SpecOps (Expeditionary Force Book 2) (39 page)

"Even after gathering extensive sensor data, I
was originally unable to determine why that star system did not contain an
Elder site. What I was trying to do, with the sensor data, was to determine
whether that particular star system truly was an outstanding candidate for an
Elder site, and what I found was that, yes, it is a place where the Elders
should
have had a facility of some sort. Certainly they should have placed a
communications node there. Why we did not find any sign the Elders had ever
been in that star system, therefore, has been a complete mystery to me. So
much, that I began to doubt my analytical skills, I began to doubt
myself."

"Yet, you bravely soldiered through your doubts,
and remained an arrogant asshole the whole time."

"Truly, I have reserves of arrogance I didn't
even know I had."

"Not something to brag about, Skippy."

"Not something for
you
to brag about,
monkey boy. To continue my story, it remained a mystery to me, until I was
trying to explain to Doctor Venkman what happened here, with Newark. She, and
the rest of what you monkeys outrageously, criminally, refer to as a 'science'
team, asked me a bunch of moronic questions about orbital mechanics. Seriously,
a bunch of booger-eating first graders could do that simple math. While
attempting to explain the math to Venkman and the other mental munchkins, to
the point where I was longing for the sweet release of death, it occurred to me
to run a check of orbits in that star system where there should have been an
Elder site. And guess what I discovered, with my first grade math?"

"Uh," I guessed, "that boogers don't
taste good?"

"Yuck. I've never tasted my own boogers,
Joe."

"Oh, for crying out loud, Skippy, you're not
supposed to eat
other
people's boogers! What the hell is wrong with
you?" Because people around me could only hear my end of the conversation,
I was getting a lot of strange looks from the walking party.

"I haven't- oh, forget it. Fine, I'll tell you
what I discovered. My analysis shows that I was right in the first place. There
was an Elder site in that star system, on a moon orbiting the largest gas
giant."

"Damn! Was it concealed by a stealth field?"

"No. Conceal an entire moon in a stealth field?
What the hell would be the point of doing that? Even the sensors on a Kristang
ship could detect the presence of a stealthed moon, by the effect of its
gravity on the other moons. Man, you have stupid notions sometimes. No, dumdum,
by saying 'was' I meant past tense, like, there used to be an Elder site, it's
not there now. That gas giant planet used to have an additional moon."

"What happened to it? Did it get pushed out of
orbit, like Newark?"

"No. And that is the intriguing, disturbing part,
Joe. My analysis shows the moon which housed the Elder site was destroyed, and
by 'destroyed', I don't mean it got hit by something and it broke into several
pieces. I mean it was obliterated, vaporized. Looking back over the sensor
data, now that I know what I was looking for, there are tiny particles of that
moon scattered all over that star system, likely part the moon's mass escaped
the star system entirely. That isn't the only disturbing part. Whatever
happened to that moon, it was so violent that it ripped away a large part of
the gas giant's atmosphere, I estimate between twelve and fourteen percent of
the planet's mass was blown out of its own orbit. For comparison, twelve
percent of that planet is equivalent to twenty Earths. That much mass being
blown away caused the planet's orbit to change suddenly, and that disrupted the
entire system, it even made the star wobble noticeably."

"What has the energy to vaporize an entire
moon?" I asked in amazement. Something had torn twenty Earth masses out of
a giant planet? Me saying that aloud made peoples' head turn, they must have
thought I was talking about something that happened recently, in Newark's star
system. I waved my hands, and gave a thumbs up, to let them know it was not a
problem for us. Not an immediate problem for us.

"Elder tech is the only possibility, Joe. That is
an extremely disturbing fact. First Newark, then that star system. Someone
pushed Newark out of orbit, presumably to commit genocide against a low-tech
species. Someone completely destroyed a moon, I assume to destroy the Elder
site there, because there is no other conceivable reason anyone would care
about such a worthless star system."

"Holy shit," I said, feeling a chill up my
spine.

