Armageddon

by Craig Alanson

  “Excellent work, lads,” Smythe said without thinking, forgetting his teams now included women. “Gunnery Sergeant, how are you holding up?”

  Adams popped the faceplate of her helmet and swung it up, exposing her face to show she was not even breathing hard. “A walk in the park, Sir,” she said with a tight smile.

  “Let’s have a bit of fun, shall we?” His face broke into a rare grin. “Adams, do you think you could tussle with the lads a bit?” He stepped back. “Perhaps three of them?”

  She reached up and swung the faceplate down with one hand, then eyeclicked to engage the suit’s semi-autonomous hand-to-hand combat mode. That was a feature Skippy had recently added to the suits, to give his pet monkeys better odds of surviving close encounters with advanced aliens. “Ready when they are, Colonel.”

  Knowing the honor of his Raiders was on the line, Dobrynin selected his three Marine Raiders most skilled at hand-to-hand combat. Having seen them in action, he was fully confident of a pleasing demonstration for the STAR team commander.

  Three against one, all wearing alien powered armor. Three supremely fit and trained special operators, at the top of their professions.

  It wasn’t even close.

  After she tossed the last Raider thirty feet in the air back over her shoulder, Adams popped her faceplate again. “Sorry, Colonel. I’m a little rusty.”

  “That sounded like an excuse, Gunny,” he said sternly with a glare. Then Jeremy Smythe actually winked at her, an action that astonished them both. “The Flying Dutchman is going back out. Supposedly, this mission will be a pleasure cruise, but we all know that is wishful thinking. Adams, if you’re interested, we would be honored for you to join a STAR team.”

  Her powered arm came up in a crisp salute. “I wouldn’t miss the party, Sir.”

  Adams knocked on the door frame to my office, two days later. Fortunately, I was actually doing work, and not playing video games. That she knows of. She had come back aboard when I was busy in a meeting with UN officials, so I had not been able to greet her in the docking bay. I was thrilled to see her again.

  Thrilled because she was a vital member of the Merry Band of Pirates, and not because of other reasons that are forbidden and unprofessional and I’m not supposed to even think about.

  My life sucks.

  “Good morning, Gunnery Sergeant,” I greeted her. Right away, I noticed the STAR Team Alpha patch on her uniform. “Congratulations,” I pointed to the patch.

  “Oh, this?” She downplayed the honor. “It impresses the locals dirtside, I guess.”

  “It impresses me, Adams. What’s on your mind?”

  “What makes you think there is anything on my mind, Sir?”

  “You’ve got that look on your face like I’m in deep shit about something, only I don’t know it yet.”

  “I do not have any look like that,” she protested.

  “You are a woman, correct?”

  “Fine,” she huffed. It was cute. No, it was adorable. Except I was her commanding officer, so it was emotionally neutral as far as I was concerned.

  I hate my life sometimes.

  “Spit out, Gunny.”

  “I got a notice today that you’ve been busted back down to Sergeant, from Staff Sergeant? I thought you got the Army to acknowledge you are a colonel. You told me you would be commanding the beta site mission, Sir.”

  “It’s-”

  “We talked about this, Sir.”

  “There is a-”

  “I gave a whole speech about being proud that you grew a pair,” she scowled at me. “Sir.” The ‘sir’ did not sound as respectful as it was supposed to.

  “If you will let me explain, Adams?”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “I would love to hear it.”

  “Ok. My JAG lawyer arranged for me to accept an Article 15 punishment, for mutiny and stealing the Dutchman. The last one is technically for ‘unauthorized use of government property’,” I rolled my eyes.

  “Article 15? We Marines call that Non-Judicial Punishment a ‘Ninja Punch’. What do you mean, you accepted?”

  “They made me an offer, and I said Ok. It was better for everyone than a court-martial. Really, I got off easy. Reduction in rank back to E-5, and I have to surrender the colonel’s pay I received during our Renegade mission. The part that really sucked was, before the hearing, Skippy hacked the audio system and played the theme to ‘Law & Order’.”

