by Rob Buckman
"Don't worry, they work. Come on in and sit down."
"Can't stay Doc, I have a mountain of paperwork to catch up with."
"That wasn't a request, I need to examine you anyway."
"Examine me, what on earth for? I’m as healthy as a horse."
"Captain Brock and Mitchell made me the Company Doctor, and so far I have managed to examine everyone except you, now stop arguing and come in and sit down."
"Pushy aren’t you."
"Yes, and grouchy and bad tempered when patients don't answer my messages."
"Messages?"
"Right, five of them."
"All right, make it quick.” He walked into the office and sat down, looking around for some water to wash the pills down with.
"Here, use this.” Chase said, handing him a beaker with an amber liquid in it. Popping a pill into his mouth Scott took a gulp, almost choking on the results. The liquid burned like fire as it slid down his throat.
"Yea Gods, what the hell is this, jet fuel?"
"I'm offended, that potable is the best example of Kentucky moonshine you'll ever come across."
"Then you'd better find yourself another moon shiner, this stuff is terrible."
"Take another slug, it'll grow on you."
"Grow on you! Ye gods, this would grow hair on a billiard ball.” He grumbled, but did as he was told and took a gulp, a small one this time.
"So how come the indestructible Scott Drake has a headache?"
"Hell, you tell me, you're the damn Doctor." He grouched.
"All right, I will. Working eighteen to twenty two hours a day, every day for one. Taking on every body's problems, two. Trying to be in every place at once, three. No R&R, four, shall I continue?"
"I get your point Chase, but what am I supposed to do?"
"You are the General Commanding, delegate."
"I have damn it."
"Have you?" He asked. "Every morning I see a hundred people outside your office waiting to talk to you, don't you have a chain of command?"
"Silly question. Of course I do." He drank some more and held the beaker out for a refill. Chase obliged.
"So start using it. You didn't put together an army in secret and go dashing off across the Iraq border doing it the way you are now."
"You're right, but there is so much to do, and so little time to do it."
"How come?"
"Those damn aliens are going to figure out we're up to something real quick, and when they do they are going to act. At the moment I have no idea what they can throw at me, and nothing to stop them with!"
"Killing yourself isn't the answer."
"Then what is?"
"Do the old rules apply here?"
"Old rules? You mean the ones we use to work under?"
"Yes."
"I suppose most of them do, yes, I hadn't thought about it, why?"
"In that case, as the Company Doctor I am ordering you to take R&R. My prescription is to find a nice warm compliant female and a quiet sun drenched beach and go at it like a couple of bunny rabbits for two weeks."
"Is that a medical description Doctor?” He asked with a raised eyebrow." Chase looked at the ceiling a moment, then nodded.
"Close, very close. And if you think you can override me on this, think again."
"Oh!" Scott had a nasty feeling he was about to take it in the shorts.
"I have the support of your two senior and ten junior officers to back me up, any question?"
"You sandbagged me!” He challenged.
"Right, refill?” He asked, giving Scott a killer smile.
"Fill it up this time. If you are going to kill me with this stuff, let's get it over with." Chase Sandburg filled it up, grinning from ear to ear.
“How the pain?” He asked.
“I’m not feeling a thing from the hair down, if you must know.” Scott eye the tumbler of amber liquid, wonder what on earth was in it.
“Good, because I have to perform a minor operation.”
“If you’ve been drinking this stuff, I wouldn’t let you operate on a dead horse.”
“Good, because you are what I am going to operate on.”
“How’s that?” Scott looked at the Doctor wearily to see if he was kidding. He wasn’t as he stood up and went over to get a covered tray. This turned out to contain some odd-looking instruments as Chase put it on the table beside him and walk around behind.
“Err... You’re kidding, right?”
“No. Had a little chat with Herr Doctor Hienrick Kessler one day and discovered he had an ace up his sleeve.”
“I don’t follow.”
“You will.” He chuckled, swabbing the back of Scott’s neck. “I just happened to be playing with one of these peoples version of a CAT scan, and what do you think I found.”
“Haven’t a clue.” Other than the fact that the Doc had his hands on his neck, Scott didn’t feel a thing. Chase picked up one instrument after the other, talking while he worked.
“My curiosity was working a little overtime about what the malignant dwarf had done to you people, and decided to run one of you and a Pam Reilly through the machine.”
“Go on.”
“Don’t think I would have caught it myself, but the damn machine did. It pings when it finds something outside the set parameters for the human body.” Scott felt a slight pressure.
“What did you find?”
“The answer to a question that bugged me. Why couldn’t any of us move when we woke up.”
