Mavericks

by Craig Alanson

“Oh, I can’t take this.”

  “If you don’t want another ‘Knight Rider’, there are plenty other shows to choose from. The 80s were a treasure trove of crappy TV. I could show you-”

  “Please, anything else.”

  “Joe, you have suffered enough, so I’m going to let you watch ‘Smokey and the Bandit’.”

  “Cool! I’ve seen that movie. My father had a friend with a Bandit Trans-Am, but it was a tribute car, not an original. When I was in high school, I thought that car was super cool,” I remarked happily, not believing my good luck. Then I got a sinking feeling, because Skippy is an asshole and the universe hates me. “Wait,” I was suspicious. “The second Bandit movie sucked. You’re not going to show me that one, are you?”

  “The second Bandit movie is universally renowned for its money-grabbing suckitude, however you will not be watching Part Two.”

  “Oh, thank God.”

  “Instead, I will treat you to Part Three.”

  “What? No way,” I scoffed. “Now you’re just making shit up. There was no third movie.”

  “You think there was not a third Bandit movie, because it was so instantly forgettable.”

  Crap. He was right, there was a Part Three. Mercifully, I fell asleep after about an hour and Skippy didn’t wake me for another six hours.

  “Hey, Joe!” Skippy shouted as he played ‘Reveille’ in my helmet speakers. “Rise and shine, sleepyhead. Time to go to work.”

  “Oh, man. Good morning. How about coffee first?”

  “Plenty of coffee in that dropship ahead of you. Be a good boy and go get it.”

  Without gravity, you’d think my muscles wouldn’t get stiff while I slept, but they did. While I stretched, I checked status of the crew in my visor, and did a roll call of the dropship retrieval teams. Everyone on the teams were ready and eager to go. We left much of the crew sleeping, since there wasn’t anything they could do, and sleeping conserved power and oxygen.

  There were four two-person teams assigned to getting dropships up and running, all eight of us were pilots. I was certainly not the most qualified pilot, but I had the most experience with space diving, and Skippy wanted me on a retrieval team in case we ran into problems. My team was me and Major Desai. We got unclipped from our tethers and puffed our gas canisters experimentally. There were no fancy jetpacks available for this mission, they would have been impossible to power up by hand cranking, and their big powercells took too long to drain completely. Desai and I would fly through the sky using basically crude air bottles to propel us. It was awkward, and we had only been able to practice for an hour before we left the Dutchman behind. It took us almost ten minutes, letting the bottles puff gently, to maneuver close enough together so I could launch a line toward her. She caught it on the first try, and I was proud we were the second of four teams to link up. Linking up was the easy part.

  The dropships were parked a significant distance away from us, to prevent the energy virus jumping across the distance and infecting the systems in our spacesuits, so it was a long flight, and I took the opportunity to ask Skippy a question that had been bugging me since before we jumped blindly into the Roach Motel.

  “Hey, Skippy,” I glanced to my left where Desai was flying in formation with me, on the other end of the tether line.

  “Hey, Joe,” the beer can’s voice came out of my helmet speakers, sounding thoroughly depressed. Damn it, I needed Skippy to be focused, not moping around. “What’s up?”

  “Before we get to that, are you Ok?”

  “Yeah, just, I’m worried about this energy virus thing. Not this incident specifically, I have a plan to deal with it. It’s just, damn it, we never get a break. Just as we stomp one problem flat, another one pops up to bite us in the ass.”

  “I’ve been worrying about that, too, and I have a question for you.”

  “I will answer if I can.” It worried me that he didn’t bother to include a snarky remark.

  “The Elders left a lot of their stuff around, and not just derelict ships and ruins and the kind of stuff you’d expect to see lying around after a civilization disappears. The Elders left functioning equipment behind, like AIs, and Sentinels, and Guardians. And those power sink things you found inside the star at the Roach Motel.”

  “If you are asking me if I know where the energy of those power sinks is going or what it is or was used for, the answer sadly is still no. I have been wracking my brain trying to think why those power sinks are still active, but it is a complete mystery to me. Whatever is the purpose of the power sinks, they are important enough to require the Guardians to protect them.”

