Mavericks

by Craig Alanson

  “Yeah,” Bezanson stood and offered a hand to shake. “Interstellar communications are spotty at best. Just make sure you come back, and come back with the hamsters seeing the value of your team.”

  “We will do our best, Ma’am,” Perkins said, then to herself added ‘or die trying’.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  After Derek and Irene were declared fully qualified for flying Dodo dropships, they flew up to the Toaster with Perkins, leaving the three sergeants to wrap up things dirtside and catch a big ‘Whale’ transport up to the ship. They were met in the docking bay by a female Ruhar cadet who was not unfriendly, but gave the impression she had way too much to do for escorting aliens around the ship. The cadet led the way, with Shauna walking on the right beside her and Jesse and Dave behind. With the ship preparing to get under way and cadets racing around under the supervision of the few adult crew members, the journey forward was slowed by having to squeeze against the side of passageways to make way for cadets on more important missions. “Cadet Garnor,” Shauna asked after a steady stream of cadets had come around a corner, “where are the officers?” They had walked a quarter of the ship’s length, and all she had seen were cadets. Not only cadets hurrying past, but also cadets working at consoles, performing maintenance and even loading practice missiles into a Vulture fighter-dropship. So far, the only adults she had seen were herself and the other two human sergeants.

  “Please call me Jinn. There are only eleven adults of my people aboard the Ruh Tostella,” Jinn Garnor explained patiently. “On this training mission, third and fourth-year cadets are supposed to perform all necessary activities. Under supervision of the adult officers, of course,” she added when she saw Shauna nervously gritting her teeth.

  “That’s, that’s great,” Dave filled in as Shauna and Jesse shared a quick look of terror. A starship, a mind-bogglingly sophisticated piece of alien technology, was being mostly flown and maintained by children? No, not a piece of technology, a starship was a collection of millions of pieces of advanced technology, with several hundred or more of those pieces vital to safe operation of the ship.

  “Do not worry, I have been told there is only a small chance the ship could go ‘boom’,” Jinn winked in a gesture she had been told the humans would understand.

  “Thank-” Dave began to say.

  “Although, I was told that by a third-year cadet, so he could be wrong,” Jinn added with a straight face, her performance only spoiled when she looked to see the reaction of the humans.

  As they came near an intersection, the cadet pointed to the right, and Shauna hugged the wall to avoid bumping into anyone coming around corner. Just as she reached the intersection and turned right, Shauna came face to face with a Kristang!

  Instincts took over and Shauna shouted while slamming her right shoulder into the lizard’s midsection. With the heel of her left hand, she punched the alien hard in the chest once, twice, then the Kristang was falling down and Shauna was being pulled backwards. Cadet Garnor had both hands on Shauna’s shoulders and was pulling her down, shouting something like “No! Friend!”

  “Easy, easy, baby,” Jesse held Shauna so she didn’t crack her head on the floor, and Dave leaped up and around the falling woman to stand between her and the lizard. Jesse moved to spin Shauna so she would be behind him, but she resisted and they tussled for a second. “Halt! Stop!” The cadet ordered frantically. “She is a friend!”

  Dave did not waver from a fighting stance as the Kristang pushed itself off the floor, stood up and smoothed the front of its shirt. “This is the first time I have met humans,” the lizard smiled in a horrible grimace and made a short bow. It rubbed its chest. “You hit harder than I expected. Perhaps your species is not as weak as I was told?” Then, impulsively, it stuck out a hand toward Dave.

  “Uh,” Dave stood stiffly until the cadet frantic head jerking urged him to return the gesture of friendship. Warily, Dave came out of a crouch and took the lizard’s hand, which was warm and dry. Dave did not want the lizard to feel a limp, dead-fish grip, but he also didn’t want the creature to interpret a hard squeeze as a threat. The lizard squeezed back with the same firm pressure then released before it became awkward. Then the Kristang nodded to the Ruhar cadet and continued on along the hallway, turning around a corner out of sight.

