Chapter 5

Anfon and I had temporary jumps in rank to accommodate our new jobs. She was now a sergeant and I was a top-sergeant. I was in overall charge of the detail, but Anfon had the direct command duties for the six-man squad. Isn't that just like the military—two chiefs for six grunts. Sheesh! The universe never changes!

I thought that I was the lucky one when I found out that Anfon was responsible for the care and feeding of the six grunts, while all I had to do was to be the contact point with the civilians. Well, once I met the 23 civilian scientists and technicians and found out how stupid they could act, I changed my mind and wished to swap jobs with her. However, military hierarchy had spoken, so our jobs were fixed. Oh, well, I guess I can survive.

We were issued weapons, of course, but these were all of the energy type, and I screamed bloody murder at that. I insisted that the material, whatever it was, in the armor of the weapons used against us made energy weapons useless. We needed something with a physical punch to protect the civilians properly. That must have been the magic phrase, because I was willing to bet that we would have been stuck with energy weapons only if this had been a strictly military operation.

The mission was delayed for three days while additional weapons were obtained. I asked for a handgun similar to a Glock G21 ( .45 caliber), but with a replicator in the grip to produce cartridges as needed. I didn't want us to have to stop shooting to reload; that could be a fatal distraction. The other item I wanted was an equivalent to the RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade). The answer was a LAW-like device (Light Assault Weapon) that fired a rocket with a shaped charge, but had a replicator so that it did not need manual reloading. We had an hour to learn to use these weapons, and that was enough time. Both of these were truly awesome weapons! We still had our laser sidearms, so the military brass was happy. We were good to go!

We were dropped on Inglon at the same place Anfon and I had been put down before, except we were closer to the town. This time, we had no trouble finding a hotel with enough rooms for everybody. Some of the civilians were insulted that they were actually going to have to dial in their own replicated meals. In protest, they had refused to learn how to operate their replicators. I called all of the civilians together and announced that I was going to offer a one time only opportunity for them to learn how to use their food replicators. If they didn't learn on this occasion, they could go hungry for all I cared. I got some backtalk from a few stuffed shirts, but I ignored them. I went through the complete routine from calling up the menu for a particular style of meal to the disposition of the leftovers and trash. One person still refused to cooperate, but I ignored her. I figured that she would get one of the other civilians to show her how to use the machine when she got hungry enough.

As expected, none of the experts were from Earth, but they were all humanoid enough to understand and appreciate what the humanoids of Inglon had accomplished. They were at a disadvantage compared to us military types, because we had the built in AIs, while theirs were some sort of add on device which was not as sophisticated as ours. Naturally, they also were not as expensive.

Everybody's AI could read the local languages that Anfon and I had seen, but we assumed that there were probably other languages on the planet that we had not yet encountered. That was my secondary job—I was supposed to learn any other languages we encountered and to act as an interpreter. Sheesh! I was going to have even more fun, I could smell it in the air!

We spent three days at our drop point to get the civilians used to the extra large dimensions of the natives. The next step was to fly to the entrance to the underground shelter that we had found. That was the proverbial fire drill in the nut house! Before we left, I explained to the whole crew just how dangerous this flight potentially was. The military people paid close attention to my every word, and the civilians tuned me out. Even when I described how I had been wounded on our first trip to Inglon, the civilians would not take me seriously. Well, I tried! My AI would have a recording of my warning, so that if anybody got shot, they could not claim that I had not warned them.

I asked the civilians to stay together so that we grunts could surround them and provide a protective screen as we flew, but that made as much impression as all of my other remarks had. OK, we would protect the few that had believed me and paid attention, and the rest of them could take their chances. I was not going to rope them together and tie their hands so that they were protected in spite of themselves.

The armor experts wanted to see one of these pillboxes, so we headed for some that had not been active when Anfon and I first showed up. As expected, we had not gone far before the group had broken apart as a person here and a person there suddenly swooped off to investigate something that had attracted his attention. We were all wearing RDF (radio direction finder) equipment, so we could get together when the time came, thus, I did not worry about the stragglers getting lost. However, I did know that somebody was going to get shot before the trip was over.

Yes, I was correct. About half an hour into the trip, there was a scream of pain, quickly followed by a scream for help, blasting over the common communication channel. The continuing refrain was, "I'VE BEEN SHOT! I'VE BEEN SHOT!" I couldn't get the person to shut up so that we could find out the necessary details. OK, I can understand panic, but this was going to ridiculous extremes. The only way to find the injured person was for everybody else to rendezvous so that we could know who was hurt. That took almost 30 minutes; meanwhile, the crying and blubbering went on over the common channel. Finally, everybody was together, so that all of the RDFs were collected in one place except the odd one off somewhere else that had to be the injured person.

I sent Anfon with two grunts to track down the injured person and shut off her transmitter. A simple head count showed that the blubberer was the same female who was too good to program her own food replicator. I sent Anfon because I hoped that a chewing out by another female would make more impression than I knew that I would make.

They were back with the wounded woman within the hour, and it turned out the wound was somewhat more serious than I had hoped. Her whole left side was blistered by laser fire. She had lost part of her left arm and her left leg. I didn't say anything to that effect, but I was glad that it was this pompous bitch that was injured. At last, I had an excuse to get rid of her. We called for a transporter pickup and transfer to a hospital. The female really was badly wounded and in need of immediate medical care. We gave her a dose of the equivalent of morphine and tried to keep her quiet while we waited nearly an hour for the pickup. I took the opportunity to dictate a report to my AI on the incident and transmit it to headquarters. I didn't want the female to try to sue either the government or me because of her own stupidity.

She was finally picked up, but I held the group there while I lectured them again on the dangers of this planet. This time, the civilians listened. I also insisted that they not use the radio channels the way that female had done. My excuse was the added time it took to pick her up and treat her injuries. That made an impression like nothing else would, because they all had seen how she had suffered from the laser burns.

This time, Anfon took the weapons expert to see the still functional pillbox. Hopefully, he could get some good information from it. Meanwhile, I escorted the armor expert to see a non-functional pillbox so that he might get some insight on how the energy absorbing business worked. He stood safely back while I shot several blasts with my X-ray laser weapon at the pillbox. He marveled at how the pillbox shrugged off the energy beam and was anxious to study the pillbox in detail. I left a grunt with him as a guard while the expert lost himself in his specialty.