Mavericks

by Craig Alanson

  “Since about, um, shortly after Chotek returned to the ship after our black operation on Kobamik.”

  “OMG. They have been getting it on that long? The whole time we were on Gingerbread too?”

  “Yes, sure, except when Dr. Reinfall went aboard a dropship to inspect alien debris in the junk yard at the Roach Motel. Little Hansy Smoochula was a sad little boy while she was away, he wasn’t able to smooch her,” Skippy giggled.

  “Damn, I can’t believe this.”

  “Sorry, Joe, I thought you knew about them. Everybody else does. Hmm, before he was with Reinfall, he was with-”

  “Don’t tell me, do not tell me.”

  “Is there a problem? Chotek is the overall mission commander, but he is not military and neither is Dr. Reinfall. Before her, Lieutenant-”

  “I said don’t tell me. Crap. You’re right, Chotek is a civilian.” He was a civilian, and I was stuck with Army Regulation 600-20, paragraph 4 dash, I think 14?, No wait, that’s the old one. The new one is, oh, hell, it didn’t matter. “Damn, two women?”

  “Three, Joe. Well, four, if you count that one time-”

  “Aaaagh! Four?!”

  “Smoochula is a handsome and charming guy, Joe, he kinda has to be charming to do his job, you know? I guess women can’t get enough of his delicious chocolatey goodness, he is popular with the ladies. Four of them, anyway. A couple other ladies have flirted and dropped hints-”

  “Oh, this sucks.”

  “What?”

  “That, bureaucrat is bouncing between beds like a freakin’ pinball, and I can’t get one-”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I think he and Dr. Reinfall are somewhat serious. They both speak German, they-”

  “I really do not want to know how wonderful his life is right now, Ok?”

  “What’s wrong?” For a change, his voice did not have the usual snarky tone. “You sound really down.”

  “This is not something I want to talk about with a beer can.”

  There was a pause, when he spoke he sounded hurt. “Joe, you are my best friend. We should be able to talk about anything.”

  Crap. I had hurt his little asshole feelings. I sat down with my back against a crate. “You are my best friend, too, Skippy. It’s just-Look, Cornpone, Jesse, he was kind of my best friend. I even visited him and his folks on leave one time. I just-I read the report about the Mavericks, including the part that Jesse wants to propose to her.”

  “Joe, that part was not specifically in the flight recorder data, mission logs or Colonel Perkins’ reports, I filled in from the source data.”

  “Yeah, I know, you did a good job there. I’m happy for him, I really am. It’s, it’s not easy, you know? I liked Shauna. I really liked her. She is smart and brave and a good soldier-”

  “She did blow up an island, Joe,” he chuckled.

  “Yeah, see? She’s perfect! We couldn’t make it work because duty sent us in different directions. I wonder-Ah, it’s stupid to think ‘what if’.”

  “It’s not stupid, Joe. You have to acknowledge your feelings before you can deal with them in a constructive way, to move forward.”

  “Yeah I know I-Uh, what? Where did you pick up the psychobabble?”

  “I’ve been researching psychology, group dynamics, all that. Figured I should learn about that crap, since I’m stuck with a bunch of filthy monkeys.”

  “Oh. Well, I appreciate the effort.”

  “It has been awesome, Joe!” He gushed with enthusiasm. “Knowing the psychology of monkeys allows me to maintain warm and close personal relationships, without having to waste any of my precious time when some whiny loser wants to complain about how sad and lonely and homesick he is,” he said that last in a mockingly whiny tone. “Truly, it has been a blessing.”

  Instead of replying, I closed my eyes and bonked my head against the crate behind me, over and over.

  “Joe? What’s wrong? Huh, oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. Is this because Smoochula is getting laid and you’re not? Hmm, let me check what my interpersonal relationship guide recommends in this situation.”

  “That would be fantastic, Skippy, super helpful. Put it in a PowerPoint slide, please.”

  As we wrapped up the slow and dangerous yet ultimately successful refueling operation, Adams dragged me to another of her yoga-aerobics-martial arts classes in the gym, I swear she just makes up shit to hurt me. When the class was over, the SpecOps men and women went over to treadmills or weight benches because to them, the hour in the class was just an easy warm-up. I was soaking with sweat and one of shoulders ached.

