Renegades (Expeditionary Force Book 7)

by Craig Alanson

  Pope looked at me. “Talk amongst ourselves? About what?”

  Silently, I held up three fingers, then lowered them one at a time, counting down. When my index finger was halfway down, Skippy came back to us.

  “Got it! Whew, that was an interesting intellectual exercise. Wow, after engaging in pure high-level thinking like that, I feel clean again. Dealing with you ignorant monkeys always makes me feel, like, creepy and dirty. No offense.”

  Pope shook his head slowly while I responded. “Why would we be offended by that?”

  “Oh, goodie,” he said cluelessly.

  “What did the Maxolhx do?” I asked as I watched the power meter moving upward with agonizing slowness. “Did they iron bomb the star, something like that?”

  “Iron bomb? Joe, I would be impressed by your esoteric knowledge of stellar physics, except I know you got that from Wikipedia. No, dumdum, they did not ‘iron bomb’ the star, doing that requires too much energy to be practical. There are easier and less energy-intensive ways to disrupt or even kill a star. While we wait for the power level to reach minimum setting for flight- Here’s a hint, Joe, staring at the power meter will not make it move any faster- I will give you a Barney-level explanation of the experiment the Maxolhx were conducting here. You know that a star keeps its structure by the outward force of its internal fusion reaction pushing in balance against the inward force of gravity pulling downward, right? If the fusion fails, gravity will cause a star to collapse, which compresses the core and can restart the fusion reaction, blah blah blah- Why am I explaining this to you? Oh, whatever. Anyway, what the Maxolhx were doing had nothing to do with manipulating gravity or fusion reactions. Instead, they were monkeying with- you get the pun there, hee hee, that was funny. They were monkeying with the star’s magnetic fields, the evidence shows they were mildly successful in creating minor solar flares. Nothing big enough to threaten a planet, or even nothing bigger than the flares the star normally creates by itself. However, these flares were created in a controlled fashion by the Maxolhx, and that is an impressive accomplishment. If the Maxolhx are able to scale up their capability, they can use the star’s own magnetic fields to create a gap where the outward force is temporarily not pushing upward. Gravity in that area will pull a section of the star inward, collapsing it toward the core. That effect, if it can be maintained long enough, like for a few minutes-”

  “Minutes?” I was stunned. “That’s all it takes to kill a freakin’ star?”

  “Yes, Joe. Basically, once the effect is started, the star kills itself by the unbalanced forces tearing the star apart. I suspect the Maxolhx were not trying to actually kill a star, more likely they wish to use solar flares as a weapon of mass destruction. What they could do is turn off the effect before it fatally damages the star, the result would be a controlled, focused and massive solar flare. A solar flare that could be aimed at a planet.”

  “Holy shit. Hey!” Something in my memory was standing on a chair waving its hand and shouting to get my attention. “You did something like that during our second mission, when we got ambushed by that Thuranin destroyer squadron. You created a hole in a star, then released it. That created a solar flare that wasted those enemy ships.”

  “Er, yeah, sort of. Joe, what I did back then was create a very minor, localized effect,” Skippy explained. “It looked impressive on the display, and it sure cooked those destroyers. However, that little flare dissipated quickly and would not have posed any threat to a planet, not even a planet orbiting close to the star. You do get bonus points for connecting the dots, for you are correct, the effect I used back then is basically related to the experiment the Maxolhx conducted here. Also, um, I must confess that I kind of hurt myself back then. Even for me, digging a hole in a star is a major strain. The stress came close to making me lose connection to higher spacetime. Before I try a whacky stunt like that again, I will need to exhaust all other possibilities, and be very, very careful if there is no other option. And, hey, the power level is now just past the minimum. See? When you stop watching, it moved faster.”

  “Great!” I clapped my hands. “Pope, let’s get this thing off the ground.”

