SpecOps (Expeditionary Force Book 2)

by Craig Alanson

"Joe, if we are ever threatened with technology of that level, appealing to a higher power would be the best option, so you might not want to avoid blasphemy."

  "Do you have any guesses about who did this? And why?"

  "As to who, no, I have absolutely no idea. As to why, as I already said, the only reason to blow up a moon that makes any sense is to destroy the Elder facility, whatever it was."

  "Uh," an unpleasant thought occurred to me, and I stepped to the side and stopped walking, gesturing to Captain Smythe to keep going, I would catch up to them. "Hey, I remember something the burgermeister, you know, the hamster woman who was secretly the deputy administrator of Paradise-"

  "I know who she is, yes."

  "Good. This burgermeister, she told me the whole war started because the Maxohlx found a stash of Elder weapons, and attacked the Rindhalu, who used Elder weapons to fight back. And then both sides got the crap kicked out of them by the Sentinels, something like that, devices the Elders left behind to make sure nobody messed with the stuff they left behind?"

  "Yeah, and?"

  "Could something like that have happened to that moon? Maybe some lower-tech species found a store of Elder weapons on that moon, and screwed with them, and one of them exploded by accident?"

  "No."

  I waited for Skippy to say more, when he didn't say anything, for enough time to be awkward, I said "No? You know that because why?"

  "Joe, you asked who, and why. I told you how; some kind of Elder device, not necessarily a weapon. You did not ask 'when'. The math of orbital mechanics tells me the moon was destroyed around two point seven million years ago. The Rindhalu did not achieve space flight until around one million years ago. There were not, as far as I know, any sentient star faring species, any sentient species at all, in the Milky Way galaxy between the Elders and the Rindhalu. So, no way could the Maxohlx, or the Rindhalu, have been responsible for destroying that moon."

  "Wait." A bell rang in my mind. "Two point seven million years ago? That moon was destroyed around the same time that Newark was pushed out of orbit?"

  "Yes. This is all extremely suspicious."

  "Damn it. We're back to the question of 'who' again, then."

  "That is an important question we need to answer. Joe, as I have said before, this scares the hell out of me. Damn it! Things used to be so simple. Difficult, yes, but simple. We find an Elder communications node, I contact the Collective, and it would be Mission Accomplished! Now, I don’t know what to do.”

  “Wait! Skippy, we are going to attack the Kristang in order to get the AI and a comm node, now you’re not sure whether you want them? This is a hell of a time to change your freakin’ mind.”

  “No, no, Joe, sorry, what I meant was, damn talking with you biological trashbags is not easy. All I meant was, things have gotten way complicated. I used to think I knew who I am, pretty much, and who the Elders were, or are. And how I fit into the universe. What I was hoping for was that I contact the Collective, and that solves all my problems. Now I’m thinking, the effort to contact the Collective may only be the beginning of a long struggle for me. Please, I do need you to get the AI and the comm node way from those hateful lizards, and I truly appreciate all the hard work you and your team are doing. Of course, when I say ‘appreciate’, I say that in the definition of ‘grateful’, not that I can actually appreciate how physically demanding it is for you monkeys to walk all that way.”

  “Oh,” I said. That was much better. “Thanks, Skippy.”

  “Just like you ignorant monkeys cannot truly appreciate how difficult it is for me to rebuild a Thuranin starship out of raw materials up here. Because you can’t.”

  “Hey, Skippy, I also appreciate that you are making the effort to be an arrogant asshole.”

  “Oh, no problem, Joe.”

  Damn. Sometimes I couldn’t tell when he was being sarcastic, and when he was being simply clueless.

  Skippy continued. “However, I am disappointed in you, Joe, you completely missed the most important point of my story."

  "What? What is that?" What the hell could be more important than a freakin' moon being vaporized, at a time when no sentient species occupied the galaxy?

  "That I was right all along, the star system did have an Elder site, just like I predicted. Duh. I'm the best, baby! Woohoo!"

  "Oh, for crying out loud," I said in disgust. "That's what you think is the most important thing?"

  "Sure. Come on, there isn't anything we can do about that moon now, right?"

