SpecOps (Expeditionary Force Book 2)

by Craig Alanson

  When the fighting ended, there were only three Kristang left alive on the planet. Two leaders, wearing armor and hunkered down in their own building, likely still in shock and trying to decide what to do. One laborer, holed up in the armory building. Holed up, with the precious stash of Elder artifacts, and a whole lot of explosives. Explosives he threatened to detonate, if the leaders didn't take off their armor suits, come into the open, and negotiate how to split the artifacts and assure the laborer he would be getting safely off the planet. According to Skippy, he actually did have a chance to survive; though Kristang society would not be happy about him participating in a violent mutiny, they would respect his courage, and more important, his success. The Kristang rewarded success in combat, I knew that from very personal experience. Unfortunately for him, we knew from Skippy listening in on the two leaders' conversations that they planned to betray and kill the laborer.

  We needed to deal with the three remaining Kristang. To put it simply, we needed to kill them quickly. And with minimal risk to ourselves. By 'ourselves', I mean the SpecOps troops, not me. I didn't even have a weapon, what I had carried across the surface of Newark was ammo and part of an armor suit. Yes, I had experience in combat, I'd even killed Kristang. With the SpecOps teams, I could only get in their way. Each team of four or six had trained extensively with each other, knew their tactics, knew each other, knew their roles, knew what every other member of the team would do in a situation. Each teams had trained with other teams, and each soldier had cross trained with other teams; Rangers had taken a place on the Chinese team, Chinese with the SAS, French paratroopers with their Indian counterparts. Although I had participated in some of their training aboard, and outside, the Dutchman, I wasn't qualified to go into combat with them. "What do you think?" I asked Smythe.

  "It would help if we could draw those two leaders out of cover," Smythe mused, "going to be a hell of a fire fight, if we have to go in there after them. Two armored suits against two armored suits, and they're bigger, faster and stronger than humans. They've been using armor probably since they were little, we still don't have enough real experience for me to be confident of our chances in this one. That bugger with the explosives is the real problem, that's where we could use our suits; go in high speed and hit him before he can react. We can't do that if we need our suits to engage those two leaders. Somehow, we need to make that laborer disarm those explosives, or distract him even a short time, make him hesitate." He looked up at me. "You have another magic trick up your sleeve, sir?"

  "I wish I did," I said, shaking my head slowly. Magic is what we needed right then. The SpecOps people were committed and brave, willing to go in and accomplish the mission, regardless of the cost to themselves. Willing to go in, if I ordered them to. An order I didn't want to give. It wouldn't be right for me to send them into a straight, brutal fire fight simply because their commander couldn't think of a better tactical solution to the problem. Yet, we'd come this far, we couldn't simply give up now. A magic trick would be a great thing to have right then. All magic is based on deception-

  I sucked in a sharp breath. "Captain Smythe, I may have an idea. Skippy, you listening?"

  "I'm here," Skippy acknowledged.

  With an attentive audience, I explained my plan.

  Smythe grinned appreciatively. "Sir, I think Skippy is right, you are an evil genius."

  I had to laugh at that, despite the seriousness of the situation. "This will work?" The SpecOps people were the experts on what they could accomplish, and not.

  "Oh, yes. We'll handle it from here, sir," Smythe said and turned to sketch out an attack plan in the mud.

  Phase Three Bravo, that I'd dreamed up on the spot, began by Skippy transmitting over the radio, in the clear, a message supposedly from the Kristang who had shot down the Luzzard and the dropship, and stolen the Elder power tap. Pretending to be one of those Kristang, from the Red Stone clan, Skippy made a plea to the laborer with the explosives, explaining the Red Stone clan's ship had never truly jumped away, it had been hiding behind a stealth field in orbit the whole time. The Red Stone clan had given the security access codes to the laborers, and if the one remaining Kristang laborer deactivated the explosives and joined the Red Stone, he could split the reward. Our two men in armored suits stepped over the ridge into clear view, and began running toward the storehouse where the laborer was holed up with the Elder AI, the precious comm node, and a pile of explosives.

  Three Bravo worked, because the three remaining Kristang heard Kristang talking to them, and saw two unfamiliar Kristang armored suits pop up and run toward the base. The scavengers were alone on Newark, as far as they knew. They believed our story about the Red Stone clan instantly, because that was the only possible explanation, based on what the scavengers knew. They had no reason to think the two Kristang armored suits running toward the base contained anyone other than Kristang from the Red Stone clan, to think anything else right then would be absurd.