  The simulator Skippy created for us was damned good, our shiny new used dropship’s performance closely matched the simulations. The difference could be attributed to that particular ship’s age and condition, not to any failure on Skippy’s part. We carefully flew the bird past our busted Falcon, I avoided looking at its scarred right side. Through the inner and then outer doors, with the amazing Maxolhx technology keeping us precisely two meters off the floor of the cavern and then the tunnel. Once the tail was clear of the outer door, Pope set us down and held the ship in place while I ran out to get Skippy.

  “Wait, Joe!” He warned. “How do you plan to do this? You can’t get close to me, the mass effect I am creating is very localized. You need to stay twenty feet or more away, or you will get pulled toward me. As soon as I release the effect, this stupid door will slam closed, so we will only get one shot at this.”

  “I gotcha covered, Skippy.” From my belt, I pulled the rope. “There is a fancy Thuranin basket grappler doodad on the end of this rope.”

  “Doodad?”

  “Call it a thingamajig if you like. It’s sticky nanofibers. I’m going to toss this thing above you, it will fall down and get itself tangled around you, it is designed to wrap around awkwardly-shaped objects, so it does not need to stick to your shiny can.”

  “I would appreciate that. Ok, give it a try.”

  It took me three tries before the doodad fell down over him. The first two times, the weird local gravity field he made caused my aim to be off. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. The third time, it got securely wrapped around itself, with Skippy inside the tangled mess and the rope on my end. “Ready?” I hauled back on the rope and it stretched tight. “Wait!”

  “Wait for what?”

  “I want another moment to enjoy seeing you as a doorstop. You are awfully cute.”

  He released the mass effect without warning me and I fell backward on my ass, my weight pulling him clear of the door even in the moon’s lower gravity. When I rocked back upward, the recoiling rope pulled his can to smack into my chest, sending me tumbling over again and him to go spinning off careening around the tunnel. At least I was smart enough to have the rope clipped to my flightsuit belt so I didn’t lose him, and by the time I got myself sorted out and reeled him in, the outer door had slammed closed with a force that shook the tunnel and caused moondust to rain down from the ceiling.

  Inside our shiny new used Maxolhx dropship, with me in the copilot seat and Skippy still wrapped up in the sticky fiber strands on the deck between couches, I rechecked the power systems while Pope gently lifted us off the tunnel floor to hover in the center of the shaft. “Is everything Ok, Skippy?”

  “It is now. When I first programmed the autopilot to fly us up the tunnel it responded with ‘you want me to do what’? It has settled down now, I overwrote some pesky lines of code to make the flight computer more compliant. We are good to go but, please Joe, do not touch the controls. You wrecked the last ship you were flying.”

  We shot out of the tunnel entrance, soaring above the still-radioactive crater. “Dutchman, this is Bishop, I need a sitrep.” Simms would have notified me of any serious problem, otherwise she knew not to contact me while we were in the tunnel.

  “No sign of enemy activity anywhere in the system, the Falcon with Smythe’s team is seven minutes from docking with us,” she reported crisply, giving me all the facts I needed.

  “Outstanding. Simms, I am terribly sorry. I wanted to get you a nice snowglobe from the gift shop down in that cavern, but all they had was this stupid dropship.”

  “I will control my disappointment, Sir. Um,” she must have been checking sensor data. “The Falcon you flew down there will not be joining us? What happened?”

  Skippy answered for me. “Do not ever let Joe fly anything. He should n
ot be driving either.”

  “We, uh, I, crashed the Falcon. That was after we sliced parts off it to fit through a doorway the beer can should have told us about. Technically, it wasn’t a crash because the Falcon was sliding on its skids at the time. It’s a long story. I am sure Skippy is eager to tell you all about his new career as a doorstop.”

  The beer can objected to that. “Hey! You jerk, I should-”

  “He is auditioning to be a paperweight next.”

  “Colonel,” Simms spoke before Skippy could respond. “That Falcon is full of human DNA.”

  “Yeah, that’s not going to be a problem.”

  “Sir? It’s not a problem? How is that?”

  “Because, Simms, remember, we are going to drop a nuke down that tunnel. And another nuke on that moonbase. It’s not like using two more nukes will get us into more trouble.”

