Mavericks

by Craig Alanson

  “Excellent,” Ernt grinned toward Perkins, who suppressed a shudder.

  “At standard daily usage rates, of course,” Ammarie added.

  “Um-”

  “Plus bonus for hazardous duty.”

  “Er, I guess-”

  “And reimbursement for fuel used and wear and tear on components, naturally.”

  Ernt ground his mandibles. The crew of that ship was clearly angling to have their no doubt already worn-out components replaced at Fleet expense! “Oh, what the hell,” he sighed. “It’s not my money. Sure, I agree.”

  Ammarie giggled before catching herself. Mirth was still evident in her voice. “Colonel Perkins, we would be honored to take your dropships aboard. You will follow our docking procedures exactly, and surrender control of your internal systems once you are docked, because we will not risk you firing weapons once you are aboard. The only connection between your ships and ours will be a power cable, is that understood?”

  “Understood and agreed. Please also secure airlock doors in the docking bay, so they cannot be opened from the outside.”

  “A sensible precaution for us, why do you wish us to do that?”

  “My team may be infected with a deadly pathogen which could affect us during the flight. I wish to remove the temptation for people stricken with disease to seek help inside your ship.”

  “You do not trust your own people?”

  “Would you trust your crew or yourself in that situation?”

  There was a pause, then, “no. Please hurry. If a Kristang warship arrives, my ship will need to jump away immediately. We are a commercial vessel and carry minimum armaments.” She did not add the reason their missile magazines were empty, was because the ancient missiles had been repossessed the last time the ship was at a dockyard. Nor did she mention their jump drive was not operating at full capacity because they had been warned that same dockyard was about to impound the ship for unpaid debts. They had been forced to escape from that dockyard in the middle of the night and jump while too close to the planet. The fines for violating orbital traffic laws alone were more than the ship was worth.

  “Thank you,” Perkins said with reluctance, because the beetles upstairs sure weren’t doing anything out of the kindness of their hearts. Cutting off the microphone, she turned to her people. “There won’t be any food for humans and,” she looked at Jates, “Verd-Kris aboard that ship, so let’s get our food packs ready to transfer to the other dropships. I’m going out to inform our Keeper guests of the situation, and to make it very clear that anyone who does not behave will be left on this rock. I am not making that mistake again.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  General Lynn Bezanson’s zPhone beeped with a call from the Burgermeister, as she was about to close up her office for the evening. It had been another frustrating day, dealing with nitpicky annoying details that UNEF HQ wanted discussed with the planetary government. “Chief Administrator Logellia, good evening. To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?” Lynn said that last as a courtesy, because the woman who ran an entire planet would not be making an unscheduled call to her UNEF liaison officer for any pleasant reason.

  “Good evening, General Bezanson. Unfortunately, what we need to discuss is not a pleasant subject. I would invite you to my office, but I am currently away from the capital.”

  Lynn gripped the zPhone tightly, taking a deep breath to calm her pounding heart. The morning UNEF intel briefing had not contained any threats; not just no new threats, but no threats at all. Paradise was peaceful and UNEF’s position was good and improving, but Lynn knew it violated some unwritten rule of the universe for her job to be easy. She wanted to ask whether the bad news was about the overdue and missing Mavericks team, but guessing was useless and only wasted time. Pressing a button under her desk to close her office door, she also alerted UNEF HQ in Lemuria that she was involved in an important discussion. Alarm bells would be ringing at UNEF HQ, and senior officers would be freeing up their schedules for her to brief them shortly. “Go ahead, please.”

  “First, there is good news. Lieutenant Colonel Perkins and her team have been found alive and well. Not completely well, perhaps, I will explain that. “

  “Found? Where?”

  “You call the planet ‘Camp Alpha’, I am told?”

  “Camp-” Lynn’s brain locked up momentarily. “Alpha? What the hell are they doing on that Godforsaken world? Isn’t that in Kristang territory?” She struggled to recall whether that distant and rather unimportant planet had changed hands during the recent chaos of the Kristang civil war and military defeats suffered by the Thuranin.

  “Were, not are. The Mavericks are not on Camp Alpha in Kristang space, they are aboard a Jeraptha civilian transport ship. Please, allow me to explain.”

  “Holy shit,” Lynn slumped back in her chair a few earth-shattering minutes later, forgetting that she was speaking with the leader of the planet. “These infected Keepers could already be on Para-Gehtanu?” She used the Ruhar name for the planet. While she spoke, she clicked an icon on her laptop to alert UNEF HQ to expect a Priority One message, and began touch-typing while she spoke with the Burgermeister. Undoubtedly lower-ranking Ruhar would be contacting UNEF HQ soon, the Burgermeister contacting her directly first was a courtesy that testified to the strength of the relationship they had developed.

  “It is possible the infected Keepers are here now, yes. As you know, our satellite sensor and defense network is not complete,” Baturnah’s tone turned sour, as she had regularly complained to the federal government about the strategic defense network being far behind schedule. The response from the federal government was always that resources were constrained, and needed badly elsewhere as the Ruhar took possession of territory captured from the Kristang. “Even if the network were fully operational and the battlegroup were here, it is unlikely we could stop a single small stealthed ship from landing. The Kristang are skilled at stealthy infiltrations.”

