Renegades (Expeditionary Force Book 7)

by Craig Alanson

  “What’s wrong, Sir?” Simms cocked her head at me.

  We were in the CIC, getting the equipment set up for departure, while Reed and Porter were handling pilot duties. Smythe had brought three new people with him, one of them was in sickbay being treated for a bruised kidney. After the guy saw the scary medical bots controlled by Doctor Skippy, he may have had second thoughts about leaving Earth. The Dragon dropship from the Yu Qishan had just docked and I was preparing for appeal to that crew, and the Delta team that had tried to capture the ship, to join us as renegades. The bullshit speech I gave on Paradise, to pull together the original Merry Band of Pirates, might have been easier. “Simms,” I sighed, “what the hell am I doing?”

  “Putting together a crew and giving humanity our best shot at survival?”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence. We are all risking our careers, and maybe a long sentence in prison even if we are successful out there. This is treason, you know that, right? Not just technically treason, this is the real deal. We are renegades now, outlaws. Skippy has blocked orders from reaching our ears but we know the truth; the Army down there is demanding that we hand over control of the ship.”

  “If they are,” she shot me a disparaging look, “they’re doing it because the government is telling them what to say, not because they think surrendering to aliens is a good idea. Sir.”

  “It’s not that easy. We-”

  “Adams isn’t here,” Simms observed. “This sounds like the kind of pep talk she would give. Would it help if I told you what I think she would say?”

  “Uh,” I was missing our Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant already. “Yeah, actually.”

  “Fine. Then, excuse me, Sir, but that’s bullshit. It is that easy. If we stop now, turn the Dutchman over to the UN or whoever, and they take her out to reveal the truth to the Jeraptha, what will happen to Earth?” I didn’t have to answer because she did it for me. “Both sides of the war will come here to fight over our home world. Even if we get lucky and the Rindhalu are too lazy to act, the Thuranin and Kristang are pissed off at us enough to turn Earth into radioactive slag. The best scenario is they ravage our planet and a small group of humans survive as slaves. You know that. You know that for damned certain, yet you are still questioning whether to turn this ship over to a bunch of frightened dirtsiders? They haven’t been out there,” she gestured to the star map on the main CIC display.

  “I wish I shared your clarity.”

  “Clear-thinking is easy, because the issue is simple. Let me break it down for you Barney style,” a ghost of a smile crossed her lips when she said that. “There are only four options, unless I’m missing something.” She ticked the numbers off on one hand. “One, we allow the UN to take the ship out and contact the Jeraptha. Two, we hold the ship here and hope the world’s governments come to their senses, which means we lose time we may need to stop the Maxolhx. Three, we do nothing and let the Maxolhx come here. And four,” she waved her index finger for emphasis. “Four, we take the ship out and give our species a fighting chance.”

  “Simms, I don’t have a plan. I have no idea if we can do this.”

  “Do you see a fifth option?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Skippy,” she automatically looked toward the speaker in the ceiling. “How about you?”

  “To me, Options One and Three are the same, either way you monkeys are toast. Option Two sounds like a gutless way to pass the buck. To answer your question, no, I do not see any other options.”

  “Option Four is the only possibility in which humanity has a chance to survive,” her face lost its stern glare, and suddenly Simms was just another frightened person, pleading for me to do something, anything.

  “I can’t argue with that. Ah, even if we fail, and the Maxolhx discover we tried to blow up two of their ships, it actually won’t be any worse for us.”

  “True,” Skippy interjected. “There really is no downside for you monkeys.”

  When he was trying to be serious, I wish Skippy would not refer to my people as ‘monkeys’. “Can you-”

  “Of course, I also thought there would be no downside to giving the Jeraptha a heads-up when the Thuranin planned a sneak attack, and that totally backfired on us big time. So maybe I’m not the best person to ask.”

  Simms and I shared a look and shook our heads. “Skippy,” I explained, “sometimes full disclosure is not necessary.”

  “Oh. Isn’t honesty always the best policy, or some bullshit like that?”

