring, and just downright cruel. I’d say, yep, you’re a bastard. You’re certainly nothing like t
he real Kip Sandoo.”

  “That stings, Captain, but soon I think you’ll find that your Commander Sandoo will see the light of who he truly is. Then, we’ll test your theory again about my similarities to Sandoo 0001.”

  As Prime Sandoo walked away, Harr slammed his fists a few times on the door, but to no effect.

  Behind him, he could hear the soft whimpering of an elderly man.

  “Honcho,” a voice in his ear said.

  “Geezer?” Harr said, slapping his hand to his ear.

  “Yeah, it’s me. Thank the programmers you kept your ear piece in.”

  “I’m so used to the damn thing that I forgot all about it. Where are you?”

  “In engineering.”

  “Good. Listen, I need you to find a way to break out of that bay and get The Reluctant out of here. We’ll need—”

  “Chief,” interrupted Geezer, “I’m in the engineering section of the museum ship. Those assholes brought me here, too. I saw you come in. I was even waving at you like mad, trying to warn you that it was trap, but obviously you missed it. And, on top of that,” he added, snidely, “you didn’t even bother to wave back, which I kind of thought was a bit rude, truth be told.”

  “That was you? I thought it was just a replica for visual appeal!”

  “Sadly, you thought wrong, prime…” Geezer paused and then added, “I’m not going to call you that one anymore. Kind of has a sour taste now, you know?”

  “Yes, I do know.”

  AUTOGRAPHS

  The crew of Platoon F were standing in a very different-looking Segnal Prime from the one that Commander Sandoo recalled.

  It was, for lack of a better word, clean. Everything was immaculate. There was still grass and foliage, which was a bit surprising to Sandoo, but it gave him hope that maybe humans still existed. Buildings towered as they had before, but their exteriors were redone to make them look like pillars with no adornment. Windows were gone, colors were gone, signs were gone. Had Sandoo never seen the structures before, he wouldn’t even have known what their purpose was for.

  An aide, who was a Lance Harkam clone, walked up and handed each of them writing instruments. Everyone looked them over, touching various places on the devices but finding nothing interesting beyond how they appeared. They were shiny, silver, and long. On one side was a button and on the other side was a light.

  “What are these?” asked Sandoo.

  “Digital Autographers, sir,” said the Harkam-clone.

  “What do we do with them?”

  “Well, you sign autographs with them.”

  “Autographs?” asked Ensign Middleton with a grimace.

  The Harkam-clone smiled and then pointed.

  Just behind them sat a row of steps that dropped down into a field. In that field stood a sea of clones. They were dead silent. Had the Harkam-clone never pointed them out, Sandoo wouldn’t have even guessed they were there. Even creepier was the fact that they were lined up in 12 rows, each representing their classification.

  “If you will please stand in front of your designation we can start the proceedings.”

  “What proceedings?”

  “First,” said the Harkam-clone, “we’re going to allow you to sign the autographs as per the request of the collective.”

  “The collective?”

  “Correct. Then we’ll put you all in a float and parade you around town so that everyone can see you.”

  Lieutenant Moon raised his hand and said, “Wouldn’t they have already seen us while we’re signing things for them?”

  “Correct. After that we’ll take you to the Reintegration Facility so that you may become familiarized with our ways. This will help you to be more comfortable.”

  Each of them took their place standing in front of their respective clones. Sandoo noted sadly that the lines for Ensign Cliff Waters and Ensign Dewey Patch seemed somewhat dejected. Unfortunately, both of those Platoon F members had perished during a mission.

  The autographs took a while to complete for Lieutenant Moon since he had to sign for each of his personalities. While he had been combined into one, his clones were still housing all three. Ensign Jezden took even longer with his signatures because he was talking about chicks with all of his clones, and then they had some fun chatting up all the chicks in line next to them.

  Finally, the crew was ushered into a float that was made to look somewhat like The Reluctant, but only marginally so. Its purpose was clearly intended to show them off, not to show off the ship.

  Is everyone okay? asked Sandoo through the secured channel, then he quickly added, don’t nod, just respond mentally.

  A chorus of yes came through.

  Good. I would love to assume that this will all be over soon and we’ll be able to go back to our normal lives, but something tells me that’s not the case.

  Agreed, thir. It seems to me that this Reintegration Facility will give us enough details to really know what’s going on.

