The Transhuman Comedy

The latest in this series was inspired by "Bugdropship Liftoff" by Manfred Thraller, #551 on this page.

Lt. Harrell finished his pre-flight walkaround of the dropship. The left hind tarsal claw showed some reentry blistering but otherwise she checked out. Harrell reached for the rope ladder to climb up but hesitated. SOP gave dropship pilots three hours turnaround time during an Orbit-to-Surface Round Trip and he might as well use it. The setting sun lit the puffy edges of low cumulus clouds
and a brisk breeze rustled across the lifeless rockstrewn plain. Within the square defined by the shield generators, the recon base showed as humps of buried shelters. Most of the six people based there would be asleep or on duty
wrangling their robots, but someone might be at liberty to swap stories over cups of moonshine.

Mr. Redmon spoke in his mind's ear. --Lieutenant, is your bug physically unable to perform?--

--No,-- Harrell replied, quite consciously leaving off sir. He could chauffeur the civilian without repecting him.

--I ordered you to shove off as soon as you did your post- and pre-flight checks.--

Harrell stared past the humped shelters toward low tan hills five miles away. --SOP calls for me to give a surface base CO one hour to bundle and load packages for return to the flagship.--

Through the link he felt Redmon seethe. --Lieutenant, while I am dirtside I am the commanding officer of all I survey. Now get your ass upstairs or I'll fill your life with more bullshit than a Texas barnyard. Do you roger me?--

--I roger you. Mr. Redmon.-- He turned his back on the base, scaled his bug's thorax, and pulled the rope ladder into the cockpit after him. He tapped the controls and the bug jumped on its springy legs, pushing Harrell into his
seat. At the top of the jump the minidrives kicked in, pushing him deeper and filling the bottom of the window views with spilling yellow-white light. He turned the bug toward the sunset and his orbital insertion and wondered what kind of bribe to the dropship group's XO would free him from returning to pick up the civilian.

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