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Post by Aaron Burr on Dec 15, 2009 0:52:33 GMT -5
Its funny how life imitates art and vice versa. They actually call it InterPlan now. I wonder if any of those Bureaucrats back home ever read any Phillip K. Dick.
I bet some smart ass Jr. Aide came up with the name as an inside joke. If so, its on us. As in us guys who make this whole monkey exhibit possible. I liked the old name better, Fleet Services. At least it sounded exciting. I bet at one time we actually did stuff like that. Service the fleet I mean. With your hands. It must have been hard when the landing bay and hangers went fully automatic. Old timers who used to wrench on space ships reduced to maintaining habitation units and banging on jammed airlock doors. I doesn't bother me though. I was never going to use that engineering degree anyway.
But InterPlan, it should be called InterMoon but it just goes to show you what kind of vision those bureaucrats have. It'll never work. Collaboration I mean. The fuggin' "Greasers" will just end up taking over that much faster. You can see where we used to have the big gun emplacements, but the Greasers made us get rid of them a long time ago. I bet that was cool. Back in the days when we blew those greasy bio-droid ships into shimmering bits of dust that slowly drifted across the surface of the Moon.
Now it's all sunshine and roses, or so they say. It seems to be getting all, well, gray. Which isn't a species joke. I know that's what color they are, but I didn't know that was they only color their minds could see. Yeah I signed up to meet them. Who wouldn't back then. Now pretty much everybody in Fleet...I mean everybody currently employed under the InterPlan13 addendum to the Final Treaty end note section 11.B-094. knows the score.
I guess it would be a lot harder to recruit if everybody knew we had already lost the war.
But its still cool to see the ships slam out of here to where ever the hell they come from. Once in a while another conventional rocket drops off some more cargo, or people from Earth. Not many get to go back though. I just wonder what they do with all that gunk. Earths most precious resource is slurry? Well, that's what its officially known as but some of us have figured out what its made of. Maybe its like honey to them. Maybe that's why they haven't wiped us all out. Nobody really knows because the things they send over here are only partly biological. The top level guys say the home planet is populated by something different and the greasers are kinda like remote control robots but I dunno', I bet that's just what they've devolved to. Yeah, I said it, so what? There isn't a better prison in the solar system than this place, Titan is fully automated and Europa is only used by the Chinese.
Besides, nobody even cares anymore. People are just waiting for the inevitable. Contact is scheduled for 2012. I figure its actually going to happen this time because InterPlan is running things now and the greasers run InterPlan. I don't know if that would put me out of a job or not. Some people are scheduled to board Alien/InterPlan ships that year and visit the "home planet." Not me brother. I've finally got enough battery packs for the tractor and I'm going to start dragging back the pieces of those heavy guns. I may even get one of them working before I'm caught.
Anyway, tomorrow some big wig from the U.N. (the real one, not that puppet show in New York) is coming up here for another conference with Commander Alencomb. Lot's of staff meetings and review sessions and you know at the end of it a couple of those grey stinkbots will waltz in on tip toes and squeal out some gibberish and we end up giving in to another one of their fugin' psycho demands.
Who knows? I gotta' get back to work. Those automatic toilets don't flush themselves you know. Yeah, I know. Its an old joke, I'll come up with a better one after tomorrow.
Spc. 0649 Mueller I.P.YY-77
I swear that's how I have to sign off on everything now. I thought you'd get a kick out of it.
J.
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Post by Floyd Looney on Dec 15, 2009 1:34:22 GMT -5
Very nice! Now when do we see the next 300 or so pages? lol
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Post by Attero Dominatus on Dec 15, 2009 2:00:51 GMT -5
Yes I agree, very well done. I hope you post more. Curious about why these aliens want the slurry.
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Post by Aaron Burr on Dec 15, 2009 16:58:18 GMT -5
You know, I had planned on writing to you as kind of a joke to help pass the time. No mail ever leaves this place, and if it did, the censors would redact everything to the point that nothing but confetti would fall out of the envelope when you opened it.
But now I'm writing to keep myself sane...or what passes for sane up here. I told you yesterday that some U.N. big wig was coming up to the base today...no, its now the next day...secretary Hilliard came up 28 hours ago and left 7 ago so its now the next day. Better just call it the day after.
The day started off O.K. I mean I guess it was the beginning of the day, the clock read O'dark thirty but this whole place is underground so it's kinda hard to tell. I got up and did my thing and reported for duty in the new light blue jumpsuit and matching blue badge. I kid you not. There's only 86 people manning a base meant for 1500, I don't understand why why they even bothered issuing us new duds, but there I was looking like a reject from the blue man group.