  “There’s a difference between deliberately lying, and just not mentioning unpleasant facts. I already know not to trust everything you tell me.”

  “That hurts, Joe. Not as much as blindly trusting me might hurt you, but it hurts anyway.”

  “Simms,” I turned my attention back to her before Skippy got me off on a tangent. “I agree it looks like trying to stop those Maxolhx ships is our only viable option. That’s the problem.”

  “That we only have one option?”

  “No. That it’s our only option, in my judgment. Christ, Simms, I am one person. Do I have the right to make that decision for all the people of Earth?”

  “If their idiotic short-sighted judgment is suicide for our species, then yes you have to make that call for them.”

  She did not have me entirely convinced. No one at my age should have to make life-or-death decisions for an entire world. No one person, no matter their age or experience, should have to make that call. “Maybe if our society is that short-sighted, we don’t deserve to survive,” I muttered half to myself.

  “Philosophy, Sir?”

  “It wasn’t phil-”

  “It sure sounded like philosophy.” Her hands were on her hips and I knew I was in big trouble. “The United States Army does not allow excuses. I’m not sure their view on battlefield philosophers, but I’m betting they are not encouraged.”

  “Goddam it, Simms, I’m a soldier.”

  “You’re a commander, sir. We need more decisiveness and less mamby-pamby whining,” Simms channeled her inner Margaret Adams.

  “There is an entire planet full of people down there who-”

  “Screw them.”

  “Uh, what?”

  “Screw ‘em,” she shrugged. “You don’t know those people, so don’t make decisions for them. Make a decision for your family. For my family.”

  “For our families. Ok. Got it. Simms, get the ship booted up for a short jump. I have a crew to bamboozle into a truly idiotic scheme. Wish me luck.”

  “You won’t have a problem with that, Sir,” she assured me with a grin, but I noticed there was a catch in her voice. Was she just anxious about our upcoming mission, or was she doubting me as much as I doubted myself?

  “I won’t?”

  “No, Sir,” she winked. “You persuaded me to follow you on Paradise, way back when you were a publicity-stunt colonel whose biggest accomplishment was planting potatoes.”

  “Great,” I muttered. “No pressure on me.”

  Before I tried to get people to commit mutiny with me, I needed to talk with the beer can. “Hey, Skippy, is the ship squared away now? We are screwed if there was any sabotage and we need equipment from Earth to fix it.”

  “Kinda busy right now, Joe, no time to talk. What you need to know is the ship is Okey-dokey, I think. I have bots checking everything from nose to tail, while Nagatha integrates into-”

  “Wait! Nagatha? She’s back?” Damn, that was the best news I had heard since we returned to Earth.

  “She is not fully operational yet, dumdum, that’s why I said she is still integrating into shipboard systems. Nagatha will be the ship’s AI and primary control system, unless you distract me with stupid questions and I screw up her startup sequence.”

  “Got it. Keep me updated on her progress.”

  There were three groups of people aboard the Flying Dutchman. A small group of people I could not trust, including the three CIC crew who had pointed a pistol at Reed or tr
ied to blow up Skippy’s mancave, plus the leader of the Delta team. Truthfully, I had been hoping the Delta leader would sign on as a Pirate, but he told me privately that he felt responsible for his team and he had to go back down to Earth, even if all his people went to the stars with us. That sentiment got my respect although I was disappointed with the result.

  The second group were people who flat-out told me or Simms or Skippy that they wanted to go back to Earth, and no amount of persuasion by me could change their minds.

  Everyone else, forty four people, were assembled in a cargo bay to listen to the line of bullshit I cooked up while walking from the CIC. Really, of the forty four possible recruits, three were pretty much a sure thing; the three people who had been on the adventure race team with Smythe. Privately, Smythe had told me he needed an absolute minimum of eight special operators, in addition to himself and Lauren Poole. We also needed pilots, because Jim Porter and Samantha Reed could not fly the ship and dropships by themselves. While I could probably fly the ship with help from Nagatha, my skills were simply not good enough for delicate away missions in stealthy dropships.