"Joe, if we are ever threatened with technology
of that level, appealing to a higher power would be the best option, so you
might not want to avoid blasphemy."

"Do you have any guesses about who did this? And
why?"

"As to who, no, I have absolutely no idea. As to
why, as I already said, the only reason to blow up a moon that makes any sense
is to destroy the Elder facility, whatever it was."

"Uh," an unpleasant thought occurred to me,
and I stepped to the side and stopped walking, gesturing to Captain Smythe to
keep going, I would catch up to them. "Hey, I remember something the
burgermeister, you know, the hamster woman who was secretly the deputy
administrator of Paradise-"

"I know who she is, yes."

"Good. This burgermeister, she told me the whole
war started because the Maxohlx found a stash of Elder weapons, and attacked
the Rindhalu, who used Elder weapons to fight back. And then both sides got the
crap kicked out of them by the Sentinels, something like that, devices the
Elders left behind to make sure nobody messed with the stuff they left
behind?"

"Yeah, and?"

"Could something like that have happened to that
moon? Maybe some lower-tech species found a store of Elder weapons on that
moon, and screwed with them, and one of them exploded by accident?"

"No."

I waited for Skippy to say more, when he didn't say
anything, for enough time to be awkward, I said "No? You know that because
why?"

"Joe, you asked who, and why. I told you how;
some kind of Elder device, not necessarily a weapon. You did not ask 'when'.
The math of orbital mechanics tells me the moon was destroyed around two point
seven million years ago. The Rindhalu did not achieve space flight until around
one million years ago. There were not, as far as I know, any sentient star
faring species, any sentient species at all, in the Milky Way galaxy between
the Elders and the Rindhalu. So, no way could the Maxohlx, or the Rindhalu,
have been responsible for destroying that moon."

"Wait." A bell rang in my mind. "Two
point seven million years ago? That moon was destroyed around the same time
that Newark was pushed out of orbit?"

"Yes. This is all extremely suspicious."

"Damn it. We're back to the question of 'who'
again, then."

"That is an important question we need to answer.
Joe, as I have said before, this scares the hell out of me. Damn it! Things
used to be so simple. Difficult, yes, but simple. We find an Elder
communications node, I contact the Collective, and it would be Mission
Accomplished! Now, I don’t know what to do.”

“Wait! Skippy, we are going to attack the Kristang in
order to get the AI and a comm node, now you’re not sure whether you want them?
This is a hell of a time to change your freakin’ mind.”

“No, no, Joe, sorry, what I meant was, damn talking
with you biological trashbags is not easy. All I meant was, things have gotten
way complicated. I used to think I knew who I am, pretty much, and who the
Elders were, or are. And how I fit into the universe. What I was hoping for was
that I contact the Collective, and that solves all my problems. Now I’m
thinking, the effort to contact the Collective may only be the beginning of a
long struggle for me. Please, I do need you to get the AI and the comm node way
from those hateful lizards, and I truly appreciate all the hard work you and
your team are doing. Of course, when I say ‘appreciate’, I say that in the
definition of ‘grateful’, not that I can actually appreciate how physically
demanding it is for you monkeys to walk all that way.”

“Oh,” I said. That was much better. “Thanks, Skippy.”

“Just like you ignorant monkeys cannot truly
appreciate how difficult it is for me to rebuild a Thuranin starship out of raw
materials up here. Because you can’t.”

“Hey, Skippy, I also appreciate that you are making
the effort to be an arrogant asshole.”

“Oh, no problem, Joe.”

Damn. Sometimes I couldn’t tell when he was being
sarcastic, and when he was being simply clueless.

 Skippy continued. “However, I am disappointed in you,
Joe, you completely missed the most important point of my story."

"What? What is that?" What the hell could be
more important than a freakin' moon being vaporized, at a time when no sentient
species occupied the galaxy?

"That I was right all along, the star system did
have an Elder site, just like I predicted. Duh. I'm the best, baby! Woohoo!"