  “Uh huh, that’s part of my question. When we were in the Roach Motel, I asked, if the Elders ascended and left the galaxy behind, why they would still care about whether someone here messes with their stuff long after they’re gone. Then I thought, what if that is the wrong question?”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “Skippy, it’s like the Elders left the galaxy so fast, they didn’t have time to turn the stove off. That got me thinking; what if the Elders didn’t ascend?”

  “What?” His voice had lost the depressed tone. “What do you mean, they didn’t ascend? That is such a dumbass-”

  “How do you know they ascended? Before you answer, you have told me many times your memories are confused and incomplete. What if, instead of ascending and being up there somewhere looking down on us like Santa Claus checking who is naughty or nice, they’re just gone? What if something went wrong with the ascending process? Or, what if they never got to the ascending process, what if something or someone killed them all?”

  “Whoooooa.”

  “If the Elders suddenly vanished, unexpectedly, that might explain why they left so much of their stuff laying around still operational, right?”

  “Uh, I suppose that is possible, Joe,” the beer can responded very slowly, like he was having trouble processing what I said. “Hmmm. I do not like thinking about that. Also, we know from Gingerbread that the Elders did clean up a lot of their critical equipment in preparation for ascending, so-”

  “No, Skippy, we do not know that. All we know is that a lot of the Elders’ stuff is missing, and there are a whole lot of craters where their stuff used to be, on Gingerbread and at sites all across the galaxy. Those craters might be evidence of the Elders cleaning up their stuff before they left, or the craters might be signs that something very bad happened to the Elders, before they could ascend. Think about it. Maybe the Elders did not leave you behind on purpose, maybe something happened so fast, so traumatic, so overwhelming that they weren’t able to help you.”

  “Damn. Joe, this is a whole lot for me to process. I refuse to believe the Elders did not ascend, until I see evidence that they didn’t.”

  “Ok, but even then, it sure looks like they left in a big hurry, right, that explains why they left the stove on? Maybe they were attacked and had to rush the ascending process to protect themselves, get away while they could?”

  “Oh crap. Joe, I do not want to think about any of this right now. Damn, my brain hurts just thinking about thinking about it. Shit! The idea of the Elders peacefully ascending is one of the few things I thought I knew for certain, and now you’ve taken even that away from me!”

  “Sorry, Skippy.”

  “Hey, you big jerkface, we might have answers to some of these questions, if you had done what I wanted while we had the chance in the Roach Motel. I wanted to investigate that hidden planet you called Vera, but noooooooo. You and Count Chocula were all like,” he used a mocking little girl’s voice, “‘Oh no, we can’t go there, it’s too scary’ and ‘We shouldn’t do that, it makes too much sense’ or ‘We might get our delicate petticoats dirty’ or-”

  “Ok, Skippy, I get the point. Again. You already made this argument, like, a million freakin’ times.”

  “If I did it a million and one, would that change your mind?”

  “No!”

  “Joe, I am again
disappointed in you. You needed to grow a pair and stand up to Count Chocula when he was wrong about something so-”

  “Dammit, Skippy, I did not need to stand up to him, because in this case, I agree with him. Our mission was to rebuild the Dutchman, if we could, I remember you telling me every freakin’ day not to get my hopes up about that until you actually got our Frankenship slapped together with duct tape. Once the ship was mostly functional again, our mission was to get the hell out of the Roach Motel ASAP before the Guardians asked too many questions you couldn’t answer.”

  “But-”

  “No ‘buts’, Skippy. Going to Vera and poking your nose around in there could not have done anything to ensure the success of our mission, and it could have been another Goddamned beer can inspired disaster.” I was pissed at him and I didn’t care about hurting his feelings.

  ‘Vera’ was the name I gave to the hidden planet in the Roach Motel, the world Skippy suspected was out of phase or in another dimension, or some other nerdy technical explanation the beer can used to confuse me. We never actually saw Vera or detected it directly on sensors, so fans of the old TV show ‘Cheers’ will understand why I named the place.

