SpecOps (Expeditionary Force Book 2) (24 page)

"You have scans of the subsurface?" I asked.
"Show me."

The display zoomed in on the area Skippy suggested we
take shelter, first a regular video image, then it flipped to show what lay
beneath the surface. "The satellites we have aren't designed for this sort
of scanning," he explained, "I'm having to make do. See the
caverns?"

There were pockets, some of them extensive, under the
surface. Unfortunately, as I played with the display, most of the caverns big
enough to be useful for shelter were deep underground, and either not connected
to the surface at all, or connected only by a narrow passage. That was no good
for our purposes, we couldn't take the time to excavate a cavern, and we had to
be careful not to leave a debris pile on the surface. "Mmm, hey, how about
this?" There was an area of canyons and caverns a hundred kilometers north
of the place Skippy recommended. "These caverns are big enough." Some
of the caverns were shallow, large openings but they didn't go deep enough into
the side of the canyons to provide real shelter.

"That is a possibility, I didn't think you would
want to be in an area of canyons. Some of those canyons are subject to flash
flooding in summer, as the glaciers melt."

"I hear you, Skippy, that's a good point. What I
need is to talk with a geologist."

We had one geologist on the science team, technically she
had only minored in geology, her focus was astrophysics. Dr. Kassner came to my
office, since the whole science lab was in an area of the ship that currently
had no heat, power, artificial gravity or breathable air.

"What about this area," I asked, pointing to
the canyon lands in my iPad. "Some of these caverns appear to be large
enough to house us, and deep enough into the hillside to keep us out of
sight."

"We won't be in tents, then?" Kassner asked
with a frown, brushing a stray lock of blonde hair away from her face.

I shook my head. "No. Tents are too visible. If
the Kristang fly an aircraft over the area, we can't risk them seeing anything.
We will have warning of their aircraft approaching, it may not be enough time
for us to strike the tents and get everything hidden, I don't want to take that
risk. Besides, the weather on this planet can be harsh, I'd rather everyone is
in a relatively dry cave, than in damp tents on the surface."

"Dry may be a relative term," Kassner mused,
"these canyons channel melt water in the summers, you can see erosion
layers, recent, last season. We also don't know how shallow the water table is
in this area, caverns could flood from the bottom. Colonel," she said
while nervously tugging on her ponytail, “you understand that the last time I
seriously studied geology was twenty years ago.”

"I know that I'm asking you to guess-"

"We don't have enough data, historical data,"
she protested.

"How about this, then," I said, "are
these caverns structurally sound? Flooding is a potential problem we can deal
with, a roof collapsing on us isn't."

Kassner frowned as she manipulated the images, going
deeper underground. "Do you need an answer right now?"

"No." Realistically, I didn't need an answer
until the
Flower
docked with the ship loaded with supplies and people,
and was ready to jump again. At that point, Chang did need to know where his
dropships were going to land. And, whether we were going to Newark at all. Simms
had a small mountain of supplies organized and ready to be loaded aboard the
Flower
,
enough supplies for eight months, as a precaution in case Skippy ran into
problems rebuilding the
Dutchman
. Major Simms had hardly slept, as our
only logistics specialist, she had to figure not only what supplies we needed,
and how much, she needed to have everything organized so that the first two
dropships to land contained the equipment the first wave of people needed.
Combat loading, we called that in the military; weapons were unloaded first,
dry socks unloaded last. The two dropships were being loaded now, Chang hadn't
needed them aboard the
Flower
for his scouting mission. "No, Doctor,
I'll need an answer in about ten hours. Talk to Skippy, pull in whoever you
need. Keep in mind, whatever site you recommend will be where we're living for
the next four to eight months. Comfort is not our major priority, safety and concealment
are.”

We had enough data about Newark, and the Kristang there,
to make a decision. Not only a decision about where to land on Newark, a more
basic decision about whether to land there at all. Whether to take the risk of
us being on Newark. To advise me, I called together my command crew of Chang,
Simms and Adams, plus the five SpecOps team leaders, in the CIC. With much of
the ship closed off, the CIC was the only compartment large enough for a
meeting of more than four people, unless we all stood in a corridor. As there
was nothing much for a crew to do in the CIC with the ship dead and drifting, I
had cleared the compartment.

“Thank you,” I said, as a harried-looking Major Simms
came into the CIC, a portable oxygen mask still hanging from her neck. She’d
been down in the cargo bays, supervising the teams packing supplies for Newark,
and Skippy had been forced to cut off the fresh oxygen supply to that area of
the ship. “Now that we’re all here, I need your advice. We now have enough
information about Newark to know that we can survive down there, and we know
that we soon will not be able to survive aboard this ship. We also have
information about the Kristang on Newark, and we have a limited, substantial
but limited, ability to mask our presence on the planet from the Kristang. The
question is whether we can take the risk of going down to Newark-”

“My advice,” Skippy interrupted, “is you go down
there, you dumdums. That’s why we came all the way here! What else are-”

It was my turn to interrupt him. “Skippy, I appreciate
if you can provide information, but this primarily affects us humans, and this needs
to be our decision.”

“No, Joe. You are the commander. This is
your
decision,” he said simply, and the people in the CIC all nodded. “You once told
me that one of the drawbacks to being in the military, is that the chain of
command requires you to put your life in the hands of people who may be idiots.
Today, you are that potential idiot. I trust you will do your best to make a
wise decision. Joe, I will refrain from comment, unless you request me to join
the discussion.”