  Jesse let out the breath he had been holding. “Can someone please tell me just what the hell that was?”

  “Velt Ser-Kotreh Tutula is not the Kristang you know,” Jinn had stepped back from the three humans, disturbed by the incident. “She is Verd-Kris. ‘Velt’ is her rank in their system, I do not know its equivalent in the UNEF military.”

  “She?” Jesse gasped. “That was a female? I thought they were all weak and small and-” realizing he was talking to two females who might not appreciate having their gender spoken of in those terms. “Because, you know, the warrior caste genetically engineered them like that. Which is a bad thing. A terrible thing.” He decided the best thing to do right then was to stop talking.

  “The name Verd-Kris means True Kristang. Or Original Kristang or First Kristang, something like that,” Jinn explained. “They are from a population of Kristang cut off from their society when a wormhole shift blocked access to their home territory. My people then took control of the territory, but we did not wish to expend the effort to take that planet. All we did was remove their capability for faster-than-light spaceflight, to protect ourselves. Over eight hundred years, Verd-Kris society drifted away from the distorted culture enforced by the warrior caste, and back toward the matriarchal culture of the Kristang before the Thuranin conquered their homeworld long ago. Some Verd-Kris now fight alongside my people, and they are extremely fierce warriors, especially their women.”

  “Goddamn,” Jesse let his shoulder slump with a shudder, coming down off an adrenaline high.

  “Why didn’t someone tell us?” Shauna asked as she rubbed her sore left hand, getting right in the cadet’s face.

  The well-disciplined cadet did not flinch. “We thought you knew. That information was not in the briefing packet about the ship?”

  “Info that friendly lizards were aboard the Toaster?” Shauna asked with angry sarcasm. “No, we were not told that.”

  “Goddamn,” Jesse repeated. “Hell, I would have remembered that. You Ok, hon-Shauna?”

  Shauna shot Jesse a look that told him calling her ‘honey’ in public was not acceptable. “We know about the Verd-Kris, a little. I heard a rumor some of them have been on Paradise, Gehtanu, but I’ve never met one. Or seen one.”

  “I do not know whether any Verd-Kris have been on Gehtanu,” Jinn bit her lower lip. “There is one other Verd-Kris aboard, you will meet him later today during the orientation briefing. He has met humans on our capital world, when your liaison people were there after the maser cannon incident. The other Verd-Kris is,” she thought carefully, not entirely willing to trust the translator. “Interesting.”

  “Interesting how?” Shauna asked with a look to Jesse.

  “You will see. He is a ‘Surgun’, a rank similar to a sergeant or warrant officer in your human military. His training methods can be, somewhat, rough and profane. Do not be alarmed, he is on our side.”

  “You sure about that?” Jesse suppressed a shudder at the unexpected encounter with just one of the lizard-like aliens. He lowered his voice and looked both ways in the passageway they were walking along. “You trust a Kristang? I mean, Verd-Kris,” he added with a cringe.

  “Do not be embarrassed, they are Kristang. By origin. Over the years, the two societies have drifted apart genetically because of isolation from each other, and because the Verd-Kris have pursued genetic modifications different from their hostile cousins.” She paused, cocking her head. “Did that translate properly? I used a term for family who are not directly related.”

  “Yeah, ‘cousins’ is good,” Jesse assured her.

  “The most obvious difference, or course, can be seen in Verd-Kris females. The
ir genetics have been restored close to the original baseline, before the Maxolhx, through the Thuranin, forced changes on their society.”

  Shauna flexed her sore wrist. “What happened?”

  “What happened to the Kristang is what happened to every species under the Maxolhx coalition,” Jinn shrugged. “When the Thuranin made contact with the Kristang, the lizards had spaceflight capability, they had established a colony on another planet in their star system and they had an extensive operation to mine asteroids. Their scientists had not yet discovered the theoretical basis for the jump drive, so they did not have starflight. They still do not truly have the ability to travel between stars,” she added with a smug wink. “Nor do their ships have artificial gravity as our ships do, as you know.”

