Columbus Day (Expeditionary Force Book 1)

by Craig Alanson

  I couldn’t tell whether he was being sincere, or a jackass. It still didn’t feel right, killing sentient beings. Killing them while they are asleep.

  “I sense hesitation?” Skippy asked. “Perhaps I can help. Earlier this year, this star carrier was transporting Kristang ships full of refugees from a planet the Kristang has lost to the Ruhar. Halfway to their destination, Thuranin discovered that particular Kristang clan had defaulted on a payment. This ship stopped, and when the Kristang were unable come up with payment for transit fees to cover all eighteen of their ships, the Thuranin ejected three of the ships, then jumped away. Those three ships were packed with refugees, Kristang refugees, but they were still refugees, mostly civilian castes, fleeing from war. Including females and children. So many refugees were packed aboard these ships that their life support systems were failing. The Thuranin ejected those three ships more than a lightyear from the nearest star system, a star system without habitable planets. By the time the Kristang scraped up enough money to pay the Thuranin to retrieve those three ships, ninety percent of the Kristang aboard were dead. And, by the way, while the Kristang were trying to arrange payment, four Thuranin star carriers passed through the area, and any one of them could have picked up those three ships with hardly any effort.”

  “This ship? This star carrier, that we’re aboard?” Simms asked.

  “This ship, this crew.” Skippy confirmed.

  “Oh, then fuck them.” I breathed, relieved. It was a cheap way out of my moral dilemma, but I was grasping for it. “They can walk the plank.” I was starting to think like a pirate.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN FLYING DUTCHMAN

  When I got back to the bridge, Chang stood up, and I sat in the command chair. It would have been more useful as a command station if I understood what any of the buttons did, later I needed to have Skippy show me the basics. There were a lot of people squeezed onto the bridge, it was crowded.

  Jump engines are fully recharged," Chang said, pointing to a green bar across the bottom of the main display screen.

  "Great, thank you. Before we jump, our ship, the other ship, the frigate, uh, Skippy, does the frigate have a name?" Saying 'the ship' was getting old, especially now as we had two of them.

  "The Kristang name for the frigate is Heavenly Morning Flower of Glorious Victory. Or close enough."

  "You're kidding me." I exclaimed. I would have figured the lizards would name their ships something like Hamster Killer or Assassin.

  "The Kristang warrior caste is rather devoted to poetry. I see this surprises you."

  "Poetry?" Chang asked, and we shared a look. Neither of us could imagine the hard core warriors we'd met on the space station sitting down to compose poems.

  "I have extensive examples of Kristang poetry, would you like to-"

  "No! No, thank you." I sure as hell wasn't in the mood for lizard poetry. "We'll call it the, uh, the Flower for now. I don't want to call anything 'Victory' until we've achieved something significant. Back to my question, do we keep the Flower, or get rid of it? It's damaged."

  "Sir," Adams spoke up, "I say we keep it. It's damaged, but we know it works, and how to control it, sort of." The looks she gave told me that, while I may be a senior officer, I didn't know much about combat, as in, never give up a potential asset in combat. She'd already reminded me of that once before.

  "Sergeant Adams is correct, Colonel Joe," Skippy said, "the damage to the Flower has not significantly degraded its combat capability. There may also be situations where having a Kristang ship may be useful."

  "All right then, we keep it for now."

  "Speaking of names, what do the Thuranin call this ship?" Thompson asked.

  "I hope it's not another long-ass name like the Flower." Simms said sourly.

  "The Thuranin do not name their ships, each ship has a numerical designation." Skippy said.

  "So, we get to name it, then." I mused.

  "Oh come on, we gotta call it the Enterprise." Adams said with enthusiasm.

  "Not every starship has to be named Enterprise." Major Simms protested. I guessed she wasn't a Star Trek fan.

  "This is the first human starship. If you don't count that Kristang ship we jacked. It has to be named Enterprise." Adams insisted.

  "America is not the only culture with famous fictional spacecraft." Chang protested. "We should consider-"

  "It's not your ship, monkeys!" Skippy said. "You're like my hired crew. If anyone gets to name this ship, it's me."

