SpecOps (Expeditionary Force Book 2)

by Craig Alanson

  The scavengers were a low-budget group, using second or third-hand, worn-out equipment without sufficient spare parts or expertise for properly maintaining the equipment. Originally, they had a beat-up dropship and two aircraft, one of the aircraft had crashed near their base, and the leader didn't want to risk flying their dropship, so they only had one functional aircraft. They had six sets of powered armor suits, two of which were no longer working. And since they landed a year ago, five laborers had died in accidents, plus another two had been executed for disobedience. Morale in the scavenger group was bad, to say the least. They were all males, not even a single female with them. They had no fresh food, not even for the leaders, their base camp was cramped with limited recreation facilities, their one medic had died in an accident, and their medical treatment capability was provided by a AI that worked only about half the time. From their records Skippy had access to, the Kristang had remained within 300 kilometers of their base, that was where the debris from the crashed Elder ship was buried. All that was good news for us.

  The bad news was about geography. Only the equator of the planet was livable, the remainder of that world was frozen solid, with awful weather and temperatures humans couldn't survive, and the ice pack and glaciers closer to the equator were mushy from the summer warming, with the surface there too treacherous for habitation. The last thing we wanted was for an ice cavern to collapse on us. Of the land exposed along the equator, much of it was frigid swamp and spongy thawing tundra, with no place for us to burrow into and hide. Three quarters of the equator was ocean, there wasn't a lot of real estate for us to choose from. What Skippy recommended was uncomfortably close to the Kristang base, less than 1300 kilometers to the east. The terrain there was grassland, eroded canyons and hills, with caverns Skippy thought would be good places to take shelter away from prying eyes.

  "You have scans of the subsurface?" I asked. "Show me."

  The display zoomed in on the area Skippy suggested we take shelter, first a regular video image, then it flipped to show what lay beneath the surface. "The satellites we have aren't designed for this sort of scanning," he explained, "I'm having to make do. See the caverns?"

  There were pockets, some of them extensive, under the surface. Unfortunately, as I played with the display, most of the caverns big enough to be useful for shelter were deep underground, and either not connected to the surface at all, or connected only by a narrow passage. That was no good for our purposes, we couldn't take the time to excavate a cavern, and we had to be careful not to leave a debris pile on the surface. "Mmm, hey, how about this?" There was an area of canyons and caverns a hundred kilometers north of the place Skippy recommended. "These caverns are big enough." Some of the caverns were shallow, large openings but they didn't go deep enough into the side of the canyons to provide real shelter.

  "That is a possibility, I didn't think you would want to be in an area of canyons. Some of those canyons are subject to flash flooding in summer, as the glaciers melt."

  "I hear you, Skippy, that's a good point. What I need is to talk with a geologist."

  We had one geologist on the science team, technically she had only minored in geology, her focus was astrophysics. Dr. Kassner came to my office, since the whole science lab was in an area of the ship that currently had no heat, power, artificial gravity or breathable air.

  "What about this area," I asked, pointing to the canyon lands in my iPad. "Some of these caverns appear to be large enough to house us, and deep enough into the hillside to keep us out of sight."

  "We won't be in tents, then?" Kassner asked with a frown, brushing a stray lock of blonde hair away from her face.

  I shook my head. "No. Tents are too visible. If the Kristang fly an aircraft over the area, we can't risk them seeing anything. We will have warning of their aircraft approaching, it may not be enough time for us to strike the tents and get everything hidden, I don't want to take that risk. Besides, the weather on this planet can be harsh, I'd rather everyone is in a relatively dry cave, than in damp tents on the surface."

  "Dry may be a relative term," Kassner mused, "these canyons channel melt water in the summers, you can see erosion layers, recent, last season. We also don't know how shallow the water table is in this area, caverns could flood from the bottom. Colonel," she said while nervously tugging on her ponytail, “you understand that the last time I seriously studied geology was twenty years ago.”

  "I know that I'm asking you to guess-"

  "We don't have enough data, historical data," she protested.

