Black Ops (Expeditionary Force Book 4)

by Craig Alanson

  “Great. Ok, so, explain this genius strategy to me. I need to create a tactical plan, and I don’t even know the target.”

  “Before I start, let me make sure you understand the background material,” he said, and I mentally prepared myself for a lecture from Professor Nerdnik. “There are two major clans that currently dominate Kristang society; the Fire Dragons and the Black Trees.”

  “The Black Trees? The same clan that was the first to occupy Paradise, and took away all the Elder goodies?”

  “Very good, Joey! You are my star pupil today, get yourself a juicebox. The Black Tree clan took all the Elder goodies away from Paradise, except the most important one; me!” He chuckled. “Stupid lizards. The hamsters weren’t any smarter.”

  “Uh huh. Yup, truly, it is ironic that, of all the advanced species in the galaxy, only us lowly monkeys are capable of appreciating your awesomeness,” I suppressed a gagging sound, trying to build up brownie points with our alien beer can.

  “Ironic? Pathetic is a better word for it,” he sighed. “Yes, the Black Tree clan was the first to occupy Paradise. They surrendered it peacefully to the Ruhar, because the Black Trees thought they had stripped that planet of anything useful.”

  “Whenever I hear ‘Black Trees’ I think of like a new age music group, not a bloodthirsty clan of lizards. That’s kind of a lame name for a clan.”

  “Joe, you are so ignorant,” his avatar put hands over its eyes and shook its head, the giant hat bobbing comically. “The name ‘Black Trees’ is a reference to ancient Kristang mythology. Back when the Kristang were barely able to use fire and their most deadly weapon was a wooden club, they were hunter-gatherers living mostly in forests. There were larger, more dangerous predators living in dense areas of the forests where trees with black bark grew. The Kristang knew to avoid those areas, but as their society developed, it was a rite of passage for young males to go among the black trees overnight. Those who survived were accepted as warriors. Even today, there are game preserves on many Kristang-occupied planets; these game preserves have thick forests of black trees, and many types of fearsome predators. Warriors test themselves by going into these forests armed only with a knife, and whatever weapons they can make from the forest. Over the years, some of the predators have been bred specially to be more deadly and harder to kill. To go among black trees takes a special combination of courage and stupidity.”

  “Oh. All right then, the Black Tree name makes sense.”

  “I am sure the Kristang will be thrilled to hear you approve,” Skippy’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Do I need to explain the name ‘Fire Dragons’ to you?”

  “No, I’m good, thank you.

  “How about I explain the name ‘Joe Bishop’? In the original Old English, your name means ‘One Who Plays With Himself’.”

  “It does not!”

  “The translation in most other languages is ‘Duuuuuuuh’.”

  “Why are you such an asshole?”

  “Oh, Joe, explaining that one could take more time than you have. Can we go back to my lesson about the current structure among Kristang clans? I call this ‘Lizard Politics for Dummies’.”

  “If it will get you to stop insulting me, go ahead, talk about lizard politics all day.”

  “As I was saying before you got me off on a tangent about clan names, the Fire Dragons and Black Trees are by far the two strongest clans; technically those two clans lead the strongest formal coalition of clans. They have each conquered, absorbed or allied with lesser clans to increase their own strength. Between the Fire Dragons and the Black Trees, they control around forty percent of the combat power, and forty two percent of the economic power of the entire Kristang dominion.”

  “That doesn’t seem like much. Each of the two most powerful clans controls only twenty percent of Kristang society?”

  “The Kristang are a fractured culture. I told you civil wars happen very roughly every eighty years; the longest period between a wide-spread war between the clans was a hundred fifteen years and the shortest span was thirty eight years. Three quarters of the wars happen between seventy and ninety two years from the last one. That’s why I told Chotek that another civil war is a matter of when and not if. After each civil war, Kristang clans are split apart, with power widely distributed. Over time, larger clans consolidate power; that is what triggers the next war. Rival clans fear being crushed by clans which have too much power, and nonaligned clans fear they must strike while they still can. Now, the Fire Dragons and Black Trees have consolidated power between them above the usual tipping point that triggers a war; a conflict is statistically overdue. I believe it will be relatively easy to get fighting started, because their society is ripe for a wide-spread conflict.”