  Our deception worked as intended, the two leaders in armor screeched angrily over the radio and stepped out from behind cover to race toward the armory, intending to get there before the two Red Stone clan in armor suits could. From where they were, the two leaders couldn't get a clear shot at our two armored warriors; several buildings were between the two pairs of combatants, and our men weaved as they ran, using low spots in the hill slope to keep out of plain sight. The SpecOps teams had practiced this broken field running in suits many times. Skippy's opinion was that, because of the size gap between humans and Kristang, and the different running gaits of the two species, a human wearing armor would look strange to a Kristang, and any Kristang would notice something wrong fairly quickly. With our two men running down the hill slope, leaping from cover to cover, they weren't clearly visible long enough for the Kristang to tell those armored suits didn't contain Kristang. Or so we hoped.

  The two scavenger leaders were not making any attempt to keep to cover, racing at the full amazing speed their suits could manage. They were fast, almost too fast. Our entire assault team, except the Alpha team of two men in armor, and one rifleman waiting for a clear shot at the laborer, had our Kristang rifles sighted in on the scavenger leaders, and even with advanced knowledge of how fast beings in suits could run, and the super technology of Kristang adaptive gunsights, most of our first volley of shots missed. Enough shots did hit the two scavenger leaders that they went down quickly, stumbling and falling, skidding across the ground. Now alert to the danger, they separated and attempted to get behind cover, they were too late. Massed fire, with eight to ten rifles concentrating on each set of armor, knocked them back down again, and our explosive-tipped armor-penetrating rounds began to bite through the tough armor.

  "Cease fire! Cease fire!" Skippy shouted over the private channel. "Stop shooting, those two are dead. You're wasting ammo."

  Before I had to say anything, we all stopping shooting at the two now-inert Kristang leaders. Our two men in armor didn't hesitate, they kept running toward the armory building. This was the moment of maximum danger; if that lizard in the armory decided he had nothing to lose, and detonated the explosives, we could lose our two men in suits, the comm node, and the AI. I was about to order the two men in suits to halt, so we could try talking to the remaining Kristang, but the sharp crack of a rifle interrupted me. The sniper we had assigned to cover the armory had not lost focus for a second, despite the gunfire ringing out all around him. The massed fire had attracted the attention of the laborer in the armory, curiosity, or maybe the fear of not knowing what is going on, overcame his better judgment, and he popped his head up for a quick look.

  Not quick enough. Our sniper, from the Chinese team, drilled him once in the head with an explosive-tipped round, and that was the end of it. Fortunately, the laborer hadn't rigged up any kind of dead-man switch on the explosives, nothing happened. "You certain you got him?" I asked the sniper.

  "Yes, sir," he said, and transmitted his gun scope camera image to my zPhone
.

  There was no question about it, that lizard's head had exploded like, well, I'll spare you the unpleasant details. What mattered was, that lizard wasn't going to be a problem for anyone, ever again. "Alpha team," I ordered the two men in suits, "approach with caution. Everyone else, hold position."

  We waited while the Alpha team in their armor carefully leapfrogged toward the armory. This was a situation where I wish we had the full suite of Kristang infantry fighting gear, especially recon drones. We could have launched a drone into the armory, without risking anyone's life, to get us all the intel we needed. As it was, with only two armored suits and no recon gear, we made do with what we had. One, then both, of the Alpha team disappeared inside the large door of the armory, then one of them came outside and waved to me. "All clear, sir, no booby traps. He would have had to manually set off the explosives, looks like he was mostly bluffing."

  "Skippy?" I inquired. "What do you think?"

  "I concur, all is clear. None of the Kristang are alive."

  "Damn," I breathed a sigh of relief, "we did it. We actually did it."

  Smythe safed his weapon, stood up, and crisply saluted me. "Sir, we destroyed their air power, and neutralized all of them, without a single shot being fired in our direction. This is the most successful operation I've ever been involved in. That was a hell of a plan, sir."

  "So far, Captain. So far." We still needed to hide from the Kristang ship that would arrive before the Dutchman was ready, then later get off the planet safely. "Let's secure Skippy's magic radio and the AI, and then I'll think about celebrating somewhat."