  "How about this, then," I said, "are these caverns structurally sound? Flooding is a potential problem we can deal with, a roof collapsing on us isn't."

  Kassner frowned as she manipulated the images, going deeper underground. "Do you need an answer right now?"

  "No." Realistically, I didn't need an answer until the Flower docked with the ship loaded with supplies and people, and was ready to jump again. At that point, Chang did need to know where his dropships were going to land. And, whether we were going to Newark at all. Simms had a small mountain of supplies organized and ready to be loaded aboard the Flower, enough supplies for eight months, as a precaution in case Skippy ran into problems rebuilding the Dutchman. Major Simms had hardly slept, as our only logistics specialist, she had to figure not only what supplies we needed, and how much, she needed to have everything organized so that the first two dropships to land contained the equipment the first wave of people needed. Combat loading, we called that in the military; weapons were unloaded first, dry socks unloaded last. The two dropships were being loaded now, Chang hadn't needed them aboard the Flower for his scouting mission. "No, Doctor, I'll need an answer in about ten hours. Talk to Skippy, pull in whoever you need. Keep in mind, whatever site you recommend will be where we're living for the next four to eight months. Comfort is not our major priority, safety and concealment are.”

  We had enough data about Newark, and the Kristang there, to make a decision. Not only a decision about where to land on Newark, a more basic decision about whether to land there at all. Whether to take the risk of us being on Newark. To advise me, I called together my command crew of Chang, Simms and Adams, plus the five SpecOps team leaders, in the CIC. With much of the ship closed off, the CIC was the only compartment large enough for a meeting of more than four people, unless we all stood in a corridor. As there was nothing much for a crew to do in the CIC with the ship dead and drifting, I had cleared the compartment.

  “Thank you,” I said, as a harried-looking Major Simms came into the CIC, a portable oxygen mask still hanging from her neck. She’d been down in the cargo bays, supervising the teams packing supplies for Newark, and Skippy had been forced to cut off the fresh oxygen supply to that area of the ship. “Now that we’re all here, I need your advice. We now have enough information about Newark to know that we can survive down there, and we know that we soon will not be able to survive aboard this ship. We also have information about the Kristang on Newark, and we have a limited, substantial but limited, ability to mask our presence on the planet from the Kristang. The question is whether we can take the risk of going down to Newark-”

  “My advice,” Skippy interrupted, “is you go down there, you dumdums. That’s why we came all the way here! What else are-”

  It was my turn to interrupt him. “Skippy, I appreciate if you can provide information, but this primarily affects us humans, and this needs to be our decision.”

  “No, Joe. You are the commander. This is your decision,” he said simply, and the people in the CIC all nodded. “You once told me that one of the drawbacks to being in the military, is that the chain of command requires you to put your life in the hands of people who may be idiots. Today, you are that potential idiot. I trust you will do your best to make a wise decision. Joe, I will refrain from comment, unless you request me to join the discussion.”

  “Thank you, Skippy. The question is whether we can take the risk of going down to Newark. Not risk to
us, because if we don’t go to Newark, there is a hundred percent certainty that we will not survive. Once Skippy begins tearing the ship apart to fix it, there will be no oxygen, and lethal levels of radiation. The risk we have to consider is the risk to Earth; the risk that our presence on Newark may be discovered, and Earth could be targeted by aliens, regardless of whether the wormhole is available to shorten their trip there. When we came out here, our mission was simple; we assist Skippy in contacting the Collective, and we do not take any risks with aliens discovering that humans are roaming the galaxy in a pirate ship.”

  "Except that's not quite true, is it, sir?" The SAS team leader Captain Smythe observed. I still found it jarring that a bad-ass soldier spoke with such a refined British accent. Smythe was SAS, he could probably kill me with a paper clip, any of the special forces could. With his oh-so-proper accent Smythe sounded like he would kill me, then apologize for not having been quite sporting about it, terribly sorry old chap, that sort of thing. "Our prime mission objective is not zero risk that other species will learn we humans are out here roaming around as you say, the objective is minimal risk. Otherwise, Colonel, you could have detonated a nuke as soon as our friend Skippy shut down the wormhole." He looked around the CIC. "We all know the stated mission objectives. We also know what hasn’t been said, not openly.”

