Mavericks (Expeditionary Force Book 6)

by Craig Alanson

  “Ha! I’ve seen you with a rifle, Biffty-boy. Safest place for me if you’re shooting is right where I am, because you’ll never hit me from there.”

  “I-” The senior cadet’s finger was flexing on the trigger and Perkins reached out to restrain Jates, but the Verd-Kris warrior was not to be interfered with.

  “What? Did I hurt your wittle feelings?” Jates sneered. “You want to run to your momma because I said mean things to you? Would wittle Biffty-boy like his mommy to pat his furry wittle head and make the bad words stop?”

  “I swear I will shoot you right here!”

  One of Bifft’s friends tried to whisper something in the agitated cadet’s ear, but he was not listening. “You stay back! I’m warning you!” He shouted at Jates, gesturing with the rifle that was now properly held to his shoulder, his bravado gone.

  “Boy,” Jates said in a low, calm voice as he drifted toward the three mutinous cadets. “You either give that rifle to someone who knows how to use it, or you pull that trigger. We all know you don’t have the guts to shoot me, so stop making a fool out of yourself and surrender that weapon.”

  “I’ll do it! I swear I’ll do it! He’s coming at me,” Bifft’s head swiveled to his friends for support. “You saw this! I have no choice!”

  “Bifft, he’s just-” One of his friends pleaded.

  “You asked for this!” Bifft bellowed as Jates drew within arm’s length of the muzzle. “This is your fault!” He squeezed the trigger gently as he had been taught, though his eyes partly closed which was not proper procedure.

  Nothing happened. Frantically, Bifft swam backwards in the air, one eye on the oncoming Jates and the other checking the rifle’s safety and power meters. They were both set correctly, so why was the rifle not firing? Were the maser exciters burned out? With one finger, he switched to flechette rounds even though he knew using that ammunition could cause carnage in the compartment.

  Nothing happened.

  Jates reached out with lightning-fast speed and snatched the rifle from Bifft’s hands, breaking two of the cadet’s fingers as the bigger and stronger Verd-Kris yanked it away. The two other cadets shot at Jates but they, too, had no results as their sidearms refused to fire. Almost casually, Jates spun the rifle around in his hands and bashed Bifft in the face with the butt, sending the senior cadet spinning off toward the still-open main door with blood spraying from his broken nose. Flipping the rifle around and setting it against his shoulder, Jates faced the two other would-be mutineers. “Are you two going to be smart and hand over those pistols, or will you give me the pleasure of bashing your stupid heads together?”

  The Ruhar looked at each other in brief moment of a panic before swallowing hard and meekly handing their pistols to the hulking Verd-Kris, who tucked them into the tool belt of his spacesuit.

  Emily Perkins felt she could dare breathe again, after a shameful moment of not knowing what to do. Surgun Jates had years of experience dealing with and training Ruhar cadets, so she had let him take the lead, but if he had been killed, she knew it would be her fault. “Surgun Jates,” she emphasized his rank, “that was a terrible risk. Do not do anything like that again,” she scolded while suppressing a shudder of relief.

  “I was in no danger,” Jates slung the rifle over one shoulder and waved for Bifft’s friends to attend to the cadet who had tried to forcefully take over the ship. “These weapons will not fire.”

  “I saw that,” Perkins admitted. “How did you know that? Have all the weapons in the armory been disabled?”

  “No, just these, and any others this amateur gang of morons stole from the armory. All weapons inside the armory should be fully active.”

