Renegades (Expeditionary Force Book 7)

by Craig Alanson

  Simms put elbows on her knees and rubbed her temples, struggling to visualize the situation. “The Dragon did jump away from the cavern. It is not here. Does that mean it must be somewhere along a line between our position and Detroit? It came out of the wormhole early?”

  “Um, er,” Skippy stumbled. “That is possible, I suppose.”

  “Our options, then,” she stared at the ceiling. How many times had she advised Bishop to look and act decisive even when he was wracked by doubts or just plain lost? The crew needed to know their commander had a plan, any type of plan. Right then, her brain was locked up. Think, Jennifer, think, she told herself angrily. “Our options are to wait here until the gamma rays reach us from wherever they emerged from the jump. Wait here and hope those gamma rays don’t get detected by a Maxolhx ship or sensor array before they reach our position. Or,” she sat up straighter in the chair, “we jump in, to about, maybe halfway to Detroit? That will cut in half the distance the gamma ray photons have to travel before we detect them.”

  “Whoa!” Skippy protested. “We can’t-”

  “Skippy dear,” Nagatha interjected. “Before you insult the crew with your insufferable arrogance, allow me to explain, please.”

  “Ummmm,” Skippy dragged the word out, trying to decide whether the ship’s AI had insulted him. He played it safe. “Sure, go ahead.”

  “Colonel Simms,” Nagatha used her kindly schoolmarm tone. “The problem with jumping the ship into the star system to search for the Dragon is not only that our own inbound jump will alert the Maxolhx to our presence and endanger the vehicle, crew and mission. The gamma ray burst of the Dragon’s jump was a very short-lived event. Think of the gamma rays as an expanding soap bubble. If we jump just outside the bubble, then as the bubble washes over the ship, we will detect where the Dragon emerged. But if we happen to jump inside the bubble, the gamma rays will have already passed on and we would never know. Not never know, exactly,” she added before Professor Nerdnik could correct her. “The gamma radiation would affect the surrounding solar wind and leave traces in those hydrogen atoms. We could detect that effect, however that would not tell us whether the effect was from the jump of the Dragon or a Maxolhx ship, and the data would not be accurate enough to pinpoint the Dragon’s location.”

  “Plus, plus,” Skippy could not sit on the sidelines any longer. “If the Dragon did emerge somewhere between here and Detroit, that could only be the result of the inner jump wormhole collapsing, which would have torn the Dragon into subatomic particles. So, the good news is there really is no point to risking the Dutchman on a search.”

  “Skippy, dearest,” it was Nagatha’s turn to sigh. “That is not actually good news, because it would mean the Dragon and the four people aboard are dead.”

  “Oh, um, yeah,” he grumbled. “I was trying to make lemonade out of lemons. Crap. It would also mean the pixies they stole are lost. This whole mission has been a waste.”

  Forty minutes later, Simms knew she needed to make a decision. There was no immediate need to move the Flying Dutchman, as the faint gamma rays of the initial tiny wormhole would not reach the outer ring of Maxolhx detectors for several hours. There also was no point to remaining where they were, as a thorough and careful scan had revealed no sign of the Dragon, nor even a single price of wreckage.

  “Jennifer,” Skippy’s tone was genuinely mournful, “I truly am sorry. This is very difficult for you, I know. We must accept that Joe and Jeremy and Samantha and Justin are gone.”

  The beer can had caught Simms in her cabin, splashing water on her face and blotting her eyes to wipe away tears. “I have accepted that fact,” she rubbed her face with a towel a bit too vigorously, making her skin red and burning off some excess energy that would have made her shout back at the tactless alien AI. “I know they are dead. What I do not know is what to do next.”

  “The obvious thing is to jump away,” Skippy thought he was being helpful. “The ship cannot remain in this area, it is too dangerous.”

  “Jump to where?” She threw the towel on the floor, in a rare breach of discipline. “To do what?”