Orders for the day were S.O.P. for arriving dignitaries. Turn the lights on and make yourselves scarce. Simple enough. So me and the other two maintenance engineers clomped on down the hallways in magnetic boots, opening airlocks and turning on lights in rooms that hadn't seen occupancy since the Carter administration. Yeah, I know we're supposed to have artificial gravity up on these "secret" Moon bases but the fact is cancer swept through the long term crew members in the 80's so they turned it off.
I was glad to make myself scarce because they always flood the upper levels with that mood altering subliminal "Muzak". It doesn't affect me the way it's supposed to so Sargent Barry always lets me hang out way down by the reactor core. It's neat. Literally. The most precisely envisioned, designed and constructed Nuclear reactor ever made by the hand of man. It's never needed servicing. It just gets visually inspected every six months and it's good to go. Those guys really knew how to build back in the 50's.
So I'm down there just enjoying the peace and quiet, watching the blue glow cast from an inspection port play along the wall when I get a funny feeling. These funny feelings are nothing to ignore in my line of work so I naturally assumed something was wrong with the damn near immortal reactor. It was fine so I knew whatever was going wrong was going on upstairs. But I'm just a blue card so it's not my job to go bounding up the stairs to the reception bubble and play the heavy authority figure. I don't even get to carry a gun with my rating, much less a neural dagger. So I played it safe and ditched the boots and pulled my self up all 20 levels to the floor right below the surface. I knew just down the hall behind airlock number 6 was the grand concourse and ballroom that was only used when the greasers were supposed to show up.
I know you're wondering why I made so much out of a hunch, but it's the nature of the game up here. Remember when I told you the brainiacs around here figured the greasers were remote control biological robots? Well, whatever they are they emit some kind of brainwave that messes with most peoples heads the way radio stations sometimes bleed over each other. It doesn't do that to me. It just makes me mad. Not crazy mad, or "Hulk smash" mad, just really, really cranky. That's why they play that subliminal muzak whenever "they" show up. It's to keep people from going nuts and doing something stupid. But like I said, the muzak doesn't work on me either so the end result is that I wind up with a splitting headache that can last for days if I have to listen to too much of it. So you can see why I wasn't too keen to go kicking down the door to the ballroom.
But like I said, this place practically runs on telepathy or intuition or whatever so I knew something was up. And then it happened. Right in front of my eyes the airlock slides open and out pops a U.N. guard with his pants around his ankles slobbering like a rabid dog. yeah I know, but it's never like how you see it in the movies. Nobody's heads explode, they just revert to an infantile state of some kind and usually crap their pants. It's no wonder the greasers think they can take over. But their mind waves don't do much to me which is why I think I got picked for this assignment in the first place, but with typical bureaucratic incompetence I'm stuck fixing the plumbing instead of working someplace employing my unique talent.
I didn't waste much time and bounded right over to the blue helmet guy and pistol whipped him into unconsciousness with his own 9mm. It was harder than you think because he still had his heavy gravity boots on while I was bouncing all over the place without mine. I checked him for a neural dagger. Finding none I knew immediately what had happened. It was 1974 all over again.
Now, neither one of us should know anything about that incident and the only reason I do is because I found a hard drive that didn't get erased when the whole place went over to crystal cube based, data storage drives. It was naturally in one of the rooms that never get used anymore. But back in the 70's it was different. Back then we relied on peoples character, their brains and willpower to deal with the greasers so the psych tests and screening processes were a lot more stringent.
It wasn't supposed to happen. But it did. Some bureaucrat from Earth brought along an armed retinue that didn't have any screening and went nuts at the first sight of the greasers. They "killed" two of them, but in the process pretty much whacked everyone else in the room before they shot out a window in the grand concourse. It took a lot of cattle mutilations to make the greasers happy, but eventually they came back to the bargaining table and we got stuck with muzak.
So I got armed and ready to sail through the airlock when I see Secretary Hilliard come staggering out with blood all over her face. Now I know things are serious but I waited a second longer and sure enough, one of them came waltzing out on tip toes trying to drill holes in the back of the Secretary's head with it's evil black eye like slits. It was deliberately using its mind waves to torment the Secretary. I hate bureaucrats as much as the next guy but this was a fellow human being harmed by some alien turd burglar. You have to draw the line somewhere I suppose, and I guess that's where I drew mine. I didn't even think about it before I was popping off shots into it's misshapen head. Paw! Paw!Paw! And the whole corridor was filled with smoke and the stench of stale bacon fat. They really do stink. Even more so when they're dead.