“You too?”
“Yes. I have a distinct memory of waking up on several occasions, but I was totally unable to move, and it wasn’t a dream.”
“I know, it happened to me. So what did you find?”
“Herr Doctor’s ace.” He said, holding something held in a pair of forceps in front of Scott’s face, something metallic and bloody.
“What the hell?” The thing looked part plastic, part metal.
“It’s a trigger device to shut down your nervous systems, I suppose in the event you, or we become unmanageable?”
“Or a way to restrain us without harming the body.”
“Right.” His laugh had little humor in it. “I’m betting that once our usefulness was at an end, the good Doctor would trigger these, and Wham! We’d all wake up in cages, or something similar.”
“Or not wake up at all.”
“Yes, there is that possibility.” Chase healed the incision with a laser scalpel and sprayed ‘new-skin’ over the small entry wound, then cleaned up, and poured another drink.
“Did you manage to figure out what else that little madman did to us?”
“Yes, and no. I’m still working on the report, and should have it ready in a few weeks, any hurry for it?”
“No, just curious as to what he’d done to us is all.”
“A lot from what I’ve found so far, but nothing detrimental that I can discover. In a mad sort of way, he did us all a favor, even if it was for the wrong reason.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, for starters, you will heal quicker from injuries, won’t have to worry about cancer or getting old for a very long time.”
“Good gods! How long?”
“No way of telling. You, we, all of us don’t age at the same rate as the rest of humanity.”
“Hmm, not sure I like that. Could get boring.”
“Well, like the old Chinese proverb, or curse, may you live in interesting times.”
“Damn! I’m glad we have you around Doctor Chase Sandburg.” He saluted the Doctor with his glass.
“And I like being around people who make sense to me.” They toasted each other and drained the glasses before Scott wend his way to bed. He didn’t wend alone as his silent, almost invisible escort wended with him.
CHAPTER FIVE: R&R
Surprisingly, he awoke the next morning without a hangover, finding hot coffee already made and waiting for him in his kitchen. Brock grinned at him as he handed him a mug
full.
"Good morning General, and how are you today."
"Shitty, thank you for asking.” He muttered as he sipped the coffee.
"Good, your transport and escort is waiting for you at hanger three. You are expected in ten minutes."
"I could charge you with insubordination Gunny. This borders on mutiny!"
"Already been there, sir and have the tee shirt to prove it. Let's go." Scott accepted the inevitable, and climbing into his jumpsuit walked outside to the waiting Hummer. In less than five minutes, he was at hanger three, seeing Kat Moore waiting for him. She had what looked like a cassette recorder in her hand, and coming to attention, she saluted.
"Good morning General, lovely morning, isn't it?" Kat beamed, looking perfectly stunning in her form fitting silver jump suit.
"Shut up and drive the damn bus woman, I'm not in the mood.” He growled.
"You were right; he is grumpy in the morning.” The voice of Lady Jane observed. Scott looked round, seeing the SR72 parked fifty feet away. Kat held up the cassette recorder.
"She's in here, and she had a big mouth.” Blushing slightly.
"That her?" He gave her and the crystal block a thunderous look, one that had sent lesser men scurrying for cover.
"Yes general, it’s a large block of memory crystal. I take her out when I leave the aircraft." Kat stood up straighter, refusing to be intimidated.
"I see.” Not that he did.
"All the aircraft and spacecraft, we manufacture will have a slot for one of these. The pilot can then plug it into any aircraft he, or she flies."
"How come?” He growled, his mind more on ways of getting back at Brock than what she was saying, and started walking toward the Blackbird.
"We all have our idiosyncrasies, and as we fly the computer learns. That way we don't have to retrain each bird to its pilot."
"Interesting concept, you think of it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Smart, very smart." He nodded his respect for her going up several notches.
"Thank you, sir, its appreciated.” He looked at her to see if she was being ironic, she wasn't. She genuinely appreciated the compliment.
"Where are we going?" He sighed, accepting the inevitable with ill grace.
"Can't tell you, military secret." Scott didn't say a word, just climbed up into the second seat and relaxed. They were all in on it, he thought. The whole lot had ganged up on him and there was no way out.
A few minutes later, the aircraft and its escort roared into the sky and was gone. This time it was a short trip, and within an hour, he was walking along a beautiful, deserted beach in the warm sun at a place once called Hawk Bay. The jump suit was gone, as it was too confining, but as there was nothing in his duffel bag except one shirt, a pair of shorts and sandals there was nothing else to wear, so shorts it was. His escort erected a tent in a sheltered grove of trees for him, setting up others some distance away for themselves. This time his escort had doubled, and included eight of the Japanese who had joined them. When he asked Janet Blake about it, she told him all of them were expert in martial arts and weapons. They fitted in with her team perfectly. He sat on a rock for a while, just watching the waves and seagulls, gradually relaxing. A slight sound behind him brought him round in a defensive stance, but he relaxed when he found it was Kat, with two fishing rods in one hand, and a hamper in the other.
