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The Doom Patrol: Lost on Planet
Ok, I spent all evening writing stories...i should have been doing something else, but oh well...
This is my first tale that I plan to continue on. The others ones i've submitted were kind of all part of a same 'world' but not really interconnected. I might use evnets from some of the older ones in this one...I'm making it up as I go along and having fun doing it!
I'll try to go as long as I can to reach a conclusion, but for now please let me know what you think of it.
The Doom Patrol: Lost on Planet part 1
Sergeant Mark Watkins woke up suddenly. He found himself lying flat on his back, weighted down by his gear. Full combat stuff. Plasma steel armor, chaos rifle and shredder pistol sidearm, survival pack etc. It seemed like an eternity but it was only a few seconds for him to return to full consciousness.
SGT Watkins was ordered to lead his squad on a recon mission of the area surrounding the new Peacekeeper base of UN Court of Justice. He protested, not because he was scared of the unknown, but because he didn’t want to recklessly endanger his squad. Watkins, and the six soldiers he commanded were what the army called ‘rear echelon’...admin specialists, with little to no combat experience. Oh, they were trained in it, but only in the most basic way. Still, an order was an order and when the leiutenant ordered him to do this, he obeyed.
So the sergenat led his soldiers on a simple recon mission into the unknown. All seemed well until Technician Govan picked up a faint signal from a unity pod...or so he thought. Planet held many mysteries and sometimes the signal from a pod was not a real signal, but the pulsing energy from an alien obelisk. That held little fear for Watkins...the obelisks were strange and alien but had never been known to harm anyone. Indeed, troops that had been near one reported increased health and vigor. But this time it was something different. Something that Watkins had heard about but didn’t believe. A dimensional gateway. The theory in simple terms was that the energy of the obelisks and the unknown but ever present mysterious power of planet caused sinkholes in the time/space continuum. Momentarily these sinkholes created gateways to other places on planet. The University of Planet were the first to experience this phenomena (or so they said) and shared the information with the Peacekeepers. PK troops were taught this theory in Basic Combat training, but few believed it. SGT Watkins certainly didn’t until now.
Watkins stood up quickly and surveyed the imediate environment. Small patches of xenofungus around him, but generally it was a grassy meadow. His soldiers were there, too, standing up and recovering from the initial shock...
“Head count!” Watkins shouted, shaking off the last few feelings of disorientation.
“Private First Class Green, Here, Sergeant!”
“Private Diana Roybald Here, Sergeant!”
“Specialist Technician Govan, here, Sarge!”
“Private Colbert, here!”
“Corporal Kelso here, Sergeant!” came the replies.
Watkins turned and faced them all. They were all so young, he thought....but wait...
“Where is Corporal Eckheart?” Watkins asked, but he knew the others didn’t know when he asked. Its not like they didn’t go throuh the same disorientation he did. “Eckhart!” He shouted. “Spread out, find her. Govan, if your scanpak still works locate her. If she’s nearby you should pick her up on by her locator transponder.”
PVT Green began scanning wit the portable scanpak attached to his uniform. A second before he was about to announce her location Corporal Eckhart’s voice was heard screaming “Here, Sarge...HELP!”
The entire squad rushed to the sound of her voice, weapons ready. But they didn’t need weapons. Eckhart was hanging from a nearby tree in an undignified position. One of the straps from her field pack was wrapped around a branch about four meters up and she was hanging helpless, twirling around. Everyone laughed, even the sergeant. Corporal Kelso shimmied up the tree and cut her down. Eckhart hit the ground with a loud thud which brought more giggles from her comrades. She was unhurt, but dazed.
“Okay, people, what just happened?” Watkins said.
“Sergeant, I think we just passed through a D-gate...” Govan said, checking his scanner readings.
“No ****, Govan....” Roybald responded, “but how far from the base are we?”
“I don’t know, give me a minute.” Govan punched a few buttons on the scanner. “This is going to take a minute.”