I flew into the ballroom and bounced off the floor looking for more greasers but the place was pretty much pandemonium. Half the people in there were naked and the other half seemed either unconscious or dead. Some of them were base personnel. That was bad. Personnel never get whacked by "civilians". Buying the farm out here is easy, but never at the hands of some Earth bound rube who doesn't know how the solar system really works or what his ultimate purpose in the grand scheme of things is supposed to be. It's just bad form. And still no sign of the greasers. Lieutenant Martinez is the only other guy I know who isn't affected by the greasers so I went looking for him. I found him knocked out by the airlock at the other end of the concourse. He wasn't coming to, so I figured I should see where everybody else went and tried the airlock to the reception bubble.
Time Out.
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Post by Floyd Looney on Dec 15, 2009 17:11:12 GMT -5
I can't hardly wait.
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Post by Aaron Burr on Dec 16, 2009 0:59:11 GMT -5
The airlock wouldn't open so I knew the greasers were getting ready to slam out of here in a hurry. I reached down and swiped the Lieutenants red card, his neural dagger and one gravity boot and bounded upstairs to where the lift to the control tower is located. I punched in the code for the tower platform and just had time to slip into the gravity boot before the lift doors spiraled open revealing the spectacular view from the control platform. Only one guy was on duty and he had the blissed out countenance of a drug addict. The muzak was droning on in the background and echoed around the cavernous room. The control tower attendant turned fully around from his radar screen and merely nodded at my red card displayed on my chest and smiled amiably.
"There's been a malfunction in launching bay 6."
He nodded again and turned back to his display.
"Yes Sir, it looks like we have a ship preparing to slam out of that very bay."
"Well, like I said it's a malfunction. I need you to close the meteor doors so I can send a repair crew in there."
"But it says that a ship is getting ready to launch."
"I know. It's a malfunction. You know I'm telling the truth because I only have one boot on."
The controller looked down at my half clad feet and nodded dreamily.
"Yeah, your right. That's all wrong. You need another boot."
He searched his control panel absentmindedly and then pushed a large green knob that turned red after he depressed it. We both looked across the crater floor to where landing bay 6 was to watch the heavy, half spherical metal doors close across the launching tube. Before they met a klaxon sounded and the red knob began to flash. Too late. A sudden flash from bay 6 and miles of confetti streamers spew themselves silently through the partially open doors into the empty atmosphere of the moon.
"Gee that looked swell. What was that?"
"My other boot."
"Say, that's too bad. I wish I cold do more but I'm busy manning the control tower while the Visitors are here."
"Yeah, thanks anyway. Have a great day!"
He smiled and waved and I bounced out of there leaving Captain Martinez's other boot behind. I retched in the lift from the effects of the muzak and tumbled out of the lift at the concourse level ass over teakettle in my haste to get some fresh air. The Lieutenant was awake and trying to calm, or otherwise restrain the few civilians that remained conscious. He had on two boots and had scrounged up a neural dagger somewhere so I figured he woke up right after I left him.
He was none too pleased to see his red card plastered over my blue one so I gave it back without a word and began helping to tie up the more useless civilians.
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Post by Floyd Looney on Dec 16, 2009 1:23:34 GMT -5
Well at least someone is putting up a resistance! Those slurry-sucking alien scum think they can take over our moon! harumph!
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Post by Aaron Burr on Dec 16, 2009 2:16:57 GMT -5
Did you re-read post three? I amended that pretty heavily.
That was all yesterday. Last night I got confined to quarters and today I'm supposed to get a psych scan to see what really happened. Good luck. I can fool those things too. As far as I.P. will ever know I was in the ballroom assisting Lieutenant Martinez in the aftermath of what appeared to be an assassination attempt, but was most likely all a dreadful mistake. And they think I might be nuts.
So I've got time to lay it all out as near as I can to the truth and we'll go from there.
First off. No matter what anybody says, we've bought some time by destroying the alien get away car. Sure they know about everything we do, but it takes time, even for them, to get here if something screws up. Second, they started it. I was there. I saw what happened. Most of those people present had their minds permanently damaged if they weren't killed outright by the aliens powerful psychic blasts. As far as I can tell, Secretary Hilliard and Lieutenant Martinez were the only ones to come out relatively unscathed, and she's pretty messed up. I guess she was Secretary in part due to her natural resistance to the greasers jedi mind tricks. But that leaves 36 casualties. 12 of them base personnel. Third...well third is anybody's guess. Normal people would have the foresight to see what's coming down the pike but InterPlan isn't staffed by normal people.