  Perhaps even the clueless King of Empathy caught on to her pain, for he paused to consider his next words. “Jennifer, I cannot give you advice about what to do next, other than remaining here carries significant risk of the ship being detected and removing any possibility for future action.”

  “Where could we go?”

  “Back to Earth, I guess? That would not be my first choice, but since the mission is effectively over, we have to-”

  “The mission is not over,” she declared and smacked the door-open button with a fist.

  “Um, I know Joe is fond of saying ‘Never give up, never surrender’, but that line is from a movie. Realistically, it is over.”

  “No it is not, beer can,” she shot back. “You are only saying that because you can’t think of a way forward.”

  “Um, at the risk of sounding like a jerk-”

  “When did that ever stop you?”

  He tactfully ignored the baited remark. “Joe also could not think of another way to get a set of blank pixies, and he is the king of monkey-brain ideas. I certainly can’t think of another way to get a set of pixies, and we absolutely need them.”

  “Maybe we need them and maybe we don’t,” her own words sounded hollow. “Maybe what we do is wait for the Maxolhx on Detroit to go away from the factory, and we try again. This time, you know what went wrong with the jump computer, so we can avoid-”

  “Whoa. No, that is not going to happen. Jennifer, we simply do not have the resources to repeat that stunt. Also, even if we could jump another dropship into another cavern, I can’t infiltrate that factory AI a second time. The alterations I made to its matrix would make it impossible for it to survive my presence again. After I withdrew, that AI would fatally collapse and the Maxolhx would certainly investigate.”

  “Fine,” she spat. “That option is off the list. Everything else is on the list. We are not giving up. Is that understood?”

  “Crystal clear, and I will give whatever you decide my best effort. Please, all I ask is you consider very carefully what to do next. Remember, we got to this point because Joe saw no alternative to what I warned him was a very risky, an extremely risky plan.”

  On her way back to the bridge, she came around a corner and there was Frank Muller. “I heard,” he said softly, and wrapped his arms around her.

  She rested her forehead against his chest and he stroked her hair. “Do you have any advice for me?” She asked.

  “Jen, you are the commander. I’m here to listen. Whatever you need, I’ll do what I can, even if that is helping fix broken parts after the ship goes into battle.”

  “Thank you.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek, then squared her shoulders. “I’m the commander now. I need to-”

  He looked into her eyes quizzically. “What is it?”

  “Broken parts. I need to go. Poole!” She called out as she strode down the corridor, knowing Nagatha would connect her to the STAR team Ranger. “Meet me in, in the captain’s office.”

  Walking into Bishop’s office was unnerving. No, what bothered her was the office used to belong to Bishop. It was hers now. How many times had she walked in to see the young man playing a game on his laptop, or attempting to tackle a crossword puzzle Skippy created, or leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling? She had never sat in Bishop’s chair, never sat on the other side of the small desk. Part of the reason she had never been on that side of the desk was the office was so small there was only room for one chair there. Pushing the chair aside, she smiled, then burst into tears when she saw the crumbs on the floor. Skippy hated it when Bishop brought food into the office, these crumbs were ground into the floor by the wheels of the chair. The cleaning bots would magically make the office spotlessly clean overnight, so the crumbs must be from a snack Bishop ate before jumping to Detroit.

  She wiped her eyes with the back of a sleeve and sa
t down. It was her office now, her chair. Her responsibility.

  Poole knocked on the door frame. “Ma’am? You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes. The STAR team is yours now,” she declared bluntly. There was no point tiptoeing around the issue, and Poole was a professional. “Explain the situation to your team, and get ready for training maneuvers. The ship will be jumping away into empty space, I want to conduct training. We all need to be sharp.”

  Poole lifted an eyebrow. “We’re not going back to Earth?”

  “We’re not giving up, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “That was what I was asking, and I’m glad we’re not giving up. What’s next, Ma’am?”

  Simms shook her head. She had served with Poole long enough to allow some familiarity. “Right now, I do not know. As Bishop would say, I’m working on it.”

