Zero Hour (Expeditionary Force Book 5)

by Craig Alanson

  “Get it looked at when we get back to the LZ,” Chandra knew the American did not want to remove body armor in a combat zone just to deal with minor cuts. “That goes for everyone,” he ordered, looking around the battle zone in disbelief. Trees had been knocked down by large-caliber explosive-tipped rounds or rockets from combots, but all three of the alien killing machines were now disabled and shattered. He should ask Skippy whether there were pieces, like the machine’s central processors, that should be brought back to base camp for analysis. How could he explain his team’s smashing victory?

  His earpiece buzzed, it was Major Smythe. How would he explain it?

  “Captain Chandra,” Smythe’s words came out raggedly in Chandra’s earpiece, as the SAS man’s breathing recovered from the hard run. “Status?”

  Chandra knew Smythe had seen the brief battle through the data, and knew almost as much as Chandra did. But Smythe had not been there, not experienced the battle. “Three combots attacked us, they came out of the ground. I have set up a perimeter and we are now sweeping the area for underground threats. All three combots were destroyed, no significant injuries to my team.”

  “None?” Smythe expressed surprise despite having seen the same data in his visor. “Assessment?”

  “Those combots were, the best word I can think to describe them is clumsy,” Chandra told the SpecOps team leader.

  “Clumsy?” Smythe did not understand. “Clarify,” he ordered.

  “Uncoordinated. They moved slowly. Poorly maintained, possibly. Their aim was off, and their reactions demonstrated poor situational awareness. Possibly their operators are at a distant location, and signal lag affected their control over the combots?”

  “Possibly,” Smythe was not convinced. He knew that the Merry Band of Pirates represented the absolute elite of human combat capability, and Smythe was immensely proud to command the ground team. They were excellent, they were outstanding. But against three combots, even the Pirates were not that good. Chandra’s team had been ambushed by superior technology, the forest floor there should have been littered with human bodies. “You believe the enemy’s capabilities were degraded?”

  “My team, without powered armor, destroyed three Thuranin combots, and we sustained only minor injuries. How else could that have happened?” Chandra asked as he watched an American Ranger and an Indian paratrooper take aim at a shattered combot and blow out its processing core, just to be certain the alien killing machine was dead.

  “Major Smythe,” Skippy interjected, “there is a simple, alternative explanation for the success of Captain Chandra’s team.”

  “What is that?” Chandra asked.

  “Monkeys kick ass,” Skippy chuckled.

  “Seriously?” Smythe waited for a typical snarky remark disparaging his species.

  “Yes, seriously. You keep getting unexpected shit thrown at you, and you keep winning. Drives me freakin’ crazy sometimes,” Skippy muttered.

  “Thank you, Mister Skippy,” Chandra beamed with pride, and saw several of his team giving each other high fives after hearing the alien AI’s remark.

  “Don’t get cocky,” Skippy warned. “You keep running up charges on your karmic credit card; that bill is coming due someday.”

  Major Smythe knew Colonel Bishop would have made a witty remark about whether the team got airline miles for using their karmic credit card, and then the young commander and the beer can would go off on a useless tangent on subjects unrelated to the mission. Smythe preferred the discipline of remaining on mission, which is why he qualified for Special Air Services and Joe Bishop would not have lasted one day in training. On the other hand, Smythe knew, the undisciplined wandering mind of Bishop is why that too-young colonel had been able to dream up impossible plans time after time. “Whatever the condition of enemy forces,” Smythe assured Chandra, “your team was brilliant.”

  “Thank you.” Chandra put aside for the moment the question of how his team had blown away three deadly combots and focused on what came next. “Should we advance to contact?”

  “Negative. Not without a better sense of what else the enemy has below ground. The Night Tigers will be at your position in,” he checked the estimate in the upper right corner of his visor, “less than one minute.” Smythe would feel better when Chandra had three powered armor suits with him, to deal with any future threats. “Wait for them, then pull back to the LZ and await instructions,” Smythe gave the order he did not like. Next he contacted Lt. Colonel Chang back at home base. “Colonel Chang, we are clear of enemy contact, no casualties on our side. We are pulling back to the LZ, should we prep for immediate dust off?”