  “How did you know about that?” Dave whispered in amazement. “If these Ruhar cadets didn’t know, how-”

  Jates tilted his head in a gesture like a shrug. “The officers of the Ruhar fleet are not concerned about their own cadets attempting to seize control. Not so with aliens such as we Verd-Kris, we are still not fully trusted. During our initial orientation tour of this ship, the officer guiding us made a point of telling us not to ever think about breaking into the armory, because any attempt to breach security there would render those weapons useless. Any weapon removed from the armory without proper authorization is automatically disabled by the weapon itself sending a power surge to fry its control chip. That is why I carry this,” Jates flipped the rifle over, opened a port with one finger, and extracted a copper-colored flat square. He tossed it to go drifting away, pulled an identical unit from a pocket, and inserted it in the rifle. “This fire control unit is active,” the lizard announced with a grin that stretched his lips in an expression more terrifying than reassuring. Sighting on a broken piece of equipment lazily floating near the far bulkhead, he fiddled with the selector and squeezed the trigger. A maser beam blasted the target, sending hot droplets of metal to splatter the bulkhead and making everyone in the compartment duck and cover their faces. “The next time a Ruhar cadet tells you how their species is so smart, remember this.”

  Dave and Perkins exchanged a silent ‘oh shit’ look. A Kristang held the only active weapon aboard the ship. Was he now going to seize control of the Ruh Tostella? Kill the humans and Ruhar, or simply throw them in the brig, and try to signal a Kristang warship? If a Verd-Kris warrior wanted to join the Kristang warrior caste, bringing them a Ruhar warship full of cadet hostages might be a good way to prove his worth. Perkins saw Dave tense to launch himself at Jates and her heart froze in fear for her young sergeant-

  “Here,” Jates flipped the rifle around and handed it to Dave. “You should hold this.”

  Dave was so shocked, he did not at first reach out for the rifle, believing it had to be a trick. When his hands wrapped around the rifle and Jates released it, Dave pulled it close to his chest, pointed it between his feet, and safed it. “You sure about this?” Dave asked before he could stop his stupid mouth.

  “The cadets would never accept me as commander, there is too much hate and distrust between our peoples,” Jates explained sadly. “The Ruhar consider the Verd-Kris, like you humans, as pets,” he jerked his head toward Bifft, “who are indulged too much by our masters. Colonel Perkins, if we have any chance to survive this disaster, we need you to lead us.” Jates gave her a proper US military salute.

  Emily Perkins’ internal reaction was to resent the pressure put on her. She wanted someone else to be responsible for a change, dammit. If the Fates were determined to torment her, why couldn’t they give her an easy challenge once in a while? She returned the salute. “Surgun Jates, do you have any more of those magical control chips?”

  “Only one more, and it was in part of the ship that sustained significant battle damage.”

  “So,” she pointed to the rifle Dave carried, “that’s the only active weapon aboard the ship.”

  “Yes.”

  “That I know of,” Perkins tilted her head.

  “We must trust each other,” Jates replied with an unreadable expression.

  The alien was right, she knew. “Sergeant Czajka, you and Jates escort the mutineers to the brig.”

  Dave made a show of flicking off the safety of his rifle. “Ma’am, there are probably other cadets involved in the mutiny, what about them?”

  “Unless we know specifically who was involved, they are all innocent until proven guilty. We need everyone we can get to repair the ship, I would like to consider this, this incident closed for now. The Ruhar authorities can deal with the legal matters when we contact the fleet.”

  By his expression, Dave did not like that idea. “Yes, Ma’am.” If anyone even looked at him funny, Dave intended to throw them in the brig and ask questions later. No way was he going to take any shit from punk hamster kids.

  Perkins turned her attention to the Kristang, or, she corrected herself, Verd-Kris. “Surgun Jates?”

  “Yes, Colonel?”

  “Make sure these cadets don’t know any tricks about breaking out of the brig.”<
br />
  That drew a smile from the Verd-Kris, an expression that was not quite revolting. “Yes, Colonel.”

  After Dave departed with Bifft and his crew, Perkins floated over to Jinn’s workstation. “Do you have an initial assessment?”

  “N-no,” the Ruhar girl stammered, her hands shaking. She wasn’t ready for the crushing responsibility, she knew it, and she also could not just walk away. The entire crew was counting on her. “Colonel, even if the reactors can be restarted, I don’t dare feed energy into the ship. There are too many power conduits with open circuits, and other systems that might blow if unregulated power is fed into them. We, we need to get the entire ship forward of Frame Sixty Seven,” she pointed to the thick bulkhead to the aft, which protected delicate biological systems from the radiation of the reactors and jump drive, “isolated. I don’t have enough people to do that. Enough people who know how to do that! I can’t be here, and also manage the work teams.”