  I waved my arms to get everyone's attention. "How about if we concentrate on where we're going first, and worry about names later? Where are we going next? How do we contact the Collective, Skippy?"

  "If they still exist-" Skippy started to say.

  "If? You're not sure they still exist? Do you know where to find this Collective?"

  "If by 'where' you mean the Milky Way galaxy and its attendant pair of dwarf galaxies, yes. Plus numerous star clusters. Beyond that, not so much."

  "Holy shit." I shot a guilty look at the people I'd dragged along on this fool's errand. "What's the plan, then? We roam the galaxy forever, trying to find another Elder AI? Crap, we should name this ship the Flying Dutchman." I mumbled.

  "That is an excellent name, Joe!" Skippy said with enthusiasm. "There, I changed the identification of this ship to Flying Dutchman."

  "Flying Dutchman?" Thomson asked, which started an unhelpful round of speculation by the crew, all talking over each other.

  "It's a legend of a Dutch sea captain who killed an albatross, which was bad luck, and was doomed to wander the sea forever. Or something like that. The ship can never go into port."

  "I thought the guy who killed the albatross was the ancient mariner."

  "Duh, of course he was ancient if he had to sail forever."

  "Is the Dutchman the squid guy in that Johnny Depp pirates movie? Man, that guy gave me the creeps."

  "Yeah, imagine the nasty fish breath that squid guy had."

  "No, that wasn't Johnny Depp, he was the pirate with the eye liner. The blonde guy was doomed to stay at sea."

  "All right, all right, enough!" I shouted to end the conversation, which otherwise wasn't ever going to end. "Skippy," I looked at him with a tilt of my head, "naming this bucket after a doomed ship is not a way to build confidence in the crew."

  "I was only trying to be helpful." Skippy grumbled.

  "And we're not your hired crew. If anything, we're pirates." Without sanction from UNEF, we were pirates, outlaws.

  "Pirates! Joe, this is your merry band of pirates! Aaargh, shiver me timbers!" Skippy did a decent pirate impression. "I like it! A merry band of pirates, we are!"

  I looked around the compartment, scanning faces. This band of pirates was going to be anything but merry, if Skippy expected us to visit every star in the galaxy to locate the Collective. I should have these conversations with a limited group of people, not the entire crew present. "This ship-"

  "The Flying Dutchman." Skippy corrected me.

  "Fine, the Dutchman," I could see Skippy wasn't giving up on that point, "is not going to randomly wander the galaxy until the end of time, randomly sending out signals to the Collective, right?"

  "Course not, Dumdum, we'd run out of fuel. Duh. From Kristang records, I know where they keep Elder artifacts that I recognize as related to Collective components. There's a research facility in an asteroid, that the lizards think is secret, a couple wormholes from here."

  That sounded much better. "Ok, so the plan is we, what, get close enough to the asteroid, send a signal to this Elder stuff?"

  "Ha! As if! No way, Colonel Joe, you don't get off that easy. No, I can case the joint remotely, but then we need to ransack the place to heist the loot I need."

  Case the joint? Heist? Where was Skippy getting his slang? "Ransack? As in, raid? I don't suppose the Kristang there are all unarmed research nerds?"

  "Ho, ho, no way! They'll be mad as a nest of hornets. This asteroid base is where the Kristang try
to figure out how Elder tech works, so they're keeping it secret from the Thuranin, because they're hoping they can leapfrog past their patrons, and crush them. The Thuranin know all about it, of course, they're not as stupid as the lizards think. They let the lizards conduct their research in case they discover anything useful, then the Thuranin can swoop in and take it. The place is heavily guarded; stealth detection grids, nukes, x-ray lasers, all the bells and whistles. Even this ship could be destroyed."

  "That is a tough target." I didn't like the idea of raiding a hardened target. We'd surprised the crew of the Flower, and barely managed to take that ship. Any base the Kristang were trying to keep secret from the Thuranin would be constantly on the alert. "There must be some place else we could go?"

  "Nope. Not any place convenient. Besides, Joe, what you need is there also."

  What I need? A cheeseburger? "What is that?"