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  The Elder gear we wanted was in a pile on the floor of the armory, underneath a dead lizard. I ordered the Alpha team to remove the dead Kristang, as the seven foot tall body was too heavy for me to move by myself. It took a few minutes of sorting through the pile to find the two things Skippy sought; the AI and the comm node. The comm node I found first, it was in a box, surrounded by padding; the Kristang must have recognized it as something at least semi valuable. "Ok, we have the comm node-"

  "No!" Skippy interrupted me. "The AI, find the AI."

  "All right, all right," I assured him. "Looking for it now." Setting aside the comm node, the magic radio we had come all the way out here to find, I continued sorting through the pile, until I reached the bottom. There was no AI. "It's not here."

  "What?" Skippy's voice carried a touch of panic. "It has to be there!"

  "Hold on, Skippy, don't worry yet. I only looked through the Elder gear that guy had with the explosives. He probably didn't have time to take all the Elder artifacts out of where they are storing them. There's a bunch of lockers and containers here, we'll find it."

  And we did find it, forty minutes later. We tore the armory apart, looked in every container, every locker, and we found all kinds of Elder artifacts, mostly damaged, all worthless according to Skippy. The AI wasn't anywhere. "Crap!" I swore in frustration. "We'll have to search every nook and cranny of this entire base, then. Captain Smythe, split up the team-"

  Williams interrupted me. "Got it! Found it, sir, I think. Is this it?" He held up an object identical to Skippy, except this one had some green sticky substance on one side.

  "Yes!" I exulted. "Where did you find it?"

  "In the trash can, sir," Williams answered.

  "The trash can?!" Skippy shouted. "Damn it! If those lizards weren't already dead, I'd kill them for that."

  "Skippy, they didn't know what they had. The lizards and the hamsters kept you on a dusty shelf, they didn't know how valuable you are either." I took the AI from Williams and carefully rubbed the green goo off with a rag, it came off easily, nothing stuck to that shiny chrome surface. "Ok, what's next?"

  "Touch your phone to the surface, it needs to be in direct contact."

  "That's all?" I asked skeptically.

  "Yes, we're making do with what we have here. I'll take it from there. Good, hold it right there, right there. Huh," he said, "let me try it again. Huh."

  "Anything?"

  "No, no, nothing. Trying it again. Damn it."

  "Skippy?" He didn't answer me. I had been touching the top of my zPhone to the top of the AI. Now, I set the zPhone down on a table, and put the AI on it. It couldn't be touching any more firmly. "Hey, Skippy," I said softly, "do you want to try it again? Skippy?"

  "I did already," he said, and he didn't even bother faking a sigh.

  "Nothing? I'm sorry, Skippy." Damn I felt just awful for him. Essentially alone in the universe, he thought he had found one of this own kind, but it was inert. "Hey, listen, we'll bring the AI up to the Dutchman with us, and you can try it again there."

  "Why? It's dead, Joe, there's nothing in that canister. There is no use bringing it to me."

  "You know this because you have contacted apparently inert AIs before?"

  "No. Duh. This has never happened before, as far as I know."

  "Then you don't know that it won't work, right?"

  He sighed, and the fact that he made the effort to do that for my benefit was encouraging. We didn't need a depressed AI working on the delicate task of repairing the ship. "You're right," he said glumly. "Sure, what the hell, I'll try that."

  "I'm sorry, Skippy, I really am."

  "Yeah, I know. Ah, time heals all wounds, right? It's only been a minute for you, but in Skippy time, that happened like a year ago, I've gotten over my initial disappointment," he said more cheerfully. "You're right! Yeah, maybe the AI needs to be within my true range, using your phone only allows me to work within this spacetime. Yeah! Hey, that's it. Damn it, I'll have to wait until I can send a dropship down to get it. Ok, let's try the comm node now."

  "No," I said flatly.

  "No?" Skippy said, surprised. "Oh, shit, is it damaged? You told me in was in a nice padded box, you jerk!"