  “Are you Ok, sir?” Adams asked with concern as I grimaced moving my sore shoulder in a gentle arc.

  “It’s that same shoulder that’s been bothering me,” I made a dismissive wave with my other arm. “It’ll be fine.”

  She cocked her head at me. “You should get that looked at. I’ll go to the medical bay with you, my left ankle feels like something popped when I landed that last time.” She held that foot off the deck and rotated her ankle in circles.

  “I’m used to aches and pains. Army medics think there isn’t anything that can’t be cured with a big glass of water and eight hundred milligrams of Motrin.”

  She laughed. “I thought that only applied to the Marine Corps.”

  My shoulder really did hurt, but it was a dull ache rather than a sharp pain. As we walked out of the gym, I threw a towel over my shoulders. “We’re not as young as we used to be,” I observed, something I never pictured myself saying.

  She patted my good shoulder. “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage. We’ve been through a lot together, Sir.”

  “Adams, sometimes I wish you wouldn’t call me ‘Sir’ all the time.”

  “I will when you take off those shiny silver eagles,” she looked me in the eyes, “Sir.”

  I sighed, knowing she was right. The passageway split, the medical bay to the left and my cabin straight ahead. “Let me stop by my cabin to get a fresh shirt, if Mad Doctor Skippy is going to look at my shoulder.”

  “Hey, Joe,” Skippy interrupted. “You are, uh, going to your cabin right now?”

  “Yup.” I paused at the door to my cabin. “Then you need to look at my shoulder.”

  “Sure thing, heh heh, no problem. Why don’t you go straight to medical? No need to change your shirt. Nosireee, no need for you to go in that cabin right now.”

  “Oh, shit.” I knew what it meant when that beer can said ‘heh heh’. “What the hell did you do?”

  “Oh, nothing. Ok, not nothing, nothing important. Damn it, this was supposed to be a surprise. Hey, Sergeant Adams, heh heh, shouldn’t you go to your own cabin first?”

  “Not a chance of that now, beer can,” Adams declared with a twinkle in her eyes. “Open this damned door right now.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend that for your delicate sensibilities, Margaret,” Skippy pleaded.

  “Delicate? Now I have to know what this surprise is.”

  “Me too,” I agreed. “Open the door, Skippy.”

  “Ok, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he sniffed with annoyance. “This was supposed to be a surprise just for you, Joe.”

  The door slid open. Adams and I shrieked and jumped back. No, Adams shrieked, I made a manly sound like-Ok, yeah, I shrieked like a little girl too. You would have done the same thing.

  Laying on my bed was a woman. A naked woman. No, it wasn’t a woman, my slow brain realized in a flash, because I knew all of the few women aboard the ship. The person laying on my bunk, her chest thrust out and her legs spread, was not a woman. Although she was anatomically correct, which is all I will say about that subject. “Helloooo, Joey,” she said in a sultry voice. “Come in, we can have fun.”

  “Gahhh!” I shrieked and Adams and I instinctively held onto each other, then we pulled away as we both knew what a painfully awkward moment that was. “You gave me a sexbot?”

  “Yes. Or no, if a sexbot is a bad thing. Kinda
guessing what you want me to say, Joe.”

  “It’s not a good thing, damn it!”

  “Oh, got it. No, heh heh, that is not a sexbot, of course not. She is a, what the hell should I call this? An intimate companion, is that better?”

  “Joey,” the sexbot pouted with a painted fingernail in her mouth. “Don’t keep me waiting, you bad boy.”

  “And it talks?”

  “That’s not all she does, Joe, she is fully functional, if you know what I mean.”

  “Fully-Oh God. What else does she, it,” my brain locked up as the sexbot moved its hips in a circle and I couldn’t look away. “Can you make it stop doing that?”

  The bot stopped moving suggestively, but then it stood up and walked into the open doorway, its hips and other things swaying with every step. “She can do all the other things women do in bed,” Skippy explained. “You know, like pretending to be interested while you talk blah, blah, blah endlessly about yourself. Or like faking that you were a good lover. Although with you, sheesh, that’s going to take an Oscar-worthy performance. You’ll need to grade her on a curve until she learns. Speaking of learning, I programmed her with a wide variety of really weird stuff based on your browser history, so-”

  “Oh this can’t be happening.”

