Black Ops (Expeditionary Force Book 4)

by Craig Alanson

  “Joe, I already said it wasn’t a good plan. Anywho, when I thought you would tragically be deprived of my awesomeness, I attempted to put critical data into a file for you, Joe.”

  “Oh, that was very thoughtful of you, Skippy,” I said, genuinely touched.

  “Ah, in this case, it has to be the thought that counts, because it didn’t work. My internal systems prevented me from assembling the data. If I want to give you a gift in the future, you’ll have to settle for a fruit basket.”

  “I like pineapple.”

  “I will keep that in mind Joe. Bottom line is, I can’t offer any sort of significant upgrade to humanity’s technology level. You will have to do it the hard way, on your own.”

  “Or we do it the easy way, like all other species seem to do in this galaxy: we steal it.”

  “I’m not following you, Joe,” the avatar tilted its cap up.

  “We have a Kristang troop ship at Earth, or close enough. Back home, they should be taking that apart soon, to figure out how it works. If we can get the Dutchman home, even if it can never fly again, we can try to reverse engineer Thuranin technology.”

  “Good luck with that,” Skippy scoffed. “Joe, understanding the theory behind how something works is only the first step. To make the theory useful, you have to be able to make it work. While we have been talking, I ran some rough estimates of how long it would take for Earth industry to create something relatively simple, like magnets for a crude reactor containment system. The best guess I can make is eighty years, Joe. Eighty years, and that assumes I am directing the effort, which I can’t do. On your own, it could take three hundred years to build the infrastructure to create stable exotic matter.”

  “I don’t think humanity has any important appointments over the next three hundred years, Skippy; we can concentrate on understanding this technology and building up our defenses. What the Merry Band of Pirates need to do keep is aliens away from our home, so Earth has time to develop technology.”

  “Oh yeah,” Skippy said, his voice dripping with even more condescension than usual. “Good luck with that, monkeys.”

  During our five-day journey out to the wormhole, Simms was in my office when Skippy called me. “Joe,” Skippy’s avatar hopped up and down on my desk and waved its arms to get my attention. “I know where we can pick up a Kristang frigate cheap.”

  “What? Where?” I asked, assuming this was one of Skippy’s jokes.

  In a blink, his avatar changed to fat guy wearing a cheap plaid suit and what my grandfather used to call the ‘Full Cleveland’ outfit: white belt and matching white shoes. Hey, that was my grandfather’s expression, so the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce can direct hate mail to him, not me. I looked closely, the avatar even had crumbs on its chin and some sort of grease stain on its shirt and tie. Skippy really nailed the used car salesman image.

  Oh, and the National Association of Pre-Owned Car Salespersons can bite me too.

  “Joey, Joey, you are in luck, my boy,” the avatar said smarmily. “This frigate is a real cream-puff, only a zillion lightyears on it, all highway mileage. We’re having a Labor Day blowout sale-”

  “It’s not Labor Day,” Simms whispered to me.

  “Don’t bother him with facts, he’s on a roll,” I whispered back.

  “-and for you, oh, my sales manager is going to kill me for saying this,” the avatar said with a conspiratorial wink. “We’ll even throw in our guaranteed rustproofing package.”

  “There’s no rust in space,” I rolled my eyes.

  “That’s why it’s guaranteed. So, what would it take to get you into a quality warship like this, today? By ‘what will it take you’, I mean other than the special ops assault team that will be needed to capture it.”

  It still wasn’t clear to me if he was joking or not. “What are you offering for financing? I doubt if my credit card works out here.”

  “Joey, Joey, Joey. With Skippy’s Used Starship Emporium, your job is your credit. Although, hmm, your job is only going to last until your next major screwup, so maybe I should insist on a cash transaction.”

  “Are you being serious, Skippy? You know where there is a Kristang frigate we could take?”

  “Yup, dead serious. And, as a bonus, you already sort of know this ship.”