"Oh, for crying out loud," I said in
disgust. "That's what you think is the most important thing?"

"Sure. Come on, there isn't anything we can do
about that moon now, right?"

Three nights later, after three hard days of marching
that had every muscle in my body aching, we gathered for dinner around a
pathetic campfire. During the day, we'd gathered broken pieces of the small,
low growing shrubs that were clustered around rocks on Newark, to make a fire.
The fire was for psychological effect, it wasn't hot enough to cook anything,
although a couple of Brits and Indians the heated up water for tea, and
everyone got a small cup. For Newark, out in the open, it was a nice evening;
temperature comfortable above freezing, it hadn't rained since early that
morning, and the wind had died down to a steady breeze out of the east. The
team needed this break together, instead of eating a hurried dinner in cramped
tents and crashing to exhausted sleep like we'd been doing.

"Hello, Colonel Joseph Bishop!" Skippy said
over my zPhone's speaker. "How are you this evening?"

"Fine," I mumbled over a mouthful of MRE
peanut butter and crackers, "we're eating dinner around a campfire, sort
of. What's up?"

"Well, sir, I have an exciting opportunity for
you. For a limited time, we are offering a greatly reduced price on wonderful
timeshares on Newark."

"Damn," I had to laugh, trying not to spew
precious crackers on my lap. "Skippy, who the hell would buy a timeshare
on this miserable planet?"

"Joe, Joe, Joe," he scolded me. "You're
missing the point entirely. Think about this; if you purchase our Basic
timeshare package of one week on Newark, that means you do NOT have to be on
Newark the other fifty one weeks a year."

"Oh," everyone around me laughed, "in
that case, hell yes, sign us all up."

"You won't regret this, sir. Seriously, Joe,
how's it going down there? I know what the weather is like, that doesn't tell
me how our Merry Band of Pirates are faring right now. By the way, it looks like
you have a mix of snow and sleet coming tomorrow afternoon, then it will clear
up and go back to damp, chilly and partly sunny."

"Snow? Crap, isn't this almost summer on this
freakin' planet? And we're on the freakin' equator here. You are not acting as
our travel agent the next time we look for a planet. Skippy, what we have down
here is officially a not-very-Merry Band of Pirates. The gravity is too high,
the temperature is too low, and it's hard to breathe even when you're only
walking. Other than that, we're doing just wonderful. How's it going up
there?"

"Well, heh, heh, funny you should ask."

"Oh, shit." I hated that 'well, heh, heh'
thing he did, and by now, the whole team knew what it meant when he did that,
hey all looked at me with alarm. I put in my zPhone earpiece and turned off the
speakerphone feature, so we could talk privately. Not wanting to be rude, I
stood up and stepped away from the fire. "What is it this time? Did
somebody forget to turn the stove off before we left?" Man, I was hoping
whatever the problem was, it was simple. "It's not like I can go back up
there and fix it, Skippy."

"The stove is not a problem, since I already
mentioned that the ship currently does not have a galley. I’m working on that. Anywho,
to be serious for a moment, Joe, one of the dropships had a slight
accident."

"Slight? Like, you scratched the paint, or dented
the fender?"

"Uh, no. Slight, like a gas pocket on a moon
exploded when I drilled into it, the dropship flipped over and now it's stuck
in a hole."

"What the hell, Skippy! Damn it, I leave you nice
toys to play with, and you break them. I can't trust you with anything valuable
up there."

"Hey, to be fair, I'm working almost blind up
here. That moon contained minerals I need, and its orbit currently has it on
the other side of the planet, I was using the dropship's crappy sensors to see
what I was doing. The sensors didn't detect the gas pocket, because the
Thuranin, here's a real shocker for you, didn't design their dropships to be
used as drilling rigs. Anyway, I have another dropship on the scene, and I'm
using combots to dig the first dropship out. It should be fine, except we'll
need a new one, because the cabin got kind of crushed and it won't hold air
pressure any more. Also, I wouldn't try flying it down through an atmosphere at
this point, the heat shield is not in good shape."