  “You don’t know that, Joe. Vera could have been a treasure trove of, of, unimaginable technology! And more importantly, answers. Answers I need, Joe, answers you need. The Elders had cleaned up Gingerbread so thoroughly that I couldn’t get any useful data there. Hey, remember, you are the one who asked me why the Elders had bothered to wall off the Roach Motel from other species; why they would care after they ascended.”

  “Here’s what I do know for dead certain, Skippy. If we went poking around Vera and did that crazy stunt you wanted-”

  “It was not crazy. And it was not a stunt.”

  “Trying to reverse the phase field surrounding Vera is a stunt, and it’s crazy. Damn, have you not learned anything from working with us monkeys? You can’t think only of yourself. You are part of this crew, of this team. Put the team first, Skippy. The Army pounded that into my head over and over and although I resented it, they were right. The Army works because the force is a team, it’s not about me, it’s about the mission and you need a team to achieve the mission.”

  Skippy gave me a sarcastic slow clap, the hand slaps echoing in my helmet. “Oh, bravo, G.I. Joey. That speech was very inspiring. Here’s what I know for dead certain. The Roach Motel was our best chance to get real answers to who I am, how I got buried in the dirt on Paradise and what the hell has been going on in the galaxy for the past hundred million years. I thought we were friends, Joe,” his voice sounded genuinely hurt. “You act like you don’t care.”

  “Skippy,” I took a deep breath to give myself time to think, because it was very important I say the right thing. “I am your friend. We do need answers. You see this patch?” I tapped the ‘U.S. ARMY’ logo on spacesuit. “I am a soldier, I have a job to do, a job assigned by UNEF Command even though they probably regret every day making me captain of this ship. Yes, we need answers. If we had more than one ship, and the crew were capable of flying the ship without you, I might have sent the Dutchman away to go home, and gone poking around Vera with you after the ship safely got out of the Roach Motel. We don’t have more than one ship, and back then we couldn’t fly the Dutchman without you. That means I had to choose between our primary mission of securing the future of Earth, or searching for the answer to bigger questions to satisfy our curiosity. Do you understand that?”

  “I understand it, I do not like it.”

  “Great, then-”

  “I also think you are dead wrong about this. You are thinking short-term. You and Count Chocula are always talking about how you need to stop reacting to events and develop a long-term strategy, but when you get an opportunity to actually do that, you two chickenshits always find an excuse not to do it!”

  “It’s complicated, Skippy, but, you’re right. You are absolutely right. Maybe we should have somehow taken the opportunity to explore that hidden planet while we were in the Roach Motel, because I don’t think we will go back there again. I’ll think about that, Ok? Right now, my visor is telling me it is time to begin slowing down to rendezvous with that dropship.”

  Our target dropship was not even a dot to my naked eye when we started, we had to rely on our visors to guide us. We went slowly and carefully because once the gas in our maneuvering bottles ran out, we would drift helplessly in space. The big Thuranin Condor dropship now loomed in front and above me, with Desai seeing the dropship from above, if those terms had any meaning in space. Between us was not just a thin tether line, the tether had now spread out like a spiderweb so it was twice the size of the Condor. That was a good thing, because our clumsy flying had us significantly off-center. The spiderweb was going to catch the Condor’s right wing and tail, and hopefully get tangled in the extended landing skids.

  “Ready?” I asked needlessly as one strand of the spiderweb dragged along the dropship’s wing.

  “Ready,” Desai acknowledged. She was by far a better pilot than me, but her experience with space diving was limited. We had not thought pilots needed much training in freefall diving, so they hadn’t spent much time on that activity. Clearly, the captain of the ship was an idiot for skimping on that training. That was a lesson learned. Hans Chotek had told me to expect the unexpected and in this case, I hadn’t thought far enough ahead.

