"Because," she explained, "if you need doctors on this mission, something will have gone wrong, won't it?"
We began the walk without ceremony, once I was satisfied people were not carrying unrealistic loads, I gave Smythe the go-ahead order, and he sent two men ahead as scouts. Knowing what the terrain along our projected path looked like from satellite images was one thing, seeing the real conditions on the ground was quite another. The scouts would check out our route, advise of shortcuts, impassible terrain, and hopefully avoid everyone else having to double back. Smythe planned to rotate the scout duties; two people in the morning, two in the afternoon. Being a scout was a highly sought-after assignment, as the scouts carried only light loads, and weren't tramping along in well-trodden mud with the rest of us.
I began walking with the Rangers, out of service loyalty, then dropped back in the column to check on the SEAL team. While the rest of us had been shivering on shore, trying to catch sleep in shifts, the three SEALs had worked through the night. "How are you, Lieutenant?"
"We're all right, sir," Williams answered. "Compared to some of our training, this is a piece of cake."
"And the food is better," Garcia said while eating something out of an MRE pouch.
"Any food is good at this point," Taylor agreed.
"When we came out here, I didn't think the 'Sea' part of SEa Air Land in 'SEAL' would be of any use," Williams admitted.
I nodded. "Lieutenant, one thing I've learned is, you never know what you'll need out here, it pays to have a wide variety of capabilities with you. I didn't think an archeologist, or geologist, would be useful in space, and now I'm glad we brought them along. Finding those ruins has given Skippy a puzzle he can't explain. The strangest things can have a use out here, even a knowledge of, hell, what was that, Skippy, 17th century Hungarian poetry?"
"Correct," he said.
Williams looked at me in complete surprise.
"It's a long story," I said simply, "you've seen how Skippy can get off topic at times."
"Although, as I pointed out at the time," Skippy continued, "even a cursory familiarity of European romantic literature of the Baroque-"
"Yes, Skippy," I interrupted as Williams broke into a knowing grin, "thank you, another time, Ok?"
"You always say that, but there's never a time you deem as appropriate," Skippy said in a peevish tone. "Man, I am trying to bring culture to monkeys, and this is the thanks I get."
"Tell you what, Skippy," I winked to Williams, "you get us safely off this rock, and I will dedicate one, no, two, two full hours, for you to regale me with whatever topic you desire. Without interruption."
"Huh. You say that now, but-"
"Have I ever made a commitment to you and not kept it? Like, leaving Earth and coming out here on this fool's errand to find your magic radio?"
"Perhaps you have a point. Two hours, huh? I shall prepare accordingly. You're not going to regret this, Joe."
Crap. I was regretting it already.
"Taking one for the team, sir?" Williams asked. "We appreciate it."
Shaking my head ruefully, I replied "You have no idea."
Damn I was tired. And this was only the first freakin' day, not even a full day. For the past hour, the straps of my pack could no longer be adjusted not to be uncomfortable, they were digging into my shoulders and hips. Also for the past hour, I had been watching clouds build in the northern sky, and the wind had been gusting in our faces. "Skippy," I asked, "weather report."
"Sucky, with a hundred percent chance of it continuing to be sucky. You're going to get heavy rain in about two hours, maybe less. The rain should be gone by morning, most of it, anyway."
"Thank you, Skippy. Captain Smythe!" I raised my voice so he could hear over the wind, as he was fifty meters ahead of me. He waited for me to catch up, I hustled as best I could without completely losing my dignity. "Take five, everyone," I shouted. To Smythe, I said "Time to look for place to camp for the night, I want us to set up camp within the hour."
"Sir?" He pointed looked at his watch. "There's plenty of daylight remaining."
"Captain," I said, pulling the pack straps wide to give my aching shoulders a break, "this is why you need me with you. When you're on a march with the SAS, no one wants to be the first to call for a halt, right?"
"It's a matter of pride, sir."
"Exactly. It's even worse here, because the SAS don't want to stop before the Rangers, who don't want to stop before the Chinese, who don't want to stop before the Indian paratroopers, and so on. I'm not special forces, so I can call a halt without my pride getting hurt. And every one of us could use a rest. Skippy says there's heavy rain coming," I pointed to the clouds rolling in from the northeast, "I don't want us to get caught out in that, we're still ahead of schedule and there's no reason for us to push unnecessarily. The last thing we need is people risking further exposure in this climate."