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  Three nights later, after three hard days of marching that had every muscle in my body aching, we gathered for dinner around a pathetic campfire. During the day, we'd gathered broken pieces of the small, low growing shrubs that were clustered around rocks on Newark, to make a fire. The fire was for psychological effect, it wasn't hot enough to cook anything, although a couple of Brits and Indians the heated up water for tea, and everyone got a small cup. For Newark, out in the open, it was a nice evening; temperature comfortable above freezing, it hadn't rained since early that morning, and the wind had died down to a steady breeze out of the east. The team needed this break together, instead of eating a hurried dinner in cramped tents and crashing to exhausted sleep like we'd been doing.

  "Hello, Colonel Joseph Bishop!" Skippy said over my zPhone's speaker. "How are you this evening?"

  "Fine," I mumbled over a mouthful of MRE peanut butter and crackers, "we're eating dinner around a campfire, sort of. What's up?"

  "Well, sir, I have an exciting opportunity for you. For a limited time, we are offering a greatly reduced price on wonderful timeshares on Newark."

  "Damn," I had to laugh, trying not to spew precious crackers on my lap. "Skippy, who the hell would buy a timeshare on this miserable planet?"

  "Joe, Joe, Joe," he scolded me. "You're missing the point entirely. Think about this; if you purchase our Basic timeshare package of one week on Newark, that means you do NOT have to be on Newark the other fifty one weeks a year."

  "Oh," everyone around me laughed, "in that case, hell yes, sign us all up."

  "You won't regret this, sir. Seriously, Joe, how's it going down there? I know what the weather is like, that doesn't tell me how our Merry Band of Pirates are faring right now. By the way, it looks like you have a mix of snow and sleet coming tomorrow afternoon, then it will clear up and go back to damp, chilly and partly sunny."

  "Snow? Crap, isn't this almost summer on this freakin' planet? And we're on the freakin' equator here. You are not acting as our travel agent the next time we look for a planet. Skippy, what we have down here is officially a not-very-Merry Band of Pirates. The gravity is too high, the temperature is too low, and it's hard to breathe even when you're only walking. Other than that, we're doing just wonderful. How's it going up there?"

  "Well, heh, heh, funny you should ask."

  "Oh, shit." I hated that 'well, heh, heh' thing he did, and by now, the whole team knew what it meant when he did that, hey all looked at me with alarm. I put in my zPhone earpiece and turned off the speakerphone feature, so we could talk privately. Not wanting to be rude, I stood up and stepped away from the fire. "What is it this time? Did somebody forget to turn the stove off before we left?" Man, I was hoping whatever the problem was, it was simple. "It's not like I can go back up there and fix it, Skippy."

  "The stove is not a problem, since I already mentioned that the ship currently does not have a galley. I’m working on that. Anywho, to be serious for a moment, Joe, one of the dropships had a slight accident."

  "Slight? Like, you scratched the paint, or dented the fender?"

  "Uh, no. Slight, like a gas pocket on a moon exploded when I drilled into it, the dropship flipped over and now it's stuck in a hole."

  "What the hell, Skippy! Damn it, I leave you nice toys to play with, and you break them. I can't trust you with anything valuable up there."

  "Hey, to be fair, I'm working almost blind up here. That moon contained min
erals I need, and its orbit currently has it on the other side of the planet, I was using the dropship's crappy sensors to see what I was doing. The sensors didn't detect the gas pocket, because the Thuranin, here's a real shocker for you, didn't design their dropships to be used as drilling rigs. Anyway, I have another dropship on the scene, and I'm using combots to dig the first dropship out. It should be fine, except we'll need a new one, because the cabin got kind of crushed and it won't hold air pressure any more. Also, I wouldn't try flying it down through an atmosphere at this point, the heat shield is not in good shape."

  "BLUF it for me, Skippy, Ok?"

  "What?"

  "Bottom Line Up Front. BLUF. Tell me the important stuff first. Come on, you know US military slang."

