A Planet's Search For History

by Burbaugh, MF;

  Not surprisingly there weren’t any.

  “Good, there is a new private cleaning the latrines at the desert range, feel free to shit there to your heart’s content. Now, get back to your men and be sure they are ready to go. Dismissed!” Guess Kork thought he was immune to her wrath.

  After the mess hall cleared, she said, “I refuse to show favoritism to anyone. I mean what I say. Tally, go find me a young, unmarried private I can promote to Captain please? You know my requirements.”

  “Unmarried?” she asked.

  “Yes, tired of having to play games. I originally did it so as to have no attachments. Tici would have been unmarried, his wife didn’t leave Olgreender. Anyway, unmarried is fine.”

  “Yes ma’am, give me a few days.”

  “Not a problem,” she said. “Okay, we still wait until tomorrow noon but I have a gut feeling we are going back to Reta’s planet in force.”

  “I know, my gut has been twisting around all day,” Loka said.

  “That was that spiced food you ate for a snack last night,” I said, laughing.

  “Not funny, but I forgot about that. I miss Myla not being under foot.”

  I wouldn’t admit it, but I did too.

  We spent the day rechecking our equipment, then on El’s orders, as many of the troops as we could handle. I found we were varied as to equipment. Some had shoes, some boots, some had green shirts, some brown. I found one young boy didn’t have a uniform of any type. I sent him to Garth with a note. He reported back to me later in the day, a fresh uniform with new boots and even gloves. He was grinning ear to ear.

  I had lost track of Loka, she was checking a lot of the others. I finally found her. She had gone to the desert planet, seemed her stomach was creating a lot of aromatic air and rather nasty runs, so she wished to pass them on to Mr. Kork. Women could be nasty, vile, vindictive creatures when riled. Guess it’s why I love her.

  ~~~

  The day passed and I could see all were nervous. The closer the deadline came the more the nervousness manifested.

  After we ate the evening meal and retired Loka was too nervous to sleep so she wanted attention. As we lay there the clock said just short of 2AM when we got the call. “All officers to the mess hall at once. Not an emergency.” It came over the earpieces as well as the intercom and I’m sure if we had the reader on it would have been on it too.

  As I went in I saw Lucy, well, it wasn’t the prim and proper robot we called Lucy but it was still her. Her uniform was in tatters, she was covered in dirt and weeds, and I saw an arm clearly broken. She had seen some rough times.

  After El was sure most of the officers were present she asked for a report.

  “Sorry I’m not presentable, I’ll fix that later. Listen, we need to really try to take back Myla’s Planet, for several reasons. The main one is there are only a few hundred there now and they have an operational ship. Additional reason—they have captives. I got banged up falling down a cliff, but I was able to get close enough to see what was going on. They are holding captives and raising animals. I will give my basic impressions but have no conclusive proof. I think they found they can communicate with some of Myla’s people. Somehow they were convinced to try and raise food rather than destroy it all. I say that because we know they never did it anyplace else.

  “People, I saw some of our uniforms in there too. Whether they were our people or just theirs wearing our clothes I couldn’t tell. I saw a lot of hands, arms, and legs missing. We need to either rescue them or kill them. El, take over, you have the sticks with all I know. I’ll get repaired. I should be ready in two or three hours.” She didn’t wait for a response and left.

  El called the buzzing to order. Soon she had one of the sticks up. It showed a long range view of the second city. She had both robots in front of her. As they started to get close missiles attacked without warning. Both robots disappeared and she was blown off the side of the road and over a cliff.

  She managed to skirt the town to the plains area on the other side. In the middle of the open field sat a large wall of wooden stakes surrounding an area. Like a fort but the points faced inward. A prison. From towers around it MKs fired at anything that moved. Animal or vegetable or machine, they didn’t care in the least. She zoomed in the camera as far as it would go but, as she said, you could only make out animals and people, not detail. I estimated the distance from her to the first tower at a little over a mile. As she turned to leave a missile blew near her. I had the feeling the MKs were very jittery, not sure I saw anything that would indicate why.

  “The other stick is just the two wrecked ships and the one good one,” she said. “Get to your men and get ready to move out.”

  I finished my coffee and stood to leave and she said, “Wait one, you two.” She sat there so we sat back down. “Garth, wait one also, please?”

  After most of the rest left, El said, “Lucy said she erased some of it. They have some kids there as well, but they aren’t raising them. One a day is eaten. She said they drug a little boy out into the field and several MKs snipped off parts of legs and arms to munch on. The kids’ screams got to one who slapped the kid up the side of the head. Lucy thinks it killed him. They slowly tore him apart and distributed him among them. She felt the knowing, which we already do, and the seeing probably aren’t compatible.”

  Loka was shaking and I saw tears. “Probably she was right,” I told her.

  “We are going to see if we can save anyone. Okay, get ready. I’ll meet you at the gate,” she said in a dismissive tone.

  ~~~

  El was talking to Garth and others in her real battle staff. I heard Lucy talking over the earpiece several times, making clarifications. Seems we were not going to take the spaceship, just disable it. Took me a few minutes to realize why. It wouldn’t fit through the gate and we weren’t prepared to make a space flight yet.