  “Yes!” He broke into the conversation. “And I was bitterly disappointed. It wasn’t anything like the show at all! The whole thing dragged on waaaaay more than an hour, and there were no dramatic courtroom speeches, or twists that totally change the plot. Plus, the lead detective did not make one decent wisecrack! Such a waste of my time.”

  “There was no detective, you moron,” I swatted a hand through his avatar.

  “There should have been! It still would have been watchable, if the perp got the death penalty, but the military justice system totally failed on that one.”

  “Thank you, Skippy, please go away,” I asked while waving my hand through his avatar, because I knew that annoyed him.

  “Fine,” he said in a huff, and winked out.

  “So far, this sounds like bullshit, Sir.” Man, I could tell by the way her jaw was clenched that she was not happy. Not happy with me.

  “Come on, Adams. The Army could not let me commit mutiny without consequences. I’m a soldier, not a cowboy.”

  “You’re a Pirate, Sir.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “This doesn’t sit right with me. It won’t set right with the crew.”

  “The Army may have failed to take your feelings into account,” I teased her.

  She did not get the joke. Her eyes narrowed. “After our unexpected battle on the homefront, you told me the Army acknowledged you as a colonel.”

  “Process, Adams. It’s a process, we had to go through the formalities. I was officially punished by being busted down a rank, and forfeited part of my pay. That’s the official administrative notice you received. What you have not received yet is that, the same day I got busted down to E-5, the Army promoted me to colonel that afternoon. Not a theater rank. I am an O-6 for realz now,” I tapped the silver eagles on my uniform.

  “But they had to bust you down first?” She shook her head.

  “The Army is a team, Adams. It is also a bureaucracy, one of the biggest. The wheels turn slowly, and they only turn in one direction. What matters is, they did turn, and I’m not in jail, or back on the block. My JAG lawyer did a great job for me. She also got the Army out of a jam, so it was a win-win. Plus, she negotiated for me to get combat pay during our Renegade mission, so the difference isn’t much. My parents were just keeping the money in a bank anyway.”

  “I thought you told them to spend it?”

  “Did your parents spend the pay you sent home?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  “Well,” she sighed. “Amazing.”

  “What?”

  She shook her head in amazement. “You committed mutiny, and got away with it. Not only got away with it, you got a promotion. While I was stuck on Earth the whole time.”

  “You had better food,” I made another try at humor.

  “I missed all the fun.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, my lawyer said that if the Kristang had not surprise attacked us at Dayton, I would probably have been discharged, or been forced to retire. All was not forgiven, Adams.”

  “That does not make me feel better, Sir. How many times do you have to save the world, before you get a break?”

  “We, Adams. We saved the world.”

  “I wasn’t with you.”

  “You missed one mission out there, and you were with me for our battle on the homefront. And by ‘we’, I meant the Merry Band of Pirates. This is not a solo act. The Pirates are a team, and I am damned proud to be on this team. Anyway,” I stood up, stretched, and yawned. “Now you know the
story.”

  “Is your promotion official, like, you wear colonel’s eagles when you go dirtside? Or do you still have to play along with the cover story?”

  “I-”

  “That cover story is wearing real thin, Sir. Like, you can see right through it. Nobody believes the official story anymore.”

  “UNEF is doing the best they can, Gunny. We all saw the news stories.” Despite attempts at censorship, there was no way UNEF Command could prevent people from seeing the destruction in Dayton Ohio. By now, everyone on the planet had seen Kristang dropships attacking Wright-Patterson, and how the hell could politicians explain away those facts?

  That was easy for people who lie for a living. The public had also seen the Flying Dutchman, which according to the official cover story was still a Thuranin-controlled ship, blast the attacking dropships out of the sky. Then they saw the Ice-Cold Dagger to the Heart, a Kristang starship, firing against Kristang warriors on the ground. Presto! The official cover story was that the Kristang who attacked Wright-Pat were a rogue group, who were dealt with harshly by our allies, the Thuranin and Kristang authorities. That bullshit tale actually strengthened the original cover story, at least for a while. “The answer is, I get to wear a colonel’s uniform dirtside. My promotion is not a secret.”