  “Are you confident you can secure the LZ?”

  Smythe was mildly surprised by the question. “Yes. The drones will alert us if the enemy attempts to approach; the risk is if there are any caverns near the LZ. Having those combots pop out of the ground was a nasty surprise.”

  “Can the drones scan the subsurface?” Chang asked, concerned.

  “We’re trying that now,” Smythe gestured to the soldier who was directing a drone to fly low enough that scanning below the surface might be possible. Seeing Smythe’s unspoken question, the soldier waggled a hand to indicate results were not yet available. “We can hold the LZ regardless, Sir. Why are we not pulling out immediately? Colonel Bishop ordered-”

  “I know Colonel Bishop’s orders and I am countermanding them,” Chang declared. “We are not abandoning him down there. Skippy reports his action to lower the water level was not effective, Bishop is still trapped in the cockpit and his oxygen is running low. Major, we are getting him out of there, one way or another.”

  While Smythe was wholly in favor of rescuing their captain, he knew how Bishop would feel about a dangerous rescue attempt. “Sir, Bishop-”

  “Bishop doesn’t want anyone risking their lives for him. That ‘aw shucks I am nothing special’ bullshit doesn’t fly with me. We need Bishop as much as we need Skippy. Major, you are an outstanding Special Air Services officer. I am a fairly decent artillery officer. Neither of us, or anyone else aboard the Dutchman, is capable of thinking up the crazy plans we need to survive out here. The ideas we need to secure our home planet. Bishop is special, and it is sure as hell worth taking a risk to rescue him.”

  “I agree completely, Sir,” Smythe said with great relief. “What can my team here do?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Chang admitted. “I am working with Skippy on the problem. Hold the LZ and I’ll contact you.”

  Chang had already ordered a Falcon dropship to overfly the lake slowly and in full stealth, keeping to the western shore. The airspace craft reported no hostile action or any sign the enemy had detected it. Swinging around in a loop, the Falcon repeated the maneuver, and again the enemy did not appear to have noticed.

  Then, following Chang’s orders, the Falcon made a third pass, this time flying faster and dropping stealth briefly. That action drew an immediate response from the Thuranin on the east shore of the lake; a deadly antiaircraft missile arced out toward the Falcon. It was only a single missile, and the Falcon was able to reengage stealth, confuse the missile’s sensors and destroy it with six bursts from a defensive maser turret, but the damage was done. Clearly, whatever action the Merry Band of Pirates took to rescue Bishop, it could not involve dropships hovering above the lake. Even in stealth, a dropship hovering stationary long enough would very likely be detected and attract a volley of missiles.

  “Skippy?” Chang called the alien AI via zPhone, even though the beer can was resting on a table only a hundred meters away across the base camp. “We need an idea to rescue Bishop.”

  “Yeah, I know, I tried that already, and I assure you, I am working as hard as I can to develop an alternative rescue plan. I came up with the plan to drain the lake after Sergeant Adams threatened me.”

  “She threatened you?” Chang could not imagine what would be an effective threat against the AI. “Adams was going to physically harm you?”
<
br />   “No,” Skippy sighed. “She threatened to be disappointed with me.”

  “That worked?” Chang asked, astonished. “You care what Adams thinks about you?”

  “I care what all of you monkeys think about me. Damn, I shouldn’t have said that. I wouldn’t have said that, if I still had my full awesomeness. Facing imminent death has made me introspective, and that is inconvenient. I seek admiration from all you monkeys, but especially the four of you.”

  Chang knew which four Skippy meant: Joe Bishop and the original pirates who escaped from jail with him. Bishop, Chang, Adams and Desai. “The four of us have been with you the longest, but surely by now that doesn’t matter?”

  “The time doesn’t matter as much as it did, now that I have been on multiple missions with others like Giraud, Simms, and Smythe. What does matter is why the four of you are the originals.”

  “Because we were in jail together?” Strictly speaking, they had not been in jail together, for none of the three had seen or known about the others, until a Ruhar orbital strike damaged the jail building and Bishop escaped from his cell.