  “Two missions at the same time,” El finally said. “Change of plans, officers call on the desert planet first. Sorry, I didn’t realize what Lucy had in mind. We still move in about three hours from now. See you all there.”

  Loka and I arrived with a large mass of Captains and Lieutenants at the weapons range. Funny, Kork didn’t seem the least bit pleased to see anyone.

  El was already there and so was Lucy. Once everyone had gathered around, Lucy took a stick and was drawing in the sand. “Through the gate and to the northwest five miles is the spaceship, about here.” She drew a circle. “We need to get to it. Garth knows what to look for and how to disable it. You people need to cover him for at least twenty minutes. He will remove some parts that will ensure they can’t fly it for awhile, if ever. Once that main force is engaged—all on foot by the way—a second group will hit the storage area and free the hostages which are eight miles in and slightly north-east. There are about six miles between the two sites. We need enough time to move them back to safety. My idea is like the evac of Olgreender, the chairs. We can try to get ten choppers in the air and hauling them. Each chopper can cover the rescue until full, then they pull out. I want two of the new guns moved outside to cover the gate and four 20s as well, with crews. We need to secure the gate at all costs until all the teams are back and the hostages rescued.” All the time she was drawing lines and circles pointing to the various areas.

  Garth suggested we send two choppers with the attack group on the ship. It was all they ever saw before, and it might have them call for all the MK guards and the like. Lucy said fine, it was a six day space flight with a time/space fold to get to the possible rodent planet so if we could kill all of these MKs we’d have time to setup a space plan, but for now the focus was getting the ship disabled and the hostages rescued.

  “How many troops for the spaceship?” Some Col. Asked.

  “I think 100,000 armed and ready. I want two hundred with us on the rescue, any more and we’ll be spotted long before we get in range. And the chopper crews of course. I don’t have any idea how many MKs are physically on planet
so I want a relief group of 100,000 to be ready to go either way as well,” El said.

  I raised my hand and waited until finally called on. “El, you realize if we move that many troops and choppers through our little gate that if the MKs are in overwhelming numbers again there is no physical way to get even a small portion of them back through in time and close the gate?”

  “Yes General Eldon, that fact was noted and discussed. The planet was not heavily populated and the MKs have veracious appetites so we do not anticipate overly large numbers to be present now. It will be everyone’s job to ensure we kill every damn bug we can find and secure the areas until an orderly retreat can be accomplished,” El said.

  “Just checking, thank you,” I told her. She just nodded.

  “Any other questions?” Lucy asked. There wasn’t any so she turned it to El.

  “Good, we start moving in one hour. Myself, Garth and the first through fourth divisions will go to the space ship. Eldon, Loka and Lucy with two hundred men from the fifth will secure the hostages and the remainder of the fifth and the sixth and seventh will guard the gate. I want a full division standing by here in Honor as a last resort. Tally, you will stay here and you already know what to do if they enter Honor Central. It is only a 60 second timer so don’t be slow.”

  That was the nuke to blow the reactor and destroy not only the Center but a good portion of the mountain on Olgreender too. We still had millions of pounds of weapons ammo stored here.

  “Good, let’s get back inside and in thirty minutes the first troops move. Unless spotted, we will form outside the gate to the west, Lucy’s group to the east. We will take a two-hour head start to engage them first, then call the two choppers to attack and start the ruckus. Let’s go and good luck to all.”

  As we headed back through the gate I saw Kork pleading with El and Lucy. I knew in my heart he was not a coward, just a fool. I saw Lucy nod and knew Kork was now going.

  How to describe 100,000 troops beating feet? Running from their staging areas on Olgreender II at port arms with full gear, through the gate, through Honor Central and out the gate to Myla’s planet four abreast and in perfect unison. Perfection? Pride? Conviction? I don’t know, but I sure hope we didn’t lose too many. People yelling cadence, troops singing, it really was awe-inspiring.

  After more than an hour of them running by it was our turn. To my surprise Reta was there and in uniform. Lucy said, “We need someone who can tell the prisoners we are coming and to be ready. Seems the range is less than a mile though. Still, we need her to explain to her people.”

  That many troops in a huge square was breathtaking. I could barely hear El screaming to them to ‘fix bayonets’.

  Lucy pulled our two hundred to the right of the gate, and said, “Listen, all you regulars, drop everything but your ammo and water, and grenades here. Nothing that makes noise—fix bayonets and wait. We will slip along a valley cliff as far as we can go and see what happens with the guards. If we are spotted I don’t doubt the MKs will kill them all so we really need to try and get in range first.”

  Finally the various choppers were through and the blades locked in place. While that was happening El said she was moving out. The massed Army separated into four divisions that spread out a bit and moved out in eight abreast columns that were broken down to fast-march battalions. I noticed each had its own battle standard and El had our blue and gold at the front.

  As they cleared the area and we sat waiting, out came the needlers which were set up along each side of the gate. Then protecting them came the 20s and more troops. We moved off a half-mile to give them room as Lucy went through what she wanted. Two wide, hug the base of the steep hill or cliff. Total silence.

