Zero Hour (Expeditionary Force Book 5)

by Craig Alanson

  “A complication.”

  “You know I hate complications, Skippy.”

  “And an opportunity.”

  “Skippy, you know I was a grunt, right? When an infantry soldier hears the word ‘opportunity’ it is almost never a good thing.”

  “This opportunity is a good thing, Joe. Hmmm, well, unless it turns out to be a disaster. It could be a disaster, I guess.”

  “Crap. What is it?”

  “I was running back the sensor data from when we destroyed that Maxolhx ship- I’m still extremely proud of that, by the way. That little incident has to be given a prominent position in the Skippy Awesomeness Hall of Fame.”

  “You’re building a Hall of Fame for yourself now?”

  “A virtual one, Joe, but I do owe it to the galaxy to memorialize my awesomeness.”

  “Uh huh. This Hall of Fame, does it have a gift shop?”

  “Yes, and for you I got a big foam finger with ‘Skippy’s Number One Fan’ on it.”

  “You woke me up at three thirty in the freakin’ morning. Right now the only thing I’m a big fan of is falling back asleep.”

  “Then you will miss what I found. In the sensor data, I discovered what I think is a Maxolhx escape pod that was ejected from that ship as it was destroyed.”

  “Escape pod?” Swinging my legs onto the floor, I rubbed my eyes to chase away sleep. “Oh, hell, you think there’s someone in it?”

  “At this distance, I cannot tell. Our microwormholes went out of range, then I deactivated them. With this ship’s crappy sensors, we have no way to scan the interior of that escape pod from here.”

  “Ugh. I’ll bet next you want us to chase that thing down so you can look at it.”

  “Why not? If I scan the pod and determine there is a Maxolhx aboard, we don’t have take it aboard.”

  “Yes, we do. Chotek is right, sometimes plans acquire a momentum of their own. Damn it, this ship is not a zoo. Could we hold a Maxolhx, without the thing escaping or taking over the ship?”

  “Maxolhx have advanced biological implants that allow them to interface directly with, and assume control over, data systems such as this ship’s computer. These implants are similar to the cyborg implants used by the Thuranin, but they are integrated with Maxolhx biology and are much, much more sophisticated and powerful. However, I think I can disable them so-”

  “If you want to let an apex species onto our beat-up piece of crap ship, then you need to do a lot better than think you can stop the thing from seizing control of our systems. If it even gets partial control of a combot, even for a moment, people could get killed. By ‘people’ I mean humans.”

  “Joe, I am very confident that my awesomeness can easily-”

  “Yeah, when your awesomeness is available. What happens the next time you go on an unscheduled vacation, and we’re stuck with a Maxolhx taking over the ship?”

  “Now you’re being foolish. That is extremely unlikely. The worm is dead, and-”

  “You think the worm is dead. You thought it was dead before. And you don’t know what other dangers are out there, or inside you.”

  “So, you want to ignore the opportunity to capture a Maxolhx?”

  “Capture it, and what? What could we learn about that species that you don’t already know? If there is a rotten kitty in that escape pod, it has been on ice for a long time. Whatever knowledge it has is outdated. Maxolhx society and culture could have changed significantly since that thing got trapped here.”

  “Their society is ancient and changes only very slowly, Joe.”

  “I just don’t see what could be the upside to us taking one of those things aboard, Skippy. But, it’s not my call. I will notify Chotek about it, and he can tell you ‘no’.”

  Hans Chotek did not say ‘no’. Damn it, that bureaucrat was predictably rigid, except when I wanted him to be. This was a time when I wanted him to be strictly risk-averse, but no. When I told him we may be able to capture one or more Maxolhx, he almost clapped his hands with delight. “This is a marvelous opportunity, Colonel,” he declared with alarming enthusiasm.

  “Uh-” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. “There is substantial danger, Sir.”

  “I am sure that Mister Skippy can disable whatever capabilities the Maxolhx have that could harm us.”

  “That is correct,” Skippy agreed cheerily. “We can keep it in a cargo bay.”

  I pressed him on his easy confidence. “You can permanently disable the Maxolhx ability to interfere with ship systems? Not just block that ability while you’re here?”

