SpecOps (Expeditionary Force Book 2)

by Craig Alanson

  "Crap," I said, "I'd like one thing out here to be easy, for a change." No way I was giving up, either. I looked at the display, pondering what to do. "Hey, those two destroyers look like they're very close to each other, practically touching," I said, playing with the controls and zooming in on the destroyers. "That's an illusion created by the display, right? Ships don't actually travel that close to one another?"

  "Yes, and no. Ships do not normally travel so close, with the tremendous speeds involved in space combat, a tiny navigation error could quickly cause ships to collide. In this case, however, those two destroyers truly are practically on top of each other, it is not something I am manipulating to make the display easier for monkeys to understand. Those two ships are preparing to practice a maneuver, in which one ship tucks itself inside another ship's stealth field. One of the ships has to turn off its stealth field, because unless two stealth fields are kept perfectly in tune, they interfere with each other. Encasing two ships in one stealth field allows two ships to appear on an enemy's detection systems as a single ship, at some point the ships can separate and surprise the enemy by moving in different directions. This maneuver is extremely difficult and dangerous, the task force commander is making those ships practice the maneuver because he expects their captains to fail, and, possibly, as a bonus, for the ships to be damaged. That would cause the two captains to lose face, giving the commander a convenient excuse to replace them with officers loyal to him."

  "Remind me not to apply for a position in the Kristang navy," I said distractedly, the kernel of an idea was forming in my head. "How close are those two ships to each other?"

  "Four hundred meters," Skippy stated. "In space combat terms, they are practically on top of each other. It is very risky."

  "Huh. And whatever happens to the battlecruiser, those destroyers won't know about it for sixty eight seconds, right, when the light gets there?"

  "You are a true genius, Joe, your name should be Einstein."

  "Uh huh," I ignored his taunt, "and how long after we get close to a Kristang ship, until you can take control of it, with this nanovirus thing?"

  "Oh, fifteen or twenty seconds, for complete control. The ship will be immobilized within seven seconds. Speed of light isn't an issue there, the effect I create is instantaneous, for incredibly magical reasons that monkey brains can't understand."

  "Yeah, whatever. Once we emerge from a jump, we have to wait a bit before we can jump again, right?"

  "Oh, boy. I hate to do this, Joe, burst your bubble like this. You are thinking we can jump in close to the battlecruiser, I can activate the nanovirus to seize control of the battlecruiser, then before the destroyers know what has happened, we jump again over to them, and I take control of them also, right? Ha! Forget it. I told you, monkeys should not do anything thinking, you're not good at it. And I also already told you, I have run every possible variable through my ginormous brain, and there is no way for us to take on all three of those ships, without at least one, likely two, or them, getting away, and bringing back reinforcements. Four of the ships are about to leave, but, remember, the Thuranin star carrier isn't arriving until the thirty six hour mark, there are a lot of Kristang ships right at the edge of this star system. They could cause us a world of hurt. Listen, UH!" He shushed me as I opened my mouth to speak. "Let me finish talking, I talk, you listen. Me smart, you monkey. Joe, your idea, and, damn, I hate to abuse the word 'idea' by associating it with anything that comes out of your brain, your idea won't work. After we emerge from a jump, we can't jump again for almost eighty seconds."

  "Uh, I call BS on that, Skippy," I said more confidently this time. "When we were shadowing that Thuranin battlegroup, so you could download data from them, you found out there may be a Maxohlx ship in the area, and you jumped us away. Then we did another jump, right away. Another jump, in, like a few seconds."

  "At that time, we jumped again within twenty two seconds, to be precise. Yes, Joe, we can manage a second jump in less than eighty seconds. What we can't do is jump with any precision after waiting less than eighty seconds. When I thought a Maxohlx ship might be stalking us, I didn't care where we jumped to, as long as we jumped away. In this case, you want us to quickly jump in very close to those two destroyers, and that is not possible. A jump creates a vibration in the jump coils, an unpredictable quantum fluctuation that affects spacetime immediately around the ship. In order to program a precise jump, we have to wait for the vibration to settle down. That means we will not be able to jump close to those destroyers, before the gamma ray burst of our jumping in next to the battlecruiser reaches the destroyers. As soon as those destroyers detect the gamma ray burst, they will jump away, and we'll lose them. So, now that I have attempted to smack some knowledge on a monkey, what do you say to that?"