What I'm getting at is that things have changed. Maybe we don't pose a threat to them anymore or maybe they know something about us now that they didn't before. I'm inclined to believe the latter. Which brings me back to the slurry.
When I first go here I once ran into a greaser in the hallway. Almost literally. So I got close enough to one of them for long enough to notice a few things. This one knew immediately that I was immune to it's mind waves and regarded me with disinterested curiosity. Of course Captain Simmons (before Martinez) saw it otherwise and nearly tossed me out the airlock for being a blue badge in what was then strictly red badge territory. Over the years I ran into a few more and learned that that was pretty much their temperament as a general rule. Curious, but not enough to do much about it. Last fall though, things changed. The base started getting buzzed by unscheduled flights and some of our supply rockets never made it to our base. The other Moon bases reported the same conditions but nobody seemed to be able to put 2 and 2 together. Then about a month ago I ran into what I'm pretty sure was the same greasebag I ran into my first year up here. I'm pretty sure it remembered me too because people with resistance to mind waves really seem to stand out to them. Like they can see them more clearly.
Anyway, this time the greaser fuggin' growled at me. Growled. Why would that be? Because things have changed in their eyes and they're getting ready to kick things up a notch. Because they regard us differently now. Because they know us differently now.
See, you can't tell me the greasers take God knows how many metric tons of medical waste and sundry animal parts off planet every year because they're conducting genetic testing. They've been doing that for 50 years. No, it's bigger than that. What it is is a matrix they use to do everything from make biological weapons to regeneration of their artificial bodies. It's a catalyst made out of us. Hell, maybe they make bouillabaisse out of it. All I know is that they think they have enough of it. For what, I don't know but I can guess. But I do know that in absorbing and studying our genetic makeup they've got that much more of a peek into our savage, primitive souls. Apparently they don't like the view.
Great. Once I bust out of here I can give them plenty more primitive behavior they can observe.
J
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Post by Floyd Looney on Dec 16, 2009 13:03:09 GMT -5
I probably didn't spot all of the changes but I really do like this story. I am very interested in where this is going. That doesn't happen to me as often as I'd like. Television just makes me mad these days, they have no idea how to tell stories any more.
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Post by Aaron Burr on Dec 17, 2009 0:10:28 GMT -5
I was wondering how the homosexual love scene passed without comment.
I'm not busting out of anywhere. But at least Lietenant Martinez knows where the battery packs are for the tractor and where the Beam Cannons are buried. But as usual, I'm getting ahead of myself.
All the stuff I know is a result of 11 years of research both on and off the Moon. A piece here, a hard drive there, you'd be surprised what a maintenance guy can ferret out. But I tried to put it all together since I'm working here. I figured I should know about the company that's paying me to sacrifice myself for some obscure bottom line. So here is the result of 11 years of diligence.
1946. Eisenhower get's picked to organize some "Men of Stature" to form a committee in the unlikely event that Earth was ever visited by extraterrestrial beings. Ike, fresh from Europe, dashed off some opinions and handed the whole thing off to one of his Secretary's before heading out to run N.A.T.O.
1948. Truman, scared witless in the face of irrefutable physical evidence turns for help only to find Eisenhower's "Men of Stature" ready and waiting to confer with President Harry. Truman, even more terrified after hearing out Ike's team of super heroes, decides to cover everything up and wait for Eisenhower to clean everything up once he became President. I figure Truman was already freaked out by nuking Japan and just couldn't handle any more drama. So the military created Flight Services as a sub branch and concentrated on finding and burying as many errant pieces of space debris as possible. And of course, the "Men of Stature" eventually took things over, most of them being fellow officers of Ike's anyway.
1954. Was the year. Ike was pretty ticked off to find out that his Martian welcoming committee had transformed into an Alien auto wrecking yard. A heavily armed and funded one at that. So he called their bluff and demanded Flight Services pony up or shut up. They did. In spades apparently, because 1955 was the year we first opened for business on the Moon as the newly christened Fleet Services. Shiny new rocket ships, hybrid technology, skirts deliberately recruited to serve along side men...