SGT Watkins stepped away from Govan and over to Eckhart who was drinking water from her canteen and sitting under the tree. Kelso was kneeling next to here, checking her for any injuries. After him, Eckhart was next in command since she outranked Kelso by a few months in grade.
“You alright, Darcee?” he asked Eckhart.
“I’m fine, Sarge....” Eckhart began. “Just dizzy, but it’ll pass.”
“Good.” The Sergeant knelt down. Darcee Eckhart was one of his closest friends. She had been assigned as his assistant Squad Leader eight months ago and they had hit it off from the start. Eckhart was tough, smart, and had a sense of humour. Watkins needed her...the troops had faith in him, but they respected Eckhart. She had a charisma he did not possess. Despite her voluptious female form and honey blond short hair, Eckhart had proved to be one of the best soldiers among a profession still dominated by men.
“CPL Kelso, conduct a weapons check but let Govan finish his scan before bothering him.” Watkins ordered. “I want everyone ready. Two soldiers with rifles on the flame the setting if mindworms attack, the others on normal. Form a small perimeter, here. Move.”
“As you command!” Kelso replied and went to issue these orders.
We can rest here for a minute, take your time, Darcee.” Watkins put his hand on Eckharts forehead. Her skin was ot and wet. “You seemed to take the brunt of whatever hit us.”
“I’m okay.” Eckhart told him. “Dammit, I just fell out of a tree. Stop babying me...Sergeant.”
Watkins smiled at her and she smiled back. Watkins was never a big one for enforcing strict dicipline and thats why he found Eckharts tone amusing...and human. And Eckhart knew they were close enough as friends for her to speak to him that way.
“Hey Sarge!” Govan called as he strode to the base of the tree. “We are in big xenodoodoo!”
Watkins stood up and took the scanpak fro Govan’s hands, studying the preliminary readouts. He could make out part of it, and had no patience to read the rest. “Report, Private.”
“We’re...we’re..” Govan began. His dark skin turned ashen, “We’re extremely far from Peacekeeper territory....I don’t know how far, because there are no landmarks or beacons within scanner range. Basically Sarge, we’re really far from anyone. If we were close to another faction we’d at least get a location marker from one of their beacons.”
That was bad news. The human factions on planet had yet to develop a map of the entire world. Most of the factions had only begun to create a map of the new world, and that was only of their own sphere of influence. Upon an agreement of the Planetary Council, the factions had placed locator markers...small radio transmitters... around their borders, to facilitate nagivation, but they were weak in signal and not relieable since the borders changed every few years. Commisioner Lal had petitoined the others to share maps, as had Provost Zakharov, but no faction was willing. All of them were distrustful of each other and with the rumours of strange new factions and the arrival of the alien progenitors...well, basically planet was mostly unexplored. Watkins blood went cold. His light brown skin turned as ashen as the darker skinned Govan’s. This meant that they were stranded in an unknown location and possibly in or near the location of a hostile faction.
“Shiznitz!” Watkins swore, more loudly than he intended. “Govan, are you sure? Have you tried the emergency Locator band? Boosted the signal?”
“Yes!” Govan answered.
“Let me see that.” Eckhart said, putting down her canteen. Watkins handed her the Scanpak.
Eckhart examined it, checked for damage and programmed a diagnostic. She said nothing while doing this. Her expression didn’t change, she just nodded and handed it back. Watkins knew that this meant Govan was correct.
Corporal Kelso walked up next to the Sergeant. ‘Hey, Sarge, Roybald and Green are on Worm watch, Colbert has deployed to protect flanks...as best as one man can. All weapons are fully charged. Everyone has all of their equipment and no soldiers are feeling disoriented at this time.”