  “Uh huh. So we, what, attack all these nonaligned clans, make them think the two big clans are coming after them?”

  “No. The opposite. We get the Fire Dragons and Black Trees to fight each other; once that starts, every other clan will want to hit their rivals before their rivals can hit them. Ten years ago, the Fire Dragons and Black Trees signed a secret peace treaty that, astonishingly, has held without any major violations. That is a new development; there have been treaties to avoid fighting between major clans before but they have been short-lived. Ten years is unprecedented.”

  “What changed? Is this a problem?”

  “It’s not a problem at all, this represents an opportunity for us. The two clans agreed to a treaty only because they each are maneuvering for a better position in the war they know is coming. The Fire Dragons and the Black Trees are building up their strength, prepositioning ships, troops and equipment for strikes against each other, and lining up allies. The purpose of the treaty is to give each side time to prepare. The moment one side thinks the other is about to gain a significant advantage, the first side will strike while they still can. This makes it easier for us to get a conflict going; both sides expect an attack at any moment.”

  “Great. You think we should, what, attack a Fire Dragon ship and somehow blame the Black Trees, then attack a Black Tree ship?” That seemed entirely too complicated to me. We had just completed a major effort to get Kristang ships to conduct one fake attack. How were we going to launch two real attacks? Crap. Real attacks against warships, and actually destroy Kristang warships? My brain still hurt from dreaming up the plan to fake an attack on the Ruhar.

  “Ha! No way. As if. It won’t be that easy, Joe.”

  “Easy? Easy?” I sputtered.

  Skippy ignored me. “Hmmm, now that I think about it, in one way the real plan will be easier than the idiot thing you just said about attacking ships. Blowing up a couple ships by themselves will not get a wide-spread war going, Joe. In this case, all the targets we need to hit are conveniently in one place; sort of one-stop shopping for all your clandestine black ops needs.”

  “Why do I get the feeling I am not going to like this?” I said carefully as my Spidey sense tingled.

  Skippy explained. I did not like it. Not at first. Then, the idea grew on me as he explained it. I had thought that, with Kristang clans hating each other almost more than they collectively hated the Ruhar, each clan would have their own planet; that warring clans could not occupy the same world without wiping each other out. I was wrong. Although the space occupied by the Kristang was vast, there were more clans than there were desirable habitable planets. I had to remember that in our galaxy, access to star systems depended on proximity to Elder wormholes, so if you looked at a map of the Milky Way, inhabited areas were small spheres around wormholes. Most of the galaxy was inaccessible for practical starflight, especially with the war creating a need for inhabited worlds to be defended. Any isolated planet was an easy target.

  There were more clans and subclans than there were planets to hold each of them, so clans had to share planets. Even with the Kristang modifying planets to suit them, and including colony worlds, asteroids, moons and space stations that required artificial means of life support, the
re wasn’t enough living space for all clans to have a place of their own. New clans and subclans formed regularly, just as existing clans and subclans were conquered and absorbed or split into multiple subclans.

  After each round of civil war fractured their society again, clan remnants were scattered across many planets, leaving most worlds with multiple clans vying for power and resources. Then the process of consolidation began, until so much power was concentrated in a few large clans that another civil war was needed to restore the balance. In between wars, clans and subclans merged and changed alliances frequently enough, that even clans with deep historical enmities had familial ties, preventing even small subclans from being completely wiped out. Usually. There were exceptions, though they were rare and the offenders risked severe punishment for violating the ancient code of conduct between clans. There were some things even the Kristang would not do, things that were so dishonorable no warrior would consider doing. For that, clans hired disgraced warriors who had been cast out by their clan and therefore had no honor to lose; these mercenaries are called Achakai. I thought of the Achakai as sort of lizard ninjas which Skippy said was totally wrong, but it made sense to me. Every clan hated and feared and were disgusted by the Achakai, and most clans found a reason to hire them at some point.