Back in those days, an ever incredulous Ike read his daily briefings sitting on the toilet, just to be on the safe side. Moon battles, skirmishes in space, about 15 different species and the possibility of inclusion into the recognized space guilds, confederations, and benevolent aid societies throughout the know Universe. Ike was about to go down in history as the greatest man who ever lived. I'm talking first contact on the White House lawn, world accolades, and of course the gig as first Ambassador from Earth. But then...
1956. The greasers arrive. That's all I know. I can't find anything else about it except the date, so whatever happened must have been bad.
1959. China sets up shop on the Moon, so by now everybody has figured out the greasers are playing all sides against the middle. It didn't stop us from smashing the Chinese base into cinders with a big asteroid though. Ike was tough.
But all reference to any other species besides the greasers stops around this time.
1963. U.N. finds out about Fleet Services, the Chinese, and the greasers. Things pretty much started to go downhill around then. We had already hunkered down to defensive position by then, but now found ourselves in a submissive position. Hooray for compromise.
1973. Nixon had finally cleared enough red tape to start taking the fight to our slimy oppressors when...well...you know.
1977. Carter.
1982. We were pretty much back in business except for the big guns. The thinking was that they would be too provocative. But around this time some people started figuring things out. And that's pretty much when the U.N. cried foul and threatened to go public. Aye,Yi,Yi. 8 assignations later the heats off but Fleet Services goes international. It had to. "The Men of Stature" had founded a bunch of international corporations to profit off new found Alien technology. All it wound up doing was to take the our initiative out of the conflict and hand it back to the greasers.
1986. Moon Base 9 destroyed.
1992. Discovery of Ark. All I can say is Ka-Ching.
1999. Refurbishment of all critical systems. Crystal Cube technology adapted.
2002. InterPlan first conceived.
2007. InterPlan enacted.
2010. InterPlan big wig nearly assassinated.
And then I pretty much compared notes with the Lieutenant last night. I'll let you know what he says tomorrow.
J.
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Post by Attero Dominatus on Dec 17, 2009 5:49:43 GMT -5
This is a very good story! I especially like how these aliens are biomechanical constructs that use brainwaves as weapons.
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Post by Floyd Looney on Dec 17, 2009 14:10:39 GMT -5
The loss of contact with all the other species is something. Did they reject the application of Earth and are not caring what the greasers are doing? Fascinating.
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Post by Aaron Burr on Dec 17, 2009 23:14:28 GMT -5
So it turns out...
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Post by Floyd Looney on Dec 17, 2009 23:27:25 GMT -5
That is so wrong. So very wrong.
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Post by Aaron Burr on Dec 18, 2009 1:32:51 GMT -5
Yeah!!! I can't believe it. THE FLEET HAS RETURNED!!!
Christ, I still get goosebumps and tears in my eyes just thinking about. I started writing to you again last night...Was it only one night? Hmm. I guess so, but a Hell of a lot just went down my friend so hold on to something and get ready. Oh yeah, and put a steel pot over your head. I'll get to that later...
So I'm sitting in bed with the writing tablet when Lieutenant Martinez strolls in through the airlock. We start getting our stories together for the guys from J.A.G. when...yeah, I know your all thinking "WTF? Don't they have security cameras up there?" Of course we do. It's just that the greasers hate having their pictures taken so we turned them all off. Isn't stupidity wonderful?
Anyway, we're just starting to hash everything out when all of a sudden every siren, bell, whistle, klaxon and warning light goes off at the same time. I swear it felt like I jumped up so fast that I hit the ceiling. I hit the floor pretty quick though. The artificial gravity kicked in right as the sirens went off and I slipped off the bed and landed on my butt.
I looked over at the Lietenant who was holding on to my dresser for support against the sudden surge in gravity. I bet my eyes were bigger than his looked because he was the one to get it together first.
"We need to get to the Control Tower."
I grunted a reply because we were both headed for the door, running in that weird way people do in Earth type gravity. We didn't even get a chance to yell at each other over all the noise before the base communication system kicked in. Except it wasn't a prerecorded voice announcing another cargo drop or greaser arrival. Blasting out over the speakers, cutting through the sirens and horns, was Duane Eddy Twanging out Rebel Rouser.
It was even louder in the lift. We came out in the control tower which had pretty much all of us up there, around 50 or so, and we stopped in our tracks. Instead of the taxpayer funded million dollar view that normally greeted my eyes whenever I bounced out of the lift, I was, like every body else, transfixed by the sight of 10 blue and gold saucer shaped...well...spaceships, blocking the view to the entire crater.
