SG: Aurora #27 - Scramble! (Part One of Three)
Frobozz
Colleen looked at the assistants who stood nearby and shook her head
sadly as they began to open a recently returned suit of Tornado powered
armour. The red-headed engineer held out her hand for a moist facial towel,
with which she wiped away the filth they found inside.
"Bubble gum... spilled Choke cola... oh, ack... this is truly disgustin'!"
One assistant, conveniently unnamed to prevent his further inclusion
in that drug-haze of an anchovy pizza induced delusion that we call
continuity, looked into the suit and blanched. "That... is the most vile
thing we've found in a Tornado unit yet."
Colleen used tweezers and exacting skill to extract a copy of 'Wizard'
from the suit, dropping it carefully into an incinerator. "Ye'd think thae
a teenaged superteam with enough money tae buy an armoured suit with a
multimillion dollar priced tag would hae at least enough responsibility tae
clean it out after use!"
"Kids these days," sighed the assistant, forever doomed to a nameless
one-shot cameo which would be soon forgotten amidst the exciting and
occasionally entertaining going-ons of the series.
"Tis a dead loss," sighed Colleen, tossing down her tweezers. "We need
tae activate suits, nae perform a spring cleaning tae pick up after every
li'll rugrat who couldnae use a trash bin!"
The assistant nodded, then looked oddly at the other side of the suit
storage bay. "What about that unit there?" he asked, pointing to a heavily
modified suit of Tornado tactical powered armour. "Why don't we bring it up
to readiness?"
"Are ye daft, man?" asked Colleen, shocked. "Do ye know tae who thae
suit was assigned? Hae ye any clue?"
"Um... no?"
"T'was Doug's suit before Task Force Aurora shut its doors! Ye didnae
touch thae suit if ye valued yer neck!"
The assistant looked at it again. "But it's in pristine condition. Was
it ever used?"
"Nae... nae, tragically it was n'ere e'en powered up."
"Why?"
"T'was an experimental modification, lad. It ran on alcohol."
"Yes?"
"So did Doug. We'd tank up the suit, he'd follow suit and tank up. By
the time he was done, he was too inebriated tae manoeuvre the thing e'en if
we had more booze for it."
"Too bad."
"Aye. A tragic story indeed. Now run down tae Kent's office an' see if
he's unpacked yet."
"Why?"
"Because he might be able tae help with the reactivation o' these
units, imbecile! If we donae get the suits ready for the invasion, Earth'll
be caught with its pants down."
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Chris Angelini/Frobozz Magic Productions
-and-
Mademoiselle Muse Inc
-in association with-
'We Didn't Mean To Colour The Sky Pink, Honest!'
Industrial Special Effects and Magic
-and-
The Overworked and Underpaid Lisa MacDougall (producer)
-present-
AURORA #27
"Scramble!"
'1 Coin 1 Play'
-or-
Space Invaders (Part Two of Three)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
It was all coming together, thought Doyle as he sat in his office
chair, so where would the first problems develop? All administrators were
worshippers of Murphy - the personification of bad luck - even if they had
no idea that they were. For the umpteenth time, the holographic head of
Aurora skimmed over progress that had been made in restoring the
organisation. Personnel were hired and refreshed in their training; support
staff and soldiers filled out the ranks of the warriors; commander Tonk had
been drugged into submission to lead the organisation's space forces; and
labs, medical bays and Choke machines had all been restocked, thus
replenishing the Beanstalk's vital supplies. Some of Canada's best superguy
talent was either on their way to the structure or else were quickly
penning 'Wish You Were Here' Florida postcards to cover up their mysterious
disappearance right before a big crisis. Aurora's best engineering staff
were hurriedly learning about the two captured alien space cruisers at the
very top of the Beanstalk, in the hopes of finding some weapon to use
against the enemy. In short, the organisation was as ready to repel a
massive invasion from space as it would ever be. Which meant that there
would be a problem coming along any... moment... now...
A knock sounded at the door.
"Impeccable timing," muttered Doyle. "Come in."