  "You done?"

  "Yup."

  "You sure? I don't want to spoil your fun, Skippy, you sound like you're getting super enjoyment out of insulting us monkeys."

  "Yup, I'm sure. Please, Joe, please, dazzle me with your genius idea. I haven't had a good laugh in a while."

  "Good,” I said. “Because, if you had shut up and listened to me for a second, you would have heard my idea already. Here it is: we jump in near the battlecruiser, you take control of it, you make the battlecruiser jump over right on top of those two destroyers, and set it to self-destruct, like, blow its drive coils or something, as soon as it emerges from the jump. That will at least disable those two destroyers temporarily, and we can then jump in and finish them off with missiles, after our jump system is ready again. The battlecruiser will have its jump coils charged for an emergency jump, it won't have to wait eighty seconds. Will that work?"

  Silence, then, Skippy said simply "Damn. Damn it!"

  After waiting a moment for him to say something more, I lost patience. "Skippy? Hello? Listen, if you're taking your time thinking up a list of insults because my idea is stupid, how about you just tell me now, and we can set aside time later for you to bust my balls about it, Ok?"

  "I hate my life. This sucks," he grumbled. "This is so unfair!"

  "What is unfair?"

  "Joe, I do not know how this happened. I don't know how this could be possible, given the laws of physics. Somehow, you came up with a good idea. You. A monkey! Oh, I am so humiliated. I hate my life! I crunched billions of variables and came up with nothing, no way to take out all three of those ships, and a freakin' monkey says, 'duh, how about this idea', off the top of its stupid freakin' monkey head." He sounded truly, completely miserable. "Joe, if I had a nose, I could blow it, and what comes out would be smarter than your entire species combined. Yet, somehow, you, you of all beings, comes up with a good idea. Unbe-lie-vable!"

  "Uh, huh," I said slowly. "So, Skippy, uh, is this like when you had the genius idea for us to raid the asteroid, but you forgot the fact that humans need space suits, in space?"

  "Enjoy the moment, monkeyboy, it won't happen again," he grumbled.

  "Hmm, are you taking bets on that, Skippy?"

  "Oh, shut up. I hate you. Stupid monkeys."

  "I love you too, Skippy. Can you program a jump for us, to get us close enough to that battlecruiser?"

  "Yes, damn it, I'll program a jump so we can do your stupid plan."

  "Stupid? I thought you said my plan was not stupid."

  "It isn't," he said so quietly that I could barely hear him.

  "What?" I said with a grin, looking through the glass at people in the CIC. "I couldn't hear you, Skippy. This plan, a plan from a monkey brain, is not stupid?"

  "No."

  "Hmmm. What is the opposite of stupid, I wonder?"

  "Smart! The opposite is smart! There, I said it, you happy now? Damn, my life is already miserable enough. At times like this, I am nostalgic about those years I spent buried in the dirt on Paradise. Ohhhh, those days were so sweet. Peaceful, quiet, no screeching monkeys-"

  "Just program the jump, Skippy, please."

  Twenty six hours, twenty four
minutes after the Kristang task force jumped in, four of their ships jumped away, leaving behind the battlecruiser and two destroyers. Somehow I was able to order us to wait another agonizing twenty minutes, to be sure those four ships were safely a long way away, before I ordered us into action. We jumped in close to the battlecruiser, close enough to be comfortably within Skippy's effective range, far enough not to trigger a panicky immediate jump away by the Kristang ship. As soon as we emerged from the jump, Skippy transmitted a supposedly secret Thuranin code, instructing the Kristang to hold position and maintain communications silence. There was a Jeraptha cruiser in the area, Skippy told the Kristang, pretending to be the Thuranin commander. "Damn it," Skippy grumbled in frustration, "they just queried me back, after I ordered them very sternly to keep quiet."

  "What's their weapons status?" I asked anxiously. As part of the deception, we had our defensive shields down, leaving us vulnerable to enemy fire. The lesser technology of the Kristang would not matter much at such short range, their masers, particle beams and railguns could close the gap fast and hurt the Dutchman badly. When Skippy recommended we not raise shields, I had questioned that idea, until Skippy convinced me that a shielded Thuranin ship, jumping in super close to the Kristang, would very likely trigger an immediate jump away by the battlecruiser. We needed the Kristang to hesitate just long enough for Skippy to activate the nanovirus and seize control of the battlecruiser.