  My first encounter with the pool of potential new Pirates did not begin well. I explained the situation, assuming everyone had already been briefed on the true nature of the Flying Dutchman and Skippy and everything else UNEF Command was still trying to keep hidden from the general public. The information that two Maxolhx starships were coming to Earth was news to almost everyone, and I should have let that data point sink in before I appealed for people to join the Merry Band of Pirates. Public speaking is not my strength. Also, I am kind of an idiot. So, my speech got interrupted.

  “We should trust you, S-” The guy cocked his head, looking to his companions for help. He was a Marine Raider, one of the group aboard the Dragon dropship at the Yu Qishan, who we had lured aboard the Dutchman under false orders. “Sergeant? Colonel? I’m confused.”

  Him asking that question got me seriously pissed off. Not at him, at the United States Army. I was sick of the ‘theater rank’ bullshit. It had been years since my promotion to colonel, which had been unorthodox and not confirmed by proper authorities on Earth, but my promotion had been granted by the proper command authorities on Paradise, and they did have authority from Earth. I was no longer the scared and overwhelmed Specialist who had been whisked away from my home planet and given an unexpected promotion to sergeant because of a personnel shortage. When, or if, we ever returned to Earth, and assuming our mission was successful so our return was triumphant, I was not taking any crap from UNEF Command and Army leadership, or anyone. Basically, I was done with that shit. Making me change rank every time Earth appeared in the ship’s viewports was disrespectful to the fine people I commanded. “Colonel when I’m up here,” I stated while glaring at the guy. That was different; in the past I would have shrugged and had a sheepish expression on my face while saying that. “Aboard this ship,” I jabbed my right index finger at the deck, “I am in command.”

  “Yes, Sir,” he replied with a slightly questioning uplift on the end when he said ‘sir’. “UNEF tried to take the ship away from you,” he looked sideways at the Delta team, they must have talked. That was a mistake, I should have kept the Delta guys isolated. Or maybe not. I was asking people to volunteer for a mutinous mission that could end their careers even if we succeeded in stopping the Maxolhx. People needed to make an informed decision. “But we are supposed to trust you?”

  “Ha!” Skippy’s voice boomed out of the speakers, then his avatar appeared on top of a crate, glowing nearly four feet tall. He intended the larger size to be impressive, but it just made his even-more-ginormous hat extra ridiculous. “No way, dude! Joe is a knucklehead, I wouldn’t trust him to run a lemonade stand.”

  “Skippy-” I tried to interrupt but he was on a roll.

  “You wouldn’t believe some of the stupid shit he has done.”

  “Skippy!”

  “And that is just the stuff he did, forget about the truly moronic ideas he had that we stopped him from doing.”

  “SKIPPY! You are not helping.”

  “I’m not helping you, Joe. I am providing useful information to the people you are trying to sucker into this lunatic quest.”

  “We should trust you, then?” The Raider added more than a bit of skepticism into his voice.

  “Well, heh heh,” Skippy took off his hat and scratched his shiny dome. “If you ask the monkeys who have served aboard this ship, they would say that I am absent-minded and sneaky and a bit of an asshole. Stupid monkeys,” he added under his breath.

  That was more than I could take. “A bit of an asshole?”

  The guy’s eyes flicked between me and Admiral Asshole. “We should not trust any of you?”

  Skippy’s tone lost all of its typical arrogant snarkiness. “You should trust Lieutenant Colonel Smythe. His judgement, other than his awful taste in music, has been flawless since he came aboard the ship for our second mission. He is dedicated, supremely disciplined and the absolute model of a professional warrior. Any of you aspiring to serve as Tier Zero operators should listen to him.”

  “We are Tier One,” a Delta guy snapped. “There is no Tier Zero.”