  "Oh, yeah. All right. The bottom line is this little accident will add a week, maybe more, to the schedule. Most likely, sixteen days. I have to divert resources to recover and repair the dropship, and while I'm doing that, the dropship won't be mining ore for me. While I'm fixing that busted dropship, I will still be working on the Dutchman, however, work on the ship will be delayed. There is no way around it, before you ask me some stupid questions. This was always a substantial risk, Joe. My original estimate had likely delays built into the schedule, so this delay only adds eight days to when I expect the ship to be functional again."

  I sighed. "Understood, Skippy. You're doing the impossible up there, we appreciate it. And I won't insult you by telling you to be careful."

  "Indeed, you do not need to tell me to be careful. I'm working on the edge here already, Joe, it would not take much to tip the scales, so that I'm using up resources faster than I'm creating new ones."

  "You won't let that happen, right?" I asked hopefully.

  "I'm doing my best."

  What scared me was his voice didn't have the usual snarky cockiness to it. He was scared, or at least very concerned.

  And, from Newark, there was absolutely nothing we could do about it.

  Skippy's pizza delivery had soft landed in a swampy area, we had to wade through bone-chilling water up to our waists to get to it. Part of me was wondering if Skippy had done that on purpose, although I'm sure he had done the best he could from the other side of the star system. By the time we got through the icy water to the package, I couldn't feel my legs. Or my balls. The container was roughly twice the size of a large foot locker, it was jammed packed, partly with medical supplies we might need after the assault, most of it was food. Sort of food. It was dehydrated sludges, all of it. What the assault team needed was basic nutrition, not gourmet food. We got the container back to dry land and popped it open. Soldiers began pulling out the contents and laying it out on the ground for sorting.

  "Chocolate-banana, plain banana, strawberry-banana, banana curry. Sir, most of these are some type of banana flavor," Williams announced in consternation.

  "Oh, crap," I slapped my forehead. "Skippy thinks monkeys love bananas!" I groaned, frustrated. "If we get another delivery, I'll request a better variety of flavors."

  Captain Gomez uncapped a sludge, poured water in to rehydrate it, shook it up, and drained it in one gulp. "Food is fuel," he shrugged, "we can eat real food when we get back to the Flying Dutchman."

  "Right. Everyone," I reminded people, "we bury our trash, can't have a Kristang ship seeing empty sludge packets laying on the ground. And let's drag the empty container into water deep enough that it will sink, put some rocks in to make sure." To set an example, I picked up a sludge packet without checking the flavor, poured water in, and gulped it down. It was, maybe, supposed to be plain banana flavor? You couldn't quite tell with Thuranin sludges, most of them had a nasty artificial taste.

  When we got the sludge supply back out of the swamp and unpacked, we divided them up evenly. "Does everyone have real food left?" I asked Smythe quietly.

  "I think so, sir. Everyone ate a good breakfast this morning."

  "I saw that." I'd been watching people from signs of fatigue, nagging injuries, and that no one was skimping on nutrition. "I have eight MREs left, I'm going to save them for anyone who is wounded."

  "Sir?"

  "Captain, I've survived on sludges before, it's not new to me. They provide energy, and they will sustain you, you will also get heartily sick of drinking them very quickly. If anyone is wounded out here, it's going to be quite some time before they can get full medical treatment, aboard the Dutchman. I'd like them to have at least real food to eat, keep their spirits up."

  "Oh, good thinking," he agreed. "I'll get a bag together." Smythe put an empty bag on the ground, and I asked people to donate one real food item, explaining that the bag would be reserved for injured soldiers, or to be rationed out as treats after the battle, while we waited for Skippy to fix the Dutchman.

  "I have eight incredibly delicious MREs here," I said as I held them up for view. "Five American, two French," I nodded to Giraud, who had traded with me earlier, "and," I peered at the wrapper, "I guess this one is Chinese? I'll start the kitty by donating all of them. I'm tired of carrying the damned things anyway."

  That drew a chuckle, and I put the MREs in the bag. "One only, if you have it to spare, keep the rest for yourself. Trust me, you are going to get very tired of existing on nothing but sludges."

  "He speaks the truth," Giraud testified, sticking his tongue out disgustedly, and we bumped fists. Neither of us wanted to remember that unpleasant aspect of our first time aboard the Flying Dutchman.

