Corporal
Flynn R. Taggart, serial #4687, was "enjoying" another fun-filled day at Fort
Riley. He didn't have much of a choice, though, so he kept on smiling. Why he was
smiling, he had no idea, but his answer to all his superior officers had been
"Because I love my job, SIR!" His job (in case you were wondering) was to make
an attempt to grow some flowers. Some idealist General had decided that the
base wasn't diverse enough so he gave an order to the nearest soldier to "plant
some flowers or someone'll plant them for you in a very undesirable location,"
and never mind that it was a military base. Unfortunately for Flynn, he
happened to be the nearest soldier.
At
the time, he had felt like showing the General the wrong side of his fist. Now,
he just felt like staying out of the way. However, that wasn't an option.
Another General was on his way to make a customary inspection: Customary
because he happened to be in the town fifty miles away. "Why did these
Generals always see the need to check up on us 'poor idiots'"?
Flynn thought to himself, "What the heck. Let the Generals run the
show. They can't ruin my good day."
That
afternoon, General Majors arrived at Fort Riley. He came, not as the
white-gloved General to check the bedposts for dust, but as the bearer of very
bad news. He called a base-wide meeting and everyone, from PFC to Colonel, was
to attend. That was a bad sign. Usually only Lieutenants got to sit in on
executive-officer meetings. And it was mandatory. That was a very bad
sign: meetings were never mandatory. Flynn found a seat and watched the
doors. The people filtered in and…were those civilians? That was an even worse
sign!
Finally,
everyone had found their seats and were sitting solemnly. Almost as if everyone
already knew what General Majors was going to say. But no one could be prepared
for what the General was about to say. Majors took a stand at the podium and
all the officers stood up and saluted, including Flynn. After all, he was a
soldier too.
"At
ease," he said, and all the officers smartly dropped their salutes and sat back
down. The way that his face was rapidly growing pale was really not a
good sign. Flynn had read reports on Majors and he was a very brave man. Either
he was upset about having to speak in public or he had extremely bad news. He
looked about ready to speak.
"As
I'm sure that none of you know yet, as it has only been recently de-classified,
Fort Dexter was attacked today." There was a collective gasp. Majors waited
while the murmuring quieted down and then spoke again.
"Sadly,
several men were killed and," he swallowed and paled several more shades,
"mutilated. Unfortunately, that's not half the reason that it was classified.
We believe this was done by…" There was a pause for several seconds and almost
everyone could tell what he was about to say, in one form or another.
"…Extra-terrestrials."
It
was so quiet in that room, you could hear a drop of sweat hit the floor. Flynn
himself heard several. It was enough to drive him insane with rage. These
perfectly good soldiers were turning chicken because of something they didn't
understand. But he restrained himself to better the purposes of the meeting.
"Now,
I don't want everyone getting excited about nothing. We could be wrong about
this…" As Majors spoke, Flynn was watching his face tell a much different story
than his voice was. It was quite interesting listening to a scared man babble.
He made a bet with himself that it would sound even different if he had a gun
pointed as his brainpan. However, Flynn had no idea just how many lies Majors
had told. Certainly more than just a few.
That evening
brought several unpleasant surprises. One Private had woken up with a gun
pointed at his head and, quite sadly, had his brains blown out several seconds
afterwards. The MP's assigned to the base knew who it was due to the
fingerprints on the gun, but he had (according to reports, and you could never
tell how accurate those were) been dead for several months. He'd died in a
training accident. Of course, according to those fingerprints, he was alive and
well and had murdered Private Hawkins.
"It's
unnatural!" General Majors ranted.
"Nonetheless,"
Colonel Potter calmly said, "it happened. We have the dead man's body, we have
the gun, we have the fingerprints…what more proof do you need?"
"I'm not saying
that I don't believe. It's just that…I CAN'T believe it! It goes against my
nature!!"
Flynn, who was
listening on the other side of the door suddenly heard a chair moving and ran
down to the end of the hallway. If you got caught eavesdropping in this
base, you got KP duty. He touched the wall at the end of the hall almost
triumphantly, turned around a full 180° and continued down the hallway with a
confident stride. As he started walking, the door to Colonel Potter's office
swung open and hit the wall with a loud thud. Exactly where Flynn had been
standing.