"Yes, sir, another hour. I'll tell scouts ahead to find us a spot?"
Forty minutes later, Smythe touched his zPhone earpiece, talked with someone, then dropped back to walk with me. "There's a spot up ahead where we can camp, sir. The lads say there's another campsite a bit further, but that spot could get a bit dodgy, if we get heavy rain." On his zPhone, he showed me the images the scouts had taken of the two sites. The one further away was in the shelter of a bluff, protecting us from the wind, it also had a stream that could overflow and flood the campsite if the rain came down heavily.
"Yeah, that further site is out, too risky. Last thing we need is for everything to get wet again." The other site was a flat spot on the south side of a hill, it was more exposed to the gusty winds, it also wasn't going to flood. "We have to walk over that hill anyway, we'll set up there." I felt like a scoutmaster on the worst Boy Scout backpacking trip of all time; selecting campsites, making sure everyone had dry socks. At least here I didn't have to worry about parents complaining that their little Jimmy had come home with blisters and a mysterious rash.
The next morning, I already had sore muscles in place that I didn’t know had muscles. Everyone was sore and tired, everyone got up early that morning, no one complained, everyone pitched in to strike camp and get us on our way. After half an hour, my muscles loosened up, and I felt better. Then Skippy called me. "Hey, Joe."
"Hi, Skippy, What is it?"
"You busy? I want to tell you something I discovered."
"Not busy at all, Skippy, we're walking, and we've got a whole day of walking ahead of us. At least it's not raining right now."
"That'll change, you're going to get rain and sleet this afternoon."
"Sleet? Crap. I hate this planet."
"Unfortunately, Newark does not yet have a comment section on Tripadvisor, for you to leave a complaint. So, what I want to tell you is, I've been running an analysis with Doctor Venkman-"
"Oh, wow." Venkman was an astrophysicist, or something like that, I'd read her profile and I still wasn't clear on her exact specialty. "She's been helping you? That's great, Skippy."
"It is decidedly not great, Joe. Having a monkey looking over my shoulder is a truly ginormous, epic, un-bee-lee-vah-bull, uh, darn, it there are not words to properly describe how much that is a pain in the ass. You know how annoying it is for me, to try explaining even the most basic science to your dim monkey brain?"
By now, I wasn't even mildly insulted by that remark. "Uh huh, yeah? Mostly I tell you not to bother explaining sciency stuff to me."
"Exactly! That's awesome, I get to yank your chain, and you don't waste my time with worthless attempts to elevate your understanding of things way beyond your capability. It's like, you can teach a dog to shake a paw, sit, lie down, and even roll over, but you would never try training a dog to do your taxes, or drive a car."
"Although that would be awesome. Except if the dog was driving, and decided to chase a squirrel with your car."
"Agreed," Skippy chuckled, "anywho, when I'm talking to you, I don't have to waste time trying to thi
nk of a way to dumb things down enough for you. Hell, I could just make up stuff, and you'd never know."
"But you don't do that, right?"
"Not as far as you know. With Doctor Venk-"
"Hey! I heard that. Not as far as I know?"
"Does it really matter, Joe?"
"I guess not."
"Truthfully, no, I don't make up stuff for you, it wouldn't be any fun. Now, with a slightly, and I do mean slightly, infinitesimally slightly smarter monkey like Doctor Venkman, it would be great fun to make up stuff, because she knows just enough to almost know the difference, and I'd be kind of laughing my ass off at her."
"But you don't do that either?"
"Not as far as she knows."
"Skippy, come on, our science team came out here to learn how the universe works, you leading them astray isn't helping. It isn't fair, either, these people are risking their lives out here."
"Man, you are a total buzzkill. Remind me never to invite you to a party, Joe. Those dummies on your science team, and, man I hate to use the word 'science' so loosely, volunteered to come out here. Look, in a lot of cases, I can't tell your egghead scientists the whole truth, because such knowledge is too dangerous for monkeys. Not just monkeys, too dangerous for any species at your level of development. Some of it is too dangerous even for the Rindhalu, I'm not simply insulting monkeys. This is serious stuff, Joe."