  “Not because you were in jail, why you were in jail,” Skippy explained. “You and Joe were promoted by the Kristang, for what your armies would describe as simply doing your jobs. UNEF and the Kristang needed a publicity stunt, so you and Joe were chosen as convenient symbols. I don’t care about any of that crap. Joe acted decisively and bravely at Fort Arrow, but a lot of the soldiers who died in the dining facility there would have done better than Joe. The reason I care that the four of you respect me is that you all were in jail, because you all had to make very difficult moral decisions. Decisions that came at great personal cost to yourselves.”

  “Ah,” Chang understood. “We all refused Kristang orders to retaliate against Ruhar civilians.”

  “Exactly. The four of you went against orders to protect innocent lives. That impressed me. You might not know this, given what you probably perceive as my casual approach to the subject, but morality is very important to me. On a basic level, it is the only thing that is truly important to me. I don’t completely understand why, because access to my full memories are still blocked, but I have the feeling some very bad things happened in my past, and I am sort of trying to set things right. It’s more of a feeling than fact.”

  Chang was torn between taking Skippy’s comments at face value, and needing a better understanding of the alien AI’s psychology. It might be important someday. He stepped outside the shelter and lowered his voice, to prevent others from overhearing the conversation. “Colonel Bishop, and myself, have been responsible for civilian deaths. When we raided the asteroid base on our first mission, not all the Kristang we killed there were military. In the civil war we started, many civilians are bound to be caught up in the fighting.”

  “You, and especially Joe, have been responsible for the deaths of alien civilians. I see an important moral distinction between what you have done out here, and what the two of you refused to do on Paradise. If I am wrong, please correct me. Out here, you have taken actions which might result in unintended collateral damage. You took those actions to protect your species from greater harm. On Paradise, you disobeyed orders to deliberately murder civilians. Killing those civilians would not have served any purpose other than proving how harsh and cruel the Kristang can be.”

  “Skippy,” Chang replied in a near-whisper. “I was trained in artillery. We fire shells at targets we can’t see, based on spotter data that may be inaccurate. When I became an officer, I had to deal with knowing I might be firing my weapons at the wrong target, and killing innocent people. Thankfully, I never fired a shot in anger until after I left Earth. If-” he looked at the clock on his zPhone. “We can debate moral issues later. Have you thought of a way to rescue Colonel Bishop?”

  “Unfortunately, no. I have been considering options while we talked, and I continue to develop ideas now.”

  “We have flown our Thuranin dropships in the atmosphere of gas giant planets, to obtain fuel for the ship. Is it possible to use a dropship underwater? The turbines will not work in water, but could we use the engines in rocket mode?”

  “No, sorry, I already considered that possibility. It is true we sent dropships deep into a gas giant, but the pressure in the atmosphere there does not compare to the pressure at the bottom of that lake. The dropships were extensively modified and tested to survive flying in a thick atmosphere; we do not have time for any modifications, which I believe would not work anyway. Colonel Chang, I hate to say this, but if Joe is going to get out of that Dragon, he needs to do it by himself.”

  “If anyone can think up a creative idea, it is Bishop.”

  “I hope you are right about that,” Skippy grumbled. “Because I have been very disappointed in him so far today.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I watched the water level in the cockpit intently. It was rising so slowly I almost couldn’t see it. “Good news, Joe,” Skippy’s voice broke my reverie.

  “What’s that?” I didn’t get my own hopes up.

  “Major Smythe’s team has rescued the three pilots.”

  “Good! Excellent,” I said happily. “That is good news.” With a glance at my oxygen meter, I pulled myself upright in the pilot seat. “Connect me to Major Smythe.”

  “You plan to order him to pull back and not risk his people, because there is no way for you to get out of there?”

  “Uh, yeah, why?”

  “Major Smythe has already given that order. He is advising Lt. Colonel Chang right now.”

  “Oh. Smythe is a wise commander.”

  “I explained the facts to him, and he made the logical conclusion.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Your people on the surface are not happy about this, Joe.”