General
Majors was saying something about "…Evidence can't be as reliable as you
believe it to be…Flynn to blame…" Those last three words hit him like a ton of
bricks and it showed: He dropped to the floor as if he really had been
hit with a ton of bricks. Why would they blame him? What had he done wrong?
Sarcastically he thought, "Did my plants die?" He chuckled at this and
suddenly realized that he'd done it out loud. With the general right there. Oops.
"I
don't know about your base Colonel, but NOBODY LAUGHS AT ME IN MINE!!!"
Majors was obviously not happy. "NOW!!! I suggest that you discipline him
accordingly…he killed Private Hawkins anyway…"
Suddenly,
a sound that went growling up and down the entire sonic spectrum ripped through
the air and the roof shattered. The sky above the roof was filled with huge,
circular objects that, in certain circles, could be called "UFO's." General
Majors starting spewing curses, seemingly in sync with Potter. Flynn watched as
both dropped to sleep in almost comic fashion and then, without warning, he
joined them.
Flynn awoke with
a strange thought. "I have water in my mouth, yet I'm breathing?" Flynn
swore. The last thing he could remember was tending to his flowers and smiling
like an idiot. Now he was most definitely nowhere on earthly maps because you can't
breathe underwater. At least, not on Earth. He opened his eyes and quickly shut
them again. Slowly, he opened them again to reveal an amazing sight. He was the
first Marine (that he knew of) to be abducted by "little green men." It was a
historic event. He would be on all the talk shows. But only if he made it back
to Earth.
"Now, Flynn.
If there's one thing that your training has taught you, it's to look at things
realistically. NOT like an idiot!!" From that point on, he seemed
determined to get his hands on some hardware (weapons, in lay-speak) and kick
some alien arse. However, in the minute-or-so that he'd had his eyes open he
had seen nary a light flicker. It was time to bust out of this joint. He looked
up and saw the top of the container he was in: it was cylindrical and (well,
duh…) the proper size for a human. He looked around and saw several other
containers with humans being held in them.
He screamed and
shouted curses while kicking at the container, but it seemed to no avail.
Without warning, Corporal Taggart's uniform and, separately, the rest of him
came flowing out of the container. The liquid, whatever it was, forced its way
out of his lungs and he sat there retching for at least two minutes. Rather
sheepishly, he put his surprisingly dry uniform back on and looked around for a
weapon of some sort. By the door, there were several (human?) rifles on a rack.
He grabbed one and walked through the door.
That's when it
hit him: he was still in Fort Riley. It was, to be quite blunt, a put-on. There
were no aliens, no dead Privates, and potentially no General Majors. He would
have to be careful. His eyes carefully searched the hall, while his arms kept
the gun trailing close behind. He cautiously walked out into the hall and
headed towards Colonel Potter's office. He wasn't sure about any of it.
As he neared the
door, he heard voices shouting his name. He spun around, but saw nothing. He
opened the door and there were Potter and Majors. Majors saw the rifle he held
and shrieked but stood his ground. Flynn could see why: Majors had wet his
pants. Flynn said, in a very low voice, "What is going on?"
"W-w-well…y-you
see th-the aliens w-w-were gonna c-c-cook us. W-w-we m-m-made a b-b-bargain
w-w-with th-th-them."
Potter chimed in
now: "What the general means to say, is that it's all a big joke."
"Joke?" Flynn
said quietly.
"Yes," Potter
replied, "A joke. We were testing you to see if you had the guts to figure it
out. And, as we can plainly see, you do. Now, why don't we go out to the
quartermaster and return his rifle. I'm sure he'll be most pleased to see you."
Something was
wrong, though, and Flynn could feel it in his rifle arm. He didn't know what
yet, but he would soon find out.
Thus ends chapter 1 of the
Corporal Taggart series. Tune in next week, same time—same channel when
Corporal Flynn makes a startling discovery.