  Chotek looked at me sharply. “What do you mean ‘while Skippy is here’, Colonel?” After we got the conduit and Skippy defeated the worm and fixed himself, I assured my boss that Skippy was now one hundred percent back with us, that he wasn’t going away and that he had learned his lesson about poking his nose into scary dark places. “Are you concerned that our beer can,” I noticed he didn’t say ‘Mister Skippy’ this time, “will go missing on us again? You assured me that-”

  “Sir, all I meant was if we have an away mission that requires Skippy to be separated from the ship, we must be absolutely certain a Maxolhx cannot pose a risk to the mission, ship or crew.” It was rare that I interrupted Chotek, in this case I thought he was winding up to give me a serious ass-chewing. Fortunately the lie that instantly flashed into my mind contained enough of the truth that I didn’t need to worry about a guilty expression giving me away. “Also, a Maxolhx won’t be aboard the Dutchman forever. If, when, we get back to Earth, UNEF Command will want the Maxolhx brought down to the surface for study. Assuming we will take the Dutchman back out, the Maxolhx will be on our home planet, without Skippy to prevent it from causing,” I tried to think of an appropriate word, “mischief.”

  “Ah,” Chotek’s expression turned from angry to thoughtful. “That is good thinking, Colonel. Mister Skippy?”

  “I told Joe already, that is not a problem,” Skippy scoffed, and I felt the impact of the bus he had thrown me under.

  “Sir, that isn’t the only problem,” I temporarily suppressed a flash of annoyance at Skippy. “Because of restrictions in his programming, Skippy can’t share his knowledge of technology that could help humans develop defenses, or build our own ships. You, uh, still have those restrictions, in your new expanded awesomeness?”

  “I’m working on it, but sadly, yes. Although even if I didn’t, I would hesitate to help a bunch of squabbling monkeys make more powerful sticks to whack each other with.”

  Ignoring his comment, I added “A Maxolhx will have no such restriction. It could share information freely, if it chose to. That could cause the biggest problem: nations on Earth would consider such knowledge worth fighting over.”

  “That is a very good point, Colonel,” Chotek slumped slightly in his chair. “Although,” he perked up, “we could insist in safeguards, before bringing the alien down to the surface,” he said with a smile. I knew what he was thinking; he would be able to make the Maxolhx someone else’s problem. “We could require UNEF Command to assure joint custody of the alien.”

  “Yes, Sir, I’m sure UNEF Command could do something like that. I am worried a Maxolhx would learn quickly, and play one nation against the others. Maxolhx are very smart, right, Skippy?”

  “They are smart, and clever and devious. Joe is right to be concerned,” he said and I smiled. Then he threw me under the bus again. “But as you said, Mister Chotek, this is a marvelous opportunity, and out here, risks must be taken.”

  “Very well,” Chotek shot me a look of annoyance that I had needlessly sidetracked the conversation. “Colonel, please alter course to intercept the escape pod. We will approach close enough to scan its interior, then decide how to proceed.”

  “Yes, Sir,” I pressed a button on my zPhone to send a preplanned command to the duty officer on the bridge. “Sir, to make sure we are all on the same page, could you tell me what you expect are the advantages of having a live Maxolhx aboard?” Wh
at I did not add was ‘because I see only danger’.

  “I should think it is fairly obvious, Colonel. However, to assure there is no misunderstanding I will not allow any medical experiments, interrogation or harsh treatment of any,” he searched for the proper word, “refugees.”

  I nodded silently, holding my tongue, because I could not think of any useful information we would get from taking medical samples or asking questions. Skippy could get whatever physical data we needed remotely, and asking our most dangerous enemy questions would be a total waste of time. The Maxolhx would gain more intelligence by which questions we chose to ask, than we could gain from its answers. Regarding harsh treatment, I did not plan to scratch a Maxolhx behind its ears until it purred, but I also would not allow torture. Simply being held prisoner by a species on the very bottom of the technology ladder would be torture to a Maxolhx.