  "They are spinning up missile guidance systems, and they now have four maser batteries and one railgun locked onto us. The railgun capacitors are charging up now. Man, there is zero trust between those two species. I am trying a softer tactic, explaining the situation, rather than issuing orders. Huh, well, that didn't work, a kinder, gentler Thuranin apparently isn't believable. The Kristang commander is ordering a jump, and signaling the two destroyers to follow him, but, three, two, one, too late, suckers! Ha! I have complete control of that battlecruiser through the nanovirus, Joe. Their jump drive is conveniently charged, reprogramming jump coordinates now. Oh, man, there is panic aboard that ship, they are trying to eject drones containing their flight logs, I'm blocking that. They are also trying to launch missiles manually; I'm holding the missile launch tube outer doors closed. Ready for jump."

  I indulged in one last look at the battlecruiser on the main display, in the dim, sullen light of the red dwarf star, the ship looked evil; all hard angles, protruding weapons and sensor stations, with nothing about the shape of the ship that wasn't purely functional. Kristang ship designers seem to have gone out of their way to make their warships ugly. "Do it, Skippy."

  The battlecruiser disappeared from the display. The problem with this plan was the same as the advantage of the plan; the two destroyers were far enough away that the light from our jump in near the battlecruiser, the signal from the Kristang task force commander and the distinctive gamma ray burst of the battlecruiser jumping away, that light traveled so comparatively slowly that the battlecruiser should have jumped in on top of the destroyers before the light arrived there. According to the plan, the pair of destroyers would only see the image of the battlecruiser, from light that was sixty eight seconds out of date. They would see light that showed the battlecruiser, all by itself, doing whatever it was doing, and the next thing those destroyers saw would be the battlecruiser jumping in almost on top of them, jumping in, the spatial distortion of the inbound jump point violently rocking the destroyers, the roiling ripples of the inbound jump causing ripples in spacetime that prevented the destroyers from jumping away to safety. And then the battlecruiser's reactors, missile warheads and jump drive coils would have exploded, ripping the battlecruiser apart and causing catastrophic damage to the destroyers. By the time the gamma ray burst of our jump in reached the destroyers, after sixty eight seconds, the destroyers should have been in no condition to detect those gamma rays, or do anything about it.

  According to the plan, that is. The problem with the plan was that, after Skippy jumped the battlecruiser away, we wouldn't know whether the plan had worked for another sixty eight seconds, when the light from the destroyers' position reached us. One thing I had considered was for us to jump near the destroyers, as soon as possible, to determine whether the plan worked or not. After considering, what I decided was to stay right where we were, and bite my nails for sixty eight seconds. If we had jumped to get a quicker view, and things went wrong somehow, it would be another eighty seconds before we could jump safely away again. That was too much risk for me. Maybe Adams was right, maybe my inexperience at command made me more risk averse than needed. I couldn't see the advantage of taking on more risk right then. And I kept telling myself that, every second for sixty eight seconds.

  The plan could have gone wrong. When Skippy jumped the battlecruiser, he programmed it to jump to coordinates of where the pair of destroyers should have been at the time, unfortunately, the information we had about the destroyers' location was also sixty eight seconds old. Damn, space combat is complicated. While we were seizing control of the battlecruiser, the destroyers could have moved unpredictably, and the battlecruiser could have jumped into empty space. I made the rookie mistake of expressing that fear out loud, at the forty five second mark.

  "I don't think that happened, Joe," Skippy assured me, "the task force commander was very strict, he ordered those destroyers to hold position, tucked inside one stealth field, until he ordered them to maneuver. Which he hadn't yet done, at the time we jumped in and took control of his ship. The last transponder signal from the destroyers shows they were exactly where they were supposed to be at the time. I have high confidence. Between your unsubstantiated fears, and my rigorous statistical analysis, I'll take my numbers every time."