Commander Allencombe was waving his arms and shouting at one of the plasma screens but I couldn't hear what he was saying. No one could, Duane was really banging it out. With my hands over my ears, (hey, I like old timey music, it was just loud) I watched as what looked like about a hundred white garbage cans come raining down around Bay 3, directly in front of the tower. These proved to be manned by people as they all hopped out of the cans and started swarming over the access panels and exposed equipment of bay 3. Rapid flashes and tiny fireworks from welding gear lit up the crater floor. I could see some of the other hanger bays were getting the same treatment with bay 6 being lit up like a Christmas tree with lights from the saucer hovering over it. I moved to nudge Lieutenant Martinez with my elbow and saw that he had moved up with Commander Allencombe and the other officers.
Abruptly, the music cut off and the sirens and lights with it. Commander Allencombe could be briefly heard bellowing before he dropped his voice suddenly and looked around the room. All the plasma screens kicked on and were filled with the same face. A Human face. I had no idea who he was but he looked to be around fifty, and rugged. He had hard, cold eyes. His voice cut through the broken chatter beginning to swirl around the room.
"I see there are more of you this time. As you can see, there's about to be a few more in there because we're coming in whether you like it not. Which one of you is in Command?"
This last was an insult because Commander Allencombe had been waving his arms and bellowing at the screen for a while before the music stopped. He ignored it and snapped out.
"I am Commander Bruce Allencombe. This is an InterPlan base under the protection of the United Nations of Earth and the Voshan Triumvirate. Who are you? Why are you attacking us?"
The rugged voice cut the Commander short.
"This is Captain Roger William Young. Commander of the First and 2nd Battalions. Fleet Services. You are trespassing on United States property Mister. I hope your men have some blasters, "Commander", because mine do."
The screen went blank again. Commander Allencombes voice rose, sounding weak and strained.
"This is a violation of treaty protocol. We're being attacked! Jam the airlocks and get New Haven on the screen!"
Nobody moved at first and I felt my heart rise in me as it had when Captain Young's voice had boomed through the cavernous control tower. But slowly a few people sat down behind computer monitors and a few more began to shuffle towards the lift. I didn't know what to do but Lieutenant Martinez made up my mind for me. He raised his hand and called out softly.
"Wait."
He said it again as Commander Allencombe swung round with fury in his eyes.
"Wait."
He had hung his head but now raised it and turned to look at the huge ship that filled the windows of the tower.
"Anybody that sides with Allencombe is gonna' get their ass beat."
He turned back to look at everyone with a cocky grin. I started to shout approval but was drowned out by the sudden roar that filled the room as technicians and officers alike lept to their feet in joy.
Man, there wasn't a dry eye in the house, The fuggin' Fleet. I didn't even know it was still around. It had disappeared from records before the greasers turned up in numbers and I always half suspected it had been a fake story to begin with. But there was nothing fake about this. The screen popped on again and the grim visage of Captain Young filled the screen.
"We'll be inside any second now. I sure hope you have those blasters ready. And there better be a red Solo Hopper in Bay 1 or someone's ass is going to be in a sling."
Lieutenant Martinez stepped up and saluted smartly in front of the plasma screen.
"Lieutenant Javier Alfonso Martinez, United States Navy. Detached to InterPlan Lunar base zero one. Have assumed command and placed Commander Allencombe under arrest. What are your orders Captain Young?"
This was too much. The room erupted in cheers again and the stony face of Captain Young broke into a boyish grin.
"Just open the door Son, and throw that asshole out of my suite."
Lieutenant Martinez gave a curt nod and turned to issue orders but a couple of officers were already escorting a very bewildered looking Commander towards the lift I had so recently gotten out of. I was still pretty bewildered myself but once again Lieutenant Martinez helped me out.
"James! Jimmy! Get over here."
He waved me over to where he was standing with a few other officers and shook hands with me.
"It's Captain Young! He's come back! He's come back! The only one to make it back and he's brought the battalion with him."
I still didn't know what was going on but I don't think a lot of people really did either. There was too much shouting and crying going on. Now, I think it was in part due to the muzak being shut off. But at the time all I knew was that I felt great, but wasn't sure why. Who the hell was Captain Young?
Man, it's quite a story. I'll have to fill you in later because this Recruit, yup, we're all Recruits now, even Lieutenant, I mean Recruit Martinez, anyway, this Fleet Services Recruit has to hit the rack because Calisthenics begins at 0600. Yeah, calisthenics. At least I don't have to sweat over P.T. anymore. Ha.Ha.
J
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