  “Good. Colonel, if I may make a suggestion? We need a stand-down after we jump away. People are going to be in shock. I’m in shock,” she glanced at the clock on the bulkhead. Less than an hour had passed since the Dragon disappeared. “Training out here can be dangerous, we don’t need people to be distracted.”

  Simms nodded silently.

  “One other thing, Ma’am? I was just promoted to captain, that is not the highest rank on the STAR team.”

  Damn it, Simms cursed at herself. The last thing she needed was a turf battle. Poole was the only experienced special operations Pirate aboard the ship. “You just got a field promotion to major, Poole. I’ll file the paperwork,” she waved a hand, “later. I’ll order a twenty four hour stand-down after we jump, good call on that. Anything else?”

  “Just, well, good luck Colonel,” Poole snapped a salute.

  Simms returned the gesture, and watched the Ranger walk back down the corridor. Good luck. She was going to need luck, plenty of it. “Skippy!”

  “Here, Jennifer,” his avatar shimmered to life.

  “Call me ‘Colonel Simms’ or ‘Colonel’, please.”

  “Um, I always called Joe by his first name.”

  “You and I do not have that kind of relationship,” she noted.

  “Oh,” he sounded crushed. “Sorry.”

  Simms had not intended to hurt the AI’s feelings. “We don’t have that kind of relationship yet. The next couple days are going to be difficult for me.” Inwardly, she told herself the next couple months were going to be difficult, if she survived that long. “I need to focus on the job, you understand?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do understand. I heard Poole’s suggestion of a stand-down and I agree, I could use some downtime myself. Unexpectedly, my matrix has been severely affected by loss of the Dragon crew. It has- Give me a moment, please.” His avatar froze, going fuzzy around the edges. “I find that I am questioning whether there is any point to my continued existence. Nagatha tells me that is natural, but as she is also an AI, what does she know about life?”

  “It is natural, Skippy. The Dragon crew would want us to continue fighting, so that is what I plan to do.”

  “It will be difficult,” he took a deep breath. “However, I am seriously pissed at the universe right now. It would be best for me to use that energy in screwing the cruel universe by somehow defeating the Maxolhx. So, that’s what I will do, even though it will be very difficult for me. Now, the ship needs to jump away. Do you have a plan?”

  “Not yet, but I do have a question. We can’t go back to Detroit, and we still need pixies. Is it possible that, if we can destroy a Maxolhx ship, we can salvage the ship’s pixie from the wreckage?”

  “Ooh. Um, that would be tricky. However we destroy the target ship, we would need to avoid blowing up the reactors or jump drive capacitors, which makes the task enormously more tricky. Pixies are kept in a heavily-armored vault in the center of the ship with the computer core, this vault has its own defenses. It is possible, I suppose. Very, extremely difficult.”

  “Difficult but possible is better than impossible.”

  “Yes, except that we do not have a plan for how to destroy a Maxolhx ship.”

  “Was Bishop working on a plan?”

  “If he had a plan, any plan at all, he did not mention it to me.”

  “Do you have any suggestions?”

  “Joe asked me the same question, several times. The answer is no, I do not see any way for our Frankenstein space truck to survive combat against a Maxolhx ship.”

  “In that case,” Simms rose from the chair, “you need to put your thinking cap on.”

  “Ugh. It is not that easy. Where are you going? Joe sometimes went to the gym when he was trying to think up an idea.”

  “Maybe I will hit the gym later. I’m going to the bridge. As you said, we need to jump away from here.”

  “Do you have a destination in mind?”

  She shrugged, a gesture she would not indulge in front of the crew. “Toward that closest wormhole cluster, we have several options from there.”

  “That is a good choice. Course is programmed and transferred to the navigation system. Um, to be clear, I did not program the jump, Nagatha did it, and it was one of the options originally plotted by the pilots. The ship is ready to jump on your signal.”

