Mavericks

by Craig Alanson

  “Please warn the crew the ship will be a bit on the chilly side for a few hours.”

  “We will wear sweaters, Skippy. You are absolutely certain it is safe for us to come back to the ship?”

  “No. I am as certain as I can be. Rebooting the ship gave me an opportunity to conduct a deep scan, and I am confident those nasty Guardians didn’t sneak aboard any more surprises for us. Sorry, but that’s the truth.”

  “Good enough, I guess.” The sad truth was, we didn’t have a choice, the Dutchman was our only option. We flew a careful course back to the Flying Dutchman, keeping the bulk of the forward hull between our dropships and the discarded powercells that were slowly drifting farther from the ship. I waited for the last of the four crewed dropships to be brought back aboard, then ordered the crew to get cleaned up, with pilots reporting back to the docking bays in one hour. We sent teams out to recover the other dropships, an operation that took another six hours. After that, Desai gently goosed the ship forward away from the contaminated powercells to test the normal-space engines. We kept the jump drive on a hair-trigger for an emergency escape, but no danger emerged, so we didn’t jump until we had enough charge to take us a useful distance toward a star system where we could find a gas giant planet to refill the Dutchman’s depleted fuel tanks.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  I was in my cabin after the successful jump, washing up before going to the galley for a simple dinner. The crew would be without fresh food for a while, Major Simms warned the extended shutdown had as expected, killed all the plants in the hydroponics bays, so she would need to start all over growing crops from seeds. Chotek was still pissed at and skeptical of Skippy, but I think Simms was most upset with the beer can. Three times now, his actions or inactions had disrupted her carefully-managed garden. She was rightfully proud of providing a substantial quantity of fresh food, and I think too often she felt taken for granted. Although as a major, Simms took shifts as duty officer in the command chair or CIC, she was not an elite special operations soldier, nor a pilot, nor part of the science team. I regularly volunteered to work in the hydroponics bays to show my appreciation, and because seeing green things growing made me a tiny bit less homesick. For the next week, I needed to make a special effort to work closely with Major Jennifer Simms.

  “Whew,” Skippy’s avatar appeared over my bunk, took off his enormous hat and wiped his brow in an exaggerated gesture. “That is a relief. Man, I was quaking in my boots for a minute there.”

  “You mean the jump?” I paused from splashing water on my face. “You told us the jump drive was in perfect condition!”

  “It was, Joe, and it is. Well, as perfect as a secondhand hunk of ancient junk can be.”

  “I understand that. So why were you so worried?”

  “Uh, there was another danger that I didn’t mention, because we could not do anything about, so there was no reason for you to worry.”

  “Crap. What did you not tell me about this time?”

  “The energy virus. There was a possibility that the virus could have uploaded itself into a higher dimension, to reside in the energy pattern still reverberating from our previous jump.”

  “What?”

  “Every jump, especially at the inbound end, causes a resonance in the quantum grid that underlies local spacetime. I told you that before,” he admonished in a peevish tone. “That resonance is how ships can be tracked through a jump.”

  “Yes, but you also told me that resonance dissipates at a known rate, and is too faint to be useful within hours.”

  “In local spacetime the effect dissipates quickly. At the quantum grid level above local spacetime, the jump energy can be retained for a substantial and unpredictable length of time. That is why ships avoid repeatedly jumping from the same position; the resonance of their own jump field can interact with resonance patterns leftover from previous jumps, and cause a jump field to collapse. It’s like a damping field, but the effect can’t be detected from local spacetime.”

  “Shiiiiiiit,” I exhaled slowly to retain what little patience I had. “And you didn’t tell us this because??”

  “Well, Joe, because when I program jumps, I always avoid jumping from the position of a previous-”

  “I didn’t mean why you didn’t tell us about this quantum grid thingy or whatever. I meant, why didn’t you tell us about the risk of the energy virus lurking in, jump space or whatever you call it?”

  “Because there was no point telling you. We had to jump, and even I could not detect whether the residual energy pattern was infected by the virus.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “Nope, we’re good.”