  “This is not good,” Lynn said to herself though she spoke aloud. “We will need to be on alert for humans who left with Admiral Kekrando’s group.”

  “Yes, however, the Kristang would certainly have supplied the infected people with false identification, including cloned zPhones. I am afraid the most effective way to identify infiltrators will be for your people here to report anyone they do not recognize as belonging to their immediate group.”

  “All right, then we’ll need to restrict movement, confine people to their area where they live.” General Bezanson figured the Ruhar were already planning to put travel restrictions in place soon, with a strict lockdown on human movements. “Administrator, there may be a faster and easier way to identify infiltrators; we can broadcast a message to all zPhones that the Keepers have been infected with a deadly virus. When the infiltrators,” she considered how close that word sounded to ‘traitors’, “hear the message, they will learn that they are being used by the Kristang. We would encourage them to give themselves up, get treatment, or at least avoid spreading the infection.”

  “That is a good idea and we will certainly try that, however my intel people warn me it is not likely to be an effective strategy with the target population. These Keepers departed with the Kristang because they believed my people are the true enemy of humanity, and that UNEF committed treason by cooperating with us. The Keepers believe there is a conspiracy to deceive UNEF troops, they believe that so strongly they left with the Kristang. It is likely the Kristang chose the most committed and fanatical people for this mission. Such people would hear your warning message about them being infected, and consider it to be another lie by my people and by UNEF headquarters.”

  “Damn it,” Lynn knew the Ruhar was right. Goddamn stupid, ignorant Keepers, she thought to herself. It was bad enough those idiots wasted their lives by going with the Kristang, because Lynn knew from Ruhar intel reports that many of the Keepers had been sold as slaves to be used for hunting or other sport. At least those particular assholes
had long ago seen the truth and regretted their stupidity. The infected group of Keepers had to be different, or some of them would give themselves up as soon as they set foot on Paradise again. They must have been sold some line of bullshit about a patriotic mission, and the Kristang would have selected only the most delusional humans for the infiltration effort. Damn it! UNEF would be hunting the most fanatical of the lunatics among the Keepers. No amount of persuasion or psychological tricks would work those assholes, everything they heard would only serve to reinforce in their minds that UNEF was lying and treasonous, and that therefore they must remain steadfast to complete their mission. “To be safe, we will need to separate the human population from your people.”

  “That would be prudent. Currently, we do not have a reliable method of detecting infection in either humans or Ruhar, so we cannot be sure the virus has not already been transmitted. A quarantine is the most effective method of preventing a pandemic in the short term, we will be confining humans to southern Lemuria.”

  Lynn looked around her office, wondering if she would ever see it again. “What about those humans still in the northern jungle of Lemuria?”

  “There is a debate in my government whether to leave those relatively isolated populations in place and simply prevent them from traveling, or whether it would be best to transport them to the southern settlements. General, we know this disease is highly virulent and spreads easily between humans. Consolidating your population in one area poses a risk that all humans on Gehtanu could become infected.”

  “The disease is fatal to humans, even though we are carriers?”

  “Yes, the data from Camp Alpha indicates the disease goes dormant for approximately three months, then progresses rapidly in humans. Among Ruhar, the period during which the disease remains dormant is only two months. Our scientists tell me this is a very cleverly engineered pathogen. Its design involved technology far beyond our own biomedical knowledge.”

  “But surely you can manufacture an antidote, a treatment or at least a vaccine?”

  “Not currently, no. Not quickly enough to matter in this case. Colonel Perkins recovered data about the Kristang bioweapons testing program, however her team was not able to obtain samples, so our scientists will not have enough information to create a protective vaccine. As I said, this is a very sophisticated pathogen, the Kristang must have had help from a higher-technology species. We will contact the Jeraptha for assistance, but even if they agree to help, combatting biowarfare between other species is not a technological strength of the Jeraptha.”

  “Wheeeew,” Bezanson did not care that the leader of the planet heard her emotional distress. “We have no way to detect whether humans are infected?”

  “No, the first sign would be when humans begin falling ill at the end of the incubation period. General, by the time humans are showing symptoms, infected Ruhar could already be dead. Unfortunately,” she cleared her throat with a slightly squeaky sound. “Unfortunately, the situation here on Gehtanu is not entirely under my control. Because the population of this world is under external threat, authority to deal with the threat rests with the battlegroup commander, Admiral Tannavon.”

  Bezanson tensed. She had met Tannavon on several occasions and while the Admiral was a decorated and well-respected commander, he was also a hardass. Tannavon had been a major obstacle to sending the Mavericks into space on a training ship, which is why Perkins had conducted an end-run around the local chain of command to secure Ruhar fleet approval, before Tannavon even knew Perkins had applied for her team to go offworld. “I am sure the Admiral will do what-”

  “Tannavon spoke with me immediately after our initial briefing from the Fleet,” Logellia interrupted. “He stressed that because we do not know whether the Kristang have landed the infected Keepers already, we must assume a significant number of humans are infected. We will be restricting the movements of our own population, and quarantining any Ruhar who have had recent contact with humans. That includes me,” she added with a grimace. “Confining my people to their home villages for an unknown length of time will not be popular, the Admiral and I talked about how to deal with civil disturbances. Tannavon made it very clear to me that he will not tolerate any breach of the confinement protocol, particularly by humans.”