  We got a good donation, and the bag then held thirty five real meals of various types. None of it could be considered yummy, all of it had to taste better than a sludge. Smythe switched off the duties of carrying the goodie bag between soldiers, and we were extra super careful with it while crossing streams. I noticed that for the next four days, no one that I could see ate anything except sludges. Our shared suffering in that regard was a bonding experience. To spare the inexperienced the worst of the ordeal, I falsely let it be known that I didn't mind the plain banana flavor, which actually was among the very worst of the sludges. The plain banana, unmasked by other less-unpleasant flavors like chocolate, strawberry or even curry, was just bland, artificial, gritty and had an oily mouthfeel that lingered nastily on your tongue. It was my fault for not requesting a better variety of flavors from Skippy, although now that I thought about it, there hadn't been a whole lot of sludges left aboard the Dutchman when we began the second voyage, and no one had thought to request Skippy to make more. No one, like me. Since no one liked the banana flavors, maybe Skippy had sent us whatever we had, left over from the first voyage. Doubly my fault. Either way, I ended up with nothing but dehydrated plain banana sludges, having traded away all the less nasty flavors. Every sip of oily, gritty bland sludge reminded me about the value of planning ahead. That is certainly a lesson I wasn't going to forget. All I can say is, when we finally got back aboard the rebuilt Flying Dutchman, I was going to eat delicious, juicy cheeseburgers for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day the first week. Even if we no longer had a galley, and I had to grill the burger over a reactor.

  When we'd collected the real food, I selected a sludge at random from my pack, popped the cap, and poured water in to rehydrate it. "Drink up, everyone, enjoy your yummy sludge. And, hey, today is Friday. Only two more working days until Monday!"

  Despite how tired I was that night, I walked away from the campsite, in order to talk to Skippy in private. While I told myself that I wanted to thank him for the food, I had to admit that I missed talking with his irascible self. No one had insulted me for several days, it felt weird. “Hey, Skippy, how you doing up there?”

  “Busy,” he said tersely.

  “Oh,” I said, feeling awkward, “sorry, I’ll leave you alone then.”

  “No need, Joe, I’m not that busy. At the moment, I am in the extremely delicate process of creating exotic matter in what used to be one of our cargo holds, using basically a coffee pot, a missile warhead, and two combots that, despite my best effort at modifications, ab
solutely suck at anything but combat. If this goes south, even on Newark you’ll need to shield your eyes from the explosion. Don’t worry, I am very confident. Fairly confident. Somewhat confident. Ok, yes, I’m making this shit up as I go, all right? Give me a freakin' break. And I wouldn’t be too hopeful about the ultimate fate of that coffee pot, in case you were wondering. However, carrying on an intelligent conversation with one of you monkeys takes like one octillionth of my brain power, and half that when I’m speaking with you, so, what’s up?”

  There was the Skippy I knew! “Simply wanted to say, sincerely, from the bottom of my stomach, thank you for the food delivery.”

  “Hmmf. I was going to throw in free breadsticks, but, you know, what used to be the galley is current highly radioactive, so that was not an option.”

  “We appreciate the thought, Skippy.” Right then, I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Yeah, you’re welcome. No problem.” He sounded like he felt the conversation was lagging too.

  Before it got any more awkward, I said “Well, I’ll let you go-“

  “How did the day go? I’ve been tracking your progress. Your group is making impressive progress.” It seemed Skippy wanted to keep talking.

  “We didn’t roll or sink an RV today, that’s progress. Everyone here is sore, not that the SpecOps people will admit it, our muscles have adjusted to the extra gravity, our joints and tendons are slower catching up to the extra strain. I stepped in a hole and twisted an ankle yesterday morning.”

  “Did you talk to one of the doctors about it?”

  “No, I taped it up myself.”

  He sighed. “Joe, you brought two civilians with you, to have doctors on the team. You’re making them walk all this way, for nothing?”

  “Skippy, they didn’t come with us for something as simple as someone tweaking an ankle, they’re here to take care of combat injuries. There’s not much to be done other than taping my ankle, I can’t stop walking. I don’t want to waste their time, and I don’t want SpecOps people to think I’m weak.”