  Skippy had found a planet called Kobamik that was a perfect target for us; both the Black Tree and Fire Dragon clans had substantial presences there, along with the Spike Tail clan which was the third largest power in the Kristang dominion. In addition to those three large and powerful clans, thirty two other clans occupied their own spaces on the planet’s surface. Skippy explained that Kobamik, because it was close to a cluster of three Elder wormholes, had become a sort of United Nations meeting place for the Kristang; a semi-neutral site where clan leaders could meet and negotiate. Attacking another clan on this planet would be a serious provocation and quite likely to spark a major conflict. That was the good news. All of our targets were in one place, no need for us to fly across the Orion Arm of the galaxy, no need for us to find, capture or build ships. That was the good news, and it was indeed good.

  The bad news was that, unsurprisingly, the planet had a heavy military presence, with almost every clan having their own ships, troops and sensor networks. In orbit were fifteen different and overlapping Strategic Defense networks, eleven of which shared data with each other. To slip us through the sensor coverage undetected, Skippy would need to hack into fifteen different networks, and coordinate all the lies he was telling to each network. The worst part was, we would be relying on an absent-minded beer can to remember millions of lies every second.

  I did not foresee any possible problems with that.

  “Great, all the targets are on one planet,” I liked the idea of us attacking a Kristang-held planet even less than I liked the idea of having to destroy warships in deep space. When we were on Paradise and I was mostly sitting around in our stealthed Thuranin dropship waiting for something to happen, I had reviewed records of the Kristang raids there. At first, I had been interested and angry about the Kristang attacking human settlements, killing humans and burning precious crops. After I got over my self-indulgent and useless rage, I focused on tactics used by the Kristang raiders, and the tactics used by Commodore Ferlant’s force to counter the raiders. One lesson I learned is that the Kristang raiders would have had little chance of success of Paradise had a fully integrated Strategic Defense network. Our target, Kobamik, had multiple overlapping defense networks with both ground and space-based sensors and weapons. “Are you thinking of an orbital strike?” Skippy had disassembled the Flying Dutchman’s railgun when he rebuilt the ship, so the only weapons we had were maser cannons and missiles. Any missile, even one with Skippy guiding it, would have a very difficult time getting all the way down to the surface without being fried by various defense systems. That left only maser cannons for us to use, and our star carrier was not equipped with the heavy orbital bombardment masers of a battleship. Some Kristang destroyers had maser cannons that could deliver more sustained gigawatts on target than the Dutchman could.

  “Orbital strike? No, no, no, Joe. Nothing so simple or easy.” He pulled up a schematic of a Kristang city on my tablet. “Look, see this compound in the center of the city? That is the local headquarters of the Fire Dragon clan. The entire compound is protected by an energy shield that can deflect railgun darts easily. Our masers and missiles would bounce off that shield like raindrops.”

  “Yeah, sure, but we have Skippy the Magnificent on our side,” I said confidently. “You will hack their systems and cut power to that shield, so we can hit the target directly, right?” For many reasons, I still did not like the idea of jumping our pirate ship into low orbit to fire masers at a ground target. We would be exposing the ship to danger, and risk literally exposing that our ship is Thuranin rather than Kristang. For the attack to succeed in provoking a civil war among the Kristang, the lizards on Kobamik needed to believe the attack was conducted by Kristang. A single powerful hit on our shields by a maser bolt or railgun dart could temporarily degrade our stealth field, allowing the enemy a brief glimpse of our ship. All the Kristang needed was a split-second view of the Flying Dutchman’s outline to know they had been attacked by some sort of Thuranin star carrier.