  “My intention is to open a dialog with the Maxolhx, in controlled conditions aboard this ship. Colonel, we may in the near future find a need to negotiate with the Maxolhx. Gaining an understanding of their basic psychology would be invaluable. A true understanding, based on face to face interactions; not merely studying academic reports provided by Skippy. Mister Skippy is an unfathomably intelligent being,” he paused for Skippy to interject, which didn’t happen. “But as Skippy is not based on biology, he may not appreciate the subtleties of biological communication.”

  “That is true,” Skippy admitted unexpectedly. “I don’t understand what Joe talks about half the time. Although the problem there may be unique to Joe.”

  Thump, thump. Those were the rear wheels of the bus running over me. Chotek went on for a while about how he planned to ‘open a dialog’ with the Maxolhx and study the species far above us on the development ladder, while I worried about how the Maxolhx was likely to sucker Hans Chotek into giving away far more information that he got in return. While our fearless leader babbled on, I smiled, nodded at appropriate times and fantasized about throwing a certain traitorous beer can out an airlock on a long, lonely one-way trip into a black hole. When Chotek decided he had heard the wonderful sound of his own voice long enough for the moment, he let me go to work with Major Simms on setting up some sort of holding facility for a potentially very special guest.

  Before speaking with Simms, I went straight to Skippy’s own escape pod man cave, ducked through the too-small door, and plopped down on the couch next to him.

  “Hey, Joe, to what do I owe the displeasure of this visit?”

  “You threw me under a bus, Skippy.”

  “What? That is a hurtful accusation, Joe. Why do you- oh, hell. Yeah, I kinda did throw you under a bus. But it was for your own good.”

  “Really?”

  “Ok, it was partly for your own good. Joe, while I understand your objections to bringing a Maxolhx aboard, you are missing the incredible entertainment value for me.”

  “For you?”

  “For you, too. But mostly for me. I will have a whole other species to mess with, and the Maxolhx isn’t ignorant like you monkeys. He will be better able to appreciate how awesome I am.”

  “Seriously? You want to bring aboard a dangerous, unknown threat, because you are bored?”

  “Oh, like that’s not a good reason? Don’t get so upset, Joe. We will put the alien in a cargo bay with an airlock. If it poses a threat to the ship, or, you know, pisses me off, I’ll blow the airlock and suck it out into space.”

  “You’d better be right about that, Skippy.”

  To pick up the Maxolhx escape pod, I insisted we send an unmanned Kristang Dragon-A dropship, remotely controlled by Skippy. The little dropship was stuffed with explosives, also at my insistence and against Skippy’s objections that all the security measures were not necessary. The Dragon flew around the escape pod, scanning it for hours; Skippy determined almost immediately there were two Maxolhx alive in the pod, both males. They were in hibernation and had remained in deep sleep since their ship was torn apart by the Guardians. Because the data systems of the pod were corrupted, and because the pod had not been provided with sensitive data in case the pod was captured by an enemy such as us, Skippy wasn’t able to find out how many crew had been aboard the ship. We didn’t know whether any of the crew had been awake or the ship had been run entirely by an AI, but Skippy thought it unlikely an AI would have bothered to intercept our communications and broadcast a message.

  We had a moment of alarm when Skippy announced the scanning sensor beams from our Dragon had been detected by the pod’s automated systems, and the pod had activated its systems to revive its two passengers. Skippy told me he could interrupt the revival process but doing so would likely be fatal to the two Maxolhx. One of them was weak already, based on data Skippy got by hacking into the pod’s data system, he did not expect one of the aliens to survive. They had been asleep far too long, after examining the condition of the pod, Skippy was surprised either of them would survive the revival process.

  “Would it help if we brought them aboard?” Chotek asked anxiously. “Could you help them, with our medical equipment?” He very much did not want even one of the aliens to die under our control.

  Before I could make a very reasonable objection to the idea of bringing dangerous aliens into the low-security environment of the Dutchman’s medical bay, Skippy answered for me. “Unfortunately, no. Our own supply of items such as medical nanobots is critically low, and I would have to modify our equipment for Maxolhx biology. In the process, much of our supplies would be expended, partly wasted. Also, I am unfamiliar with the hypersleep technology used back then by the Maxolhx, and the pod does not contain useful instructions. It would have been better if the pod had not begun the revival sequence but at this point, our best option is to allow the Maxolhx equipment to complete the revival process.”