  "A wormhole controller module. The module has the codes I need to shut down a wormhole."

  Now I was pissed. "Skippy, you told me you could shut down that wormhole!" What the hell else hadn't he told me?

  "Hey, I can, I can! Temporarily. What I can do is disrupt the wormhole's connection to the network, but that's only temporary. The network protocols will eventually reestablish the connection, and reset the wormhole. I need the full set of controller codes to actually shut it down permanently, the Elders didn't provide those codes to me."

  "I wonder why." I said dryly. "You're so incredibly trustworthy."

  "I am! It's not my fault you're too dumb to ask the right question. Remember, when you assume, you make an ass of u and me. Or you, anyway."

  It took everything I had not to try stomping his shiny lid into the deck. The Elders had a lot to answer for, building such an asshole. Through gritted teeth, I asked carefully "You have a plan to get past these stealth detection grids, nuclear missiles, lasers, and starships, right?"

  "Oh, yeah," he said casually, "that's child's play for me. Their stupid grids can detect anything they want, I'll instruct their master computers to ignore the inputs, the lizards won't know anything has been detected. And their weapons aren't a problem, I'll spoof their fire control systems so they can't get a lock on us. For a while. Once we knock on the door, even my incredible wondrousness can't prevent even the dumbest of lizards from figuring out something is wrong."

  "Great, fine," I said irritably, "we can plan how to cross that bridge when we get there. Is everyone ready for the jump?"

  Chang and Simms were talking over each other, I was trying to interrupt both of them, and everyone had something to say. This went on for only a second or so, before Skippy fairly shouted, using the ship's intercom. "Enough! Dammit, this is like a troop of monkeys howling in the tree tops. Quit with the jibber jabber, I can't hear myself think. Out! Out! Everyone out of the bridge, except Colonel Joe and the pilots!"

  I looked up guiltily at the others, especially Chang and Simms. "Skippy, we can-"

  "Colonel Joe, you said we need clear lines of communication. We're going to be flying this ship in enemy territory, through wormholes, and potentially in combat. Having a troop of monkeys screeching at me is not clear communication. They can stand outside the bridge in the CIC, listen to us, and watch, but I don't want to hear from them unless you open the intercom. You're the captain, you're a colonel, you're in command. I will only communicate with you or the pilot, while this ship is in flight."

  I could see Skippy's point. Chang and Simms wanted to weigh in on everything, because they didn't truly accept my authority. I didn't blame them, I couldn't believe it myself. And, truthfully, this was a great opportunity for me to assert, or more correctly, test, my authority. If Chang, Simms, Giraud or anyone else wasn't taking my command authority seriously, this was a great time to find out. "Skippy is right," I declared in my deepest, most authoritative voice, "it's too crowded in here also. Access to the bridge is restricted to the duty officer," at that time the duty officer was me, "and the two pilots. Everyone else, take stations in the CIC." We needed to schedule shifts for who sat in the big chair as the duty officer, we also needed more than two pilots, Desai had been our pilot since we broke out of the Kristang jail and she had to be tired by now, having flown three unfamiliar spacecraft already today.

  To my relief, no one objected to being banished from the bridge, they had better access to the controls and displays in the CIC anyway, the bridge area was way too crowded.

  "The ship is ready for jump, and the course is programmed into the autopilot," Skippy announced, with a touch of impatience. "The pilot knows which button to push."

  "Pilot?" I asked.

  "I'm ready, Captain." Desai did have a finger poised over a large button on the console in front of her. "Mister Skippy walked me through programming the jump into the autopilot, I do not understand how it actually works."

  We monkeys might never understand how the jump navigation computer worked. "Initiate jump." I said simply.

  And we jumped. The display flickered, and the only change I could detect was that a white dot that was on the bottom right corner of the display was gone.

  "Jump successful, Captain." Desai said. "According to the instruments."

  "Confirmed." Skippy said simply.

  "Excellent," I relaxed in the chair, "what's the plan now?"

  Skippy, of course, had an immediate answer. "When the Jump engines are charged again, we head out. We're safely away, that jump was far enough that the Thuranin ships searching for us will be totally lost."