Peter Kent, Aurora's chief engineer, stepped into Doyle's office
holding a clipboard. Kent looked at him with trepidation, as though about
to deliver news that a rabid dragon had just eaten half of Ontario and that
animal rights activists were lobbying to have it protected while it simply
followed its instincts, to wit, eating lots and lots of taxpayers.
"Yes Kent? What is it?" asked Doyle, ready for just about anything.
"Well Doyle," replied the man, screwing up his courage. "You see... we
have a little problem."
"Of course we do," replied Doyle. Of course there was a problem, he
thought. There had to be a problem. There hadn't been enough problems yet.
Doyle would only feel properly safe when the crisis was behind him and more
importantly, he was sitting on enough incident and damage reports to paper
his office. "What is the problem, Kent?"
"We're not going to have enough Tornado suits activated by zero hour,"
replied Kent, not seeming quite as unhappy about this news as Doyle. "We've
pulled every unit that we had in mothballs, but most of the returned
armours is in some condition of disrepair. You'd think they'd all been used
on L.A. freeway patrol or something."
"Ah... ha," said Doyle, frowning slightly. "Could we borrow armour
from someplace?"
"Powered armour is sort of a specialised munitions, Doyle. You don't
just go to 'Rent-A-Wreck' and expect to find a suit. The parts to construct
a time-shifting device, antimatter bomb or a giant robot maybe, but for
heaven's sake not a tactical armour unit. Even if we did rent, we'd still
have retraining problems with unfamiliar suits."
"Blast..."
"Wait, I've got a suggestion."
Doyle looked up at Kent curiously. "What are you thinking of?"
Kent shuffled his feet, clutching his clipboard as though it was a
chipboard life preserver. Which, knowing Colleen's tendency to modify
standard equipment, it might very well be.
"Out with it," said Doyle. "It's not as though we have time to dither."
"What I'm thinking, you see... please don't shout until you've heard
me... is that we could reactivate the OUQT units that're still in stor--"
"We could _*WHAT*_???"
"--age. No fair, you shouted and I asked you not to."
"Then perhaps you could explain your plan again?"
Kent sighed and cleared his throat. "I was thinking that we could
reactivate the OUQT units that are--"
"We could _*WHAT*_???"
"You know this isn't any easier the second time around, Doyle."
"Sorry, sorry. It's almost a reflex."
"You see, if we reactivated the OUQ--"
"Reactivate the _*WHAT*_??? Sorry, hold on."
Doyle pulled a piece of masking tape from a roll on his desk and
placed it over his mouth. He nodded for Kent to proceed.
"The troops are already familiar with the old-style OUQTs. The
benefits of using them--"
"Mrfl _*MRFL*_???"
"--would be that we need not buy or acquire additional units, we'd
have a very short reactivation and literally no retraining time. Though the
OUQT units are underpower in comparison with the Tornado suits, we would
still have that additional firepower that we'd need right when we needed
it."
"Mrfl, mrf, mfff, mrfl," Doyle ripped the tape from his mouth. "Ow! I
didn't know that solid holograms could rip out their hair. You're missing
an important point, Kent."
"That being?"
"The OUQT units were mothballed for a reason."
"If you're referring to the Carol Trent incident..."
"I'm very much referring to Trent and her untimely demise upon her
hardsuit's detonation."
"... then you'll be happy to know that neither my design nor my
engineering crew were at fault in that."
Doyle stared at Kent for a long moment. "Then what was the flaw?"
"It was a deliberately placed weakness in the final units' structures
which would cause them to fail under specific conditions... like the ones
that felled Trent. We've already removed this and we've checked for more
discrepancies between my plans and the final products."
"One moment, Kent. You're saying that this was an act of sabotage?"
Kent nodded. "Dow and I investigated this and other mishaps that
seemed like just misadventure during TFA's closure. We're not entirely sure
who, but we know that someone had been sabotaging the Task Force from the
beginning. Worse, they had probably infiltrated CAUTION to do it."
Doyle steepled his fingers. "That certainly reinforces my decision, then."
"Decision?"
"Not to reactivate an espionage branch now or after the alien invasion
crisis. We're strict superhero support now so we don't particularly need
spies."
"As you say, Doyle. But about my plan?"