"Why not try your luck fishing General?"
"Not a bad idea. Use to do it a lot one time" He commented. "What's in the other?"
"Sandwiches, beer, soft drinks, and a wee drop of the hard stuff, as they say. Compliments of Doc Chase."
"I've already tried his witches brew, I'll pass for the moment. Join me?” He asked. "I hate fishing alone.” Kat hesitated, then a beep sounded from a pouch slung over her shoulder.
"Shut up Lady Jane.” She said softly. "All right, but I'm no good at it."
"That's not the point in fishing. Some of the best days I ever had I didn't catch a thing."
"Then why do it?” Lady Jane asked.
"The one thing I forget to install was an off switch General. Take no notice of her, she's always asking questions about things she doesn’t understand."
"No problem, and to answer your question Lady Jane. Fishing has more to do with the spirit than actually catching anything. If you do, it’s a bonus."
"Hum." Scott laughed. It was such a human sound, and it was funny coming from a computer.
"She does that when she doesn’t understand, but can't think of another question.” Kat had to smile, even if she didn't want to, the General had that effect on her. They fished, ate and drank most of the afternoon, mostly sitting on the rocks and saying nothing. Slowly the tension in his body disappeared and he really started to relax, his mind skipping from one chain of thought to another in a random pattern. At first it was about all the problems they faced and what to do about them, then about his wife and sons and what they would be doing had they lived. In the end, there was just the pattern of the waves, or the quality of light as the sun danced on the moving water. At sunset, they walked back to the camp, finding that a table for two was set outside his tent. Two orderlies stood by, ready to serve them. He hadn't expected this, thinking he was going to eat with the security detail.
"It looks as if this is meant for us.” He said, indicating the table.
"Thank you... General, I'll eat with the others."
"I'll be damned if I'll eat alone, if you eat with the others, so will I.” Kat looked uncomfortable for a moment, then agreed, sitting down on the chair he held out for her.
The quartermaster had come up with two bottles of excellent wine from somewhere, and the meal was delicious. Not that Scott took much notice of it; his attention was on Kat. He watched the way she moved, the tilt of her head, and the color of her hair in the lamplight. If she was aware of his attention, she gave no indication. She didn't act coy or shy, carrying on as if she didn't care. After both bottles of wine were empty, they were both feeling the effects, so it was almost a foregone conclusion they would take a walk along the beach in the moonlight. If there was a guard out there, neither of them saw or heard anything to give them away. At one point Scott stopped and looked up at the stars, the Southern Cross bright in the sky above them.
"Have you been out there Kat?” He asked.
"Yes, General, when I tested the SR72.” She answered; knowing what he was referring to.
"What is it like?"
"Beautiful, scary, inspiring, magnificent, mysterious, take your pick, they all fit."
"I hope to see it for myself soon."
"You will, once you get passed the space junk and orbiting manufacturing plants."
"That bad, huh?"
"Worse than the San Diego Freeway at rush hour... Oh, sorry General I did mean to remind...”
"Kat, stop calling me General, and tip toeing round me. You were blunt enough the first time we met." Kat went silent for a moment and Scott though he might have said too much.
"You are making this difficult General. My life is complicated enough already." Scott walked up behind her and placed his arms around her waist.
"Woman, stop waffling and turn round so I can kiss you.” He whispered softly. Kat pulled forward, as if to get out of the circle of his arms, but not very hard.
"No!” She snapped softly, shaking her head.
"Why not."
"Because I'm scared, that's why!” This time she did pull away, and took two steps before turning to face him, bright tears in the corners of her eyes.
"Scared? Scared of what?" He asked in astonishment.
"Of you, you dumb fool!" She didn't know whether to scream or cry.
"What did I do?” Scott asked, mystified by her reaction.
"Damn you!” She yelled. "You know damn well you are going to go off and try and get yourself killed again, just like Frank and you did three hundred years ago. He managed to do it the first time, you get a second chance." Scott nodded, understanding at
last where she was coming from.
"So that's what this is all about, Frank."
"Yes, Frank! Frank and you, you're just the same. You're going to go off and fight some fucking alien we know nothing about for some glorious ideal you believe in and end up dead, just like he did."