  I looked at the status screen that showed the Kristang ships attached to the platforms along the star carrier's long spine. "What about our unwanted guests?"

  "Oh, them. I can eject the other Kristang ships, and leave them here before we jump. You still want to keep the Flower, right?" Skippy suggested.

  I frowned. "We should keep the, uh, Flower, yes." We had to shorten that ship’s long-ass name. "The other ships, won't they be able to make it back to Paradise? Or get close enough to signal for help?"

  "There is a 36 percent chance that, by consolidating fuel into one ship and sacrificing the others, a single ship could make enough Jumps to be within practical signaling range, yes. The critical variable is the maintenance state of the Kristang jump engines. There is a 64 percent probably of Jump engine failure, from repeated jumps."

  "No."

  "No? The monkey wishes to see my calculations?" Skippy's voice sounded amused.

  "No, this monkey wishes there to be a zero percent chance the lizards, or the Thuranin, ever find out what happened out here. If either of them learn humans are involved in our little pirate action, Earth is toast."

  There was another almost imperceptible AI response lag. "I can interfere with their jump engine computers, but it is likely they could eventually recover functionality by restoring from protected archives."

  "That's not what I meant. What's the weapons load on this bucket? The Thuranin must have something stronger than railguns."

  "Railguns, too, but also missiles, and masers."

  "Anything that will completely vaporize a lizard ship? I don't want anything left, no flight recorders, nothing that could be recovered." I could see the others looking at me skeptically, wondering where I was going with my questions.

  "A star carrier is not a battleship, it's weapons are primarily defensive. There are no weapons on this ship that could completely destroy fourteen Kristang ships, there would be detectable debris. Also, Kristang ships have drones which are automatically launched in case the ship is severely damaged; these drones carry the ship's flight logs and sensor data, and they are stealthed. Multiple drones are carried by each ship, for this ship's sensors to find multiple stealth drones launched from each of the fourteen Kristang ships would be difficult, even with me operating the sensors. Also, I must caution that those fourteen Kristang ships, even with their lesser technology, do pose a threat to this ship." I noticed that Skippy had dropped his smart-ass attitude when talking about killing lizards. "All
this is academic, anyway, Colonel Bishop. As I told you, I am restricted from using weapons."

  "But I'm not."

  This time, the pause was long enough that I wasn't the only one who noticed. "I don't see how-"

  "You get those weapons ready, and locked on target, and I'll press the button, or whatever they use on this bucket." I said, looking around for anything that looked like it might be a weapons panel. It all still looked like a gothic nightmare to me. "You can do that, right, your programming doesn't prevent you from preparing weapons to fire, as long as you don’t actually initiate the firing sequence?"

  Another long pause. "Colonel, I may have underestimated you. That is almost a clever idea." For the very first time, I heard a tiny bit of respect in that artificial voice. "Are you certain you want to do this?

  Through the window, I could see that Lt. Colonel Chang, Major Simms and the others had heard everything I said. "When I was in prison, waiting to be executed for refusing to kill innocent hamster women and children, I told myself these Nazi lizards can go straight to hell. Just now, I was thinking we could only disable their jump engines." I checked the aft viewport, to the rows of Kristang cruisers and destroyers latched onto the star carrier. "But these lizards are threatening Earth." I looked at Major Simms, and she nodded to me. "So fuck them." I said, with anger that scared me.

  There was a noticeable pause before Skippy spoke. "I may have to reevaluate my assessment of you."

  "You can do this?" Then I remembered Skippy's overly literal use of the English language. "You will do this?"

  There was no pause this time. "I can prepare the weapons so you can use them. Yes. Which weapons do you want activated?"

  That was still the problem. None of the weapons aboard the ship had the power to do what I wanted, and while we were hitting the Kristang, they could hit back. If the star carrier's jump capability was damaged, we could be stuck in interstellar space for a very long time. I looked through the glass at Chang and Simms. "Does anyone have an idea?"

  Before either of the people in the CIC could respond, Desai turned in her seat. "Could we jump someplace really far from any stars, so the Kristang would be stranded for certain?"