"Kent, can you give me your personal assurance that these suits will
not malfunction?"
"I give you my word. "
"Then begin reactivating as many OUQT units as we're short Tornadoes.
Make sure you only assign them in squads, though. No mixing armour types.
And inform Graham of this."
"Yes sir," nodded Kent, turning and walking out of the office.
"Wait."
Kent looked back at Doyle. "Yes?"
Doyle sighed. "Kent, you do know what will happen if your suits are
Pintos, don't you?"
Kent nodded slightly, pursing his lips.
"Good," replied Doyle. "All we need is just one accusation of
negligence to get everything that we've built up torn back down around our
ears. I'm placing my faith and trust in you, Kent. I'm also placing this
organisation in your hands, so to speak. You have the power to destroy it.
Don't use that power."
Kent nodded again, saying nothing. He turned and walked to the door,
closing it gently behind him.
***
Graham paced back and forth in front of the troops that he was to
command. He looked over the old faces that he had come to know very well.
He spent time looking for those who had not returned: Jennings, Peterson,
Vedding... He spent more time looking at those who had returned and would
look to him for guidance. But mostly, First Sergeant Graham paced back and
forth in the reviewing area of Aurora's orbit-high structure - called the
Beanstalk. He tried to think of what a more experienced commander might try
in his shoes. Pacing, probably. The officers under whom he'd served seemed
to be quite proficient in pacing, except for General Anaesthetic, his last
commander. The general had been very good at yelling, possibly because of
frustrations in not being able to pace very well. It was Graham's opinion
that it would be better to cultivate pacing abilities.
"Good work everyone," said Graham at last. "Those last few drills were
great. A little more work and we'll be up to snuff and you'll all be
getting specific corrections about what you did before lights-out tonight.
But tomorrow's drills will be a little different than what we've been
running... you'll be training in OUQT rigs instead of Tornado suits."
Murmurs of protest rushed through the crowd like excited pickpockets
at Mardi Gras. Disbelieving eyes were turned towards Graham and troopers
waited for him to laugh and say the joke was on them. A lady swooned and
fainted, but that was mostly for effect and has little bearing upon the
story at hand. Graham shook his head at the troops and soldiered forth.
"It's no joke, guys. They're recommissioning the rigs."
"Weren't those the suits that killed one of us?" demanded trooper John
Clarke, from the middle of the room. It was clear that no matter how
question-like his statement had been, it was completely rhetorical. "Carol
Trent."
"You can't expect us to go into battle in those," said another
trooper. "We'd be spending half our time wondering when our number would
come up."
"The suits are good," stated Graham firmly, gesturing for silence
which he received, though grudgingly. "I can't reveal at this time why
Trent's rig exploded, but Doyle's assured me that there's a damned good
reason for it that doesn't involve a flaw in the suits."
"Wait... they will not tell us why Trent really died?" asked Trooper
Soaring Eagle. "If we don't know the entire story, don't we have a right to
be told it?"
Graham bit his lip and considered. "Guys... I'm going to make you all
a promise. I'm going to ride Doyle on this until he lets me tell you what
happened to Trent, but you're going to have to trust me, capiche? If I
don't tell you for a while, it means that I can't but I want to. Deal?"
There was more muttering throughout the crowd. Few liked the idea
though fewer still were happy that there was more to the story of their
once-comrade's death. The final consensus appeared to be positive however,
allowing Graham to relax a bit.
"I'm glad that I'm understood. We'll break for the day and meet back
here at 0500 hours... Davison, what the hell(tm) do you have in your hand?"
The named trooper eeped and assumed a pose most often seen on deer who
have wandered into the bright gleam of headlights. Dumbly he held up a VHS
cassette.
"What _is_ that?" asked Graham, crossing his arms.
"It's... 'Rambozo XII - Twelfth Blood -or- As You Strike It'."
"You were just going to pop it into the security system's tape archive
machine, weren't you?"
"Um... kinda."
"Did it ever occur to you that this system we have here for
maintaining the safety and security of our Beanstalk is not a toy?"
"No..."