  “I do?” My mind raced through the limited number of Kristang ships I had encountered. The troop transport that had brought me outbound from Earth? No, Skippy said this ship was a frigate. The Flower had been a frigate, but Skippy had taken that ship apart to repair the Dutchman. Several of the ships we had jumped into a gas giant planet had been frigates, the key phrase being ‘had been’. Those ships were unorganized particles now. And when we arrived at Earth the first time, Skippy had jumped a Kristang frigate into the Sun. So, my mind was coming up blank. “Sorry, Skippy, my dumdum brain can’t understand what you mean. Which frigate is this?”

  “The ‘To Seek Glory in Battle is Glorious’, of course.”

  “Holy shit,” I gasped. I did know that ship, or knew of that ship. It had been a thorn in the side of Commodore Ferlant’s task force at Paradise, and later the Glory had joined Admiral Kekrando’s battlegroup. We had never actually encountered that ship during our first mission there to reactivate maser projectors, nor on our later mission to plant fake Elder artifacts. But from mission reports Skippy hacked from both sides, we sure as hell knew all about the Glory. Based on those reports, I almost had to admire the crew of that stubborn little ship that refused to die. Almost. What dampened my admiration was knowing the Glory had used her maser cannons to burn out fields of human crops in Lemuria, killing humans in the process. At one point, I had considered suggesting to Chotek that we should take out the Glory, if we could do that without risk to our mission. I never made that suggestion, because I knew the ever-overly-cautious Count Chocula would reject my idea, and that would give him even more reason to distrust my judgment. “I thought the Glory was declared lost during the final battle, before the cease fire took effect.”

  “Rumors of that ship’s death had been greatly exaggerated, Joe. I suspected Admiral Kekrando was lying about how many ships he had left at the time of the cease fire, I just never had an opportunity to investigate. If you remember, we were kind of busy.”

  “How do you know about it now?”

  “That Ruhar data node contained an interesting report that the Glory recently surrendered to the Ruhar; that ship really didn’t have any choice, after Major Perkins destroyed the Kristang commando team the Glory was supposed to retrieve.”

  “Perkins? Perkins- what the hell?” I sputtered. “What commando team?”

  “Joe, after we left, there was, um, trouble on Paradise.” While Simms and I listened with mouths gaping open in astonishment, Skippy gave a brief account of what had happened within the first few weeks after we left Paradise behind.

  “Shauna NUKED an island?!” There was another phrase I never thought would ever be coming out of my mouth.

  “Uh huh. What is left of that formerly peaceful tropical isle has been renamed ‘Jarrett Island’. From the limited data in the file, I do not think your former squeeze Shauna considers that to be much of an honor. Although, she sure did blow the hell out of it, so it is mostly her fault.”

  “Holy shit,” I slumped in my chair, sharing an amazed look with Simms. “Goddamn it. I figured Shauna and the rest of them would be, I don’t know, growing tomatoes or something peaceful.”

  “Apparently, United States Army personnel have a talent for finding trouble.”

  “That’s our job, Skippy. We find trouble and take care of it, before trouble can find civilians.”

  “You, and people who know you, seem to have an uncanny ability to attract trouble,” Skippy’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Maybe being around you rubbed off onto them, Joe?”

  “I hope not. But, wow, Goddamn. They couldn’t stay out of trouble for one freakin’ month? Uh, I’m glad Perkins and her team were able to stop that commando attack.�
��

  “Me too. It gave the Burgermeister an excuse to ensure better treatment of UNEF. They even have chocolate now! So, anyway, back to the subject. The Glory surrendered, and her crew have been interred by the Ruhar; they will likely be traded for Ruhar prisoners of war later. The ship itself is being prepped for a short voyage out to rendezvous with a Jeraptha star carrier. The Glory will be waiting just beyond the outer edge of the Paradise system, alone and with only a skeleton crew of four Ruhar technicians.”

  “A sitting duck,” I said with appreciation. “Hmmm. That is what I call a tempting target. Damn, Skippy, that is a good deal. Tell you what, I’ll take this creampuff, I don’t even need rustproofing.”

  “You never did need rustproofing, Joe. I do highly recommend our special interior detailing and air freshener package. That ship’s air filters haven’t been changed in four months, and a group of scared, sweaty lizards were packed in there for way too long.”

  “Ugh. We’ll keep our suits on. Ok, I need to brief Chotek on this.”

  “Really, Joe? Count Chocula is only going to say ‘no’, and you know it.”