  “I hope I got that part right, I mean, with some of those search terms you used, I had no idea what you wanted. Maybe you can help me. What does ‘tiny-”

  “You should not be snooping at my browser history!”

  “Ugh, you got that right. I felt like I needed a shower after reading-”

  “Damn it, Skippy, I did not ask for a sexbot!”

  “You kinda did, Joe. All that moping around you did when you found out Count Smoochula and just about every other guy aboard the ship are getting serious tail, and then-”

  “I am moping for a real woman, you idiot! This thing is not real, Skippy, it’s, it’s a-”

  “Oh, for crying out loud. Damn it, Joe, it’s not like you can afford to be picky. Can’t you close your eyes and pretend you’re with someone else? That technique works great for the women unfortunate enough to be in bed with you, so you could-”

  “I am not closing my eyes with her, it, I am not touching that thing!”

  “Come on, Joe, you can’t deny you have had a record-breaking dry spell. Doctor Skippy recommends you get some exercise, and I don’t mean in the gym. Unless you want to do it in the gym, I guess I could-”

  “Skippy, you are a beer can so you don’t understand these things. I want a real woman, I want to have a relationship-”

  “Relationship?” Skippy scoffed. “Joe, right now your only re-LAY-tionship,” he made a gagging sound, “is with the shower in your cabin.”

  “I don’t-”

  “Damn,” Skippy said under his breath. “Jeez, in some cultures you and that shower would be considered married by now.”

  “Skip-”

  “Seriously, I am surprised that shower’s father hasn’t come after you with a shotgun for sullying his daughter’s honor.”

  “Skip-”

  “Dude, you’ve got blisters.”

  “I don’t-”

  “And you are getting super cranky, you need to get laid soon or I’m afraid you will explode. How about-”

  “SKIPPY!” I looked to Adams for help but she was leaning against the bulkhead, one hand over her eyes, tears of laughter rolling down her cheeks, her shoulders shaking. And, damn it, she wasn’t the only person who saw the naked sexbot stretched languidly in the door frame, and heard what Skippy said. They must have heard the commotion and came around the corner from the CIC. Half of them were laughing, hands over their faces, unable to look at me. The other half were staring in shock at the sexbot as it wiggled its hips slowly. “All right, people, move along,” I ordered through gritted teeth. “Nothing to see here. Skippy was playing a joke on me.”

  “Oh, it’s no joke, Joe,” Skippy’s voice was again perky. “Anastacia is fully functional, certainly more than you could-”

  “You named it?”

  “Her, Joe, I named her, where are your manners? You don’t want to hurt her feelings, do you? Anastacia was the name of that girl you lusted after in high school. Although,” his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, “that pretty much applied to all the girls in your high school, so I could have picked any-”

  Lieutenant Williams of our SEALS team looked like he had seen a ghost, or a demon. “Sir? Colonel Bishop, have you been keeping a, a,” he had trouble even saying it. “A blow-up doll in your cabin?”

  “No, I-Oh, crap. Adams, please, kill me now.”

  “I don’t,” she still could barely speak. “Don’t have a sidearm with me, Sir.”

  “Williams,” I forced myself to look straight at him. “I didn’t ask for this, thing, it was Skippy’s idea.”

  Just then, my day got even more super awesomely wonderful when Count Smoochula came around the corner to see what was going on. He took one look at what he assumed was a naked girl in the doorway to my cabin, blinked hard in surprise, then looked at the sexbot again, realizing that is what Anastacia had to be. I could see the gears in his head spinning. “Colonel, I presume you have an explanation for, for, that,” he gestured toward Anastac—

  Damn it! Now I was thinking of that thing as a person. “Skippy! Please put that thing back in my cabin.”

  “You don’t like her, Joe? I’m kind of hurt.”

  “In! The! Cabin! Now!”