  “Understood. Garnor, take a deep breath,” Perkins put a hand on the cadet’s shoulder. “You can do this?”

  “How?” Jinn waved her fingers at the console in front of her, densely cluttered with confusing data, all of which needed her focused attention. “It is impossible!”

  “Don’t tell me about impossible, cadet,” Perkins kept her tone soft and reassuring. “My team destroyed a Kristang battlegroup, using ancient maser cannons that no one knew even existed. Later, we were trapped on an island with an enemy commando squad and no weapons, and we found a way to kill every one of those murderous lizards.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Jinn replied with a faint smile. The fact that she could smile at all was a good sign.

  “You keep working here, I’ll find a way to get those work teams organized.”

  “Respectfully, Colonel, you don’t know this ship’s systems.”

  “Correct. But I know someone who does.”

  On the way to patching another leak in the hull, Nert stopped by the brig. His helmet was off, attached to his belt with a strap, but clearly he had been wearing the helmet for an extended period while working hard, for the fur on his head was plastered down with dried sweat and the helmet liner had created a crease across his forehead. “Hello, Miss Shauna,” he greeted the human with weary good cheer. While Nert, Dave and Jesse usually used nicknames for each other, the two soldiers had not thought up an acceptable nickname for Shauna. Jesse’s attempt to call her ‘Nuke’, merely because her actions had erased an entire island from the surface of Paradise, had not gone well. “How are you?”

  Before Shauna could answer, Bifft elbowed one of his fellow mutineers to get attention while he insulted the young cadet. “Oh, Nert, did you come here to make sure your pet isn’t lonely?”

  “You be quiet, Bifft,” Nert jabbed a finger at the senior cadet, his expression filled with anger and disgust. “The ship is in crisis, we need everyone working on damage control, and you,” he shook a fist while trying to think what to say. “You are useless as a knitted condom!”

  “Nerty!” Shauna couldn’t help laughing. “Is that something you learned from the Third Infantry?”

  “No,” he looked puzzled. “I heard Cornpone saying it to Ski. Did I not use that expression correctly? It is a very colorful phrase.”

  “It is very colorful, yes,” she covered her mouth with a hand so the cadets in the brig would not see she could not stop laughing. “It is also true,” she scowled at Bifft, and with that, the humor was gone. “How are you?”

  Nert pointed to the patch kit strapped to his waist. “I fear there are more holes in the hull than we have patches to fix. My team leader thinks we must do what we can by starting near the engineering control center and working our way forward.”

  “That is stupid!” Bifft protested. “You should first conduct a survey of the ship, and then prioritize critical sections. If we don’t secure the life support systems before they sustain more damage, we will all die out here soon!”

  “You had a chance to help, Bifft,” Nert waved a hand at the disgraced senior cadet with a dismissive gesture, something that would have astonished Nert mere hours ago. The attempted mutiny had made Bifft’s status fall so far, Nert no longer cared what his former cadet leader thought about anything. “Now, the best thing you can do to help is stop breathing, to conserve oxygen for people working to fix the ship. Miss Shauna, I must go now, I will be back, when I can.”

  “You don’t worry about me, Nerty, I’ll be fine,” Shauna wanted to be doing something more valuable than babysitting cadets who were securely locked behind bars, but she understood humans were pretty much just in the way for the task of repairing the sophisticated alien starship. Still, Irene and Derek were practicing to fly and jump the ship if main power could be restored, while Jesse and Dave were part of a work crew patching holes in the hull. Humans did not need to understand hyperspatial navigation to slap patches on holes in the inner hull, and Shauna was itching to get away from the brig, soon.

  Shortly after Nert left, Perkins pulled herself into the chamber that led to the ship’s brig. That compartment was larger than she expected aboard a training cruiser, but then it was likely left over from the Toaster’s service as a line ship. Bifft and his two friends were floating in the center of the compartment. They were upside down from her normal perspective, Perkins thought the brats had done that deliberately to upset their single guard. “Jarrett,” she nodded.