  "It's not damaged, Skippy, I don't want you screwing with it, until we're back aboard the Dutchman. Think about what might happen if this comm node works, and you contact the Collective right here? Like you told me, you might go Poof and disappear. And then we monkeys would be stuck down here, with repairs to the Dutchman incomplete, and us with no way to get back to the ship anyway." I caught Smythe's eye, and he nodded approval. None of us wanted to risk Skippy disappearing before we were ready to leave Newark behind. "So, the answer is no, you're not going to attempt to use the comm node yet, I'm keeping it securely in the box. If you want to try using it, then you finish fixing up the ship, get it here, and send down dropships to pick us up."

  "Fine," he huffed. "I guess that's fair. To tell you the truth, as much as I do want to contact the Collective, I want to see if I really can fix this ship first. That would be something to brag about, huh?"

  "If? You mean 'when'," I said fearfully. "When you fix the ship, right?"

  "Oh, yeah, sure. No problemo, Joe. Uh huh, right. I mean when I fix the ship. Things are going well up here, Joe, no major disasters within the last, oh, six hours, almost. Nothing I can't handle."

  "Great." I had to take him at his word, there wasn't an alternative. "Is there anything else we can do here, Skippy?" I asked, panning my zPhone camera over the array of Elder artifacts laying on the floor, "Bring any of this other stuff with us?"

  "None of it is useful to us," Skippy said, "although we need to do something with it anyway, if that Kristang ship gets here and detects a whole bunch of Elder gear still in the vicinity of the scavenger base, that will blow our cover story of another Kristang clan coming here and ripping off the scavengers. We can't count entirely on our missile getting all of it."

  "Uh, huh, got it," I said with dismay. Some of the Elder gear was heavy, or bulky, or both. Bringing all of it with us would be a substantial burden, the hillside caverns where I planned for us to hole up were seventy kilometers away. So was most of our food supply. "This is a lot of stuff to carry."

  "Sir?' Gomez spoke up. "This guy here," he nudged the dead laborer with his boot, "had the place ready to
blow if we tried to capture him. Maybe our cover story could be the scavengers here blew up most of the Elder gear, to keep the Red Stone clan from taking it?"

  I looked at him in surprise.

  Smythe nodded agreement. "That would save us from having to haul all this kit a long way, sir, we could take some of it with us."

  Damn, that was a good plan, I should have thought of it. "Skippy? Does that sound good to you?"

  "Yeah, sure, what the hell," he answered listlessly. "Sorry, Joe, I'm very disappointed about the AI, that's all. Yes, that plan makes sense. Pile the explosives around most of it, set a timer, and blow it. That will be convincing. If the ship scans the area, they'll see plenty of expended Kristang cartridges from the firefight. The missile is on its way, that will cover up any contradictory evidence."

  "Great. Good thinking," I addressed Gomez and Smythe. The missile, which Skippy had launched on its long journey across the star system while we were still driving the RV across Newark, had been taking a slow orbital approach to Newark. Now that we had cleared the scavenger base of Kristang, and retrieved the useless Elder gear, the missile only needed our strike team to clear the area, before it accelerated in and impacted the center of the base. The missile was one of Skippy's handmade units, not one of our precious Thuranin ship-killers with the fancy atomic compression warheads. Skippy's homebrew warhead was powerful enough to burrow into the soil of Newark, and create a crater larger than the scavenger base perimeter, it also would leave trace signature elements of a typical Kristang warhead blast. That missile was Phase Four of my plan, covering up evidence that the base had been raided by a party traveling overland. Data that Skippy would plant in the two Kristang satellites would show a Kristang ship unstealthing in orbit, a pair of dropships strafing the scavenger base, then landing and a firefight at the base. The armory would blow up, with most of the Elder gear, then the dropships would take off, and the ship would fire a missile at the base, before recovering its dropships and jumping away. I'm sure Skippy would make the whole event look thoroughly convincing in the satellite data banks. When the Kristang ship arrived to pick up the scavenger leaders, it would find a muddy crater where the base had been, and a familiar story of the scavengers being raided by a rival clan. There would, I fervently hoped, be absolutely no reason for that ship to have any curiosity about the rest of the planet, no reason to actively scan the surface. No reason to initiate a scan that might find RV tracks leading toward the base, a scan that might detect an RV sunk in a river. No reason to scan the area around the two crashed scavenger aircraft, a scan that very likely would detect signs of recent habitation. Signs of the area being inhabited by, of all unlikely things, humans.