EPTPdf available here: Something On Your Mind Pdf
Dying from the boredom of bureaucracy, Commander Nooba is quick to turn
the tables on fate with a little help from a newfound extra terrestrial friend
Something on your mind
by Niklas Björnberg
the tables on fate with a little help from a newfound extra terrestrial friend
Something on your mind
by Niklas Björnberg
High Orbit Command Base Facilities And Supply Logistics Commander Nooba closely looked over the pile of documents on her desk. She had taken meticulous care to fill in the forms correctly, and each form had been copied three times so that they could be filed separately and given to different departments within the High Orbit Command. She didn't know if this was really, really necessary, but General Oakleaf insisted that they must follow every tiny detail of procedure. Even if it was more fun to watch creep recede than to follow said procedure.
She sighed as she lifted the papers from the desk and headed off towards General Oakleaf's room. Had she known what a total nutcase he was when it came to following documentation guidelines she would have shot herself dead before she arrived at the space station. Alas, she did not at the time know how deep the depths of boredom could be, and hence she had lived on to gain that horrible knowledge.
She waved her ID card at the General's door and stepped into his office.
“Welcome Commander Nooba!” he greeted her with uncharacteristic enthusiasm.
“Well, thank you, Sir.” She proceeded to the visitor's chair and sat down. She hesitated for a moment. “Did you do something with the light in here?”
“The light?” The General looked at her with an odd sort of wide eyed expression.
“Well it's... purple.”
“Purple? Ah. Yes. I changed it. I find it relaxing. Not as hard on the eyes as that bright, hard light I had before.”
“I see Sir. Well, here's my report, Sir.”
She handed over the files she had compiled.
“As you will see” she said as he started going through them, “the quota for Standard Bed Type A equipment is well within limits, and I have been able to cut the expenses for 'The Little Robot Dog Rush – The SCV's Best Friend' by two percent by changing supplier. Furthermore...”
“Yes, yes” he interrupted her. “These are not so... interesting.” He brushed the documents aside.
“They are not?” She stared at him in disbelief.
General Oakleaf shook his head very slowly. At least she thought so. The motion was quite subtle. As if his neck was very stiff.
“But what have we here?” he asked enthusiastically when he came to the bottom paper.
“Ah yes” she started. “I know that you tend to frown upon my attack plans, Sir, but I have taken part of the intel reports and noticed a pattern in the Protoss base design Sir. I think that if we fly in medivacs and place widow mines in the probe lines, it just might...”
“Yes!” General Oakleaf exclaimed. “We should attack the Protoss. Very good initiative.”
“Ehm. You think so, Sir?”
“Yes, yessss. The Protoss with their blinking bright lights, always hurting us with their lasers. We should make them go away. And then we can... nest, where they had their bases.”
General Oakleaf smiled and tilted his head to the side. It was a weird sort of head tilt.
After a brief moment of uncanny neck angle he straightened up again. “I mean, we can... expand and build bases, there” he added.
Nooba adjusted her position in her seat.
Slowly, she reached for a laser stapler and pushed it over the edge of the desk. It fell to the floor with a soft thud, inches from Oakleaf's feet.
“I'm very sorry Sir. I'm so clumsy. Could you pick it up for me so that I can finalize these documents? Sir?”
General Oakleaf blinked. His left eyebrow twitched. “Ehm... no?”
In a sudden burst of action, Nooba jumped over the desk and punched General Oakleaf in the face. She gripped his head and wrestled it into her arms.
“Aha!” she shouted when she saw the tiny filament that had made its way into the base of his neck. She took a death-defying dive to the floor and clasped her hands around a tiny infestor.
“I've got you now!” she triumphed as she held it up, its many legs moving frantically in the air.
<Let me down!> she heard it scream. Not with Oakleaf's voice, but with its own, in her head.
“I think not! You're going to regret meddling with Terran High Orbit Command! You're going to the SciTech department! Haha!”
She stood up, still holding the little psionic critter. Its movement slowed as she released her grip just a tiny bit.
“You really are a bit small compared to most infestors, aren't you?” she mused as she looked it over.
<Yes... Spawning sequence ran too fast. Ground contaminated by human factory for energy drinks. I always smaller than the rest. Had to stay with queens. Never chosen to fight. But I must show my worth to the Hive. I lifted with the fliers. Came here. Infested high ranking human. Ordered attacks on the bright aliens. Everything was going well. The other commanders, they did not understand.>
“Yeah I guess I'm a bit more used to things like these. You see I'm not just some typical office paper pusher. I am Nooba, Formerly Planetside Command Chief In Comm...”
<Yes I know> the infestor interrupted. <I am sad I could not help the Hive. But I am... happy too. General Oakleaf's thoughts always filled with policies and guidelines, paragraphs, Code of Conduct, Established Procedures For the Operation of Terran Campaigns... In his mind, I saw only... checklists.>
“Yeah... That kinda sounds like him. Hmm.”
She reflected on the alien's words. She took a long look at Oakleaf, who sat staring blankly at nothing while the infestor was busy talking. She pondered the pile of papers she had carried to his office. She had to admit that this new version of Oakleaf that she had met today wasn't all that bad. Not that bad at all.
She looked down at the undersized zerg creature.
“Okay screw it. Here's the deal: You give no orders without checking with me first, OK? If I find out you've been giving orders on your own, I'll have you frozen in stasis and shipped to the vivisection labs in a nanosecond, you hear me?”
The infestor looked at her with as confused a look as an infestor could manage.
She put the little xenomorph back on the ground.
“Yeah, you just keep doing what you're doing. This will be a temporary setup, of course. Eventually we'll have to reinstate Oakleaf and you'll go back to whatever weird world you came from. We'll just see to it that some changes occur around here first. Like maybe I should make a career move. Hmm.”
<This is unexpected> the infestor communicated.
“Yes, well, at High Orbit Command we always say that it's important to think outside of the box” she informed her newfound friend. “We're a cross functional team, you and I. An inter-disciplinary task force with a decidedly potent synergy effect. Ha!”
The infestor hurried back into hiding under the desk, and Nooba went for the door.
“Thank you for the kind words, General! Glad you liked my battle plan!” she shouted into the room as she left.
For a while, business as usual was going to be quite unusual. Quite unusual indeed.