  “Very well,” Chotek’s tone meant the situation was anything but well at all. “Is there any reason we could not bring the pod aboard?”

  “No,” Skippy again spoke before I could give my opinion. “Having the pod aboard would allow me to supply reliable power to the revival mechanism. Many of the powercells failed long ago.”

  The pod was brought into a hangar bay, which was kept unpressurized with the big doors open, and I had one of Skippy’s bots attach explosives to the pod. One press of the Big Red Button on my zPhone and that pod would become a ball of plasma the size of a beachball. Chotek tried to argue with me about that until Skippy stated that, as the ship’s captain, I was responsible for security aboard the ship. It would have been nice if the traitorous little shithead had said that before we brought the pod aboard!

  Two days later, after two nearly sleepless nights for me, Skippy declared the surviving alien was fully awake and demanding to be released from his pod. The other Maxolhx had died during the revival process, it never really had a chance, according to Doctor Skippy.

  “Ok, how do we do this?” I asked while I was still alone with Skippy.

  “Since you are going to throw a fit if we take even a teeny tiny risk, I suggest my bots remove the life support casket from the pod, and bring the casket to the holding cell.”

  “Your bots can carry the casket outside the ship, bring it into the holding cell through the airlock?” I did not want the casket traveling through the interior of the ship.

  “Yes,” he sighed, I could picture his avatar rolling its eyes. “Totally unnecessary, I assure you, but I will do it to make little Joey happy.”

  “Great.”

  It was another five hours before we were ready to open the sleep casket in the holding cell, which Chotek referred to as ‘guest accommodations’. These accommodations had an airlock that could be blown if the guest got unruly, so Chotek could call the holding cell a resort for all I cared.

  “Oooh,” Skippy chuckled. “Our friend in there is getting quite insistent that we release him, right now. The good news is, he refers to us as ‘unknown species’, so he does not know who humans are. Man, is he in for a crushing disappoin
tment.”

  “When you’re ready, Skippy,” I ordered.

  “Colonel Bishop,” Chotek held up a hand, “is this really necessary? Treating our guest in a hostile manner could set a tone for our discuss-”

  “Sir, respectfully, yes, it is absolutely necessary. We must-”

  “I don’t think you need to worry about setting a hostile tone here, Chocula,” Skippy fairly giggled. “Your buddy is hopping mad and making hostile threats of his own.”

  “Like what?” I kept a thumb hovered over the Big Red Button of my zPhone, ready to turn our ‘guest’ into vapor.

  “Like? Let’s see, I’ll just hit the highlights. He threatened to destroy your home planet, wherever that is because he has never heard of ‘Earth’. Technically, that was more of a promise than a threat. Of course the entire crew of this ship will be subjected to long and painful torture before being inevitably killed for daring to keep a Maxolhx captive.”

  “What did you say to it?” Chotek demanded suspiciously.

  “Me?” Skippy said innocently. “I didn’t say anything. No, really, in this case I said very little, in fact I told him we are in process of releasing him.”

  “Did that help the situation?” Chotek was hopeful.

  “Uh, it sort of improved its mood a little. He offered to kill the ship’s crew quickly, except of course for the command crew responsible for treating an advanced species with such disrespect. And rather than destroying your home planet and wiping out your entire species, some of you will be enslaved to serve the glorious Maxolhx. After that, your home planet will be destroyed and the rest of your species obliterated from history.”

  “That is a Maxolhx in a good mood?” Even I was taken aback.

  “Yup. Come on, Joe, think about it. This particular Maxolhx volunteered for an almost certain suicide mission, in the hope of acquiring Elder technology the Maxolhx could use to destroy the Rindhalu and enslave the entire galaxy. The creature in that casket is the most fanatical of fanatics, in a rabidly fanatical, hateful species. Hee hee, I made a rabies joke. Because the Maxolhx sort of look like cats, get it?”