  “How do you know that or sure, Oh Great One?”

  “Because for the energy virus to reinfect the ship, it would have had to rearrange the quantum pattern as we jumped. That is something I would easily have detected, and it didn’t happen. Joe, to upload into the quantum grid, the energy virus could only do that as we jumped, although that would have been more difficult for me to detect. I was fairly confident the virus didn’t bother uploading part of itself, but I was not absolutely certain, because I wasn’t looking for it at the time, and our wonky jump drive still created a lot of random noise during a jump. Either the virus lacks the ability to upload, or assumed it could destroy the ship in this spacetime so it didn’t bother to upload into the quantum grid. There is a silver lining to this whole mess; taking the ship completely offline allowed me to retune the jump drive so it is much less noisy. In fact, it is in better condition than before we jumped into the Roach Motel,” he added proudly.

  I burst his arrogant bubble. “The jump drive was in terrible condition before you jumped us into the Roach Motel.”

  “I said better condition, Joe,” he sniffed. “I didn’t say it was in good condition. I told you we should have bought the extended warranty, but you had to blow the money on new floor mats instead.”

  I recognized his attempt at humor as a defensive reaction. “All right, I guess the important thing is the energy virus is no longer a problem. So, we can move onto worrying about the next freakin’ problem! Damn it! Skippy,” I clenched my fists and shook them in front of me to release some of my frustration. “The lizards are in a damn civil war! How the hell do they have time for side jobs like forcing the hamsters off Paradise?”

  “Because it is a side job, Joe. It’s ironic when you think about it.”

  “Ironic?” Sometimes Skippy pissed me off when he treated deadly serious situations way too casually. “How the hell do you figure-”

  “Jeez Louise, Joe, don’t get mad at me, it wasn’t my idea to create a supervirus. If you’ll close your mouth and open your ears, you might understand why I said it is ‘ironic’.”

  From the tone of his voice, I could tell he was hurt by my reaction. Our super-intelligent alien AI was sensitive about how we treated him, especially how I treated him. He had little experience with emotions, and I shouldn’t expect him to understand how we might feel about something he said. If he thought something was ironic, then he genuinely thought that was true. “Skippy, I am sorry, I really am. I know this is not your fault. Please explain.”

  Ok,” the tone of his voice perked right up again. “Here’s the story. You know that Paradise was originally colonized by the Kristang, by the Black Trees clan, right?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “That planet was left alone for a very long time, probably for millions of years, because there were not any active wormholes close enough to provide useful access. Actually, that isn’t completely true, the wormhole closest to Paradise was active for many years, but that wormhole connected to another wormhole at the edge of the galaxy, so no one ever used it. Anyway, a later wormhole shift changed the connection, and the Black Trees seized the opportunity to explore Paradise. That is when they found the remains of a crashed Elder starship, and me. And that is when they installed maser projectors under the surface.”

  “Yup, I remember that,” I replied with what
I hoped was a blank look on my face, while I dug a thumbnail into my palm painfully to keep me from shouting for him to hurry up and get to the freakin’ point.

  “Good, good. So, the Black Trees surrendered the planet without a shot when the Ruhar arrived, because the Black Trees thought they had stripped all the Elder goodies from the place and they didn’t care about farmland. And, well, heh, heh, now we get to the ironic part.”

  My Spidey sense tingled as it always does when he says ‘well heh heh’. “Oh, shit.”

  “Yeah. The Law of Unintended Consequences is coming back to bite us in the ass again, Joe. We got the Ruhar to hold onto Paradise by planting fake Elder artifacts there. Unfortunately, our actions also got the leadership of the Black Trees clan arguing about who decided to give the planet to the Ruhar. Many subclans under the Black Trees coalition are angry they missed out on scooping up valuable Elder artifacts, and the incident made the subclans question the leadership of the Black Trees. Obviously, with a civil war raging, this is not a good time for the Black Trees leadership to appear weak and foolish.”

  “Crap. So the Black Trees want to take Paradise back?”