  There was a pause before she replied. No doubt she was wondering how she had gone from a career as a logistics officer, to somehow nuking alien moons. “I will get the crew working on loading two nukes into missiles, Sir.”

  “There is no one alive in that cavern, and we can’t leave any witnesses at the moonbase,” I assured her.

  “It’s not loss of life that concerns me. We are using nuclear weapons in a way that seems almost, casual. I do not think that is a good thing. We shouldn’t get used to it.”

  “I hear you, Simms,” her discomfort with flinging nukes around mirrored my own thoughts on the subject. The difference was, I was the commander, so I had to keep my doubts to myself. “Think of a nuke as our way to leave a zero-star review of the crappy gift shop in that cavern.”

  That made her laugh. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Besides, Skippy wants revenge on that stupid door.”

  “That’s a fact, Jack!” The beer can agreed with enthusiasm. “I’ll show that door who is the boss, huh? Who Da Man? Skippy, that’s who!”

  We dropped a nuke down the tunnel, and another in the center of the moonbase, before we jumped away. “Colonel?” Simms prodded me in a whisper while she stood beside the command chair. “We accomplished the impossible, again, and none of our people were injured. Now we have a Maxolhx dropship just like we wanted. Yet you do not look happy.”

  “It’s Ok. I am pleased that the mission succeeded despite all the curveballs the universe threw at us again as usual. It’s just that,” I sighed. “We have a dropship. That only means we can tackle the next impossible task, and we don’t have a workable plan yet.”

  “It will take us,” she glanced at the main display, “fifteen days to reach the pixie factory. That is plenty of time to dream up a plan,” she added with a wink.

  “Yeah. No pressure, then.”

  “If Adams were here right now, would she say something about sucking it up and getting your ass in gear? Our Marine Corps sergeant is tactful like that.”

  “Gunnery sergeant,” I looked up at my executive officer. “Not ‘sergeant’, she gave me an earful about that. Yes, she would make an inspirational speech to get my ass in gear. All right, Simms, you have the conn,” I rose from the chair. “Time for me to start working. I’ll be in the gym if you need me.”

  “The gym?”

  “I think better when I’m moving. Or doing anything other than trying to think.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “What’s wrong, Joe?” Skippy asked, his avatar affecting a concerned look. “You should be happy! The last mission was successful despite nearly everything going wrong, and we have a Maxolhx dropship, plus plenty of spare parts. I never thought we would get this far.”

  “This far isn’t good enough, that’s the problem,” I answered with one elbow on the table, my chin resting on my fist. I was moping and I knew it and I didn’t care. “We don’t even know if those ships have started traveling to Earth yet, and we don’t have a way to get the pixies we need to track those ships. What’s the point of trying if I know we have zero chance to succeed in the end?”

  “You’re giving up already? Let me rephrase that; you are giving up?”

  “Uh, NO. We may fail, but no way am I going to Dee Oh Arr.”

  “Um, what?”

  “D.O.R. Come on, Skippy, you know military slang. Drop On Request. The people on Smythe’s team qualified for special operations because they were pushed to their limits and were offered multiple opportunities to drop out, and they didn’t. Those people do not know the meaning of ‘quit’.”

  “You did not qualify for special ops, Joe.”

  “I know that, and thank you so much for reminding me. I never considered applying for the Rangers, because I know I am not mentally tough enough for that training.”

  “Joe, astonishing as it may seem, and I am astonishing myself for saying this, but you are mentally tough. Or, hmm,” he mused. “Maybe it’s just that you are very stubborn. Or, maybe you’re just too stupid to know when to quit. You never give up, even when you totally should.”

  That remark made me lift my chin up and sit back in my chair. “What do you mean? There were times when I should have given up? Like when?”