“Thank you, Skippy. The question is whether we can
take the risk of going down to Newark. Not risk to us, because if we don’t go
to Newark, there is a hundred percent certainty that we will not survive. Once
Skippy begins tearing the ship apart to fix it, there will be no oxygen, and lethal
levels of radiation. The risk we have to consider is the risk to Earth; the
risk that our presence on Newark may be discovered, and Earth could be targeted
by aliens, regardless of whether the wormhole is available to shorten their
trip there. When we came out here, our mission was simple; we assist Skippy in
contacting the Collective, and we do not take any risks with aliens discovering
that humans are roaming the galaxy in a pirate ship.”

"Except that's not quite true, is it, sir?" The
SAS team leader Captain Smythe observed. I still found it jarring that a
bad-ass soldier spoke with such a refined British accent. Smythe was SAS, he
could probably kill me with a paper clip, any of the special forces could. With
his oh-so-proper accent Smythe sounded like he would kill me, then apologize
for not having been quite sporting about it, terribly sorry old chap, that sort
of thing. "Our prime mission objective is not
zero
risk that other
species will learn we humans are out here roaming around as you say, the
objective is
minimal
risk. Otherwise, Colonel, you could have detonated
a nuke as soon as our friend Skippy shut down the wormhole." He looked
around the CIC. "We all know the stated mission objectives. We also know
what hasn’t been said, not openly.”

“Go on, Captain Smythe,” I said. I wanted a frank and
open discussion, and I was getting one, this was good. The people in the CIC
all had far more experience that I did with making command decisions, I needed
to listen to them.

Smythe continued “
First, our true mission out here is to
assure this Skippy being doesn't decide that we're not upholding our end of the
bargain, and reopens the wormhole near Earth out of spite.” He glanced at the
speaker in the ceiling, we all expected Skippy to respond to that remark. When
Skippy stayed silent, Smythe pressed onward. “Our second unstated objective is to
hopefully return home in the
Flying
Dutchman
, so humanity will
have an advanced starship to take apart and study. We all believe aliens have
no access to Earth now, that may not be true in the future. Colonel, you found
a way to manipulate wormholes, who is to say some other species will not gain
the same capability? Or these periodic wormhole shifts could bring our wormhole
back to life."

Skippy had told me our local wormhole was dead, shut
down, that the connection to its power source was severed. He hadn't
specifically assured me that wormhole could never come back to life on its own.
Damn it, I should have asked him about that.

Smythe continued, looking straight at me. "Some
of you Americans, before the Second World War, believed that because you are
separated from most of the world by two great oceans, you need not fear
invasion, that the problems of the world were not your problems. Our entire
planet now faces a similar situation; we are protected by vast interstellar
distances, for now. That happy circumstance will not continue forever. We need
the technology of this ship to enable humanity to leap forward, so that when
trouble does come knocking on our door, we will be ready. And we all know
trouble will come knocking, some day." There were nodding heads all around
the CIC at that remark.

Smythe’s comments opened the floodgate; everyone
wanted to weigh in on the decision, for or against. After ten minutes of spirited
discussion, all eyes turned to Captain Xho, leader of the Chinese ‘Night Tiger’
special forces team. He had been mostly silent, until he cleared his throat,
and people waited for him to speak. "Captain Smythe, what you said is
true; there is no question that we need," he pointed at the deck,
"the technology of this ship. This is a matter of balancing risk and
reward, the risk of our presence on Newark being discovered, against the
possibility of bringing this ship home without Mr. Skippy. My pilots, and our
scientific staff," I assume he meant the Chinese contingent, "have
told me there is very little chance we can fly this ship all the way home,
without our benevolent AI friend helping us. We must weigh the very slender
possibility of the
Dutchman
returning home, against what I believe to be
the very real risk of the Kristang learning we are on Newark. We control the
satellites, certainly. What will happen if, when, a Kristang ship jumps into
orbit to retrieve their scavenger team? That ship's sensors would surely detect
us."

That started another round of discussion, this time
not about whether should land on Newark at all, but about what level of risk
was acceptable. Essentially, about how confident we were about our ability to
remain undetected. And what we could do to minimize the risk.

After another twenty minutes, everyone had said all
there was to say. The British, Indian and SEAL and Ranger commanders were in
favor of landing on Newark. The Chinese and French commanders were against
taking the risk of landing. That Renee Giraud was against landing surprised me.
“There must be an alternative, and if not,” he shrugged, “I didn’t expect to
live this long, Colonel.”

 There it was; four experienced combat commanders in
favor of going to Newark, two against. They all had made good arguments, and
they all were right about one thing, this was a matter of judgment. My
judgment, it was my decision. I nodded slowly, more to give myself additional
time to think than anything else. "Very well, I've made my decision. We're
going to Newark. The risks are real. Ultimately, my decision comes down to
this; I have to trust Skippy. His assessment, with all his awesome analytical
power, is the risk is minimal and manageable."

Giraud nodded slowly. "We have seen Skippy do
amazing thing, certainly. Sir, have you considered that this alien AI is
putting his thumb on the scale, when he is weighing the risks? He needs us to
risk landing on Newark, because us surviving there and returning to fly the
ship for him, is his only way to avoid being stranded in space forever. If our
presence on Newark is discovered, it will be a disaster for humanity, but to
Skippy, it will be the same as if we'd never gone to Newark in the first place.
Our taking the risk of landing on Newark has no, as you Americans say, downside
for Skippy. His only chance for a future is for us to risk the survival of our
entire species, for his benefit."

"I have considered that,” I replied. “Captain
Giraud, you need to consider this; if all Skippy cared about is continuing his
journey, he could have flown us to a star system that has a useable gas giant
planet for him to repair the ship, but no habitable planet for humans. He could
have told us our only option is to select a small number of people to survive
in a dropship or something while he rebuilds the
Dutchman
, and everyone
else is out of luck. Dead. That option would have worked for Skippy, and he
would have had a large number of star systems to choose from. He didn't do
that, he found us a place where we can all survive. I'm going to trust him.”