  “Yes and no, Joe. Yes, they would like to take the planet back. No, during a civil war they are not willing to commit scarce resources, to reclaim a planet where the Ruhar now have substantial defenses.”

  “If they aren’t willing to fight for Paradise, then why would they-”

  “It’s complicated. The Sharp Stone clan is currently allied with the Black Trees, and the Silver Blades owe a debt to the Black Trees. The Silver Blades wanted to cancel that debt, in part because they were reconsidering their alliance with the Black Trees. So, they proposed to create the pathogen, to weaken the Ruhar’s hold on Paradise.”

  “Ok, fine, I can see all that happening before the civil war, but why didn’t they drop the operation once the fighting started? The Black Trees can’t possibly care about Paradise right now! Even if the civil war ended today, the Black Trees couldn’t scrape together enough ships to recapture Paradise for, what, another five years?”

  “More like ten years, Joe, that would be my guess. Assuming the Black Trees clan still exists after the war, they would be far too busy consolidating any territory they gained, to bother with a military operation to take Paradise.”

  “Why, then? Why didn’t the team on Camp Alpha get shut down, once we got the civil war started?”

  “Politics, is the simple answer. The Black Trees are holding the Silver Blades to their commitment, as a way of testing the Silver Blades’ loyalty to their coalition. Resources devoted to the effort on Camp Alpha make the Silver Blades weaker and more dependent on the Black Trees for protection. The Black Trees also know that while the Silver Blades are busy trying to wipe out the hamster population on Paradise, they are not able to double-cross the Black Trees and switch sides in the civil war.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake! How the hell do the lizards keep track of which clan is trying to screw which other clan?”

  “That’s easy, Joe. Every clan is pretty much constantly trying to screw over any other clan that is in their way of gaining more power and influence. Alliances are only as good as the power to enforce agreements, and to offer a clan more protection and advantages than some other clan could. The Kristang warrior caste officially considers honor to be of utmost importance, but every clan will break an agreement if they think it will benefit them. Their attitude is that inter-clan agreements are just business, so honor is not truly at stake.”

  “Crap. This is the sort of thing Chotek handles for a living, it makes my head hurt. Ok, so, do I understand this correctly? Before the civil war, the Silver Blades got the bright idea for a bioweapon scheme to wipe humans and hamsters off Paradise, as a way to gain favor with the Black Trees. Now that the war is on, the Black Trees are demanding the Silver Blades complete the operation, as a test of loyalty?”

  “Oh, no, Joe. Not as a test of loyalty, because the Black Trees have no illusions about expecting loyalty from the Silver Blades.”

  “Sure, I understand that, but close enough, right?”

  “Close enough,” the beer can agreed. “You get why I said this is ironic? If we hadn’t made Paradise seem like a shopping mall full of Elder goodies, the Black Trees wouldn’t have any interest in taking the place back.”

  “Ironic, yeah. Skippy, I am beginning to really hate that Law of Unintended Consequences.”

  “You and me both, brother,” he grumbled.

  “All right, all right, let me think. The upside is, if we stop this ship full of infected Keepers from reaching Paradise, the Silver Blades are unlikely to continue trying to conduct the op? The Black Trees won’t make the Silver Blades start all over again?”

  “Correct. If we can stop that ship before it reaches Paradise, I strongly suspect the Black Trees will consider the Silver Blades have made a good-faith effort, and consider the agreement fulfilled. With the Black Trees fighting for their lives against the Fire Dragons and half the other clans in Kristang society, they need all the ships and warriors they can get, without wasting resources on distractions.”

  “Thank God for small favors. Dammit! We took a huge risk starting a civil war, and my hope was we wouldn’t have to worry about the lizards causing any trouble for, like, a decade.”

  “They might not cause any new trouble, Joe. The Camp Alpha op was in progress before the fighting started. Also, that op is an anomaly. Many other planned strikes against the Ruhar were cancelled.”

  “Great! Fantastic! Another example of my rotten luck.”

  “The universe hates you, Joe.”