"Did it occur to you that this is a multimillion dollar setup that's
solely devoted to keeping us safe and secure? Did you stop to consider that
what you were about to do was wrong, amoral and selfish? Did you?"
"No..."
"DID YOU?"
"No, sir!"
"That's better," said Graham as Davison snapped to attention. "Clarke."
"Yes sir?" asked the trooper.
"Fetch and run 'Tootsie' in the security system as we planned. It's
Hoffman night and we're not breaking our schedule just because some hothead
video-jockey has a little trouble following the rules! Davison, for your
insubordinate behaviour you will be allotted no popcorn, I repeat, no
popcorn for the duration of the first reel, am I understood?"
"Yes sir."
"Good. Company, dis-MISSED!"
***
The soup kitchen had been a rousing success, thought Brother Lamms as
he walked down a cold, dark street, on his way to the small chapel that had
been set up so recently. Just as Reverend Enkoimesis had said it would be.
The Reverend's favourite philosophy had always been 'learn from history',
and Lamms had to agree that in this case, history had been proven right.
The proper route to many a person's faith was not their ears, their fears
or their eyes; rather you struck where all creatures were most vulnerable:
at their soft underbelly. A cat would love and show affection for anyone
who fed it. A starving man was little more noble than a cat, thought Lamms.
The Friday services in this conservative little town had gone over
better than anyone could have expected. Lamms had hoped that he would be a
missionary to a larger city, filled with corruption and vice to grasp and
cast out like a modern-day St Patrick sending the snakes out of Ireland.
The services, the prayer groups and the fellowship meetings... they fed the
already satiated. It had been difficult to attract interest in a relatively
unknown faith, but gradually brother Lamms had managed to establish a
foothold for the Church of Whee Hat'cha. That had been all that he had
needed. There was no fire and brimstone in Lamms' sermons. No anger. No
venting. Just good, honest fellowship. Bringing people together to learn
and share with each other. People of the nineties were isolated and starved
for company; brother Lamms fed this and gained the peoples' faith through
it.
Lamms' local chapter had nearly a hundred people in it and this was
the target number for which Enkoimesis had called. When Lamms' followers
reached their one hundredth in number it would be time to take them on
retreat. This would be a very special retreat where they would learn
fundamental truths, not about god or sin or faith but about the human
psyche. They would learn why so many basic training courses practised a
regimen of allowing very little sleep and a great deal of repetitive,
mindless activity. They would discover that isolating a group, however
large, from differing viewpoints could reinforce those held and espoused by
the isolator. They would be taught that ritual was a comfortable substitute
for careful consideration and independent thought. And at the end of the
retreat, they simply wouldn't care about any of the lessons that had been
learned because they would be living them. They would be Lamms' flock and
deserving of his protection, pride, anger, correction and guidance. In
return, they would offer up songs and prayers to Whee Hat'cha and dote upon
Lamms' words, serving as mouthpiece for Reverend Enkoimesis' god-touched
proclamations.
Lamms smiled as he pushed open the door to his small chapel. "Hello
Mrs Quille," he said, smiling with a ruddy good humour at the matronly
woman who knelt within, "How's Tom today?"
"Still in bed with the flu, the poor darling," replied Quille,
standing. "Thank you so much for asking after him."
"Not at all, Mrs Quille," replied Lamms, touching a taper to candles
that had gone out during his absence. "I need to know who to pray for
tonight, now don't I?"
"Bless your heart, brother," smiled Quille, rising. "How did you ever
get to be so good?"
"Good?" asked Lamms, shaking his head slowly. "No. I simply do the
will of god, and from that flows all goodness. Now may I see that elbow of
yours?"
Quille offered up her arm willingly, and Lamms touched it, feeling the
arthritic bones within. A few touches would cause the pain to go down, and
Lamms would deliver that touch for Mrs Quille's own good. Everything that
he did was for his flock's own good. Sometimes they didn't realise this
immediately, and so needed to be driven towards the right path, tenderly
but firmly. Very soon he would guide a good many people down that right
path, but first it was time to prepare for the day's blessings. Lamms found
his vestment and turned to greet his happy congregation.
***
[Continued In Part Two.]