  “Like, right from the start, duh. Joe, you are trying to assure that Earth is safe forever. That is an unrealistic, a hopeless goal. No way can that happen. I told you, even if by some freakin’ miracle you succeed in chasing the two Maxolhx ships away, and through another never-going-to-happen miracle you somehow fix it so the Maxolhx lose interest in going to Earth in the future, your species is skuh-rewed, dude. Less than sixty years from now, the entire galaxy will know the wormhole to Earth did not really go dormant and they will be racing each other to get to your home planet. The purpose of their visit will not be to try the latest mystery-meat version of a chalupa at Taco Bell.”

  “Chalupas are delicious, Skippy, but I get your point. You want me to give up? If I had given up before, we wouldn’t have a cool Maxolhx dropship in a docking bay.”

  “Uh huh, and what good does that do for you? You monkeys risked everything on an operation that could have gone sideways at any point, and all you have is a senior-species dropship you don’t have a use for.”

  “We do have a use for it, all we need to do it- Huh. Crap. I was talking about giving up, now you’ve got me determined not to do that. Did you use reverse psychology on me?”

  “Not that you know of, Joe,” he chuckled. “I am not sure I did you a favor, because you are setting yourself up for crushing disappoint at the very least.”

  “Uh, what? At the very least? What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean, you could seriously screw up and make the situation much, much worse for humanity.”

  “Crap. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “Just being realistic, based on your track record.”

  “How about I worry about being realistic, and you be nice and tell me happy feel-good bullshit that lifts my spirits?”

  “Oh, sure, Joe. Everything will be all right,” he said in a slow, mechanical way, going through the motions. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Keep your chin up, although if you’re in a fight I think you want to keep your chin down? Um, what else?”

  I should have known better than to ask him to cheer me up. “That, that’s enough for now, I feel so much better.”

  “Oh, goodie. So, inspired by encouraging words, you have a plan for breaking into those ultra-secure vaults to steal a set of pixies?”

  “No, because we both agree that is impossible.”

  “Ugh. Was me telling you those happy feel-good cliches just a waste of my time?”

  “Right, because that is what we need to focus on.” Slapping my laptop closed, I stood up. “It’s my turn in the galley tonight. Maybe making dinner for the crew will inspire me.”

  It didn’t.

  Not only did serving dinner not inspire me, Skippy woke me up just as I was drifting off to sleep that night. “Hey, Joe, are you asleep?”

  “I’m not asleep now,” I mumbled while throwing the pillow over my head.
“Unless the reactor is about to explode, can it wait until morning?”

  There was a pause, and I began to hope for blissful sleep, then he spoke in a low, sad voice. “I miss Margaret.”

  Oh shit. Skippy being despondent because Adams not part of the current crew was not an immediate crisis like an exploding reactor, but I had to talk with him because he was hurting and, damn it, he is my friend. Keeping the frustrated sigh I felt inside me so he wouldn’t know I was annoyed at his lousy timing, I stuffed the pillow behind my head and sat partly up. Seeing I was awake, his avatar shimmered to life above a cabinet. “I miss her too, Skippy.”

  “Yeah, sure,” his tone was bitter. “You miss a valuable member of the crew, and you miss her giving you ideas even if she wasn’t trying to. I miss Margaret as a friend.”

  “Uh, I miss her as a, a friend too.”

  He sighed. “You really blew it, Joe.”

  “Uh, what do you mean?”

  “On this mission, you really are a pirate. Your silly military regulations don’t apply. If Margaret were here, the two of you would be free to-”

  “Whoa!” Now I was fully awake. Crap. It was going to take me a while to fall back asleep. “Military regs are not silly, Skippy, they are there to ensure good order and discipline in a fighting force. Fighting, you understand that? We carry weapons because our job is to kill people and take territory away from them,” I repeated a line I heard in Basic Training. “I have to order people into situations that are dangerous, situations where I know some people will get killed. Commanders are not allowed to fraternize with their troops because that could lead to favoritism,” I explained, and as I said it, I was struck by how inadequate the word ‘fraternize’ could be. Feeling sympathy with enemy prisoners of war was perhaps a good use of the word ‘fraternize’. Being in love with someone under your command required a term stronger and more focused. Whatever.