  “While I appreciate your rousing vote of confidence in me, the answer is no, I can’t do that,” Skippy announced with a sigh. “Joe, the Kristang have designed their military systems to resist Thuranin attempts to hack in and assert control. That compound is the home of several Fire Dragon senior clan leaders, and there are five other senior leaders residing there currently, because they have to approve any negotiation with the Ruhar over sending a ship to Earth. To protect their leadership, the Fire Dragons do not take any chances; cutting power to that energy shield is a manual process. Like, someone physically pulling a lever. Four people pulling four different levers in a specific sequence, in fact. I can’t do any of that. All of the defense and security systems for the compound are hardened against cyber-attack. I can nibble around the edges if I have enough time, but taking full control is not going to be an option.”

  “No orbital strike. Okaaaaay,” I let out a long breath while I thought. “Can I assume you are not thinking we train ninja assassin squirrels to sneak into the compound?”

  “No. Although that would be majorly cool. Ninja squirrels, hee hee.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  “No squirrels, Joe, we’re going to use missiles. We get Zinger missiles into the compound, and I can guide them in to hit the apartments of the senior clan leaders at night, while they are sleeping snug in their beds.”

  The Zinger was a relatively short-range antiaircraft missile that was usually carried by a soldier, and it also could be launched from an aircraft or dropship. “How can a Zinger get through the energy shield?”

  “It can’t. Instead of attempting to punch through the shield, the missiles will need to fly through one or more of the air or ground access points, all of which have heavy and multiple layers of security that I will only be minimally able to affect.”

  “Oh, great. Terrific. This is a fantastic plan, Skippy. What access points? Show me.” He did. He showed me one access point, a gap in the energy shield for aircraft to fly through. It was a narrow corridor with its own shields at each end, surrounded by sensors and maser autocannons that were all on a hair-trigger to zap anything suspicious. The ground access point for vehicles looked even worse, being sort of an arched tunnel with an outer and inner shield. “Skippy, what you’re showing me is freakin’ impossible, even for you.”

  “Have a little faith, Joe. Trust the awesomeness. Remember, I make the impossible seem routine. Your SpecOps teams will get the Zinger missiles near the compound, and I’ll handle it from there.”

  “SpecOps teams? We’re not going to launch the Zingers from a dropship?” Sneaking a dropship near a Kristang city was difficult enough.

  “No can do, Joey. That city is interlace
d with motion detectors that are mostly on closed-circuit systems I have a limited ability to screw with. An air launch would be detected. Ditto a normal booster launch from a shoulder-fired position.”

  “You want us to land a SpecOps team, on the ground, in a freakin’ alien city? Skippy, what the hell is your idea?”

  He explained it.

  “Hoe-leee shit,” I gasped. “How many people in this city?”

  “About thirty two million Kristang.”

  “Thirty two mill- oh, I have a headache. Chotek is just going to love this one.”

  “Persuading our fearless leader to buy into your tactical plan falls into the category of ‘Problems for Joe to Solve’. Meaning, that is not my problem, Joey. I just gave you a very good, super duper plan to sparking a civil war that will protect Earth. How to implement it is your problem. You also have the problem that I do not see any way for us to get dropships down to the surface, through the sensor nets. But, again, that is a problem for you, not me.” He waved a wrist dismissively. “Make it happen, Joe.”

  If I could have strangled his holographic avatar, I would. “Make it happen? Just like that? Skippy, I need some time to think about this.”

  “Sure, Joe. Get yourself a cup of coffee, I’ll wait here.”

  Coffee did sound good and I needed a break to get my head together. I went to the galley, poured myself a mug that I was pleased to see had my new pirate-monkey-on-a-flying-banana logo for the Flying Dutchman, and walked slowly back to my office, taking careful sips. Skippy had done a damned good job of determining the targets we should hit to spark a civil war, I could not find fault with any of his reasoning.

  All I needed to do was figure out how to hit those targets, on a heavily-defended alien planet. Oh, and persuade Hans Chotek that it would totally be Ok for our SpecOps teams to fly around the surface of Kobamik in dropships, conducting raids and sparking a war. What could possibly go wrong?