“Change of plan, Kelso.” Watkins sighed. He turned slowly, an entire 360 to see the area. The meadow they appeared in seemed to stretch out for as far as the eye could see. A mere fifteen meters behind the tree they stood at was a thick forest. They weren’t earth trees, Watkins could tell, by the appearance of the bark. Native trees had a strangely pinkish hue in the bark...besides, if the trees were planted by earth terraformers a locator beacon would surely have been picked up. No, they were far from home...any kind of home. “Get everyone here. I have to talk to them. Make it quick, Kelso.”
It took only a few minutes to get the soldiers together under the tree. It took a lot longer to explain the situation. They all understood it, they just didn’t want to accept it. Roybald, the youngest of the squad almost began to cry. A single tear ran down her face as Watkins described the situation to them, and it highlighted the small transparent scrubber tube running from her survival pack into her nose. The scrubbers were needed in order for them to breathe the native air on planet, but fortunately biogenetic research had made their operational lifespan virtually unlimited. And any soldier on active duty was fitted with a “reserve” scrubber pack, small and limited in usage time, surgically implanted in (of all places) the buttocks.
“Okay, people,” Watkins ended his explanations, “ We’re a long way from home...we don’t know where and our commlinks won’t work right now because of the distance. We’re not without hope though. Technician Govan has the portable equipment to construct an emergency commlink that should inform UN Headquarters of our status. He will begin to put it together, but its going to take time. More time than we’d want....at least a day. In the meantimme, we have a wood to our back and open plains to our front. We don’t know if anything is out there beyond the scanner range. I need eveyone to stay frosty. Clear?”
“Clear!” the squad said in unison.
“Look, people, I want to go home too. I have a wife in UN HQ, and I really want to sleep with her tonight,” Watkins continued, “but tonight we sleep here. Corporal Eckhart, supervise construction of fighting positions and assign a guard shift for the night. It’ll be dark in a few hours. Green, you help Govan in the comm array. Lets do it, people!”
Watkins tried to sound as confident as possible, and look as confident as the soldiers scrambled to do their jobs. He began checking his own Chaos rifle when Roybald approached him.
“Sergeant,” Roybald meekly said. “Are we going to be rescued?”
“Hope we don’t need a rescue, trooper,” Watkins replied, “Just hope we get home.”
This is my first tale that I plan to continue on. The others ones i've submitted were kind of all part of a same 'world' but not really interconnected. I might use evnets from some of the older ones in this one...I'm making it up as I go along and having fun doing it!
I'll try to go as long as I can to reach a conclusion, but for now please let me know what you think of it.The Doom Patrol: Lost on Planet part 1
Sergeant Mark Watkins woke up suddenly. He found himself lying flat on his back, weighted down by his gear. Full combat stuff. Plasma steel armor, chaos rifle and shredder pistol sidearm, survival pack etc. It seemed like an eternity but it was only a few seconds for him to return to full consciousness.
SGT Watkins was ordered to lead his squad on a recon mission of the area surrounding the new Peacekeeper base of UN Court of Justice. He protested, not because he was scared of the unknown, but because he didn’t want to recklessly endanger his squad. Watkins, and the six soldiers he commanded were what the army called ‘rear echelon’...admin specialists, with little to no combat experience. Oh, they were trained in it, but only in the most basic way. Still, an order was an order and when the leiutenant ordered him to do this, he obeyed.
So the sergenat led his soldiers on a simple recon mission into the unknown. All seemed well until Technician Govan picked up a faint signal from a unity pod...or so he thought. Planet held many mysteries and sometimes the signal from a pod was not a real signal, but the pulsing energy from an alien obelisk. That held little fear for Watkins...the obelisks were strange and alien but had never been known to harm anyone. Indeed, troops that had been near one reported increased health and vigor. But this time it was something different. Something that Watkins had heard about but didn’t believe. A dimensional gateway. The theory in simple terms was that the energy of the obelisks and the unknown but ever present mysterious power of planet caused sinkholes in the time/space continuum. Momentarily these sinkholes created gateways to other places on planet. The University of Planet were the first to experience this phenomena (or so they said) and shared the information with the Peacekeepers. PK troops were taught this theory in Basic Combat training, but few believed it. SGT Watkins certainly didn’t until now.