  “Ma’am,” Shauna patted the heavy wrench sitting in her lap. “Don’t you worry, these jokers aren’t going anywhere.”

  “Colonel Perkins,” Bifft mispronounced her name as Per-KINS because he knew that would annoy the human officer. “I have rights as a prisoner,” he ran a finger over the dried blood on his face where Jates had bashed him with the rifle, and waggled his broken fingers. “You must offer proper medical attention to injured prisoners. I demand that you-”

  “You demand nothing, you punk-ass little shit,” Perkins was too tired to add the proper vehemence to her tone. “You are not a prisoner, you are guilty of a mutiny. I checked Ruhar Fleet regulations and they are very clear. Anyone attempting a mutiny when a ship is in combat conditions, only has a right to piss in their pants before they get thrown out an airlock. Your fleet, your people, are at war, cadet. They don’t screw around, I admire that about your people.”

  “You are an alien, you have no right to-”

  “I am the commanding officer of this ship,” Perkins waved her zPhone so Bifft could see the full set of command codes.

  “You are not going to kill us,” Bifft was regaining his arrogance. He reasoned if the human had the determination to throw him out an airlock, she would have done that already before she lost her nerve. “My family is powerful, you do not dare touch me.”

  “Ma’am, please, give me two minutes with that asshole,” Shauna thumped the wrench into the bulkhead behind her. “His face is beat up already, no one will know.”

  “Don’t waste the energy, Jarrett,” Perkins frowned.

  “Have you come here to gloat, Miss Perkins?” Bifft asked in a taunting tone he used for his friends, but the fear in his eyes revealed his true emotions.

  “No, I’m here to put your furry asses to work,” Perkins explained simply.

  That remark was completely unexpected, Bifft could not respond until one of his friends nudged him. He tapped his earpiece. “I do not think that translated properly?”

  “You heard me right. Work. If we’re going to survive, we need to fix the ship, and I need all hands on deck for that. I can’t have three able-bodied people wasting time in the brig just because one of you is stupid.” She locked eyes with Bifft.

  “We should put our trust in you?” Bifft asked in a mocking tone.

  “You should put your trust in Urmat Datha. He chose to put me in command.”

  Seeing a chance for redemption and to regain his personal status, Bifft folded his arms defiantly. “Why should we help?”

  “First, because if you don’t, everyone a
board this ship might die, including you three knuckleheads. Second, because no matter how powerful your parents are, the only thing your Fleet Command hates more than a mutiny, is a failed mutiny. The rest of you,” she directed her gaze at Bifft’s companions, “might be able to claim you were misled by your cadet leader. But not if you refuse to assist in repairing the ship.” Perkins could see the comment had struck home by the awkward movements of the other cadets, and by the guilty looks they gave to their leader. The cadets may have followed Bifft when they thought they could take the ship, but neither of them wanted to face punishment now that the mutiny had failed. “Cadet Colhsoon, I need someone to prioritize assignments and organize work parties.”

  That surprised Bifft more than anything else Perkins had said. “You want me to lead the repair effort?”

  “No, I need you to direct and coordinate the cadet teams that will be doing the work. Cadet Garnor has an engineering team working on overall plans to get the reactors restarted, but there is a lot of other work she needs done, and I can’t take people with an engineering specialty away from their tasks. You are the cadet leader, I need you to lead.”

  Bifft knew the human was flattering him. At that moment, he did not care. She was offering him a way out of the deeply humiliating mess he had gotten himself into. Bifft had not been able to admit it to his friends, but when the brig door had closed with a solid clanging sound of doom, he had almost broken down and cried from fear and embarrassment. He shuddered with relief, a tremble he could not hide from his friends. “Should we shake hands, I believe that is the human custom?” Bifft held a hand through the bars.

  “Cadet,” Perkins tilted her head and pursed her lips in displeasure. “I am not making a deal with you, I am giving you an order as your commanding officer. You only have to obey.”