  “Hey, that punk-ass universe can deal with me directly, my crew and the rest of humanity don’t need to get caught in the crossfire.”

  “Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way, Joe.”

  We had one more jump before we arrived at the star system where we needed to refuel the ship from a gas giant planet. Stopping to take on fuel would delay our arrival at the Paradise system, and it involved risk because the ship would be vulnerable while our dropships were dipping into the atmosphere to siphon off vital elements, but we had no choice. The Flying Dutchman’s tanks were running dry, and we had been in such a rush to escape from the Roach Motel that we didn’t take on fuel there.

  So, while the jump drive capacitors recharged, I was in the shower early one morning, getting ready for a duty shift.

  Naturally, Skippy wanted to talk with me. “Hey, Joe, did you ever wonder-”

  “Yeah, I wonder why you always talk to me while my freakin’ head is under the shower.”

  “No, that’s not what I was wondering, dumdum. Have you ever thought about combining the songs ‘Muskrat love’ and ‘Sound of Music’?” He launched into a horribly off-key abomination of a song. “The hills are aliiiive, with the love of muuuuuuskrats.”

  “Wh, wh-wha-” I couldn’t talk, so shocked I stood there under the shower with my mouth open and almost choked on the water. “Wh-what? WHAT? Muskrats?”

  “What?” He asked innocently.

  “Oh my GOD! Crap, have you gone loony-tunes on us again? Damn, did that energy virus infect you and scramble your brain?” I slapped the shower off button though I still had shampoo running down my scalp. If Skippy was going on vacation again or even temporarily lost processing capacity, I needed to warn the crew so we could-

  “No, dumdum, I’m fine, never better. Everything is hunky-dory with me, Joe. Although that expression does make me wonder why a dory would be considered ‘hunky’. A dory is just a stupid boat. Hmm, maybe the guy rowing the dory is hunky. I’ll ask Major Simms, she is a woman so she’ll know what type of guy is hunky and-”

  “You’re fine?” I did not want him going off on another tangent. “Seriously? Then why the hell are you singing about muskrats?”

  “Because you are grumpy in the morning, Joe, I was trying to cheer you up.”

  “I’m not grumpy, the problem is people want to talk to me about too many things
first thing in the morning. There are only two discussion topics that are acceptable right after I wake up. The first is coffee.”

  “Ok, I can see that. What’s the other one?”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  “Nothing is not an actual discussion topic, you have to-Oh, I get it.”

  “Yeah. Are you done now? I’ve got shampoo in my eyes.”

  “Sure, Joe.” He turned the water back on for me. Even Skippy knew not to screw with me before my first cup of coffee. “Rinse off quick and drink a cup of coffee, because we have work to do. We need a plan for how to help Colonel Perkins.”

  “Skippy, I have a question for you.”

  “Is this about girls? Because I’m not the best person to ask.”

  “No, it’s not about girls,” I could feel my face growing red.

  “Although, I have gotten laid just as much as you have recently.”

  “Thank you so much for reminding me. There is more to life than getting laid, Skippy.”

  “Says the guy who doesn’t get any action,” he chuckled.

  “Can we drop the subject?”

  “Okey-dokey with me. What did you want to talk about?”

  “The Roach Motel. We used a wormhole to destroy that Maxolhx ship.”

  “Uh huh, yeah, that sounds vaguely familiar. Of course I remember it, Joe, I did it. Duh.”

  “I wasn’t asking-” But he was off on a tangent already.

  “I am quite proud of that, Joe. If there is ever a compilation of Skippy’s Greatest Hits, that needs to go near the top. Although, hee, hee,” he giggled, “how could anyone decide which of my actions are in the Top Ten? Selecting a Top Hundred would be difficult, impossible!”

  “Oh, truly it would be impossible for us monkeys, Oh Magnificent One,” I rolled my eyes inwardly, which was not easy to do. When Skippy got on a roll like that, I had to play along with him or he would get hurt. “But you make the impossible look easy. Why don’t you create a list of your greatest accomplishments?” I figured doing that would keep him busy and prevent him from causing trouble for a while.