Watkins stood up quickly and surveyed the imediate environment. Small patches of xenofungus around him, but generally it was a grassy meadow. His soldiers were there, too, standing up and recovering from the initial shock...
“Head count!” Watkins shouted, shaking off the last few feelings of disorientation.
“Private First Class Green, Here, Sergeant!”
“Private Diana Roybald Here, Sergeant!”
“Specialist Technician Govan, here, Sarge!”
“Private Colbert, here!”
“Corporal Kelso here, Sergeant!” came the replies.
Watkins turned and faced them all. They were all so young, he thought....but wait...
“Where is Corporal Eckheart?” Watkins asked, but he knew the others didn’t know when he asked. Its not like they didn’t go throuh the same disorientation he did. “Eckhart!” He shouted. “Spread out, find her. Govan, if your scanpak still works locate her. If she’s nearby you should pick her up on by her locator transponder.”
PVT Green began scanning wit the portable scanpak attached to his uniform. A second before he was about to announce her location Corporal Eckhart’s voice was heard screaming “Here, Sarge...HELP!”
The entire squad rushed to the sound of her voice, weapons ready. But they didn’t need weapons. Eckhart was hanging from a nearby tree in an undignified position. One of the straps from her field pack was wrapped around a branch about four meters up and she was hanging helpless, twirling around. Everyone laughed, even the sergeant. Corporal Kelso shimmied up the tree and cut her down. Eckhart hit the ground with a loud thud which brought more giggles from her comrades. She was unhurt, but dazed.
“Okay, people, what just happened?” Watkins said.
“Sergeant, I think we just passed through a D-gate...” Govan said, checking his scanner readings.
“No ****, Govan....” Roybald responded, “but how far from the base are we?”
“I don’t know, give me a minute.” Govan punched a few buttons on the scanner. “This is going to take a minute.”
SGT Watkins stepped away from Govan and over to Eckhart who was drinking water from her canteen and sitting under the tree. Kelso was kneeling next to here, checking her for any injuries. After him, Eckhart was next in command since she outranked Kelso by a few months in grade.
“You alright, Darcee?” he asked Eckhart.
“I’m fine, Sarge....” Eckhart began. “Just dizzy, but it’ll pass.”
“Good.” The Sergeant knelt down. Darcee Eckhart was one of his closest friends. She had been assigned as his assistant Squad Leader eight months ago and they had hit it off from the start. Eckhart was tough, smart, and had a sense of humour. Watkins needed her...the troops had faith in him, but they respected Eckhart. She had a charisma he did not possess. Despite her voluptious female form and honey blond short hair, Eckhart had proved to be one of the best soldiers among a profession still dominated by men.
“CPL Kelso, conduct a weapons check but let Govan finish his scan before bothering him.” Watkins ordered. “I want everyone ready. Two soldiers with rifles on the flame the setting if mindworms attack, the others on normal. Form a small perimeter, here. Move.”
“As you command!” Kelso replied and went to issue these orders.
We can rest here for a minute, take your time, Darcee.” Watkins put his hand on Eckharts forehead. Her skin was ot and wet. “You seemed to take the brunt of whatever hit us.”
“I’m okay.” Eckhart told him. “Dammit, I just fell out of a tree. Stop babying me...Sergeant.”
Watkins smiled at her and she smiled back. Watkins was never a big one for enforcing strict dicipline and thats why he found Eckharts tone amusing...and human. And Eckhart knew they were close enough as friends for her to speak to him that way.
“Hey Sarge!” Govan called as he strode to the base of the tree. “We are in big xenodoodoo!”
Watkins stood up and took the scanpak fro Govan’s hands, studying the preliminary readouts. He could make out part of it, and had no patience to read the rest. “Report, Private.”