  “Go on, Captain Smythe,” I said. I wanted a frank and open discussion, and I was getting one, this was good. The people in the CIC all had far more experience that I did with making command decisions, I needed to listen to them.

  Smythe continued “First, our true mission out here is to assure this Skippy being doesn't decide that we're not upholding our end of the bargain, and reopens the wormhole near Earth out of spite.” He glanced at the speaker in the ceiling, we all expected Skippy to respond to that remark. When Skippy stayed silent, Smythe pressed onward. “Our second unstated objective is to hopefully return home in the Flying Dutchman, so humanity will have an advanced starship to take apart and study. We all believe aliens have no access to Earth now, that may not be true in the future. Colonel, you found a way to manipulate wormholes, who is to say some other species will not gain the same capability? Or these periodic wormhole shifts could bring our wormhole back to life."

  Skippy had told me our local wormhole was dead, shut down, that the connection to its power source was severed. He hadn't specifically assured me that wormhole could never come back to life on its own. Damn it, I should have asked him about that.

  Smythe continued, looking straight at me. "Some of you Americans, before the Second World War, believed that because you are separated from most of the world by two great oceans, you need not fear invasion, that the problems of the world were not your problems. Our entire planet now faces a similar situation; we are protected by vast interstellar distances, for now. That happy circumstance will not continue forever. We need the technology of this ship to enable humanity to leap forward, so that when trouble does come knocking on our door, we will be ready. And we all know trouble will come knocking, some day." There were nodding heads all around the CIC at that remark.

  Smythe’s comments opened the floodgate; everyone wanted to weigh in on the decision, for or against. After ten minutes of spirited discussion, all eyes turned to Captain Xho, leader of the Chinese ‘Night Tiger’ special forces team. He had been mostly silent, until he cleared his throat, and people waited for him to speak. "Captain Smythe, what you said is true; there is no question that we need," he pointed at the deck, "the technology of this ship. This is a matter of balancing risk and reward, the risk of our presence on Newark being discovered, against the possibility of bringing this ship home without Mr. Skippy. My pilots, and our scientific staff," I assume he meant the Chinese contingent, "have told me there is very little chance we can fly this ship all the way home, without our benevolent AI friend helping us. We must weigh the very slender possibility of the Dutchman returning home, against what I believe to be the very real risk of the Kristang learning we are on Newark. We control the satellites, certainly. What will happen if, when, a Kristang ship jumps into orbit to retrieve their scavenger team? That ship's sensors would surely detect us."

  That started another round of discussion, this time not about whether should land on Newark at all, but about what level of risk was acceptable. Essentially, about how confident we were about our ability to remain undetected. And what we could do to minimize the risk.

  After another twenty minutes, everyone had said all there was to say. The British, Indian and SEAL and Ranger commanders were in favor of landing on Newark. The Chinese and French commanders were against taking the risk of landing. That Renee Giraud was against landing surprised me. “There must be an alternative, and if not,” he shrugged, “I didn’t expect to live this long, Colonel.”

  There it was; four experienced combat commanders in favor of going to Newark, two against. They all had made good arguments, and they all were right about one thing, this was a matter of judgment. My judgment, it was my decision. I nodded slowly, more to give myself additional time to think than anything else. "Very well, I've made my decision. We're going to Newark. The risks are real. Ultimately, my decision comes down to this; I have to trust Skippy. His assessment, with all his awesome analytical power, is the risk is minimal and manageable."