"BLUF it for me, Skippy, Ok?"

"What?"

"Bottom Line Up Front. BLUF. Tell me the
important stuff first. Come on, you know US military slang."

"Oh, yeah. All right. The bottom line is this
little accident will add a week, maybe more, to the schedule. Most likely,
sixteen days. I have to divert resources to recover and repair the dropship,
and while I'm doing that, the dropship won't be mining ore for me. While I'm
fixing that busted dropship, I will still be working on the
Dutchman
,
however, work on the ship will be delayed. There is no way around it, before
you ask me some stupid questions. This was always a substantial risk, Joe. My
original estimate had likely delays built into the schedule, so this delay only
adds eight days to when I expect the ship to be functional again."

I sighed. "Understood, Skippy. You're doing the
impossible up there, we appreciate it. And I won't insult you by telling you to
be careful."

"Indeed, you do not need to tell me to be
careful. I'm working on the edge here already, Joe, it would not take much to
tip the scales, so that I'm using up resources faster than I'm creating new
ones."

"You won't let that happen, right?" I asked
hopefully.

"I'm doing my best."

What scared me was his voice didn't have the usual
snarky cockiness to it. He was scared, or at least very concerned.

And, from Newark, there was absolutely nothing we
could do about it.

Skippy's pizza delivery had soft landed in a swampy
area, we had to wade through bone-chilling water up to our waists to get to it.
Part of me was wondering if Skippy had done that on purpose, although I'm sure
he had done the best he could from the other side of the star system. By the
time we got through the icy water to the package, I couldn't feel my legs. Or
my balls. The container was roughly twice the size of a large foot locker, it
was jammed packed, partly with medical supplies we might need after the
assault, most of it was food. Sort of food. It was dehydrated sludges, all of
it. What the assault team needed was basic nutrition, not gourmet food. We got
the container back to dry land and popped it open. Soldiers began pulling out
the contents and laying it out on the ground for sorting.

"Chocolate-banana, plain banana,
strawberry-banana, banana curry. Sir, most of these are some type of banana
flavor," Williams announced in consternation.

"Oh, crap," I slapped my forehead.
"Skippy thinks monkeys love bananas!" I groaned, frustrated. "If
we get another delivery, I'll request a better variety of flavors."

Captain Gomez uncapped a sludge, poured water in to
rehydrate it, shook it up, and drained it in one gulp. "Food is
fuel," he shrugged, "we can eat real food when we get back to the
Flying
Dutchman
."

"Right. Everyone," I reminded people,
"we bury our trash, can't have a Kristang ship seeing empty sludge packets
laying on the ground. And let's drag the empty container into water deep enough
that it will sink, put some rocks in to make sure." To set an example, I
picked up a sludge packet without checking the flavor, poured water in, and
gulped it down. It was, maybe, supposed to be plain banana flavor? You couldn't
quite tell with Thuranin sludges, most of them had a nasty artificial taste.

When we got the sludge supply back out of the swamp
and unpacked, we divided them up evenly. "Does everyone have real food
left?" I asked Smythe quietly.

"I think so, sir. Everyone ate a good breakfast
this morning."

"I saw that." I'd been watching people from
signs of fatigue, nagging injuries, and that no one was skimping on nutrition.
"I have eight MREs left, I'm going to save them for anyone who is
wounded."

"Sir?"

"Captain, I've survived on sludges before, it's
not new to me. They provide energy, and they will sustain you, you will also
get heartily sick of drinking them very quickly. If anyone is wounded out here,
it's going to be quite some time before they can get full medical treatment,
aboard the
Dutchman
. I'd like them to have at least real food to eat,
keep their spirits up."

"Oh, good thinking," he agreed. "I'll
get a bag together." Smythe put an empty bag on the ground, and I asked
people to donate one real food item, explaining that the bag would be reserved
for injured soldiers, or to be rationed out as treats after the battle, while
we waited for Skippy to fix the
Dutchman
.