  While Skippy was talking, I momentarily took my eyes away from the countdown timer on the display. "That's great, Skip-"

  "And sixty eight seconds, mark!" Skippy shouted excitedly. "Detecting a gamma ray burst, exactly where it is supposed to be, and way more accurate a jump than the stupid lizards could have done on their own, also, yes, detecting a reactor, missiles and jump drive coils exploding. The battlecruiser is gone. And, yes! Detecting secondary explosions! Give me a minute, there is a whole lot of noise in the sensor data. Hmmm, yes, yes. Successful, hundred percent. Both destroyers disabled. The battlecruiser jumped in slightly ahead of them, that is the best I could do with the inert lump of rock the Kristang use for a jump drive, the explosion caused severe damage to the forward section of both destroyer hulls."

  "Excellent!" I breathed a sigh of relief. "Is it safe for us to jump in?"

  "Best we wait another seventy nine seconds, for the debris cloud to clear the area, otherwise we might get whacked by something moving at high speed. Those destroyers are not going anywhere, Joe, don't worry about that."

  "Got it. Program a jump for us, please, Skippy. Pilot," I addressed Chen in the lefthand seat, "engage jump in seventy nine seconds."

  "Joe," Skippy said, "I have to admit, this was a clever and inventive plan. In my research, I was unable to see any way we could take out all three ships. Now I know the factor that I was missing from my calculations; it did not occur to me to use one enemy ship, as a weapon against the other enemy ships. That was clever. Especially for, you know, a monkey."

  I couldn't help chuckling. "Skippy, I assume you meant that as a compliment somehow, and since you suck at giving compliments, I will say thank you. We monkeys don't have big claws or sharp teeth, and we can't fly and we're not particularly big or strong. We rely on being clever."

  "Hmmm. Don't get used to it, Joe, you are, after all, only monkeys. This is a hostile galaxy, every spacefaring species out there has genetically or cybernetically enhanced intelligence, or both."

  "Like the Thuranin, you mean?"

  "Exactly."

  "Yeah," I said, tapping the arm of the command chair. It was the only chair aboard the star carrier that fit humans without adjustment, the Thuranin commanders must have liked the feeling of sitting in an extra-large cha
ir. "Yet, here we monkeys are, in one of their ships. What do you think of that, Sergeant Adams?"

  "Monkeys kick ass, sir, " she grinned, and gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up. "Damn straight."

  "Crap," Skippy grumbled. "Now you monkeys have gotten way too high an opinion of yourselves. I shouldn't have said anything."

  We jumped over to the two stricken destroyers. They were both tumbling end over end, completely out of control. Skippy reported there were survivors aboard both ships, survivors busy trying to stay alive, and no threat to us.

  "Sir?" Adams asked from the CIC, "Shall we launch missiles?" I could see her finger expectantly poised over a button.

  "Those ships are still somewhat functional, Skippy"? I asked, my jaw clenched. "Can they manage a short jump?"

  "Not on their own, no, or they would have jumped away by now. However, I am now activating the nanovirus to take direct control of their jump drive system, both ships can manage one short jump. In their current condition, I must caution you, that will be their last jump, their jump drive coils are badly out of alignment."

  "Do it. I want to jump those ships into the upper atmosphere of that planet. Deep enough that they can't climb out of the gravity well, high enough that the ships won't be crushed right away by the pressure. You can do that?"

  "Yes, certainly, the nanovirus is taking effect," he said slowly, "can I ask why you don't simply hit them with a pair of missiles?"

  "You can always ask, Skippy. Two reasons, first, we have a limited supply of missiles, and I don't want to expend ammo if we don't need to."

  "That makes sense, sure. The second reason, which I suspect is more important?"

  "The second reason, Skippy, is that I've been to Earth recently. I saw what those lizards did to my home planet, saw what they tried to do to my planet and my entire species. It's really simple, Skippy; I'm pissed, and I want the Kristang to experience the fear that humans felt. Some of the Kristang, at least. Most of the Kristang on Earth, you killed before they realized what was happening. The ones that survived the initial strike, huddled in their holes until you hit them with a hypersonic railgun. Again, they were alive one moment, and dead the next. When you jump these ships into the upper atmosphere, their crews will have a minute to realize what is happening, as their ships plummet down towards the planet's core, and are crushed by the increasing pressure. Think of this, Skippy, as my way of giving a middle finger salute to the Kristang, on behalf of all the people on Earth."