  “Yeah,” Jesse bounced on his toes, assuring himself the artificial gravity aboard the Ruhar ship felt just like real gravity on a planet. Except for an odd sensation of being tugged into two directions when he crossed the gap from one gravity plate to another, the effect was not noticeably the result of any technology. “We appreciate that. I hated the zero Gee on the Kristang ships that brought us to Paradise.”

  “How did the Thuranin make contact with the Kristang?” Shauna asked.

  “The usual way, like the situation with your people. The Kristang homeworld was isolated for millions of years, then a wormhole shift provided easy access for the Thuranin. That region of space was not of any strategic importance to the Thuranin, but they were eager to match their Bosphuraq rivals by acquiring a client species. Did you know the Thuranin used to be clients of the Bosphuraq? It’s true, though the Thuranin hate to admit it. When the Thuranin arrived at the Kristang homeworld, they followed the Maxolhx process for conquering a species and turning them into clients. They studied Kristang society and selected the most fanatical, oppressive group to put in charge. For the Kristang, that was the warrior caste.”

  “Wait, the warrior caste was not already in power?”

  “No. Sergeant Jarrett-”

  “Please call me Shauna.” She did not know if that was correct protocol, but the cadet had been friendly and seemed to want to use first names.

  “Yes, Shauna,” Jinn flashed a smile. “Before the Thuranin arrived, Kristang society was splintered between clans and they certainly were not a peaceful species, but they had avoided suffering a wide-scale nuclear war, and were evolving toward a stable coexistence between clans. Each clan had a warrior caste that was a small group, perhaps three to four percent of the overall population. The Kristang were a matriarchal society, females led the clans. The warrior caste in some clans had long wished to assume power and strike the other clans, so when the Thuranin arrived, they flipped their client’s society upside down and put the warrior caste in power. The stated excuse was that the warrior caste needed to take charge, to prepare the Kristang for battle against my people, or the Torgalau.”

  “You were planning an attack?”

  “No,” Jinn shook her head sadly. “We knew almost nothing about the Kristang and had no interest in them, their home system is far from our territory, especially back then. Our experience with the Kristang, how we passively stood by and did nothing while the Thuranin perverted their primitive society and turned them into a direct threat to us, is partly why we struck your homeworld. Your world is too far away for my people to maintain a presence there. Even now, after the Jeraptha have captured twelve percent of Thuranin territory in their recent offensive, Earth is too far away for us. The purpose of our raid on your world was to deny the easy use of your industrial base to the Kristang.”

  Shauna forced herself not to say anything. She nodded for Jinn to continue.

  “We knew that Earth is remote and not strategically important to the Kristang, our hope was that if the Kristang saw they could not easily use your world as a staging base, they would lose interest in humans. That did partly happen, their White Wind clan nearly drove themselves into bankruptcy through their effort to conquer Earth,” The cadet gave Shauna a sad smile.

  “Now they’re stuck there,” Shauna looked straight ahead so the young Ruhar would not see the moisture in her eyes. “The Kristang at Earth, I mean. When the wormhole shut down, the Kristang at Earth became trapped.”

  “Yes. Shauna, I am, sorry? Did that translate correctly?”

  “Yeah, you’re sorry. Thank you.” Shauna reminded herself that everything Jinn told her was the official propaganda of the Ruhar government. No, worse, it was that official story as told by a young, idealistic cadet who wanted to believe her people were always right and just and noble. Even though they had bombarded Earth’s power generation and industrial infrastructure from orbit, killing thousands of humans in the assault or its aftermath.

  When they received official orders to report aboard the Ruh Tostella, the data package included a layout of the ship and regulations for the crew. The Mavericks had been pleased to see the ship had three galleys, with one was reserved for senior officers. Perkins learned to her dismay that she was expected to take her evening meal with the Ruhar officers and senior cadets instead of with her own team.