"I have eight incredibly delicious MREs
here," I said as I held them up for view. "Five American, two
French," I nodded to Giraud, who had traded with me earlier,
"and," I peered at the wrapper, "I guess this one is Chinese?
I'll start the kitty by donating all of them. I'm tired of carrying the damned
things anyway."

That drew a chuckle, and I put the MREs in the bag.
"One only, if you have it to spare, keep the rest for yourself. Trust me,
you are going to get very tired of existing on nothing but sludges."

"He speaks the truth," Giraud testified,
sticking his tongue out disgustedly, and we bumped fists. Neither of us wanted
to remember that unpleasant aspect of our first time aboard the
Flying
Dutchman
.

We got a good donation, and the bag then held thirty
five real meals of various types. None of it could be considered yummy, all of
it had to taste better than a sludge. Smythe switched off the duties of
carrying the goodie bag between soldiers, and we were extra super careful with
it while crossing streams. I noticed that for the next four days, no one that I
could see ate anything except sludges. Our shared suffering in that regard was
a bonding experience. To spare the inexperienced the worst of the ordeal, I
falsely let it be known that I didn't mind the plain banana flavor, which
actually was among the very worst of the sludges. The plain banana, unmasked by
other less-unpleasant flavors like chocolate, strawberry or even curry, was
just bland, artificial, gritty and had an oily mouthfeel that lingered nastily
on your tongue. It was my fault for not requesting a better variety of flavors
from Skippy, although now that I thought about it, there hadn't been a whole
lot of sludges left aboard the
Dutchman
when we began the second voyage,
and no one had thought to request Skippy to make more. No one, like me. Since
no one liked the banana flavors, maybe Skippy had sent us whatever we had, left
over from the first voyage. Doubly my fault. Either way, I ended up with
nothing but dehydrated plain banana sludges, having traded away all the less
nasty flavors. Every sip of oily, gritty bland sludge reminded me about the
value of planning ahead. That is certainly a lesson I wasn't going to forget.
All I can say is, when we finally got back aboard the rebuilt
Flying
Dutchman
,
I was going to eat delicious, juicy cheeseburgers for breakfast, lunch and
dinner every day the first week. Even if we no longer had a galley, and I had
to grill the burger over a reactor.

When we'd collected the real food, I selected a sludge
at random from my pack, popped the cap, and poured water in to rehydrate it.
"Drink up, everyone, enjoy your yummy sludge. And, hey, today is Friday.
Only two more working days until Monday!"

Despite how tired I was that night, I walked away from
the campsite, in order to talk to Skippy in private. While I told myself that I
wanted to thank him for the food, I had to admit that I missed talking with his
irascible self. No one had insulted me for several days, it felt weird. “Hey,
Skippy, how you doing up there?”

“Busy,” he said tersely.

“Oh,” I said, feeling awkward, “sorry, I’ll leave you
alone then.”

“No need, Joe, I’m not
that
busy. At the
moment, I am in the extremely delicate process of creating exotic matter in
what used to be one of our cargo holds, using basically a coffee pot, a missile
warhead, and two combots that, despite my best effort at modifications,
absolutely suck at anything but combat. If this goes south, even on Newark
you’ll need to shield your eyes from the explosion. Don’t worry, I am very
confident. Fairly confident. Somewhat confident. Ok, yes, I’m making this shit
up as I go, all right? Give me a freakin' break. And I wouldn’t be too hopeful
about the ultimate fate of that coffee pot, in case you were wondering.
However, carrying on an intelligent conversation with one of you monkeys takes
like one octillionth of my brain power, and half that when I’m speaking with
you, so, what’s up?”

There was the Skippy I knew! “Simply wanted to say,
sincerely, from the bottom of my stomach, thank you for the food delivery.”

“Hmmf. I was going to throw in free breadsticks, but,
you know, what used to be the galley is current highly radioactive, so that was
not an option.”

“We appreciate the thought, Skippy.” Right then, I
couldn’t think of anything else to say.