  “What am I supposed to do, Skippy? Run a secret op behind his back, and tell him the Glory just happened to latch onto us like a lost puppy?”

  “That’s not a bad idea, Joe. You think he would buy it?” Skippy asked hopefully.

  “Not a chance, Skippy. Ah, crap, I have to think of a way to persuade Chotek to approve an attack on a UNEF ally.”

  “The Ruhar are not officially, or knowingly, our allies, Joe. They are only allies of UNEF on Paradise. And the operation doesn’t need to be an attack; we only need to take the ship away from an almost defenseless skeleton crew. That shouldn’t be too difficult for our bad-ass team of SpecOps warriors.”

  “You’re forgetting that we need to make sure this skeleton crew of Ruhar don’t learn, or even suspect, that humans were involved. Other than making those four hamsters into actual skeletons, I don’t know how we could do that.”

  “Joe, I am confident that you and Sarah Rose will cook up a sufficiently devious plan between the two of you.”

  “Oh, great. Major,” I said to Simms, “it looks like I’m going to be busy.” I picked up my phone to call Dr. Rose. Before I proposed anything to Chotek, I needed to have a solid plan. Then I set the zPhone back on the desk; I needed more info before I called Sarah. “How long will the Glory be sitting there, all by itself, before a Jeraptha star carrier picks it up?”

  “According to the schedule in the file, nineteen hours. The schedule is padded because the delivery crew is not confident in the ability of the Glory’s jump drive to get them to the rendezvous point on time.”

  “Nineteen hours? Damn. That’s a pretty tight window.”

  “Nineteen hours, if the Glory’s crappy jump drive doesn’t cause any delays. I would count on there being at least one delay.”

  I whistled in dismay. “That is cutting it pretty close, Skippy.”

  “Come on, Joe, we’ve done operations way more complicated than this. The reward for this op is a freakin’ alien warship, for crying out loud. You have to at least try to think up a plan.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Is there any chance you can use the Thuranin nanovirus thingy to take control of the Glory for us?”

  “No,” he sighed disgustedly. “I already told you, that nanovirus is a short-range, short-term technology, Joe. It is designed to protect Thuranin star carriers from being attacked by Kristang ships the carrier is transporting. The Glory has been operating away from a Thuranin ship for long enough that the nanovirus aboard her would have gone discoherent.”

  “Ah, crap.” The nanovirus wouldn’t have helped us deal with the Ruhar crew anyway. “Hey, one more question for you, Skippy. It will take four days to get to Paradise from here? How long until we have to change course to go back to Paradise?”

  “It will be twenty six hours until we jump through the next wormhole. At that point, we have to go toward Paradise, or continue on to intercept the Ruhar negotiators.”

  “Yeah, but we have plenty of time for that, right? No change to that timeline, is there? We could divert to Paradise, pick up the Glory, and still be at the negotiator’s rendezvous point with plenty of time?”

  “Oh, certainly, Joe, no problem. Even stopping by Paradise to implement whatever lame-brained plan you cook up, we will be sitting around waiting four days for the Ruhar negotiation team to arrive.”

  I picked up my zPhone again. “Great, so now I have twenty six hours-”

  “Twenty five hours, forty two minutes and fifteen seconds-”

  “-to dream up a plan, and persuade Chotek we should take the risk. Wonderful.”

  “You should hop to it, then, Joe. Considering how slowly your brain works, you will need every second.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  To give my brain a break, I went back to Cargo Bay Six that we used as a shooting range. It was one the ship’s two longest cargo bays, not as big as the docking bays used for dropships, but those were fully occupied and we couldn’t have any shooting in there. The fact that we could fire live weapons inside a starship had been a surprise to me, I had asked Sergeant Adams to work with Skippy to set up some sort of training range, and my expectation had been a type of simulator. Our shooting range was a simulator, a really good one. At the far end, Skippy projected very realistic-looking holographic targets, moving targets that could shoot simulated rounds back at us. We mostly practiced against holographic Kristang, occasionally Thuranin. Sometimes we ‘fought’ simulated Ruhar, not because we expected to go into combat against hamsters, but because it was useful to learn their preferred weapons and tactics.