  “Ok, Ok, don’t get your panties bunched up,” he muttered as Anastacia backed into my cabin and the door slid closed. “Darn it, I spent a lot of time and used up a lot of resources to build that bot, Joe. It would be a tremendous waste to throw her away. If you don’t want to bang her, I’ll need to repurpose her for something.”

  “I do not want to bang her!”

  “Repurpose?” Chotek did not like the sound of that. “To do what?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Skippy was peeved. “She can’t do any heavy maintenance work, and she isn’t built for working in vacuum or in hard-radiation environments. Shmaybe she can do easy tasks like changing filters and transporting stuff like laundry.”

  “She would be touching my clothes?” Chotek’s lips pulled back in disgust. “Colonel Bishop has not, how do I say this delicately? Used that bot yet?”

  “No!” I protested.

  “Well, Joe hasn’t been with her that you know of, Mister Chotek. Don’t worry,” the asshole beer can giggled, “those stains will wash right out. Probably. I hope. Damn, that stuff is sticky.”

  Chotek shot me a look with a raised eyebrow and I seriously wanted to kill myself right there.

  “Sir, I,” I what? I had no idea what to say. “This was a complete surprise to me. I just found out about it.”

  “Very well,” Count Chocula’s shocked expression had been replaced by an amused smirk, directed at me. “I am sure you can, handle this situation more discretely in the future?”

  “Yes,” I mumbled. And then it hit me that a naked sexbot was still in my cabin, and the people standing around were waiting to see what I would do. So I sure as hell could not go in my cabin. “Adams, if anyone needs me, I’ll be taking a long walk out an airlock,” I turned and began walking toward the nose of the ship. “I won’t need a spacesuit.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  On the second-to-last mission to refuel the Flying Dutchman’s depleted tanks, I went along in one of the Condors. Yes, during the time we spent a year flying around the junkyard in the Roach Motel, I had qualified to fly our largest model of dropship, a craft big enough to be considered a small ‘ship’ like a corvette in some space navies. No, I was not acting as a pilot on this mission, because I still was about the least-skilled pilot aboard the Flying Dutchman, and I had no experience flying in the thick atmosphere of a gas giant planet. Because our entire mini-fleet of dropships had gotten continuous use in the junkyard, we had to designate one of each model as a ‘hangar queen’ to be strip
ped of parts to keep others flying. Even then, we were taking used parts of one dropship to replace the totally worn-out parts of our flightworthy dropships. That is why we were not taking our Condors as deep as the first time we refueled, we were concerned there had been too much wear and tear on vital components.

  We very carefully inspected all the vital components before each flight, so of course it was a tiny little part we barely thought of that bit us in the ass. More about that later.

  I was not acting as a pilot, and I was also not annoying the flight crew by sight-seeing, because I was part of the drogue-control crew. The first time we tried Skippy’s crazy plan to extract fuel from the atmosphere of a gas giant, we learned someone needed to manually fly the big fuel-collection parachute thingy that was strung between and behind the pair of Condors. Sami Reed had done that by herself the first time, and the intense concentration needed had exhausted her. On subsequent missions, each ship had two pilots, a relief pilot and three people to control the drogue parachute. That was more people’s lives being put at risk, but lower overall risk, according to our experienced and very cautious lead pilot, Major Desai. She had flown the first mission on this refueling op and proclaimed it was doable, she liked the fact that we would not be flying as deep in the atmosphere this time.

  My participation in the op was so I could appreciate how difficult it was, so another pilot could get rest while I took the responsibility, and because I very much wanted to get off the ship for a while. Anastacia the sexbot was out of my cabin, and back to wherever Skippy had created her-It! Created it! Damn it, now the beer can had me thinking of that bot as a person. You would understand if you had seen her, she looked disturbingly realistic, so much that if I hadn’t seen her aboard-It! If I hadn’t seen it.

  Oh, forget it.

  Anyway, it was a good idea for me to get off the ship for a while, every time people saw me they couldn’t help laughing, and that was hurting productivity. Yeah, yeah, that’s the reason I had to get off the ship; I was concerned about the crew not being able to concentrate on work and training. Also, I spent a lot of time hiding in my office or cabin to avoid people. Adams could not even look at me, it got to the point where she was eating at odd times in the galley, to avoid running into me.