  “How the hell is the US Army explaining that?”

  “Simple,” I shrugged. “My promotion is officially a publicity stunt to please the Thuranin, because of some unspecified and still-classified action I took during the homefront battle.”

  “Damn,” she laughed.

  “See? The cover story about me even has the advantage of being mostly true.”

  “Amazing,” she laughed again. “That cover story about you won’t last, you know.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “This is insane. Fucking politicians are covering their own asses.”

  I had to agree with her, up to a point. The original cover story, to explain the Flying Dutchman’s arrival, was that the Kristang who ravaged Earth were an unauthorized rogue group, who were wiped out by our loyal patrons the Thuranin. The force sent to fight on Paradise had been bravely fighting alongside our honorable Kristang allies, until the treacherous Ruhar attacked, and now UNEF-Paradise was cut off from Earth. The Flying Dutchman coming and going was explained as them taking humans aboard on training missions. There were three reasons why the cover story said we were still allies of the Kristang. First, because no politician wanted to admit they had been wrong to ally with the Kristang, and send over a hundred thousand soldiers offworld to fight for our real enemies. My thought about Reason Number One was: fuck them. If a bunch of politicians lost their cushy jobs, or even got thrown in jail, I would not lose any sleep over it. So, why didn’t I just ask Skippy to reveal the truth on the internet?

  Because of Reasons Two and Three. Two was that the public would panic if they knew hostile aliens were coming to wipe out humanity sooner or later, and our only defense was a beer can and a prayer. Right now, the public thought we had the incredible technology of the Thuranin protecting us from the big bad Ruhar, and from rogue groups of Kristang. The public could see the Flying Dutchman in orbit, like looking at the International Space station. You could see a moving dot of sunlight shining off the Dutchman with the naked eye, and a pair of binoculars or a cheap telescope was all you needed to see the outline of our still-massive ship. For evidence of how the Thuranin were protecting us from the cold, cruel Universe, all the public needed to do was trust their own senses. No Ruhar ships had raided our homeworld since that fateful day when Kristang chased them away. The public had seen a Thuranin star carrier punishing the Kristang who treated Earth so harshly. And just recently, when a rogue group of Kristang conducted a surprise attack against Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, they had been stopped by a Thuranin ship and a Kristang ship. Clearly, humanity continued to benefit from our political leaders’ wise decision to ally with our saviors, the Kristang.

  I had to admit, the cover story was reasonably believable.

  What I really cared about was Reason Three: the UNEF troops on Paradise. Because of the cover story, family and friends of people stranded on Paradise had at least some hope their loved ones would be coming home, eventually. Someday, the politicians declared, our powerful Thuranin patrons would break through the Ruhar blockade around Paradise, and rescue the Expeditionary Force.

  The Merry Band of Pirates knew that hope was one hundred percent bullshit. The people on Paradise were never coming home, never even going to know Earth was not a radioactive cinder. But, false hope was better than no hope at all. It would be cruel to reveal the truth to the loved ones of the people who would never come home from Paradise. Knowing the truth would also be dangerous, because people on Earth would not accept reality, and would push their leaders to do something, even though doing anything to help people on Paradise would risk the lives of everyone on Earth by exposing our secret. People in general do not like to hear hard truths, and politicians get elected by telling people what they want to hear, even if the voting public knows the politicians are lying to them.

  Sometimes I have to agree with Skippy that we monkeys are so stupid, it’s a miracle we’re still alive.

  Anyway, Reason One keeps politicians in cushy jobs, but Reasons Two and Three were keeping our society stable. We need a stable, productive society with good morale, if we are going to build advanced defenses based on the technology Skippy was sharing. So, to assure the safety and continued survival of the human public, we needed to lie to them.

  For now.

  Adams was right, the cover story was wearing thin, too many people knew the truth. Eventually, it was all going to blow up in our faces, and we would have to deal with the consequences.