  Shauna scrolled down the data package while waiting for the All Clear to sound so they could move about the ship, and was surprised to see a section for aliens. In this case, ‘aliens’ referred to any being who was not Ruhar, reminding Shauna exactly where she and her fellow humans ranked in the Ruhar military. As she read the regulations and ‘suggestions’ for aliens, her frown grew deeper and she squinted uncomfortably. “Ma’am, this ship has a quarters section set aside just for us?”

  “Yes,” Perkins replied without looking up from her tablet. She had received a very skimpy briefing about the ship just after she accepted the assignment, so she knew some of the details ahead of time. The cruiser had a section of three cabins, one washroom and a small common area that was reserved for her team. According to the layout, much of the ship’s crew accommodation space could be reconfigured as needed, and it looked to her like partitions had been added to enclose an area just for the Mavericks. She did not know whether the separation of humans from the Ruhar crew was intended as a mild form of insult, but she was relieved to see it, as it reduced the potential for friction in the close quarters aboard the training ship. She was irritated that the Ruhar had not consulted her before setting up a separate space for humans. There were three small cabins, each with two stacked bunks and no space for squeezing in a third bunk even if she wanted that. Because the bunks doubled as acceleration couches where her people needed to be strapped in when the ship was simulating combat maneuvers, having a third person sleeping on the floor was not an option. Originally, she had considered having the three men share one cabin, with Irene and Shauna bunking together, and giving her a cabin all to herself. Ship’s regs did not allow more people than bunks, and since there was no way to add a third bunk, she had to make other arrangements. Shauna could share with Jesse, while Irene and Derek could share another cabin. That left Dave Czajka as the odd man out, with Emily Perkins seeing no alternative to sharing a cabin with the young sergeant she found quite attractive, if she let herself admit feelings she could not officially have. “There are three cabins. Jarrett, you’ll be with Colter, Striebich with Bonsu.”

  “Uh, Ma’am?” Irene looked at her commanding officer as her cheeks grew red.

  “Striebich, whether you’ve made it official or not with Bonsu, I don’t see the point in trying to keep you two separated.” Everyone knew the two pilots were a couple, though they had attempted to be reasonably discreet about their relationship.

  “Yes, Colonel,” Irene looked away, not believing her good fortune. She had not been looking forward to being separated from Derek during their scheduled months aboard the ship.

  “What about, uh, me, Ma’am?” Dave’s own face was draining of color as he imagined being stuck bunking with a Ruhar, or trying to sleep in a missile tube. “Will I be hot-bunking with Colter, or something?” The thought of crashing in Jesse’s bunk while that man w
as away from the cabin did not appeal to Dave at all.

  “No, you’re with me, Czajka.”

  “Uh, Ma’am?” Dave’s question ended in almost a squeaky uptone.

  Perkins tilted her head in a confident gesture that covered up the butterflies in her stomach. “The Ruhar do not separate genders in their bunk assignments, and our section doesn’t have separate officer’s quarters. Look, people, I know this is going to be awkward, but think of it this way: we will be up there to train and live with aliens, on their ship. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, you got that? We need to get used to doing things the hamster way, that includes sleeping arrangements. We might as well be on our best behavior while in our little section of the ship, which will remind us to be on our toes twenty-four-seven among the Ruhar, understood?”

  “Yes, C-Colonel,” Dave stammered.

  “Czajka,” Perkins took pity on the extremely embarrassed sergeant. “I’m not thrilled about this either, and we need to act like it’s no big deal, because to the hamsters, it is not an issue. We have a common area in the middle of the three cabins, so I expect to use that cabin only when I’m getting rack time,” she declared, as she thought to herself that maybe she should ask the ship’s executive office whether there was any sort of private workspace she could use during the daytime hours. “We’re all going to be cool about the living situation, we’re going to be mature about it, and we’re going to show the hamsters that humans are an evolved species, does everyone understand that?”

  “Crystal clear,” Jesse spoke first, nodding a bit too vigorously from the tantalizing thought that he and Shauna would have a real door to provide privacy.