"Sure, Captain, you got it," said Do-Wop. He rubbed his hands together and said, "Me and Soosh can't figure it out, it can't be done."
"We'll get an equipment list to Chocolate Harry as soon as we've checked out the data," said Sushi. "Any chance of a look at the Zenobians' equipment? I could tell a lot more if I knew what its capabilities are."
"I think we can manage that," said Phule. "Korg says he's ordered his military people to cooperate with us, although I doubt they'll show us any really secret stuff. Anything else?"
"Sure, some dancing girls and a keg of beer, while you're at it," said Do-Wop. "Can't expect us to come up with brainstorms without the necessities."
Phule smiled. "I'll remind you that we're a bit off the usual supply routes for dancing girls; they may take a while to deliver. You can requisition beer through the usual channels."
"Man, that's just not the Omega Mob way," griped Do-Wop. "This outfit does everything first class, don't ya know?"
"I'm glad to hear you say that," said Phule, laughing. "If you'll think back a moment, you just might recall that I'm the one who invented the Omega Mob way. Or have you mercifully blanked the swamps of Haskin's Planet out of your memory?"
Without batting an eye, Do-Wop pointed out the window to the desolate Zenobian landscape: scraggly brush, sun-baked rocks, arid streambeds, low hills in the distance. He turned back to the communicator pickup and said, "You're telling me this joint is some kind of improvement, Cap?"
"Sure," said Phule, deadpan. "Think about it. Back on Haskin's, you were either up to your boot tops in swamp or sitting in a run-down camp waiting to go back to the swamp. Here, you've got the latest state-of-the-art field encampment, and the Zenobians probably won't let you anywhere near the swamps."
"It's still way too much like bein' in the Legion for my blood," said Do-Wop. "But I guess I don't have any selection as far as that."
"Of course not," said Phule, leaning closer to the pickup on his end. "You two draw up the list of equipment you'll need, and get it to Harry ASAP. I want you to drop everything else for this project, understand?"
"You got it, Cap'n," said Do-Wop, suddenly enthusiastic. He nudged Sushi, then (just to be on the safe side) asked Phule, "This means no regular duty of any kind, right?"
"Consider this your regular duty for now, and give it your full attention," said Phule. "I'll expect a preliminary report to be on my desk as soon as I return to camp-the day after tomorrow, if things go according to schedule. Anything else? Good, then go to work." He cut the connection.
The two partners looked at each other. "Well, you heard the captain," said Sushi. "Let's get to work on this job before he decides to give it to somebody else and puts us back to doing real work."
"Man, I was really hoping for the dancing girls," said Do-Wop, pretending to sulk.
"Keep that up and you'll have Sergeant Brandy doing the not-so-soft-shoe on your behind," said Sushi. He punched his partner playfully in the shoulder and said, "Grab your comp-u-note and start listing stuff we can use."
"OK, then, first thing we gotta have is the beer," said Do-Wop. "Gimme enough of that, and I can think of almost anything."
"That's what I'm afraid of," said Sushi with a very convincing shudder. The shudder might even have been real.
"Sarge, we got a bone to pick with you."
Chocolate Harry looked up. He'd been sitting at his makeshift desk, reading Biker's Dream magazine. There stood half a dozen legionnaires with grim expressions on their faces. Only a veteran could have spotted (as Harry did) the edge of worry behind their determined front.
"Sure, dudes, what's up?" Harry shifted his bulk on the reinforced camp stool he occupied. Without making any particular deal out of it, he picked up a bayonet and began cleaning his fingernails with the finely honed point. Behind him was the prefabricated shed that was the company's supply depot here on Zenobia.
"Well, it's like this," said Street, who seemed to be the leader of this delegation. "You told everybody we were goin' to be fightin' them renegade robots, off on some asteroid-"
"Well, bro, that was the scuttlebutt at the time," said C. H. "You stay around the Legion long enough, you hear all kinds of stuff, and after a while you get a feel for what you can believe and what you can't."
Street's face took on a puzzled expression. "Man, it was you done told us that."
Chocolate Harry didn't look up from his fingernail cleaning. "Was it, now? You sure 'bout that, Street?"
Street turned to his companions for support, and when he saw them nodding their heads, he turned back to the supply sergeant and said, "Yeah, it was you, all right. You kep' tellin' , us 'bout that asteroid full of renegade robots and how we was gonna need this here robot camo to keep 'em from zappin' us. Ain't that right?"
"What if it is?" asked Harry casually.
"Well, looks to me like this ain't no freakin' asteroid," said Street, sweeping his arm around the horizon in a grand circle. "So we done been skanked, is what I think."
Chocolate Harry's broad face took on an expression of profound sympathy. "Skanked? What makes you think that, Street?" He looked around at the others. "I'm surprised at you. Double-X, what're you doin' here? Brick, Slayer, you too? And Spartacus-you and me have always been tight."
"Sarge, you told us we needed that robot camo, and we paid you a pretty stiff price for it," said Double-X, trying to regain control of the encounter. Like the other legionnaires in the group, he wore several garments made of the purple-splotched fabric Chocolate Harry had represented as robot-proof. "But they sent us to this here world, not that asteroid."
"Now, you all must have misunderstood me," said Harry. "I never said we were gonna get sent to that asteroid, did I? I said that's where the robots was from, that's all. Now, here we are on a planet with an unknown enemy. Who's to say it ain't the renegade robots, huh? How you know it ain't, Street?"
"Hmmm..." Street scratched his head. "Well, you got me there, Sarge." He looked around at his companions again, fishing for support.
Chocolate Harry didn't give the moment of silence a chance to linger. "Now, the thing about a robot is, it's a machine," he said. "You can't fight a robot like you would a regular organic sophont. These Zenobian stun rays, they ain't worth a nickel 'gainst a bot, no way."
"I can see that could be a problem," said Brick, nodding. She'd experienced the stun ray firsthand and was among the company's best long-range experts with it. Then she furrowed her brow and said, "But it's only a problem if the robots show up here. How do we know they're going to show up, Sarge?"
"Well, that's where an old legionnaire like me can just feel a few things in his bones," said Chocolate Harry, leaning back and slipping the bayonet back into its sheath. "These Zenobians, they've had the stun ray longer than anybody, right?"
"Yeah, I guess so," said Brick. The others nodded, too. It seemed a logical conclusion.
Chocolate Harry spread the fingers of his left hand and began to count off his points as he made them. "So, they call us here. That's gotta mean they found an enemy they can't handle, right?"
"Yeah, that must be what it mean," said Street, a frown of concentration on his face.