  The holographic enemies all fired simulated rounds, or maser beams, or whatever weapons their species used in combat. We fired live rounds, although our rounds did not use the explosive tips that were standard issue in action. We shot at either holographic targets or regular bullseye targets, and the really cool thing was the rounds did not impact the far wall to ricochet all over the cargo bay. Skippy installed some sort of magic energy field that took the momentum of our practice rounds and dispersed the energy in multiple directions. When a round entered the field, it was enveloped in some exotic effect that turned part of the round’s kinetic energy into negative energy. Instead of all the kinetic energy moving the round forward, part of the energy wanted the round to go backwards, some left, right, up and down. The net effect was the round came almost to a stop before it impacted the padded far wall, where it gently dropped into a tray on the floor. Skippy controlled and fine-tuned the field in real-time so he arrested the flight of rounds individually. The incredible technological magic of the field in our firing range was based on the same technology as the defensive energy field that protected the ship from kinetic weapons like missiles, railguns and some of the effects of particle beams. We had another type of defensive shield to deflect energy beams like masers; this energy shield acted like a stealth field to bend incoming maser beams around the ship. The energy shield was interlaced with the kinetic shield, and used the same projectors.

  Anyway, that is how we could use live-fire weapons aboard a starship without blowing holes in the hull and sucking all the air out, or hitting some vital ship component that did not deal well with being shot at, like energy conduits. Or, you know, people.

  When I walked into the firing range, there were no holographic enemies, just bullseye targets. Most of the crew were eating lunch in the galley, I wanted to squeeze off a couple rounds while I considered what to do that day, shooting relaxes me because it focuses my mind on one thing. Skippy is right, most of the time I am a scatter-brain and my thoughts are a jumble. The only people in the firing range were my Ranger babysitter Lauren Poole, and Doctor Friedlander. Following the incident where Chotek was trapped aboard the relay station, I had decided everyone aboard the ship should have at least minimal weapons training. To my surprise, Friedlander and his team had taken to the training with great enthusiasm. Part o
f the fun was being able to fire advanced alien weapons; everything we used was Kristang gear we had taken from the troopship in Earth orbit. We had standard Kristang infantry rifles, a heavy rifle that we rarely found a use for, rockets, grenades and of course Zinger antiaircraft missiles. “Having fun, Doctor?” I asked with a grin.

  “Yes,” his grin was even wider than mine. “I shot .22 rifles in the Boy Scouts, but this,” he held up a Kristang rifle, “is an amazing weapon.”

  “Poole?” I asked. “Is the good doctor a good student?”

  “Yes, Sir.” She said with pride.

  “Look,” Friedlander was eager to show me. “It’s easy, this rifle is very well designed, it is easy to use. You press this button, there’s one on either side, that ejects the ammo clip-”

  “The magazine,” I corrected him. “It’s an ammunition magazine, not a ‘clip’.”

  Friedlander tilted his head at me. “I’ve heard you refer to it as a ‘clip’ before.”

  “Yes, that’s because I’m a total dumbass,” I explained. “I can’t tell you how many times I got punishment duty for using the wrong terms, don’t make the same mistakes I do. Like, I use ‘Special Forces’ instead of the proper terms ‘Special Operations’. ‘Special Forces’ is a particular unit in the US Army; the teams we have aboard are dedicated Special Operations troops. Anyway, go ahead, you ejected the magazine.”

  Friedlander demonstrated that he was familiar with a Kristang infantry rifle, and that he knew how to shoot it also; Poole told me our friendly local rocket scientist had been practicing every opportunity he had, when the firing range wasn’t scheduled by Major Smythe for his teams. I felt the need to uphold my honor by firing off a magazine one round at time, making holes in the holographic target and racking up a decent score. When I was done, the three of us chatted while cleaning our weapons and putting them away on the rack. Kristang rifles don’t need much in the way of cleaning; they mostly use magnetic fields rather than lubrication, and their ammo fires so cleanly there is almost no residue. Regular maintenance was taken care of by Major Smythe’s teams, and Skippy’s bots handled heavy maintenance like replacing magnets periodically. Still, taking care of your weapons is a good habit for a soldier. “That was good shooting, Doctor,” I told Friedlander.