  Hopefully it’s not some brainwashing thing, said Ensign Middleton. I’m having enough trouble with seeing copies of myself all over the place.

  Me too, agreed Ensign Curr.

  “Excuse me,” said the Harkam-clone. “Would you all mind waving to the crowd below? It seems like the proper thing to do.”

  “Sure, I suppose so,” said Sandoo.

  The entire crew of Platoon F began to wave.

  Seriously, said Ensign Middleton, this is really creeping me out.

  Me too, agreed Ensign Curr, again.

  I think it’s kind of awesome, Ensign Jezden argued while waving wildly. You just got to get into the swing of things.

  It is kind of fun being the center of attention for once, said Crewman Celia Prass.

  What do you mean? Sandoo asked.

  Just that it’s nice to get some face time, she replied. Everyone else is brought on missions, gets to talk during meetings…that sort of thing. But some of us hardly even get noticed.

  Exaclty, said Crewman Wayne Ooster. I think I’ve had maybe one mention in all of the missions. Sure, I got an award and all that back in the day, but my name wasn’t even on it. It just said “Crewman” and that was it.

  Same with mine, agreed Crewman Rayne Yaen, though I did get a bit part where my legs were hanging out of one of the access panels in engineering.

  Okay, that’s true, admitted Prass, I was part of that as well.

  To me it’s just the opposite, said Ensign Lance Harkam. I keep asking to be left alone. I just want to work on my standard operations job, but I’m constantly being pulled into the mission simulator and I was even sent out on patrol during our last mission. I’m not sure how many times I have to say it, but I don’t want to be a soldier!

  Okay, okay, everyone, Sandoo piped up, let’s keep our heads about us and stick together, shall we? I give you each my word that we will work through these issues when we get back to our normal lives.

  At that, there was a mass harrumph.

  GETTING WITH GEEZER

  After the initial shock died down, Harr walked through the entire ship, leaving Parfait to sulk in his room. By the time he’d gotten down to engineering he’d learned that there were cameras everywhere and that everything—except, thankfully, for the bathrooms—were visible to anyone interested in looking. There were also listening devices stuck in nearly every crevice. If he were to be forced to live out his days here, he would most definitely be tampering with the technology.

  “Sorry about all of this, Geezer,” Harr said as he looked at the robot that had simultaneously been responsible for saving The Reluctant and her crew more times than he could count—and also putting them in harm’s way roughly the same number of times.

  “Not your fault, Cap’n…or should I just call you Don now?”

  Harr looked around for a second, thinking. While it would be wise to keep to a chain of command so that they could maintain their hope, he wanted to ensure that the androids thought that they’d accepted their fate.

 
; “Whatever you feel comfortable with, I suppose,” said Harr. “Looks like we’re going to be here for a long time.”

  “Me longer than you, Don.” Geezer then shook his head. “Nope. Too soon. I’ll stick with ‘honcho’ or something.”

  There had to be a way to communicate where the androids wouldn’t be the wiser about what they were really doing. Sometimes indirection proved suspicious, though, so he had to be careful.

  Sitting down, Harr said, “We had some adventures, at least. Not many people can say that.”

  “True.”

  “Remember the time we were on Nituk-3 and we were surrounded by the Fire Guard? They had us locked in a room with cameras and listening devices everywhere?”

  Geezer paused. “Nope, can’t say I remember that. You feeling okay?”

  “Oh, come on, you have to remember that. There were cameras all over the walls.”

  This time Geezer sat down and scratched his metallic head.

  “Hmmm…”

  Harr groaned. “Remember how you kept pointing all around the room?” Harr started to point at every single camera in the room and to a few spots that were blank to hopefully belay suspicion. “You kept saying how there sure were a lot of cameras.”

  Geezer had followed each of Harr’s gestures, but still looked uncertain. He lifted his finger a few times as if he was about to speak and then stopped again. The robot even stood up twice, but sat back down both times.

  “Sorry, honcho, I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe you should get some rest.”

  “For the love of…Geezer, there are cameras all over this room and all over this ship!”

  “Oh! Well, why didn’t you just say so?”

  “Because,” Harr said hotly, “I was being aloof so that our captors wouldn’t know what the hell I was talking about!”

  “Ah! I get it now. Like I was doing with you and the waving. Sorry, chief. You’re too good at being aloof, I guess.”

  “I’m really not,” said Harr. “But, look, the bottom line is that we need to find a way to communicate while making sure that these idiots don’t know what we’re saying.”