  Giraud nodded slowly. "We have seen Skippy do amazing thing, certainly. Sir, have you considered that this alien AI is putting his thumb on the scale, when he is weighing the risks? He needs us to risk landing on Newark, because us surviving there and returning to fly the ship for him, is his only way to avoid being stranded in space forever. If our presence on Newark is discovered, it will be a disaster for humanity, but to Skippy, it will be the same as if we'd never gone to Newark in the first place. Our taking the risk of landing on Newark has no, as you Americans say, downside for Skippy. His only chance for a future is for us to risk the survival of our entire species, for his benefit."

  "I have considered that,” I replied. “Captain Giraud, you need to consider this; if all Skippy cared about is continuing his journey, he could have flown us to a star system that has a useable gas giant planet for him to repair the ship, but no habitable planet for humans. He could have told us our only option is to select a small number of people to survive in a dropship or something while he rebuilds the Dutchman, and everyone else is out of luck. Dead. That option would have worked for Skippy, and he would have had a large number of star systems to choose from. He didn't do that, he found us a place where we can all survive. I'm going to trust him.”

  Xho did not look happy. “Colonel Bishop, I fear we are risking the lives of billions of people, who could not participate in this decision,” and as he said that, he shared a glance with Chang.

  A chill ran up my spine. For a moment, I feared Chang and Xho had secret orders to take over the ship. With much of the ship disabled, Skippy’s ability to interfere with a mutiny was limited.

  Xho continued. “It is your decision to make, Colonel. What are your orders?”

  Inwardly, I shuddered with relief. “Colonel Chang, you have the schedule for crew departure-“

  Decision made, I contacted Kassner and asked her to come to my office again. She looked like she hasn’t slept much either. "Doctor Kassner, we are going to Newark. You've analyzed the data brought back by the Flower?"

  She was startled. "Colonel, I wasn't aware there was a question about us landing on Newark. Isn't that why we're here?"

  "There was a question about the security risk of us landing," I explained. "We've resolved those concerns, for now. We're going to land, the question is, where?"

  She pointed to her iPad. "There is a mountain of data here, even with Skippy's help, we've barely skimmed the surface. It's not just that we don't have enough relevant data to analyze, some of the data we have doesn't make sense. The oxygen level, for example."

  "It's not going to be comfortable at first," I admitted, "we will need time to adjust. Skippy told me the oxygen le
vel is equivalent to Earth at ten thousand feet of altitude, and people live in those conditions-"

  "Yes, yes, you don't understand," she said. "Our question is not why the oxygen level is so low, it's how the oxygen level could possibly be so high. It doesn't make sense."

  "Oh," I said, thinking I understood his question, "sure, because there aren't any trees down there, to convert carbon dioxide to free oxygen."

  "No," she couldn't keep a tiny measure of fatigued irritation from flashing across her face. When Skippy implied, or outright stated, how ignorant and dimwitted I am, that didn't bother me, no human could compare to his intelligence. When Kassner looked at me pityingly, as if she were talking to a particularly slow small child, that pissed me off. She must have sensed my irritation, because she hastened to add "That is a very common misconception, even in the scientific community, except for people who specialize in biology. On Earth today, plants such as trees do generate substantial amounts of free oxygen, however, single-celled organisms utilizing photosynthesis converted Earth's atmosphere billions of years ago from an anaerobic state, to a state saturated with free oxygen. This was long before the appearance of any land plants, the buildup of free oxygen was delayed by minerals on the surface, such as iron, absorbing the free oxygen, until the mineral base became saturated. At that point, we think the free oxygen reduced the amount of methane in Earth's atmosphere, methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, so falling methane levels triggered Earth's first ice age. That may be what happened to Newark, we simply do not know yet. The level of methane in Newark's atmosphere, we think primarily from volcanic activity, would indicate a substantial greenhouse effect is occurring. That tells us the planet should be warmer, that it was warmer in the past, considering the oxygen levels."

  Interesting as I found this info, and I did want to know more about it eventually, I needed a decision from her. There would be plenty of time for me to learn about sciency stuff while we huddled in caverns on Newark. Months in which I’d need something to do while the time slowly passed. "None of this is likely to affect our ability to survive down there for a few months?"