  The ship might mechanically be ready to jump, she thought, but the crew was not yet ready to commit the final step of leaving the Detroit system behind if her own feelings were a guide to the crews’ mental state. Loss of the Dragon was the first major mission failure in the admittedly brief history of the Merry Band of Pirates. The Pirates had lost dropships before, had lost people before. They had never failed to achieve a mission objective. “Skippy, the most likely explanation for what happened to the Dragon is the wormhole collapsed somewhere between us and Detroit?”

  “Correct. As I explained to Joe, there were too many unknown variables for me to safely control the jump from this end. I am sorry.”

  “I am sorry too. If we jump away now, we will never know what happened. Before we jump, I need to address the crew. We will be leaving our fallen comrades behind, it feels like I should say something to-”

  “Wait!” Skippy interrupted, to Simms’ great annoyance. “Holeeeeee- WHOO-HOO!” His avatar jumped on the desk then, astonishing Jennifer Simms, began dancing. Not just dancing, Skippy’s Grand Admiral was doing backflips.

  “What? What is it?” Simms demanded.

  The avatar stopped its gyrations and pointed both index fingers in the air, flashing Number One signs at no one in particular. “The question about the Dragon was not where it went, but when! Damn it I am a DUMDUM! The Dragon just emerged exactly where it was supposed to be.”

  “What?” Simms crashed down in the chair, her legs buckling. She slapped the desk. “Can you connect me with Colonel Bishop?”

  “Hello?” Bishop’s voice rang out of the ceiling speakers. “Uh, hey, could someone please tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “Everyone thought we were dead?” I asked as I helped Reed get the Dragon shut down in the docking bay, after we stripped off most of the special gear that had cluttered the hull. That dropship was modified so much for its role as a mini-starship that it likely would never be useful as a dropship again, but we could use it for spare parts. Besides, we might need to perform another ill-advised whacky stunt in the future.

  “Yes,” Skippy gushed excitedly. “It looked like your jump wormhole collapsed, but it didn’t. It got shifted forward in time, just like when we jumped the Dutchman through that Elder wormhole.”

  “Yeah, but, that was a mistake. You fixed your math this time, I thought.”

  “I did fix my math, Joe,” he was getting annoyed with me, which was Standard Operating Procedure so it didn’t bother me. “As I warned you, it was very difficult to control the jump from the far end. I did the best I could.”

  “Ok, Ok, sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you. Your awesomeness saved us again. Skippy.”

  “You really had no idea anything was wrong?”

  “Nope,” I confirmed. “To the four of us, the ju
mp was rough. Like, really rough, but otherwise normal. We came through near the Dutchman, or where the Dutchman was supposed to be, but we saw right away the ship had drifted out of position. Then the duty officer told us we were late by an hour. We had no idea.”

  “All’s well that ends well, I guess,” Skippy sounded disappointed that the four of us had not been magically suspended inside the jump wormhole, waiting for the Dragon to reach the light at the end of the tunnel on the far end. “That was a rough jump, two of the pixies got scrambled during the transition.”

  “Ah, shit!” I pounded a fist on the Dragon’s hull as I stepped out into the docking bay.

  “The rest of them are good, Joe.”

  “Ok, I shouldn’t expect perfection. The mission was successful overall, right?”

  “Yup. Well, heh heh-”

  Oh shit. My hair stood on end and I stopped walking. “What is it this time?”

  “Um, I recently learned that we may have a problem. A problem that I don’t know we can do anything about, but a big, major, problem.”

  “What is it this time?”

  “You say that like it must be my fault. Well, Mr. Jerkface, this time it is not my fault. The factory AI suffered a glitch. A glitch I could not have predicted! Except, hmm, shmaybe I should have run a detailed analysis of the damned thing while you were there. Crap! I should have known better than to trust the Maxolhx to build a quality AI. There must have been a- Oops, now that I think about it, maybe the glitch was partly caused by me screwing around with that AI’s matrix. Well, nothing I can do about that now.”

  “A glitch? What kind of- forget it, I don’t care to hear the geeky details. How does this affect us?”

  “It affects us, because the AI is unable to run the subroutine I left in it that will erase any memory of us being there.”

  “Shit, that is bad news.”