  “UNEF will do our utmost to enforce whatever procedures you deem necessary to protect your people.”

  “Good. That is good, and you need to stress that to your civilian leadership, as your military Force is now too small to truly be in complete control of your population. General Bezanson, I overheard a remark by one of the Admiral’s aides during our conversation, and you should repeat this in confidence to only your very senior leadership.”

  “What did the aide say?” Bezanson asked, fearing she knew the answer.

  “That the only certain way to ensure humans on this planet do not pose a threat to Ruhar, is if there are no humans alive on this planet.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  “Holy shit, Skippy.” I said that with such force that I got tiny dots of spit on the inside of my helmet visor.

  “You finished reading about the dilemma Perkins got into?”

  “Yeah. O.M.G.”

  “That was my reaction when I downloaded the report. The Mavericks may be even more talented at finding trouble than you are.”

  “We need to help them. Even Chotek will agree with that.”

  “You are more optimistic about Count Chocula than I am, but let’s go with that. Anyway, we can’t do anything until I kill that energy virus.”

  “Right.”

  “If I can.”

  “If?”

  “Unless it kills us first.”

  “Once again, you are a huge source of comfort to me.”

  “I do what I can, Joe. Hey, speaking of comfort, are you comfy out there?”

  “Comfy enough, I guess.”

  “Good, good. Well, after reading about Perkins, you must be pretty bored, huh?”

  Goddamn it. My Spidey sense failed me, so I idiotically replied “Yeah, it’s awfully dull out here.”

  “Hmmmmm,” he pondered in a voice that tingled with delight, as if he hadn’t been planning this all along. “You are bored?” Then he said something that made my blood run ice cold. “Gosh, if only there were some way for me to entertain you.”

  My father is a fan of old movies. On Sunday nights, the rest of us would have to suffer through watching whatever ‘classic’ movie he insisted was important for me and my sister to see. Yes, I used quotes around the word ‘classic’, because some of the crap we had to watch was truly awful. We especially groaned when the credits opened and we realized that night’s movie was in black and white. Once in a while we got a pleasant surprise, like I did enjoy some old movies, and most anything with John Wayne was worth watching.

  Anyway, I mention this because we watched one movie on a rainy Sunday night in March. Football was over for the season, it was about five degrees above freezing and raining outside, and the weather had been like that for a solid week. My father made pizza and we had chocolate cake for dessert. I remember those details because the movie gave me nightmares and I didn’t sleep well that night. It was ‘Apocalypse Now’, about the Vietnam war. Or, it was sort of about that war, I think the war was just a convenient background for whatever message the film makers wanted to present. If you haven’t seen it, the movie has famous lines like ‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning, it smells like victory’. You’ve heard that quote? Of course you have. That’s where it came from.

  Toward the end of that movie, Marlon Brando’s character Colonel Kurtz is splashing water over his head and mumbling ‘The horror. The horror’. His character has seen such terrible things, been through so much horror, that his mind is totally gone.

  Let me tell you, that Colonel Kurtz guy ain’t seen shit compared to what Skippy put me through.

  Take a deep breath and prepare yourself.

  Ready?

  I have two words
for you: Knight. Rider.

  Not just Knight Rider the original TV show. This was the director’s cut, with commentary. When Skippy started playing the pilot episode in my visor so there was no way for me to ignore it, I had protested. “Come on, Skippy! There is no ‘directors cut’ of these episodes.”

  “Technically you are correct, Joe, because no director associated with this appalling crapfest would bother to compile an alternate version. However, I have many of the scenes that got cut from the final episode, so I am able to slap them together.”

  The commentary was Skippy’s own, mostly snarky remarks about how bad the show was, and how criminally stupid monkeys must be to have watched it. What really got him upset was the Artificial Intelligence named ‘KITT’ built into the car, which was an insult to AIs or even to the concept of AIs. I had to endure his diatribes against the producers of the show every time KITT spoke or did anything. He was making me take a bullet for all monkeys, so all of you owe me, big time.

  The worst part is that instead of each episode being mercifully only forty two minutes, the director’s cut stretched them to an average of sixty eight minutes. “Skippy, please,” I groaned as one mindless episode ended and another began. “I’m begging you, make it stop.”

  “Joe, you promised to let me educate you about crappy 80s TV shows. We had plenty of time to do that in the Roach Motel, but noooooo, you kept telling me you were too busy.”

  “You already made me watch ‘Manimal’ with you!”

  “Yes, and we were supposed to move on to ‘The Love Boat’ but, again you told me you were too busy. Would you prefer ‘The Love Boat’? I have every episode of that schlockfest also. How about we roll the pilot, and-”

  “No! No, let’s stick with ‘Knight Rider’,” I sighed, steeling myself for another torturous hour of watching The Hoff. “It’s almost done anyway, right?”

  “Ha! As if, dude! We’re still in the first season.”