  “Oh, bullshit,” Skippy barked back. “On Earth, Delta Force or Detachment Delta or Task Force Green or whatever you want to call yourselves, is one of the first choices for US special operations, along with Navy SEAL teams. Aboard the Flying Dutchman, Colonel Smythe’s team is the only choice; they are Tier Zero. I’ve read all your classified service records and, meh,” his avatar made an exaggerated shrug. “Some of you took out ignorant amateur terrorists whose training consisted of learning which end of an AK-47 is dangerous. Count me as not impressed, especially since a dozen more terrorists popped up to replace the ones you killed. Aboard this ship, there is no backup, no support, no second chances, and failure means loss of the ship, the crew and your entire primitive species. Let that sink into your thick monkey skull.”

  Waving my hands got control of the murmuring crowd. “What Skippy said was harsh,” I did not want to start by wounding the considerable pride of the people I was hoping to recruit. “It was also true. I want anyone who volunteers to be fully informed, so, any questions?”

  One of the newbies raised a hand. “How long will we be gone, Sir?”

  “I do not know,” I answered honestly.

  “How much food do we have aboard?” Asked a guy who immediately got bonus points from me for asking a practical question. An army travels on its stomach, and so do Pirates, whether they are Merry or newbies.

  Simms answered that for me. “Even if everyone here remains aboard the ship, we have food for seventeen months.”

  The questions came thick and fast, I answered as best I could. “To be clear, Sir, what is the mission?”

  Again, I wanted to be completely honest. “We fly out through the wormhole, recon where those Maxolhx ships are, and stop them from reaching our home world.”

  “Can we do that? Realistically?”

  I looked toward Simms, who encouraged me with a thumbs up, so I continued. “We have a battered stolen pirate space truck that may be on its last mission whether we succeed or not, an unreliable asshole beer can, and not enough monkeys to fill a barrel. Against us will be two of the most powerful warships in the galaxy, and whatever we do, we can’t allow anyone out there to know this ship exists.”

  To my surprise, that comment did not inspire overwhelming confidence in the newbies. No, I was not being a jackass by making smart-ass comments. I did not know this new crew, more importantly they did not know me. Anyone who signed up for this latest desperate mission needed to know with crystal clarity exactly how badly the odds were stacked against us. I was asking these people to throw away their careers and maybe their lives, I had to give them the unvarnished truth. To their credit, there was some shuffling of feet and people looked around to see if anyone else was bailing out, but no one did. That was encouraging. Another hand was raised, a
different Delta guy. “What is the plan, Colonel?”

  “Currently, we do not have a plan fully developed,” I admitted. “The truth is, right now we do not have a plan at all. Don’t worry, that’s kind of the way we always operate.”

  Shockingly, people looked even less confident after I said that.

  “That’s good enough for me,” Smythe declared in a deadpan manner, and damn it, that was not just his British reserve. The guy was bored with all the blah blah blah, he wanted to get on with it. I saw him actually stifle a yawn at the prospect of a desperate mission with no hope of success or even survival. “Lef-tentant Colonel Smythe,” he pronounced it in the counterintuitive British manner. “22 Special Air Services Regiment. I have been on two missions with Colonel Bishop. Both of them lasted longer than expected, and both of them accomplished more than I ever dared hope.”

  The international crowd of special operations people did not appear to be convinced, it may partly have been their rivalry with the SAS. That reaction caused Smythe to become, the best way to say it is ‘miffed’ at some of the newcomers. He looked at the guys who had tried to take the ship. “You are Delta Force operators, eh?” Smythe looked down his nose. “I suppose all of you consider yourselves to be what you Americans call ‘bad-asses’. You may have served in combat, you may even have served with distinction. I can tell you without reservation that whatever you have accomplished in your careers, it is not bollocks compared to the Merry Band of Pirates. Let’s have a show of hands, please, how many of you have saved the world twice? No one? Once then, how many have saved Earth even once? Hmm, no one,” he was laying it on a bit thick. “All right, we shall grade this on a curve, then. How many of you have saved the UN ExForce on Paradise three times? No one? I am rather disappointed. Colonel, this collection of amateurs simply will not do.”