  Helplessly, we watched as the spiderweb strands slid along the smooth, stubby wing of the Condor. The tugging caused me to spin around and I didn’t fight it. All I cared about was the spiderweb getting securely wrapped around something, but it was slipping off the wing and now curling around the aft body. As dropships are designed to fly at high speed in an atmosphere, their surfaces are smooth and sleek, giving the spiderweb little to snag on. Damn it, when you don’t want something to snag, it always does, but the one time you need the freakin’ thing to catch on a—

  Success! I was jerked roughly around, spinning head over heels, as the web wrapped itself around a landing gear strut and an engine inspection panel. We had locked those panels open before ejecting the dropship, to give the spiderweb more obstructions to cling onto. The momentum of me and Desai caused the panel to break off one pin, but the other held, and after a couple minutes of nausea-inducing spinning around, we got ourselves stable and began pulling ourselves toward the Condor hand over hand.

  We had to manually crank the outer airlock door open, then Desai got in with me, and we cranked the outer door closed to conserve oxygen before getting the inner door open. We floated into an absolutely dark interior, illuminated only by our helmet lights. “This is creepy,” she said in a soft voice. “Colonel, if you are thinking of shouting ‘Boo’ to scare me, don’t.”

  “I’m with you, Desai. Let’s get this thing restarted,” I glanced at my suit’s power meter. Even if everything worked perfectly and we got the dropship restarted, it would be a while before the internal temperature allowed us to crack open our faceplates. Before that, we both would need to hand crank more juice into our suit’s powercells. The drinking water tank in my suit, which contained a mixture of water, sugar and nutritiously yummy sludge, was running low. I needed more food if I had to power my suit by hand for long.

  We floated into the big aft cargo bay, where Mad Scientist Contraption Number Three took up most of the space. “Skippy? Does this thing look Ok to you?”

  “Scanning it now with your suit sensors. Yes, it looks perfectly fine. Get started, please, you don’t have a lot of time if we run into problems.”

  “Affirmative,” I agreed, and eyeclicked to pull up the instructions in my visor.

  Mad Scientist Contraption Number One was the spring that got our suits rebooted. Number Two was the hand crank thingy we used to energize our suit powercells. Number Three was a fuel cell. One tank full of liquid oxygen, a tank full of liquid hydrogen, and a membrane where H combined with Oh Two and generated electricity and water. The resulting water would mostly be dumped into s
pace as the dropship didn’t have room to store it, and we didn’t want the additional mass if the Condor needed to maneuver later. Contraptions Numbers One and Two had used mechanical energy, but our science team had dreamed up Number Three to use a chemical reaction. Mostly, it had been Friedlander’s brainstorm. He realized that the energy virus could not easily infect potential energy, and monatomic oxygen and hydrogen represented potential energy; the energy only got converted to useful electricity when the atoms combined to form water.

  Friedlander explained to me that potential energy is like holding a stone on top of a building. By itself, the stone has no useful energy. But if you release the stone, the force of gravity acts on it, and it acquires kinetic energy as it falls. The springs we used to reboot our spacesuits had potential energy when they were wound up. Once we released the spring, it unwound to create kinetic energy, and the motor attached to the spring converted kinetic energy to electricity.

  That’s enough physics lessons for today, I mention the details because Friedlander’s team really did science the shit out of the problem, and that’s why we had a chance to defeat an Elder energy virus and survive.

  Skippy had grumbled that fuel cells were an ancient and crude technology, so old they had been used aboard the Apollo spacecraft that first took humans to the Moon. With all his grumbling, he agreed it was a decent idea and more importantly, fuel cells were relatively simple and the Dutchman had the manufacturing capacity to make the membranes.

  Desai and I carefully turned stiff valves and pumped levers to get the pressurized liquid oxygen and hydrogen flowing. Then, in the scariest part of the operation, we had to connect our already depleted suit powercells to the membrane to bring it up to operating temperature. I watched with alarm as the power level of my suit drained quickly, even though I had the heaters turned off.

  “Hmm,” Skippy announced unhappily. “The membrane is taking more power than expected to warm up. Joe, you and Desai need to disconnect and stop the power flow from your suits.”