  Finally it was time to go. As we left, someone on a 20mm wished us luck. I was surprised, we actually were pretty quiet. If anyone was making noise it was Reta, not in shape nor skilled, she stumbled and knocked rocks loose at first but she adapted quickly. I locked and loaded my pistol. As I did, so did the other officers. Better to jack in the round back here than chance someone hearing it later.

  We moved fairly quickly and I saw the remains of the second town come into view then slowly recede behind us.

  Lucy stopped and said, “We wait to see how El is doing. It is a little over a mile of open terrain now. Who brought the periscope?”

  “The what?” I asked.

  A bit back behind us someone whispered, “I have it ma’am.”

  Soon it was up front and Lucy set up this thing with two tubes on it. Took a few seconds to realize how it worked as she set up its little tripod stand. I saw her looking through the eyepieces and making adjustments, and then she told Loka to look.

  “I only see a few guards,” she said.

  “I saw that, but look to the left a little, see that square green thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is the barracks. I think there are about twenty guards in it,” Lucy said.

  Loka finally let me look. A huge wooden fort thing like the video came into view. To the left, about one-hundred yards, a large green plastic-looking building sat with a single MK standing near its door. I saw four guards this side of the compound so there probably were another four on the rear side.

  El came over the earpiece as I let Reta look through the scope. “Almost there, so far nothing. I would think as big as we are they’d have spotted us by now.”

  “Seems they are lulled. They appear lazy over here too,” I said.

  “Scouts said there are about a hundred around the ship area ahead, maybe another hundred in green buildings behind it. We are spreading abreast now. I will charge as soon as they all get in position. Going to use a U to encircle them. You ready?”

  Lucy assured her we were in position. Just waiting to go.

  Reta kept watching, and said, “I get a few collective feelings of despair, too far for anything else,” she said. “Can’t we get closer?”

  “Not yet, wait a bit,” Lucy said, and took over the scope.

  I finally heard shots over the earpiece then the filters cut in and we were in silence but I knew El had started the engagement.

  Lucy said, “They seemed to know almost instantly. They are agitated and all went to the green building, more are coming out. Yes, they are sending all but the eight guards to help, I think. They are moving that way. We will give them half an hour head start, and it will be too late to stop us. I want twenty snipers to set up along the crest and cover our retreat. Remember, head shots.”

  “The two choppers are attacking. Seems there are always a few more of these bastards,” El said. I see hundreds more coming up from further behind. We are heavily engaged, Lucy.”

  “Roger El, I’ll give them another five minutes then we move out,” she said.

  “Good luck, good hunting, out,” El said.

  Garth said, “All rescue choppers are warmed up and waiting. Estimated flight time of eight minutes.”

  “Roger,” Lucy said. “Stand by.”

  I saw something different. Lucy took her left hand off and place it in her backpack and inserted a wicked looking half circle knife that I knew was razor sharp.

  “Okay, Lieutenant, you in charge of the snipers?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” a young man said.

  “Good, once we free the prisoners you move forward enough to cover our asses, you got me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  El said, “We are at the ship, Garth is now inside.”

  Lucy motioned us forward. At a half crouch we came over the rise. I think all the MK guards were facing toward the spaceship because we went close to a quarter mile before we were seen. When Lucy said to fire, all the visible guards went down in a hail of headshots. No one came out of the building. Took several minutes for the other guards on the back to get around our side, they dropped just as fast. Lucy then ran at a slow pace, like we’d practiced in the desert.

  Reta said she contacted someone. “They are ready. There are still two very nervous guar
ds by the door in the back.” She said this while running. Lucky she was young.

  “They say all the MKs here are spoiled,” Reta said. She wasn’t sure what they meant. We had fifty yards to go.

  As our front line hit the fort-like structure the two gate guards tried to run. They died.

  I couldn’t believe the squalor, or the stench from in there.

  “Get the Choppers airborne,” Lucy said, as she used her hand to slash ropes and ties at both the door and the poles near it. By the time the first choppers arrived we had a good size hole with people near it. Reta told them to wait and few moved. It was eerie to see so many people, some clearly happy, yet not a word except a few of ours talking and yelling. One of them was Tici. He was too far back to see, but I recognized his voice.

  As the choppers started arriving we had to help many out, like Lucy said, so many were maimed. We did save some children. Reta spent most of the time telling them we were all here to help, what to do, and crying. I could only imagine the pain she was feeling from them. She did extremely well.

  Four choppers in, four loaded without a hitch, then as the fifth landed, one of our outer scouts said a large force was moving fast from the north. Maybe a thousand. I knew it was going far too easy.

  As we set a skirmish line Garth took two choppers and engaged them beyond our vision. He reported that about 500 ceased to exist. He came back as another moved to engage while Garth landed and filled up. About that time I saw at least three-hundred MKs closing on us, then, for no reason, they stopped and went off to the west, toward El’s group. I guess someone read our thoughts. Reta said, “They are spoiled so don’t care.”