"Oh."
"Yeah, oh. You dumdum." He paused. "Uh, what were we talking about?"
Skippy couldn't keep track of a conversation, and he called me the dumdum? I let it go. "Some kind of analysis you're doing with Venkman."
"Oh, yeah. Although to say that I'm performing the analysis with her, is like when you were four years old, and your father would put you on his lap when he drove the pickup truck, so you could 'help' him drive. Incidentally, that wasn't the smartest thing to do."
"That old truck doesn't have an airbag, Skippy. And there's no traffic on the back roads up where I grew up."
"Exactly! What if you hit a moose?"
"Oh my God. Did you ever see a moose, Skippy? You hit one of those big freakin' things, a children’s carseat isn't much help. Well, maybe. Whatever. I survived childhood."
"Is that how the brain damage happened?"
"Very funny. No, that's just me."
"My condolences. To your entire species, not just you. Back to what I was saying, Venkman helping with my analysis, is like little Joey helping your father drive the truck, it's more hindrance than help. She is just smart enough to ask a whole lot of stupid questions, whereas you're too dumb to even ask questions in the first place. That's why I prefer working with you, Joe."
"Thank you, I think."
"You're welcome," he said, after insulting me. "Getting back to the point, we ran an analysis. Technically, I ran the analysis, while she sat in the corner, playing with blocks and eating sticky Cheerios off the floor."
"Ha!" I had to laugh at that mental image. "See, I would play with the toy trucks instead. Much more fun than blocks."
"I'll take your word on that, Joe. The results of our analysis are intriguing, they are so intriguing, so disturbing, so inexplicable, that I want us to gather data for further analysis. Someday, I mean, not right now."
"Skippy, I have no problem with gathering further data, first you need to get us off this planet. What, uh, is so intriguing? You find a tiny difference in the concentration of interstellar dust particles somewhere again?"
"No, you dumbass. What is intriguing is, here, I need to go back a bit and give you some context."
"Ok, I'm all ears, I won't interrupt you, I promise." He had good timing, because we had started walking up a long hill, and I was getting out of breath.
"You remember the star system where I was sure, or pretty, very certain, I, Ok, yeah, smart guy. Stupid monkey," he grumbled. "I know you're thinking it, go ahead and say it. Say it! I was wrong. Wrong! There, you happy now? You big jerkface," he grumbled.
"Skippy?'
"Yeah?"
"I have no freakin' clue," I said, out of breath, "what you're talking about. We've been to a lot of star systems, which one is this?"
"Oh. Hmm. Maybe I'm somewhat too sensitive about the few, the very few times when I am wrong. Hmm, actually, in this case, I thought I was wrong, but I wasn't. I wasn't! Ha! I was not wrong, I was right all along."
"So, you were wrong about being wrong?"
"Exactly!"
"Which means you were still wrong, about something."
"I was- oh, shut up. Do you want to hear my information or not?"
"I've been trying," I gasped, "to hear it, if you will please get to the point. Damn, you are absent-minded sometimes. Your mind wanders so far, I wonder if it’s ever going to come back."
“Me? Have you ever heard yourself talk, Joe? You start a sentence, and halfway through, you’ve changed the subject, verb and object three times. Half the time you’re talking, by the time you finish, I’ve lost track of where you started. And you’ve lost track, too.”
“Oh. All right, maybe I’m a little guilty of that,” I admitted. That wasn’t the first time people had remarked on my scatter-brained thoughts. “I had an elementary school teacher, Ms. Evans, she tried to diagram one of my sentances on the white board. I thought her head would explode. Anyway, back to the subject, please.”
"Fine," he huffed. "The star system I was talking about, is the one where I was very confident we would find an unmapped Elder site. Extra confident."
"Uh, huh, something about force lines in the galaxy?"
"Yes! And we didn't find any sign of an Elder presence, even though I requested the Dutchman to fly around the system, so I could perform an extensive sensor sweep."
"I remember," I said, using as few words as possible, being out of breath.
"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.
SpecOps (Expeditionary Force Book 2) Page 34