  Life was so much simpler when I was carrying a rifle in the Nigerian jungle.

  Back in my office after a hard workout in the gym, I plopped down in the chair. “Hey, Skippy. Got a question for you.”

  His avatar appeared, wagging a scolding finger at me. “You mean ‘I got a question for you’.”

  “Uh, sure.”

  “Ugh. Really, you should have said ‘I have a question for you’.”

  “Are you going to correct my grammar all day, or listen to my question?”

  “How can I understand your question, if you don’t speak clearly?”

  “Blimey, excuse me, there, gov’nor,” I said in my best English accent. “I am bloody well chuffed to be speaking the Queen’s English with you.”

  “Ugh. Don’t do that, Joe. Your fake accent is offensive.”

  “Ok. Here’s my question, then. The cover story bullshit about the Merry Band of Pirates is going to break down at some point-”

  “The cover story is already more worn-out and threadbare than some of your underwear.”

  “Hey, my underwear is just getting broken in.”

  “Some of your shorts are so see-through and full of holes, that my bots have to wash them by hand so they don’t fall apart.”

  “Like I said, just getting broken in.”

  “Ugh. Why did I have to pick you? Adams and Desai were also in that warehouse on Paradise. They take good care of their clothing. I could even have picked Chang if I-”

  “Seriously? This is about laundry? I’m trying to ask you an important question.”

  “Fine. Ask away,” he sniffed. “Don’t blame me when you open your underwear drawer, and all that’s in there is a sad pile of lint.”

  “I will try to contain my disappointment. Anyway, when the cover story gets blown and the truth is out there, people are going to panic. There could be massive civil disruptions, and dealing with that takes away resources we need to build defenses to protect Earth.”

  “Correct. That is good long-term thinking, Joe,” he added, surprised.

  “Thank you.”

  “Except for, you know, the whole building-defenses-to-protect-Earth part. No way can a single planet defend itself against the entire galaxy. That is
a total fantasy. A gigantic waste of time.”

  “Our Renegade mission ensured that no aliens will come here for a couple hundred years, but eventually, our secret will be exposed. What do you suggest we do, just wait to be destroyed?”

  “Um, no. How about you monkeys use your limited resources to build a really big sign in orbit that says ‘HUMANS OVER HERE’ and point it toward Mars?”

  “Your support is an enormous source of comfort to me, Skippy.”

  “Hey, maybe you should study this empathy crap. Because I’m done with it.”

  “My question is, how can we convince the public that, instead of panicking, we should all work together? We need to have a convincing argument ready for when the cover story gets blown, and not try to make one up on the spot.”

  “Ok, Ok,” he mused. “Again, good thinking, I am impressed. Hmm, let me think about this. Well, there actually is a science to persuading people to your point of view. Aristotle’s work titled ‘Rhetoric’ outlined the path toward persuading an audience. He delineated Ethos, Pathos, and-”

  “Wait. Ethos and Pathos? What do the Three Musketeers have to do with this?”

  “Ugh. I did not say ‘Athos’ and ‘Porthos’, you moron. It’s not the Three Musk-”

  “And Aristotle didn’t write the Three Musketeers,” I stated, proud of my knowledge. “It was written by a French guy named Dumbass.”

  “Dumas. His name was Doo-MAH! Oh, you are such an ignorant cretin,” he sobbed.

  “Ok, whatever,” I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. “Anyway, what did this Aristotle guy say?”

  He sighed. A deep, weary, heartfelt sigh. “Does it matter?”

  “Not really, but you wanted to talk about it, so-”

  “Ugh. Forget it. You want me to use my extensive knowledge of psychobabble bullshit to cook up a scheme, that will manipulate the public so they don’t panic when they learn the truth about the Pirates, the Thuranin, Paradise, all that?”

  “Yes. Except instead of ‘psychobabble bullshit’ you could say ‘understanding of human interactions’. And instead of ‘manipulate’ you could say ‘inform’ or ‘assure’.”