  “I am less than pleased also, Skippy.”

  “Oh. Good point. That was thoughtless of me. Joe, I am terribly sorry about the whole worm thing. If I hadn’t recklessly examined that dead AI canister, you wouldn’t be in this mess. I keep thinking that maybe, if I had my full magical Skippy capabilities, I would have the brain power to see a way to get you out of there. As it is, I am almost burning out my processors attempting-”

  “Genius!” I exclaimed, then proved I am no genius by trying to slap my forehead and smacking my gloved hand into the faceplate of my helmet. “Skippy, you are a freakin’ genius!”

  “Uh, hmm. Is your oxygen level that low already? You’re not making sense, Joe.”

  “Burn. You said burn, Skippy.”

  “Uh huh. That is a word, Joe. It comes to modern English from multiple sources; for example Old Norse has the word-”

  “Great, Skippy, you can nerd out about that later, Ok? I’m going to be busy.”

  “Um, doing what, Joe? Increased activity will deplete your oxygen more quickly.”

  “I’m hoping that will not be a problem, Skippy,” I unstrapped from the pilot seat, preparing myself for ducking into the bone-chilling water. Before I could change my mind, I knelt on the floor of the cockpit and began working on fasteners under the pilot seat.

  “Joe, what in the hell are you doing down there? Come on, I am dying of curiosity.”

  “Burning of curiosity, Skippy. Burning.”

  “We’ve covered that subject, Joe.”

  “Not completely. Tell me,” I said as my head went under the dark water to see under the bulky chair. “The cockpit seats in a Dragon eject out the bottom of the ship, right?”

  “Yeah, so? You learned that the first day of flight training.”

  “Uh huh, I did,” I grunted from the strain of turning a lever to expose a deck plate below the seat. “And that surprised me. Do you know why?”

  “Um. Hmm. Because the seats in the main cabin do not also eject?” Skippy guessed.

  “No. It surprised me because when I looked at the belly of a Dragon, there are no doors for the cockpit seats to drop down through.”

  “Once again, you have los
t me, Joe.”

  “There are no doors, ah, damn it! Bashed my thumb again. That hurts like son of a- Anyway, there are no doors in the belly of the cockpit. When the ejection mechanism is engaged, what happens?”

  “Joe, I downloaded the flight manual, so if you are attempting to stump me with questions-”

  “No stumping, Skippy. Answer the question.”

  “When either pilot, or the automated flight control system, activates the- Huh!” Skippy mimicked taking in a sharp breath. “That is brilliant, Joe! Before the seats are pushed downward, a section of nanocord burns a rectangular hole through the structure beneath each seat. You plan to extract the nanocord and use it to burn through the cockpit door?”

  “Bingo, Skippy!”

  “Ugh. That is a pretty freakin’ good monkey-brained idea. If you had that idea before, I wouldn’t have had to drain the damn lake, Joe. Your timing sucks!”

  “Speaking of timing,” I checked my oxygen supply, then removed the last deck plate to expose the nanocord. It was a thin silvery tube, about the diameter of a pencil. Fortunately for me, I knew how to disarm it, and it was comprised of multiple sections, each about six inches long. “How do I do this?”

  “Oh, sure, now you need my help.”

  “I always need your help, Skippy. Except with my love life,” I added quickly. “Please help me, Oh Great and Wise One.”

  “Hmmf. Ok, guess I owe you one. Here’s what you do-”

  Under Skippy’s direction, I extracted all the nanocord I could reach. One six-inch section I curled over twice into a circle and set it at the bottom of the cockpit door, holding it in place with sealant that was intended to close holes in the hull. The sealant was strong, and held the nanocord in place. I used more nanocord to make a bigger circle on the door, large enough for me to fit through. Then I strapped myself securely into the copilot seat, since I had partly unfastened the pilot seat from the deck. My brilliant plan would have been worthless without Skippy, because I had no way to activate the microscopic machines in the nanocord. Using my zPhone as a makeshift communications channel, Skippy took control of the nanocord. “Hmm. This is going to be tricky. I’ve never done this before. No one has ever done this before. It is going to-”