“We’re...we’re..” Govan began. His dark skin turned ashen, “We’re extremely far from Peacekeeper territory....I don’t know how far, because there are no landmarks or beacons within scanner range. Basically Sarge, we’re really far from anyone. If we were close to another faction we’d at least get a location marker from one of their beacons.”
That was bad news. The human factions on planet had yet to develop a map of the entire world. Most of the factions had only begun to create a map of the new world, and that was only of their own sphere of influence. Upon an agreement of the Planetary Council, the factions had placed locator markers...small radio transmitters... around their borders, to facilitate nagivation, but they were weak in signal and not relieable since the borders changed every few years. Commisioner Lal had petitoined the others to share maps, as had Provost Zakharov, but no faction was willing. All of them were distrustful of each other and with the rumours of strange new factions and the arrival of the alien progenitors...well, basically planet was mostly unexplored. Watkins blood went cold. His light brown skin turned as ashen as the darker skinned Govan’s. This meant that they were stranded in an unknown location and possibly in or near the location of a hostile faction.
“Shiznitz!” Watkins swore, more loudly than he intended. “Govan, are you sure? Have you tried the emergency Locator band? Boosted the signal?”
“Yes!” Govan answered.
“Let me see that.” Eckhart said, putting down her canteen. Watkins handed her the Scanpak.
Eckhart examined it, checked for damage and programmed a diagnostic. She said nothing while doing this. Her expression didn’t change, she just nodded and handed it back. Watkins knew that this meant Govan was correct.
Corporal Kelso walked up next to the Sergeant. ‘Hey, Sarge, Roybald and Green are on Worm watch, Colbert has deployed to protect flanks...as best as one man can. All weapons are fully charged. Everyone has all of their equipment and no soldiers are feeling disoriented at this time.”
“Change of plan, Kelso.” Watkins sighed. He turned slowly, an entire 360 to see the area. The meadow they appeared in seemed to stretch out for as far as the eye could see. A mere fifteen meters behind the tree they stood at was a thick forest. They weren’t earth trees, Watkins could tell, by the appearance of the bark. Native trees had a strangely pinkish hue in the bark...besides, if the trees were planted by earth terraformers a locator beacon would surely have been picked up. No, they were far from home...any kind of home. “Get everyone here. I have to talk to them. Make it quick, Kelso.”
It took only a few minutes to get the soldiers together under the tree. It took a lot longer to explain the situation. They all understood it, they just didn’t want to accept it. Roybald, the youngest of the squad almost began to cry. A single tear ran down her face as Watkins described the situation to them, and it highlighted the small transparent scrubber tube running from her survival pack into her nose. The scrubbers were needed in order for them to breathe the native air on planet, but fortunately biogenetic research had made their operational lifespan virtually unlimited. And any soldier on active duty was fitted with a “reserve” scrubber pack, small and limited in usage time, surgically implanted in (of all places) the buttocks.
“Okay, people,” Watkins ended his explanations, “ We’re a long way from home...we don’t know where and our commlinks won’t work right now because of the distance. We’re not without hope though. Technician Govan has the portable equipment to construct an emergency commlink that should inform UN Headquarters of our status. He will begin to put it together, but its going to take time. More time than we’d want....at least a day. In the meantimme, we have a wood to our back and open plains to our front. We don’t know if anything is out there beyond the scanner range. I need eveyone to stay frosty. Clear?”
“Clear!” the squad said in unison.
“Look, people, I want to go home too. I have a wife in UN HQ, and I really want to sleep with her tonight,” Watkins continued, “but tonight we sleep here. Corporal Eckhart, supervise construction of fighting positions and assign a guard shift for the night. It’ll be dark in a few hours. Green, you help Govan in the comm array. Lets do it, people!”
Watkins tried to sound as confident as possible, and look as confident as the soldiers scrambled to do their jobs. He began checking his own Chaos rifle when Roybald approached him.
“Sergeant,” Roybald meekly said. “Are we going to be rescued?”
“Hope we don’t need a rescue, trooper,” Watkins replied, “Just hope we get home.”
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